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Chapter Seven

Jax

I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t think.

I couldn’t even breathe without tasting her smell on my lips.

Two beers and three shots of vodka later and I couldn’t get her off me, the feeling of her hair tangled in my hands, her tears sunken into the ink of my skin, her warmth seeping deep into my bones.

I had to fight the itching and burning to scrape away the traces of her presence. Had to pretend that I didn’t feel the regret weighing like lead in my stomach. Had to fight the urge to let the thoughts screaming in the back of my mind come forth.

As desperate as my fight may have been, it couldn’t stop the awareness creeping through.

I knew what this was. I knew these feelings. I’d seen them a thousand times in the hearts of my brothers and I could pretend that their fate wouldn’t be awaiting me, but I was smart enough to know better.

But that was where my intelligence ended. If I had anymore, I would have never touched Ronnie. I would have pushed her away the second she wrapped her arms around me and I wouldn’t have looked back.

But I hadn’t done that. And the second I embraced her, I felt it all.

Wanting to give her everything she could ever need. Wanting to protect her from any harm that dare come her way. Wanting to be all she could ever want.

She’d never affected me like this when she was younger. I had known her from the age of zero to seventeen and had pulled her out of trouble over a hundred times the entire way up. Whether she got herself stuck in a tree or almost accidentally buried herself alive, I’d had to drag her ass kicking and screaming all the way. And then she’d fallen in love with me. Puberty came and instead of me dragging her out of trouble, she was on my heels following me headfirst into it. I hadn’t cared, I was good-looking, and she had been three years younger than me. A bullheaded girl in need of a few more brain cells.

But this… woman wasn’t the same girl. She was still stubborn and liked to run her mouth, finding trouble wherever she went, but she wasn’t walking in my footsteps anymore. She was by my side, out of my shadow and glowing with her own light, making me look in her direction.

I hated it.

Even if I knew, and even if I was aware of what was growing deep inside me, there were some feelings like that I couldn’t just erase. Things that couldn’t be unwritten from our past.

Ronnie betrayed me. She had decided not to trust and follow me, proving her love for me was nothing more than a childhood crush. And when she’d chosen that place over me… I couldn’t.

“Shit,” I hissed, taking my shot from the side of the bar and tossing it back.

“You going to spit it out?” A voice cut from my side, and I found a graceful, redheaded queen saddling up to me.

“Depends on how you taste.” I winked, making Kay roll her eyes.

“My dead husband will be turning in his grave,” she scoffed, taking the bottle from my hand and pouring her own shot of vodka. She took it without a bat of an eyelash and although Kay was an older woman, she didn’t have any trouble keeping the hens in this godforsaken club in line, or taking a shot.

Kay put down her glass before reaching over, grabbing my forearm and dragging it in front of her. Gentle, long fingers skimmed across the skin on my arms, inspecting the bare stripes cutting through my tribal tattoos. “These parts might scar,” she said, pointing to the bits of red skin crisscrossing over the apex of my muscle. “But the rest should heal fine. You can get your tattoos redone once you’re fully healed. Do try to keep them out the sun, though.”

“But what if I end up with a patchy tan,” I gasped, though the end may have slurred slightly.

“You men and your vanity.” She shook her head, giving my arm a good slap before releasing it. I winced and hoped to God that Kay thought I was kidding because that fucking hurt like a bitch.

She scoffed at my reaction, and I managed to get away with my dignity intact as she walked away from me.

“Oh, Jax,” Kay called, causing me to spin on my chair. “Sober up, you’re on carpool duty tonight.”

I looked down to the shot Pipe refilled, the sucker quite happy to remain quiet behind the bar as I had been trying to drink myself into oblivion.

“There’s a perfectly capable prospect right there!” I whined, jerking my thumb at Pipe, his near bald head turning in my direction.

The fucker had enough nerve to grin back at me and said, “I can’t drive.”

“You liar,” I snorted. “You’ve got your Harley sitting right out fucking side.”

“I can ride,” Pipe explained. “But I can’t drive. I don’t have a license for a car.”

I knew Jeremiah was a stickler for rules, and if he caught our recruit driving several drunk girls home, he’d be all too happy to lock him up for a night or two.

I threw my hands up at him. “What the fuck good are you, then?” I cried in defeat as my arms collapsed down onto the bar. I looked at my shot, the surface rippling with the impact of my arms.

Pipe saw it as well, and just as I saw the fucker’s big fat hands reach for it, I snatched it from the bar and took it so fast, I nearly swallowed the glass with it.

