Where Souls Spoil (40 page)

“Aren’t you on the pill or something?” I ask, because as far as I know there’s kind of an understanding with the Lost Girls and they get their birth control in groups and shit.

“Yeah,” she says flatly with her eyes diverted across the room. Riding bare is not something I’m gonna give up with her. She’s going to have to know that it’s different with us. She’s different. I’m different. It’s a new game plan and we’ll figure it out.

“Okay,” I say. “You need money for that Plan B?” I ask. Her head shoots up, and she stares me down.

“No,” she snaps and crawls out of bed and walks to the en-suite bathroom, stomping her little feet as she goes. “I can fix my own fuck-ups, but thanks.” Then she slams the door.

I bite back the urge to tell her that she didn’t exactly say shit about me riding her bareback when it was happening, but I’m too goddamn tired to fight with her. I find my boxers on the floor, tug them on, and head to the hall bathroom to piss before I crash. After I do my business and walk back in the room, I retrieve my cell out from the pocket of my jeans and set it on the night table then plop down on the bed and breathe a sigh of relief when, a minute later, Nic comes out and picks her night shirt off of the ground, pulls it over her head and crawls into bed. She lays herself down on the complete opposite side of the large bed, but I’m not having that. She might be pissed at me right now, but that’s too damn bad. I snake an arm around her waist and pull her flush against my front.

“We fuck together, we fight together, we eat together. That means we sleep together, too,” I say and nuzzle her neck as I get comfortable. She blows out a frustrated breath and settles in as I drift off to sleep. With my girl by my side, I sleep harder than I normally do, and for once I don’t wake up to every tiny noise around me. It’s fucking glorious, and she can be as pissed at me as she wants, because I’m getting used to this shit, and I’m not about to give it up now.

Chapter 16

Ruby looks over
at me from the stove, where she’s got three glass dishes filled with chicken breasts and covered in barbecue sauce, ready to bake. Smirking, she turns back to her dish and shakes her head.

“What?” I ask, but she’s not giving anything up. Standing near the kitchen table, I place my hands on my hips and jstare at her back. Damn woman is like my own mother, only she’s sober enough to actually cook a damn good chicken more often than not. That means she knows me better than anybody, including Trigger, and I’m being so fucking obvious that I should be embarrassed by it, but I can’t bring myself to give a fuck. Ruby’s been my mom more often than my own has in recent years, and there’s no fronting with her. Finally, she turns around, wipes her hands on her dish towel, and sets it down on the counter.

“You’re hovering,” she says with a knowing look. “Take a seat and tell me what’s wrong.” I let out a sigh and pull out a kitchen chair, careful not to knock into anything with the rifle I have slung over my shoulder. She takes the seat next to me and pats my knee.

“Trigger and Princess,” I say. It’s not exactly what I want to say, but it’s a good starting point. “What do you think of that?” She looks down at her hands then up at me. A few days ago she was pretty much forced to tell Princess that she’s her mom, and the fucking brat’s been avoiding her ever since. Sure, I get it’s awkward and all, but the woman needs her kid.

“Doesn’t matter what I think. Neither of them will listen to me no matter what I got to say about it,” she says.

“But you have an opinion,” I say. She nods and blows out a breath. Her eyes search the table top. When they find what she’s looking for, her features soften. She grabs the box and the lighter, pulls out a cigarette, lights one up, and takes a pull. She leans back in the chair and lets out a relieved sigh.

“I try not to smoke these things when I’m cooking,” she says. I shove the ashtray at her, and she takes another pull then flicks the ashes in the tray and looks me in the eyes. Her brown hair has reddish tints to it, and her heart shaped face is dotted with a few wrinkles here and there, but over all she’s aged really well. More than half the club would totally fuck her if she gave them half a chance and Jim wouldn’t shoot their nuts off.

“When I hooked up with Jim, I was in a bad place,” she says with a shake of her head. “I didn’t trust anybody, not even myself. I’d spent the last two years hopping around from city to city and club to club with Ian—poor kid, no wonder he’s so fucked up—just looking for something that made me feel whole. We made it out to Arizona from New York by that time, and it’d only been a few weeks that we were in town, but I knew we weren’t going to stay. The club down there was making a run up to Mendocino, and one of the guys let me tag along.”

“He let you tag along?” I ask. Clubs don’t just let bitches with kids tag along on runs. She and I both know that. She shakes her head and gives me a devious smile and leans in.

“Okay, I had to blow him a few times,” she says. “Tiniest fucking dick I’ve ever seen.” I throw my head back as laughter consumes me. She giggles and slaps my hand and takes a drag of her cigarette. “You tell Alex I said or did that and I’ll shoot you in your ass. Got it?”

“Sure thing, Ma,” I say and smile as she keeps talking.

