Devil's Angels Boxed Set: Bikers and Alpha Bad Boy Erotic Romance (33 page)

CHAPTER NINE

It was a little over an hour later, and not only were they late, but both their phones had been destroyed because, after the third call, Solomon had chucked both their phones across the room. Kat hadn't heard the break, too wrapped up in Solomon, but after the haze had faded, she noticed a bit of glass in the corner and two broken small, blinking screens.

"Relax, Kit-Kat," Solomon purred as he rested his hand on her hip and steered her towards the bar.

Kat stared up through her lashes at him, feeling a frown tug at her lips. Solomon Parker didn't play fair, he wasn't known to. That's why Kat knew she had to have her defenses up and ready and be sharp as a tack.

"Are you trying to take over my club?"

Kat felt Solomon's hand clench against her waist before he released it. "When did it become
your
club?"

"It's always been my club," Kat bit off, stopping to turn to Solomon. She put her hands on her hips. "My club, my friends, mine to protect."

They'd fucked. Big whoop. She wasn't about to become his love slave or bend to his every command. If he wanted the Free Guns, then he'd have to go through her. Kat wasn't about to turn the club over to Solomon so that the members could slip back into drugs, violence, and general debauchery.

The club meant more to her than her budding relationship; more to her than Solomon.

He stared at her for a long second, rainwater eyes judging her every move—assessing and calculating. When he spoke, it was quietly, probing her for answers. "And what if they don't hold you in the same light, Kat? What if the people you hold and trust most, are the ones who would so easily betray you?"

She knew what he was talking about, bringing it back up. When he'd been kneeling in front of her, prepared to die, no one had spoken up for him. Kat had been seconds from putting a bullet between his eyes, and all his cronies, all the ones who'd backed him up before had suddenly vanished.

Biting the inside of her lip, Kat knew that was a possibility in this situation, too. She might love the Free Guns—have some friends and enemies—but at the core being president meant being popular. And at the moment, Kat knew she wasn't that.

Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Kat looked down at the asphalt and tuned out the country music pouring out from the bar. "Then they weren't my friends at all and I'd really need to evaluate the term."

Solomon's face drew tight, his lips pulling wide in what only the devil would call a smile. "'Reevaluate' would be the last thought on your mind, Kit-Kat. Betrayal always stays with a person—a cut that never heals. Few people are exceptions to the rule."

A shiver raced down her back as he said the last line, his eyes boring into her as his meaning penetrated. Solomon Parker had just told her he forgave her for nearly killing him, but she knew it would be the one and only time he would extend that particular emotion to her.

Turning away from the man who was beginning to affect her heart, to the place that had always had it, she spoke: “We should head inside.”

***

“Shut up, bitch! You’re the one that nearly killed him!” The insult was hurled across the rowdy room and directly at Kat, but she barely heard it above the other screams and shouts for her resignation and the screams and shouts for her to stay president.

It had been an uphill battle since she’d walked into the bar with Solomon beside her. Someone had hissed out, “How could you forgive that bitch after what she did to you?” And then the insults had started flying.

At first, Kat had tried to settle everyone down, but when that hadn’t worked she’d let the anger run its course. Now, 15 minutes later, she was sick of waiting for the Free Guns to quiet and pull their heads out of their asses.

Taking in a deep breath, Kat climbed up on the bar ledge—careful of drinks—and turned to address her club. “Come on, guys, that’s enou—”

The sound of glass breaking to her right sent a shiver down her spine. Kat turned to see one of Solomon’s big, burly biker cronies charging towards the bar with a broken bottle in one hand and murder in his eyes. Kat forgot the man’s name, but she knew he didn’t like her. She’d turned down his advances a number of times and kicked him in the crotch when he’d gotten a little too handsy. Here was the perfect opportunity for his restriction.

But, with a series of swift moves, Solomon was up and sitting beside her on the bar with one foot on a stool and his gun out and pointed at the man. Every voice in the bar grinded to a halt as Solomon clocked his gun warningly at the man who used to be his friend and very casually, very deliberately snaked his hand around Kat’s waist and pulled her onto his lap.

Tension crawled against Kat’s skin as she looked over the faces of people who had taught her and helped her find herself; most looked shocked, some betrayed, and a few… disappointed. The disappointment hurt the worst. It wasn’t as if people hadn’t known she’d slept with Solomon Parker, but it was one thing to imagine it had happened and another to see the evidence laid out for them.

It wasn’t like the club was sacred, or every member clean of sin, but some bridges didn’t get crossed. Sleeping with Jamison’s supposed murderer—no matter if he had been falsely accused and it was all an accident—didn’t sit well with a lot of the club.

