Angels and Ashes (Heaven's Rejects MC Book 2) (20 page)

“Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I may have a good-looking mug, but my charm and wit reside somewhere a little bit farther south, if you catch my drift.”

I spew out my drink in surprise to his answer. Raze fists a handful of napkins and begins to wipe my tea-covered face off as I feel a blush creeping up my face.

“I didn’t know you were a spitter, darlin’.”

Grabbing the napkins away from him, I roughly wipe off my face before balling them up and nonchalantly tossing them on the table.

“Jesus, never mind. I was just trying to make you laugh. Why don’t you try taking the stick out of your ass for once before it gets so jammed up there it will take a surgeon to remove it?”

I roll my eyes in a huff as Mary slinks over with our food and sets the plates down in front of us. The spicy yet seafood smell radiating from my plate makes my stomach groan. Without a word, I grab one of the tacos and nearly shove the whole thing in my mouth. Raze watches in horror as I devour it in just two bites.

“Fuck me sideways, Darce. I had no idea you could fit that much in your mouth at once.”

“Food is the only thing going into my mouth, so you might as well stow that knowledge into the useless information portion of your brain.”

Raze takes a bite of his taco and licks his lips to remove a drip of sauce that remains at the corner of his mouth. Watching his tongue swipe along his wide lips makes me bite my own. What makes matters worse is that he does it again, knowing damn well that I am watching him do it. I nervously shift in my seat before dropping my gaze to my plate and focusing on the food in front of me.

Two tacos later, my stomach is nearly past that uncomfortable full point where one more bite may make it explode. Taking the paper napkin that came with my silverware, I wipe the corners of my mouth only to see Raze staring.

“You know, Darlin’, napkins aren’t exactly environmentally friendly. Should have just used your tongue, or let me use mine.”

My eyes grow wide with confusion at his blatant flirting.
How in the last twenty-four hours has he gone from pissed pit bull to a cheesy, line dropping, college frat boy?

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sorry, Charlie, but this tongue is also staying in my mouth.”

“Too bad.” He smirks. “I bet that tongue could have far better uses than just sitting in your pretty mouth.”

Shrugging my shoulders indifferently in an attempt to ward off his off-the-cuff flirtations and out of sheer unease about what is transpiring, I place my elbows on the table and cradle my face in my hands. It honestly serves two purposes: shutting off my mind and hiding my face from his heated gaze.
If he can’t see my face, he can’t notice how his flirting is affecting me, right?

“Don’t be hiding that pretty face, Darcy. It’s not like I can’t see that little smirk of yours through the cracks between your fingers. You ain’t fooling anyone, darlin’.”

I pretend to be offended as I lift my face from my hands just in time for Mary to come to the table to clear our plates. She hands Raze the bill, and he takes a few bills from his wallet, telling her to keep the change.

“How about a change of scenery and maybe something a little more comfortable than this seat built for skinny bitches so we can talk? How about the beach? I have a towel in my saddlebag.”

I nod and slide from the vinyl-clad bench with ease while Raze again fumbles to break free. Once he stands, his hand falls yet again to the small of my back as he ushers me back out of the door. We walk in silence back to the bike, and when he walks past me to retrieve the blanket, his hand brushes against mine and sends another jolt of heat coiling tighter inside of my belly. He hesitates only a second at our momentary contact before grabbing the towel and a pair of sunglasses and ushering me to the beach in front of the café.

We walk twenty or so feet before Raze stops and chooses a secluded spot in the sand near the water. His large form plops hard to the ground as soon as the towel is laid down. His hand extends upward as he pulls me down hard, making me land in his lap. I try to scramble away as soon as I feel the hardness of his dick, but he holds me there for a just a second before letting me go.

“Sorry,” I pathetically apologize.

“Nothing to be sorry about, darlin’. I didn’t mind having you in my lap, even if it was an accident.”

“Why do you do that?” I whisper. “Why do you flirt with me?”

“It’s just how I am wired, darlin’. I think it helps lighten the mood.”

Just from the shit-eating grin on his face, I know that he is lying out of his teeth. My accidental slip into his lap wasn’t an accident at all, but deliberately planned by him long before I tried to sit down on my own. He may not own up to it, but I can tell his intentions were far from pure.

“Yeah, sure. So what do you want to talk about that it required a trip all the way up here?”

Raze sighs as he adjusts his sunglasses to the top of his head. His eyes are glazed over with an unreadable emotion, and even under his shirt, I can see his muscles are filled with tension.

“I needed to get away from the club and everything that has been going on lately. Figured you did, too.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, Raze.”

“I know you can tell I’m stalling, but I don’t know how to just talk and not demand shit. I’ve been in charge far too long to just shoot the shit with someone.” He sighs again as he fumbles over his words. “We need to talk about what I walked into last night when we got back between you and Slider. Did you really mean that shit about the club? About what happened with Jagger?”

“I’ll be brutally honest that I don’t remember half of what I said, but judging not only from the look I got from Slider as we left and now the line of questioning from you, I can only imagine it’s bad.”

“You told Slider to get out for the sake of his future family and for his own life. Do you really think that being a part of this MC signs away your life?”

My heart beats wildly within my chest because I know the next words that come out of my mouth will need to be well thought out and meticulously planned if I want to keep being in this club to search for confirmation of Brent’s wrongdoings.

“Do you ever feel like the one person in your life that you should be able to trust with your life may not be the same person everyone else sees or knows?”

Raze winces at my words, and I know he’s instantly thinking about his ex-wife.

“Think about having the happiness in your life ripped away from you in an instant. Ripped away so quickly that no matter how hard you pray, cry, or fight, there’s nothing you can do to change the past. That’s what happened the day Brent died. In my fucked up reality, I am alone and your club became the target of my aggression. Hating you and everyone involved became my outlet because it took away my family.”

