Chapter 11
Reaper
Crossbones Diner was quiet for this time of day, but that meant we could get the best booth seat in the joint.
I led Rowan toward the back booth with a view of my bike.
Having her on the back of my bike had been intense.
My cock was still trying to calm down from having her arms wrapped around my waist. My hand was currently on the base of her back, guiding her to sit down.
She looked around, almost as if she were nervous. I wanted to kill that doubt in her. I wanted her to rise up to be the badass I knew she was.
“I thought you didn’t want to leave the clubhouse all weekend?” she asked me once we sat. I almost choked on a laugh.
“I figured you’d need some fuel,” I told her, motioning for the waiter to come over. I knew the girl, she’d worked here for a long time.
Rowan blushed, and I grinned at the way I could make her do that, even outside of the bedroom.
“Reaper,” Dahlia greeted me with a smile. “Your usual?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving the older woman a smile. “Rowan, get whatever you want.”
“Just a caramel latte please.”
Oh hell no.
“No, you need food. Get whatever you want.”
“Um…eggs on toast?”
I kept my eyes on her, and Dahlia cleared her throat to stop me. She knew me far too well.
“Darlin’, how about I get the chef to whip up some eggs benny. His hollandaise sauce is to die for.”
I saw the light in her eyes, and the shy smile on her lips told me she liked that. “Oh, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“You’re good, darl.”
Dahlia moved off to put the order through, and I made a mental note to remember the breakfast she seemed to like.
“Why are you nervous?”
“I’m not.”
“Rowan, cut the shit. I remember meeting you as a feisty and sassy girl who liked to party. Now, you’re always looking over your shoulder, watching what you say, and eat. Who did that to you?”
She sighed. “It was an act. I mean, not really…but kinda. I want to be that carefree girl who doesn’t care what people think. I want to be fierce, and be a total badass. I guess I had that with Trey. He was my safety net. And now I don’t have that, and I’ve been reminded of my past.”
It killed me that anyone has ever made her feel less than.
“Trey told me you knew he was gay.”
She looked up at me, her eyes wide for a moment, before she looked back down at her hands. “He told you?”
“He did.”
“Did you go off the rails like his mother?”
“No. I don’t give a fuck who he fucks, so long as he’s happy. We’ll talk about his addictions later, but I want to know how you knew. He said he never told you.”
She had a sad smile on her face. “A girl knows, Wyatt. When she’s not being touched, when he doesn’t seem interested in you sexually, but can’t wait to take you out to the movie he’s been dying to see.
He confided in me. He was my best friend for three years, two we spent trying to make it work because we were both scared of what it meant if it didn’t. ”
“What did Celine say to him?” I asked, hoping his mother hadn’t done too much damage.
When we broke up, she had gone on a religious freak out, and tried everything to get me on the right path to God.
I’d told her where to stick her bible, and since then we had very limited contact.
I thought she could have dragged Trey down into it too, but he seemed to have pulled away at the right time.
“That he was no longer welcome in her life.”
Fuck. I was glad he had Rowan to help him through that.
“Is that when the addiction shit started?”
“I actually don’t know when she said it to him or when he came out to her.
I still think he’s in denial sometimes. I only found out because I overheard a voicemail message when he was playing them, thinking I wasn’t home, but yeah, the addiction shit started about a year ago.
It got pretty bad. I thought…I thought he was going to hurt me.
When he realised, and I moved into the second room, he stopped drinking, but he started doing other shit. All I could do was be there for him.”
“And it got you hurt.”
She shrugged, and it was the hardest thing to see her act like it was just another regular thing that happened. Like it wasn’t the worst thing to have ever happened to her, and that crushed me in ways I couldn’t explain.
“Tell me about your family. I don’t know anything about them.”
Our breakfast arrived, and her eyes widened at the sight of it. Crossbones wasn’t your average joe diner, we had a five star chef on board who wanted a simpler life than working in Michelin restaurants.
“This looks amazing.”
“Dig in,” I told her, cutting into my breakfast while she delicately cut into the corner of her sourdough with smoked salmon and poached egg. “I mean it, Rowan, eat like no one’s watching because they don’t care. I guarantee you.”
She offered me a sweet smile before taking a bigger bite, her eyes closing as she moaned at the taste. My cock instantly hardened, remembering what it sounded like as I made her come all over my fingers and tongue.
“Babe, I said eat. You keep moaning like that, we won’t finish, and I’ll have you bent over my bike in no time.”
