Chapter 4 #2
“She doesn’t have the key,” Viper said, and this time I heard the humour in his voice. The motherfucker. “Sleep tight.”
He laughed as he walked away and I slumped against the door, glaring over at my phone on the bed. A new message had just come through. Storming over to it, I glared down at the name on the screen before I opened it.
SAVAGE
You were warned. Sleep tight, baby.
That motherfucker.
Days later
I hadn’t dared go near Savage’s room since Viper let me out the next morning after our little chat. He still didn’t dare come near me knowing full well I’d swing my fist down between his legs with all the force I had.
The clubhouse was quiet still, and I hated having to wait around for something to happen.
“Any news on the boys?” I asked Maree as she came into the clubhouse. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her hair and sighed.
“Nothing. I guess no news is better than bad news.”
I had to agree. If there was radio silence, that was a good thing. It couldn’t have been easy for the girls though. Maree headed back to the office, and I wiped down the bar. Since Viper had been keeping to himself, he was keeping me more bored than usual behind the bar.
The doors opened and I turned to see who had come through when my eyes widened, and I let out a squeal of excitement. I bounded from behind the bar and ran over to Shauna in the doorway. She smiled over at me and hugged me extra tight.
“You’re okay?” I asked, looking her up and down.
“Yep, full bill of health,” she said. Chains moved in behind her, his arm in a sling and his face slightly battered but when he smiled at me, I couldn’t help but run to his good side to give him a squeeze.
“You guys scared the hell out of me,” I cursed at them. “I’m so glad you’re home. Do you need anything?”
“Just a warm bed,” Chains grumbled. “And maybe some chow. Hospital food is fucking shit.”
“Coming right up, burgers or something more filling?”
“Burgers sound grand,” Chains said, an almost growl coming from his mouth.
He slung his good arm around Shauna’s shoulders and she helped him over to a booth while I ran over to the kitchen to make them some burgers.
It felt good to do something, and bonus, it was for Chains and that boy deserved the world right now.
As I turned the corner, I saw Viper and Kayleigh going at it near the sink.
“Guys!” I screamed. “Come on, this is so unhygienic!”
Picking up the spray bottle, I squirted the anti-bacterial spray at them as they hurried past.
“Come on, Shona, what about when Savage had you splayed out over this same table?”
My mouth fell open. “That was…different.”
“How?”
“There wasn’t any food that needed to be eaten on it!”
“Just you, right?”
I sprayed him right in the face, but he ducked at the last minute with a chuckle.
The squeal of delight that came from outside told me he’d caught up to Kayleigh and they were hopefully taking it to his room.
Flashes of the night I’d come into the kitchen for a late night snack flooded my mind, and how it felt for Savage to lift me up onto the table and feast on me for what felt like hours.
I wondered how many others saw that…had it only been Viper?
I couldn’t worry about that right now though, I needed to cook some meat for the injured.
My skin pebbled as my memory served me with flashes of how Savage touched my arms, rubbing his rough fingers up and down my soft skin.
How he rubbed his stubbled jaw along the sensitive flesh on my neck, his lips dipping to my collarbone to trace a wet path with his tongue up my jaw and to my mouth.
My legs wobbled a little as I held onto the side of the sink while waiting for the sensation to pass.
“Are you okay?” I heard Shauna ask me. I spun around to face her, my cheeks flushing as if I had been caught doing something bad.
“Yeah, sorry, I just need to clean up after I caught Viper in here.”
She chuckled. “Some things don’t change.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hasn’t Savage had you laid out on that very table before too?”
I swung back around. “Does everyone goddamn know?”
She shrugged. “About you and Savage, or about that in particular?”
“Both!”
“Well I think you and Savage have been obvious for years. Honestly, I don’t even know why it’s not a thing yet. But you on the table? Yeah, that’s from Blaze actually.”
“What?”
“He caught you two late one night and told everyone,” she shrugged as if she didn’t just tell me something major. “From what I heard, Savage beat him severely for that. He never speaks anymore unless he’s been ordered to.”
I had noticed Blaze wasn’t as loud as the others, and he preferred to do this own thing. “Why would he talk about it?”
Shauna shrugged, helping me to wipe down the bench. “Clout, I’m guessing. But it didn’t exactly go to plan, did it?”
