Page 34 of Brash for It (Hellions Ride On #11)

Sixteen

Pretty Boy

I roll in slow and let the motor idle long enough for the room to hear it and settle. Hellions look up the way wolves do when a twig snaps—every head, then the collective exhale when it’s one of ours. I kill the engine. The quiet goes as quickly as it came.

Kristen swings off the back, helmet under her arm, shoulders square.

She’s dressed like herself, not like an idea of a biker girl, loose black tee, jeans, boots she’s still breaking in but already walking like she is comfortable in them.

She’s got her hair up, a few strands loose at her temples because the ride never listens to anyone’s plan.

She looks at the building the way she looked at the bridge the first time on my bike, like she knows it could swallow her or save her, and she’s still deciding which one she’ll let it do.

“You ready?” I ask. Doesn’t matter that the answer’s yes. I like to hear it.

“Ready,” she says, and the little curve at her mouth is brave and real.

I take her hand. Not a show. Not a claim.

Something in me that steadies when her fingers are entwined with mine.

We step inside and walk into the rolling chorus of “Kellum,” “Brother,” the nods that do more than words.

Tripp’s behind the bar pretending he’s a professional; Boomer’s leaning on the end like he’s about to make a bad decision and wants witnesses.

Two prospects pop up from a table like they are waiting for a pop quiz.

“Easy,” I say, which is me being polite for back off.

Tripp grins around a toothpick, his eyes locked to Doll.

Even after thirty years together, he still can’t get enough of her.

I didn’t understand it before. But having Kristen, I get it now.

“Kristen,” he greets. “This is her?” he asks me for confirmation knowing that at sermon, I let the club know, she is claimed.

“That’s her,” I smirk proudly, and the room stretches around the sentence, curious and respectful, because these men know the difference between a woman on a Friday and a woman you walk through this door hand in hand with a claim.

“Welcome,” Tripp says to Kristen, and he means it. “Beer? Water? Lemonade outta a bottle that claims to be hard but tastes like a kid’s drink with too much sugar?”

She laughs, the sound clean in this place that’s heard a lot worse. “Water, please.”

He flicks a bottle cap toward the trash and doesn’t watch it land because it always does.

“Smart girl,” he says, sliding it across.

Then he locks his blue eyes to hers, “thanks, Kristen. Real deal. You took your man’s back and did what every brother wants his ol’ lady to do.

When the time came, you called in the calvary and didn’t hesitate to rely on this family.

This welcome is so you know this family is yours too.

Anything, anytime, we ride out for you as hard as we do for him.

” Her face softens and I know his words settle deep in her heart.

I do my rounds. Names, nods, hands. I keep her next to me, not because I think she’ll run, but because an introduction is less about words and more about letting the room learn your place and hers is always with me.

She keeps pace, offers a hello that isn’t too soft or too sharp.

She stands easy under eyes that have measured better and worse.

We linger by the patch wall. Old cuts retired and framed, memorial patches in a neat row that can make a man’s chest tight if he lets them.

Kristen reads with her fingertips, not touching, just tracing the air in front of the names.

She gets quiet in that way she does when the moment asks for respect.

Tommy comes in late, sunlight knifing the room for a second behind him before the door thumps shut. My brother in blood and patch. Taller than me by a hair, broader by a little, bad ideas by a mile. He sees me first, then sees her, then does the lazy grin that is all Tommy Boy.

He approaches like he’s got a mission on his mind. Gives me a chin. Gives Kristen a once-over that’s not gross, just protective in the way men get when they loved you before you learned to love someone else.

“Tommy,” I greet, the word half greeting, half warning.

“Brother.” He sticks out a hand to Kristen. “Good to see you, Kristen.”

She shakes it. “You’re the youngest right?”

He nods and smirks, “I’m not the favorite. That’s your man.” He jokes. He lets go of her hand, but he doesn’t leave. His smile’s there and not. He’s thinking. I can read it on him Then he taps the bar with two fingers—his way of asking for a minute—and looks at me. “Mind if I steal her for a sec?”

I mind.

Fuck yes, I mind.

I say nothing because I also know the reason.

I tip my head at Kristen, a question. She answers with a small nod, the kind that tells me she’s okay.

She sets her water on a coaster like manners matter and lets Tommy lead her two steps to the side, into the shadow of the patch wall where the air always smells like leather and feels wrapped in ghosts.

I follow far enough to give the illusion of privacy, but close enough to hear if it goes sideways, and always near enough to make them both aware of my presence without turning it into a scene.

Tommy hooks a thumb in his belt, tilts his head.

“I’m not gonna do the big-brother thing, because I’m the baby brother” he says to her, voice low, teasing but not.

He is, absolutely, about to do the big-brother thing.

“I’ll just ask you straight. Are you in this for real?

