The ringing cellphone dragged Simon up from sleep. He came slowly, unwilling to lose the deep rest he’d been tangled in.
A sweet, feminine moan of complaint brought the last night to the fore of his thoughts and pushed him all the way to consciousness. He was wrapped up with Deb, their limbs wound together.
She’d spent the night. They’d…shit. What had they done?
Wide awake now, he reached for the nightstand and batted his hand around until he came up with the offensively loud phone.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“It’s D.”
He opened his eyes and blinked them clear. “Yeah, Prez. What’s up?” Squinting at the alarm clock on his dresser—across the room, so he had to get his ass out of bed to turn it off—he saw that it was just past seven. Maverick was in first at the station today, so he didn’t have to be at work for almost four hours. Assuming a normal day.
Normal days were the exception rather than the rule these days, of course.
“Calling church for eight. We got Russians on the way, and we need to talk before they get here.”
“Russians?”
“Yeah. We’ll talk at the table.”
Simon set the phone on the nightstand and stared up at the ceiling.
“Trouble?” Deb shifted at his side and rose up on her elbow to look down at him. Her hair was like a lion’s mane around her head, and its ends brushed over his chest. He picked up a hank of it and let the curl wind around his fingers.
“I don’t know. D’s calling a meeting for eight o’clock.”
She looked over her shoulder at his clock. “I should get going, too.”
“Hey.” He tugged lightly on her hair, and she turned back to him. “Do we need to talk about last night?”
“What d’you mean?”
“In the bright light of day. Do we need to think about this more?”
A frown creased her pretty face, still sleep-soft. “Do you need to think more?”
They both should be rethinking things. It was astonishingly stupid to start a relationship right now. The Hounds hadn’t retaliated for the school yet, but they’d left an envelope at the station, with a print of Simon’s driver’s license photo, singed around the edges with red crosshairs drawn over it. Whether he’d been seen, or the Hounds had figured it out some other way, he literally had a target on him now.
Official word was an electrical fire had started at the faulty power source, those old fuses still in use, and debris in the vents had caught and accelerated it. But the Hounds knew the truth—and they had figured out exactly whom to blame for it.
And somebody had been in that school in the middle of the night. The assistant principal, Patrice’s uncle, had been sleeping on a sofa in his office. They’d killed an innocent, caused pain to someone close to the club, and destroyed Booker Howard’s crown jewel, and Simon was the focus for all of it. He had no fucking business getting close with Deb now. That list of reasons not to had trebled. He could get her hurt.
But he’d been chewing himself raw since that last night with Deb, feeling like his compass was off, and then she’d been right there, and shit. He did love her. Facing that had cooled the boiling frustration in his head. He loved her. They’d been building something for more than a year, while they’d had their backs turned.
Now, he didn’t want to lose it—and he wanted it all the more desperately because things were so tense. It sucked to come home to an empty house and have no one to hold onto, when, every day, he wasn’t sure he’d get home at all. He couldn’t keep her close, but just knowing he had her, it already helped. It was selfish as fuck, and he never would have gone for her himself, but she’d come to him, and she’d pushed the point, and he loved her.
“No,” he answered. “I don’t need to think more. But if you do, I get it.”
She slapped his chest. “I came to you, asshole. I know all the reasons why not, and I don’t care.”
“Okay.” He tightened his hold of her hair and pulled her down so he could kiss her. Those pretty little tits mashed into his chest, and he went hard straightaway.
She felt it and laughed against his lips. “I don’t think we have time.”
“We don’t. We both gotta motor.”
She leaned back. “Are you talking to Max today?”
“Yeah. First chance. I’m not putting it off, Deb.” Christ, Gunner was going to explode. He’d been the old crazy Gun since he’d moved Leah out, and this news—Christ. Simon was going to get really hurt today. He’d be lucky if Gunner didn’t just pull his piece and shoot him in the head.
“Okay. You’ll call me when it’s over?”
He laughed. “Assuming my mouth works, yeah.”
She didn’t see the humor. “Aren’t you going to fight back?”
He shook his head. “I earned this beating, Deb. Fucking you all this time without being straight about it, that’s a betrayal of my brother’s trust. The way it works is I fight enough to keep him from doing too much damage, but I take my licks.”
“I do not understand the macho chest-thumping.”
“Is what it is.”
“Okay.” She sighed. “But it’s stupid.”
He shrugged. “Kiss me again.” She did, lying on him to do it. He wrapped his arms around her and slid his fingers into her silky hair. Her leg slid across his belly and over his hip, and he felt her pussy, warm and wet, against his shaft. He groaned and flexed, sliding against her.
Just a quickie. They had time for a quickie.
