All Hail Page 11

  It doesn’t hurt. Not at all, not even when he slams into me like he’s trying to punish us both for this entire mess of a night. His pelvis keeps grinding against my oversensitive clit and it doesn’t take much to push me over the edge again, a scream ripping out of my throat that he barely manages to muffle with his lips.

  He kisses me like we’re both dying even as his hips snap into me, not slowing at all when he finally comes, grunting and biting my lips so hard we both taste blood.

  He holds me there for a second as he catches his breath, his forehead pressed against mine, then he slowly lets my legs drop back down to the ground, the drop is even further thanks to my hells being kicked God knows where in this tiny room.

  He steps away from me to fix his pants, my skirt dropping be to place and if it weren’t for the stream of his cum dripping down my legs you’d barely be able to tell that the love of my life just fucked me raw while his men stood outside and listened.

  Oh God.

  It’ll be the second time Luca will know all of the sordid details of my sex life.

  “Tell me who the fuck touched you.”

  My neat freak ways come in handy and I make a mental note to stop having unprotected sex with men in public as I use a wet wipe from my purse to clean myself up. Oh God.

  “It’s none of your business. You didn’t want me, what does it matter?”

  He grabs my wrist and pulls me until I’m pressed against his chest again. “I will find him and I will kill him, Avery. I…”

  I arch an eyebrow at him. “I thought you didn’t care? I thought you were protecting me, not saving me for yourself? If you have regrets then it’s your responsibility to live with them. I have none.”

  I snap the door open and find Luca leaning against the far wall, a blank look on his face but his eyes still trace over the state of me. I glance down and find two very obvious patches on my knees.

  God fucking dammit.

  I need to find Illi and get out of here.

  Illi doesn’t say a word to me the entire drive home but I’m sure it must be killing him to keep quiet.

  I don’t know why he’s kept his mouth shut for me but I appreciate it. I feel just as spaced out and weird as the last time I had sex, like something major has happened in my life and I’ve lost another of the tethers keeping me from floating away. When I catch myself thinking that I desperately want to slam my head into the dash of Illi’s car.

  Have I lost my mind?

  When we stop at the last set of stoplights before the gated community my ranch is in, Illi turns to me and says in a low tone, “O’Cronin is waiting for you back at your place. Is that okay or should I call him and tell him to leave?”

  Well, that settles it.

  Illi knows exactly what happened in that storage room with Atticus and he could potentially call Lips and tell her right now. Lips could tell Ash and then everything is going to blow the hell up.

  “Avery, stop looking at me like a guilty teenager. I’m not fucking saying a word, I’m just asking if you need me to cut O’Cronin loose because I will. I’d rather do that then break his fucking neck if he decides to be stupid about this.”

  It’s sweet but I’m not one to dance around something like this. Besides, Aodhan has become my safe place for this sort of thing and if he wants to get angry at me for having sex with Atticus when we’re not even technically dating then I don’t want to be friends with him… or whatever the hell it is that we’re doing.

  Dating maybe?

  Does it count as dating if you never really do anything or ever talk about what is going on but there’s a heap of touching and sexual tension?

  I need Lips and I need some girl talk, even if she is the worst at it.

  I shake my head at him and he looks like he wants to talk about it some more but the car behind us starts blaring their horn and he has to focus on the road some more.

  I argue with him about walking me into my house but Illi is nothing but a gentleman with me, opening the car door and unlocking my front door for me. He calls out to Aodhan too but I hightail it for the staircase, intent on scrubbing the night away from me.

  I’m not ashamed… except for the part where it still wasn’t enough for Atticus to really accept me and want me for who I am, not the perfect image of a girl he has in his head.

  I empty my purse out on the bed and then I stalk into the bathroom, throwing it in the bin, followed by my shoes.

  There’s no way I could wear them again after this.

  I don’t even want to look at them.

