Chapter 69
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
H olding on to Jesus’ waist, she saw the lights of her house ahead. Finally, she was almost home.
The ride home on Jesus’ motorcycle had been as much fun as going to church on a pretty Sunday—you wanted to go, but you knew you’d rather be doing something else. Or be with someone else, she clarified. Any joy of exhalation of riding that she had imagined experiencing with Moon had fallen short with Jesus.
He drove as if every bump in the road would send her flying off the motorcycle. She could have jogged faster than he drove.
As Jesus pulled into the driveway, Keller’s motorcycle pulled in next to him. Both men turned their bikes off as she climbed off.
“Thank you, Jesus. I appreciate you both cutting short your evening to bring me home.”
As she thanked Jesus, she saw his eyes move from hers to over her shoulder.
“No problem. Moon, how’s it going?”
Turning, she found herself chest-to-chest with Moon. The look of rage on his face made her take a step back. However, Jesus’ hand on her back kept her from toppling over onto his lap.
When he saw that Jesus was touching her, Moon pulled her into his arms.
“What’s wrong?” Larissa asked.
“You want to tell me how you left with your family yet ended up coming home with Jesus?”
Stunned that he was showing her a high and mighty attitude after she had caught him riding with Saffron today sent her blood simmering.
“They weren’t ready to leave, and when Killyama saw Jesus and Keller were leaving, she asked them if they would bring me home so Mom and my sisters could stay.”
“You should have called me, and I would have come and got you.”
Her hands went to her hips. “Why on earth would I have you take the baby out to pick me up”—Larissa pointed at the baby monitor in his hand—“rather than me accepting a ride from Jesus?”
“Because he has the morals of a fucking alley cat, and he knows you’re my old lady. Your ass has no business being on any motorcycle except mine.”
She gaped at him. “You big hypocrite!” She angrily whacked him on his arrogant chest with her purse. “You’re making a big deal of me riding with Jesus, yet you were all kissy face with Saffron!” she screeched at him.
“Yeah, I am!” he snarled. “And I was not all kissy face with Saffron!”
Her anger reached a boiling point. Normally, she would run a mile to keep from having an argument, but Moon being so blatantly unreasonable was more than her pacifist soul could take.
Spinning around, she faced Jesus. “Does this look kissy face to you?” Before Jesus could jerk his face away, she pressed her cheek to his.
“What the fuck!”
Feeling Moon’s hand on her forearm, she whacked him with her purse again as she stepped away from Jesus.
“Ouch! That fucking hurts,” Moon complained, moving out of her reach.
“Good.” Giving him a look of pure satisfaction, she turned back to the two men on their motorcycles. “Well?” she snapped.
Confusion filled their faces.
“Well what?”
“Did that look kissy-kissy to you?”
Jesus seemed unsure about the best way to reply, while Keller burst into laughter.
“Totally kissy-kissy,” he agreed.
“See! I told you!” Turning, she went to walk past Moon, only to stop mid-stride to whack him again.
“Give me that.” Snatching the small purse out of her hand, he raised it over his head, out of reach.
She refused to give him the pleasure of jumping for it, so she kicked him instead. “Keep it.” Relishing the way he warily moved to the side when she continued on past him was the best part of her stinking day. “Why don’t you shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, you”—there were several names she could have used to describe what she thought of Moon, but she settled on the most appropriate one—“prick.”
She stormed inside the house but caught herself before she slammed the door shut, not wanting to wake Jace.
Leaving the door ajar, she flounced angrily into her bedroom, coming to a stop when she saw Jace’s crib was empty. Was he in the crib in the living room?
She was about to head to the living room when a thought entered her mind as she passed the nursey. Opening the door to Jace’s room, she saw the small lamp on his bureau was on. The room was dim, but she could easily see Jace sleeping in his crib.
Crossing the room, she smiled lovingly at her son. As he slept with a crunched-up face, he looked so much like Moon that she felt tears swimming in her eyes. She wanted to pick him up for a cuddle but restrained herself, turning instead to tiptoe quietly from the room, only to come to a stop at seeing Moon in the doorway.
