Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Bash
I pressed my forehead against Hattie’s, and for the first time in eight fucking years, I felt complete. Whole. Like the missing piece of my soul had finally clicked back into place and I could breathe again.
“So...” Hattie’s voice was soft, breathy. “You joined the club.”
I chuckled. “Still got my dick inside you, honey,” I flexed my hips to prove it. “That’s what’s really on your mind right now?”
She rocked her hips, but I didn’t miss the blush on her cheeks. “Yeah. It sorta is.”
Smoothing her hair away from her face, I told her the truth, “I joined about six months after you left. I was a mess.”
She opened her mouth—probably to agree— but I cut her off. “It was of my own making, I know. But without you here, I felt like I didn’t have a purpose anymore. I needed direction.”
The truth was, I had been fucking drowning without her. Drinking too much, fighting anyone who looked at me sideways, generally being a miserable bastard.
Pistol Pete had finally grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and told me I could either get my shit together or he was going to kick my ass.
“Wes—” Hattie started only to be cut off by a chime coming from her pants on the floor.
“Crap,” She grimaced, looking apologetic. “I, uh... I kinda have to get that,” she said, biting her lip. “My team in Nashville is supposed to reach out to me about a photoshoot in LA.”
Sighing, I pulled out of her slowly, my eyes drawn to the sight of my cum leaking from between her thighs.
Fuck.
Without thinking, I used my fingers to push it back inside her.
She gasped, her back arching off the workbench as her oversensitive body responded to my touch. “Weston!”
Smirking, I bent down and grabbed her leather pants from where they’d landed on the floor. “How the hell did you get your phone in the pocket of these things?” I asked, examining the material. “They looked like they were painted on you.”
She snickered, that musical laugh that I’d missed so goddamn much. “With a lot of finesse.”
I watched her work the phone out of the tiny pocket, admiring the way her boobs giggled as she did. Everything about this woman was perfection; from her just-fucked hair, to her bright blue eyes, to the way she fit against me like she was made just for me.
Then I watched as she unlocked the screen and her face went pale.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, instantly on alert.
She shook her head, her jaw clenching. “I wish this asshole would leave me the hell alone.”
My brows snapped together. “Same shit from earlier?”
She blew out a breath and turned the phone so I could see the screen.
We’ll be together soon, Angel.
What. The. Absolute. Fuck?
“Who is sending that shit to you?” I snapped, instantly regretting it when she flinched.
“It’s a long story,” she sighed.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’ve got time.”
She stared at me for the longest time, then sighed, knowing damn well I wasn’t going to let this go.
“Fine.” Reaching for my t-shirt, she slid it over her head and even with rage boiling in my veins, seeing her in my shirt had my cock thickening.
Mine.
“It’s exactly what Sondra told you earlier,” she said, hopping down off the workbench. “It started out as harmless emails. Stuff about how much he liked my show, or a new song I released. Fan mail. I get thousands of letters like that, so nobody thought anything of it.”
“And then?”
“Then it was letters to my house in Texas.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
“My address is supposed to be private. Like, seriously private. So how he got his hands on that, I have no clue. Then it escalated to notes in my dressing room after my shows. Inside my dressing room, Weston. Past all my security.”
My hands curled into fists.
“Now he’s got my phone number—which I’ve had to change a dozen times already. But somehow, he keeps finding the new one. My number now?” She wiggled the phone in the air. “It’s under Sondra’s account. It’s not even in my name. How the hell would he know that?”
I stood there, letting all of it sink in.
Some sick sonofabitch was stalking my woman.
He knew where she lived.
He knew her phone number.
He’d been inside her dressing room while she was on stage, close enough to touch her things.
Close enough to hurt her.
“The cops are handling it?” I snorted.
Right.
The cops had to play by the rules. Rules that didn’t make a lot of fucking sense when someone’s life was in danger.
Well fuck that. I had Cyber, who could trace a text message back to the phone it came from. I had Tracer, who could track this fucker down and end his miserable life.
Nobody fucked with the Kings.
“Get dressed,” I grumbled, snatching my jeans off the floor. “You’re coming with me to my place.”
