11. Lily
11
LILY
“ W hoa, slow down there, Cherub,” Slash cautions as he intercepts me when I storm into the main bar. “What’s up your arse?”
“Go away, I’m not in the mood for your Yoda routine.”
Laughing at my angry response, Slash throws an arm around my shoulders and walks me toward the prospect serving the alcohol. The bar smells like BBQ meat and beer, and although the area is full, none of my usual crew is here. Taking a closer look, I try to find anyone other than Zeke’s best friend to sit with.
“You’re stuck with me,” Slash quips. “Might as well make the most of it.”
“I’d rather wax my bikini line.”
My bitchy attitude is uncalled for considering I usually love hanging out with him. We have a book club for two. Hold regular sleepovers to binge watch our shows. Talk on the phone multiple times a day. He’s hilarious but nerdy, hard to ruffle, caring and wise. It’s a mixture that I appreciate, except when I know that he’s going to run back to Zeke with every word I say.
The men in this club gossip worse than the women.
As we pass them on our way to the main bar, the other Shamrocks stop what they’re doing and stare. Some of them smile. Others avert their eyes when ours meet. A couple, friends of my father’s, frown at me. The only thing their reaction to my presence has in common is the sympathy in their expressions. My pride flares, and I shake Slash’s heavy arm off, then flip them all the bird.
At that, they chuckle, resuming their aborted conversations a moment later.
Good.
I don’t need anyone’s pity.
Zeke’s is enough for me to handle right now.
After we find a free spot at the bar, I rap my knuckles against the hardwood.
“Screwdriver, double.” Rider, one of the younger prospects, nearly turns himself inside out trying to get my drink to me as fast as possible, proving that there is at least one perk to being the prez’s daughter and the VP’s old lady. I throw the drink down in three big gulps before I push my glass toward him again, this time remembering my manners. “Please.”
After the wary prospect shoots a quick glance at Slash, who nods his head that I can have another drink, he gets me a refill. When I glare at him, enraged by his hesitation, he dips his head and drifts toward the other end of the bar. Turning my attention to the man-bunned, pierced, and lightly tattooed giant to my right, I snarl, “Did we go back to the fifties while I was sleeping, or did Zeke manage to text you about my mood in the whole fifteen seconds it took me to walk from our bedroom to here?”
His chuckle tells me that it was the latter.
I wrap both hands around my glass and give him my back in dismissal. As I look around the bar, I try to plot my escape. Aware that I can probably find Fret in one of the compound’s workshops or Toker at the gun range, I drag in a breath to steady myself while I try to decide which man will annoy me the least.
No doubt Zeke has alerted them both to my meltdown as well.
The double doors that lead to the chapel swing open, then shut, and I spy Cub in the office. He’s typing away on his laptop, a frown line marring the lightly freckled skin between his eyebrows. His rust-coloured hair stands on end. Easy-going even when he’s stressed and never one to pry, Cub is the least likely to lecture me about fighting with Zeke, so choice made, I take a step toward the still-swinging double doors.
“Come the fuck over here and tell me what’s got you so worked up.” Slash wraps an arm around my waist and uses it to steer me and my fresh drink away from the chapel. Knowing that it’s useless to argue when he’s on a mission, I abandon my plan to seek out Cub and allow Slash to direct me to a private table in the far corner. “I’m all ears… can’t wait to learn the inner workings of my best friends’ relationship… especially all the dirty bits. Your man is a sexy beast. His game is legendary. I can’t have him puttin’ me to shame now.”
Although he’s joking, his teasing hits too close to home. A second after my arse hits the seat Slash pulls out for me, I fume out loud. “Why don’t I just give you an itemised list of all the things that have me worked up? It’ll be easier for you to keep up that way.”
“Hit me with it, Cherub… I have broad shoulders.”
I hold up a finger as I announce my first point.
“My psycho ex ... whatever he is... is back. He had me kidnapped, then tried to rape me...” Trailing off as I realise what I just admitted, I peer at the wall over his shoulder to avoid his eyes.