Brushing past him, she went into their room and pulled a nightgown out of her dresser.
“Are you planning to ignore me for the rest of the night?”
He was standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed over his chest as if waiting for an apology. It blew her mind.
Imitating him, she stood like him. “If you’re waiting for an apology, you’re not going to get it.” She kept her voice low even though Moon had closed their door. She was done letting him see how much she cared about him riding with Saffron. “I’m the one who deserves an apology.”
Conflicting emotions crossed his face. “You had no business being on Jesus’ bike, or any motorcycle for that matter,” he stated calmly.
“Why not?” She raised her hands in defeat at what he’d said. “You certainly weren’t going to take me.”
Moon nodded. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Why?” Hurt that he refused to let her ride with him while he let another do so sliced through her. It showed he was never going to share the more important parts of his life with her. “You don’t want people in town seeing us together?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. People see us together when we go out,” he argued back.
“We haven’t gone out together since Jace was born. Are you with Saffron and you don’t want to tell me because of Jace?”
Moon raked a hand through his hair. “Larissa, there are parts of the club I can’t discuss with you. Saffron being on my bike today is one of them.”
“What in the heck does that mean?”
“Club business is kept private.”
“So, you’re not allowed to tell me?”
“No.”
“Does it go for all of the women or just me?”
“The rest of the women belong to the club.”
“And I don’t?”
“No.”
“I see.” Her crossed arms dropped to her waist. Turning, she stared down at the nightgown dangling from her hand.
“I don’t think you do.”
Hearing his frustrated sigh only heightened her awareness that Moon would never let her into his world, that he only wanted to allow her into a small part of his life, and she wouldn’t have been allowed in at all if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with Jace.
“All the women are Last Riders. They attend church meetings, are willing to accept the rules of the club, and when they break the rules, they accept the punishment.”
Listening, Larissa turned back to face him.
“They accept that Viper has the final say-so over our lives as long as we belong to the club,” Moon continued. “They keep their mouths shut with whatever goes down because they know if one falls, we all fall.” Moon paused.
Letting him talk without interrupting to ask questions was hard, but he was filling her in on some of the blanks she’d been wondering about. When he paused, she could tell he was debating leaving out something, but when his eyes met hers, she mentally prepared herself. Something told her that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to tell her.
“To become a Last Rider, there are certain requirements. The men have to fight six of the original members.”
Thank goodness she wasn’t a man, was all she could think. She had seen most of The Last Riders; she could imagine the damage having to fight so many would cause.
“There are also requirements for the women to become members.”
Was she willing to fight six women for the right to become a Last Rider? Maybe, she mused, if one of those women was kissy face Saffron.
She straightened to her full height to show him that she wasn’t scared, which she was, but she didn’t want him to know. Would they give her time to take fighting lessons?
“How many women would I have to fight?” she asked with more confidence than she felt.
“You don’t have to fight any women. Actually, fighting between the women is prohibited. They could get thrown out.”
Whew, thank God. They would have stomped her ass.
Larissa tried to look disappointed, but she didn’t think Moon bought it.
“That’s a shame. I can think of at least one woman I wouldn’t mind fighting.”
Moon’s lips curled in amusement. “You wouldn’t be allowed to use a purse.”
She made a face at him. “Then what do the women have to do? Do a bake-off? Clean the clubhouse? I’m warning you now that I would rather fight six of the men than clean a clubhouse, or the men’s clothes, or clean their bathrooms.”
“I can’t guarantee you wouldn’t have to do any of the cleaning, laundry, or cooking. We all get a weekly chore list, the women and the brothers.”
Larissa narrowed her eyes at him. “So, what else do the women have to do to become members?”
“They have to fuck or give a climax to six of the eight brothers who are allowed to give votes.”
She felt her jaw drop open. “You’re kidding.”
Moon didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to—his expression said it all.