Her brows shot up. “That’s not necessary, Weston. I told you. The police are handling—”
I closed the distance between us, wrapping my arm around her waist and hauling her flush against my body. Her breath hitched, those big blue eyes going wide as she stared up at me.
“I’m handling it now,” I said, leaving no room for argument.
She opened her mouth like she was going to fight me on it, then something in her expression softened.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Okay. Just like that.
Thank fuck, because I wasn’t above pulling a Bane and kidnapping her ass.
Twenty minutes later, Hattie was pressed against my back on my sled, her arms locked around my waist and her thighs squeezing my hips as we cruised through the quiet streets of Odin.
When I turned onto Ladybug Lane, I felt her stiffen behind me.
I knew what she was seeing.
The white farmhouse-style two-story sitting on three acres at the end of the lane. The wraparound porch. The red front door glowing under the porch light.
THE house.
When we were kids, we must have ridden our bikes past this place a thousand times. And every single time, Hattie would slow down, staring at it with stars in her eyes, and tell me that one day she was gonna live there. That we were gonna live there. With our six babies, ten dogs, and five cats.
I used to tell her that was a zoo, not a family.
She used to tell me to shut my trap and start thinking of names for all of our babies.
I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine.
“Oh my god,” she breathed, pulling off her helmet. “You bought our house?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly feeling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “When it hit the market a few years ago, I couldn’t let anyone else buy it.”
That was the simple version.
The full version was that old man Nicely had passed, and his kids listed the place on a Tuesday.
By Friday, I’d emptied out my savings and taken a loan from the club to close the deal before anyone else could even schedule a walkthrough, because the thought of anyone else living in Hattie’s house was just wrong.
She slid off the seat behind me, her eyes never leaving the house.
“Can we go in?”
I laughed. “Yeah, Songbird. We can go in.”
I unlocked the red door and pushed it open, flipping on the lights, then stepped back and watched her walk inside.
She barely made it through the front door before she was stopping dead in her tracks. “Weston,” she whispered.
It was everything she’d dreamed of when we were kids.
The dark oak floors she used to describe in detail while we lay in the bed of my truck, staring up at the stars.
The creamy tan walls. The big sectional sofa facing a massive TV—the exact setup she said she wanted so we could pile up with our kids and watch old movies on rainy days.
Everything she’d ever said she wanted, I’d done. Every conversation, every daydream, every “one day” she’d ever whispered against my skin—I’d built it all. For her.
Years of loving a ghost, and this house was my shrine.
She moved through the living room slowly, her fingers trailing over the back of the couch, her breath coming in little hitches. Then she wandered into the kitchen, and her hand flew to her mouth.
The big farmhouse table sat in the middle of the room. Two chairs at each end, bench seats down both sides. Big enough for a family of eight.
“It’s beautiful,” she sobbed, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Fuck.
There went my heart, cracking right down the middle.
She pushed through the back door onto the porch, and I followed her out into the night.
“My tree.”
It was her tree. It was the huge weeping willow that had made her fall in love with this place all those years ago, its long branches swaying in the breeze like it was welcoming her home.
“It’s just like I dreamed,” she sniffled, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her middle, and she melted back into me.
“Please don’t cry, baby,” I murmured against her hair. “It fuckin’ kills me when you cry.”
She spun in my arms and burrowed her face against my chest, her fingers fisting in my shirt. “I can’t remember the last time I felt this... this happy.”
I hummed my agreement, resting my chin on top of her head. Same, baby. Same.
We stood there for a long while, wrapped up in each other, the willow branches whispering in the dark and the crickets singing their song.
I could have stayed wrapped up with her forever, but my girl was dead on her feet with hay in her hair and my shirt hanging off one shoulder.
I’d be lying if I said the sight of her marked up and messy from me didn’t make me want to do it all over again.
I dipped my head as she lifted hers.
“Let’s take a shower, Songbird.”
She nodded.
Taking her hand, I led her back inside and down the hallway to my bedroom.
I flipped on the light in the ensuite and reached into the walk-in shower, turning the water on hot, then I stripped out of my clothes, careful of my stitches, and turned to her.
“C’mere, baby,” I said, gripping the hem of my t-shirt she was wearing.
