19. Hollywood
19
HOLLYWOOD
I lost track of V as she walked into the hallway, sashaying that miniskirt like a homing beacon, keeping my eyes glued to the hemline. I had to grip the table to keep from going after her.
“So ... what’s going on with you and V?” Ru eyed me from across the booth as she sipped from the tequila shot in front of her.
I cleared my throat and shifted my hips in my seat, remembering that V didn’t want me to tell anyone ... not yet. It still ached to think of myself as her dirty little secret, but if that was the price I had to pay to have what piece of her I could get, so be it.
“Nothing,” I forced myself to say. “Why? What did she say?”
“That she still hates you and you still live to annoy her.” Ru asked.
I laughed and took a sip of my beer. “Well, that will never change.”
Even though we were still on the down low, a small bite of fear went through my sternum at what her brothers might do when they got wind of it. True, it wasn’t anyone’s business, but I’d been afraid to start anything with her for a reason.
My little-sister-from-a-different-mister narrowed her eyes, seeming to assess every bit of me that she could see. “You like her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “She’s a pain in my ass.”
Literally most nights.
“ No, there’s something else. I can smell it.”
“Now, now, baby girl,” Saint said from the other side of her, shaking his head and grinning like a monster. It was just the three of us at the table, the rest of our family either out on the dance floor or helping Alba get shots for truth or dare. “Let the boy have his secrets. You had your reasons for keeping yours.”
“Yeah, but he knew about mine,” Ru cut in. “At least tell me if you’re okay.” Ru took another sip and leaned forward, clearly done with me dancing around the issue. “Is she doing her sexy domme thing on you? Does she turn your ass pink every night?”
I cleared my throat, nervously glancing at Saint before looking back at Ru, trying to disguise how close she’d hit the mark. “I ... I plead the fifth.”
“Plead the fifth?” Saint cut in with a small laugh. “How are you pleading the fifth to fucking the president’s daughter?”
“It’s complicated,” I said, drinking my beer, “and I’ve never been a lady with loose lips, so unless you want to draw her wrath to you?—”
“Hey.” Ru held up her hands in a show of solidarity. “I’m not judging. I’m just curious. I love you both, and I want happiness for you.”
I smiled at just how much joy V had actually brought into my life in the last few weeks—hell, in the ten months since she’d come home from college. There was no one who gave me shit as well as she could, and I loved bantering with her.
“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile that big,” Ru said, blowing out a disbelieving breath, “and that’s saying something. What about your celibacy streak?”
“Thank you for suggesting it in the first place,” I said, recalling the conversation she and I had outside the clubhouse last June, the one where she made me realize I needed to start treating myself better if I wanted better. “You helped me, Ru. More than you know.”
“Hey, you cunt,” came a loud roar over the crowd. “I wasn’t done with you.”
“You’re done with me now,” shouted a familiar voice in return. “Back the fuck up or I’ll stomp your face in, you old greasy pervert!”
“Say that again,” he growled, but I was already out of my seat.
I knew that raging feminine war cry. I’d pulled V off enough fuckers in this bar to recognize it over the thumping bass and loud-ass bikers. By the time I got to her, she’d already swung on the guy, nailing him in the cheek with her right hook. She raised her hand to do it again, but I wrapped an arm around her elbow to hold her back. My heart hammered in my chest, fury racing through my blood at the thought of whatever this guy could have done to warrant this reaction out of her.
I saw red, and I knew only one thing as I pulled her away—I’d protect this woman with my life.
“You fucking piece of shit!” She kicked out at him, nailing him in the chest with her heel. “Don’t you ever touch me again! Don’t ever touch me!”
Slicing hot rage rushed through my veins, and I didn’t think, just reacted. I shoved the guy back and got between him and my girl.
“What the fuck’s your problem, huh?” I pushed at the angry fucker whose name tag said Hoss as he was trying to get to V again. “You wanna fight?”
“Is that your bitch?” Hoss nodded to V, wiping at his busted bottom lip. “Put a leash on her before I have to fucking teach her a lesson.”
V wouldn’t have started shit with a stranger for no reason. If she was in this guy’s face, he did something to deserve it, and I’d bet it had to do with the weeping woman standing next to her.