“Jax!” Kay hissed from her spot away from me. Had she been any closer, she probably would have slapped me for that too.

“Don’t sass me, woman,” I grunted, sticking my tongue out at her. “I’m going to need it.”

* * *

F ive hours later, I was proved right. Unfortunately, I had a high tolerance for alcohol and the vodka might as well have been water as I was cruising down the main road in Hunter’s brand-new cage I had to pay for last week, wishing that I was still drunk as the girls’ singing rang through my ears.

“Can I go bury myself in a hole yet?” I asked, turning to Mallory in the passenger seat, chuckling to herself as she watched the girls. At least I had one semi-sober.

“ Pineapples !” She broke out into a fit of giggles and I realized that perhaps I was alone on our journey home.

Whatever Mallory meant must have been an inside joke, because the whole rear end of the car shook as the girls broke out into hilarious fits of laughter, tears ruining their panda eyes and running mascara.

Mallory, Anna, Baby, and Georgia were living it up, and I was slowly dying.

Girls’ night sucked.

“Why me?” I whimpered, slamming my head into the steering wheel as we pulled up to a red light.

I watched in the rearview mirror as a black Jeep pulled up behind us, noticing Anna’s blonde hair, which stuck up in all sorts of directions thanks to the bar fight she’d be in. Some girl had made a comment that set all sorts of red lights in Anna’s eyes. According to Mallory, it had been something that made Anna think of Ash, and I didn’t push for an explanation after that. Anna had her problems she was working through and there was nothing we could do to help.

“Because you didn’t tell us that you’re a hot cowboy!” Mallory screeched into my ear, and at 4 a.m., that was not what I wanted to hear.

“Would you sleep with me if I’d told you that when I met you?”

I met Mallory on the same day as Hunter, having carted his truck over three state lines to pick up his hot-as-fuck baby momma and nephew.

“No,” Mallory scoffed. “Look but don’t touch has always been my motto.”

I couldn’t help my laugh at that one. If anybody heard Mallory’s life story, they’d soon learn that that quote was most certainly not Mallory’s motto. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble if it had been.

“Getting back to point.” Anna popped her head between us, looking frighteningly clear-headed as she stared at me through the rearview mirror. “When do we get to meet your mysterious girl?”

“You don’t,” I replied, cutting her off with a little more abruptness than I’d have liked.

Mallory looked at me like my eyes had fallen out of my head. Okay, maybe it was a bit more than I had intended.

“All right, whatever.” Anna waved her hands in defense, and thankfully, the light turned green and I put my foot down, forcing Anna to sit back.

Georgia and Baby watched the interaction but otherwise didn’t interfere. Where Mallory and Anna were old ladies in this club, which in some twisted way, gave them a free pass for sticking their head in my business and giving me shit for it, the club girls didn’t have the same luxury. Drunk or not, they understood that.

I took a turn toward the club and became very aware that the black Jeep that I’d seen at the lights had made every single turn we had. This was a small town and although it was possible that it was just coincidence, I had a bad feeling that it wasn’t.

“Mallory, call Hunter,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road as I pressed my foot down slow and steady on the gas. Anna’s head snapped one hundred and eighty degrees around, spotting the black Jeep behind us. Fortunately, the windows were tinted so they couldn’t see her suspicious activity.

“Shit,” she hissed, Baby and Georgia turning to look themselves.

“Who the fuck are these geezers?” Georgia snarled.

“No one good,” I growled, glaring at the car as it matched my urging speed. “Tell Hunter to have the gates open and ready,” I commanded to Mallory.

She was speaking fast into the phone and after Mallory repeated my message, she turned back to me, her red hair stuck to her damp face, eyes wide with worry. “Hunter said what’s up?”

I looked to each girl in the car as I saw the crossroad coming up ahead. “Y’all better hold on to something.”

Gravity lifted our stomachs as the girls tipped to one side; the right side of the car lifted from the ground as we swung around the corner, nearly sending us rolling into a building. I caught the breaks just in time and the jerk slammed us back onto all fours and shoved us forward.

I grunted at the impact, my foot jerking against the pedal. We were picking up speed but although the Jeep behind us was lagging, it made up for it due to the sheer size and weight of Hunter’s car.

I put all my knowledge into play as we swerved around corners, cut through wide alleyways, and blew past every red light.

Thank fucking God it is four in the morning.