Or was he your way out of a bad relationship? ”

Kristen doesn’t flinch. She takes her time.

Looks at him, then at me, then back to him.

“Yes, he’s my way out and I’m free.” She deadpans and I swear my brother gets stuck in place.

“Breathe, Tommy.” She smiles. “I’m kidding.

I’m in this like I’ve never been before.

We share things equally with each other.

We have a real give and take. The scales are balanced. He steadies me.”

While we haven’t expressed this huge declaration, I don’t need it. Her actions speak louder than any words and no one has taken my back like her.

He visibly relaxes at her confession. “I’ve never seen him like this,” Tommy goes on. “Not once. Not even close. And I don’t want him bleeding out on my floor because someone wanted a ride and a story.”

I bite down on a retort because I’m trying to be a man who allows my woman to handle her own until she wants me to step in.

Kristen’s chin lifts. “I’m not here for a story.”

“What are you here for?”

She doesn’t stutter instead she smiles softly.

“Because with him, I’m a person. Not a picture.

Not a trophy. Not a mirror for somebody else’s ego.

” She swallows, small but sure. “I’ve never felt treasured,” she says, and the word lands like a clean bell.

“But not in a way that means ‘owned.’ No, with Kellum it’s more.

It’s seen. Honored. He makes space for me.

He doesn’t take it. And I love the woman he allows me to be because he’s the man he is and there isn’t fluff to him.

What you see is what you get. He’s brash and I treasure the frankness because I don’t have to wonder if I’m mixed up in a game no one gave me the rules to. ”

I feel that where air should be. My hands curl wanting to have her in my arms again.

Tommy watches her face the way a man watches a weld to see if it’s going to hold. “And you know what this is,” he says, nodding at the room, at the wall, at me. “You know what it asks to be with a Hellion?”

“I do,” she says. She doesn’t look away from him.

“It asks for honesty. For presence. For knowing that there are nights he won’t be here when I want him, and mornings where the world will call him before I do.

It asks for patience with things I don’t get to know.

And it asks for the truth when the truth is ugly.

” Her mouth curves, not sweet. Strong. “I can do that. I am doing that.”

Tommy’s gaze flicks to me because he’s checking whether the words line up with what he’s seen. I give him nothing except my face, which apparently says too much because he huffs like a man who believed this minute would come, but hoped it wouldn’t.

“And him?” he says, back to her. “You hurt him, and I?—”

I step in before the sentence finishes because I’m done letting it be said near her. “Enough.”

Tommy turns, a little surprised, a little not. “Brother?—”

“I wouldn’t bring her here if it wasn’t real.

” The words come out harder than I intend.

I don’t soften them. “I don’t parade women through this door.

I don’t test-drive them against the bar.

If she’s in this room, she’s mine. If she’s mine, she’s not your concern in what happens with me and her. That’s ours.”

Tommy’s eyes narrow, not angry, measuring. “She’s family when she’s in this room. That makes her my concern.”

“Then treat her like it,” I snap. “Not like a thief casing the place. Worry about her feelings as much as you do mine.”

The room goes quiet a foot or two around us without anyone meaning to. It’s not tension so much as attention—men doing the math on whether this is going to blow into something stupid.

Kristen sets a hand on my forearm. Not a tug. A touch. “It’s okay,” she says, soft enough that it’s just for me. “He’s doing his job. I wouldn’t respect him if he didn’t.”

“My job is to look out for you,” I remind, and I can hear the heat in my own voice and I don’t have anywhere good to aim it. “And I am.”

“I know,” she whispers. “So is he. If I’m not cut out for this, better to let me go now.”

Tommy interjects, “good for you fools she’s fuckin’ made for your ass. Welcome to the family, Kristen.”

I breathe. It feels like I’ve been holding it since the door opened. Tommy lifts both palms, a sign he’s not looking for a fight today. He looks at Kristen again, and something in his face shifts a fraction. Respect, maybe. Or the beginning of it.

“Happy for you. For real.” He offers his hand again, and this time when she takes it, it’s different—two people agreeing to try and find middle ground together.

“Thank you,” she replies, and I can hear the sincerity under it that makes men like Tommy soften against their will.

Red slaps the bar, Tripp exhales, and the room’s noise comes back like someone hit play. I slide an arm around Kristen’s waist because I want to and because the animal inside me is pacing to mark her as mine .

“You good?” I ask into her hair.

“Good,” she says, and then tips up on her toes to brush her mouth against my jaw like a punctuation mark I didn’t know I needed.

I finish the rounds quick because the more she appeals to my family, the more the need to taste her, have her builds inside me. The night passes and eventually I catch Tripp’s eye and tilt my head toward the door. He reads the exit I was giving him .

Casually, he calls out, “She fits.”

“She does,” I say to no one in particular.