~oOo~
The clubhouse was quiet. It was always quiet on weekday mornings, but since the attack on Signet and the last lockdown, the place had been a ghost town. They were losing sweetbutts and hangarounds at a noticeable clip.
The target on Simon had been the reason they’d lifted the last lockdown—if the Hounds had set their sights on Simon, who had no family anywhere near, then, they’d reasoned, they could let the women and children go home.
Now, ironically, Simon had someone. So it was paramount that he keep her at a distance for now. He really had to impress upon Deb the importance of staying on the farm and not being seen in Tulsa, especially not around him or his place.
Their quickie had carried over into the shower and ended up not being all that quick, so Simon was late when he ran through the empty party room and opened the chapel doors. All his brothers were already at the table, and Delaney cocked a critical eyebrow at him. Delaney started meetings on the dot, and he fined patches whose asses weren’t in their seats.
“Sorry, Prez,” Simon muttered and dropped into his chair. “Got hung up.”
“Any trouble?”
“No. Just slow out the door this morning.” A twist of guilt caught him, and he dashed a look Gunner’s way. His brother looked like he always did lately—preoccupied and antsy. The table shook subtly; Gun’s leg must have been shaking against it. That had been a normal, and maddening, occurrence in the days before Leah.
“Okay,” Delaney said and knocked the gavel on its base. “Let’s get started. Got a call from Irina this morning, first thing. She and Alexei are coming out. They’ll be here tomorrow.
“That’s when we’re meeting the Horde for the handoff,” Becker pointed out.
In quieter times, the Horde escorted the Volkov product all the way to Tulsa, but the Bulls had been meeting them in Missouri since the beef with the Hounds had gone hot. Fully half the club would be traveling tomorrow. Including Simon, assuming that Gunner didn’t incapacitate him later today.
“Change of plans. Horde is riding the product into town. The Riders are coming in, too. She wants a full meet.”
“Tomorrow?” Simon asked. “Why the rush?” Two visiting MCs and some big-deal Russians—that was a lot of logistics to work on little notice. The Great Plains Riders were the other small club on this side of the country that took a Volkov handoff.
Delaney lit a cigarette and took a long drag. He’d quit a few years back, succumbing to pressure from Mo, but he’d picked it back up lately—the clearest sign that the stress was getting to him. “She’s been watching our situation here. Guess she thinks it’s time she put her coin in the slot.”
“Is this trouble for us?” Rad asked.
“I don’t know. She doesn’t leave the East Coast unless it’s important. It’s been near three years since she’s come to Tulsa. I guess we’ll have to see what it is she has to say.” He took another drag and set the unfiltered Camel in the beanbag ashtray beside the gavel. “Mo’s already grabbed Jenny, and they’re shopping for supplies. Maddie is callin’ as many girls back as she can. Today, we proceed as usual and let the women set up. But I want everybody close. Got it?” Heads all around the table nodded.
Dane leaned in. “Gun, she’s gonna want to see the stock. That all in good shape?”
Gunner was their munitions expert and managed their inventory—what was in transit, on hold, or just in storage. “Yeah, of course.” Dane nodded and sat back, but Gunner wasn’t done. “I need to say something.”
Delaney made an encourage wave. “Go ‘head, son.”
“All this shit we’re in. It’s on me, isn’t it? This all comes to that brawl at Terry’s.”
“That was three years ago, Gun,” Rad said. “That’s off your slate.”
“Is it? That was Howard. I went after Booker Howard that night. Late as last year, he still wanted my head.”
Sitting at his side, Eight Ball dropped a hand on Gunner’s shoulder. “Brother, easy. Howard doesn’t want the Bulls dead because you hustled him at pool one night and laughed at him. He wants us dead because we’re in the Hounds’ way, and he wants to be king. Him wanting your head, that’s personal. That’s not why we’re at war.” Eight shifted his attention to the head of the table. “Right, D?”
“Right. And there’s somebody bigger pulling Howard’s strings, I’m sure of it. If it were all on Howard, he’d’a taken the situation nuclear by now. No luck knowin’ who yet, Apollo?”
“Sorry, Prez,” Apollo answered. “If there is somebody, they buried their shit deep.”
“Keep looking. And Gun,” he paused and waited for Gunner’s attention. “Don’t fall down that hole, son. This is not on you. You hear me?”
Gunner stared for a minute, the permanent crease between his eyebrows deep as a canyon. He looked absolutely fucking miserable, beating himself up with guilt. “Yeah, D. Okay.”
There was probably not a worse day in the history of the Brazen Bulls for Simon to tell Gunner what he had to tell him. And yet, there was no other day he could. Keeping a casual fuck to himself was one thing. He’d managed to rationalize that. But Deb was no longer that.
