Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC (53 page)

When he peeked his head inside and saw Wolf reaching out for his mother's wrists and shoving his face into hers while screaming so goddamn hard and loud that he could see spit flying out of both sides of his mouth, something inside of him snapped like a goddamn limb from a tree and the motherfucker saw nothing but red.

"HEY!" he called out. Before Wolf could even react, River jumped in between his mother and that old man and shoved him back into the goddamn wall on the opposite side. As Wolf's head bounced against the wall, Jolene reached for her wrists and looked down at the scrapes and bruises left behind by his fingernails and hands. River turned to his mother and scrunched his face.

"What the fuck is goin' on in here? I can hear you both screamin' like a goddamn pack of wild dogs all the way out in the front of the fuckin' club!" He turned to Wolf. "This is you tryin' to prove solidarity, motherfucker? By gettin' up in my goddamn mother's face and screamin' at her like she's just some kinda bitch you used to fuck?"

Wolf stood straight and fixed his jacket. He looked over River's head and stared down at Jolene until she turned away. "No," he said.

"Then what the
fuck
is your deal, asshole? Who the fuck do you think you are to talk to her or put your goddamn hands on her like that?" He dropped his arms and clinched his fists. "Prez or not, this woman's still my mother, and you'd be takin' me for some kinda goddamn, motherfuckin’ fool if you think I wouldn't beat your ass into the goddamn ground for attemptin' to fuck her up like you were--"

"I wasn't attemptin' shit,
son
."

"Sure in the fuck looked that way to me,
old man
. And you know, I ain't never been too much a fan of you callin' me
son
. Sure as fuck not like you own me.”

"River." Jolene wrapped her hands around his shoulders and pulled him back toward her. "It's okay--"

"No, it ain't okay," he said. "The shit I just walked in on with you two was every goddamn thing BUT bein' okay. This asshole picked you up from the goddamn side of the road when you were seven fuckin' teen years old. He gave us a place to live, let me work at the garage when I was old enough, gave money to that prick bastard Rodrigo for my fightin' lessons and let me patch into the club even when every other motherfucker said he shouldn't; 'specially Tiny, who's never been right with that shit and never fuckin' will be, despite knowin’ what the fuck I did to get in. All the shit he's done for us and I've always been grateful as fuck to have a place to lay my head at night instead of the goddamn streets or a fuckin' jail cell. But I'll be damned if I stand here and let you defend this piece of shit by tellin' me or anybody else who coulda easily walked in here on you two, that him puttin' his goddamn hands on you like that, and makin' you bruise up or
worse
is just a-o-fuckin'-kay. 'Cause it ain't."

Wolf tilted his head and swallowed hard. "We were havin' a goddamn conversation--"

"What's that shit they tell you in school? You talk with your mouth, not your goddamn hands. 'Specially when it comes to my mother, asshole."

Wolf peeked over at Jolene again, despite her keeping her eyes turned from him. He refocused on River, whose eyes never left his face. "We'll deal with this shit later--" he shot back at her.

"No,” said River, “I think we'll deal with this shit right the fuck now. One on one, man to fuckin’ man.”

"You don't wanna test me right now,
boy
--"

"I ain't your boy, asshole. I'm a grown ass, motherfuckin' man just like I fuckin’ told you I was."

Wolf stared at him for a long time, and then he chuckled and eyed him from his head straight down to his goddamn feet. "Look whose balls finally fuckin’ dropped," he said. He grabbed an opened beer from the back counter and took a swig from it. “And all it took was thirty-eight goddamn years for it to happen.” He turned his eyes back to Jolene again, then with the beer in his hand, shook his head and stormed out of the kitchen.

River spun back around to his mother and latched onto her arms. He looked down at the tiny scars and bruises forming on her skin and rattled his head in anger. "How many of those goddamn beers has he had today?”

She ripped her arms from his hands and moved around him. "He doesn't have to be drunk to be such an asshole like that, River."

