CREED
He was still warm, still hard, still throbbing inside of her. He was far from sated. God, if he had her every single day for the rest of his life, he’d be far from sated.
It was too soon, but he didn’t have the luxury of time. Neither of them did. He brushed away a strand of hair that clung to Kate’s cheek. He tucked it behind her ear and caressed the other ebony strands.
She looked up at him, a sheen of water in her eyes. He didn’t miss the silvery tracks that had already dried on her cheeks.
He knew. He knew why she was crying. Because what they’d just done wasn’t like anything he’d done before in his life.
There were others. Other women. He wasn’t always sober. He’d done a lot of shit he wasn’t proud of, Jim’s orders. What Jim said, went. Even if he was spiraling out of control. Even if he fed on the power and they’d gone from being a band of brothers who supported each other, who kept each other safe, a bunch of misfits who didn’t fit into society but fit there, to something he didn’t want to think about.
Jim was off his fucking rocker. Fueled by the booze and the women, the blow and the power trip he got off of taking over for Crow after the guy caught a bullet right between the eyes, he’d turned into something no one even recognized anymore.
Just like Slim Rick.
Why do all the good things eventually have to go to shit?
He turned Kate’s face up and stared deep into her sky blue eyes. Not this. I’m not letting this go. This is always going to be this good. I’ll fight for it. I’ll fight for her.
“I know this is going to scare you,” he said roughly. His cock flexed inside of her and she gasped. “But I’ve never had anyone to fight for. Anyone that I wanted to without being given an order because I was a part of something and couldn’t see a way out. I’ve done what they said. I’ve done it blindly. This is the first thing I’ve done for me in my entire life. This is the first good thing.”
She reached up between his hands and took his face between her slender palms in a mirror image of how he held her. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t believe that. You’ve done good things. You’re a good man. You’re not whatever you’ve done. The past is the past.”
“It’s not over. Those men, they’re coming for me. Because once you swear an oath to them, they own you for life. You lay down who you were and you become one of them. There isn’t any getting out unless you go down in a body bag. And believe me, when they put you down, you’d never get the pleasure of being bagged up. No one runs because no one is that stupid.”
“Why are you here?” Kate’s eyes went wide. “If no one runs, what happened?”
“I- got tired of the shit. Honestly, it used to be good. Those guys used to be like a family for me. Then we had a change in leadership and the guy is a… he’s a prick.”
She snorted softly and he smiled back at her. “A prick, hey?”
“Really, he is. He’s unhinged. He’s a strong guy. Been part of the club since it started. He’s been waiting to take over. It was probably him who put the last guy in the ground, though he’d never admit it. There’s a code of honor between us. At least, there used to be. Guys are supposed to die for each other. We’re a brotherhood.”
“It sounds like a fraternity.”
“I wish it was. Frat boys. No, they’re not frat boys. Unless people have dreams about nightmare guys with guns. Then maybe…”
“I…” she ran her hand over his cheek. “They can’t find you. You’ll get out. They won’t…”
“I know. We’re going to get away. Tonight. We’ll leave tonight.”
“We?” she gaped up at him. “Creed, I can’t just- leave. I have a life- a- my sister, my family. I can’t just go away with you. I don’t even know you.”
“You do know me.” He brought his lips to hers and kissed her long and hard. Kissed her until he couldn’t breathe. “You know me. You see me. You’re the first person who ever has. You look at me and you see right through me. I never believed I could be anyone. I joined this shit because it was a way to survive. A way to stay alive. A way to give my life- meaning. I’ve never felt anything until you. You make me feel alive. You give me hope. Ever since the first second I opened my eyes and saw you, I just knew.”
“I don’t believe in that,” Kate panted. She planted a palm on his chest and tried to push him away, but his hands fell to his shoulders and he refused to let her go. “I don’t believe in love or being completed or any of that shit. Those are lies, for fairy tales. That’s the reason people like them so much. Fairy tales, movies, stories. It’s because they provide an escape from real life. They make people want to believe that love like that exists, but it doesn’t.”
“You’re right,” he agreed and her head snapped up. Her eyes searched his, confused at his ready capitulation. “Love like that is a lie. I don’t believe in it either. It doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t just creep you and hit you. People don’t fall into anything. They don’t find it.”
Her brow arched. “And you’re suddenly an expert.”
“No.” He shook his head and captured her hand, which was still planted on his chest. “No, I don’t know anything about that stuff. I was raised by a junkie mother and was in and out of foster homes. I joined one club after another, searching for a family, a place to belong. It was as much about that as about survival.” He hesitated. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
Kate’s eyes filled up with tears. She looked at him like she was searching for something, searching him, searching, trying to find more, when really he was just who he was. What she was on the surface was what lay below. For the first time in his life, he wanted there to be more. He wanted to be something different, something better, for her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m not.” He squeezed her hand. “Because if all that shit didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t know how to keep you safe. I am here now. This was meant to happen.”
“So suddenly you believe in fate?”
“No. I believe in making you mine. In taking you with me. I swear to you, I will keep you safe. I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy. I might be broken when it comes to love- when it comes to all of it, but I’ll try and put the pieces back together. I- you make me feel- like it’s… possible to be complete.”
A sharp scuffling sound across the kitchen brought both their heads up.
Creed froze. No. No, it’s not possible.
It wasn’t possible, but there they were, the three of them, men he once considered brothers. Core was tall and slim with greasy dark hair and ugly tattoos that sprawled over much of his body including his face. Hornet was the exact opposite. Short, fat, blonde. The only thing he had in common was that he was just as ugly. Then there was Bandit, a newer member to the club. His head was shaved, shiny bald. He had a decent face, which was really too bad, considering in a few years it would be as ugly as the rest of the lot. The booze and the blow and the hard living would catch up with him sooner or later. The guy might be new, but he was already a valued member of the club. He was real good at tracking and even better at getting into places people tried to keep him out of. Locked doors meant nothing to him.
