Chapter Fourteen
Things I would tell my fifteen-year-old self now that I’m grown:
“Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams.” Jezzie
~Tempest~
There are so many things I need to process. Gentry and I are in a real relationship. I feel like a silly teenage girl saying, I have a boyfriend, I have a boyfriend. It’s almost stupid the level of giddiness I feel.
When did I get so lost in him? Was it the first time he kissed me when they came here to help Cameron Linn get settled? Was it when the Devil’s Due MC took my cousin’s back and made Tamalyn’s life full? He was part of it.
I don’t know when it happened, but it did. I fell.
I fell hard and fast for a biker.
He is everything I never knew I wanted and needed.
Part of me wants to freak out and finish packing my suitcases. The other part of me wants to slide them off the bed and then slide myself back over Godzilla for another orgasm or two.
I’m in danger. My daughter is in danger, and yet I feel safe.
“You’re thinking awfully hard, beautiful.” Gentry says with his penis still inside me.
Calling him Gentry, it’s nice. It makes me feel special, like it’s our thing and no one else has it.
Gently, he lifts me off of him and I immediately feel the loss of his body connected to mine. He slides me up on the bed to rest my head on the pillows, pushing the one suitcase I had on the bed off.
I relax knowing he’s only going to the bathroom to get a washcloth and clean us both up. We had the talk after the third time we hooked up when the condom broke. He gets tested regularly and I am the first girl he ever stopped using condoms with since I have an IUD to prevent pregnancy. Gentry is my only lover in the last few years so I checked out with a clean bill of health for STD’s without a problem. Since that moment, we stopped using them.
It’s nice. Probably too nice because I never want anything between us again.
I know Stephanie used to ask Shawn to wear a condom because she felt gross when he would come inside her. Never having unprotected sex before, I didn’t know what to think when Gentry and I first stopped using them. Now, though, I find it erotic and a huge turn on to have his seed so deep inside me. Feeling that flood of his juice mixing with mine and knowing I brought him over the edge, it’s empowering.
After we clean up and I put on pajamas, Gentry helps me put the suitcases back. He goes outside to get his duffle bag from his bike while I make some bedtime tea to unwind.
Arika comes out after her shower.
“Mom, I really like him. I know he’s new to us, but I am glad you have someone. I don’t want you to be lonely trying to protect me.”
We say our goodnights and I fall asleep with Gentry in bed beside me. The man is all about living the truth. He has claimed us and my bed is now our bed. While to outsiders this may seem fast, I think it just fits.
Honestly, with my life as busy as it is, I can’t see where finding time to really date someone and be wooed would actually work. Gentry may not have long conversations but his actions speak and they tell me he’s here for me and my daughter.
I snuggle close to him rather than climb out of bed. “You got me messed up, Tempest.” He rumbles under me.
“How’s that?”
“I never sleep this late.”
I look at the clock and see it’s almost six in the morning. “When do you get up?”
“Zero-four-hundred to work out.”
I trace his eight-pack abs, “I think you can miss a workout and be fine, babe.”
“I work out so I don’t feel the demons.”
And that is Gentry, he keeps it real.
“Wanna talk about them?”
“I was on the mission with Callahan that fucked him in the head,” Gentry speaks but the words are lost for a moment while I process that he was in the SEALs with Shawn.
What are the chances?
I know he said he might know him, but to know he not only knew him, he served with him makes me tense.
“Tempest, he was shot by a kid. He wasn’t prepared for that. I told you I’ve done fucked up shit. Things that I am certain to burn in hell for. If I was a stronger man, I’d walk away and not tie you down with someone tainted like me. I just can’t let you go, though.”
All thoughts of Shawn leave me as my heart hurts for the man I care so deeply for and the things he has endured. “I can only imagine the things you’ve seen, the things you’ve done, Gentry. I can tell you, I don’t want you to let me go. You fill this part of me that’s about me and not everyone else. You see me inside and don’t get intimidated. You are all things good, Gentry, even if you can’t see it because of the shadows in your past.”
He sighs, “want you to know, if I’m not on your tail, I’ll have a brother on your six. I told you I wouldn’t risk your safety. I won’t. So while I sort out confronting Callahan and making him back off, I will have someone watching you and Arika, when she’s not in school.”
I nod not sure what to say, but finding comfort in his protection. “You take care of your own. I won’t fight it.”
“Damn, baby, making me fall deeper and deeper every minute.”
I press my lips to his. “Good, I plan to keep it up.” I smile getting up from the bed to start my day.
After a shower, I go to the kitchen where Gentry has a hot cup of coffee waiting for me and an omelet sitting in front of Arika while he continues with another one on the stove.
We have this comfortable morning together. I leave for work while Arika asks Gentry to take her to school on his motorcycle to which I agree.
If he’s going to be in my life, he will be in hers. They need their own bond.
The morning is a blur of paperwork and paying bills. At lunch time, I feel the urge to do something I haven’t done in a while so I make the drive. For a moment, in the bliss of what’s happening with Gentry, I allow myself to forget about Shawn and the threat he poses. I also forget that I should let Gentry know where I’m going so he can let whoever is on watch for me can be aware. I just take this moment to be me.
The air is comfortable. There is a gentle breeze that makes me feel like Stephanie is wrapping me in her embrace somehow, or maybe it’s wishful thinking.
I go to the bench marked only with a single butterfly. I couldn’t put her name on it for fear he would find where we settled. When I left the Carolina’s to make my life in Tennessee, I wasn’t smart.
