Chapter 3
THREE
Rebel
I flicked the light on in the garage and saw the present Wolf had left me overnight.
It still surprised me he hadn’t woken me up by doing this.
Maybe I needed to take one of the rooms closer to Darby, just in case.
Even so, I was thankful. At least I could do something to take my mind off the woman inside who was becoming far less annoying than I first thought.
I moved over to the weights lined up against the wall, the bench for me to do the bigger weights and a chest press machine.
A treadmill and rowing machine sat in the corner.
I pulled my shirt off and jumped over to the rowing machine to get started.
All night I’d been dreaming of her, my fingers entwined her hair as I guided her up and down on my cock, hitting the back of her throat and hearing that sound that told me she was choking on me.
God. I was sick. I needed fucking help. Or maybe I just needed to go and get laid. Fuck…maybe that was it…that’s why I was wound so tight.
I stopped rowing and pulled my phone out of my pocket.
Need a night off. Can anyone take over for a few hours?
I put my phone down and kept rowing until I felt the burn start. When I finished my set, I looked down and saw the message I hadn’t heard chime through.
ACE
Done. Viper will be there at five.
I pocketed my phone and headed over to the treadmill to run off some of the energy I had before I started breakfast. It had become a habit of mine to cook breakfast and make sure she was eating.
My grandma would have been happy that I was cooking again.
She always said breakfast sets you up for the day so why not have all your carbs and sugars then.
I smiled at the memory floating around in my head about her.
Guilt washed over me as I realised it had been a while since I went to see her.
As a nomad, I would go often to see her whenever we were close.
After everything happened with my dad, going to live with her had been a godsend until even that was taken from me.
That only led to my downfall but I couldn’t think about that now, it was too depressing.
I started to jog on the treadmill, pushing all the thoughts aside that were causing me grief. I hadn’t thought so much about my family in years and yet, being here, they’d been in my mind constantly and it was setting me off kilter.
After my legs started to tingle, I hopped off the machine and headed inside to shower. She wasn’t awake yet so I knew I had time to get ready. After a quick shower, I headed into the kitchen and started to whip up an omelet, bacon and hash browns. It was basic, but it would be enough for today.
Once I put the bacon in the pan, I knew she would wake up. She always did. Smiling, it made me think of when I was a kid and the sizzle and smell of the bacon would always wake me up, too.
“Morning,” I heard her grumble as she came into the room. I turned around and saw her bed hair knotted around her face and her eyes barely open. She obviously didn’t realise that her tank was almost see through and I could see her rosy nipples darkened behind the sheer material.
I turned back to the pan, hoping it came off as sincerely looking after the food, and not because my cock was waking the fuck up.
It should be illegal for her to look so goddamn adorable and sexy at the same time, even just having woken up from sleep and looking like she’d fought for her life in her dreams.
I needed to get laid, stat.
She took a seat at the table and I finished up in the kitchen, noticing she had fixed her top so that it didn’t cling to her body like it was shrink wrap.
I put her plate down in front of her and mine in front of me and we ate in relative silence.
Darby still continued to make those goddamn moaning sounds that had my dick at constant attention.
“I’m going out tonight,” I told her. “I have things to do, but Viper will come and hang with you.”
“Babysit, you mean.”
“You can think of it how you wish,” I replied. It was colder than I expected. I saw her cringe at the harsh tone, wishing like anything I could take it back. “Is there anything you need? I can get him to bring it with him.”
“No.”
She was shut off, hardly making eye contact with me and for some reason, it annoyed me more than it should have. After all, I’d just been a dick to her and she was reacting exactly like she should, yet I felt maybe it was something else.
“What’s wrong with you this morning?”
“I didn’t sleep well,” she offered, looking at her piece of bacon as if she were pondering life’s questions. She’d barely touched her food, and I knew it wasn’t because she was full or because she didn’t like it. I made that bacon exactly how she liked it.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Her slow smile as she looked over at me did something funny inside and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. “What are you…like ninety or something?”
“Eat your food, Darby.”