“Lesson?” I raised my eyebrows and laughed. “You’re a real dumb motherfucker, aren’t you?” Just seeing his hands on her was enough to make me want to kill him, but hearing him refer to her like that set me off. I swung on the dude before he had a chance to say anything else, knocking his ass back. He lost his footing and fell to the ground, where I grabbed his shirt, holding him up so I could hit him again.
Wrath rolled through me, incinerating whatever restraint I had left. I collided my fist with his face, over and over again, until I felt he’d learned his lesson. MCs on our territory were here as guests. End of story. He didn’t get to come to Madison County and touch our women, regardless of what club he belonged to.
“Maybe that’s how you talk to your old ladies,” I snarled, grabbing his bloody shirt to hold him up so I could spit in his face. “But here, you treat people with respect or you get your face stomped in.”
“Hollywood!” someone shouted. Massive arms wrapped around my elbow, hauling me up, and another set circle around my waist. “He’s done, man! He’s done.”
It was Saint, KC, and Bear, each of them grabbing a piece of me to pull me back. At my height and weight, it took three of them to get me off him and Verona cupping my face to get me to stop huffing fury.
“Get him out of here!” Thor shouted, coming over to assess the guy on the ground. “V, take him home.”
“He started it,” V snarled, pointing at the girl to her right. “He practically groped her in the hallway.”
“Go!” Thor pointed to the door and growled before returning the bloody bastard on the ground.
I spit at him, disgusted with men who thought they could treat women like shit just because they were older or bigger. I was the biggest person in this fucking club, so by that reasoning, I could own them all. I had to consciously rein in my anger so I could turn my back on the mess we’d made.
“C’mon,” V said, tugging my shirt toward the entrance. I went willingly, rubbing my busted knuckles as I passed the girl she’d saved in the first place. Reunited with her friends, she hung on to one of them while they consoled her. It didn’t fucking matter anymore. I didn’t need to know the situation to make mincemeat of that bastard’s face. No one put their hands on V like that, regardless of whether I was fucking her or not.
“Jesus, Hollywood,” she said. “I had it handled.”
“Yeah, it sure looked like it.” I grunted, shifting my shoulders to work out some of the tension from the fight. “You and that Montgomery temper.”
She laughed, shaking her head. If there was one thing that ran in that family, it was their hot-blooded reaction when things didn’t go their way. KC had been known to fly off the handle anytime Alba so much as got a paper cut, and I’d seen Castor tear through people with his bare hands. Crow was the worst of them. For as much as he was the calm and collected patriarch, he’d gotten the title of president for a reason. The things I’d heard about what he’d done to a former SRMC member-turned-traitor still haunted my nightmares.
When we got to my truck, she stopped and turned to face me, leaning up against the driver’s side door while she pulled me closer by the belt loops. Grinning up at me, she pushed up on her toes to plant a kiss right on my lips.
“That was hot,” she said. “If I didn’t want you before, I certainly do now.”
“Yeah?” The fever from the confrontation drained out of me, replaced by an entirely new warmth that had me arching my hips toward her, seeking friction for a greedy cock that wanted to sink itself deep inside her. “How bad do you want me?”
She bit her bottom lip and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down so she could whisper in my ear.
“I’ll let you sit on my face tonight,” she murmured. “Would you like that?”
The visual sent shivers down my spine, and I scrambled to find my keys.
“Fucking hell, V,” I said. “Let’s go.”
She giggled and grabbed the keys from me. “I saw the way you were shooting back tequila. I’ll drive.”
Not willing to argue with a sober queen, I circled around to the other side and climbed in, buckling my seat belt like a good passenger princess. She held the wheel with one hand and my trembling knee with the other, and I swore to myself that I would never do anything to tear this apart.
* * *
By the time we got to her house, the adrenaline from the fight had worn off and I needed a shower to get the guy’s blood off me. V nodded to her bedroom, indicating I should use the one in the primary, before she turned to the fridge to search for drunken munchies. I heard her mumbling something about frozen pizza as I headed in that direction.
Once I was squeaky clean and ready to preen, I dressed in my boxers and white T-shirt before heading back out to the living room. The smell of something cooking in the oven made my stomach grumble, but I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of her in the living room.