“That’s a short list.” Slash nudges my knee with his. The look he gives me as he worries the snake bite piercings in his bottom lip with his tongue is resolute and filled with ill-concealed anger. His voice shakes as he tries to lighten his tone to a more jocular level to quip, “It’s also light on the sexy times.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint, but sexy times haven’t exactly been on the cards.” Lifting a second finger as my lie lingers like a foul taste on my tongue, I swallow down the guilt that I feel over my threat to screw around on Zeke to continue my rant. “I’m drowning in pity, and I’m scared Sander’s going to relapse when he gets back and discovers what happened.”
A third finger joins the other two as I announce, “Dad’s playing games. Gaslighting me and Zeke, trying to drive a wedge between us—he’s also treating Charlie like shit.”
My chest heaves as Zeke’s downcast expression enters my head.
I add a fourth finger to the other three before I splutter, “The worst part is that my fiancé went soft when he tried to fuck me—all because I have more bruises from Alex than I realised… then I told him I’d screw someone else to make him hurt in the same way his rejection hurt me.” The awareness that I’ve said too much hits me like a tonne of bricks. “ Shit. Don’t tell Zeke I said that.”
Of course, the blond butthead just smirks. I shake my head and empty my glass in one scull. Slash raises his eyebrows, wiggling them at me, with dark humour all over his face.
“That’s quite a list.” He lifts his eyebrows again, the stainless-steel bar through his right eyebrow glints in the fluorescent lighting in the main bar. “But still no dirty bits. I’m offended that you won’t share with me.”
“God, you’re an idiot.” A genuine burst of laughter erupts. When it stops, I pat his forearm. “Thank you for trying to distract me.”
“I live to make you happy.” He affects a half bow and doffs an imaginary hat at me. As his expression becomes sober, I close my eyes to block out the pity I know is coming. “I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t glad you finally came clean to Venom about what happened last night. I didn’t believe your shitty story for a second. Neither did anyone with more than two functionin’ brain cells… which excludes your bastard father from that list.”
Reopening my eyes, I stare at him as I attempt to decide whether I should punch him in the face for being so blunt or crawl into his lap for yet another cry fest. Since he’s known me my entire life, Slash can read me almost as well as Zeke can, so he makes the decision for me by pushing his chair back from the table and opening his arms wide.
After I’m perched on his lap and I’ve snuggled into his broad chest, he closes his arms around my upper body. I allow the sobs that have been choking me to erupt. It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have any tears left to cry, yet as Slash strokes my back, I manage to dampen the shoulder of his shirt.
In his no-nonsense tone, he tells me, “You’ve gotta cut everyone some slack, little Cherub… but most of all, you’ve gotta cut yourself some slack. Every brother in this club, related by blood or oath, loves you to death. Sure, some of them are a little pissed off that you’ve brought us heat from the Maddison’s again, but on the whole, they’re fuckin’ heartbroken that we couldn’t keep you safe.”
Slash rocks me as my sobbing intensifies.
“Has it ever crossed your mind that you could stop pretendin’ to be made of titanium and lean on them, too? I love being part of your inner circle, so does Toker… it’s just, when you’re finally ready to accept help, everyone will pitch in to keep Sander clean. We can all help Venom find Alex too, so he can put a bullet in his head.”
“I don’t know?—”
He speaks over me. “Like we should’ve done four years ago…”
The way he leaves the rest of his sentence unsaid speaks volumes.
It wasn’t my decision to keep Alex alive back then. The blame for that falls on my dad’s shoulders. Once he’d stolen the president’s patch from Hades, he told the Shamrocks that he deemed it too risky to take out a government official’s son over a “relationship gone bad”, which was an explanation that helpfully excluded his arrange marriage machinations behind the scenes from the narrative. And, even as the public campaign being waged by the Kingsleys and the Maddison clan started to wear me and the club down, my father refused to change his mind. He wouldn’t take it to church so the brothers could vote, he wouldn’t sanction payback of any kind beyond a temporary truce with the Maddisons and the receipt of a financial boon from them. When Alex released the photographs of Sander using drugs at one of the paddock parties right before the season commenced, Dad continued to exercise uncustomary restraint.
And I didn’t kick up a stink.
I should’ve.
I could’ve.
I didn’t.
Now, in the wake of Dad’s strange behaviour and Alex’s early release, I can’t help but feel like I let everyone down.
Lockdown, and all the inconvenience and disruption it entails, could’ve been prevented if I was strong enough to fight for the payback I was owed back then.