  I’m too busy in my own head to even notice that Aodhan has followed me up here, that whatever Illi said to him didn’t make him run out of here screaming into the night never to look back again, until he gently takes my wrist and turns me around to face him.

  I’m not sure if I’m relieved he’s still here or pissed that I now have to deal with the consequences of my night.

  He doesn’t say a word, just slowly looks over every inch of me, takes everything in until my skin begins to crawl.

  My voice sounds strange even to my own ears as I say, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  His hand reaches out and touches the top of the thigh split on my dress and I look down. There are threads loose there from where Atticus tore it up my body and out of the way, and suddenly I feel dirty.

  I will not cry.

  Aodhan doesn’t speak either. I don’t even think about what’s right or wrong, I just strip out of the dress and throw it into the bin in the bathroom. The mirror there isn’t kind to me but I stare at every inch of my skin on show, assessing and finding myself wanting. The silicone bra is a fucking nightmare to get off and my feet feel as though I’ve been standing in glass all day.

  I stumble into the shower and let the scalding water drench my skin.

  “If that motherfucker hurt you, I’m calling Illi and taking his fucking fortress on. I’m sure we could take the suits out.”

  I choke on a sob. “He didn’t. We had sex but I wanted to… even if that’s not a smart thing to do and now here I am, telling you about it so I’ll lose you too.”

  It just slips out of me, that little bit of hope that I have that all of this touching and flirting and cheek kissing means something so I tense up while I wait for him to cut me down. God, even if he did want me, I’ve just given him the best opportunity to walk out of her and forget about me.

  He opens the shower door and reaches in to turn the heat of the water down with a scowl. “Just because you’re hurting doesn’t mean you should boil to fucking death in there.”

  I glance down and find my skin way past rosy red and into that bright lobster shade that my OCD tendencies loves so much. “I need to get clean.”

  His eyebrows draw together and his voice dips low. “Then grab some fucking soap. Stop hurting yourself over some motherfucker who doesn’t deserve you and don’t worry about something as stupid as me leaving. You think I don’t know you love him? You think that shit will scare me off? Queenie, nothing affects you and me except you and me. He’s not going to ruin this for us, get that through that gorgeous head of yours.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I wake up to my phone ringing.

  I turn on the lamp beside my bed and then almost have a heart attack at the sight of Aodhan sleeping in the bed next to me. After I’d scrubbed myself raw, ignoring his growling and grumbling about how rough I was being, Aodhan had tucked me into my bed and laid with me to listen to everything that had happened for the night. I glossed over the sex with Atticus part but I was honest that it happened.

  It didn’t seem to bother him, he just laid back beside me and took everything in, asking more than a few questions about that Amanda Donnelley woman that I don’t yet have the answers to. I fell asleep before he did and I forgot he was even here. My phone doesn’t wake him and I try to keep my voice down as I answer.

  “Are you hungover? Should I be whispering too?”

  I huff at the smug tone Illi
is throwing at me. “That’s not necessary. Is there a reason you’re up so early on a Monday morning? I thought you were nocturnal, this changes everything I thought I knew about Mounts Bay.”

  He chuckles down the line at me and I can hear the sounds of the street behind him, some grunting and the rattling sounds of chains… or maybe handcuffs? Handcuffs and a chain?

  “Where the hell are you?” I murmur, trying and failing to not wake Aodhan up. He grunts and stretches, rubbing a hand over his face and groaning.

  “Who the fuck is that? Fuck, it had better be O’Cronin because if it’s the Crow I might have to come around for a visit.”

  I slide out of the bed and try not to look at all of the skin Aodhan is showing. I shouldn’t care about abs. I should care about tattoos and scars and very nice biceps and yet here I am… enjoying the sight of the very wolfish looking grin on his face as he stretches out on my pristine linens.

  “It’s Aodhan, not that it’s any of your business who I spend my time with. If you’re attempting to keep tabs for my brother, I should warn you that no matter what you might think I’m the danger in my family, not the snarling asshole traipsing around the country with his little foursome of debauchery.”

