Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GOOSE
I ride up to the clubhouse and park my bike in the same place I always park my bike, but I can’t deny that I somehow feel different from the last time I was here.
It’s only been a few days, but I feel different.
I want to be home with her. I want to feel her body pressed against mine. I want to be inside her again.
I fear I’m fucking obsessed with my woman.
And she is that, too.
Mine.
She may not realize it yet, but her body does. She belongs to me. There is just no way around the fact that she is mine. I tried to pretend that it was just for fun. I tried really fucking hard to keep her at arm’s length.
But I can’t.
I’ve fallen for her, head over goddamn heels. I understand Maverick now. I understand why he never wanted me to fuck Zadie. I understand why he was so torn. I understand it all, and I owe him a fucking apology, which pisses me off in and of itself.
Climbing off my bike, I take my phone out of my pocket and check on the apartment. Posey and Dakota are standing at the front door. Zadie is a few feet behind them, with Briana standing to the side.
I can tell even through the camera that Briana is uneasy. I couldn’t begin to guess how this is going to go. Lightning was shot because of Cidney. Even if not directly, I could see how someone could think that, especially someone who is in love with Light.
I watch as the door opens and they walk inside.
I could find the camera that feeds into the living room to listen in on what is being said, but I decide against it.
This girls’ night, this meeting, isn’t supposed to be watched.
I would be a dick if I did that, and although I am an asshole, I’m not that kind of asshole.
Cidney deserves her privacy, at least as much as I’m willing to give her. And a chat with her friends is fine with me. Besides, I can still smell her on my skin. I got nothing to fucking worry about when it comes to her.
After fucking her in the shower, I helped Cidney with the grocery order. My initial plan was to leave before the order ever arrived, but I couldn’t do that. Not when there was nowhere else I wanted to be except beside her.
I am fully aware that even to myself, I sound like a love-drunk pussy, or maybe I’m in pussy-drunk love.
I’m not sure, and I’m even less sure that I care.
It is what it is at this point, and the more I embrace it, what we are to one another, the more I can move forward with her.
Because the thought of her packing her shit and leaving Thunder Rock makes me want to flip a fucking table.
I’m here to meet with Bullet, and I promised my brother a couple of beers. I should have been here earlier. I know I should, but nothing could have kept me from her. I wasn’t ready to leave her, even for a few hours.
We’ve been together twenty-four seven for so many days, it feels like part of me is missing when she’s not nearby.
It felt like I was actually tearing in two just leaving her when I did, which was hours later than I originally claimed I wanted to.
And Cidney didn’t seem to mind me staying for longer, either.
This feels very unsettling. I’m not sure how to describe it, but there is a shift happening, and I don’t think it’s just Cidney and me. It feels bigger than just us personally. It feels almost gargantuan, like an undertaking. Like the world as we know it is about to shift completely.
Making my way toward the clubhouse, I open the door to the bar and step inside.
Everything is the same as it was the last time I was here a few days ago, everything but me.
Scanning the room, I see the whores moving around, all on the verge of nakedness, and while I don’t look away, I also don’t have the urge to fuck any of them, either.
Shocker is sitting in his normal spot at the end of the bar, the only one bellied up at the moment.
Lightning is sitting on the couch against the wall, his head tipped backward, resting against the back of the cushion, a beer in his hand.
He’s still recovering from being shot, but at least he doesn’t look half dead anymore.
I start to move toward him, to talk to him, when Lolita moves to stand in front of me. She’s wearing next to nothing—a pair of thong panties, high heels, and pasties. Really, she looks like she’s ready to party, and it feels a bit too early for that right now.
She tilts her head back, her eyes find mine, and her lips part slightly. I’m not sure if she’s trying to appear sexy, but it doesn’t work. In fact, I can’t help but snort, only because when Cidney looks up at me like that, my cock twitches. Lolita does the same, and nothing.
Fuck me, but I am seriously gone for the girl. Not even Lolita standing in front of me, sexy as shit, practically naked, could shift my attention from my woman to anyone else. I’m gone for Cidney. I want to turn around right now and go back home… Home. Because anywhere with Cidney is home.
Lolita clears her throat, which causes my focus to shift from my own thoughts to her again. Although I’m slightly annoyed that she’s taken my thoughts of Cidney from the forefront of my mind, I’d rather be thinking about her than conversing with Lolita right now.
“Help you?” I ask.
She shifts her gaze to the side, then brings her attention back to mine. “You fell in love,” she whispers.
It’s a statement, not a question of any kind, but I arch a brow, my confusion still very much apparent as I attempt to figure out just how she could sense that I’ve fallen in love when I haven’t quite allowed myself to admit it, even internally, yet.
“What?” I ask.
She laughs softly, as if she finds me comical, or maybe she just thinks I’m fucking foolish and stupid—I’m not quite sure. She wouldn’t actually say it, though. If she did… find me funny or stupid, that is, she wouldn’t say shit, because that’s not her place.
