Biker Stepbrother - Part Three (2 page)

“Can’t wait to see Little Nash,” I said as I climbed off his bike. We’d arrived back in Bolton, Nevada early that afternoon. After a quick bite to eat at a local diner, Gray took us to the apartment he shared with his younger brother.

“Just don’t call him Little,” Gray said, cocking his head to the side. “He hates that.”

I laughed, trying to picture Little Nash all grown up. I could only imagine what he looked like as a young man in his early twenties. He was just a kid last time I’d seen him. Then again, so was I.

We climbed two flights of stairs, my fingers tracing the white stucco of the building and feeling the pits and holes of the textured exterior.

“You have air conditioning?” I asked. The heat of the midday sun had caused my hair to cling to the back of my neck.

“Window unit,” he said. “Should be running. Nash likes it ice cold in there.”

I recalled how hot and musty our trailer was growing up. One day it got so bad, Little Nash had heat stroke. Big Nash and Mom weren’t going to take him in but Gray insisted on it. He loaded him up in a wagon and attached it to his bike and peddled him down to the Bolton ER. Little Nash could’ve died that night, but Gray saved him. When we got back, Mom had several old, rickety box fans going covered in tattered towels that’d been dipped in cold water. The place felt slightly cooler, but the air was still a million degrees when we weren’t perfectly still.

The next day child protective services came by wondering why Big Nash didn’t take Little Nash himself. He made up some story about being at work, and since he was self-employed, they were never able to verify that none of it was true.

“Does Nash know I’m coming?” I asked.

Gray shook his head as he slid his key into the lock and twisted it to the right. “Nope.”

I smiled, excited to surprise him. The door flew open, and boy, did I surprise him.

“What the fuck…” Nash sat looking up, legs spread wide in a chair that was much too small for him. The little boy with a mop of dirty blond hair had grown into a strapping man almost as big as Gray. He didn’t seem happy to see me. At all.

“Nash, you remember Everly,” Gray said, stepping aside.

I hurried towards him, instinctively wanting to throw my arms around him as if our time together meant as much to him as it did to me. But he stared, frozen-faced and unmoving.

Gray walked over and kicked his foot.

“Shit. Ow. The fuck you do that for?” Nash scratched his head.

“Be proper,” Gray said, a bite in his voice like a father teaching his son a lesson.

Nash rose up slowly from his chair to the point where he was staring down at me. He was a handsome young man, not nearly as much as Gray, but good looking enough that he probably didn’t have much trouble getting women. His lips twisted into an arrogant smile.

“Good seeing you, Everly.” He looked me up and town, his eyes stopping on my breasts. “Been a long, long time.”

“Do you even remember me?” I asked.

“Vaguely.”  His words hurt, but I couldn’t blame him. He was a product of his environment and he was so young back then. I didn’t hold it against him for wanting to blacken out those dark memories. He turned to his brother. “Meeting’s in two hours at the club.”

An antagonizing flicker in his eye caught my attention and gave me a quick shiver. There was something almost sinister about this version of Nash. The one who was all grown up yet still a young pup. The one who’d spent his entire life living in the shadows of his protective big brother yet who had enough influence to make Gray do something, no questions asked.

My stomach churned.

“Everly, can you excuse us for a second?” Gray asked. He pointed down the hallway. “My bedroom’s the last door on the right.”

I felt Nash’s eyes on me as I left their presence, and not in a good way. Something felt…off. I entered Gray’s room and shut the door. The room was sparse and spotless, completely opposite of the conditions he’d grown up with. I imagined it was all intentional. Sort of like a “fuck you” to his shitty childhood.

I heard their hushed whispers through the paper-thin walls of the apartment, though I couldn’t make out what was being said. It was heated, whatever the topic was. Within minutes, Gray came in and slammed the door, his shoulders hunched and tense.

“Everything okay?” I asked gingerly.

He took a seat on the bed, and I crawled into his lap, hooking my arm behind his head.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Nash seems…different,” I said. “I guess I didn’t expect him to be such a…”

“Little prick?”

“Your words, not mine.”

“I did the best I could,” Gray said. The burden of raising Nash fell on a man much too young to know how to do it right.

“I know you did.” I rubbed his back. “You really think Nash doesn’t remember me much?”

Gray shook his head. “He remembers you. He just doesn’t want to admit it. He hates talking about that time in our lives.”

I couldn’t shake that feeling. That ‘off’ feeling that leeched onto me the second I was around Nash. His eyes were damn near evil, and he gave me the chills. How did Gray not pick up on that?