“Look,” Solomon began as he adjusted Kat on his lap to a more comfortable position. Shock was the only thing keeping her to him, but she knew Solomon was probably using that to his advantage. “Most of you don’t like me, and some of you feel the need to stand up for me now and demonize Kat because you didn’t do so when I was on my knees with a gun in my face.”

Kat turned her head up to him, watched his eyes scan the room and look into every eye. “But the past is the past. We need to move on. Jamison wouldn’t have wanted this infighting bullshit, and all of you know that.”

The room was deadly quiet, but Kat couldn’t tell if that was a bad thing or a good thing. What she did know was that Solomon was doing a better job being a leader than she was, and that pissed her off. She led the Free Guns, not him!

Pulling away from Solomon, Kat hopped off the bar and went over to the man who had pulled a broken bottle on her. “I admit that I’ve made mistakes; I’ve been thinking as if I am still a member of this club and not its leader. That ends tonight.”

She locked eyes with the man and took the bottle out of his hand, not caring that she cut herself in the process. “You want to hate me? Go ahead. You want to blame me? Go ahead. But understand everything I’ve done, and everything I will ever do, will always be because I love this club and I want to do right by it. If that means I have to become a monster, then I will be. I will do—and become—anything the Free Guns need because I am their president.”

The words were out and there was no way Kat was going to take them back now. She’d done it. Told everyone where she stood and what she was willing to do. If they didn’t like it… Well, she had some savings and an adventurous spirit. Kat might not want to leave, but she’d do it.

“Let’s vote.” All eyes swung to Solomon as he smiled like the Cheshire cat and hopped off the bar. “Kat and I will leave. You guys call us back in when you’re ready.”

Tense seconds passed before murmured agreement was heard around the bar and Solomon was ushering Kat out of the place. With his hand on the small of her back, Kat finally figured out what had been irking her about Solomon. The man was sexy as hell, smart, kind, and fucked like an animal. They should have been perfect together, and actually were pretty perfect together, except he tried to manage her.

It was the way he touched her, the way he spoke to others about her. Solomon Parker thought he had some kind of hold over her, and that was going to stop right now.

“We need to talk,” Kat said the second they were outside and well away from the bar. She moved away from him and whirled to face him.

In black jeans and an old Cowboys t-shirt, Solomon couldn’t have looked more fuckable. But, then again, the man always looked that way, like at any second he could have her pinned to a hard surface, driving into her until she screamed for more and doing it hard enough to leave bruises.

Get your mind out of the gutter!
Kat’s subconscious yelled at her as she looked at Solomon’s relaxed posture and tried to mimic it.

For the last few days, she’d been feeling wild, out of control. It didn’t feel good; it didn’t feel like her. She wasn’t the type of person to pull a gun on someone or encourage violence. She also wasn’t the kind of person to be lead along and managed like some sort of fucking pet.

Somewhere along the line of Jamison dying, Solomon being persecuted and then let off, Kat nearly killing him and then fucking his brains out, she had lost herself—reverting back into the girl she’d been before the Free Guns. She’d stopped being Kat and started behaving like Kathy, the good little southern girl who’d had life served on a silver platter—all her decisions made for her and no culpability in any situation.

But I’m not that person, and I don’t want to be that person,
Kat thought as she stared silently back at Solomon. Yet, in the back of her mind, Kat knew that if she stayed that was what she’d turn into. Solomon wasn’t about to let her go, and it had never been in her nature to deny herself pleasure, even if it was forbidden fruit. The best thing for her would be to leave, find the woman she’d lost, and then come back.

“I can’t do this, Solomon,” Kat whispered, biting her tongue to keep the anger and self-loathing out of her tone. She hated that she was turning back into the weak-willed girl she’d been, and more angry with herself for thinking that maybe she’d never lost that part of herself to begin with—just hidden it deep underneath bravado.

“Can’t do what, Kit-Kat?”

“This!” The answer was ripped from her as she threw her hands up. “I’m not this person! I don’t have regrets. I don’t second-guess myself. I don’t fucking sleep with men who could be murderers. I’m not this person anymore, and I don’t ever want to be this person again.”

Seconds stretched into minutes as she looked into Solomon’s rainwater eyes; looking for any indication that she could somehow be the person she was before him and still be with him. But the man wasn’t wired like that. It was almost like he kept her on a string, giving her just enough rope to run free, then pulling her back only to tie her down with sex.

Kat didn't want that.

Striding past him, she ignored the hand he reached out to grab her and pushed open the doors of the bar. Conversation halted as they turned to look at her.

Taking a deep breath and holding her tears at bay, Kat did the one thing she’d never thought she’d do. “I’m pulling out of the presidency, and…” her voice shook on the last words as she looked across the room for the people who’d been her friends for years, “…leaving the Free Guns.”

