6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
ACE
T he clubhouse was a pigsty. Bottles and glasses littered the tables, chairs and floor, as well as passed out bodies all over the place. I had risen early, mainly because Sheridan and I hadn’t been able to sleep with how hard my cock was for her. When I wasn’t hard, she got me hard by grinding her wet pussy on me all night. We were insatiable for each other.
“I’m surprised you’re walking straight,” Hawk mentioned after he walked through the maze of passed out bodies from his cottage.
“How are the girls?” I asked him. Sheridan and I had spent the night in the room Hawk had vacated after he’d been done to save the girl's future trauma, while he played babysitter. It was his penance for taking my room when I needed to use it.
“Sleeping still,” he said, grabbing a mug and turning the coffee machine on. “I’m pretty sure one of the guys slipped them a couple of drinks.”
“They’re sixteen. Don’t you remember what we were doing at that age?”
“Well you were too chickenshit to do what you wanted to do at sixteen, that’s for sure,” he replied with a grin. “Or should I say, who you wanted to do.”
I threw an empty cup at him and he dodged it, watching as the thing fell to the floor.
“I’m making up for it now,” I said, smirking at him.
“Oh yeah, Shauna was telling me she needs therapy by the way,” he replied, grabbing his coffee and sitting on the stool.
“That’s on you, brother,” I said. “Why would you take my bedroom and not one of the others?”
Hawk shrugged. “You told me to find a room. I did.”
I rolled my eyes, just as the doors opened and the bright and bubbly Orla stepped inside. “Hello, gentle bikers whom I love.”
“What the fuck happened to you last night?” Hawk asked, laughing as she came to sit down on the stool next to him. She grabbed the coffee he’d been drinking and started to drink it herself. I could barely stifle a laugh as Hawk almost fell off his stool to get it back.
Bear’s snoring tore through the room. We all looked over at him on one of the lounges, laying there with two women draped over him. Fully clothed, but still. He knew the rules.
“Jesus, he really lives up to his name, doesn’t he?” Orla remarked. “In response to your ever so eloquently delivered question, dear Casey, I was otherwise engaged last night.”
“Even to celebrate your goddaughters’ sixteenth?” Hawk asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “I was busy.”
Her tone changed, and I exchanged a quick glance with Hawk. Her actions always spoke louder than words, but right now, it didn’t look like she wanted to talk about it.
“Fuck me,” she said, moving off her stool and going over to Bear. She grabbed the remote from the side table and started to poke him. He moved to get away from the poking, but didn’t wake.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hawk asked her.
Orla’s little grin returned as she tried to poke his face now. “Just poking the bear.”
He batted away the remote, and Orla almost went flying. She let out a wild chuckle as she went back to do it again. He awoke, the two girls draped over him landing on the floor with a thud. They slowly woke up, as did Bear who was trying to push Orla away.
Both Hawk and I laughed as Bear launched out of the lounge and grabbed Orla, pulling her away from the girls. The tension between those two was electric, but they’d never admit to it.
“Fuck sake, Orla,” he roared. “Why can’t you ever just be fucking normal?”
“You’d be bored if I weren’t annoying the hell out of you. Seriously, though, Alex, you should get your sleep checked. Your snoring could wake the entire town.”
Bear grunted, and moved away from her as she came to sit back down with us. People started to stir on the grounds as her face turned serious again.
“We should talk.”
This couldn’t be good.
“I need to make another coffee before we talk about this.”
“Oh please,” Orla got up and moved behind the bar to make the coffee. “You couldn’t even make the first one properly. I’ll make it and bring it outside. I don’t want ears on us.”
Hawk and I looked at each other, dread filling me. Orla knew everyone and anyone in this town. She knew the deep, dark secrets, and she knew how to protect the club. She’d been doing it for years, even when we weren’t around.
Whatever she had to say…if she didn’t want our own club’s ears on it, that meant bad news and for once, I didn’t know if I was ready for it.
Hawk sat with me and Orla out on the side porch, away from prying eyes and ears. He was satisfied with the coffee Orla had made for him, which I could see was annoying him.
“How the hell do you get it to taste so good?” Hawk asked, looking down at the coffee as if it was a magic potion. “It’s the same damn machine I use.”
“Yes, my dear friend, but you suck at making coffee.”
“What’s going on, Or?” I asked, interrupting them before they got into an all out war with each other.
“I was at an event last night,” she said. “I knew Neal would be there, so I decided that I would do some hunting around to see if he would notice I was there and his ex-wife wasn’t.”
“And?”
“He noticed,” she said, pulling a smoke from her bag and lighting it. “He’s going to try and run you guys out of town. He knows the girls are here. They aren’t safe anymore, Coop.”
“Why?”
