11. Angel
ANGEL
Not once have I ever been kissed like this.
The last one was pretty fantastic, but gentler like Rogue was treating me with kid gloves.
So unlike this, all consuming, like his need is as ravenous as mine, a kiss that deepens with more force than before, exploring everywhere, taking my breath away while leaving me so wet and needy down below.
I never want it to stop, his hands on my waist and then my hips, drawing me against the hardness in his pants. So hard, kindling a fire between us that could start a fire. Never have I wanted to feel what’s pushing against my skin like I do now.
It’s always been something men wanted, a kiss, a screw, a fuck, they called it all kinds of things and growing up, the guys in my classes may not have liked it but they understood the word no.
That I wanted to save myself for something down the road.
And now I know what I was waiting for, this overwhelming attraction, this chemistry that’s so difficult to describe.
I grasp his face. “I want this with you.”
Rogue strokes my face and kisses my lips. “Soon Angel, but not yet baby. I need to go help the guys downstairs.”
Butterflies dance. He wants me too. I want him, in that way, and I told him. Never did I think I’d be that brazen. Maybe I should feel ashamed, but I don’t, not even a little bit. I give him a set of playful wide eyes. “It’s okay. I can take rejection.”
His eyes darken, and he draws me to him, kissing me with that passion that takes my breath away, pushing against my heat with that rock hard cock. “Does that feel like rejection, Angel? I fucking want you. You are not being rejected. Remember that.”
My heart fills with emotion. “I was teasing you, Rogue. Let me help you guys clean up the mess downstairs. It’s the least I can do. Haven’t I proven that I can be trusted? I mean, I didn’t kill you when you came back. I could have shot you with your own gun, right?”
Rogue laughs and scoots out from beneath the bed, pulling me with him.
He gets to his feet and takes my hands, helps me to a standing position, and places a gentle hand beneath my hair, cradling my nape while drawing me close.
He whispers against my ear. “You can help but if things get uncomfortable down there, I want you to head back upstairs and leave things to me, understand? The guys down there, they’ll fight to the death, but they have to understand what they’re fighting for, Angel, and some of them are not quite sure. We’ll get there though.”
“The offer to turn myself in is still on the table, Rogue.”
He tips my chin with a finger. “I took it off the table, it is not an option, understand?”
I nod; it will be fine. Rogue will see that I’m not planning to do his family of brothers any harm.
They’ve saved my life twice now and I owe him and them everything.
If he’s not going to let me leave and turn myself in, which I have to admit makes me happier than sin, then helping to clean up the mess is the least I can do.
“Have a little faith. It will be fine. I’m a big girl. ”
His lips curve up, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s obvious he doesn’t think this is a good idea even though he was going to bring me down to mingle with them before all the gunfire started. Now, I’m sure emotions are running hotter than they were before the Scorpions made their play.
Rogue takes my hand as I step around glass shards, assessing all the damage of this room alone, before we head out of my bedroom prison and down to the main bar below.
I said it would be fine, that I could deal with his men, but my stomach rolls with nausea as I take in the stony faces who look up at me from the bar.
Not one friendly face but glazed over contempt.
And the damage, so much damage. There’s not one wall not riddled with bullet holes.
Glass shards and drywall lay blown all over the floor as the men pull out large garbage cans from behind the bar.
I want to say something, apologize, tell them I’ll still turn myself in, but given their stony faces, I sense it’s just not the time.
I part from Rogue and walk toward the bar, feeling the eyes of his men as I make my way through the mess on the floor.
I spy a few pairs of old gloves and grab one, and then a broom, making my way to the back to the farthest corner away from them and starting to sweep all the gatherable debris and glass shards into a pile.
It takes forever just to get that corner cleaned up but the two large windows were clearly a target.
Once it’s in a pile and I’ve swept it for the third time I walk toward one of the men with a garbage can closest to me. “Are you using this yet or can I borrow it to fill the stuff over there?”
His grey eyes meet mine before glancing over at the corner where a neat pile is waiting to be scooped up and taken away. “I’ll take it over,” he says.
I shake my head. “No, you’ve got enough to do because of me. I’ll take this and bring it back when I’m done.”
He doesn’t argue but I feel his glance and the looks from others every once in a while. Let them talk, be pissed. There’s nothing I can do about the situation now that I’ve offered to leave them, to make it go away, but if Rogue won’t let me, helping is at least something I can do.
A few hours later a rap on the door of the club causes my chest to tighten with fear and everyone to turn toward the sound with guns drawn. The silence is almost deafening until Rogue puts up a hand. “Easy everyone. I ordered pizza.”
“Fuck,” someone says, shaking his head and holstering his pistol while cheers go up from the rest of the men. It’s the first time I’ve seen them really smile all night long.
A couple of the guys go to the door, but they’re cautious even though Rogue said it’s the pizza guy.
They’re probably not sure if someone with a shotgun is beyond that door, and guilt floods me so bad that my stomach rolls.
I’m the cause of all of this. If I had never stepped foot in their club, they wouldn’t be dealing with any of this.
Thank the stars above that no one was killed.
I don’t think I would ever be able to deal with that.
Hours later, most of the interior debris is at least cleaned up, and everyone has had pizza and more than a few beers. The guys begin trickling out, off to their own rooms upstairs, downstairs or to an extended club house in the back that doubles as a barracks of sorts.
Rogue and one of his crew are still drinking a beer and talking at the corner of the bar, while I find a huge mop and mop bucket, get it filled up and begin to tackle the residual dust, trying to turn what’s under it into a very shiny floor.
I’m halfway done when Rogue joins me with a mop. I laugh. “I’ve never seen a prez with a mop. The Scorpions usually make their new recruits polish anything and everything around.”
Rogue smirks. “Well, I don’t plan to let any of my recruits anywhere near you, so you’re stuck with me,” he says, using those powerful arms to make short work of what’s left of the floor.
By the time we’ve mopped it three times, the floor is shining.
Rogue rolls the mop bucket to the back of the bar, lifts it and dumps it down the drain of an old utility sink before I ring out the mops.
“It’s good they got the windows boarded up for tonight.
Do you want me to pay for the damages? I don’t have any money, but I can work. ”
He gets us each a cold bottle of beer from the refrigerator and pops the tops before handing one to me.
“It’s not an issue. We help a crew down the road from time to time.
They put in some work at local benefits, some house raising efforts for community members.
We give them a lot of muscle throughout the year.
Hayze asked them to help us get windows ordered and all the damage repaired.
They’re pulling in a few more men, using some of our guys for labor and it’ll be back to new in less than a week.
This club will be looking like the Scorpions never touched it soon but they’re going to regret their attack and losing so many men for many years to come. ”
Before we got the interior cleaned out it would have been hard to imagine this place ever looking the same much less in a weeks’ time.
“I’m so sorry that I brought trouble to your door, Rogue.
Seriously, if there was anywhere else I could have run to that night, I would have.
And you know, that offer to turn myself into them, it’s on the table.
” I raise a hand. “I know what you said, but just so you know.”
He scowls. “That’s not going to happen, Angel.”
I hold up my beer. I haven’t tasted something so refreshingly good in months. “A cold beer after a day of hard work. Who would have thought it was something I would miss before my stepdad traded me away.”
His eyes narrow. “Where is the fucking lowlife now?”
“I’m not telling you that. But you need to know that if there’s ever a decision to be made to take care of your men, your family or me, that I will go back to the Scorpions, so this doesn’t happen again.”
He puts his beer down and closes the distance between us…