Chapter 6
Rage
Everly presses her lips together as she draws back from me, keeping her eyes on her phone she sends off a text message, asking her dad to call her.
“I’ve got to do it,” I tell her, studying her as I lay back down.
“Is that so?” she snaps, standing up and gently places a pillow under my knees as she tucks me in.
“Yeah,” I answer simply, ignoring an inexplicable need to explain myself to this woman. “Will you lie down next to me?”
“Let me check your burns first,” she responds. Since they aren’t bothering me, I assume she wants to put a little space between us. “Are you in any pain?”
“Whatever I was on is wearing off, but I’ll survive,” I answer honestly and she lets out a little hum, almost like she disagrees with me.
“I managed to get you some human grade painkillers. Just a few so I need you to take it easy with them,” she tells me, and I suspect this isn’t the time to mention that I can get oxy anytime I want it, so I stay quiet as she gathers supplies, washes her hands, and pulls on some gloves.
“Bastard,” I hiss when she unwraps the gauze from my left leg, swearing to myself that I’ll make Davis pay for this.
“I can’t begin to understand what he was even doing,” Everly murmurs as she gently inspects the burn marks.
“He had fun doing it, I remember that much,” I mutter, but realize she has a point.
Except for one spot where he must have used the end of the knife to pierce out the eyes of a tiger tattoo that I have curled around my calf, she’s absolutely right. It looks like someone gave a marker to a two year, allowing him to scribble on a wall.
The only twist being that instead of markers, it was an extra-long lighter, and he used my calf and foot in place of the wall.
“Were they questioning you?” she asks.
“No. The one guy used my face to unlock my phone, the man in the sheriff’s uniform handled the caning, but this was compliments of your friend from the bar,” I tell her, then instantly wish I had spared her the details when I see a shudder roll through her body.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her eyes glued to my leg as she checks each spot. “I made everything worse. I should have just ignored him.”
I wiggle my toes to get her attention and there are tears in her eyes when she looks up at me.
“I meant it when I said you apologize too much. None of this was your fault,” I say, holding her gaze. “Earlier that day, I accidentally blew up part of their operation.”
“Accidently?” she asks, her lips twitching.
“Don’t tell my brothers,” I answer, keeping my voice low as I lean forward and looking around like we might be overheard. “But it actually was an accident.”
“Will they not think you’re a badass anymore if they know it was an accident?” Everly leans forward, her tone and motions matching mine making me laugh.
“Honey, they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am a badass.”
If I wasn’t pretty certain that I look like roadkill before I said that, her laugh would have convinced me.
“Okay, badass, tell me the truth now,” she says after a moment. “How are you feeling? Is your stomach tender? Any excessive aches anywhere? Be serious.”
She adds in the last bit when I look down where my dick is, but I understand that if I die from internal bleeding that she didn’t catch, her career and life will go south really fast.
“The bruises hurt like hell, but nothing else really stands out. I wouldn’t mind a pill and a nap, if I’m being honest.”
She nods, and has finished reapplying ointment to my legs, rewraps them and reaches for the piss bottle, holding it up in question.
“Actually, I think I’m going to need to hit the john,” I tell her, fairly certain that my breakfast is flying though my system like a high-speed train.
“I wheeled you in here using a gurney sized for household pets,” she tells me, and I immediately shake my head. “Fine, but we’re going to take it slow and if you feel even slightly lightheaded, you have to tell me.”
Lifting my finger up, I cross it over my heart. Which brings up my next item. “Not that I mind being naked around you, but could you toss me a shirt from that pile? You know how fucking cute you are when you blush like that?”
“Here, let me help you with this,” she says when I try to take the shirt from her, and quickly realize that barely being able to lift my left arm would make it hard to get it on. “I should have stuck to button down shirts.”
Once it’s mostly on, she kneels in front of me to put a sock on my uninjured foot before grabbing a bag of toiletries. “Okay, just take it slow now.”
While she thinks I’m in pain as we walk down the hall, it’s actually due to the urgency my stomach is suddenly putting on me and not my wounds. Once that’s handled, I study myself in the mirror.
I look like roadkill, I think. God knows that my breath is pretty ripe and I could use a shower, instead I use the deodorant that she bought before I break open the toothbrush packaging.
“Are you alright?” she asks through the closed door.
“Yep. But now I know why you laughed when I told you I’m a badass,” I call back as I start brushing my teeth.
“My dad always said not to argue with crazy,” she quips right back and I grin at my reflection, the toothpaste making me look like I’m foaming at the mouth.
Overall, I start to feel human again, at least until I reach for the doorknob. Opening it, I look at Everly then fall to my knees. “Oh, fuck.”
Just as the world goes blurry, she catches me.
*
“I don’t care,” Everly is growling into the phone. “I’m keeping him. He passed out after walking ten feet. He’s in no shape for whatever shit storm it is y’all have planned.”
After that outburst, it may as well have been a landline, the way she slammed her phone down.
Looking over at me, she gasps and taking a step toward me, Everly slaps her hand against my thigh. “Don’t you do that again!”
“Ouch! What did I do?” Jerking my arm up, I notice that there’s an IV line in my arm again.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she announces, placing her hand against my forehead.
“Was that Thunder again?” I ask her.
“What? No, some grumpy asshole. Bull, I think?” she answers me with a shrug, and my jaw drops open just before my soul leaves my body.
“Bull’s the president of our chapter,” I tell her when I’m able to string words together.
“And you’re my patient,” she replies, defensively crossing her arms in front of her even though I can see from the expression on her face that she understands that no one talks to him that way.
