Chapter Twenty-Seven
Charlie
Shit. There was a storm brewing in him and me. Now that I was safe, I couldn’t ignore their lifestyle, something I wasn’t okay with.
Elle moved closer, wiping her hands on her jeans. “JoJo asked me for a favor and I blew it. He has to go when an officer tells him to, but I let him down and caused you all kinds of grief. I’m sorry.”
Sorry for what? Letting me see what their world was really like?
“Now I know why you were inside.” I wouldn’t want to be outside either.
Elle leaned closer. “You’re wrong, about quite a lot, actually.”
I sat back. “What? You do those things for him?”
“You mean for Rebel?” She laughed. “No, whatever I do is for me, for us. If we don’t both like it, neither of us do it.”
That couldn’t be right. “You want to do those things?”
“What things exactly?”
“The train thing?” That had been the worst of it. “The whipping?”
Elle snorted. “Nope, neither of those are for us, although Rebel used to run the sex club.”
“But some of it is for you?” I respected Elle, she wasn’t some biker chick, but a businesswoman.
“Yeah, some of it is for me, but not everyone is into it.” Elle shrugged. “No one cares what you do or don’t do.”
That surprised me. “It’s not everyone?”
She shook her head. “My whole life I thought there was this line of where good people stopped and bad people continued, especially with sex. Rebel made sure I forgot those lies.”
Lies? “What if you’re the one believing lies now?” I didn’t believe anyone liked the stuff I’d seen.
“Then I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Look, you’re probably too uptight to last with JoJo anyway, I just wanted to apologize for not being there for you.” She assessed me and I had the notion she found me wanting.
That pissed me off worse than her thinking I might like the things I’d seen.
“So I should disappear when this is over?” The words just flew out of my mouth.
“You’ve made it clear what you think of all of us...it’s written on your face.” She turned her back and walked out on me.
Her words hurt. We’d been becoming friends and her opinion mattered to me. What I’d seen would have scared anyone away. I had a right to feel this way.
You ran out there even though he told you not to. You stole his bike. You told Danvers they were crazed rapists. Not my brightest moment but it didn’t change the wrongness of what they’d done. How could it all be consensual? No one would consent to what I’d seen. Maybe it’d been rash to go out there alone, but what I saw couldn’t be erased. It changed everything.
JoJo walked back inside and sat beside me. The scent of leather wrapped around him with a hint of gunpowder. I wanted him to hold me, even if it was the absolute wrong thing. Despite what I’d seen, I still trusted him, and I had no idea why. But right now I just wanted a little comfort, one more taste of my sexy biker.
The silence lengthened until I thought he wouldn’t speak. “You have a choice.”
I looked over at him.
“Fight or fuck?”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. All that buildup for those three words. Joe chuckled and pulled me onto his lap.
“That’s my vote.” His dick pressed up into me.
“Fuck,” I whispered. “Please.” Tomorrow I’d make the hard decisions. Today, I just wanted to hold him.
He stripped me in seconds, and his clothes fell to the floor beside mine. “I missed you.” He kissed me with a new kind of hunger, one I felt too. I’d run in the heat of the moment, but the long hours separated from him had been hard. I didn’t know how I’d leave again.
He caressed me with tender touches, different from our normal lovemaking. He nibbled my ear, rubbing his body along mine. “I was scared I’d lost you, that I’d be too late.” He whispered the words into my neck, then plunged deep inside me.
I wrapped my legs around him and held tight. “I was scared too.”
His mouth covered mine, and our bodies slid together with a deliberate slowness that drove me crazy. I arched into him, needing the release, yet wanting this to last forever. Here I was safe. We were safe.
With each stroke he stripped away more of my defenses, ones I’d tried to build against him over the past few days. They crumbled and all I could do is hold tight, hoping I didn’t crumble away too.
“More, I need more,” I panted.
He slowed. “We got time.”
I wished that was true, but I felt time running out. I leaned up and bit his neck, urging him on. Soon I forgot what I was doing and fell into rhythm with him, lost to everything but how he made me feel. So much. Too much. I swear he touched my soul.
