CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dressed more comfortably now in a pair of black leggings and an oversized, slouchy pink tee that hung off one shoulder and had a pair of silver angel’s wings printed on the back, Ellie followed Danny out of her room.

The club looked exactly as it always had. The back hall of bedrooms had the brothers’ names on the doors, pictures of the boys with their families or on their bikes lined the walls, and it smelled of cigarette smoke, spilled booze, and men who preferred smoking and drinking over bathing on a regular basis.

Every visit to the club before she’d left for college had been barely tolerable and had always left her with a bad taste in her mouth. But instead of feeling any sort of negativity, she felt more at home than ever before. Safe, too.

The telltale sounds of sex, from both a male and female, flooded the hallway and Ellie flushed with embarrassment as she recognized Cage’s deep voice, and heard Tegen crying out in response to his quite frankly mouth-watering sexual demands of her.

Thinking back to high school, to her own experience with Cage, she smiled to herself. If there was anything Cage excelled at, it was women. Or rather, sex with women. And from the sounds of it, Tegen was being thoroughly excelled.

Danny, with Harley in her arms, shook her head in disgust and picked up her pace.

“Guess crazy #1 and crazy #2 made up,” she muttered. “Give them five minutes and they’ll be at each other’s throats again. I swear, it’s like Kami and Cox all over again.”

Ellie gave her a sideways glance. “Have they finally calmed down?”

Danny snorted. “Actually, yes. But I think it has more to do with the fact that Kami wants more kids and he doesn’t, so she’s taken to ignoring him entirely.”

“And you?” Ellie asked. “And Ripper? Things are good?”

Danny stopped walking and looked into Ellie’s eyes. “They’re better than good,” she said softly. “I-I’m so happy Ellie. I really, really am.”

Ellie stared at her old friend, feeling the sharp, unwelcome pang of jealousy rear its ugly head. What was wrong with her? First she was having baby envy and now this? Being beaten and nearly raped had seemingly stirred up doubts about her priorities in life, making her wish she’d maybe taken a different path.

No, she would never regret putting school and a career first. But maybe she sort of regretted not going on any dates in college, not really doing much of anything except studying. Her only boyfriend to date, a millionaire with a kink fetish who favored cream-colored cable knit sweaters…and existed only in the pages of a book.

Not that she was into kinky sex…or anything.

“Talkin’ ’bout me, beautiful girl?”

Ripper turned the corner, smiling at his wife and daughter, Dirty and Tap close behind him. But Ellie was only focused on Ripper. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been carting around his usual bottle of tequila and looking miserable. That was definitely not the case anymore. This was an entirely different man standing in front of her; a man whose entire world consisted of two heads of blonde hair, two sets of blue eyes, and dimples as far as the eye could see.

“Maybe,” Danny replied, smiling coyly. “If you’ve stopped being stupid about ZZ.”

Ripper’s smile melted into a soft, yet serious expression. “Yeah, baby,” he said quietly. “I’m good.”

“So fuckin’ glad you’re both good,” Tap said, pushing past Ripper. “I for one ain’t fuckin’ good. We’re locked the fuck up for four more days and all the pussy inside this motherfuckin’ club is all taken.”

“Shoulda stayed true to your old lady, brother,” Ripper said as he took Harley out of Danny’s arms and swung the little girl up over his head, setting her down on his shoulders. “Then she’d be locked up with ya instead of married to some fuckin’ asshat down south.”

Opening his mouth, about to respond, Tap’s eyes landed on Ellie and his mouth abruptly closed. The grin that followed made her skin crawl. It wasn’t that he was a bad-looking man, maybe a little shorter than Ellie liked, but he was fit, clean, his long black hair was well taken care of, but the fact remained that he was old enough to be her father. If not older.

“Forgot about you,” Tap said, stepping forward. Ellie took a quick step back.

“Like big black asses and chocolate pussy,” Tap continued. “Don’t get enough of it ’round here.”

“Oh my God, Tap!” Danny shouted. “Little ears!”

Tap glanced over just as Dirty stepped forward, immediately dropping his head into Tap’s personal space. “Back the fuck off her,” Dirty said darkly. “Or the only pussy you’ll ever be seein’ again is gonna be you cryin’ on the fuckin’ floor after I drop your ass on it.”

Tap’s eyebrows shot up at the exact moment Ellie’s jaw dropped. She hadn’t grown up around the club life like Danny had, but she’d seen enough, knew enough to know that Deuce’s boys loved one another fiercely, that unless it was their women or their kids in question, they banded together. Them against the world.

Ellie wasn’t anyone’s woman; she wasn’t a biker brat, she wasn’t even friends with Danny anymore, not really, yet Dirty had just threatened Tap. For her.

