Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V (21 page)

“Shit, sorry,” he gasped and the love in his voice turned me
on that much more.

“It’s okay, don’t stop!” I cried, breathy, and he smiled and
brought the intensity back up to a slow rolling boil between us, his hand
straying from the back of my leg, his thumb finding and sweetly torturing the
top of my sex until my womb grew heavy, weighted with the promise of orgasm.

“Yeah, Sugar, come on for me Baby, come for me Sweetheart,”
he urged, and when I did it eclipsed my whole world, though instead of being
cast in the dark it did just the opposite, lighting me up from the inside out
until every nerve, every filament and every fiber of my being glowed with
purest shining bright pleasure at the hands of the man who rode my body,
plunging deeply and drinking sweetly of the pool that was my being until he met
his own end. Zander came, crying out above me, thrusting deeply and unevenly a
few more times, touching off aftershocks in me nearly as intense as the
original cataclysm.

We came back to ourselves slowly, breaths sawing in and out
of our lungs in a ragged race to supply oxygen to our overworked bodies,
lightly slicked with a dew of sweat and further down below, heavier wetter
things denoting our very good time. Zander unset his teeth from my shoulder and
truthfully I hadn’t even realized he’d bitten me, the impressions left behind
from his teeth, a stinging arch in my skin that would surely bruise.

“Ow,” I uttered softly and he pressed the pad of his thumb
into the marks and massaged at them which I couldn’t tell if it made it better
or worse but to have him touch me so tenderly, I wasn’t about to complain.

“You okay Sugar?” he asked between breaths.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Zander pushed himself off of the top of me and stared down
into my eyes.

“You’re fucking incredible, you know that?” he asked me
softly, caressing my bottom lip with his thumb. He covered my mouth with his in
a slow sultry kiss and I felt a surge of pride in myself for having not been
afraid, and truthfully I was so glad I had kept it at bay. I was pretty sure I
was going to learn to enjoy rough sex with my man if it was like
that
all of the time.

“Mm,” Zander pulled back at the sound, “I liked that,” I
told him and he smiled ruefully.

“It’s not going to be a problem then?” he asked.

“Mm-mm.” I shook my head no.

“Good, because I was going easy on yah.” He winked and I
scoffed a laugh. He gave me a cheeky, if satisfied grin and slipped from me and
cursed.

“Fuck, hope you’re keeping up with the pill, Baby.”

I looked down between us, we’d forgotten a condom again. I
sighed nodding. I’d had my period a couple of weeks ago but still, we needed to
stop tempting fate. He kissed me and grabbed his robe.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he murmured and slipped out of the
room. I laughed to myself, I didn’t think I could get up and walk if I tried!
My legs felt like they weren’t up to the job of standing.

Zander returned and cleaned me up before pulling me into the
curve of his arms, we talked softly about what the next day was going to hold
before falling into a fitful sleep. One that was all too short.

Revelator…

The ride was colder than shit to the cemetery. I had on two
pair of long johns under my long denim shorts and it still wasn’t really
enough. I had on gloves, a hooded sweatshirt, and a tee with actual sleeves
hugging the shit out of my biceps on under my leather jacket and cut and I was
still freezing my balls off. Wraparound sunglasses kept the wind out of my
eyes, and a bandana wrapped around my face tried to keep out the cold. It only
worked marginally well. Still, the ride was a slow one and it felt like forever
before we were standing beside a gaping pit in the ground. A mound of astro-turf
covered earth at the yawning darkness’ side.

My girl’s father, and I do use that term loosely, presided
at the top of the grave and said some nice shit about Grinder, a man he didn’t
even know and my fury towards him loosened its choke hold some. My Red looked
somber and washed out by all the black she was wearing and I longed to see her
back in her colors that complimented her so well. I hated this. Hated standing
beside this open grave, hated committing my brother to the cold hard earth when
it could have been prevented.

A bunch of us guys felt guilty as hell. Grinder’d been
striking out with a bunch of the girls around here. They just weren’t his speed
and we’d all been giving him some hell about it. He was trying hard to get out
of the life of gun and drug running over the border from where he’d come from,
and was looking for a new start with the mother chapter out here. None of us
bargained that he had a temper or that we’d been fucking with him on the wrong
topic.

