Chapter Nine #5
Cruz cocked his head to the side. “I do.”
Ryatt narrowed his gaze. “You want her to cry?”
“No. I want to be the reason for her tears because she’s choking on my cock.”
“You’re a dick.” Ryatt jerked his elbow back, catching Cruz in the gut. “Ah, fuck, that hurt.” He gripped his ribs.
“Looks like I’m the reason for your tears, too.”
Once he was stripped, Ryatt sat on the bed and covered his lower body with the blanket. I took a step back, but Cruz was there. His hands rested on my shoulders, then trekked lower to wrap around my waist.
I leaned into him, needing his reassurance because I was putting on a good front. Inside, I was wrecked. Black eyes, swollen cheek, cuts and lacerations, and every time Ryatt moved, he hissed a breath. I didn’t need to be a nurse to know he was in bad shape.
Levi checked his face first. “I know you don’t want to go to the hospital, but there are some things I can’t fix. I’m not my mom. Inhale through your nose.” He did. “It doesn’t look broken.” She dispensed antiseptic onto a sterile pad and dabbed the cuts onto his cheeks and lips.
“I can take a punch.”
She snorted. “Did you lose consciousness at any point?”
“No.”
“Okay, tell me where you hurt.”
“Ribs and shoulders are pretty fucked up.”
She rested her hands on his ribcage. “Breathe for me.”
He winced as he drew in a deep inhale.
“You won’t know if your ribs are broken without an X-ray. With this much bruising, assume at least a couple of them are cracked.”
“I heard a pop.”
“Then you’ve probably broken a rib. Six weeks of no heavy lifting. No rigorous exercise or activities.”
Cruz smiled. “You won’t be riding your bike or our girl for a few weeks.”
“Seriously?” Taking a move from Ryatt, I elbowed Cruz, shifted away from him, and sat next to Ryatt on the bed.
Romeo laughed.
“Fuck, dude, even if I could ride, I don’t have a bike. I’m not touching the other part of your statement.” He smiled through the pain and tucked my tangled hair behind my ear. “I will be touching you.”
Ryatt adjusted the blanket to keep his dick covered, and Levi cleaned the cuts on his torso. “I…uh…I lost your phone,” he said to me. “Rather they took it along with my bike, my clothes, and my dignity, but what’s a little humiliation to go along with an ass kicking.”
Cruz narrowed his gaze. “Those pricks ambushed you, held a fucking gun to your head, and for the shit they did to you, they deserve everything they’re getting from Rogue, Bullet, and Dozer.”
“Rogue and Bullet?” I asked.
The room grew quiet. Levi glanced from Cruz to Romeo.
“What am I missing?” I asked.
“Fuck.” Cruz cursed.
“Nothing, Micki.” Cruz spoke but glanced away from me. Obviously, he was unwilling to lie to my face because it didn’t seem like nothing. It definitely seemed like I was the only one in the dark about how Rogue and Bullet were involved.
“Fine,” I said and stood. “I’m going to go get something to drink.”
“Don’t leave.” Ryatt tugged me back down next to him. “Please.”
“Don’t leave the room? Or don’t leave the MC? I wasn’t planning on riding off because you don’t want to tell me what’s going on.”
Ryatt laced his fingers with mine, but his gaze locked on Cruz. “Cruz, Romeo, and Dozer found me. Rogue and Bullet came with the hearse. Even if I had my bike, I couldn’t ride.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I softly spoke.
“I don’t think you need any stitches,” Levi said, conveniently changing the direction of the conversation. No way was that the story. Anyone could’ve brought the hearse to Cruz, but they called for the meanest Hellers in the MC.
With road names like Rogue and Bullet what more did I need to know? Rogue and Bullet were intimidation and death.
“It’s not that complicated, McKelle,” Romeo said. “Shit was going down, and we wanted backup in case Kings decided Dozer and I weren’t much of a threat. Cruz was busy taking care of your boy.”
