The parking lot was crowded and full of women and men when we pulled in on our bikes, parking them in line with the rest.
I wasn’t surprised. Since Daemon had put the club on lockdown when we took out Black Death weeks ago, and with no word from them or what their closest charter was doing with the remaining members, he was too cautious to let everyone roam free.
But for a bunch of men and old ladies who joined a club life for the sole purpose of being able to live free, being caged was difficult.
I scanned the lot until my eyes fell on Faith. She was sitting on a wooden park bench with Liv at her side, who was saying something to her using wild hand gestures, but Faith’s eyes were locked on mine.
And they were full of concern. I headed toward the women, Daemon at my side, when Switch appeared in front of us.
“You get it done?” he asked, his eyes on me but his words meant for Daemon.
Daemon flipped a blade so it landed in Switch’s greased hand. “Finished it in a way that would have made you proud, old man. No sign of Cain, though.”
Switch snorted. His bald head sweated under the hot, humid sun, and his long greying beard needed a trim about six months ago. Daemon told the truth. By the time he and Jaden had finished with Nathan, there wasn’t enough of his abdomen left to hold his guts in.
I had walked back in once Tripp and I searched the entire resort only to come up with very little. Blood on an old tattered mattress in one of their underground tornado shelters gave us the only hint that Cain or Faith’s mom had been there.
We knew it was Faith’s mom, Roxy, because the only thing left behind the room other than the mattress was a silver locket that contained an old black and white image of Faith’s dad.
Switch slid the blade into his back pocket and nodded once, giving his approval of the way the new President handled the situation. I saw Daemon fight a small smile. He may have become President, but he still wanted—and needed—the approval and respect of the other men.
“That should bring Cain out of hiding.”
Daemon agreed right as Liv ran up to him. His arm instinctively went around her waist, wrapping her tightly to his side, and pulled her in for a kiss.
“Everything go okay?” she asked as Faith walked up behind her. Even with the scars and the marks I knew she had that would never fade, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“Good as it could,” Daemon replied.
“You okay?” Faith asked me as she reached us. Her eyes slowly scanned my body as if she was searching for my own injuries. But other than the purple bruise on my cheek from the boxing match with Jaden, I was all good.
“Didn’t find Cain or your mom.” I reached for her hand and dropped the locket into her palm. She gasped when she saw it. “But we found this.”
Her eyes immediately filled with tears. “She never went anywhere without this.” Her chin trembled as she lifted her worried and sad eyes to mine.
“She could still be okay, Faith.” I squeezed my hand around hers. I doubted my words as much as she doubted hearing them. I didn’t give a shit whether her mom lived or died, but the sadness and paleness in her eyes and face eroded an acidic hole in my gut. I was so fucking tired of seeing her sad all the time.
“You can’t cry,” Liv said, pointing her finger at Faith. “We’re having girl’s night tonight.”
“No way.”
She twisted out of Daemon’s reach and planted her hands on her hips. “We’re going out and having fun.”
“Are you fuckin’ mad?”
“No. I’m tired of being cooped up in this smelly old club, and Faith needs to dance and let loose.”
“It’s fine, Liv.”
Liv shot her scolding eyes to Faith before she glared back at Daemon. “We’re only going to The Tavern, and you can send men with us to keep us safe.”
Daemon shook his head. I stood back and bit back a laugh seeing my little brother so worked up. “What did you say to me just a few weeks ago? You’d do what I said because you knew I was keeping you safe.”
“I also said I’d take a guard if I had to, and I’m agreeing to that.”
Daemon snapped his head to mine, a look of disbelief all over his face.
I bit back a grin. “Don’t look at me, brother. She’s your woman.”
He shook his head again, and then glanced at Faith who was watching all of us and our easy banter with a look of envy and sadness painted all over her. Fuck. What I wouldn’t give to see her acting like the woman she used to be.
Daemon noticed it, too, because he turned to Liv and pointed a finger in her face. “We’re coming with. You can have your girl’s night alone when we’re not worried about blowback on us.”
“That’s fantastic,” Liv said, clapping her hands and tugging Faith’s hand out of mine. “It’ll be like the time you baby-sat us at the mall all over again. So much fun!”
She turned her sarcastic grin to Faith.
Faith laughed. It was soft and over quickly, but I heard it. And I fucking loved it.
“I can chain you to my bed, again, Liv. You thought that night was fun.”