  That was a great dig, I’ll have to remember it for next time Ash calls me to rant.

  Illi grumbles at me down the line for a second but then he finally cuts to the chase. “I’ve sourced a dealer for us to question. A couple of my friends dragged him over, he was selling at the docks and tried to outrun them so he’s a little worse for wear. Do you think you could head down here? Get O’Cronin to drive you down.”

  Bossy men.

  I agree but only because I want to know about this dealer and who the hell is pushing the Jackal’s product. When I hang up from him, I find Aodhan grinning up at me with a rumpled sort of look on his face, his hair curling around his head in a mess that should not be as attractive as it is.

  “I’ve never slept in a bed with six dozen pillows before. Very comfortable.”

  I scoff at him and throw one of them at him. This all feels too… casual for me, the joking manner he treats me with is disarming and with my defenses down he keeps slipping through to that ice heart of mine.

  I’m not sure I ever want him to stop.

  “We need to get over to the Bay, Illi has a dealer in his workroom for us to question.”

  Aodhan grumbles and nods, pulling himself up and out of my bed so I get a full body shot of him standing there in only a pair of charcoal boxer briefs.

  He has a great ass.

  I make the bed while he uses the bathroom. He’s quick and I find one of Harley’s shirts for him to wear under his jacket. It’s a little big thanks to all of Harley’s time in the gym but where the neck sits a little lower shows off the edges of his tattoos. I want to know what they all look like. I’d seen them back when he gave me his shirt at the Jackal’s lair but I’d been too out of it to really take them in.

  Once he’s ready he kisses my cheek and heads downstairs, muttering about trying to work out how to operate my coffee machine.

  My hands shake the whole way through my shower and I try to take a very short one, knowing that I’d scrubbed myself raw the night before. I choose my clothing with less care this time around but I make a very bold choice and go with a pair of black jeans and a deep, forest green silk camisole.

  I put it out of my mind until I walk downstairs, a pair of Choo’s on my feet and a matching clutch packed and ready to go. When Aodhan sees me he grins, handing me a coffee in my favorite takeaway cup. It’s not exactly to my taste but it’s a solid first attempt and when I tell him that he grabs my hand, kissing my cheek and leading me back out to his car. He waits with me while I arm the security and then he helps me into the Impala.

  It’s still very clean in here and I wonder if he’s doing that for me because he knows just how badly mess and clutter upsets me?

  “Is the green a statement today or a coincidence? Don’t break my heart here, Queenie.”

  He starts the car with a roar and when I huff, he grins at me, grabbing my hand and kissing the back of it.

  Are we dating?

  Is that what’s happening here? I would say yes but he didn’t care about me having sex with another man in the back rooms of a gala last night so that kind of feels like mixed signals.

  I should just talk to him about what the hell it is that we’re doing, find out for sure what is happening right now, but for once I don’t want to quantify this. I don’t really want to have to face everything that’s going on and for now it isn’t hurting anyone to just enjoy his company. To wake up next to him, to have my sheets smell like him, and to drink slightly sub-par coffee that he made me.

  I think I need to call Lips and talk this out, bestie-to-bestie.

  I clear my throat carefully and play around on my phone as I answer him. “You slept in my bed, I can wear your color today if I want to.”

  We hit the highway and he waits until we’re cruising at a steady clip before he runs a finger down the side seam of my jeans. “Not just my color. The shoes are a little worrying though, I’ll need to kill whoever takes the Jackal’s colors over just to make sure there isn’t any more competition.”

  I smile at my phone. “There’s no competition here. I’m not a prize to be won.”

  He mumbles nonsense under his breath but I get to texting Lips, keeping her up to date about everything going on.

  If Roxas tries to flirt with you, shut him down fast. Don’t mention anything about Atticus because he’ll only get a hard-on about pissing a member of the Twelve off. Harbin is good though, he’ll be solid.

  Right.