“Come on, Ellie,” Danny said, sounding irritated. “I’ll find you a room. One of the boys can crash on a couch.”

Ellie yanked her arm back, a knee-jerk reaction out of fear, partially because she was more than jumpy lately and Danny had caught her off guard, but mostly because of Tap’s behavior.

“No,” she said. “Thank you, but I’ll, uh, stay with Dirty.”

“What?” Danny asked, gaping at her. In fact, everyone was gaping at her. Even Dirty.

Why was everyone staring at her as if she’d suddenly lost her mind? She felt safe with Dirty; he’d saved her life, for God’s sake. So what if he had issues? She had plenty of issues herself lately and Dirty, of all people, understood. Whatever had happened to him as a child, he knew exactly how she was feeling, maybe even better than she did.

“You can have the room,” Dirty said as he backed away from Tap. “I’ll sleep up front.”

Ellie didn’t like that idea either. With men like Tap crawling all over the club, she didn’t want to be alone in the middle of the night. In fact, the more she thought about it, she never wanted to be alone anywhere ever again.

God, she felt pathetic. Helpless, powerless. She couldn’t even save her own life.

“You don’t have to,” Ellie said quietly, her eyes focused solely on Dirty. “I would feel…better…if you stayed with me.”

• • •

Dirty tried his best to ignore the three shocked sets of eyes burning holes into him as he stared back at Ellie, but there was no ignoring the thundering rattle of his heart trying to pound its way out of his chest.

What was wrong with this bitch? First, she came back to comfort him after he’d attacked her. Next, she saved him from having to explain to Danny why he’d cleaned himself up. Not that he could have. He honestly didn’t know why he’d done half the shit he’d done lately.

And now, she felt safe with him; so much so that she wanted to bunk with him. Out of everyone here, Ellie felt safe with him.

Jesus fucking Christ. He was the one man in this club no woman should ever feel safe around.

What was going on? Up until now, his world had made sense. It wasn’t pretty, or sugar-coated. He damn sure wasn’t envied.

But to him, it was all he knew, it was how he lived to see another day. To him, it worked.

Until now. Until her. And suddenly, nothing was working and none of it made any fucking sense.

He knew that if he tried to speak, his voice was going to crack and give away how fucked-up he truly was to everyone standing in this hallway. So, instead of speaking, he pulled his pack of smokes from his cut, lit one up, and as he was putting the pack away, glanced back at Ellie and jerked his chin toward the other end of the hallway. Then he took off down the hall, feeling something akin to masculine satisfaction when he heard Ellie’s bare feet slapping the concrete floor behind him.

Not that he’d ever wanted the attention of a female, but Ellie choosing him over his brothers, him over sleeping alone in a room, following him down the hallway, fucking shit, he liked it. It felt like power and not at all like the sort of power he was used to exerting over women. This was different, softer, it flowed smooth and hot through his veins, improving his posture and twisting his lips.

Was this what it felt like to have a woman of your own? A woman that actually welcomed a man’s physical strength, wanted his protection, would be submissive to only him.

Stopping in front of his room, Dirty pulled out his keys and unlocked the door. As he held the door for her, Ellie slipped past him and into his room. His eyes moved over her bare shoulders, down the curvy lines of her hourglass figure, stopping at her ass. It was a juicy-as-fuck ass; it looked soft and jiggled when she walked, much like her breasts did.

And none of it was off-putting. In fact, the more he watched her, the more he liked her imperfect body, her darker skin, and jet-black hair. She looked nothing like the club whores, those fake blondes with fake tits, their bodies covered with tattoos and leather.

More importantly, she looked nothing like his foster mother. She was nothing like his foster mother. She would never hurt a child. She was kind even when she didn’t have to be.

“Dirty?”

Dirty’s eyes traveled up the front of Ellie’s body, raking over her generous breasts before landing on her beautiful face.

“Yeah?”

“What’s your real name?” she asked. “I feel so strange calling you Dirty.”

His stomach flipped. No one but Deuce knew his real name, and no one had called him by his real name since her.

Agitated excitement rose from his gut to his throat. He wanted to tell her, he wanted her to know, but he wasn’t sure why he wanted her to know, or what the repercussions of her knowing would be.

“Michael,” he said quickly before he could talk himself out of it.

Ellie’s eyes widened in surprise and then just as quickly, her lips split into a smile.

“Michael,” she murmured. “A great prince of Heaven and the protector against the forces of evil.”

Dirty stared at her. Did she just liken him to a motherfucking angel? A protector? Him? She really was insane. Or maybe that beat-down she’d taken had left her with some fucking brain damage?

“Thank you, Michael,” she continued softly. “For protecting me.”

He swallowed hard. She had no idea who she was thanking, that the monster she thought he was protecting her from in fact lived inside of him.