Liv’s heated cheeks were enough of a giveaway to tell me I didn’t want to know anything more about the night she was chained to my brother’s bed.
“Looks like we’re going to a bar tonight,” Daemon said once the girls were out of hearing range. His eyes never once left Liv’s ass as she walked away though.
Not that I was watching what he was doing… my eyes were firmly glued on Faith’s ass.
“Another round of drinks, please.” Faith shouted the words as she bent half over the bar at the Tavern. The music was not only loud, but it was obnoxiously country. It hadn’t stopped Liv from grabbing Faith’s hand as soon as the girls hit the bar and spent the past hour shaking their asses on the dance floor.
Jules and Liv had seemed like they were having a blast. For the first thirty minutes, Faith had looked like her choices were either dancing in public or having her fingernails ripped off. Neither appealing, but the dancing was slightly less painful.
Daemon and I had stood back and watched the crowd and the men who dared get too close to them. Several times I watched Faith’s eyes roam the room, watching men.
It had taken her several times of doing this, several times of a few men acknowledging her presence with a quick head bob, for me to get it.
Fucking clients. I had tensed; my hands balled into fists and then I headed for the dance floor, only to be stopped short by Finn yanking on my cut.
“Let her see she can be out there and nothing will happen to her.”
“Nothing will happen to her because I’ll be there.” I growled back, getting in his face. My frustration and anger were growing by the second.
“Maybe she needs to see she can do it on her own.”
It was as if Pete was in front of me saying the same damn things to me about Meg. I had looked out at Faith, slowly beginning to get lost in the music, her earlier hesitation disappearing before my eyes, and I had agreed.
But now, with the way her ass was half hanging out of her too short mini skirt as she leaned over the bar, I wanted to rip off every man’s head who had ever seen her naked.
Mine! The word repeated at an ear blasting decibel level in my head as she reached for her glasses.
I reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her back to my chest.
Leaning forward, my lips brushed against her ear. I didn’t miss the way her body shivered or how she moved closer to me. My quickly hardening dick didn’t miss it, either.
“If you don’t want me starting a bar fight and getting more innocent blood on my hands, you’re going to have to stop showing half of your ass to the men in this bar.”
I felt a quick intake of breath before Faith tilted her head. Sweat from dancing had some of her hair stuck to her temples. Her back stuck to my leather cut and I could feel the heat from her skin through my thin t-shirt.
“I’m not,” she said right before her hand went down to the hem of her skirt. One side of her lips lifted. “This skirt goes halfway my down my thighs. No one can see anything.”
I could. And I knew what the men were thinking. It was enough to drive me insane.
“Please tell me you’re not taking a play out of Liv’s playbook and trying to drive me crazy just because it’s fun for you.”
She blinked, and her cheeks turned a light shade of pink. A small glimmer of light danced across her eyes before she blinked again. But I saw it—that small fucking shimmer of hope that Faith was coming back, letting her past go.
It disappeared as quickly as it came when she leaned in closer. “I think I’ve played enough games, Ryker.”
Shit.
“That’s not what I meant, Faith.”
She looked at my crotch. My erection obvious. It was the first time in my life I hated my own dick. “I know what men see and what they want when they look at me. I’m not stupid.”
Fuck this. She’d been having too much fun to start wallowing now, and hell if I was going to let her take one small move and turn it into something bigger.
“How much have you had to drink?”
She raised two glasses. “Gin and tonic for Liv,” she said, nodding toward one then the other, “And water and lime for me.”
I grinned. “That why you’ve been getting the drinks all night?”
She shrugged. “It seemed important to Liv that I get drunk, but I didn’t want to again.”
I nodded and took the gin and tonic for Liv out of her hands. When her hand was free, I pulled her closer to me and wrapped her hand around my lower back. “Tonight, when we get back to the club, I’m going to climb into that bed with you. I’m going to put my arm around your waist like this and I’m going to hold you close all night long while you sleep.”
I pulled back to see if she was still with me. Her mouth was slightly parted and her skin was flushed. The quickly beating vein in her neck told me that not only was I not scaring her, but she was fucking loving listening to what I said.
“Do you know what I’m going to do then, Faith?” I asked, my lips dragging down the tender skin of her jaw.
She shook her head against my mouth but didn’t speak.
“I’m going to hold you like that every night until you feel safe. Until you want a man touching you in more than that way. And, maybe, if you get lucky, once you feel that way, I might even kiss you.”
She shivered in my arms. I felt like a fucking king.