Burning Ember (58 page)

“Mav!” A male voice has us both freezing.

“Fuck,” Mav growls. His body closes in around mine and shields me. He turns his head toward whoever’s talking as I bury my face in his neck. “Whiz, what the fuck man? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“We got a problem.”

“Then get someone else to handle it.”

“No. It needs to be you.”

Mav groans. “Does it need to be dealt with right this fuckin’ second?”

There’s a weighty pause. “Yeah. It does.”

I can’t help it. I giggle. Mav bites my ear, grabs my ass, and pushes the tip of his cock inside me. My breath stutters in my lungs and the strangest thing happens. The massive heat we shared a moment ago instantly returns. I whimper and cling to him.

“You think this is funny,” he whispers into my ear. “I want to fuck your goddamn brains out and they’re cock blockin’ me.”

Then another voice, Taz’s says, “Brother, you’re gonna want to see this.”

As Mav slowly slides deeper, he asks, “Is it life or death? Because if you stop me from fuckin’ my old lady right now, and it’s not life or death, it will be.”

“Trust me, brother. You’ll thank me later for stoppin’ you.”

Mav sinks to the hilt and bites my neck and I nearly come apart. “Christ, Doll. You feel like home.”

Then he’s retreating and pulling out of me, while mumbling obscenities under his breath. I quickly push down my skirt. Mav smirks at me as he tucks himself back into his jeans and buckles his belt.

Pulling out his keys, he lays them in my hand. “Wait for me. Don’t you dare touch yourself until I get back.” He takes a couple of steps backward toward his brothers, and adds, “We’re gonna finish this just as soon as I deal with whatever’s goin’ on.”

My body is keyed up though, and the temptation to torture him further is too appealing. “Depends on how long you’re going to be. What if it takes hours? I don’t think I can wait that long.”

He stops and comes back to me, threads his fingers through the back of my hair and using his torso, pins me to the wall again.

He kisses me once, only a peck, but it’s a brand on my mouth that’s going to leave my lips definitely swollen, maybe even bruised.

“Doll.” He brushes my bangs out of my eyes. “Let me put it this way. If you come without me buried inside you, I’m gonna know, and I swear to God above, I’m gonna spank your ass.”

Mav’s room is bare, as bare as the last time I was here. A few knickknacks are lying around, but mostly he has only the necessities—a bed, dresser, side table, and lamp. All lackluster and drab compared to the décor and furniture in his new home.

And just think, he’s lived like this for nine years.

The thought is actually kind of depressing.

Maybe at twenty-four it was everything he wanted. A place to sleep, a group of friends to party with and look out for one another, all the booze he could drink, and women ready for it at the crook of his finger. But over time, I can see how it would all become too impersonal.

Especially for a man who designs homes for a living.

He has a good heart. Of course, he’d eventually want more than this.

With nothing to do except wait for Mav, I sit on the bed, pull out my phone, and try Sunny a few more times, muttering, “Come on . . . come on . . . pick up.” But each time it goes to voicemail. I send another text with the same message as the last one, and wait.

Bored, my mind wanders. Tonight’s events replay themselves in my head, and when that only ends up getting me all hot and bothered all over again, I distract myself by snooping through his dresser.

I find only the basics. So I collect a T-shirt, and some boxers from the drawer. Might as well shower and wash the smell of smoke from my hair and skin while I wait. If Mav comes back soon, hopefully, he’ll take the steam billowing out of the bathroom as an invitation to join me.

But no such luck.

I dress and comb my hair, then walk back into his room. But right away, something feels off. It takes me a second to realize what it is. The light that I left on is off. The room is bathed in moonlight and the bathroom light coming from behind me.

Goosebumps break out across my arms and neck, and my eyes do a quick search of the dim room. But it looks as it did before. Empty.

Possibly the light bulb burned out.

Before I can take one step toward the switch to test my theory, a rough voice laced with many years of use startles me. “You look just like her, you know?”