Forever stoic, Slash stays silent for a few minutes, simply rocking me back and forth while I work through the tsunami of thoughts flooding my head. Finally, I don’t know how many minutes later, he shifts slightly so he can hook a finger under my chin to make me meet his eyes. His icy-blue gaze is filled with sympathy and understanding.
“He’d kill me for sayin’ this, but you needa cut Venom the most slack out of us all. I can see the bruises on your legs, your arms, and your face and I can only imagine what the rest of your body looks like.”
Slash shakes his head as regret drowns me.
I chose this outfit to prove a point. Of course, it’d backfire, and just prove how weak I am instead.
That’s just my luck in a nutshell.
“My brother loves you—worships the ground you walk on... there’s no way he’d let you out of his bed if he could get away with it. Doesn’t matter what happens, that’ll never change. You two are forever, and anyone with eyes can see you are fuckin’ dynamite together.” I bury my head back into his chest to hide from the guilt that surges within me at his reminder of how I lashed out at Zeke. I can’t believe I threatened to sleep with other men. As a hush dawns in the bar and I hear someone’s footsteps drawing closer, Slash continues. “You’ve gotta understand that he feels guilty that you got hurt again on his watch… that he holds himself abso- fucking -lutely responsible for everythin’ that’s happened to you. Now and five years ago.”
Although I grumble in disagreement, he doesn’t heed my dispute. “I’m tellin’ you that he does, Cherub… so you’ll understand where the fuck he’s comin’ from. He doesn’t have it in him to add to your pain, no matter how much he might’ve wanted you at the time.”
“It’s not his fault,” I declare. “It’s mine.”
Slash doesn’t respond verbally. Instead, he scoops me from his lap and passes me to someone standing behind me. My feet don’t even graze the ground as he easily lifts me. I immediately recognise Zeke’s strong arms when they close around me, cradle me softly, and I lay my head on his shoulder.
“I’ll be with Toker,” Slash tells us. A weird mix of sorrow and anger invades his expression as he looks between me and my fiancé. “Needa shoot somethin’ up.”
Zeke offers him a chin lift. “I’ll text you when Cub has an update.”
When my first and only love carries me through the bar, I press a kiss to the underside of his lightly bearded jaw, then whisper, “I’m so sorry I was a bitch to you.”
“Apology accepted,” he replies. “But don’t threaten me with shit like that again… I won’t just take it next time.”
“Never,” I vow. “There’s never going to be anyone but you.”
Once we’re back in our room, Zeke places me on the bed before locking our door. After stripping off his clothes and dropping them to the floor, he climbs onto the mattress and leans over me. The alcohol in the drinks that I downed at the bar has mixed with the pain relief I took, and my body is relaxed for the first time since yesterday afternoon, so I don’t offer any objection when Zeke undresses me in turn. Once I’m naked, he lays with his upper back and head propped against the headboard and pulls my body over his.
With my head on his shoulder and my legs intertwined with Zeke’s, I allow my heavy eyelids to flutter shut as he arranges the covers over our nakedness.
“We needa sort out our shit.” As he speaks, I nod against his chest. “If we don’t pull together, what happened yesterday is gonna fuck us up, and I don’t want that… do you want that fucker to win after everythin’ we’ve already been through?”
“No, of course not,” I mumble.
“Then you needa let me in... you can’t keep runnin’ off to everyone else instead of talkin’ to me, even though we both know I let you down by lettin’ him get his filthy hands on you again.” He pauses as if he isn’t sure he wants to continue. “Slash’s right, ya know? I do blame myself for what you’ve been through, and I’ll never forgive myself for it… and the worst part is that I can’t even promise you that it won’t fuckin’ happen again.”
“That’s not on you, though—” My protest is cut off when he places a finger on my lips and pulls me tighter to him.
“Until he’s dead, it’s on me. It’s always been on me… back when you first started seein’ him and again when I didn’t tell you that he was bein’ released early. Sweet thing, I’m responsible for it all—and it kills me that I can’t tell you that he’ll never hurt you like that again… because I refuse to lie to you over it.”
Every atom in my body is shouting at me to tell him he’s wrong, but I don’t. Instead, I acquiesce. Only for now. Only because I can sense that he needs to get this off his chest.
There’s been more than a few moments throughout the years where Zeke’s hinted that he feels he’s to blame, and I’ve never let him say his piece.