“You fell in love. I can tell. I’ve seen it enough over the past couple of years. Bullet, Lightning, Ivy…” Her words trail off before her gaze focuses on mine. “Maverick.”
She says the name in a whisper, and I know it’s because the struggles we had with one another were no secret. But it’s really nobody else’s fucking business what happens between Maverick and me.
“You’re sticking your nose into shit that’s not yours,” I grind out through clenched teeth.
She shrugs a shoulder, taking a step backward. “Maybe,” she murmurs, “but I am not wrong. I know I’m not.”
And with that, she spins around and walks away. I watch her bare ass as she does. An ass I’ve bent over more than one table, bed, and pool table. Always a good fucking time, too, but the sight of it does nothing for me right now.
Turning from her swaying hips, I smirk at the sight of my brother standing a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, his head tipped slightly, and his brows raised. I press my lips together at the same time his curve up into a shit-eating grin.
“You’re in love,” he states.
Rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I shake my head a couple of times. “I didn’t come here to get my balls busted,” I snap.
“No doubt that’s happening back at Cidney’s apartment plenty,” he says, his words coming out on a chuckle.
I flip him off, then walk over to the bar and slam my hand down a couple of times. A beer appears in front of me, and another for Maverick as he steps up beside me. I feel his hand clamp down around my shoulder, jerking me gently.
“Talk to me, brother.”
Lifting the beer to my lips, I take a pull, swallowing it before I turn to face him. I lift my gaze slowly to meet his. I’m not sure what to say, so I blurt out the only thing that comes to my mind.
“I’m fucking in love.”
CIDNEY
I feel like I’m on display. Like I’m standing in a store window for them to look at, to critique. I open my mouth to say something, but before I can get a word out, there is a knock on the door. Which is perfect timing because I don’t know what the hell I was going to say.
When I take a step toward the door, Dakota lifts her hand to stop me, which, of course, stops me in my tracks. “It’s Lainey with dessert,” she explains.
I watch as she hurries toward the door and wrenches it open without even looking through the peephole. That is a dangerous game. Justin has always told me, drilled it into my head, and ingrained it into me that you always look before you leap.
Opening doors for people is a big freaking leap.
The person behind the door, luckily, is Lainey, with two big and beautiful canary-yellow bakery boxes. I know that the contents are going to be heaven on my tongue. I can’t freaking wait to tear open one of those boxes.
Once Lainey is inside, our girls’ night can commence. But I’m not sure I’m ready for any of it, because that would mean I’m the center of attention… the focus. I don’t want to be that.
“Now that we have drinks, snacks, and sugar, you’re gonna need to spill, girl,” Posey calls out.
She’s standing at my bar, bent over and picking at the charcuterie in the middle of the countertop. She isn’t focused on her snacking, though. No, her attention is on me and only me.
I take a deep breath and hold it for a moment before I let it out slowly. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Start with the fact that you’re playing house, and you’re in love,” Posey says.
“Posey,” Dakota warns.
“And add in the fact that your cousin is going to beat the shit out of him once he figures it out.”
I wince at her words. She’s not wrong. She knows Justin better than anyone in this room aside from me, and even then, she knows him differently than I do, considering she’s his wife and the mother of his child.
“I hope he doesn’t. It isn’t that big of a deal…”
My words trail off mainly because I don’t know what else to say.
Maybe it is a big deal. Maybe it’s not. Maybe he doesn’t give a shit about me, and I’m just overthinking it all.
I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. It’s not like he’s made any declarations of love, or even anything other than sexual desire.
“That’s kind of what they do,” Lainey states, but she doesn’t expand.
We all stare at her, waiting for her to continue. When she doesn’t, it’s Posey who asks the hard-hitting question. “What do they do? What the hell are you telling us?”
Lainey shrugs a shoulder, her tongue peeking out and sliding across her bottom lip before she speaks. When she does, I wonder if I’m living in the same world as she is, because I’ve never heard of such a thing in my life. I mean, sure, I figured Justin and Goose might tussle, but nothing like this.
“Ivy can kill Goose,” she whispers. She’s wearing what I would describe as an expression of horror before she continues. “It’s an unwritten rule. A woman is declared off-limits, and that’s what you are, off-limits, and you’ve been declared that since you were fourteen years old, Cidney.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
She shrugs her shoulder, but I know how she knows. Her brother is one of the big dogs in the club. She may not want to know, and she may not want to tell us how she knows, but she knows because she’s seen it play out live and in person.
“You’re off-limits, Cidney. Goose is playing a dangerous game by being with you without having Ivy’s permission. He knows it too.”
I hold another breath for a moment as I think about her words. “He knows it?”
“He knows an ass beating is coming. If Ivy is cool with you two together, then he’ll live, and all will be forgiven and forgotten.”
“And if he’s not?” I ask.
Lainey doesn’t answer, which is all the answer I need. I have to end this with Goose. It doesn’t matter that I’m madly in love with him. I can’t let anything bad happen to this man. This perfectly wild man.
This game that we’re playing is going to get him killed, and I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.