Delaney gaveled the meeting to a close. As they filed out of the chapel, Simon put his hand on Gunner’s shoulder. “Got a minute, Gun?”
He looked over his shoulder. “I’m on at the station.”
“Just take a sec.” Probably not true. Or maybe it would be. Depending on how quickly Gunner went postal and how hard his first punch was.
Gunner shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”
They walked to the bar and sat down. Fitz stood behind it, looking like he wasn’t sure what to offer them. He lifted a hand vaguely toward the booze.
“Coffee, shithead,” Gunner snarled. “It’s eight-thirty in the morning.” While Fitz poured them coffee, Gunner raised his eyebrows at Simon. “’Sup?”
Nothing to do but say it. “I got something I need to tell you. I need you to try to stay cool if you can.”
That crease deepened again, and his eyebrows nearly touched. He was not going to stay cool. There would be no coolness. “What?”
“It’s about Deb. We’re…we’re together.”
Fitz sat the mugs on the bar and then beat hell away; he’d heard, and even he knew there would be trouble.
“What? Together how?”
Simon considered several options for answers to that question and discarded them all as too incendiary. Instead, he held Gunner’s look and hoped it would be enough.
It was. Too much, probably. “You piece of shit. How long?”
What answer was best here? “We decided last night that things were serious.” No, shit, that was not the best way to say it. But so far, Gunner was still, at least. Not calm, but still.
Around them, the Bulls who hadn’t gone over to the station yet had gone quiet, and Simon didn’t need to shift his eyes from Gunner to know they had the room’s full attention.
“How. Fucking. Long?”
Tensing for the blow he knew was next, Simon answered the question straight. “Since the tornado. A year and a half.”
He didn’t see Gunner move. But a heavy stoneware mug crashed into his cheek, and hot coffee blasted his face. Shouting out a kind of intense pain he hadn’t expected, he flew from the barstool and landed hard on the floor.
Gunner was on him, yelling incoherently—no, screaming—his fists flying, and Simon couldn’t see or get his hands up to protect himself. They were very close in size and mass, both around six feet, around one-eighty or so and decently cut, but Simon was no match in crazy.
By the time they pulled Gunner off of him, Simon knew he was a mess. His face was on fire, scalded from the coffee and bleeding from the mug and from Gunner’s fucking rings. His nose was broken, for sure, and his left eye felt like it had been soaked in lava.
“Jesus, Si.” Griffin helped him to his feet. When he tried to get a look at Simon’s face, he brushed him off.
“I’m okay.” He wasn’t, he was legitimately worried that he’d just been blinded, but he needed a minute of not being touched just now.
Against the bar, Gunner was still fighting for a piece of him, struggling against Rad and Maverick.
“JESUS MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST,” roared Delaney, coming up the hall from his office. “I WAS GONE FIVE MINUTES! WHAT THE HELL?”
“HE’S FUCKING MY SISTER! I’M GONNA KILL HIM!” Gunner roared back.
Simon’s vision sucked, but he could see Delaney’s open mouth. They’d actually stunned the old man.
“Chapel. Both of you. Now.”
When Rad and Mav lightened up on Gunner, he lunged for Simon again. They barely got hold of him. He really meant to kill him.
“GUN!” Delaney shouted, and Gunner subsided.
Rad and Mav dragged Gun into the chapel. Simon followed at a safe distance.
When the three of them were alone and in their seats, Delaney turned to Simon. “What the hell, Simon?”
“He—” Gunner jumped in, but stopped when Delaney flicked an imperious hand his way.
“I asked Simon. You’ll get your shot. Spend this time taking deep breaths, and get your head in hand.” Delaney turned back to Simon. “Go. Explain.”
He was still bleeding all over himself, and he couldn’t open his left eye without an explosion of fiery pain, but he answered as straight and calmly as he could. “I fucked up. I should’ve said something from the go, but I didn’t know it was more than a one-time deal, and Gun was already going crazy over Leah, and Deb wanted it quiet.” He sighed. “I fucked up.”
“Hold on. Why was Gun going crazy over Leah? When’d this happen?”
“The night of the motherfucking tornado,” Gunner snarled.
Delaney swung back to Simon. “That true? That was ’96.”
“Yeah, it’s true.”
“Goddammit, Simon. That’s his sister.”
“I know. I fucked up. It’s been a casual thing, every now and then. Wasn’t a big deal. But now it is.”
“What do you mean?”
To answer Delaney’s question, he turned to Gunner. “I love her, Gun. That’s what I mean.”
