Nothin' But Trouble (9 page)

He
said that too low for anyone else but her to hear, and she was rocked to the
core with shock by his words. Was he serious right now? It had been five years,
and because she was hurt something had changed in him and he felt like she was
his
? Lilly was too tired to really
analyze it, but it seemed surreal, and she really couldn’t wrap her head around
it. Before she could say anything Court was leading her toward the front of the
house. Strangely enough Roan didn’t say anything about the way Court had his
arm wrapped around her waist, and had
her
pressed
tightly to the side of his body.

They
walked up the front step, but the door was opened before they reached it. Her
mom stood in the doorway with her robe wrapped around her body tight enough
that it looked uncomfortable.

“I
tried calling Roan, several times, but no one answered.” She was staring at
Roan, but when she looked at Court there was a moment of surprise on her face.
“Court?” But that surprise was short-lived when she turned her attention to
Lilly. Her mouth opened, her eyes widened, and tears immediately formed.
“Oh my God.”
Diera had her arms wrapped around Lilly seconds
later and was leading her into the house, silently crying. When the door shut
and everyone was in the living room, her mother finally spoke again. “What
happened?” She went to touch Lilly’s face, but just like her brother had done
she curled her fingers into her palm and stopped right before she made contact.

Lilly
didn’t have the strength or energy to retell the story, but fortunately Roan
was already speaking and going over it with their mother, though his version
was condensed considerably. Lilly knew it was to spare her mother the
nightmarish details. The drugs that she was on were slowly starting to wear
off, and the throbbing in her face intensified. Her palms were cut up, but the
doctor had bandaged those up, as well as her ribs. Fortunately, they were only
bruised and not broken.

“I
think I want to go to bed.” She interrupted her mother’s crying, feeling
horrible that she had to go through this as well as everything else in her
life, but right now Lilly just couldn’t think straight. Too much had happened
in the last several hours, enough to make her head spin.

It
was like her words had made everyone move into action, because all three of
them went to help her stand. As much as their affection and love to help her
was appreciated, she didn’t want to have them flock toward her like she was
this broken person.

“I
can do it. Please, stop fussing.” They all took a step back, and she left them
in the living room. A shower would have been nice, but she was just too tired
and in too much pain. Once in her room with the door shut she sat on the edge
of her bed and set her purse down beside her. Reaching inside for the bottle of
pain pills, she popped some in her mouth and went for the bottle of water she
kept on her nightstand. And then she lay back without removing her shoes or
anything else, and let sleep take her away.

Chapter
Six

Court
sat in the truck with Stinger. They were in the center of town and were waiting
for Lucien and his men to make the pass through Steel Corner to their
whorehouse. It had been two days since he had killed the man that had hurt
Lilly, and forty-eight fucking hours since he had seen the woman that he
couldn’t stop thinking about. He wanted to go see Lilly, but he had to watch to
make sure Lucien, or whoever was transporting the women that were paid to fuck
high-profile men, got through town without incident. But after everything that
had gone down he trusted The Brothers of Menace, and knew that Jagger and the
other Grizzlies did, too. But tonight wasn’t about making sure the MC didn’t
fuck with their town. It was to make sure no one fucked with
them
. It had just taken that one
incident to bring the two MCs together. The Brothers had looked out for Lilly
and Roan, hadn’t fucked around when it came to the bastard responsible for
fucking her up, and to the Grizzlies that went a long way in assuring they were
as tight as two allies could be. When another MC looked out for the people
associated with another club, took care of them until they got there, and made
sure to help exact vengeance for the ones that were hurt, that meant they were good
fucking men, and respected by The Grizzly MC.

“Your
girl doing
good
?”

Court
looked over at Stinger and thought about his question. “I guess
she’s
as good as can be expected given the situation.”
Stinger may not have been there because he had been drunker than shit, but
every member of the club knew what had gone down, and that Lilly was his. The
meeting they had earlier that day had cemented that in stone, and what he had
gotten from the members of the club was support and brotherly love. He still
hadn’t really talked to her about why he had gone all possessive and
proprietary on her, but she was a smart girl. He had also told her that he had
claimed her when she had spoken aloud. Whether she knew what that really meant
was still left to be seen. It was like a switch had gone off in his body, his
bear had taken control, and he had gotten his head out of his ass and realized
what was important to him.

“How
many times you been to the barn to fight?”

Court
looked over at Stinger again, and on instinct touched the cut under his eye
that he had gotten just that night. Yeah, it had been two days since he had
seen Lilly and killed that fucker that had hurt her, but he had been on this
rampage for violence. Since leaving her house he had been to the barn three
different times and taken out three different shifters. He felt a lot calmer
now that he had a lot of his aggression out, but leave it to his thoughts of
Lilly hurt to have him thinking about kicking someone’s ass again.
“Enough to help ease my bear and fuck people up.”
He looked
out the windshield once more. His knuckles were also beat to shit, but he liked
the pain, especially when he was in this kind of foul mood.

“I
didn’t even know you were serious about anyone. I mean you’ve been fucking club
pussy for a long ass time.”

Court
looked forward again. “Well, we haven’t really talked in a few years, but we
have a history.”