Levi continued cleaning his wounds. My heart hurt when she got to his wrists. Clearly, they’d had him tied up. The skin was raw. Blood stained the deep gouges in his wrists. She covered the wounds in ointment and wrapped them in gauze.
“Good news,” she said and smiled at him.
“You’ll live. Ice and Tylenol for your ribs.
If you get short of breath or the pain turns sharp, you have to go to the hospital.
No alcohol with pain killers. When do you see your PO next because Romeo could get you a couple joints to take the edge off for tonight? ”
“I’m good. I have to stay sober for Kiss.”
He would think of her now. Even with his own problems, he kept his promise to her. I squeezed his fingers.
“I might be fucked either way,” he said. “I can’t go back to the halfway house, and my PO is going to lose his shit. If I pissed dirty, there would be no way I skate by with a warning.”
“It’s too late to do anything tonight.” Romeo yawned. “I’ll come back over tomorrow.”
Levi cleaned up her supplies, leaving extra bandages on the dresser. “Keep his wrists covered for a couple days.”
I stood and gave her a hug.
Cruz opened his dresser drawer, grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of sweats for Ryatt, and tossed them on the bed. “I’ll walk out with you,” he said to Romeo. “I need to talk to Blue for a minute.”
Once they’d stepped out of the room, I was finally alone with Ryatt.
Before I could speak, he dropped the blanket and grabbed the clothes from the bed.
“Can you hand me Cruz’s bath towel?”
I lifted it from the hook on the back of the bedroom door. “Ryatt? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Not yet.” After he wrapped the towel around his hips, we shuffled down the hall to the communal bathroom. “We need to talk, and I need a shower.”
My emotions were at a boiling point. Not only had I been out of my head, fearing the absolute worst, but I couldn’t tamp down my need to have my hands on him to prove he was okay, and my lips on his so he’d know how much I cared.
Once inside the bathroom, he twisted the lock. His shoulders relaxed with a rough slow exhale. He cradled my face in his palms. “I know I’m a mess, but I need to kiss you.”
When his swollen lips touched mine, I opened my mouth. His kiss was gentle as his tongue tangled with mine. A sob broke from my chest. I wound my arms around him, rose onto my tiptoes, and I kissed him back.
He was physically broken, and I was emotionally wrecked. This was the kind of hurt we both needed. His tongue was in my mouth, and his hands were in my hair.
He kissed me until we were both desperate for breath. My kiss said what my words couldn’t. I had fallen hard, and I couldn’t imagine losing him when he’d become so important to me. I needed him. I needed to be loved by him.
Ryatt groaned and rested his forehead against mine.
“I know you weren’t telling me the truth.” I gently touched the bruising on his face. “What happened?”
He reached into the shower and spun the spigot. The echo of the water helped to drown out our voices. He dropped the towel from around his waist, then he fingered the edge of my shirt, and when I raised my arms, he lifted it.
Once I’d finished undressing, the water had warmed, and steam filled the small enclosure. He stepped in, then held his hand out to me. The shower wasn’t big, but it was intimate. Our bodies bumped as he dipped his head beneath the weak spray. Then he stared into my eyes.
“Tonight changes everything.” Worry pulled at his lips. He wasn’t smiling, and his jaw clenched. “For me. For us… For Cruz.”
“Just tell me,” I whispered. “I don’t care what he had to do. I needed him to be safe, and I needed him to get to you.”
“McKelle, I thought I was done, that I’d never see you again.” His lips quivered. “I’d checked out. One minute I’m hanging there, wishing for death. And the next, death is there. Death is fucking Cruz with a gun in his hand. He pulled the trigger, putting a hole the size of Montana in the guy.”
A knot of emotions coiled in my belly. I wasn’t na?ve about Hellers. They carried guns, lived by their own laws, and delivered their own version of justice. Dozer and Romeo had been raised in this world, but Cruz had barely sewn on a patch and now he’d killed a man.
I was scared of what that meant, except I knew Hellers protected each other. Death and intimidation. Rogue and Bullet were involved so everything had to be okay.