“He has always had plans for them. He thinks women are his to sell for something he wants. He did it to Sheridan once. Made her give some guy a blowjob in front of a room of people. Now, he thinks those girls are his to control, so he’s going to sell their virginities to the highest bidder. He wants to run Kilkenny and if the depraved are here, willing to take innocent girl’s virginities, then he’ll do it too.”
I felt the rage build in me before I grabbed a smoke off her and lit it myself. Like fucking hell he would touch those girls.
“He needs to fucking disappear, Ace,” Hawk said through gritted teeth. “All the boys would agree.”
“Sheridan never told me that.”
“Why would she?” Orla replied. “She was embarrassed for a long time. Ever since that night, she had walked on eggshells around him until the girls were old enough to understand why she had to leave the house. She still protected them the best she could, and since he never touched them, she knew it was safe, but he’s just a sick S.O.B.”
“Did he hurt you?” Hawk asked her.
“No, he wouldn’t do that. I’m not his type.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not a pushover. I mean, Sheridan wasn’t always, but after years of his gaslighting, she broke.”
I wanted to crush his fucking windpipe and burn him alive. I stubbed my smoke out.
“Hawk, grab Chains. We’ll go and visit the fucker.”
Orla jumped up. “Well, I’ll go and keep Sheridan busy so she doesn’t notice you missing. She’ll try and stop you otherwise.”
She was right. Sheridan was too good for her own good. I nodded and headed to my bike, putting my helmet on and waited for the boys to join me. The longer I waited, the longer I wanted to run my foot all up and down his face and string him up naked for the town to view.
Chains and Hawk jumped on their bikes and we took off down the road and into the town with vengeance on our minds.
SHERIDAN
His side of the bed was cold when I awoke, just as the door opened and I grabbed for the sheet to cover my nakedness. Orla’s bright and bubbly face peered around the corner.
“You decent?” she asked before she laughed. “Oh hell, we both know you’d never be decent in Cooper’s bed.”
I threw a pillow at her and dropped back down on the bed. My head was pounding from all the action I’d gotten last night. I was severely dehydrated.
“Where’s Cooper?” I asked her.
“He had to go out on a small errand this morning, so I offered to fill his side of the bed.”
She winked at me as she laid down next to me.
“He didn’t say bye?”
“You were snoring like a wildebeest when I opened the door.”
“Shut up,” I smacked her on the hip. “I don’t snore.”
“You’re right, it was probably Alex the hippo’s snoring that I was referring to. Even down here, I can hear his loud ass breathing.”
I chuckled at the constant jibing of Bear. Those two had been at each other for years, even before Bear was Bear, she always called him a beast. The history between the two of them was insane, and secretly, I wished that now the boys were back, they could go back to the way things were.
“What should I do today with the girls?” I asked her. “I feel bad for abandoning them last night.”
Orla’s head turned to face mine. “Are you saying you were in here fucking Ace all night on their birthday?”
“Maybe.”
“Damn,” she sighed. “Where can I find one of those?”
“There’s an entire bar full of them outside, Orla. It’s not that hard.”
She sighed again. “Yeah, but most of them are just like Alex, and I don’t much appreciate a hairy fucker in my bed.”
“Bear’s not hairy, and you know it.”
Orla rolled her eyes and sat up. “Why don’t you take the girls on a picnic in the hills?”
“You know, that ain’t a bad idea. I’ve been thinking of sending them to my Aunt’s in Wales.”
“That far away? Won’t you miss them?” she asked me.
“Of course I will, but I’ll miss them more if Neal gets his hands on them and does god only knows what with their liberty.”
She nodded. “Yeah, he’s not going away anytime soon is he?”
“They’re sixteen now, Or. I am terrified.”
She sighed again. “I know. Me too, but Ace won’t let anything happen to them or to you.”
I felt an overwhelming sensation come over me at the thought of him protecting us. Just like a real man would do for his family.
His family.
I hadn’t even asked him if he was okay with us calling him part of our family. What if he didn’t want an instant family and this lust would wear off and we’d be out on our asses again?
“Whoa,” Orla waved a hand in front of my face. “Wherever you just went now, I don’t like it. Come on, let’s stop thinking about men and go and wake up your darling daughters.”
I pulled myself up and got dressed, pulling my hair back in a ponytail and ready to face the music. Shauna hadn’t looked at me when we resurfaced from the bathroom afterward, she continually avoided my eyes all night until Cooper had had enough and dragged me back to his room.
When I walked out into the clubhouse, I saw a lot of the club members cleaning up. Shauna was talking to Ryleigh on the couch, and I made a move over to them, only to see the accusation in Ryleigh’s eyes.
“Ew!” Ryleigh squealed. “You guys are so gross.”
I rolled my eyes as I took a seat opposite them. “Come on, guys, you know what happens when a new relationship is…well new.”
“Yeah, but you’re like….old, and so is he? Doesn’t he need, like, pills to get it up?”
I glared over at Shauna who was trying to look at me, but she couldn’t. “For starters, no, he doesn’t, we have a very healthy sexual appetite.”