I shut him down—tell him he’s wrong.
Because he is.
But maybe he needs to have his say in order to move past his own feelings?
“I need you to take your anger out on me, metukà shelì . The rage and the pain that eats at you is chewin’ on me too… so hit me with it. I can handle it.” Zeke drops a quick kiss on the top of my head. “Give me your hurt and your anger, Lily, then give me your fear, too. Don’t hide it from me. Let me do my job as your friend. Let me do my job as your old man… let me get you through this.”
My body jerks at the vehemence in his voice, and he quickly soothes me with gentle touches.
Seeing the torment that is etched in his features, I understand that he’s right.
Alex’s poison is eating us both alive.
It is chewing on our souls.
Turning our love necrotic with every new bite.
“It’s not your fault, Zeke. You had no idea what he was planning either time—” I try to explain my perspective, but he cuts me off.
“No, I didn’t, but I shoulda been able to keep you safe both times. Six years ago, I shut you out when you needed me because my feelings were hurt. Instead of fightin’ for you, I ignored you. I acted like a little bitch… took your virginity when you offered it, then pouted when you left the party with Alex to protect us all. The only reason I pulled my head outta my arse was Sander’s panic. He pitched a fit, was adamant that somethin’ was wrong, and he wouldn’t leave us alone until we went with him.” Zeke exhales roughly and we both clutch each other tighter as the spectre of my eighteenth birthday party hangs over us. “Then I pussied out when it came to tellin’ you that Alex was bein’ released. I shoulda had backup in place so they couldn’t get to you yesterday. I shoulda?—”
“Someone set me up—that’s not on you.”
“Sweet thing, that text was the least of our problems yesterday.”
“What else happened?”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Zeke tells me, even as the feral glint in his gaze says the opposite. “What matters is that I’m ’sposed to be some big, badarse biker, yet I can’t keep the most important person in my life safe.”
As he bounces his leg beneath me—a sure sign that he’s about to lose it—his embrace constricts. Before I can find the words to explain how wrong he is, I feel a warm drop of liquid drip onto my bare shoulder. Looking up, I discover a single wet trail running down my fiancé’s cheek as he stares straight ahead without blinking.
My own eyes burn at the depth of pain I discover in his.
The lump in my throat doubles in size.
I haven’t seen Zeke cry since we were kids, although I thought I heard him crying once when I was waking from the surgery to try to fix my uterus. Sander told me I was dreaming and to leave it alone, so I did. But the memory has stayed with me through the years.
Zeke’s anguish makes my chest ache.
Gingerly moving onto my knees, I straddle his thighs and pull his head to my chest. Zeke folds his arms around me, fingers linked at the small of my back as he holds me close. He burrows his face in my cleavage while I place kisses on the top of his head.
Over and over, he chants, “I’m so sorry, Lily. So. Fuckin’. Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
I try to calm him. Try to tell him he isn’t responsible, but he’s lost control of himself. His leg bounces. His body shakes. He squeezes me tighter and tighter until my bruised ribs throb in protest. Panic grips me. Failure stalks me.
None of the blame belongs on Zeke’s shoulders.
It’s mine alone.
Mine to carry.
The karma I’m owed for the games I played back then.
“Zeke!” I whisper-shout in his ear as tears stream down my face at the sight of the torment I’ve caused him. “ Please. Listen to me... It’s not your fault.” My fingers tremble as I wrench his head back and kiss him hard on the lips, finally silencing him. “Zeke, it’s not your fault.”
Bringing our mouths back together in an ardent meeting that tastes like sorrow, I wind my fingers through his hair and moan when he clutches the locks at my nape in his fist. We use our equally unforgiving grips to pull each other closer. As we kiss, our bodies undulate. My nipples harden where they rub against his chest, the friction setting my desire alight. His cock rises between my thighs, and once erect, twitches against my core.
Zeke’s voice is rough as he tells me, “I need you so fuckin’ bad. Always do. Always will.”
After biting his bottom lip, I confess, “I know… ’cause it’s the same for me.”
My man groans against my mouth before bending down to suck my right nipple into his mouth. I pull my fingers from his hair and run my hands over his wide shoulders, then angle my upper body so I can reach between us to stroke his cock. He kisses every bruise he can reach on my face, and then my shoulders and upper body. Once he’s done, Zeke moves his focus to my nipples, sucking and biting as he alternates between them.