CHAPTER TEN

Five months later

Five fucking months. Twenty and a half weeks. Too many days to count, but Kat was finally back in Cross Roads, Texas. She was parked out front of the Cross Roads biker bar, watching the sunlight glint off of a few down-parked bikes from the cool comfort of her SUV.

Five months of traveling, facing her demons, meeting new ones and conquering those. Kat was finally able to face the big baddy of them all: the people she’d left in her own selfish quest to find herself. The man she’d loved and left.

It had been two months into her little trip when she’d finally faced her emotions on the toilet seat of a truck stop bathroom with a pregnancy test held between two fingers. She loved Solomon Parker, and she’d left him because she was scared of what he was doing to her, how he was affecting her body and mind. Five months ago, Kat had been a coward and an idiot; too worried about how others wanted her to be than how she actually was.

She’d been so much more than just a biker bitch; so much more than what she’d labeled herself as.

But a lot changed in five months, Kat only hoped some things stayed the same.

"I love your daddy," Kat said proudly to her rounded stomach as she stroked her hands in soothing circles. "I love the Free Guns and I love your daddy. I just hope they can love me, too."

The words helped her gather her courage and push the door wide to exit the car. Dry heat hit her brown hair and frizzed it instantly, but Kat smiled and reveled in the heat. She'd missed this place, these people; missed the hot days and cool nights.

Walking towards the bar, Kat held her head high and pushed the door open. Some heads turned, but most were still glued to the TV or the card game a group of guys were playing in the back.

Still, the people that did turn to look at her were quick to have everyone do the same. "Holy shit!" Solomon's kid brother gasped from behind the bar as he swung a rag over his shoulder and cocked his hip to look at her. "If it isn't Kat."

Conversation came to a grinding halt as chairs tipped over and feet scuffled against the worn wooden floorboards. In 10 seconds flat, Kat was engulfed in a series of bear hugs sure to break her back. She was just about to tell them to be careful when a voice beat her to the punch.

“Don’t touch her like that, can’t you see she’s pregnant!” The voice washed over her and instantly made her horny, though few things didn’t do that. Pregnancy had done wonders for Kat’s libido, just not much else.

Like the parting of the Red Sea, big, burly bikers stepped back so Kat could get her first glimpse of Solomon Parker. She didn’t like what she saw.

Miley and Roxie, her old friends, hung off his body like cheap jewelry while Solomon looked cold and relentless. Even from a distance, she could see dark circles under his eyes. He looked skinnier, like he hadn’t been eating much.

“Solomon,” Kat’s voice was strong, her feet sure as she walked towards him and stopped a few feet away.

Neither Solomon nor the women draped over him so much as moved a muscle, but then again Kat hadn't thought they would. She’d been surprised she’d gotten this far. Pregnant or not, Solomon had been viciously angry when she’d left. Kat had heard about it all from Mindy, who had been keeping her informed after she’d left, telling her about the goings on in the club and how everything was shaping up. It was only because of her that she was back anyway.

“What are you doing here, Kathy?” he forced the words out through clenched teeth though he tried to make it look like he wasn’t angry. Kat could still see the difference; see the clench in his jaw, white knuckles, and slitted eyes.

And what she was about to do next wasn’t going to make it any easier.

Turning her back on Solomon, Kat smiled at the group of bikers around her—friends and enemies alike. As soon as she locked eyes with every biker—saw where she stood in their steely gazes—she turned back around to Solomon.

“I’m here to challenge you for presidency of the Free Guns.”

***

Laughter erupted in the bar, nearly shaking the lights. “How…” one of the members broke off as beer spurted out his nose with how badly he was laughing, “…are you going to do that? You’re fucking pregnant! Shouldn’t you be taking care of your kid?”

Kat ignored him and kept her eyes trained on Solomon, watching his sides shake as the women in his arms laughed. If it was possible, his eyes narrowed further until Kat could barely see them. “Shut up!” he roared out across the bar.

It was a few more seconds before things quieted, and then Kat spoke. “Riley,” she whipped to the man who’d spoken. “While I’ve been gone you’ve gotten two girls pregnant, and currently aren’t with either, or even helping out. Let’s not have the pot calling the kettle black, okay?”

Riley’s jaw dropped as she aired out his dirty little secret, and since she’d been gone the secrets had gotten worse. Solomon was losing control of the club; it was one of the other major reasons she’d come back.

“While I’ve been
dealing
with my shit, it seems like everyone has just decided to
add
to their own. I’m here to fix that and make sure this club returns to its roots.” Kat smiled at Solomon wide and put her hands on her rounded hips. “Starting with a new president.”