“Anyway. We get up here, and back then Rage was president. You were probably too young, but he was a bastard even then. Jim wasn’t much better. But let me tell you something about the Stone men—they’re all alike. Rage was at least tolerable when Silvia was alive, but once she got cancer, that was it. The man took a one-way trip to Prickville and never came back. But anyway. Here I show up in town and get dropped off in the Forsaken Custom Cycle parking lot by the Arizona club, and I’m standing there. Ian, always the trooper, is holding my hand. The poor thing’s not even nine yet, and he already knows how this shit goes, ya know? God, I fucked that one up.” Wiping a stray tear from her eye, she finishes off her cigarette and rubs her hands together then reaches over and places her hand on top of mine.

“So out comes this kid from behind the gates of the clubhouse. He’s got this jet black hair and big gray eyes and damn if he isn’t one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. He runs up to me and Ian and looks me right in the eye like he’s some kind of man or something and says, ‘Lost Girls are supposed to be inside’. I figured out right away what that meant and was about to tell him I needed the president’s permission since I was from out of town, but then he just grabbed my hand and started dragging me past the gates. I thought for sure I was going to get in trouble, but then Jim came out and damn if he wasn’t sexy as hell.”

“Jim does have a sweet ass,” I say with a smile and wiggle my eyebrows. She smirks and winks at me.

“I’m telling you, the second he saw me he wouldn’t leave me alone. I worked at the clubhouse trying to keep everything clean—like that’s even possible—and the club paid me enough that I got me and Ian a small studio within walking distance of the clubhouse so I could get to work easily. Pretty soon I was watching Ryan and Ian as they’d play in the clubhouse while I worked. It was probably a bad environment for two little boys, but we do the best we can with what we have, ya know? So one night Jim gets me plastered and he gets me in bed. Now, at first I thought I was really becoming a Lost Girl. I wouldn’t have sex with him, but he wouldn’t let me have sex with anyone else, either. He was about to earn his VP patch, and he could throw a fit like nobody else I’d ever met—until Ryan—so nobody really argued with him. Besides, I was just some chick with a kid and a fucked up past. I had major baggage. From that night on, Jim was even more relentless. I made that man suffer for months before I finally caved and let him bring me home with him. And you know what? I ain’t ever left.”

“That’s awesome, Ma, but what does it have to do with Trigger and Princess?” I say, a bit annoyed. Once Ruby gets to talking about her boys she never shuts up.

“Do you think Jim wanted to be saddled with somebody’s else’s boy and a promise to always protect two more he’d likely never meet? Not if he had a choice, he wouldn’t have, I don’t think. But Forsaken men? You guys decide what you want and you’re all like fucking bulls in a china shop until you get it. But that’s because you’re a passionate group.”

“Maybe we’re just assholes,” I say.

“You’re definitely assholes, but you’ve also got really solid hearts. You guys are always fucking up, but you’re also always trying to make it right. So Ryan and Alex? They’re going to be just fine. That boy’s never cared this much about anyone else before. Even if he’s not good for her, she’s good for him, and he needs that.”

“He’s going to hurt her,” I say, choosing to omit the fact that he’s already hurt her. Ruby nods and stands from her place at the table. I stand up and look down at her.

“He’s going to break her heart and she’s going to break his. Nothing worth having ever comes without a price,” she says and walks back to the counter to prepare her chicken.

“Next time, why don’t you just say you think it’s gonna work out?” I ask. She looks over her shoulder, her lips twisting up at the corners.

“Because you needed to know that it’s going to work out for you, too. Nic’s running scared, but one day you’ll tire her out and she’ll stop running.”

I stare at her incredulously and throw my hands in the air. “I don’t even know how you know this shit.”

She turns around and gives me a soft smile and says, “If you’d been listening, you wouldn’t have to ask me that. The message, Joshua, is that even though Nic doesn’t know it right now, she needs you. I see so much of myself in that girl. She’s headstrong to a fault and prideful as all hell. Whatever’s going on between you two that’s got you sportin’ that sour puss will pass, and you’ll see to it because you need her, too. Same way Ryan needs Alex, and I need Jim.”

“No really, how high are you?” I ask. She smiles wide and shrugs.

“You’re the one who came to me looking for relationship advice,” she says. Damned if I can argue with her.