My heart lurches as I whirl around.

Oxygen flees my lungs.

A huge man is leaning against the wall by the bathroom doorway, like he was waiting for me. A shiver rakes over me when I think that I just showered with the door wide open.

Was he in there with me?

Oh, God.

He’s a biker, and a familiar one at that. His inky hair is now peppered with a few grays. He still wears it in a braid, the end of which hits the middle of his chest. His dark skin is no longer a flawless mocha, but weathered, wrinkled with age, and tattooed.

Even though it’s been over ten years, and I only saw him through a small opening in the closet, he’s unmistakable. His has the same wide forehead, broad shoulders, and intimidating presence, and not simply because of his height.

The air around him reeks with menace.

Taking a pack of smokes from his vest, he lights one. His old hands are adorned with large rings and covered with ink. And his eyes, black as coal, never once leave mine.

Memories of my past rush forward. Years of watching Sunny go through misery and pain have my hands curling into fists. The hatred I’ve harbored for him all these years floods forward.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing in here. But if you don’t get out,”—I force myself to speak with as much conviction as possible—“I’ll scream.” When he doesn’t move a muscle, I slowly back toward the door. “Mav is going to be back any minute.”

Blowing out smoke through the corner of his mouth, he warns, “Try to leave this room and this conversation is gonna get a lot more complicated than it needs to be.”

I pause with my hand on the doorknob. We face off against one another and an eternity passes as a million scenarios of how to get away from him rush through my head.

“I’m not here to hurt you. Just need some answers. I expect by the way you’re starin’ at me that you need some too. Now, are you or are you not Tessa’s daughter?”

“Why it wasn’t enough that you ruined my sister, now you want to do the same to me?” I snarl. Then without thinking of the repercussions, I hiss, “You make me sick. How can you live with yourself?”

“I ruined who?”

Who?

He honestly looks confused and it only makes my rage simmer hotter. “Who? Who do you think?” My stomach drops and a knot forms there when I realize he really doesn’t have a clue. “Oh, God, she wasn’t the only one?”

“Girl, back up a second and answer my question. Is Telly—Tessa Owens, your mama?”

A bolt of pain rockets through my chest at hearing the nickname so many of her boyfriends and friends called her.

When I simply glower at him, he goes on. “At first—thought maybe it was a coincidence—so many people in the world, fuck there just might be two of ’em that could look so much alike. Either that or my old eyes weren’t playin’ tricks on me. Then you danced. Exactly like she used to do, and it took me back twenty years. I knew then, you were too much like her not to be her daughter.”

Undeterred by my silence, he asks, “She around? Is your sister?”

Outrage coils up my body and I fire off, “If you ever come near Sunny or our home again, I’ll make sure you rot in prison for the rest of your life.”

“So I was right.” He reaches out and dumps the ashes from his smoke. “Done my fair share of years locked up. Not lookin’ to go back.”

“Then stay away from my family.”

His forehead wrinkles as his brows pull together. He stubs out his smoke on his boot and then looks back up at me. “How is it you know who I am, but I’ve never seen you before last night?”

“This conversation is over.” I turn the door handle.

He lunges. But before I can scream, he slams his hand over my mouth covering it and grabs my other arm. His coal eyes lock with mine. “Girl, I told you I wasn’t gonna hurt you and I don’t plan to, but you’re startin’ to piss me off. I got more questions that need answerin’. You tell me what I need to know then this will go smooth—you don’t and keep shootin’ off that mouth of yours, we’re gonna have fuckin’ problems, you get me?”

When I merely glower, he shakes me. “Now, when you can manage to calm the fuck down, tell me how it is you know who I am, but I’ve never seen you before last night?”

His soulless eyes stay on mine and a long moment passes. He doesn’t remove his hand from my mouth until I take a deep breath from my nose and my body starts to let go of some of the tension rioting through me a moment ago. I nod that I’ll behave and he slowly lets go.