Stinger
didn’t say anything, but the sound of an approaching car had them sitting up
straighter in the truck and had their senses going on alert. They watched the
blacked out van pass through the center of town, and then pulled out behind it.
They weren’t trying to be stealthy in following them, because Lucien knew that
they were doing it to make sure shit went okay on both ends. Once the van left
Steel Corner Court turned the truck around and headed back to the clubhouse.
What he wanted to do was see Lilly, but it was late, and the last two times he
had tried and gone to see her Roan had said she was sleeping. How much could
one person sleep? But he knew she had been hurt pretty badly, was on pain meds,
and that she needed all the rest she could get. But he was selfish, wanted to
be the one to help her heal, and was getting antsy to see and touch her again.
Two days wasn’t long at all, but then again it felt like the longest two days
of his life.

He
pulled the truck into the clubhouse parking lot and killed the engine. Stinger
was already climbing out, and Court debated just heading back to his place.

“
You coming
in for a drink?” Stinger looked at him.

“I
don’t know. I’m not really in the mood.”

Stinger
gave him a shocked look. “Not in the mood for a drink? Dude, get your ass out
of the truck and come inside. You know all you’re going to do to if you go back
home is think about your girl, and all the shit you did or didn’t do.”

The
thing with Stinger was he played a part, as they all did to a point. He was
there for the club and the members, and although he acted one way on the
outside, Court could look in his eyes and see that he wasn’t as easygoing as he
tried to play. Maybe it was because of the gunshot Stinger had gotten from that
bastard Trick? In the end if Stinger wanted to talk they were there, and as
long as he didn’t put the club in jeopardy they kept out of his business. Court
hadn’t said anything about what he had or hadn’t done, just that they hadn’t
talked in a while, but Stinger had read him well enough.

“Come
on. Some bullshitting will do you some good.”

Court
ran his hand over the back of his head and sighed. “Yeah, okay.” Because
Stinger was right, he would have just gone home and thought about a bunch of
depressing shit. He climbed out of the truck and headed inside. There wasn’t
some crazy party going on, but there was a hardcore poker game being played. A
lot of cursing and banter were being thrown around, a few of the club whores
were hanging on the members, and some of the prospects were keeping the guys
hydrated with beer and shots.

“Hey,
Court and Stinger are here. Party is about to get started,” Drevin yelled out.
The blond biker raised his beer, clearly already drunk by the slur in his voice.

“Drevin,
shut up, man,” Dallas said with a joint hanging from between his lips. Drevin
had been MIA during the whole Lilly incident, and although he had been filled
in he either didn’t know how deep all that shit had been—not likely—or he was
too drunk to fully realize how he was acting. But Court wasn’t in the mood to
correct the asshole on anything, and turned around and headed to the bar. One
drink and he would head home. He was tired, couldn’t get Lilly out of his head,
and just wanted to crash until shit looked a lot better.

****

Lilly
lay on her bed and stared at her ceiling. Her mother’s home was in an older
development of town, and the streetlights were in desperate need to being
changed. As it was the globes were foggy and the lights a yellowish color, and
when the glow came through her bedroom window it made this piss color stain
across her walls and ceiling. Her head chose that moment to throb, but she just
closed her eyes and breathed through the discomfort. She had stopped taking the
narcotics, and was now only on ibuprofen. It certainly didn’t have the same
pleasant effect the
Percocets
had, but she could deal
with it.

But
it wasn’t just the discomfort that was keeping her up. She had also been
thinking a lot about Court and everything he had done for her and said. She had
spoken to Roan about it, but she hadn’t gone into details with him about what
exactly had happened between her and Court years ago. More specifically she
hadn’t told him about them having sex, just that they had shared some time
together, and then after that summer they hadn’t spoken again. But it didn’t
take a genius to realize what had gone down, and Roan was no fool. But he
hadn’t pressed her, and she knew he was either waiting until she was fully
healed, or he was going to confront Court first. She wasn’t looking forward to
either of those scenarios, because surely they couldn’t end well.

She
pushed herself up in bed and grabbed her duvet to wrap it around herself. The
swelling was significantly less, but the bruising was horrendous. Her job at
the coffee shop was put on hold, and class was still up in the air. She was so
close to being finished with it, but she just couldn’t even think about going
back there just yet, or traveling down that long, isolated strip of road. Just
thinking about it had her shaking and wrapping the blanket around her even
tighter. Although it was late, she had a feeling Court would be up. He had
always been a night owl back in the day, and she didn’t think joining an MC
made that change.

Lilly
wanted to talk to him and look into his face so much that it startled her. It
didn’t matter that so much time had passed between them. When he had looked at
her when she was at The Brothers of Menace clubhouse, she had known there was
no burying her love for him. She stood and grabbed her phone off the
nightstand. For a second all she did was
stare
at the
black screen. He had left his number with her mom the night he had helped her
inside, but she hadn’t tried calling it yet. Roan had told her he had stopped
by the last couple of days, but each time she had been asleep. It would have
been easy for her to call him, but the last forty-right hours she had been
trying to wrap her head around everything that had happened, and clearly
everything that was happening between her and Court. There was no fear that the
man that had hurt her would come back, because although she had asked Roan what
had happened to him, her brother had just told her that Court had handled it. The
memory of the blood that had coated them, and then the sight of Roan’s knuckles
scabbed over told her exactly what had happened.

Not
thinking about it anymore, she dialed Court’s number and brought the phone to
her ear. Her heart was beating so fast she could hardly hear herself think.
Someone on the other line picked up, and she heard loud voices, cursing, and
female laughter. God, was he with someone right now? It would be so
contradictory to the way he had acted toward her and how he told her he had
claimed her.

“Lilly.”

She
was a little shocked to know that he knew it was her, but maybe Roan had given
him her number? “Hi. It’s not too late to call you, is it?” The loud noises
faded away, and she heard a door opening and then closing.