Chapter 31

Molly

“You’re getting better,” Xena praises as I pull my third cherry stem from my mouth.

“I can’t do it,” Legs grumbles, pulling a mangled stem from her lips.

“May be the reason you can’t keep TJ interested,” Vixen taunts. “No mouth skill.”

“Enough,” Xena snaps when Legs drops the stem and begins to move around the table to go after the girl who insulted her. She glares at Vixen. “Go entertain Boston.”

Vixen shrugs before leaving us standing at the table. The atmosphere has changed. The fun was sucked out of the room the second Chains walked in with a weary look on his face before Briar followed him outside.

“I wonder what’s going on.”

“You know better than to even think about anything like that,” Xena chastises me. “Much less open your mouth to speak of it.”

I turn my attention to her, eyes narrowed in annoyance. “You going to give me some command to take care of one of the guys, too?”

“You know better than that, Prin—” Her jaw clenches as she catches herself. “Molly.”

“Do you really think I lack the mouth skills to keep TJ coming back for more?”

Sighing, Xena loses focus on me and turns in Legs’s direction. “You have fantastic mouth skills, babe.”

Legs beams at the praise and takes a step closer to Xena.

The front door opens, but it’s Zoe, alone, walking toward us, not Briar.

“What’s going on?” she asks the second she’s within hearing distance.

“What do you mean?”

“One of the guys grabbed Lynch as soon as we got off the bike. They all headed toward the garage, but he told me to come inside instead of letting me go with them.”

“We can drink,” Xena says slapping her hand on the tabletop to get our attention. “We can work on cherry stems, but we won’t stand here and speculate about what’s going on outside. The guys will handle whatever it is. It doesn’t concern us.”

“Where’s Piper?” I ask, suddenly realizing I haven’t seen her around much since Xena is clearly trying to step into her shoes.

“Visiting family,” Xena responds, and I’ve known her long enough to know she’s lying, but too concerned about what’s going on outside to grill her about it.

“Cherry stems?” Zoe asks, clearly not as concerned as I am.

“Working on our mouth game,” Legs clarifies as Zoe wiggles her fingers in the near-empty jar to grab one out.

“You don’t need help on your mouth game.” Zoe winks at Legs, restoring her confidence immediately.

“Told ya,” Xena adds.

“Yeah. Okayyy.” I turn away from them as some kind of unspoken but very sexually-motivated conversation happens.

My eyes stay on the door until they’re so dry, I realize I’ve forgotten to blink. After what seems like hours, the guys return.

My brother’s jaw is clenched, but it’s the sight of blood spattered on the front of Briar’s t-shirt that demands all of my attention.

“What happened?” Briar’s eyes snap up to mine, stopping me in my tracks.

With an almost imperceptive shake of his head, he walks right past me and down the hall to his room. The door snaps shut with a thunderous echo.

I look to my brother for answers, but I know he has none to give. Zoe, even only here for a couple of months, seems to know not to ask.

“What are you ladies up to?” The smile on my brother’s face doesn’t meet his eyes, and I don’t miss his unspoken need to be right beside his woman.

“Cherry stems,” Legs blurts like she’s too ignorant to feel the tension swirling all around us. “Working on our mouth game.”

“Zoe,” Lynch says looking lovingly down at my best friend, “told me once you don’t need any practice.”

“Yick,” I spit and walk away before I’m privy to any more of their conversation.

Chuckles follow me across the room, but I stop before reaching the front door. I have no reason to step outside. There’s a rule about us being in the front of the building after dark. Zoe and I have both been warned that it’s dangerous, and the guys can’t protect us as easily out there. I know not to even try. No matter how distracted everyone in the clubhouse seems, I’m well aware someone is watching at any given time. If Briar isn’t out here, that means the duty has switched to someone else.

Glancing over my shoulder, I see, sure enough, that Ronan has his eyes on me. Making eye contact is a mistake, but he lets me off easy, simply raising his beer in either a salute or a challenge.

I let my curiosity go for now. I’ll talk to Briar about it when we have the chance later.

I can’t go home just yet, so I’m forced to grab a bottle of water from Mac at the bar and sit on the only sofa that isn’t occupied by horny people and wait. No matter where my eyes wander, I’m slapped in the face with sex.

Kai winks at me as he bounces on Professor’s dick across the room. Ronan has his eyes closed as Minx sucks him off, but I know he’s still very aware of where I am in the room. Lynch and Zoe are in some tangle at the pub table with Legs as Xena watches on, not even bothering to hide her hand under her skirt.

The entire clubhouse is sexually charged, and here I am a voyeur without permission to participate. I’m normally not even in the thick of it like I am right now, but I have to wait for Lynch and Zoe to disappear for the night before I can join Briar. I sit, hoping he’ll shower and come back, but that doesn’t happen.

I’m aching, knowing exactly what Vixen is feeling as Boston licks her to climax.

“Molly.” Guiltily, my eyes snap up to Ronan’s. “Why don’t you head home?”

I nod, thinking that’s the best idea, for now, only to look over to where Lynch and Zoe were to find them gone.

“Night,” I mutter, relishing in the fact that he’s facing away from the hallway and Mac is busy restocking the beer fridge.

Slipping unnoticed down the hallway, I let myself into Briar’s room with my keycard. I don’t know how long I’ve been playing peeping Tom with all the action in the living room, but I find Briar face-down passed out on his bed. His pillow is damp from his hair, forming a dark ring on the normally cream-colored fabric.

Slipping my shoes and clothes off, I climb on the bed with him, covering his muscled back with my softer body. The heat of his skin is something I’ve been longing for all damn night, and I release a whoosh of relieved breath as I settle on him.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” he grumbles into his pillow, but he doesn’t move to push me away.

“What happened tonight?” I ask against his warm skin.

“I fucked up.”

He doesn’t explain or elaborate further, and I know he won’t.

Club business is never discussed. Women in the MC life are supposed to take everything at face value. The men’s word is law, and we aren’t to question any of it. Those that do don’t last very long around here.

“I need you,” I tell him instead, with a slow swivel of my hips against him.

Certain the move would shoot him into action, I’m incredibly disappointed when he just stays still, lying underneath me like my weight doesn’t even register.

“Tell me what’s wrong, so I can fix it,” I whisper in his ear.

“You need to leave.”

His words aren’t a suggestion, but an order, ones I know he’ll physically enforce if I don’t comply on my own.

With the threat of tears burning behind my eyes, I climb off of him and scramble back into my clothes.

“You touch me, then push me away, over and over,” I spit, finding my spine somewhere between tugging on my dress and slipping my feet into my sandals. “One of these days I’m not going to come crawling back.”

I let the empty threat hang in the air as I leave his room. We both know I’d turn around and walk right into his arms if he opened his door and demanded it of me. That thought keeps me standing in the hallway for a long moment before finally giving up and heading out the back to the house.

Silence greets me as I step through the back door. Zoe and Lynch must still be playing at the clubhouse because there aren’t any sounds coming from upstairs, and they don’t entertain people in our home.

“Thank fuck for that,” I mutter to myself as I climb the stairs to my own room.

Overcome with my own exhaustion from the day, I don’t even bother to undress as I fall into bed. I’m tired from staying up late at the bar last night and returning only to go to Briar. My nap earlier wasn’t nearly as long as I would’ve liked, but it’s the push and pull from the man I love that seeps into my bones and leaves me weary.

I knew this thing between us wouldn’t be easy, but the second I think I finally have him, he pushes me away again. How can we successfully fight everyone with an opinion about us when he’s fighting against us too?

It’s that thought and the realization that we may not make it that carries me into a fitful sleep.