“I was there. I saw you take Sunny into her room. And you’d come out and leave money on the table like she was some whore and not a child. Men like you should be castrated, spend the rest of their life in prison.”

His forehead wrinkles as his brows pull together. Then an amused expression morphs on his weatherworn face. He raises a black eyebrow. “What exactly is it that you think I did to your sister?”

“You molested her.”

“Christ! Why the hell would you think that? Your mama makin’ shit up about me?”

Reluctantly, I answer, “No.” Suddenly, my world starts to shift. The earnest expression he’s wearing throws me for a second.

“Sunny wouldn’t talk for days after you came, or eat. She’d cry. She wouldn’t tell me why, but you did something.”

“Were you there every time I came to visit her?”

“Only a few times.”

“Where?”

Fighting through the anger barreling through my chest, I bite out, “In the closet.” For a long time he simply stares at me. Then he walks across the room to the window and lights another cigarette.

“How old are you? You look older but you can’t be more than what . . . eighteen? Shoulda been too young to remember me like you do.”

I loathe answering his questions, but I’m starting to feel like my world’s tipping on its axis and what I thought was up is suddenly down, and I need to know the truth. “I’m twenty-two.”

His body goes rigid. He turns and studies me as if I’m lying and he’ll find the proof in my skin or my eyes. “Fuck. You’re not jokin’ are you?” He looks away and takes in a deep long drag. He lets the smoke slowly escape through his lips and watches the rings as if they’re telling him secrets only he can see. Then holds out the bud and stares at the cherry. He mutters, “Heard the brothers talkin shit, but I never believed it. Of her. Of him. But that has to be why she wanted out.” Then he sighs heavily and nods to himself. “It never fuckin’ made sense. She loved me, loved the life.”

“Did you or did you not molest my sister?”

“You seriously askin’ me if I molested my own daughter?” He throws a murderous glare at me. “No. I may be a shit father, and an evil son of a bitch—but fuck, I’d never touch a kid. And I’d take anyone to ground that would dare lay a hand on my Sunny like that.”

Those words barrel into me like a freight train. “Your Sunny.”
His daughter.

“Yeah.”

The mental gears in my head slow, grind together, and suddenly screech to a halt. I don’t want to believe it. For all I know he could be lying out his teeth. But I have to admit, I’ve wondered many times on whether I was right about what really happened all those years ago.

I start grasping at straws. “Then what was the money for?”

“What else. Fuckin’ child support. Money to get her and your mama by.”

“But she was a complete mess after you left. Every time. And she wouldn’t tell me why.”

“So you just assumed I was rapin’ my kid? That’s fucked up.” He shakes his head. “Sunny would beg me to take her with me. But I couldn’t. My life was too dangerous. I told her that. Always had too many targets on my back.”

“I . . . I . . .” I’m reeling. Seeing it all in a different light all of a sudden. My hatred for him cools to a simmer. I can even hear the defeat in my voice when I ask, “If you’re her father then where the hell have you been all this time?”

He shrugs and spares me a glance. “Every time I came to see her, I was risking her and your mama. When shit got deep for the club, I knew I had to cut ties. That it was either lose them or bury them. So I made the choice I could live with.”

“Why’d my mother hide me from you?”

“‘Cause, she was hiding her sins, and she was smart. She knew if I found out that while I was servin’ time, she was sleeping around behind my back with a man I trusted, I would’ve killed them both. She kept visiting me. Supposedly got real sick for a while and couldn’t, but then started coming every week like regular, acting crazy weird about making sure we had conjugal visits when she never seemed to care about having them before. I figured she wanted to get pregnant, that maybe it was just that time that she needed somethin’ more than me to make her happy. But then when she got pregnant with your sister, she told me some bullshit about her not being able to wait for me like she promised. That she didn’t want this kind of life anymore now that she was a mother. Shouldn’t have believed her. My gut told me it was a lie. Your mama was a biker bitch through and through. But that’s the story she always stuck to.”