“Listen,” I sighed. “I don’t think you should go to that meeting.”

“What?”

“I have a bad feeling…”

Gray rolled his eyes. “Stop being like that, Everly. You think I can’t hold my own?”

“I know you can,” I said. “But if it’s a set up then…?”

“You think my own brother would set me up?”

I nodded, not wanting to utter the words in case they’d upset him too much.

“I don’t think he would,” Gray said. His brows furrowed, and he seemed lost in thought for a moment.

“Stay here,” I said. “I’m not asking either. We can slip out of here and ride away. Never look back. Don’t you want to wash your hands of all this club shit anyway? You’re better than them. You’re better than all those men who walk around like their shit’s bigger than everyone else’s shit.”

He smirked, amused. “It’s kinda cute how you look out for me, but trust me. I don’t need you to.”

He stood up and unloaded the content of his pockets onto his dresser top. I leaned back on his bed, scooting my way towards the headboard. Gray tugged his shirt off over his head and threw it into a laundry basket on the floor. A thick, gnarled scar across his shoulder blade served to remind me of a balmy Sunday afternoon when the three of us were kids. We’d been playing outside and Nash and I had gotten into it. We were fighting over a GI Joe or something stupid like that. Nash hit me across the face, drawing blood from my lip. Gray went into a black out rage when he saw it happen and clocked Nash across the face a good three or four times before walking away. We’d thought Nash ran into the house, but he’d run off to the shed and grabbed a pair of garden shears.

He’d waited until we were back to playing and then he popped out from behind the shed and clipped the back of Gray’s shirt with it, only he clipped too deep and cut into his flesh. I’d never heard anyone yell so loudly, and to see my tough older brother in so much pain that he was writhing on the ground like he was dying brought tears to my eyes.

Big Nash and Mom came flying out from behind the screen door but the garden shears were long gone and Nash was standing there like he’d done nothing. Like he’d just approached the scene. I was just a kid. We all were. But I couldn’t believe Nash could just wipe the emotion clean off his face like that.

Gray climbed into bed with me. We’d ridden for most of the day and in the hot sun and on desert highways. He rolled over towards me and his lips curled into a devious smirk as his eyes trekked downwards, over the length of my body.

He wanted to put the conversation to bed so that he could bed me. Memories of the night before flooded my body, mind, and soul, setting me on fire and making me want nothing more than to feel his thick, veiny cock deep inside me once again. I squeezed my knees together before releasing them and spreading my legs for his hand, inviting him to fuck me once again.

I supposed she had a point. Nash wasn’t really himself lately and I’d been too wrapped up in my own shit to really pay much attention. But it was the way he reacted to seeing Everly that really threw me for a loop. That wasn’t like him. He was usually a bit of an ass, but not to that degree. He looked at her like she wasn’t welcome, and I’d never seen him give anyone that sort of look unless they were from a rival gang.

But I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to bury my face in her tits and pussy and fuck her head into the headboard. I wanted to fuck her so hard we’d break the bed, and then I wanted to do it all over again.

I wanted to taste her. Touch her. Feel her curvaceous body beneath mine. I wanted to fuck her six ways to Sunday and eat her pussy until she begged me to stop.

“Gray,” she moaned as I lowered myself between her thighs and tugged off her pants. I peered up as she squeezed her eyes shut and bit her full bottom lip. She wanted it just as bad.

We’d only been reunited less than a week, but already I knew I could never be without her for the rest of my life. She made me feel whole and happy and loved. Things I’d never felt before, at least not to that degree.

My tongue swirled her clit as my fingers pried apart her folds. A sweet musk escaped her warmth and invaded my lungs. When I was finished, I crawled up to her and unbuckled my belt. Instinctively she grabbed my cock and palmed it, bringing it towards her lips.

“God, you have the most fuckable lips I’ve ever seen,” I sighed. I straddled her, my hands braced upon the wall behind the bed as she sucked the length of my cock. Warm and moist and fast, she loved every inch of me.

I thought about stopping the impending load I was about to blow all over the inside of her fuckable mouth, but I didn’t. I let it happen. I spewed hot cum inside her wet and waiting mouth, and watched as she swallowed it with a smile, wiping her lips when she was finished.

I slipped my hands down to her wet pussy, massaging it briefly. “I’ve got
big
plans for that tonight.”

She bit her lip and pulled me closer, avoiding my mouth. Smart girl. No man wants to taste his own dick. She kissed my neck and dug her fingers into the muscles of my back, as if she couldn’t get close enough to me.