I rolled my eyes, my heart pumping a little harder for Savage, knowing he had been protecting my honour like that. It was amazing that it hadn't gotten back to me. This clubhouse had a lot of members, but we were tight. Everyone knew everyone’s business here.
“Go, sit,” I ordered her. “I’ll throw these burgers on and be with you in a minute.”
She sighed and left the kitchen. I heated up the pan and grabbed the meat from the fridge before I set about getting all the ingredients ready and making the best damn burger Chains has ever had.
Then I was going to sit down with them and tell them how damn much I missed them, and take my mind off Savage.
As I cooked the burgers, I couldn’t help but do one for myself, then plating them up with some salad on the side. Carrying them out, waiter style using my arms, I put the plates down on the table and slid in on the opposite side to them.
“So, tell us what’s been happening around here?” Shauna asked. “It’s quiet.”
I looked over at Chains who shook his head to signal she wasn’t aware of where half the boys were. I wondered if she knew anything that had happened since they got back to Ireland. Chains clearly did.
“Yeah, half the guys are on a run,” I lied, hating how easily it came out.
I knew the value of a lie in this clubhouse.
Sometimes the women didn’t need to know the ins and outs of club life.
She accepted that and dug into the burger.
I wondered if she had told Chains about the baby yet.
He was so hard to read, just like Savage in so many ways. “What’s the plan with recovery then?”
Chains sighed. “I’m benched until I can get the sling off and move my arm freely.”
“Well, that’s fair. Don’t want you falling off your bike.”
He rolled his eyes and finished his burger. He did it one handed which was a little impressive, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“I was going to ask if I could start working some hours behind the bar. You know, give you a break and all,” Shauna said.
“I don’t mind but you’d have to ask Maree, she does all of the rostering. She wouldn’t have an issue with it anyway.”
Shauna sighed. “I need to find something to do with my time at least.”
“It’s pretty quiet around here at the moment, but you could help Orla too. She’s in need of having someone organise her deliveries and bookings.”
“Oh cool, I can be the clubhouse bitch,” Shauna chuckled. “I wouldn’t even need to leave the compound.”
“Who would want to?” I asked. We both chuckled whereas Chains just shook his head, but I saw the smirk on his lips.
He was glad she’d be safe within our gates especially after everything they’d just gone through.
The last thing he wanted was for her to be in danger again, especially considering his condition. “Where’s Sheridan?”
“Looking after Mark and the sibs,” she said. “We’re having dinner tonight. Dad’s gonna be home.”
“I thought he was…on a run.”
“He was, but he’s coming back tonight,” Shauna announced. “Anyway, I’m going to go and have a long, hot shower.”
“I’ll be in there in a minute,” Chains said. “I gotta wait for Morena to redo my bandage anyway.”
Shauna leaned down and kissed him quickly before she left the clubhouse.
“She doesn’t know anything?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want her running in to save the day. She blames herself for a lot of it. She thinks because she went to see him in prison, it sparked something in him to trigger his escape and cause all this shit.”
I shook my head. “God, that woman needs to learn that she isn’t at fault with everything.”
Chains nodded. “Ace came back because they found him. They’re bringing him back here.”
My heart hammered in my chest. “Neal?”
He nodded. “The boys will be back soon, but we’re keeping Ryleigh and Shauna away from the clubhouse.”
I nodded, realising how important that was going to be. “Do you need help with a ruse?”
He shook his head. “Orla and Sheridan will be taking them away with the kids for a few days. Morena has to stay here for obvious reasons.”
I nodded again. “What about the rest of the guys?”
He frowned. “The rest?”
“Yeah…I mean, only some of the boys went.”
“The rest are in Limerick with Valkyrie,” he said with a shrug. “I suppose they’ll be back soon. They only went to keep the morale up.”
Savage had no reason to return. He was helping the Nomads and if Neal was here, he had no reason to come back. The threat was handled, and he could stay with them. A streak of something I couldn’t place ran through me, and I felt annoyed.
No, I was angry.
Why hadn’t he told me he wasn’t coming back?
Fuck. I was a mess.
I had been trying to run away from him for months now, to keep him at arm’s distance and now I was pissed off he wasn’t coming back?
“You okay?” he asked, breaking me from my spell.
“Yeah…sorry. Totally spaced on you.”
He smirked. “Yeah you did. Morena is coming soon, so I’ll just chill out until then. You go and do what you gotta do.”