I had given us a lead, and it felt like years passed before I saw the glaring lights and familiar wrought iron gates of the compound. I saw the men gathered in the parking lot, guns drawn, but I didn’t slow, and I didn’t hesitate.

I came crashing through the opening, scraping the car on the side of the metal and its horrifying shriek ending in seconds before the car skidded along the asphalt, and my foot slammed the breaks as I wrenched the hand break. We slid to a stop by the door, burning rubber assaulting my nose, sweat pouring from my skin, and the harsh, panicked breathing of every single passenger in the car.

I turned to look out my window, to see if he’d followed me, but the black Jeep was nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t get a chance to breathe before every door was yanked open and I and the girls were hauled out of the seats and out onto the concrete.

The old men were grabbing their women, and Mint was grabbing the club girls. Pipe had my arm as he helped me to stand, my legs unable to hold me as the adrenaline sank right out of me.

“What the fuck happened?” Wolf yelled to no one in general. “Who the fuck were they?”

I glanced to the dark city, the lights of a few distant homes and divided street lamps being the only thing visible from the compound. It was as if nothing had happened as Fellpeak stood in silence looking back at me.

“No fucking clue. I didn’t get a good look,” I grunted, dropping my ass to the concrete, too tired to stand. I leaned my back against the side of the truck feeling the ridges the fence left in the new paintwork as I tried to calm my heart rate.

“Black Jacks,” Anna breathed, leaning into Wolf’s side. “They were Black Jacks.”

“You saw them?” Wolf looked down at her, hair a ragged mess falling around his face, long beard not even close to brushing the apex of her head.

Anna nodded. “No doubt about it. What they didn’t cover in tattoos they’d covered in scars, Russian military garble.”

“So, they weren’t able to catch you?” Pretty frowned. “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?”

“It means they didn’t try to cut me off at all. They were planning to chase me the whole way here, but in our town with so many corners like ours, they had no way of catching up to me, not with the way they maneuvered.”

“Meaning?” Pretty prompted.

“That this is a warning,” Wolf growled, and every single hair on every brother’s body stood on end. Wolf was also our almost seven-foot tall club president. Our forefront man. When a man like that sounded threatened, it did things to the rest of us that nobody wanted to invoke.

“This war isn’t over,” he grumbled, looking at each and everyone one of us in the eye. “Church tomorrow morning.”

His hand wrapped around the back of Anna’s neck and he pulled her alongside him as he headed toward the club house, swinging open the doors and stepping inside, not before turning to look at us, the members without women and yelled, “And somebody move that fucking truck.”

Pipe’s hand squeezed my shoulder.

“Don’t worry, man, I got it.”

“You can’t drive, dip shit,” I grunted, getting to my feet.

“I said I can’t drive. Not legally anyway. I didn’t say I wasn’t able to.” He flashed me a smile and hopped into the driver’s side of the nearly demolished new truck—that I sure as shit wouldn’t be paying Hunter for, not again anyway—and watched him reverse the truck away from the long black skid marks leading from the gate to my amazing parking position and around to the back of the club house.

Motherfucker.

I watched him leave and felt the adrenaline seep out of my body, leaving it tired and exhausted and letting my mind sink into a restless line of thinking that sent shivers up my spine.

“Do you think that Jeep was following me or the girls?” I said.

Mint came up along my side, Baby and Georgia in tow behind him as his pale green eyes looked down the few inches into mine. “Well they sure as fuck didn’t come across either of you by accident.”

That’s what I am afraid of.

Mint took one more look at me before he said, “You got somewhere to be?”

I looked to the clubhouse, where most of the lights had come on like a beacon, casting a luminescent glow on my bike parked just outside the doors. “Yeah, brother,” I sighed, and Mint clasped my shoulder.

I heard a jingle before he tossed something at me. I caught it on reflex, my hand clasping around the group of keys. “Take mine.” Mint nodded over to the blue Harley a few bikes down. “You forgot to fill yours.”

“Thanks, man.” I gave him a slap on his shoulder, and he nodded back at me. Fuck, Mint was a good man, and from the looks of it, turning into a hell of a MC brother. Not just anyone would hand over the keys to bike so willingly. And it wasn’t because he didn’t care about it.

The bike was similar size to mine and fired her up and took her back onto the road, heading down the path I took every single day.

If they had been following me when I went out to pick up the girls from the club, then there was a high chance they had been following me elsewhere.

I couldn’t just shrug it off, not tonight. I had to do the one thing I had been avoiding doing all day.

I went back to Ronnie.