"Bein an asshole is in his nature, I get that shit, but this was somethin' on another goddamn level entirely. What the fuck was this shit between you two about?" he growled.

"Nothing."

"You know, I ain't in the goddamn fuckin' mood to hear any more bullshit from you about where this asshole is concerned. 'Specially when I know the shit you told Mia about him while you two were at the goddamn park."

"She shouldn't have said anything to you regarding what I said about him--"

"I'm glad she fuckin' did. You been actin' funny as fuck lately when it comes to Verna, then you're talkin' about Wolf like he's got a goddamn tail between his legs, then I come in here to this shit with him puttin' his goddamn hands all over you like he owns you or some shit." River crossed his arms and stared. "Are you fuckin' him?"

Jolene looked over at her son and pushed her brows together. "What the hell kind of question is that and who the hell do you think you are to ask me of it?"

"It's a goddamn honest question and I'm not only your son, but the motherfucker who just saved your face from that asshole puttin' his FIST right into the goddamn side of it! Are you fuckin' him, mother, yes or fuckin' no?"

"No," she replied, her voice stern, but shaky.

“You ever fucked him?”

She sniffed and lifted her head while keeping her eyes focused across the room. “Let the past stay just where the hell it is, River, in the past. Deeply, deeply in the past.”

“
Jesus. Christ
.” Once he realized the truth, he wanted to throw his fist into the nearest goddamn wall. “So you fucked him, and this is the shit that’s been eatin’ at you and why you and Verna have been so goddamn fucked up over the years. Mother
fuck
, I shoulda seen this shit back then.”

“You couldn’t have known--”

“I fuckin’ shoulda.” He moved over to his mother and glared. “Why the fuck is he all up in your face now and grabbin’ all on you like that if this shit ain’t ongoin’ like you’re sayin’ it’s not?”

“There are a lot of things that I’ve done in my life with certain people, River, him being one of them. Not all of those things need to be made aware of by you.”

He clinched his teeth and balled his fists. “Well let me make you aware of
this
shit. I don’t give a fuck if you fucked him. Shit, I don’t give a fuck if you’re
still
fuckin’ him, but he better know this shit: He ever put his goddamn hands on you like that again, or in
any
fuckin’ way that I ever see with my own two goddamn eyes or anybody else’s that I choose to use in my place, and I’m puttin’ a fuckin’ bullet in him. Straight through to his goddamn temple and right through that goddamn thick as fuck skull, mother, and I will not fuckin’ miss.”

"Alright, okay?" She anxiously turned back to her son and wiped her face of fallen tears. "Alright." She quickly shuffled past him and out of the kitchen, leaving him alone to ponder just what the hell his club, with that man still at the helm, was truly starting to become.

Chapter Forty-Five

River came storming out from the back of the club as if his hair had just been lit on fire with a set of ten matches, and rushed through the front of the place like a bat flying straight from hell before grabbing a beer from behind the bar and racing outside. My eyes darted around the room as soon as he was gone, and it seemed as if no one else aside from me and Blue, as the rest were all too wrapped up in themselves and each other, had even seen him storming through. When I saw Blue nod at me, I nodded back in acknowledgement before excusing myself from Candy and Miranda and heading outside.

Seconds later, I found him right out front and sitting on the picnic table alone, smoking what smelled like a freshly lit joint while knocking back swig after swig of his beer and staring off into the distance. I folded my arms and leaned against the frame of the door just watching him before finally walking over and drawing a hand up and down the center of his back to let him know I was there. Slowly, he turned his head in my direction, and while moving his eyes up and down my body and locking his jaw tight, he threw his arm around my waist and pulled me into him. Even without saying a single word to me, I could feel the pain in his chest building back up inside of him, and God all I wanted was to stop it from spreading throughout every inch of him again. The minute he breathed me in, it felt as if he was a grenade, and I was the pin he needed to keep from completely exploding.

