Chapter Four
Perish
I was covered in coconut.
I figured maybe the ride back to the clubhouse would air me out or something. But with Gracie’s soft body curled around my back, there was no way she wasn’t rubbing off on me some more.
I tried to mentally block those thoughts as they formed, as my mind desperately wanted to revisit the way her breasts crushed against my back, how the juncture of her thighs pressed against me.
But there was no stopping them as I moved away from the bike, trying to breathe, to focus, to get a fucking hold of myself.
I couldn’t be walking into the clubhouse with a fucking semi in front of all of Gracie’s loved ones.
It was clear by the bikes gathered in the lot when I pulled in that the news had spread far and wide already, bringing in not only all the current members but the OGs as well.
Gracie’s footsteps were hesitant behind me until the door flew open.
Then there was Duke, his light eyes panic-stricken and relieved in equal turns.
“Dad!” Gracie yelped, breaking into a run and throwing herself into the man’s arms.
He wrapped her up like she was a little kid still, squeezing until I was sure she might burst.
My footsteps faltered.
That familial affection shit? I never seemed to get used to seeing it.
The door whipped open again. Then there was the preview of what Gracie was going to look like in another twenty years. Her mom pulled Gracie away from Duke, hugging her hard before leading her into the clubhouse.
Alone, Duke’s gaze slid to me.
He sucked in a deep breath.
Then made a beeline for me.
I found myself bracing.
For what? Impact?
As soon as he was in front of me, he offered his hand. As soon as I gave him mine, he pulled me in for a quick, hard, one-arm hug.
“I owe you,” he said as he pulled back.
“No, you don’t.”
“You saved my little girl tonight. I owe you.”
If he knew the kind of thoughts I’d been having about his ‘little girl’ all night, he might not feel the same way.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s everything. She’s everything.”
Some part of me couldn’t argue with that.
“I was just at the right place at the right time.”
“From what I heard from Luca, you cleared a dozen yards in a blink to get to her,” Duke said. I guess I should have expected that Luca had gotten in touch before I even could, though I’d been sure to shoot off a quick text to Fallon before the cops came running up.
Shooting at Matteo’s place. Gracie’s here. She’s fine.
I was sure there were a dozen or more unread messages for me to look through later.
“Then you used your body to completely cover her.”
Yep.
I’d done that.
While thinking about yanking off her romper and eating her out. So maybe I wasn’t the hero he wanted to make me out to be.
“Anyone else would’ve done the same.”
“Do you always have such a hard time accepting gratitude?”
“Dunno. This is a first,” I admitted, getting a huff of a laugh out of Duke.
“I mean it, Perish. I owe you. But we better get in there. I’m sure Fallon and Reign have a thousand questions. I have a few too.”
I gave him a nod and fell into step beside him.
As expected, the clubhouse was packed.
Gracie and her mom, though, were nowhere to be seen. I figured they were doing girl shit—getting cleaned up, talking about feelings—so the club could talk business.
“Perish,” Fallon said, offering a hand and pulling me in for another hug.
Three hugs in one night.
I was pretty sure that was more hugs than I’d gotten in my whole damn life.
“Matteo Grassi is sending one of his guys over with Gracie’s car and the shit from her party,” I said before he could stay stuck on all that gratitude stuff again.
He gave me a nod and released me.
Fallon was a pretty cut-and-dry kind of president. It was what I appreciated about him. Shit didn’t get all emotional around here. He seemed to sense my need to keep things moving and didn’t start in on the whole saving Gracie thing.
“Luca says he will be sharing the security camera footage,” he said, addressing the club as they fell silent. “But I think we need to hear from Perish himself about what happened, in case he clocked something the cameras might not have.”
“Not a lot to tell. I was about to head out after talking to Matteo.” I went ahead and left out the part about how I stopped to eye-fuck Gracie as she stood next to the barn.
“Heard the squeal of the tires. Didn’t think.
Just ran. Didn’t even really see the car myself.
I was focused on getting to Gracie before a bullet did. ”
Behind me, someone clapped me on the shoulder. One of Gracie’s cousins or uncles, I was sure.
Everyone was going to be looking at me differently—and closer—after this. I tried not to squirm at the thought.
“Question,” a voice called out.
Several of us turned toward the sound of the voice, finding one of the two new prospects standing there.
Spike was tall and a slim kind of fit, with black hair, black eyes, and cheekbone hollows that kind of gave him a skeletal look.
“Yeah?” Fallon asked.
“Are we assuming this is mob shit? If so, why are we having church about it?”
A couple of men grumbled at the wording.
But I got what he was saying. As a previous outsider, I would have wondered the same thing.
Over time, he and Cain would come to learn that this wasn’t just a club but a family.
And anything that put one of the princesses or wives in danger would warrant church like this.
“One of our own almost died tonight,” Fallon said. Then, with a glance at me. “Two of our own,” he clarified. “That is always going to warrant church, whether it is our enemy who did it or not.”
Spike nodded at that.
“I am working under the assumption that this is connected to the mob, though,” Fallon went on.