I’m trying like hell to make it work with Nic, but she’s not going easy on me. The night after we had our slow fuck, I got a call that Mancuso’s boys were on their way. That was when Ruby had been forced to tell Alex the truth, and shit’s been upside down ever since. I’ve barely had five minutes alone with Nic in the past week, and it’s pissing me off. The only time I see her is when I crawl into bed beside her and the few times we’ve fucked since last week. Otherwise, she’s fucking ignoring me, and just lying beside her isn’t enough. I tried to get her to come to the house so I’d know where she was, but she isn’t answering my calls or returning any of the text messages or voice mail messages I’ve left for her. Two days ago, her voice mail box filled up, and I’ve been reduced to calling and texting her, not that she’s responding, and yesterday I had to have one of the prospects hunt her brother down to get his number so I can at least find out what she’s doing through him. Ever since our little tiff a couple of weeks ago, he’s been a compliant soul. I haven’t been around, but according to Fish, who’s been keeping an eye on the shop and clubhouse, Jeremy’s been doing good at his assigned task. As much as I wanted to pound his face into the pavement, I decided the best way to teach him to be a man is to put him to work like a man. He’s spent every day taking orders from Fish and cleaning up the shop like I told him to. Once this shit with Princess settles, I’m going to have him help me fix Nic’s car up.

The sun isn’t really shining outside as much as it is just slightly overcast and streaming in a few spots from breaks in the clouds overhead. Fucking Mendocino summer. It’s never really all that hot here, but a day like today I wish it were. I’m sick of standing in cool winds and light rains in fucking July of all times. I pull my sun glasses on because I’m bound and fucking determined to find a sunny spot to stand in, and walk out the back to my post. It’s about time I relieve Bear anyway. By the back shed of the house, Bear stands with his semi-automatic assault rifle. He paces down the property line about a hundred yards then back toward the house. He catches sight of me before I get too close, and thank the fuck for it, too. He’s more of a shoot first and ask questions later kind of guy.

“Go blow a load, I got this,” I say to Bear. He nods, grabs his dick, and sticks his tongue out.

“No matter how many times you ask, I am not going to suck your dick. So save yourself the trouble and just stop asking. You’re embarrassing yourself!” I shout as he disappears around the shed. I lift the strap to my own semi-automatic rifle over my head and make sure it’s positioned correctly. With one hand under the long barrel and the other near the trigger, I survey the landscape. The neighbors on this side of the property live at the bottom of a sloping hill and are a good quarter of a mile away, so even if they look up they’re unlikely to see the firepower. Nothing much is going on over there. A few lights are on inside the house, and two cars are parked out front. Nobody’s outside from what I can tell, so I move on. Walking the same path that Bear just did, I focus on the task at hand and try to move past all that shit Ruby said. I’m pretty sure she was half drunk when she was talking about Trigger. That bastard was never cute.

“Grip it tighter. Act like it’s my dick,” Trigger says. I pause for a moment and abandon my post to see what’s going on. With any luck, he’ll be talking to Diesel or Chief and not Princess. Crossing the field, glancing back at the property line every few feet, I reach a line of redwood trees and stop, turn around, and check one more time before continuing on toward Trigger’s voice. Now, on the other side of the trees, I can see Trigger as he stands behind Princess. His arms are lifted in front of him, and he’s got Princess doing the same. She’s got a gun in her hands and his cover hers.

He’s teaching her to shoot. Trigger doesn’t teach anyone anything. He won’t even teach a bitch to suck his dick the way he likes it. If she doesn’t get it right on her own, he doesn’t give her another chance. He’s a picky fucker, and, yet, still a total slut.

“Stop being crude,” Princess says and looks back at him. He cranes his neck down to look at her and gives her a peck on her forehead.

“Do you even know who you’re talking to?” he says and slowly drags his hands up her arms and places them on her hips. “This is important. Quit fucking around. Now, fire.”

She pulls the trigger, and a blank fires out at the barn in front of them. She jumps and nearly drops the gun. Trigger grabs it as she spins around and buries her face in his chest. The hand with the gun rests on her hips, and the other he uses to rub her back in a jerky motion. He’s being comforting and kind, but, from the looks of it, it’s killing him slowly to be this patient. The dude’s never been very good with being nice to people when his patience has run out. He leans down and kisses her on top of her head then pulls back.

“Again,” he says. She starts to whine, but he shakes his head. “Shut up and shoot.”

Deciding I’ve seen enough, I turn and walk back to my place at the fence. Maybe in some fucked up way, Ruby’s right. Maybe Trigger needs this. The guy I just saw isn’t the guy I know. The guys I know is a real prick. He doesn’t give hugs and kiss foreheads, and he doesn’t teach a chick to do anything. But he’s clearly trying even if it is making him nuts and about to lose his temper—because it doesn’t take much. Everything Ruby said rambles around in my head. She made Jim suffer for months before she finally hooked up with him, and when she finally gave in, she demanded something from him. She needed him to protect her kids, and he gave her that. He needed a mother for his son, and she gave him that, though a lot of good that did—the boy’s still fucked up. They each had something the other needed, and they work. They’ve been working for years now. It’s a sight to see. The way Ruby and Jim move around one another, it’s like they synchronize it. It doesn’t matter what the other is doing, they just kind of circle each other. As much as Ruby loves him, there’s no way he doesn’t love her more. The way he came to the club those months ago, asking us to help him fulfill a promise he had no right to make back before he was even president. That’s love.