I lay next to her and wrapped us up in warm covers, settling in for a good nap before my big meeting. I didn’t wanted to think about anything else but her, and as it seemed, nothing else was as important as she was.

As soon as Nash helped set the guy straight, I fully intended on turning in my cut and driving away with Everly on the back of my hog. I wasn’t sure where I’d take her. Someplace safer than Bolton and shitty lives we’d had, that was all I knew.

“Where you going?” I asked, as I felt the bed shift. The warm spot next to me where Gray had been napping next to me the last couple hours was replaced with cool air. In the impending darkness of the afternoon, I watched as he slipped his pants back on. The clink of his buckles filled the silence between us.

“You know I have that meeting.”

“You’re really going?”

“Mmhm.”

I sat up and kicked my feet out from the covers, rushing to his side. “Please, Gray. Don’t do this.”

“I have to clear my name. I won’t live the rest of my life paying for the sins of another man.” His jaw clenched as he spoke through gritted teeth. I knew he was a man who stood up for himself and those he cared about, but I couldn’t allow it when his life was at risk.

My stomach twisted in a million tiny knots as I thought about the sinister eyes of Little Nash Daughtry who wasn’t so little anymore. He was a grown man with a blackened heart and a ruthless agenda. I just knew it.

“I won’t let you.” I dug my heels firmly into the dingy carpet and crossed my arms, cocking my head up to meet his determined gaze with mine.

We locked eyes, but we may have been locking horns. We were both determined to get what we wanted, but only one of us was going to.

“You saved my life once,” I said. “Let me save yours.”

He shook his head and smiled.

“I’m not trying to be cute, Gray,” I said. “I mean it. Let’s leave town. Let’s ride away together and never come back.”

“We will.” He forced a heavy sigh. “As soon as I get back.”

My lip trembled and my eyes watered. “But what if you don’t come back?”

He tilted his head to the side and cupped the side of my face with his hand. “I’ll come back. I promise.”

“Would you lie to me, Gray?”

“Never.”

“You just did.” I stepped away, letting his hand fall. “You can’t promise me you’ll come back and you know it.”

For a man who’d done all right defending himself his entire life, he must’ve let it get to his head. I knew he didn’t intentionally lie to me, but it still pissed me off.

“You really need to pull your head out of your ass, you know that?” I huffed. “You are not invincible.”

“You’re just being…” he began to say before he stopped.

“What? I’m just being a woman?” I said. “Man, you sound just like your daddy. Big Nash would be so proud of you right now.”

I watched as his face contorted into an angry expression, like I’d pressed a hot button. But I didn’t care in that moment. I knew I was right. I wasn’t backing down.

“Take that back,” he seethed.

“I’ll take it back the second you stop acting like Big Nash,” I shrugged, crossing my arms tight.

Gray rushed up on me, backing me against the wall behind us, his face mere centimeters from mine. My heart pounded rapidly in my chest as I’d never seen this side of him directed at me before. I peered up at him through my eyelashes and forced ice water through my veins. He could yell at me all he wanted, but I refused to let him walk out that door and into the hands of a gang of men who’d been led to believe he murdered their leader.

“The second you walk out of here, you’re as good as dead,” I said.

“I will not be a coward,” he said, enunciating each syllable. “I will not run.”

“If you leave, you’re a coward to me,” I said. “You’re afraid to be with me. You’re afraid to be happy. You’re afraid to live a life different than the only one you’ve known.”

“So we’re making this about you now?” He backed up a bit, placing his hands wide on his hips as he looked me square in the face.

“It’s not about me, Gray. It’s about us. Our future. The life we both want to live. The one we can only live with each other,” I said. “You’re afraid you’re going to be happy with me and that someday, out of the blue, I’ll be gone. Every woman you’ve ever loved has left you in some way.”

He pursed his lips, remaining silent.

“I think you’d rather risk your life and die than face an uncertain future with me,” I spewed. “And for that, Gray Daughtry, you are a coward.”

He rushed up against me once more, pressing his barrel chest against me and pinning me to the wall as his hand gripped my face. “I’m not a coward.”

“I’m never going to leave you.”

The silence between us was deafening as I awaited his response. “You mean that?”

I closed my eyes and licked my lips. “With every fiber of my being, Gray Daughtry. I will never leave you.”

“You want this life? You want a life on the run with me?”