“No one would have suspected that Perish would have been there tonight. And I didn’t even know Gracie had an event there.
Besides, if this was one of our enemies, they would have done a drive-by at the clubhouse where they could inflict maximum damage. ”
There was a murmur of agreement to that.
“That said, we’re going to have our guards up until the mob figures out who this was and handles it. Because the cops got involved so fast, we need to keep in mind that these guys might be desperate to silence witnesses before they can spill anything that might identify them.”
“Penny and I will be taking Gracie home with us tonight,” Duke said.
Good. That was good. She needed someone to keep an eye on her. Someone who wasn’t me. Because it wasn’t my damn place.
“Good. And Perish, I’d prefer it if you stayed inside the clubhouse for a few days. You’re a hard target to miss,” he added with a smirk. “Let’s just let the dust settle for a bit before you are out in the street again.”
“Alright.”
“Are we on lockdown?” Cain, the other new prospect, asked.
The two men stood next to each other, which only made their differences more apparent. Where Spike was thin and dark-haired, Cain was gym-fit with a square face, light blue eyes, and dirty blond hair.
Also, where Spike had basically been on the wrong side of the law since he was a kid, Cain had been on the other side of law enforcement for a good chunk of his life, working for a SWAT unit until he tried to report corruption and was fired for whistleblowing.
He took a hard left turn and became an outlaw biker as a middle finger to the institution he no longer believed in.
“I don’t want to use the word lockdown,” Fallon said.
“But I want us to all have our heads on a swivel. Suspicious people watching you, cars sitting around that feel off, any of that, I want reported. And we are going to add another guard to each shift temporarily. But I’m not gonna tell you to lock your sisters and wives up or not have parties here. Just be smart.”
“If you’re looking for volunteers, I’m used to guard work,” Cain said with a shrug.
“Good. Brooks will work out the schedule.” Fallon’s gaze flicked to mine again. “How’s Gracie?”
Too fucking enticing for her own good.
“She’s alright. Think it didn’t sink in until the cops were gone. But no grazes or anything. Maybe some scratches from being tackled,” I added, kicking myself for not inspecting her for that.
“Small price to pay,” Reign said, shaking his head.
“Think we all should have a drink,” Dezi said, “in honor of our hero here,” he added, knocking me on the shoulder as he moved through the crowd to set up the shot glasses on the bar.
“That’s not—” I started, uncomfortable.
But to my surprise all the men got up and grabbed a shot glass, lifting them up as Dezi started to speak again.
“To Perish. Saver of our princess. Tonight, we’re all thankful you’re basically the size and density of a tank.”
I just barely resisted the urge to shift my feet as everyone cheered and looked at me before throwing back their shots.
“Have mine,” Lazarus said. He’d been clean most of his life, so he passed me his shot glass after he toasted with everyone else.
And fuck if I didn’t need some liquid courage to deal with all this damn attention and admiration.
I threw back the shot, then went ahead and accepted a drink that Dezi brought me.
“What’s your favorite kind of pastry?” he asked, making my brows pinch. “You know, as another thank-you.”
“I, uh, don’t know.”
“No? Well, seems like I need to order some of each kind for breakfast, huh?”
I was pretty sure those pastries were more for him than me, but I welcomed his chatter about baked goods over more appreciation from the club brothers.
Little by little, most of the OG and married members of the club headed out until it was just me, the prospects, the twins, Fallon, Brooks, and Duke, who was waiting for Luca and Matteo’s guy before he brought his women home to fret over them all night.
As for me, I waited until no one was looking at me and snuck out the back door, glad to have some fresh air and quiet.
“Hated every minute of that, didn’t you?” Spike asked, making me turn to find him leaning against the clubhouse, taking a long drag off a vape, then filling the air with, of all fucking things, coconut.
“Pretty much.”
“Not used to being the center of attention.”
“Not for any good reason.”
I got a dark chuckle for that.
“I know that feeling. Figure it will all go away in a week or two. Fill the time with those groups of women you like to have fawning over you.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
But, suddenly, the last thing in the world I wanted was to gather up some of the club girls and nearly suffocate under a pile of them.
The very idea of it made me feel hollow.
I made my way back inside and into my room, dropping down on my bed fully clothed, smelling Gracie still all over me.
Immediately, my cock started to stiffen, pressing so hard against the fly of my pants that I had no choice but to reach down to undo my button and zipper to ease the ache.
To my credit, I tried to think of anything else. Anyone else.
But all I could focus on was the soft curve of her body beneath mine, against mine, wrapped around mine. The press of her breasts. The curve of her hip.
The look in her eyes that I wouldn’t dare let myself believe was something akin to interest.
The thoughts were insistent, unrelenting, until—with a guilty feeling swirling my stomach—I reach down, fisted my cock, and stroked myself to the thoughts of going down on her, of sliding slow and deep into her, of hearing her little gasps and moans as she built, then clutching and crying out as she came.
I came hard, panting and shaky.
Then I told myself I would never fucking think of the club princess that way again.