“Please make love to me,” I implore when my lower tummy fills with needy heat.
Pulling his mouth from my nipple with a pop, Zeke kisses me roughly as he picks me up from his lap. As I read his intention, I use the hand that’s already working his length up and down to hold his cock in place while he lowers me down over him. He pushes inside me, forcing my body to accept him with sharp, pulsing thrusts until I’m fully seated.
I’m stretched around him, my walls gripping him tight as I return my hands to his hair and tug, making him groan. When he tucks his hands under my arse and moves me up and down over his erection, I throw my head back. It’s too much. Not enough. Just right. I’m overwhelmed, yet crying out for more in the wake of every pump of his hips beneath me. As my desire grows, I take charge, lifting myself up and down on his cock in a steady rhythm that has us both panting within minutes.
“Fuck. I’m not gonna last long.” He groans against my neck. Reaching between us, he rubs my clit. I gasp, my pussy spasms around his hardness as I near the cusp of my orgasm. “I’m gonna come. Come on, sweet thing, come with me.”
Zeke grunts before he bites down on my shoulder as he increases the speed of his fingers against my sensitive nub. I edge into the abyss just as he swells inside me. As I ride my orgasm, my knees locking, my body convulsing around him, my man pulls me up and down in a frantic pace over his straining cock as his own climax hits.
“Oh, my God— Zeke .” I groan against his shoulder as I reach orgasm seconds after him. Panting so hard that I can barely breathe, let alone hold myself upright, I slump against him, letting my full weight fall into his lap. “God. I’m done.”
“You okay, metukà shelì? I didn’t hurt you?” In a rush, Zeke lifts me off his cock. He slides us both down the bed until we’re lying next to each other. He hands me the t-shirt he was wearing to clean the mess between my legs. Clasping me to his heaving chest, he peppers my face with kisses, then puts enough space between us to peer down at me with a question in his gaze. “Tell me you’re okay?”
“I’m okay.” I offer him a wide grin. “Better than okay. That’s exactly what I needed after yesterday.”
Disbelief floods his gaze, and I want to kick myself for mentioning it. Rather than give in to the temptation to protect my pride, I force myself to admit what I’m feeling. “I was so scared I’d end up back where I was, afraid of intimacy, scared to be touched… I was terrified you wouldn’t want me anymore.”
“Never gonna happen,” he interjects.
“Tell that to my head,” I say with a wry smile. “Like, my heart knows, but my head is a slow learner.”
“Why don’t we show your head just how wrong it is a second ti?—”
Zeke begins to roll me beneath him as we’re interrupted by a fist pounding on our door.
Whoever it is starts turning the handle to get in.
Thank God my man locked it.
“Venom, we’ve gotta go now. Shit’s goin’ down. Bring Cherub. Brutus wants her,” Slash yells at us before he runs back down the hallway.
Thundering footsteps follow him, and I hear voices being raised.
Something big is going down.
“Shit. Get dressed. Quick,” Zeke orders as he bounds from the bed and pulls his jeans on.
After splashing his face with water over the bathroom basin, he returns to the bedroom and swipes the T-shirt he stripped off me before our argument earlier—one of his that I slept in—from the back of the chair where I tossed it before I stalked off earlier. Pulling the black material over his head, Zeke tucks the hem into his waistband, then secures his Harley-Davidson belt buckle. I watch him grab his guns, two for his shoulder holsters, and one for the strap around his ankle, and slide them into place. Once his hunting knife is secured to his shin, he shrugs his cut over his shoulders.
“Be fast.” He swipes his thumb over my bleeding lip then sucks his flesh clean. “Wear jeans. Boots. Long-sleeved shirt. Brutus won’t wait for you if he gets on a tear.”
Zeke kneels down to tie up his boots. Straightening, he kisses my cheek, then runs from the room. I grab some clothes out of the drawers and head to the bathroom to clean up and dress. Taking the quickest shower possible, I do my best to keep my hair dry while I wash my body and face.
As I’m dragging a brush through my slightly damp hair, I pray that all this urgency means Alex has been located.
Facing him again felt like an impossible task earlier.
Now that Zeke knows the truth, I find myself looking forward to this entire disaster coming to an end.
One bullet.
Straight to the head.
It’s what he deserves.