Chapter Seventeen
Rebel
“You’re lucky Colt has a first-aid kit in here.”
She drags me into the bathroom before I’ve come down from the mind-melting orgasm, but she’s right. The cut is deep. I got lost in the way she was like putty in my hands, trusting me not to hurt her.
I should know better, knife play can be dangerous if you don’t take proper care and focus, and I fucked up. I’m just glad I didn’t cut her.
“Can you not mention your cousin, the priest, when my cum is dripping out of you and we’re covered in blood?”
Her nose wrinkles, but she is too focused on making sure I’m not bleeding out to care about those things.
Or the fact we’re crammed into her tiny bathroom, both naked and our skin flushed from the hot as shit sex we had. Again.
Kinsley doesn’t even care I’m twice her size and could pick her up with one arm, because she shoves me down onto the closed toilet seat without a second thought. The cold of it on my ass is more of a shock than the damp cloth she puts over the cut.
“Jesus.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“The seat is fucking cold.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she stares for a moment as if she is having a hard time computing what I said. She shakes it off and goes back to cleaning my hand.
I’m not bleeding out. From the looks of it now it’s clean, I don’t even need stitches, but she’s tending to me like my hand is about to fall off.
Nero sent everyone but him and Fury away after I’d lost my cool with Wallen’s pathetic attempts to stonewall us. I only got away with it for as long as I did because Nero didn’t want Wallen to see any dissent.
We aren’t killing the little prick once he’s talked.
He’s going back to prison. Nero doesn’t want there to be anything he can use against us in the prison.
It’s full of people who would love to hear Wallen talking about us arguing among ourselves.
Nero could see me losing it, so told me to cool off and not come back to the clubhouse until tomorrow.
When I stormed out of there, I had every intention of getting on my bike and going out to look for trouble, to find someone who deserved a beat down, maybe even thought about going back to that prick Mark’s house to break the shit out of his other hand.
It’s worrying as fuck I ended up here. The only saving grace is it’s my blood all over her living room floor, and not hers.
Kinsley finishes wrangling me into what she considers submission, but it's really just me watching her take care of me while she's naked. She forces me into the shower to clean the blood off my body. It’s fun to hear her squeal when I drag her in too, considering she also has my blood all over her.
Kinsley tosses a towel at me and walks to the bedroom. Hers, not the one with her art stuff.
By the time I reach the doorframe, tucking the towel in at the waist, she’s dragging a t-shirt over her head, just in time to see the dark gray fabric cover her very sweet ass.
Then she turns around, and my fists and jaw clench.
There is an MC patch over her breast. The Iron Vultures, who I’ve never heard of. I want to fucking tear through them for ever having been anywhere close enough to give her this shirt.
Without thinking, I stalk over and tug it off her, then rip the damn thing in two.
Crowding her against the bureau, I put one hand on her neck, with the other I take hold of one of her tits, using my palm to manipulate her nipple until it’s hard against my skin.
That was a calculated move on her part, and one I am not shocked by. She wants me riled up. Kinsley stares at me like she wants to rip my face off, and it makes me smirk.
“You’re an asshole,” she says. “I love that shirt. I bought it at a vintage store back in LA. It’s comfortable to sleep in. And you tore it in half. How many shirts are you going to ruin.”
All of them if they’re like this one. “There is no way you’re wearing another man’s patch.”
“Want me to wear yours?” She jokes, and her eyes widen when she sees the burning look in mine.
I want to say it’s out of anger, but that would be a lie. It’s more about jealousy of her wearing some other MC patch, even if it was some secondhand piece of shit.
“I’m pretty sure the Iron Vultures were on a TV show.” She pushes me back so my hands fall away from her chest. “But it’s fun to see you jealous.”
“I’m not fucking jealous.”
I grip the towel at my waist as she picks up the pieces of her destroyed shirt with a forlorn expression. She grabs another one that is much bigger on her, with gaping armholes that do little to hide the sides of her tits, so I’m happier about that.
“Right,” she mumbles.
Kinsley climbs onto the bed and sits back against the headboard, her knees drawn up. From the angle I’m standing to the bed, I can see everything between her legs and my dick twitches.
I should go burn off the rage, or confront Nero at the very least, but I don’t want to do either of those things. I’m still pissed, but the rage simmering at the top has taken a nosedive because of her.
She watches with her lips parted as I drop the towel and climb onto the bed beside her, tugging the covers over my hips.