With Shawn locked up and being told their baby died, I set up everything in my own name. While little can be found on Arika, if someone dug into Haven’s Harbor or her school, they would figure it out. I should have made myself a new identity. Then again, I thought he would be convicted of murder and be behind bars for life.
How wrong I was.
In the midst of everything, I knew I couldn’t go home for Stephanie’s memorial. So I paid for a bench at the cemetery here and had a butterfly put on it in her memory. This is where I go to connect to her.
I sit.
For a long time, I say nothing. Then I pour out my heart about Arika and the challenges and Gentry wondering if I’m doing the right thing.
Lost in my emotions, I don’t pay attention. A shadow covers my space before I feel the cold metal of a blade against my neck. I tense holding my breath.
“Where is my kid?”
I feel the blade slide, slicing my neck.
“Feel it, Tempest. You feel the power. I’ll gut you if you don’t talk.”
The cut, it’s not deep, but it’s to make me aware.
Looking ahead of me, I see a man in jeans and a leather vest rushing over. The club, Deacon’s brothers one of them followed me. Thank God, for the Devil’s Due MC. It gives me strength and courage because I know they will save me and keep Arika safe.
“You behave, Tempest and you can live long enough to say goodbye to my kid.” He mutters pulling the knife from my neck and moving to sit beside me.
The man comes in view and it’s Trapper. He walks right to me and takes me by the hands lifting me from the bench while I’m frozen in terror. It all happens so fast. Trapper is here, holding me, I find relief.
His lips hit mine like I’m not bleeding and there isn’t a crazy man behind us. Releasing me, he slaps my ass putting his body between Shawn’s and mine.
“Hey baby, you didn’t have to hide your friend. You know, I’m always down with a threesome.” Trapper spouts off loudly and with such animation it seems believable. “I’ll fuck this man in the ass hard for you. I know how you like to watch me give it good. It makes you all wet. I’ll make him feel me in his throat.”
He extends his hand to Shawn as if to shake it. “Name’s Trapper. Don’t know if my Tempest here told ya, we’re swingers. She’s a kinky broad that can suck better than a hoover vacuum and like Dyson she doesn’t need her filter changed.” He tosses his head back laughing and taking his hand away before Shawn can actually shake his hand.
“You got a death wish, fucker?” Shawn replies pulling a gun from his back.
Trapper stills in front of me making sure he is between me and the possible bullet. “Yeah, I do. You ready to make my dreams come true?”
Shawn stands towering over Trapper and me. “What the fuck kinda game you playin’ man?”
Trapper steps forward closer to the gun. “Who said I’m playin’? You got balls of steel to fuck with a broad. Fuck with a man. Fuck a man is even better.” Trapper unbuttons and unzips his jeans pulling out his cock. “I’ll show you, buddy.” He strokes himself just enough to get Shawn’s attention on him.
In the blink of an eye, Trapper yanks the gun from Shawn and fires. One bullet to the head, Shawn goes down.
I scream.
Shawn hits the ground with a thud. His eyes still open.
Lifeless.
Trapper drops the gun and tucks his junk away like he didn’t just kill a man, he takes my hand in his to guide me away. Stunned, I remain in place.
“Shock’s gonna set in, Tempest.” He says as he walks pulling me forward at a fast clip to the parking lot. “Boys are coming, gonna make this shit go away. You need a blanket and some water. Your neck will heal, but gotta keep the wound clean, sweets. Infections from knife wounds are the worst. I should know, I was stabbed twenty-one times.”
He continues to ramble on without a care. Shawn is dead. Trapper killed him to save me. Shawn was going to kill me, and get to Arika. I almost lost her. I almost lost everything.
“I wanted the fucker to shoot me, but if he did then he woulda got you next. So once again the Reaper wins and gets another soul that’s not mine. I swear the fucker has a hard-on for keeping me alive. I wanna meet the devil himself and yet every time I find a way to open the doorway to hell, they stamp me rejected and keep me here for their entertainment. The after-life is a clever bitch like that.”
“Trapper, you need therapy.” I whisper to him honestly. I want to thank him for saving me, but I am distracted as Tamalyn practically jumps from Judge’s bike and rushes to me.
While my cousin squeezes me tight, I can’t think about the dead man behind us or the cut on my neck. My only thought is Arika.
“We need to check on Arika.” I tell her pulling away.
“Deacon’s got her,” Tamalyn explains and I raise my eyebrow.
“He traced Shawn’s alias, Marvin Deen and hacked his phone. I intercepted a text that said he’s found her that he was sending to someone who he had paid for information and he was firing them basically. Worried for Arika’s safety since none of us can be at school with her, Deacon took off to get her.” Tamalyn explains. “Trapper was your watchdog today so we knew you were okay. I met Deacon at school so I could sign Arika out. He took her to a safe house he’s set up. Trapper was supposed to bring you when you finished here.”
Immediately, I relax which is a mistake because I feel like I might pass out as the shock hits. The only thing I can do is find relief knowing Gentry “Deacon” Hawkins made my daughter safe before everything else which is exactly what I would want. He put her before everything and everyone which is the man we need in our lives.
This is the moment, I fall even harder and faster in love with the man on a motorcycle who rode into our lives on a whim. I would marry him right now without hesitation, that’s how deep I am in. I can only pray he never leaves because no one will understand Arika and me like he does.