Raze turns instantly to face me and grabs one of my hands that is lying freely on my lap. The zing of the connection instantly snaps my eyes to his face as I watch pain and sorrow swirl within the crystal-blue pool of his eyes.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Darcy. An MC is a family.We support each other when shit hits the fan and laugh when things actually go right for fucking once. Brent wanted you to still be a part of this family, and this is where you need to be.”

“And that’s why I shut myself off from this world. At times, he was a man that I feel like I barely knew because of all the secrecies of the club. Being a woman in this world isn’t exactly easy when you can’t express your demons to the one person who is literally on this Earth to help you battle them. It’s been a year, and even though I miss him with every fiber of my being, I feel like I didn’t even know him at all.”

Raze squeezes my hand harder in his version of comforting reassurance.

“Darcy, he loved you. You have to know that, right? Just because he couldn’t share everything with you doesn’t mean it was because he didn’t trust you. It was to protect you and the kids from anything blowing back on you if shit hit the fan.”

“But, that’s the point. I couldn’t help him then any more than I can help you because my place isn’t in your meeting room. It’s outside of it hoping that when you walk out I still have a place in finding the answers.”

“The answers aren’t for you to find out, darlin’.”

I rip my hand away from his in a defiant motion as I scramble to move away from the heat radiating off his body. The heated pool between my legs is nearly at its boiling point even with the grim topic of our conversation. The need to flee overwhelms my sentences as the words I am about to say fly out of my mouth uncontrolled.

“That’s where you are wrong. He was my husband, and I deserve to know what really happened. I deserve to know how he died, Raze. I know it wasn’t an accident.”

“Don’t,” he orders gruffly.

“Don’t what? Seek the answers? Seek revenge?” I fire back with a slight hit of anger.

“Don’t call me Raze. To you, I am Michael.”

“Wait. What?” I stutter. “I’ve always called you by your road name. Why can’t I call you that anymore?”

“Because that’s what I want you to call me.” His eyes flare, and I know with just that look he’s serious about this.

“That still doesn’t answer the question, Raze. Why are you so insistent that I call you by your given name?”

“Michael, Darcy. My name is Michael. Raze is for the club. Michael is only for you,” he sternly demands.

I don’t question his request because I know he is trying to throw me off this line of questioning, but I will not relent. I need to hear it from his own lips.

“Stop trying to distract me with this name bullshit and just admit Brent was murdered. That’s all I want to hear. Please, give me the absolution of knowing the truth.”

Michael shoves off the towel into a standing position, and I follow his actions, making for damn sure that I am face to face with him. I square my shoulders and purse my lips in defiance. Michael begins to walk away before abruptly turning around and grabbing me by the shoulders. I push my hands against his hard chest to force him to keep his distance from me, but he pushes hard against my hands and moves closer to my body.

“You want the truth?” he asks with his heated breath warming my face. His lips only inches away from mine as I suck in a breath deep. His scent wafts from him, filling my nostrils with smells of warm leather and the cleanness of the ocean breeze. “He was murdered for his involvement with the club. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes. That’s all you had to tell me. But, it’s not enough. I need to know why.”

“You got your answer, and that’s all I am prepared to give you. I shouldn’t even have told you that much.”

“But, that’s not—” I stutter before his hands slide from my shoulder to the back of my neck and his lips crash down roughly onto mine. He cradles my head in his hands as the softness of my lips feel foreign against the roughness of his, but they draw me into the embrace as my hand instinctively reaches up from his chest and slides around his neck. His hands grip tightly on the braids on either side of my head while he draws me closer, sealing our bodies tighter together until my breasts are smashed against his hard chest.

Each moment our lips are intertwined, I can feel his heart pounding in his chest, matching in rhythm to my own. His lips part and his tongue breaks my pursed seal and invades my mouth. His tongue caresses against mine before he suddenly rips away from me and takes a few steps back leaving us both breathlessly panting from the kiss we shared.

I see his face fall in guilt of what transpired between us as it must mirror in my own face. My hand brushes against my swelling lips as guilt is soon replaced by a sense of betrayal of my husband’s memory or even his own wife’s. How could one man that leads so many others wear his heart on his sleeve this much? Michael has always had this presence of power, but standing in front of me is a broken man who needed something as simple as a kiss to ground himself than the gavel to lead. I doubt even Maj would realize how much she has destroyed this man, and in that process, the heart and soul of this club. All along I have thought that the loss of my husband would be Michael’s undoing, but it’s the betrayal of his wife that dealt the killing blow.

“Michael?” I quietly question. “Is Maj dead?”

His eyes lift to mine before his shoulders slump in a sigh. That one momentary show of weakness is instantly wiped away when his shoulders once again square off and his face hardens.

“My ex-wife is none of your concern, Darcy. It would be best if you leave the ghosts of my past buried.”

“But, Michael, I—”

“I said leave it alone, Darcy,” he firmly states before grabbing the towel and stalking toward his bike. As I stand alone in the blowing ocean breeze, I realize that him walking away is just him slamming the walls back up between us and shutting me out.

Only one question remains.

What has he done with his wife?

I berate myself the entire trip back to the clubhouse with her warm body pressed tightly against me. In one moment, I lost the control I had on my desire to feel her and look where I ended up: riding home with her while I forcibly try not to lick my lips to relive her taste of her tropical fruit lip gloss while I inhale her scent. I’ve never noticed a woman’s smell before, but she smells like sunshine after the rain. Maybe it’s the type of lotion or shampoo that she uses, but it’s fucking intoxicating.