“I want it to last forever—” he kissed my neck “—but it’s not going to.”
We moved faster and soon I fell over with him, holding tight as the orgasm crashed around me, taking comfort in the fact Joe was with me, again.
We woke tangled together the next morning and made love again before showering. I couldn’t get enough of him, and if we stayed wrapped together making love, then reality couldn’t push in. Decisions didn’t have to be made and I didn’t have to walk away.
The sun was setting when a knock sounded on the door. I pulled on clothes, as did Joe before he opened the door. Delta strode inside. “It’s done. Mickey’s dead.”
My phone started ringing. I looked down. Danvers.
“Hello.”
“You okay?” Danvers asked.
“Yeah, is it true? Mickey’s dead.”
“News travels fast. He got a shiv in the yard today.” Danvers sighed. “Not a great ending, but it’s over. You can come take some cases off my desk.”
It’s what I’d wanted, then why did I feel so horrible? I glanced over at JoJo but he didn’t look at me. He knew, our time was over. I wished I was different or he was, but that wasn’t the way it was, and I had to come back to reality.
“I’ll be back to work on Monday.”
“That’s four days,” Danver joked. “You could be back tomorrow.”
“I need to kiss my mom and deal with my house, then I’ll be back.” I said goodbye and hung up.
“I’m heading back.” Delta shoved hands in his pocket. “See ya.”
JoJo nodded and some kind of silent communication passed between them. He sat there not saying a word. I wanted to go back to bed, but that wasn’t a choice. I had to move forward.
“Can you take me to get a rental car?” I needed wheels, one step and then another until I made it through this hell. I could do it. I’d survived worse.
“So that’s it?” His dark eyes burned with anger.
“That’s it,” I said. “What do you want me to say?”
“How about the fucking truth?” He stood and paced the small room. “We haven’t talked about anything.”
“Why do the drama—it doesn’t change the bottom line.”
Love required common ground to take root. We had none.
“Which is?”
He was going to make me say it.
Fine. I gathered myself together, determined to end this. “We’re good in bed, but that’s run its course.” The words sliced my insides as they came out. Why did the right thing suck so much? But just thinking about that party strengthened my resolve.
He held me with his gaze, I couldn’t look away. Not because of the anger or the hurt, but the intensity kept me locked with him.
He stepped toward me, so I had to crane my neck up to keep our eye lock. Passion made his face alive, dancing with too many emotions to list. “We’re more than that, and you know it.” He sat across from me on the other bed in the room. “The sex is spectacular, but the connection we have runs deeper and I won’t let you ignore it.”
I closed my eyes and forced the tears away. I would not show weakness. “I’m not interested in a connection. Your way of life isn’t for me.” I moved away, the pent-up energy coursing through me. “I’m not into the scene I witnessed.”
“Neither am I.”
His words surprised me. I turned and glared at him. “You never tried those...games?”
“A couple, but it’s not for me.” He shrugged. Then his gaze narrowed. “But I don’t vilify those who do. What does it matter what Thorn likes to do with a woman? You planning to fuck him?”
“No,” I lashed out. “It matters. It shouts what your club is about.”
His dark laughed pissed me off.
“No, not even close and you know that. Our club is brotherhood, loyalty and acceptance. The rest doesn’t matter.” He took a step toward me with each word until we were inches apart.
“The world cares. I care. I’m a cop for God’s sake.” I backed away but the wall stopped me from escaping. Trapped there, I tried to ignore the way my body wanted him.
His thumb traced my lip before he kissed me, soft and sweet, full of longing. I pushed against his chest but he didn’t budge. The kiss swept me away and I was lost to him, to us. His scent wrapped around me and I never wanted to stop.
He moved from my lips, peppering soft kisses across my cheeks and brow. Dazed, I let him hold me up.
“We can work all that out.” His soft voice seduced me. “I love you, that’s what matters, the only thing that matters.”