They’d let themselves in, the three of them, while he was too busy, too caught up in Kate to even be aware that they were there. They could have been there the entire time, watching, and he wouldn’t have known.
He’d lost his senses, lost himself in her. He’d failed her. They were there and he could do nothing to protect her. Nothing. He’d just sworn to keep her safe and it was already an oath he was going to be forced to break. He couldn’t take on three of them. He might be desperate, but he wasn’t stupid. If it was just him, he’d consider it, but Kate was right there, trembling in his arms.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Core ground out. He licked his lips when he eyed up Kate’s naked body.
Rage flooded Creed’s veins. He swore that the guy would die for looking at his woman that way.
“Two little lovers,” Hornet added. His smile was no less malicious. “Did he tell you, darling, that he raped our President’s daughter?”
Kate stiffened in his arms. She didn’t pull away, but when her eyes met his and he saw the grain of doubt in their depths, his heart shattered. He felt his lips flatten out and he did his best, as he turned, to block her from view.
“Leave her alone,” he growled. “I’ll come with you. Gladly. Just leave her out of this. She’s done nothing. We have rules against harming innocent people.”
Bandit shrugged. He might be new and he might be decent looking, but he was already just as bad as the rest of them. “She’s not innocent now, is she? You just sat here and told her that she was a part of you now. You said she was yours. You thought you could get away and start a life with her. We all heard it.”
The other men nodded in affirmation, like a choir or fucking morons. No, not like. That’s exactly what they were.
“So it seems to me,” Bandit continued, picking up steam, feeding off the other two, “that she really is a part of this. You know the rules. You go down, so does your family. That’s how the club works.”
Creed knew it well. The rules were designed to prevent guys from going rogue, or just abandoning the whole thing altogether. Guys who knew too much. Guys who could betray the club. Rules were meant to keep people in for life. Or put them in the ground. One way or other, no one got out.
Creed cursed himself. He cursed the damn day he’d ever wanted to a part of that. The day he thought that they were a family. Of course, it had been different before, with Crow. The guy saw sense. He was often merciful, in a way. He never would have harmed women and children. Killing wasn’t his way. He did what he did and it might have been lawless, but he was a good man, at heart. Jim, the new President, he was a piece of shit straight through to whatever black heart fueled his body. His interpretation of the old rules, of what they stood for, was something else entirely. For him, those rules were meant to serve one purpose only- his. They stood for him or they stood for nothing.
“Let’s go, lovers,” Hornet said roughly.
“Get your clothes on.”
Bandit pulled a gun from the back of his dirty jeans. “Don’t fucking think about giving us trouble or she dies first.”
“Well, no, hold on now, one second.” Core snorted back something out of his nose and swallowed hard. It was absolutely disgusting. “She ain’t gunna die before we have our fun with her. Look at those pretty tits. The prettiest tits I’ve ever seen.”
Hornet’s mouth dropped open and he nearly drooled. “Why shouldn’t we have some fun with her before we bring them in? She does have nice tits. I bet her pussy’s real tight.”
Core licked his lips. “Tight and shaved. She’s a pretty piece. You ain’t gunna keep her all to yourself, are you now, Creed?”
Creed’s hands balled into fists. He glanced once at Kate’s white face and eyes wide with fear. Luckily, she was smart enough to stay silent. He half expected her to open a drawer and threaten those guys with a butcher knife to the cock if they so much as touched her.
He turned around to face men he once thought of as brothers. No, not them. None of them were original to the club, from when Crow was around. They’d all joined up after Jim took over. They weren’t his brothers at all. Just greasy pieces of shit. Once they were in the ground, the world would be better off.
“You lay a hand on her, you fucking die,’ he promised.
Bandit let out a whoop of laughter. “Oh lord. Naked, no weapon, making threats. I like it. Jim will have lots of fun with this.”
“Shut the fuck you, you little brat,” Creed spat. “I could snap your neck with my bare fucking hands.”
His words, or maybe the menacing look on his face, the unhinged wildness in his eyes, warned them all. Hornet and Core backed the fuck off. They knew what he was capable of. Bandit stared at him like he wished he could put a knife between his eyes.
Creed knew they were safe, for now. These guys lived and breathed Jim’s orders. They did whatever the fuck he told them to do, as long as they were rewarded with blow and women after. That was the problem with what the club had become. Under Jim, it was every man for himself. There were no brothers.
God, it was past time he got out. He should thank Jim’s daughter, for giving him the extra push he needed.
He just wished like hell he’d never come here. He should never, ever have put Jack and his wife in danger. And now… now Kate. His goddess.
If Jim laid a fucking hand on her, he’d cut the bastard's fingers off. He’d put him in the ground if so much as harmed one hair on Kate’s head.
He looked at her one last time and he hoped she knew it. He hoped that she trusted him to protect her, to keep her safe, no matter how bad things looked. He hoped she knew that he’d die for her if he had to.
Creed bent and picked up Kate’s clothes and passed them gently to her, all while the three pieces of shit in the kitchen looked on hungrily, like a pack of rabid dogs.
He brushed Kate’s hand gently, on purpose. She looked up at him and he mouthed words he never thought he’d say. I love you. Whether they were meant to reassure her, or him, or whether he just needed to get them out while he still could, since he knew he was a dead man, he meant them.
He fucking meant them.
Somehow, someway, he’d get them through this.
He had to. Kate was his everything. Kate was his life. She had to survive. She had to live. Even if it meant that he didn’t.