Both girls made gagging noises and I held up my hand to silence them.
“Secondly, I’m sorry you saw that, Shauna, I am, but you can’t expect me to be celibate for the rest of my life.”
“Fine,” Shauna finally looked at me. “But, it’s so hard to picture anything else now. I mean, he’s going to be my stepdad, right?”
The title took my breath away for a moment. Even though I’d been worried about him not wanting that and the fact we hadn’t discussed the future yet, I would fucking love it if he stepped up and did that. The girls would benefit so much from him being in their lives. His kindness, his protectiveness, his love. I didn’t want to cry in front of them. God knew they didn’t need that.
There was also a small part of me that hoped he wanted to be one himself. I thought I was done, but I would love to have his baby. The thought broke open my chest and instantly I knew he’d always been the one. Always.
“Why don’t we go and do something today?” I asked them. “Just us girls.”
“And me,” Orla piped up behind me. “I ain’t missing out on some girl chit chat.”
“There’s a way you could make it up to me,” Shauna said, the challenge already in her eyes. I wasn’t going to like what she had to ask but I’d give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Name it.”
The devilish little grin that landed on her lips had me regretting my decision immediately. She stood up, Ryleigh following as she always did.
“We want tattoos for our sixteenth birthday.”
“No.”
“You said name it.”
“Sher, I could do a small one for them, matching tatts. What’s the worst that could happen?” Orla piped up. She was lucky I didn’t turn around and clock her.
“I don’t want you girls to regret this. Sometimes we don’t make the best decisions when we are sixteen. I know I didn’t.”
Orla moved next to me. “You’re telling me. Staying with Paulie instead of hooking up with the only boy you actually ever wanted for one.”
“Would you shut it?” I said through gritted teeth.
“Wait…you mean Ace is the one you loved when you were a teenager…the one who got away?” Ryleigh asked me. I nodded, remembering the stories I would tell my girls of the fun I would have with my friends and the boy I loved but never told.
“And now you finally get time to be together,” Shauna said, as if her anger at seeing us last night was dissipating. “Okay, Ma, maybe it wasn’t so bad then. I guess you have a lot of catching up to do…but like…can you do it when we’re not around?”
“That’s a tall order, kid.”
“Orla, for fuck’s sake, shut your mouth.”
She held her hands up and sat down on the couch, watching eagerly to see what would happen next.
“Please, Ma,” Shauna continued. “Let us all three get a matching tattoo.”
I looked to Ryleigh who was nodding enthusiastically. How could I say no to those faces?
“Fine…a small one,” I said. “I mean it, Orla.”
She bounced up from the couch as if she’d had a firecracker lit under her ass. “Got it. Let’s go to the shop and find a design we like, hey?”
“Let me grab my bag,” I groaned, knowing, somehow, that I was going to regret this.
ACE
Chains, Hawk and I moved towards the house that belonged to Neal Foley. The fucking chief of the police department and Sheridan’s ex-husband, but I didn’t care right now. I didn’t care how fucking reckless this was. He needed a lesson.
Hawk threw his leg up and kicked the door in. I marched forward into the foyer of the fancy ass home, wondering what the hell Sheridan ever saw in this fucker. She’d never been about money, or even cared about it growing up, and yet she had married him just a year after I left. Neal appeared at the top of the stairs and peered down at us, half asleep. A knowing smile landed on his face and he made his way down the stairs.
“That was really fucking stupid. An outlaw MC barging into a police chief’s home, causing damage.”
“You stay away from Sheridan, Shauna and Ryleigh.”
“Can’t do that,” he said, an edge to his voice that I didn’t like. “You see, Sheridan is still married to me, which means I own that bitch. She may be having fun with you for now, but she’s still mine. I’m simply loaning her to you. Don’t worry, I’ll send you a bill once you’re done.”
The rage that bled over me in that moment was unstoppable. I launched at him, dragging him to the ground and landing punch after punch into him. Blood splattered over my face and my chest as he gasped for air. Hawk pulled me off him, my rage only fuelled on more at the damage I’d done to his face.
“What you wanna do, Prez?” Chains asked. I knew what he meant. He wanted to know if we would finish this and bury him, or if we would walk away, protect the girls and find another way to defeat him.
“Take him out to the woods,” I told them. Hawk nodded, grabbing the beaten and bloody fucker from the floor with Chains’ help as I walked back to my bike and pulled my phone out. I made a quick call to the clubhouse and told them to bring the van here. We needed to clean this up. There was no way I could let this guy live.
Not now.
Not with the threats he was making. But I already knew it was the way he spoke about Sheridan, for the pain he’d caused her over the years, for everything he was threatening to do to those girls…his own goddamn daughters…he didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as them. I had to protect them.
I rode out to the woods ahead of them. It would be me that ended that fucker.
Once and for all.