She’d washed her makeup off, looking so much more like her father without all the black around her eyes, and she’d put on loose gym shorts and a tight black crop top. I’d seen her in leather, I’d seen her naked, but those baggy clothes and that fresh, clean face turned me on more than anything ever had before.
“Fuck yeah,” I said, plopping down on the couch next to her. Sure, there was an entire wraparound of cushions to choose from, but I wanted her to touch me and remind me this was real, that I had her with me tonight and maybe for as long as she wanted me. “Is that the stuffed crust?”
She nodded and handed me a bottle of water, twisting off the cap for me before I brought it to my lips for a deep drink.
“You’re so good to me,” I said.
“Thank you for that ... with the guy.” She grabbed my hand and brought it to her lips, tenderly kissing each bruised knuckle.
“Of course, V,” I said. “I’ll always protect you. Always.”
She brought her gaze to up to meet mine, curling her lips into a sweet smile, one I so rarely saw her wear. Affection spread through my chest at the thought that no one got to see this expression, no one got to see her so relaxed. No, it was just for me and me alone.
Well, doesn’t that just make a guy swoon?
I brushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear and leaned in to kiss her, trying to convey how much adoration I had for her with that one gesture. She moaned into the contact, cupping my jaw so she could take as much as she wanted.
“I’m sorry I ruined your truth or dare,” she said, reaching to the side table to retrieve a bottle of whiskey. “We can play our own version if you want.”
I narrowed my eyes on her and took the liquor, twisting off the cap so I could take a swig. “Okay, Little Montgomery. You first. Truth or dare.”
“Truth,” she said.
“Hmm.” I narrowed my eyes at her taking the easy way out. “Why did you become a domme?”
“I was hurting for cash in Manhattan. It’s a really expensive place to live.” She explained how she’d found the club through her roommate, and eventually the rich investment banker that liked being financially dominated. “I thought it sounded like easy money, getting paid to say things to men that I already liked to say.”
I laughed and handed the bottle to her so she could take a swig. “Fair enough.”
“When did you find out you liked to be submissive?” She pulled on the liquor and swallowed, making me remember what it felt like to be shoved down that throat while her muscles worked. I ignored the twitch between my legs.
“You have to ask me truth or dare first.” I smiled at her side-eye glare, but she played along.
“Fine,” she said. “Truth or dare.”
“Dare.” I’d answer her question anyway, but I wanted to see what she would come up with.
“Okay, I dare you to get down on your knees and tell me exactly how you feel about our situation .”
I damn near sprang off the couch to heed her command, falling to the ground so I could crawl in between her legs. Her thighs were silky smooth, and the devotion pouring out of her violet gaze created a burn in my cheeks that cascaded down my neck and into my chest.
“Verona Montgomery,” I started. “Mistress Mayhem, I love the way you command my body. I started this celibacy streak because I was trying to make something outta myself, and the way you wreck me is unmatched by anyone else on this great planet.”
She flashed a playful smile, and I slid my hands higher, spreading my fingers up over her shorts so I could cup her hips. V leaned into the touch, curving her pelvis off the couch as if to bring it closer to me. From this vantage point, I saw up her crop top, to those beautiful perky breasts I wanted to bite and mark. The edge of her scar poked out from under the hem, and I caught sight of something shiny lying over it.
“My turn,” V said, handing the bottle to me, distracting me from her necklace.
I sat back on my haunches and took a drink. “Truth or dare, V.”
“Truth.” This time, she licked her lips and drew my attention to the soft, delectable skin. I lived to kiss V. I ached to have her devour my mouth the way only she could. I’d never thought I’d say that about anyone.
“Truth?” I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Again? You’re no fun.”
“That’s not true,” she argued, lifting a perfectly pedicured foot to my chest so she could press her toes into my pec and hold me still. “You had a lot of fun last night.”
“That’s right, I did.” We both did. More fun than I’d had in a long time. I grabbed her foot and massaged it, running my hands up her calf and back down again. “Why did you agree to do this with me, V?”
“Have sex with you?”
I nodded as I dug my fingers into her muscles, working my way up to her knee and over her thigh.
“Well”—she rolled her big eyes in jest—“you are very pretty.”