He’d told us all to fuck right off and had gone off on his
own. None of us had really thought anything of it. We’d figured he’d gone down
to The Spot, found himself a willing pussy and had gone balls deep in it back
at the apartment he had gotten himself into; he was one of the ones that didn’t
live at the club, surprisingly few guys did anymore.

That had been a Friday night. We really hadn’t thought much
of it, Grinder was a big dude and from what we could tell, a smart dude. We’d
fucking let him slip through the god damned cracks and didn’t even really
notice ‘til Tuesday morning that he was still MIA and that, well that made us
all a bunch of fucking douche bags. We’d failed our brother and you could tell
by the stony expressions of the brothers from the mother chapter that it wasn’t
a mistake we would ever make again. The Suicide Kings had gotten lucky catching
Grinder out alone, but it wasn’t ever going to happen that way again.

There would be no solo riding until every last one of those
motherfuckers were taking a dirt nap in an unmarked grave in Cicada woods. We
filed back to the club the way we’d left. In a proud procession heads held
high, but that didn’t stop The Suicide Kings from parking along the funeral
route, smiles of glee pasted to their faces tryin’ to look all badass. It took
everything we had to keep Grinder’s three brothers on their fucking bikes and
away from scrapping with those dimwitted fucks.

The police escort was even pissed off. One, because they
couldn’t prove shit. There was no probable cause to go after anybody without a
motive and we couldn’t exactly supply the cops with one without incriminating
ourselves. Two, The Suicide Kings weren’t exactly doing anything illegal. They
were just legally parked along a section of the road we happened to be driving
by giving us the one fingered salute as we rode by. It was bullshit, but it was
also bullshit we couldn’t do a God Damned thing about… yet.

Back at the club Mandy had the coffee and hot chocolate
flowing and was doing her level best to warm everyone’s soul as much as their
bodies with murmured words of comfort. I’d been fucking afraid she wouldn’t be
okay with the rough stuff we’d done the night before come the cold light of
morning, but she’d kissed me silently until I’d quit asking and had slipped off
to a hot shower looking as thoughtful as I’d ever seen her.

She slipped up to me and pressed a steaming ceramic mug into
my hands. The warmth unbelievably welcome to my frozen ass fingers, even with
the gloves on.

“I was cold just watching you,” she murmured with a slight
smile.

“Yeah, brutal out there but as far as riding in frozen
conditions go, couldn’t ask for a better day for it,” and it was true. The sky
was blue, the sun shone brightly and even though it was still predominantly a
winter wonderland out there, the streets had been dry as a bone and the icy
patches, if any, had been stark and apparent. It’d been easy riding despite the
frozen conditions.

“Women,” Dragon’s voice interrupted the low murmurs, and
everyone turned to the original P. of The Sacred Hearts.

“Appreciate all you done for us these last few days but if
you could kindly give your men the floor it’d be much appreciated.” His voice
held all the respect we felt for the girls and everything they’d done in
getting this together. The women of The Sacred Hearts, both from here at home
and abroad beamed with pride under the praise and graciously melted into the
back, towards the media room.

Dragon cleared his throat, “I wanna thank all you brothers
for coming out during such a difficult time. Grinder was still relatively new
to us but overall was a likeable guy. For being here such a short time, we’re
sure gonna miss him.” Dragon raised his glass and we all did the same and put
down some of whatever we were drinking.

“So the mother chapter and Grinder’s home chapter out in
Phoenix have some business. Namely, Archer, Nox and Rush from the Phoenix
chapter would like to patch over into the home chapter. So I would like to put
it to a quick vote, since we’re all here.” Dragon’s gaze captured the gaze of
the Phoenix president, a guy called Dom. All though if it was short for Dominic
or calling him out on his personality was anyone’s guess.

“Dom, is having these three guys up and leave your chapter
going to cause you some undue hardship?” Dragon asked him. Dom, a tall
motherfucker with long brown hair graying at the temples, braided tight to his
skull had tan leathery skin. He eyed Dragon speculatively.

“I appreciate that you’d ask,” he grated, his voice deep and
gravelly. “Losing all three would put me one man short of the bare minimum of
keeping my chapter above board on a headcount, but, I got four prospects and
two of them are on the verge of patching in next month, the other two not too
far behind. If the other chapters can give me a couple of months grace on being
a man down, I could make it work. I ain’t going to stand in the way of these
boys and their revenge, but neither am I gonna let my chapter fold from it.”