  We’d very briefly encountered Illi’s closest confidants at the biker bar Lips had taken us to back in high school after Ash had fought at the Dive, the night Lips had met with the Viper over his allegiances. We had spoken to them, though Lips had just acknowledged them after Illi had warned them to keep an eye on us in case someone tried to jump us.

  They’d come to take out the Jackal and his men too with the rest of the Unseen MC but from what Lips has told me they aren’t the blind followers that the Boar normally fills him MC with. She doesn’t know the specifics of why they don’t fully trust the Boar but it’s something to keep in mind.

  Everything about Mounts Bay is a twisted web of betrayals and loyalties.

  The only way to be sure you’re not going to be stabbed in the back is by keeping a hell of a lot of tabs, which is why my murder board in the basement of my mansion takes up an entire wall already.

  “Do you know Harbin and Roxas?” I murmur and Aodhan grumbles again.

  “Illi’s biker friends? Yeah. They’re good guys… loyal as fuck to him and both of them have a reputation of being good men to have at your back. They once took out an entire building of armed bodyguards with Illi and the Wolf. The four of them just walked in and massacred the entire place like it was nothing. Anyone who can keep up with those two is solid in my books.”

  I make a note to ask Lips about that rumor later but if I had to guess, my money is on the killing being a part of Odie’s rescue.

  Lips would have been fourteen at most.

  A shiver runs down my spine, the same one I have every time I think about all of the bad shit that happened to her before I ever knew her.

  All of the shit that would have happened if we hadn’t met.

  Aodhan stares around the outside of Illi’s warehouse like he’s expecting it to blow up.

  I’ve only been here a handful of times but one of the joys of being a member of Lips’ family is that I’ve never felt unwelcome here. I’m sure growing up in the Bay and hearing the stories of what Illi does to people makes Aodhan feel very differently about being here, no matter how friendly Illi has been to him lately.

  “When I was a kid, my grandfather used to tell me stories about the things that would happen to people down at the docks here. It was always just boogieman stories, made up shit to stop us runni
ng off and causing trouble, but then one day people started whispering about the Butcher… and suddenly it wasn’t just a story anymore.”

  I look up at him and smile. “There’s bodies hanging from the walls in there. Blood spatters everywhere, the staircase is made out of bones.”

  He scoffs at me, threading our fingers together and then waving me forward like he’s going to follow my lead. “We both know you wouldn’t willingly step foot in there if it was really like that. I’m a little terrified to meet his wife though, I heard he’s dangerously overprotective of her.”

  I roll my eyes at him and step forward to key in the passcode. Lips and I are the only ones who have it and Aodhan is good about looking away when I mention that to him.

  “Just don’t try to flirt with her and you’ll be safe. He’s not a complete psychopath.”

  The door clicks open and I usher him in, keying the code into the alarm and waiting until it beeps a clearance for us. The security here is insane but Illi had a lot of conditions about staying here after the Jackal went after Odie again.

  I’m not sure if it can get any safer here and if it can, I’m sure it’ll happen before the baby arrives.

  “I’m not worried about me flirting, Queenie, but I’m irresistible. What if she falls for my good Irish charms and I get killed for it?” he whispers, and I roll my eyes at him but when I glance up at him, he’s grinning at me, teasing.

  He’s so completely different to Atticus that it doesn’t actually feel all that wrong to be standing here holding his hand while my heart is still torn open from my childhood love.

  I wonder if this is how Lips feels about her guys?

  I give myself a little shake because our situations are very different. Ash, Harley, and Blaise are all as codependent on each other as they are in love with her. There was never a question if they could share someone, only if they could find someone who would want to and who would love them all equally.

  I still can’t think about that filthy fucking excuse for a human Annabelle without wanting to scream and destroy something but the real reason she would have never worked out is because she had a preference for Harley and, not at all surprisingly, the sneaky ways she tried to cover that preference up was part of the reason Harley always kept her at arm’s length.