“That doesn’t count.” Lots of people were pretty, and she didn’t go around dominating everyone.
“I don’t know, Hudson. Maybe I thought I could we could treat each other right.”
“We do,” I said. “That’s true.”
“When you told me it turned you on when I hated you ...” She blew out a breath as I went to the other foot, lifting it to my chest and working my way down her leg again. “I’d never wanted anyone more in my life. I knew I could be rough with you, that you wanted it that way. But I also knew you needed someone to be gentle, too. Someone to take care of you.”
My stomach lurched and my heart pounded behind my ribs as I shifted my gaze to hers. No one had ever talked about me like that. Most people I hooked up with were selfish, only wanting a ride just to say they’d done it. Chelsea didn’t know me like V, and she couldn’t treat me the way V did, couldn’t even understand why I would want such a thing. Those were superficial encounters, nothing more. But this ... Whew, this blew my fucking mind.
“Can we forgo the game?” V said, taking the bottle from me so she could take a sip. “I just want to talk to you.”
“Of course,” I said, giving her a smile. I’d do anything V wanted, absolutely anything.
“Why did you want me?” V asked. “Why did me hating you turn you on so much?”
“I think we both know you never really hated me.” If she did, she wouldn’t have so easily agreed to this relationship. “No one talks to me like you do. No one even tries. All they see is—this.” I gestured to my face and my body, both of which I had no control over. Yeah, I worked a physically demanding job and I went to the gym to take care of my mental health, but most of it was genetics. Plain and simple. I couldn’t help the way I looked any more than anyone else could.
“Aww, poor wittle beautiful boy.” V pretended to pout, clearly mocking me to lighten the mood.
But I wouldn’t just take her mockery, not outside the bedroom, so I lurched forward and dug my fingers into her waist, right where she was ticklish. She squirmed and shouted, trying to twist away from me, but I outweighed her by a lot. She couldn’t go far.
“Nooooo!” Laughing, she flopped her body down on the couch, trying to scoot backward, but all it did was scrunch her crop top under her body, giving me a clear view of her perky bitable breasts and the ten-inch purple scar between them.
But now, my focus froze on the necklace lying on top of it. Attached to a long piece of black leather hung a tiny glass jar, and inside it?—
Is that a chunk of metal?
No, it’s a bullet fragment.
I reached up to touch it but V shoved her shirt over the evidence, quickly hiding it as she tried to wiggle out from under me. I wouldn’t let her. Her wide eyes and blank features indicated I wasn’t supposed to see it, and if I did, I wasn’t supposed to mention it.
“What is that?” I asked, now even more curious.
“It’s nothing.” She crossed her arms, trying to hide it.
“What?” I chuckled in disbelief. “C’mon. I’m being honest with you. Show me.”
V tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and hesitantly met my gaze, seeming to search for any signs of cruelty. If there were anyone in this world she could be authentically herself around, it was me. I knew all her dark, twisted kinks. I reveled in them with her.
“Promise you won’t make fun of me?” She sounded much too small to be the V I’d come to adore.
“Of course, V. Why would I—” I cut off when she pulled her shirt up again, revealing the glass jar with the lumpy, uneven chunk of metal inside. “What is it?”
“It’s ...” She cleared her throat and clenched her eyes shut. “It’s a piece of the bullet they pulled out of my chest.”
“What?” My brain went blank. I couldn’t understand what she was saying. A piece of the bullet? From the night we’d gotten shot together? From the night we’d almost died?
“I ... uh ... I asked Selene to see if she could get it.” V still didn’t look at me while she talked, as if meeting my stare would reveal something she had no desire for me to know. “She called in a few favors at the hospital. Some of her old surgeon buddies, I guess.”
“Okay.” That made sense. “Why are you wearing it around?”
V opened her eyes and took a deep breath, gliding her fingers up my torso to the spot four inches above my heart where that very bullet had gone through me and into her.
“It reminds me ...” She sighed and gave me a look full of vulnerability and deep abiding affection. “It reminds me there are people out there who would sacrifice themselves for me, that I’m not alone, even when I feel like it.”
My soul shattered. There was nothing she could have said that would have broken me so easily and completely. My heart clenched and I leaned down to bring my lips to hers, unable to resist the temptation of her mouth any longer.