I slinked my fingers up into his hair and practically sank into him as he turned his face toward me and leaned his head, exhaling across my skin and making me shiver. I brushed my other hand across his cheek and jawline and smiled softly to ease him as his brows tensed and he clinched his teeth. He brought his head down to kiss the center of my chest, then moved his mouth against my neck and rested it there for what felt like the length of a single heartbeat before parting his lips. The moment his soft tongue darted out to caress my skin, followed by his teeth which sank into me with such ease, a soft moan escaped me unwittingly. He slid it back and forth and tightened his arm around me and grunted. I pressed my body even further into his and he sank his fingers into the side of my stomach, slipping them up to the edge of my bra before dropping them back down to the rim of my shorts.

I wrapped my other arm around his neck and before I could even ask him a question regarding his mother and Wolf, before I could even say anything to him regarding how and why I felt they both reacted in the way that they had upon leaving the kitchen at separate times, he wrapped his other hand around my thigh, just below my behind, and quickly, yet easily and gently, lifted me up from the ground and dragged me on top of his lap. He shoved his face against my neck again and sucked my skin this time, right at the base of my pulse. I clawed my nails into him and exhaled as he rocked us back and forth against one another. Before him, before now and us, this was something that I never would've thought to do out in the open. Hell, even the thought of being with him in that bedroom was something that I once abhorred; but he was changing me, making me better, maybe worse, I didn't know. All I knew was that I could feel again, and I felt him; God, I felt him which was something that I hadn't been able to do or say in such a long, long time about anyone. Just, feel.

"Fuck," he groaned in that gravely, husky voice that sent my heart shooting straight up to the center of my throat. "Aside from Maddie and my mother, you're the only piece of good I've ever had in my goddamn, worthless life."

"It's not worthless," I told him. "Nothing about you is worthless, River." I swept the tip of my finger around the edge of his ear and grinned as the heat from him burned into me as it always seemed to. "It never was."

He slightly pulled back and sighed. "Babe, you don't know the shit I've done over the years. What the fuck I did to get into this club..." He stopped to swallow. "You don't know the kinda goddamn, fucked up person I can really, truly fuckin’ be."

"I know it. And I know that beneath all the shit you put out there that you can be a good person, that you are one. It's almost as if you go out of your way
not
to be a good person to protect your image, hide your truth from those you think could turn or use it against you, but I know who you are deep down. I've seen you with your mother, and I've seen you with your daughter and more importantly, I've seen you with
my
daughter. Yes, you've made mistakes, but those mistakes don't make you who you are as a man, and they don't lessen the man that you've become."

"What the fuck kinda man have I become, babe?" he asked me.

"One who's finally learned to accept that he's worthy of being loved by someone else, regardless of the shit he's done in the past, regardless of the shit he'll do in the future, regardless of who he'll do all of that shit to. Even if it's to me--"

"No, babe. No." He shook his head and wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, keeping me steadily focused on him. "There's alota shit I may not know in my life, but the one thing I know is that I'll never do shit to you, fuckin' never."

"Don't make a promise you can't keep, remember."

"I ain't makin' a promise I can't keep, Mia, this shit's a goddamn motherfuckin' fact, babe." He dropped his hand down to my back, then moved up the other to press against me and slightly lowered himself even further to elevate me just a little bit higher on his lap. "Every goddamn bit of pain I ever had in my entire fuckin' life seems to go away with just one look at you, babe. Just a single fuckin' look. And every goddamn touch I get from you, other shit doesn't even fuckin' exist for me anymore. And every goddamn taste you give me..." He brought his hand back around and brushed it across and between my breasts, then leaned in to flutter his tongue between my lips. As my mouth dropped open, he slipped it inside to mingle with my own, but he didn't kiss me. He just...
God, he just tasted me
. "Every goddamn taste of you," he said again, pulling back, "of that sweet fuckin' tongue, and the entire fuckin' world just starts spinnin', and I don't ever fuckin' want it to stop."