He loved me. My heart expanded, taking up all the space in my chest. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth to tell him I love you too, but the words didn’t come. Flashes of that night at the club played through my mind again. Our worlds were different. He wouldn’t leave his, and I couldn’t join it. I’m not sure I would if I could.
Not that it mattered because it wasn’t realistic.
The soft vulnerable smile hardened before my eyes. First his mouth slashed into a frown, his body went rigid, then the eyes I loved so much went dead, lifeless. He turned, grabbed his bag and jacket and headed out the door.
I’d stepped forward, mouth open, but still the words didn’t come. The door slammed shut, leaving me alone in the motel room. I stared at the bed where we’d made love last night, and tears streamed down my face. Pain ricocheted through me until I crumpled to the floor. Holding my knees I sobbed for the love I’d lost.
He’d made me smile, lit up my world and opened up the pleasures of sex in unimaginable ways, but none of that mattered as much as the way he’d made me feel. Safe. Strong. Loved. He’d shown me love without conditions, and I’d turned it away, too worried about what the world would think. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
* * *
The world didn’t stop after JoJo left me. After I’d had a good cry, I washed my face and called Dad to pick me up from the motel. He took me to get a rental car and then I returned home with him. He didn’t ask about Joe and I was glad. I spent the last two days talking with contractors, insurance reps and rental offices while my parents drove me nuts. My place was fixable, but I had about six weeks to wait before I’d be able to move in again.
My parents urged me to stay the entire time at their place, but that would drive me crazy. The insurance company gave me a list of short-term rentals they would cover, but I hadn’t called any of them either.
A single knock on the guest room door, then it was flung open wide and my brother Johnny walked through, a kid on each hand.
“Aunt Charlie,” Izzie, his youngest daughter, screamed and scrambled up my legs to my lap. “You are in big trouble.” At three she still couldn’t say her Rs correctly. “Daddy says you screwed the pooch.”
“Izzie,” my sister-in-law scolded. “Language and tattling—we don’t do either.” She bent down and kissed my cheek. “I thought we’d be seeing your biker today.”
My heart lurched, I’d never see him again. I gave a quick shake of my head and focused on Izzie. I scooped her up and chatted about baby dolls as we scooted past my other niece, brother and sister-in-law. We moved to the living room where my dad had football blaring. No way my siblings could corner me now.
Once my other two brothers made it to the house, it was crazy crowded, distracting me from thoughts of JoJo. So far, I operated in two modes: crazy busy and crazy sad. I could hold the sadness away until bedtime, when my thoughts crowded in. More like my doubts. I second-guessed my decisions, all of them. I wished for Brie to talk things over with, but I hadn’t heard from her since that first call. I wondered if she’d come back now that the danger was over.
“Charlotte, help me set the table,” Mom called from the kitchen. “We’re eating outside.”
Of course she never called the boys to help set the table. As much as I loved my parents, they were a different generation—women cooked and cleaned and men did lawn work and mechanical stuff. Never the two should meet. And my brothers were cut from the same mold. Both of their wives stayed home to raise their children—not that there was anything wrong with that—but it wasn’t for me. So both my parents struggled with me. The job was fine, but they still expected me to settle down and pop out babies one day. That was why they’d liked Jensen so much, he’d been just like them.
I helped set the table and organize the mountain of food my mom and sisters-in-law had prepared.
“You should take another week off, dear.” Mom had said this a hundred times, hoping repetition wore me down. “You have had a rough time of it.”
“Shot at, chased, your house burned down. I couldn’t imagine it.” My sister-in-law shook her head. “I told Johnny to never bring that kind of trouble to our home.”
As if I had a choice in the matter. I hadn’t asked Franco to try to kill me.
“Now that he’s in Command, that won’t ever happen,” Mom reassured Leya. “Charlie, you should think about the administrative route.”
My youngest brother, Chris, walked out onto the concrete patio. “Grub ready, Ma?” He winked at me. We had spent a lot of our youth deflecting comments about my choices. In turn, I left my ground floor window unlocked so he could sneak in and out. It had worked well.