Her cheeks flushed at that, but she continued to eat, and enjoy her meal. Once she thought no one was watching, she was more like the girl I remembered. The one I wanted to show up.
“So…your family?”
She finished her mouthful and looked over at me, a little nervously.
“I don’t know my father. He left when I was a baby, and my mother, she…
well she means well, and she made sure I had everything I could want growing up, but she’s…
I guess a little like Celine. She loves me, but she wants me to walk in the path of God, and I can’t. ”
“Fair. No siblings?”
“Nope,” she said, simply. “What about you, Wyatt? I don’t know about your family either, except the fact you have two children.”
I frowned. “What makes you think I have two?”
“I’ve met them both,” she said, a frown furrowing her own brow. “Trey and Brianna.”
Well, fuck.
“No one knows about Brianna.”
“She came to visit Trey about two years ago. Explained who she was. I…still talk to her every now and then, so does Trey. Her mum is a looney tune. You sure can pick ‘em.”
My shock waned when I let out a bark of laughter. She had a point. Celine and Kayla were total opposites, but both had a few screws loose when we’d been together. Kayla hated everything about me, even though she’d been a club girl when I got her pregnant.
“What’s that say about you?” I countered, finishing my meal, and pushing the plate to the side.
“I really have no idea,” she laughed, finishing off her meal, soaking the bread with the left over sauce and tossing it in her mouth. “That was amazing. Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me for feeding you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know…it’s unexpected, I guess.”
Fuck, I really needed to deprogram whatever crap was in her head. Movement in the corner of my eye had my gaze for a second, seeing the two nimwits that I knew would cause her to become nervous again. I didn’t make a scene, I simply turned my attention back to Rowan.
“How is Brianna?”
“She’s good. Doesn’t tell me much, but from what I can tell, she’s working her way through her senior year at the top of her class.”
Fuck…that made me proud.
“That’s good.”
“You could reach out to her…or I could. I think she wants to know you, she’s just scared and her mum has a thing about the club apparently. Trey and I had to explain a few things, more so Trey than me.”
I nodded. “Kayla was a clubgirl, and I got her pregnant. I tried to do right by her, but when she realised I wasn’t going to make her my ol’ lady, she…well, I guess you would say she flipped out. Made a lot of trouble with the club.”
“She doesn’t seem that mentally well from what I heard from Bri. Still, the offer’s there, Wyatt.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it.
“And you don’t have to worry about me,” she added, pushing her plate to the side as well and finishing her coffee. “I’m on the pill, and I’ve never had unprotected sex before.”
“I wasn’t worried,” I told her, honestly. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind with her, even though it should have.
Her eyebrows pulled tight, like she wasn’t sure what she heard. It was true, I didn’t care if I got her knocked up, I already knew she was mine. It was just about making her realise it too, but I also knew she had her own issues, and I didn’t want to scare her…not yet anyway.
Sooner, rather than later, Rowan Martell was going to be mine, and the entire club was going to bow down to her.
“Are you done?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Do you have things to do?”
“Yeah,” I said, taking her hand. “You.”
I pulled her toward the door, just as I heard a chuckle I recognised, and the bitch’s whiny voice piped up, ruining my plans.
“Look, Rolls finished her entire meal, cleaned the plate and all. Some things don’t change, after all.”
Rowan’s hand pulled from mine, and I felt her stiffen behind me. Turning to see Tee and Tori, both laughing behind the counter.
Fucking cunts.
I turned to Rowan, who was looking anywhere, but at them, her arms crossed over her stomach, shielding herself.
I tugged at her hand and wheeled her into my arms, cupping the side of her face, and pulling her to me.
My lips sealed over hers, tongue licking at her lips to gain entry before I deepened the kiss.
She moaned into my mouth, her body molding to mine, eager to feel me.
Oh god, sweetheart, I will take you right here if you keep that up.
When I pulled away, her face was flushed, her eyes dark with desire and her lips swollen from my beard. Turning to the two bitches, both slackjawed because they knew I didn’t do public affection outside the clubhouse, I addressed them.
“Consider this your notice. You touch or hurt what’s mine, and nothing in this damn world will save you from my wrath.”
Pulling Rowan out the door with me, I got on the bike and helped her to get on behind me.
“You didn’t have to do that for me,” she said, softly.
“Yeah, babe, I did. No one hurts what’s mine.”