She did, finally putting the food in her mouth and staying quiet. I don’t know why, and I probably shouldn’t read too much into it, but these quiet mornings together were peaceful, and something I looked forward to every morning.
The fuck was happening to me?
“Did you want to go for a walk today?” she asked me after she was done. I picked up her plate and took both of them to the sink.
“Yeah, we can do that.”
Darby jumped up and ran to her room to change.
I waited for her to return before I headed to the door.
She was wearing denim shorts that barely went past her ass cheeks, and a pink tank top.
Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun and she had on sunglasses that were entirely too big and rested on her cheeks.
She wore her pink Chuck Taylors and yet somehow she looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine.
Her perfume was overpowering as she joined me at the door.
I unlocked it and we headed out to the woods. The breeze carried her perfume back into my nostrils and wouldn’t you know it, hard as a stone again.
Fuck me. I really needed this night off.
She skipped ahead and looked through the canopy of leaves above us as we walked.
“Can we walk off the beaten path?”
“I’m not your warden, Darby, if you want to go somewhere, I just need to know so I can keep you safe.”
She nodded and stepped up against a large tree, and climbed in between the sticks and bushes until we got into an opening full of dead trees, almost like the animals had their own little place to hang out in.
Darby looked around, up into the canopy, watching the birds chitter away.
Her lips were parted slightly as she looked up and giggled at the squirrels running down the branches of one tree and hopping to another.
It was such a pure moment, not filled with sass or eye rolls, but just genuine happiness.
It reminded me just how young she was. I mean…
if I’m being honest with myself, she wasn’t that much younger than me, five years to be exact, but she just seemed so happy with something so sweet.
It made me forget why we were here, why I was away from the clubhouse…
why I was sporting a hard dick with no way to relieve the tension.
She looked over at me, her smile broad, and I wondered how her father could treat her like she meant nothing, how he could do that to Shona.
It made me wish I could blow him up over and over again.
This fierce protectiveness I had over her was getting me a little concerned for my mental health.
I never felt this way about anyone, and I had protected others for the club before, women even, but for some reason Darby has weaseled herself under my armour and I knew it was going to end up with me needing to escape.
“Let’s go back,” she said. “I think the new season of the Kardashians just landed.”
Groaning, I followed her back to the house and got her set up in the living room while I moved down to my room to get my ear phones.
There was no way in hell I was going to watch that crap with her without something to tide me over.
When I got back to the living room, she had her fleece blanket wrapped over her legs and she was flicking through the programs.
“I thought you wanted to watch the Kardashians.”
“I don’t know, just seeing what else is on.”
She finally settled on Dirty Dancing as I flicked to a podcast on my phone and sat there with her while she watched the movie.
Darby
When I awoke from my nightmare, the first person I sought out was Rebel. I don’t know why but he was calming, almost like I knew I was safe with him. He wasn’t here though, he’d left while I was asleep and now Viper sat on the couch flicking through his phone.
I didn’t mind Viper, he had always been funny when he was around me, making fun of Rebel.
It was in a big brother way, the way Keefe used to be with me before my father saw me as a woman and started doing to me what he did to Shona.
I was lucky. Keefe put a stop to it, but he couldn’t protect me forever.
“Hey.”
He looked up and smiled, putting his phone away. “Hey, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“Sorry, princess,” he smirked. “That better?”
“I suppose,” I sighed. “That’s what Rebel calls me, anyway.”
“What do you want to eat?” he asked. “I can order us something.”
“You mean someone is allowed to come here?” I asked him, challenging his authority. He rolled his eyes.
“I mean I’ll get one of them to bring us food here,” he said. “Phones are a miracle and you can call anyone you want.”
“Unless, of course, you’re forbidden from having one.”
His smile dropped and he sighed. “Right…I forgot we were holding you captive for a moment there.”
I stuck my middle finger up at him which earned me a deep, throaty chuckle while he picked up his phone and called someone. “Yeah…can you get us some food out here?”
There was some talking on the other end and then he rolled his eyes.