I couldn’t imagine a life without him. “What choice to I have? I want to be with you. I’d rather be on the run with you than spend the rest of my life without you in it.”

“Damn it, Everly,” he sighed. I could feel his walls crumbling down one brick at a time. His eyes danced into mine and without warning his hot lips claimed my mouth. His hips pinned against the wall once again, and a dip in my stomach made me yearn for another roll in the sheets with Gray and his thick cock.

I came up for air. “So you’re going to take me away from here and never look back?”

He lowered his forehead against my shoulder, breathing me in and groaning. But before he had time to answer, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

“Gray,” he answered. “Yep. Uh huh. Really. Alright.”

He hung up and my eyes searched his for answers.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he grabbed some clothes and stuffed them in his bag as I redressed. I asked no questions. Judging by the way he was moving and the grim tone in his voice, I figured I’d have my answers and ask my questions when we were far away from Bolton.

We left his room, Gray quietly searching for a sign of Nash but it appeared we were alone. Nash was probably already at the clubhouse, waiting for him. Within minutes we were saddled up on the back of Gray’s bike and roaring down the highway, leaving Bolton. Gray didn’t look back, not once.

We stopped at a little diner outside Reno a few hours later, my head ringing slightly from the vibrations of the road. It felt good to be on solid ground again. The second we were cozied in a little booth in the corner, I opened my mouth to ask Gray what the hell was going on. But he beat me to it.

“You were right,” he said, peering over his menu. “It was a set up.”

My hand flew across my heart as a rush of blood filled my head. It was one thing to suspect it, but another to hear that it really was the case. “Oh, my God, Gray. So Nash really set you up?”

He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Always knew that fucker would try to pull one over on me someday. Didn’t think it’d be so soon.”

“What is wrong with him?” I scrunched my face, trying to wrap my head around it. “You fucking raised him. You protected him. You sheltered him. Why would he …?”

“He was a power-hungry greedy little motherfucker,” Gray said. “I guess he figured if he killed Big Nash and set me up to take the fall, he’d get to take over the club. You don’t see a lot of twenty-one year old pencil dicks running big operations like Hell Valley MC. Guess he couldn’t wait his turn.”

“But you weren’t going to take over anyway, right?” I asked. “You wanted out of that life.”

“I did,” he huffed, seeming slightly amused at the irony of the situation. He set the menu down and polished his silverware. “Kid never did have any patience. Look where it got him.”

“Who called you earlier?”

“Buck Hackthorn,” he said. “Of all people. He figured out he was being used to bait me. Said he’d make sure everyone knew the truth about Nash.”

“Huh,” I said, staring off. “So what’s going to happen to Nash?”

Gray lifted his eyes to meet mine, a devilish grin on his face. “You know? For the first time in my life, I really don’t give a fuck what happens to him.”

The waitress came and took our orders, and we dropped the topic.

As years would pass, we’d never talk about our old lives. They were nothing but a chapter in a book we’d read a lifetime ago and never intended to revisit again. We left the diner that day and traveled the country until we settled upon a small mill town in the foothills of Tennessee.

Gray took a job working for a farmer and I opened up a small graphic design business, catering to all the locals. We married a couple summers after that on a sprawling acreage owned by one of my clients. Two kids later, both daughters, we were settled into the most beautiful life we could’ve ever imagined for ourselves. It was a simple life, nothing chaotic or terribly excited, but it was ours.

I’d reached out to Tammy-Dawn before Gray and I married. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But she wouldn’t have anything to do with it and refused to come. A few years later, she came knocking on our door with suitcases packed. Apparently Sterling caught her screwing the gardener and took all of three seconds to have her escorted off the premises and served her with divorce papers shortly thereafter.

Gray said we had to be hospitable and show her kindness, though he promised me it was temporary. We encouraged her to get a job and get on her feet, though she ended up on her back again. She found some widowed horse rancher across the state and we never saw her again after that. Tammy-Dawn could always take care of herself, so we never did worry much.

Nash was convicted of his father’s murder shortly after we fled Bolton. It was rare for an MC to get the authorities involved, but apparently Buck’s nephew was a local deputy and he had a way to bring justice to the little prick without jeopardizing the secrecy of the club’s activities. I’d be lying if I said we didn’t do a happy dance the moment we found out about Nash serving a life sentence.

In the quiet, still moments as we sat on our front porch and watched our daughters play in the yard, we took solace in knowing that everything turned out exactly the way it was supposed to and that all was well.

How could it not be? We found each other again and neither of us were ever letting go.