“What are you doing? Are you… You don’t think… You’re not staying here,” she stutters out.
“Think of it as saving a life. If I leave, I might kill someone.”
“You say that like your actions will be on my conscience,” she huffs.
“I’m fine where I am,” I say with a smirk.
“You weren’t invited.”
I lean over and lift her enough to shove her legs under the covers. She slaps my arm to stop me manhandling her. Her attempts are futile as I get her under the covers and press my arm down over her stomach to hold her in place. When she tries to push me off, I wince and jerk my arm back.
“Oh shit,” she grabs my hand. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
It hurt, but not enough for her to be as worried as she is. I’ve been shot twice and stabbed before, and fuck knows how many fights I’ve been involved in over the years. I make a face as if it hurt, and she stops fidgeting, worry etched in her features.
I shouldn’t stay, I shouldn’t enjoy the way she is touching me as she checks for further damage to my hand. Kinsley says nothing as I lie back, putting my other arm behind my head and staring up at her ceiling.
I’m fucking tired, and what little calm came over my brain when it was all tangled up in Kinsley is ebbing.
Just once I want to forget everything going on with the club. I need another distraction.
“Why did that detective call you?”
“Don’t try to get over your shit by bringing up mine.”
“Maybe I’m doing it to help you.”
“Really?” she huffs and crosses her arms over her chest.
“I’m not stupid, Kinsley. You didn’t come back to Baltimore to paint that mural.”
“Do you think I'm spying on your club again? Like I care.”
“I never thought you were spying on my club,” I shuffle up and roll to my side so I can look at her better. I’m a hundred percent sure she isn’t working with Storm. “What I think is, you want to tell someone other than your cousin, but you’re too scared to.”
“Reverse psychology?”
“I don’t have to trick you to know I’m right.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Maybe I want to.”
That stops her, her lips snap shut on whatever she was about to tear into me with. It’s news to me too.
Wanting to hear her problems is keeping me here instead of crossing the street and setting fire to my friendship with Noah, not just ruining any trust between me and my president.
“You don’t want to know my shit, Rebel.”
“Let’s get one thing straight. I never ask questions I don’t want answers to. And I don’t give my time freely. If I didn’t want to be here, I’d have walked out the door with blood dripping down my fingers.”
“It’s all in the past.” She looks away.
“Can’t be if a cop called. And let’s not forget you involved me when you wanted to be fucked.”
Kinsley is about to refute it, then stops because it’s the truth.
“Another thing about me, I’m a dog with a bone, and I know someone who can find out anything i want. Including how often the Governor of Maryland takes a shit.”
It surprises me when she laughs, but that is because she doesn’t believe me. I’m not lying. Although Ghost is no longer around the club, I’m pretty sure that is something he could pull off.
“You think I can’t find out what happened back in LA.”
“Do not do that,” she scowls. “And… I’m trying not to think about it.”
“How is that working out for you? It got you mixed up with me, that alone should be enough to talk about it so you can be free of me.”
Saying the words out loud does something to my chest, a dull ache I’m freaking the fuck out about every time I feel it. Kinsley watches me rub my chest with my good hand, the cut one still in her lap.
She realizes it at the same time I do and withdraws her fingers but doesn’t push me off.
Kinsley takes a deep breath and stares at the bedroom door. “He was calling to tell me that the person who was stalking me is appealing their sentence.”
“You had a stalker?”
I sit up, not expecting that. Anger consumes me. Someone stalked her enough to be put in prison?
“What did he do?” My voice is low and dangerous. If this asshole wasn’t thousands of miles away and locked up, that is where my pent-up aggression would be aimed. “Did he hurt you?”
“She… It was a woman. And you can’t get to her, so don’t get all worked up about it.”
A woman stalked her? Fuck it, that doesn’t matter, I’d still give her what she deserves if she gets out of prison.
“Then tell me what she did before I imagine shit that makes me want to kill her.”
“Jesus, do you have to jump to killing people?”
“When they hurt people I-” I cut off and Kinsley stiffens. “Just tell me,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I need a drink,” she gets out of bed and stalks out the door, muttering that she can’t be lying in bed while she says all this.
This is the second time tonight she’s said that. Using sex and alcohol to get through her problems isn’t great. But we can talk about that later.
My clothes are out in the living room, so I grab the towel again. When she sees me, she rolls her eyes and grabs two mugs, going to the coffee machine.