“Anyway, I think you were getting dehydrated, so that’s what this line is for.
Thankfully, you were smart enough to open the door before you passed out. ”
I let out a long sigh, trying to figure out how I’m going to get her to take me back to Kent tomorrow, dope me up enough that I’ll be useful, and not miss my chance with her.
“Will you lay down with me?”
“Don’t you bat your eyes at me,” the stubborn minx growls at me even as she climbs up beside me.
“But you get all flustered when I do,” I tease her, shifting onto my good side so I can face her.
“What did you mean earlier when Thunder asked what I looked like?”
“He tends to go for party girls,” I tell her, reaching out to brush a strand of hair off of her face while I carefully try not to put my foot in it with her. “I don’t get that vibe from you.”
“You two are really close, aren’t you?” she asks, seemingly retreating from trying to figure out if I think she’s hot.
“Yeah. Our parents died in a flash flood when I was fifteen and Lincoln fought like hell to get custody of me. He was nineteen and all of a sudden had to take on all these responsibilities. But even before that …” I stop talking, not wanting to whine about my daddy issues.
“Tell me.”
“Lincoln was Dad’s favorite. It was like he was perpetually angry at me, he wasn’t outwardly hostile, Mom wouldn’t have stood for that, but he knew how to twist the knife when there was something important to me. Mom and Linc were always trying to make up for it.”
“So, you followed him into the Kings?” she asks, pulling the blanket up under chin.
“Well, him and Bull.” I can’t keep the smile off of my face when I think about the shit the three of us got up to as kids.
“Bull’s father and uncle were Kings. I can’t even remember meeting him, but he was like another brother to us and then we were obsessed with hanging out at his house.
It sounds shitty to say it now, but his mom had left, so really the only rules over there were don’t get hurt and keep the noise down when his dad was home. ”
“Don’t get hurt, huh?” she lifts an eyebrow at me, hiding her smile behind the blanket. “That’s one solid rule to live by.”
“I have to go tomorrow, Everly,” I tell her, not wanting her under any misconception. “I respect your medical opinion and I’d much rather spend time in bed getting to know you, but this is my fight.”
The sadness that flashes in her eyes before she lowers her lids is like a knife in my heart. She’s smart, beautiful, sarcastic as hell, all those qualities and so many more that I’ve been looking for in a woman.
“I can’t do it without you,” I whisper next. “I’m going to need something to get me through it without fucking me up too bad.”
She starts to talk, then shakes her head before leaning forward and pressing her lips against mine. My face is bruised and some of my teeth feel a little loose, but that doesn’t matter.
With a finger under her chin, I tug her closer to me, sliding my tongue into her mouth to deepen the kiss she started.
“I’ve been wanting to kiss you since you walked into the bar the other night,” I tell her. “Well, a hell of a lot more than kiss you, if I’m being honest.”
“As your vet and knowing the state you’re in,” she murmurs against my lips, and I narrow my eyes at her teasing. “This is all you’re cleared for right now.”
“I think I can make a pretty solid case that my finger doesn’t hurt,” I smart back to her, holding up my right index finger for her inspection. “Would you say I’m cleared to use that?”
Everly’s eyes widen and a grin pulls at her mouth. “In my professional opinion, that one particular finger is not injured.”
Instead of saying anything else, I put that digit into my mouth, getting it good and wet before I slide my hand into her pants and smile when I find out she’s not wearing any underwear.
“You’re killing me, Everly,” I groan, reaching between her folds until I come across her clit.
Everly
There are a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t be in bed kissing this man right now, it’s just not one of them matter all that much to me at the moment.
Bending my left knee upward once his finger trails down my body, I make sure he has easy access to my pussy. Seconds later, I feel the pad of his finger rubbing insistently against the top of my sex and instantly feel relief that there’ll be no need to show him where my clit is.
His mouth on mine, his lips hungry and insistent, I moan as his tongue darts in and out; making me wish it was his tongue, and not his finger down below.
Shifting his arm down further, his long, thick finger plunges into my pussy, nearly making me bite down on his tongue as I writhed and arched beside him.
“You feel so damn good,” he whispers against my lips, grinding his cock forward. “You want this too, don’t you, baby?”
“Yes, Jessup, please. I need more,” I nearly beg him.
Rage swipes his thumb against my clit, and some part of me knows I should stop this before he strains himself, but I try to tell myself it’s just his finger, pumping in and out of me. Then he adds a second inside me.
And just like that my organism catches me by surprise and without thinking I reach out and squeeze his arm, throwing my head back and thrusting myself harder against his fingers, not wanting the waves of pleasure to stop.
*
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur again and I feel rather than hear his snort from where my head is resting on his good shoulder.
“You didn’t hurt me,” Jessup mumbles back, softly kissing my forehead seconds before his breathing changes and I know he’s finally resting.
I lay there for a time, not wanting to disturb him but my mind is too unsettled to rest.
What would life be like if Jessup and I get together? I wonder. He and I walk on different sides of the law, not to mention that I doubt hard-core biker parties are my jam.
Letting out a sigh, because I’m not even sure this man wants anything other than a hook up, I scoot away from him; slowly inching back until I’m able to slide off the bed without waking him.
Like it or not, I know he’s going to want to head in and join in on whatever his club is planning and regardless of my feelings, not to mention my good sense, if I want him to make it through I have to calculate the exact amount of morphine to give him so he can function without being hampered.
At least he’ll have his brother at his back when they go after the men who tortured him and killed Mills. That isn’t much comfort, but it’s the best I can come up with right now.