If anything, that pissed Gunner off more. “I am going to kill you.” He looked at Delaney. “I mean it. He fucked with my family. I want him dead.”
“No, Gunner. Simon owes you, but not that.”
“Then his patch. I want his patch.”
Delaney didn’t shoot that down right away, and Simon’s stomach went ice cold. “D…”
He got the same preemptive wave that had stopped Gunner a few minutes earlier. But then he shook his head. “Gun, I want you to take the day. Get your head straight. Si, I take it you don’t intend to stop seeing Deb?”
He shook his head. He’d come this far; he wasn’t backing down. “She loves me, too, brother.”
Gunner punched the table. “You are not my fucking brother.”
“Boys,” Delaney sighed like a bellows. “We got to work this out. I can’t lose a patch right now, and I can’t have a clubhouse war in the middle of the war we’re fighting against an actual enemy. Neutral corners today. Gun, you take the day and get some perspective here. Your sister is a grown damn woman. Simon didn’t take advantage. We all know that Deb isn’t the type to get taken advantage of. Who your sister takes up with is her business. He lied, and he kept lying, and that’s what he owes you for. Only that. You figure out what you need to get right with this, and you make it sane, or I will decide for you. We finish this in the morning, before our guests get here. Simon, Willa’s on her way to sew you up. Go wash up or somethin’ before you get blood all over Mo’s decorating out there.”
~oOo~
“Jesus CHRIST, that hurts.” He dug his fingers into his thighs so he wouldn’t jerk away from the pain and do more damage. He’d thought getting his nose reset would be the worst of it, but he hadn’t expected her to be digging around in his goddamn eye.
Willa took her gloved hands away from his eye. “Sorry, honey. I had to check. You need to see an ophthalmologist, Simon. Don’t fuck around with your eyes.”
“It’s bad, huh?”
“Your pupil reacts normally, and that’s excellent, but there’s a lesion on your cornea. That could heal and leave no trace, or it could leave a scar, which could affect your sight.” She set a thick pad of gauze over that eye and taped it gently down. “Please see a real doctor.”
“I will. But you’ll sew me up, right?”
“Yeah, of course.” She turned to the big first aid kit—a rolling toolkit they’d modified per Willa’s instructions—and began laying out suturing supplies. “It’s not going to be a picnic, with those scald burns on your face.”
“Sweetheart, we met when you were sewing up muscles in my side. Without pain meds. I can take some stitches.”
She laughed. “I remember. You were pretty tough.” Holding up a syringe, she added, “I keep Novocain on hand now, though, so it’ll be easier than that.”
Willa always talked while she worked. Nothing heavy, just light chitchat that Simon knew was meant to keep her patient calm. He’d done a few guard shifts with her at the hospital, where she was a Labor & Delivery nurse. She was the same with mothers in labor—a sweet companion, making things better, keeping things calm.
“So,” she said as she pushed a suturing needle into his cheek again. “You and Deb, huh?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “I can see it.”
That was the first positive word on the subject that hadn’t come from him or Debra. He tried to cock an eyebrow, but that part of his face wasn’t working at the moment. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re kind of alike, I think. From what I know of Deb.”
“How’s that?”
“You both step up when you’re called to and step back when you can. Know what I mean?”
He shook his head.
“You watch. You both do. You think about stuff first. You’re never in the middle of things, unless it’s specifically your place to be.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or a criticism.”
“Compliment. If everybody’s in the middle, that’s chaos. A group needs people who are paying attention and thinking things out. Family, club, whatever. But you don’t hesitate to do what needs doing, either. You’re just more sure it needs doing than…some.”
She’d just finished tying off a stitch, so he used the chance and caught her hand. He brought it to his lips and kissed it.
She smiled. Damn, she was sweet. “What’s that for?”
“Gratitude. You are a good woman, Willa. Rad is a lucky man.”
“You lookin’ to get beat down again today, brother?” Rad asked, standing in the kitchen doorway. He was grinning, so Simon grinned back. As much of a grin as his swollen, stitched-up, numb face would make, anyway.
“Some beatdowns are worth it, man.”
Rad offered a nod that Simon found encouraging, then turned to his old lady. “I’m gonna go grab Zach from daycare. D wants everybody in the clubhouse tonight. You need anything from home?”
“Just pack a bag for him. You know what he needs.” Simon thought a loaded look had passed between the couple, but he only had one eye, so he couldn’t be sure. Then Rad blew her a kiss and was gone.
Willa sighed and covered Simon’s newly stitched cheek with gauze. “I’m so tired of this, Simon.”
“I know. It won’t last forever. It can’t.”
She sighed again. Simon didn’t think she believed him.