His voice lowered, and he told me more. “It takes my mind so long to process everything that had happened in a split second. Romeo comes in, steps over the guy like he’s a squashed spider, not a dead King.”
As I carefully ran a sudsy poof over his torso, he told me everything. Walking into the halfway to see Treena’s face streaked with tears and a gun to her head.
A lump I couldn’t swallow lodged in my throat as he described the beating he took.
“After they stripped me, they dragged me into the bathroom. The stench was nauseating. Fuck, McKelle, they pissed on me. One fuck with a meth pipe, got high and fucked his fist until he shot his load. When I close my eyes, all I can see is that fucking bathroom.”
He tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and his body trembled with an exhale. “How am I supposed to get that out of my head?”
I pressed my lips to his sternum, and his arms circled me, holding me against him as warm water cascaded over us. “Watch me.”
His gaze met mine.
“Watch me,” I whispered again, dropped to my knees, and used my hands to cleanse away the vile memories.
Water droplets clung to my lashes as I stared up at his face and ran my hands over the dark masculine hair on his legs.
Bubbles covered my fingers. The clean scent of soap permeated the small space.
Splaying my fingers, I washed the inside of his thigh, then cupped his balls, coating them with frothy suds.
I touched him everywhere, marking him as mine. When he thought of tonight, he’d remember me on my knees for him.
“Baby.” His dick hardened, stretching against his groin and dropping toward my face. Water sluiced over his flesh, rinsing away the soap.
I curled my fingers around his shaft. “Tell me if I’m hurting you.” And then I took him into my mouth, curling my tongue around the head, and sliding my lips down the hot, velvety-smooth length.
I hummed low in my throat. He was thick, hard, and pulsing in my mouth. I pillowed the head on my tongue and swallowed. With a slow stroke, and firm pressure, I worked his length. With my other hand, I cradled his balls in my palm.
“You’re killing me.” His deep voice surrounded me.
Removing my hand from his shaft, I glided it around his thigh, and I took him deeper, hitting my gag reflex and choking a bit. Flaring my nostrils, I inhaled as I zigzagged my tongue along the smooth length.
My nipples ached and heat slipped through my veins. With every pulse of his cock an answering throb warmed my pussy. Keeping one hand curled around the back of his thigh, I reached my other hand between my legs and slid two fingers into my pussy.
A low, hungry growl erupted out of Ryatt. I sucked him harder, bobbing on his cock. Muscles in his thighs flexed, his cock hardened even more, and his abdominals clenched.
“I’m going to come,” he ground out between ragged breaths. His fingers curled into my hair until he cradled my skull. I relaxed my throat, and he slid deeper, feeding me as much of his cock as I could handle.
With two fingers, I wildly thrummed my clit.
Tension built low in my belly, fire burned through me as my mind numbed.
I needed this, to feel him alive and pulsing in my mouth.
I was getting closer. My body tightened.
Oh, god. I came. Every nerve electrified.
Every beat of my heart connected with this moment.
Finally, a riot of butterflies exploded inside me.
Ryatt tightened his hold on me, his body seized and hot spurts of cum splashed the back of my throat. I swallowed, savoring the earthy taste of him for the first time.
A low moan followed his sharp gasp. Finally, he released a shuddering exhale. He slipped from between my lips, and I sat back on my heels. We stared at each other, knowing this moment changed us, too. I’d fallen in love with him, and I could feel how much he loved me.
“What happens now?” I asked as we dried off.
“I don’t know. Whatever happens, I’m not letting Cruz go down for me.”
Cruz was a lot of things. Protective of what he considered his was one of those things. “We need to trust Cruz. And we need to trust Rogue and Bullet.”
He pressed his lips to mine. “Okay.”
Ryatt wore Cruz’s sweats, and I pulled on his T-shirt.
“We need to wrap your wrists again,” I said as we walked back to the bedroom.
Inside the room, Blue sat in a chair in the corner, and Cruz leaned against the wall. Someone had put the blanket back on the bed. Kiss sat on the end with her hands clasped in her lap, trembling lips, and red-rimmed eyes glossy with unshed tears.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.