Clearing her suddenly dry throat, she slung her nightgown over her shoulder. “You know what, Moon?” She cleared her throat again. “It occurs to me that I don’t need to know The Last Riders’ club business. I have to maintain patient confidentiality as a healthcare provider; I would resent you if you asked me to break that confidence. How about we just forget I asked and move on?”
Taking baby steps to the side, she tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, wanting to make it into the bathroom and end this embarrassing conversation.
Had Lily fulfilled the requirements? She must have … Damn, those still waters ran deep … Winter, too? Ginny? Her mind raced as the women who belonged to The Last Riders came to mind.
Her eyes flew to Moon’s as another thought clicked into place. Her hand fisted the bottom of her gown, and her voice went dangerously low. “How many of the women members have you given your vote to?”
Moon took a step back. “I haven’t counted.”
“Don’t you dare lie to me.” She started pacing back and forth around the bedroom. “Oh, God. Oh, God.” Coming to a stop in front of him, she tilted her head back to glare at him. “How many?” she whisper-screamed.
“I … didn’t …” He held his hands up in the air, pretending to push down. “Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” She spoke too quietly. Moon had to lower his head to hear her. “Not only did you give them your vote, you had sex with them more than one time, didn’t you?”
“Larissa, go take your sh—”
“In fact”—her fist went to rest on her hip as she took a step closer until they were chest-to-chest—“you can have sex with them any ole time you want, can’t you?”
“I can.” Moon put a hand up again, trying to calm her down. “But I haven’t since you—”
“Since I came to Treepoint from Bowling Green?” she finished for him.
“I haven’t. I swear.” At least he’d managed to keep his dick …
Another thought occurred to her.
“Have you kissed a woman?”
She knew he had before he opened his mouth.
Fury hit her like a tornado. One second, she was standing there, and the next, she was whaling on any part of his body she could reach.
“You son of a bitch,” she hissed. “I’m never going to kiss you again.”
At first, Moon just stood there, as if stunned. His hesitation nearly cost him the ability to father more children in the future. At the last second, he must have read the vindictive gleam in her eyes and moved, narrowly being nailed in the groin.
“Whoa. That’s playing dirty.”
“Isn’t that right up your alley?” Moving a few steps back, she tugged the nightgown off her shoulder to fold it in half. Then she started twirling it in her hands.
Moon’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do with that?”
“Guess.”
Before he could react, she snapped the gown out, hitting him on the hip. Too late, she came to her senses at what she had done.
Instead of being angry like she’d expected, Moon seemed overjoyed. His reaction scared the bejesus out of her.
She spun to run into the bathroom, but a whimper coming from the baby monitor had her jerking to a stop.
Moon was standing right in front of the bedroom door, blocking her path. From the unholy grin on Moon’s face, he knew the cards had turned in his favor.
“Go take your shower.” When she would have argued, his eyes dipped to her breasts. “I’ll change Jace and bring him in so you can feed him.”
Looking down, she hastily raised her hands to her breasts. The damp spots on the front of her sundress made her rush into the bathroom.
She quickly took her dress off and stepped into the shower. What had gotten into her? She had been fighting her jealousy ever since she had seen Moon with Saffron on his motorcycle, and when he appeared outside when she arrived home as if he was some avenging angel, it had struck her last nerve.
It wasn’t a big deal when a woman rode on his motorcycle, yet when the tables were turned …? Then finding how the women became members put the icing on the cake. Was he one of the members who could give a vote? If so, how many women had he voted for? She had been aware the women there were available to the men but had assumed he hadn’t been with them all .
Why should he be content with her when he could have the whole candy store anytime he wanted?
Raising her face to the water, she let the first tears of the night escape.
Because she didn’t want to let Jace become impatient and Moon warm him a bottle, she turned off the shower to dry off.
Sliding on a mid-length cream, pink flower robe, she knotted it at her waist. Facing Moon again after her outburst wasn’t going to be easy. Bolstering herself that maybe by the time she was finished nursing Jace, the big lug would be asleep, she opened the bathroom door. If not, she promised herself to be the calm, reasonable, sweet-tempered woman she normally was, even if it killed her.