“Fair enough. We got reps from at least every chapter out
there Nationwide. Those of you who are here can act as proxy for your people.
You wouldn’t be here otherwise. So first up, a vote on grace for a period of
three months for the Phoenix chapter being one man down. All in favor of
granting that grace?” every hand in the room shot up. Dragon raised an eyebrow,
his expression clearly communicating that he wasn’t surprised.

“So ordered. You reach out to other chapters, see if someone
is willing to prop you up, see if a nomad is willing to stick around and help
you out in the meantime, but you got your grace period.” Dom nodded.

“As fer us, all in favor – “ he didn’t get to even finish
before every hand in the home chapter shot up. We’d heard Archer talk about
growing up in foster care with Grinder, Rush and Nox. Heard their stories about
coming up in the same house, the four of them. Rush and Nox were twins even
though they didn’t look a thing alike and Archer and Grinder being older, had pretty
much lain their asses on the line to keep the younger boys safe from a fucked
up set of foster parents more interested in the state money than actually
looking after their charges.

Archer seemed a little hot headed, but it wasn’t anything
that these guys hadn’t already dealt with when it came to me… all though in all
fairness, that had mostly been Unkind’s doing. Trig had carried my original
mentor’s torch just fine though and I was pretty confident that the three new
guys would fall in to our line of thinking after the dust had settled and the
Suicide Kings were just that, dust.

So far from what I had been able to tell, Rush and Nox were
pretty quiet. Not nearly as quiet as our boy Blue, who damned near never spoke,
but Rush and Nox usually fell in line behind Archer and from everyone else’s
perspective who were close to the dudes back in AZ, Archer had almost always
fallen in line with Grinder who’d been the glue holding the four brothers
together for the longest time… and now he was gone.

Archer, Nox and Rush all nodded in Dragon’s direction and
the party welcoming them into the fold got started. Reaver and Trig went off to
talk to them but my mind, my mind was on one thing and one thing only. Being
near my Red.

Disney appeared in the archway leading back towards the club
rooms in the main building and the girls started trickling back into the common
room around him. There would be no discussion of the Suicide Kings and what to
do about them tonight. We’d just laid our brother to rest. Tonight would be
devoted to memory and to welcoming our three newest members, and for the
Phoenix chapter to say goodbye to three of their guys.

I found Red in the media room curled up on one end of the
couch, her nose in her e-reader thing as she read to herself. I asked Evy
silently with my eyes if I could take her place on the couch and she smiled and
rose gracefully to her feet, off in search of Dray. I dropped onto the couch
cushion vacated by my girl’s best girl and she looked up and smiled, her face
lighting up.

She rose, indicating I should get comfortable against the
arm of the couch, which I did and she got back down, nestled between my thighs,
resting against me before resuming her reading. Times like these, life was
good. Perfect and serene, this time was no exception even if it was laced with
guilt and sadness. I held my woman and turned to the screen. Several other
brothers filtered in and some action comedy flick was put on and we all just
sort of chilled. I decided we needed more nights like this.

I lazed with Mandy in my arms as people drifted in and out
of the media room before finally settling on heading for their home towns or to
a room for the night. About midnight I looked down to see she was fast asleep
against me, her e-reader thing resting on her chest. I smiled and gently shook
her. She startled awake and yawned, stretching.

“C’mon Babe, let’s go to bed,” I murmured and she turned the
most beatific smile on me and nodded. I think that’s the moment that it really
became clear to me. Mandy was
mine
. Not because I wanted her to be, not
because she was my Ol’ Lady, but because
she
wanted to be.

Trig had once told me that Ashton had said as much to him
once. The first lake run they’d ever been on together, and I’d nodded and
thought it was really cool and thought I’d understood but until this very
moment, right here, with her smiling at me like that I realized that it was one
of those things that you couldn’t really know. Couldn’t really fathom the depth
of understanding it took until it happened to you.

I followed her in to my room and shut the door, pulling her
into my arms. She startled and caught the expression on my face and everything
about her softened.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing, Sugar. Nothing at all.” I kissed her gently and
held her close for long moments until she pushed back to look me in the eye.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” She looked concerned and I felt
a smile of my own tease the corners of my mouth.

“Never better, Baby…” and I meant it.