“Yes, be a dear and get the men. We’ll start on the munchkins.” I had two nieces and four nephews so far, and they weren’t done. “Be nice to have a few more around here.” Mom eyed me. “Too bad Joe couldn’t come to dinner.”
I turned away before a tear slid free. My mom had asked me three times if he could join us for Sunday dinner, a thank-you for watching after me. I’d said he was busy, but she persisted. I always thought my stubborn streak was from Dad, but Mom was twice as stubborn and sneaky to boot.
Dinner was a noisy chaos that improved my mood. I loved my family, and being surrounded by them lifted my spirits. JoJo had his family and I had mine. I couldn’t have asked him to leave his family for me, so I’d done the right thing. Right?
I loved the way my brothers treated their wives. Touches, smiles, winks—all signs of love. My dad, now past sixty, still patted my mom’s backside. Love. Being surrounded by it made me miss Joe. Yet each of my brother’s relationships were founded on love and common ground—I didn’t have that with JoJo, and that was the difference.
After everything had been cleaned up, I slipped out of the kitchen while my mom and sisters-in-law talked children. I walked past our old tire swing to the back fence, staring out at the woods where we explored as children. It wasn’t a forest or anything, just a thin track of trees between housing developments, but it had been my favorite playground.
Jensen had never liked it back here. He’d preferred the manicured lawn and patio, but this was my childhood. Jensen. Somewhere over the past few weeks, memories of him had become complicated. The love I’d been so rock-solid sure of was shaky now. I saw how different we really were and how hard I’d worked to win his approval. Sadly, I wasn’t sure we’d have worked out if he were alive. And that was a whole new kind of guilt.
“You look like you need a beer.” Johnny handed me a bottle of Budweiser.
“Thanks.” I popped off the screw top and took a long drink, hoping to wash away the regret burning my throat.
“What happened?” He gave me the big-brother frown that had made me spill my troubles as a child.
I wasn’t a child. “Franco gave up. I’m in the clear.”
“With Marcone?” He studied me. “Do I need to bloody his nose?”
I snorted. “No, but his family might want to bloody mine.”
“What?”
“It’d never work between us, so I let him go. Told him to go.” I drank down more beer, ignoring the pain slicing through me.
Johnny stared at me, not saying a word.
I emptied my beer and the silence stretched, bugging me. “I can’t be part of his club, they call women property.”
“And that means?”
“I really don’t know.” I sighed. “We just don’t have any common ground, not like you and your wife, or Mom and Dad.”
“I asked around about the Brotherhood.” He folded arms across his chest. “Sound like a good bunch of men—on the right side of the law.”
“They make porno movies.” I threw my hands up. “Own a sex club.”
Johnny laughed. “Nothing illegal in sex. Hell, we sometimes watch a good—”
“Lalalalalala,” I shouted. “Not hearing this.”
“How’d you end up such a prude.” He nudged my arm. “You don’t love him?”
I opened my mouth to say no. “I do, and it’s killing me” came out instead.
“What about him?”
“No, he told me he loved me and I just stood there saying nothing until he walked out the door.” I spilled out the rest of my sorry story. My worries about his club, the party, what everyone would think. It just all gushed out. “So you see it can’t work.”
“Bullshit.” Johnny glared at me. “I ought to bloody your nose for being stupid.”
“Hey, you’re supposed to be on my side,” I whined.
“I am, little sis, but you’re messing this all up.” He shook his head. “Not that you’ll listen to me. You’re more stubborn than Mom.”
“It’s too late.” I hung my head. “I missed my chance.”
He chucked my chin. “Maybe so.”
He just walked away, leaving me with my own sour company.
I turned when I heard steps. Chris approached.
“I can’t take any more brotherly love.” A tear ran down my cheek.
“We drew straws.” He grinned. “Johnny had to talk to you, I’m supposed to get you drunk, and Peter gets to go home with his wife. Lucky bastard.”
“Hand me a beer, then.” Regret ate at me like a cancer inside me, making me bitter and angry. I had no one to be mad at but me. I wondered how many bottles of beer it’d take to make me forget.