I peeled it over her head slowly, letting my knuckles drag along her ribs, then hooked my thumbs in her pants and panties and slid them down her mile-long legs. By the time I stood back up, her chest was heaving, and her pupils were blown wide.
Pulling her behind me into the shower, the hot water sluiced over us both.
“God,” she moaned. “That feels amazing.”
My cock was already hard as steel, bumping against her belly.
She looked up at me through her wet lashes, that wicked little smile curving her lips, and wrapped her hand around me, stroking slowly.
“Fuck,” I groaned, my head falling back on my shoulders. “You’re gonna kill me, woman.”
“What a way to go, though,” she teased, tightening her grip.
Fuck.
Growling, I lifted my head. “Someone wants to get fucked again.”
I gripped the backs of her thighs and lifted her clean off her feet, pressing her back against the tile wall.
“Careful of your shoulder,” she gasped, locking her legs around my waist.
“Fuck my shoulder.”
She reached between us, grabbed my cock, and notched it right at her entrance. Then she looked me dead in the eye and let herself slide down my length, taking every inch of me.
“Fuck—” I choked out.
She was so tight. So wet. So fucking perfect.
“Weston,” she moaned, her head thumping back against the tile.
I gave her a second to adjust, my forehead dropping to her chest as water streamed over us.
Then I started to move.
Slow at first. Deep, rolling thrusts that had her nails digging into my good shoulder and her breath hand fisting in my hair.
I tried to keep it slow. I really did, but she was so slick, so perfect, so mine that I lost my fucking mind.
“Harder,” she begged, digging her feet into my ass, trying to ride me like a bucking bronco. “Please, honey.”
Digging my fingers into her ass, I lifted her almost completely off my cock then slammed her back down. The feeling of her hot pussy wrapped around me like a glove was short-circuiting my brain.
I knew I had to be hurting her but I couldn’t stop, and judging by the sounds she was making, she didn’t mind me fucking her hard and fast.
“Oh, god,” she keened. “I’m close.”
“Touch your clit,” I demanded.
Her hand snaked between us, and she moaned.
“Give it to me, baby. Let go.”
I ground my hips against her just right and she shattered, her whole body clamping down around me like a vise.
Her cry broke against my throat, and that was all it took.
I buried myself deep and followed her over the edge, groaning her name into her wet hair as I emptied everything I had inside her.
We stayed like that, plastered to the shower wall, both of us shaking and gasping, the water beating down on my back.
“Holy crap,” she panted. “You fucked me within an inch of my life. I think I died for a second there.”
I huffed a laugh against her neck. “They don’t call it the little death for nothin’.”
I pulled back enough to look at her. Flushed cheeks, swollen lips, blue eyes glassy. “Beautiful.”
She smiled tiredly as her eyes went to my shoulder, then that beautiful smile fell. “You need to put me down. Papaw said you were supposed to keep that dry.”
I glanced at my shoulder. The stitches were still intact. “It’s fine,” I said, setting her carefully on her feet.
And it was.
“Let’s get cleaned up before the water gets cold.”
She nodded, and we finished our shower for real this time—me washing her hair with the shampoo I had, which made her smell like me, and I wasn’t even a little bit sorry about it.
When the water finally started running cool, I shut it off and grabbed a towel off the rack, wrapping her up in it. I dried her off slowly, taking my time with every inch of her, then gave myself a quick once-over before tossing the towel over the bar.
Then I scooped her up bridal style and she squeaked, grabbing onto my neck. “Weston Basham, your shoulder!”
“Woman, if you mention my shoulder one more time, I’m gonna spank your ass.”
Her lips twitched. “Promises, promises.”
God, I loved her.
I carried her into my bedroom and laid her down in my bed—the king-size bed I’d bought way too big for one man, in the house I’d bought for a woman who wasn’t there.
Except now she was. Now she was in my bed, in our house, her damp hair spread across my pillow.
Climbing in behind her, I pulled her back against my chest, tucking her under my chin.
Tomorrow, I’d get Tacoma to call church so Cyber could start pulling apart every email, every letter, every text the sick fuck had ever sent her. “Get some sleep, Hattie.”
“Love you, Weston,” she mumbled, already half gone.
I buried my face in her neck, breathing her in.
“Love you too, baby.”