Forty-Three
W hen we got back to the clubhouse, with my couple of bags of essentials, Stitch was called into a meeting with his brothers, so I went and settled myself in, and then I was bored. I went looking for Lissa, and instead I found Elise.
She was disappearing into the room they’d assigned for her, but I caught the sounds she was making, and I couldn’t leave her crying alone.
When I tapped on the door and she opened it, I knew she was hoping to see someone else standing there, maybe Has, and I hated to disappoint her.
“What happened, babe? Can I come in?”
She let me in and checked the hall, then when she closed the door, she locked it too.
“He’s so… he knows he’s hurting both of us, but he just won’t listen to me. He’s quite happy to boss me around in the interests of ‘keeping me safe’ though.”
I sat down on the spare chair in the room, as she curled up on the small sofa.
“I don’t want to be here, Camille.”
“Call me Cammy, babe. It’s only your stubborn-ass brother who refuses. Look, I understand how frustrating it must be, with him keeping his distance right now, but maybe he’s just worried about being distracted from finding the murderer. For some reason the club have decided it’s their job to find whoever did it, but my understanding is that only the few of them know, so we have to keep that a secret too.”
“So many secrets, Cammy. This whole club is built on secrets. Every relationship is built on secrets. At some point, it’ll all come crashing down, and what’ll be left? A whole bunch of broken people, who should have just talked to each other.” Damn, she wasn’t wrong. We were all holding stuff back from others all the time, whether it was to protect them, or stop them from worrying about something, or whatever.
“I know. It won’t be forever, though, right? It’s not such a bad place to be either, right? Not now there are a few other women here. We can help each other cope with being stuck here under house arrest. We’ll have a laugh. In fact, I feel like we need to get drunk together tonight.”
Elise nodded. “Definitely. Everything’s easier then.”
Someone tapped on the door, and I stood up.
“I should go and see if Stitch is back yet. You want me to check who’s there?”
Elise nodded, looking uninterested and forlorn, and I really felt for her. Being her age and in love wasn’t easy, even without the additional challenges they faced.
When I pulled the door open, I found myself face to face with Has-Been. He looked shocked, then worried, and backed up, but I shook my head.
“I never saw you; I know nothing.”
I left the door open, and walked away, leaving it up to Elise if she let him in. Stitch came up the stairs a moment later, and must have missed Has disappearing into his sister’s room by a split second. I watched him glance at her door, and realised that he had every intention of stopping in to check on her. Shit, that wouldn’t go well, now would it?
“I just left Elise, and she was thinking of taking a nap.” I hated lying to him, but he had enough on his plate already, and worrying about his sister’s potential relationship was something I could protect him from for now.
“How was the meeting?”
He led me into our room, and closed the door.
“Couple of things came up. Autopsy isn’t done yet, but Ice was able to access the others, and he’s building an MO to work from. He’s also working out her recent movements via her phone tracking data, or whatever. Reacher is contacting the other few club girls we’ve had here in the last year, to check they’re okay and warn them to stay away. We don’t want anyone else at risk.”
I took a breath. “These uh, club girls… ”
Stitch grinned. “You’re hot when you’re jealous, babe. For the record, I didn’t fuck any club girls, but then I didn’t need to. See, I got plenty of-”
I smacked him in the middle of his chest, and he started laughing.
“No reason to be jealous, wifey. I only have eyes for you for the rest of my fucking life .”
Stitch
I shouldn’t love winding her up as much as I do, but it was just so easy. She was fiery and possessive, and I wanted that from her. I’d shown my possessive side, and I was relieved as fuck to see it in return from her. We’d come together on the spur of the moment, thinking we had no future. Now that we knew we had the rest of our lives, I was looking forward to every second with her.
“I’m going to gather the women tonight for drinks. We need some fun.”
“I don’t give you enough fun, babe? Am I not scratching every itch for you?” She batted my hands away.
“I want to cheer Elise up. She’s feeling low, being on lockdown here with us.”
I was glad they were bonding, but the idea of my sister feeling like that bothered me. Not because I wanted her at home at the club, because I really didn’t want that for her, but because I wanted her to be happy, even if she had to hide out for a while.
“I’ll go and talk to her.”
“No, she’s resting, remember? You can talk to her at the bar later. For now we need to get something to eat, and you didn’t even help me settle in. I’m feeling very hard done by right now, Stitch.” She pouted at me, and moved back when I reached for her.
“Can’t do much if you won’t come near me, babe.”
My saucy wife pointed at the door.
“I know you like the exhibitionism thing, but I’m not doing this when any of your damn brothers could walk in. ”
I locked it, and turned to find her naked already. I fucking love this woman.
“This time the door gets locked, but next time we fuck, it’s downstairs in the bar, got it?”
Camille’s forehead creased a little, and then she laughed.
“Oh thank god, that’s a joke, right? Like you’d really get me naked where they could all see me.”
I winked as I grabbed her and backed her up to the bed.
“You’ll be wearing a skirt and no underwear. I’ll fuck you like that, and nobody will see a damn thing. Well, I mean, they might see my naked ass if my jeans don’t stay up, but that’s their problem.”
“I’m not fucking you in the damn bar, Stitch!”
Challenge accepted. I couldn’t wait to prove her wrong.