“It reminds me you care for me, Hudson,” she whispered. “That we’re connected by more than family or relationships or whatever we’re doing here. You and I share a life debt. You saved me, and I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”
She clenched her eyes shut again and tears slid down either side of her face.
“V,” I said, blinking my own burning eyes as I cupped her face and swiped my thumbs across her cheeks to clear away her sadness. “It was my honor to save you, and I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. You don’t need to repay anything.”
She wrapped her fingers in my shirt and pulled me close, leaning up to kiss me, nudging her tongue against my mouth so she could get inside. I let her, melting against the contact as she devoured me whole.
Sure, our relationship was built on kink, and I loved when she tied me up to make me beg and bleed for her alone. But this was different, and it rocked my fucking world.
“Can I be inside you?” I whimpered in between breaths, running my hands along the side of her body so I could tuck my fingers under the waistband of her pants.
“Please,” she said. “Please.”
I yanked her shorts down to her ankles and shoved mine down to my knees, lining myself up at her entrance before surging home in one thrust. She gasped and arched into it, and my arms shook under my weight as I tried to hold myself up. But fuck. After her confession, my pulse hammered through my veins and my muscles trembled so hard that I could barely see straight, much less keep from crushing her.
She wrapped her fingers around my neck and pulled me down, linking her feet together at the small of my back to urge me on.
“Fuck,” I said as sparks of joy lit up my bloodstream, coursing through my body like I was being set on fire. Even though this was vanilla-ass missionary, sex had never been so mesmerizing. I pushed farther inside her like I was trying to get my soul in there, too. And she rocked against me, inhaling my exhales, groaning in answer to my moans, like she knew what I was trying to do and wanted our very existences to merge.
We were magic. Together ... like this ... even without the leather and the whips and the honorifics. She slid her hand up my stomach and planted it over the spot where I’d been shot, where my life had nearly ended to save her. As I connected our bodies harder and deeper, I found her scar with my fingers, covering it the same way she did to me.
“Promise me you’ll stay safe, Matty,” she said. “Promise me you won’t leave me.”
The only person in my life who called me by my Christian name these days was my mother, but hearing it fall from her lips in that precious moment stunned me more than anything else she could have done. We were stripped down of our societal roles, of the MC and what it meant to be a part of it. There in that room, it was just me and V and our skin and our souls and our blood and how desperately connected we were.
“I won’t,” I said, grabbing her hand from my chest to intertwine our fingers. I rested my forehead against hers as my climax started to rise, surging up the back of my knees and into my spine. “I promise, I won’t.”
“Fuck, I’m close.” She closed her lips over mine, sealing my oath with a kiss, before she tightened her internal muscles down on me, spasming with the height of her euphoria. It set me off, and I jerked into her two more times before my orgasm dragged me under.
The world stopped, and everything in it hung suspended for that one perfect moment. We were together. We were safe.
I lay on top of her and panted down the high while she idly ran her fingers up and down my back. We didn’t say anything for a long time because what words could possibly top what we’d just experienced? Eventually, she tunneled her fingers into my hair and pet my scalp, causing me to tilt my chin so I looked in her eyes.
“I have a confession to make,” she murmured. “And I’m not sure how you’re going to take it.”
Uh-oh.
I tried not to jump to conclusions, especially when her features dropped.
“When we were in high school, we both went to this party, and they were playing a round of Seven Minutes in Heaven.” As she talked, I put the pieces together in my mind, remembering the night in question. I’d thought I’d been hooking up with Becs, but when I brought it up later in the night, she’d looked at me like I’d grown a second head. When no one confronted me about it, I figured she must have been drunk and forgotten.
“That was you?” I pushed myself back on my haunches and smiled down at her.
She grimaced. “I should have told you before. I’m sorry about that.”
“Sorry?” I couldn’t help myself from digging into her ticklish spots again, making her giggle and squirm and try to get away. “The only thing you have to be sorry for is keeping the best-tasting pussy I’ve ever had away from me for a decade.”
“You weren’t ready for me, Hollywood. Not yet.” She smiled and I leaned down to kiss her one last time, conceding the fact we’d gotten together when it was right and not a moment before.