And fuck me, did I want her.
~ 7 ~
Quinn
I woke to the sound of Ripped calling my name. I was tangled in Battle’s bed covers, his woody scent trapped all around me like forest vines holding me hostage. But I was the most willing of hostages.
I opened one eye and then the other, testing out whether my hangover was still raging inside my head or if the aspirin that Battle had given me had saved my brain from self-implosion. Thankfully the beast had been tamed. Now I just needed to shower and drink some coffee to feel almost human again.
I slid out of Battle’s bed feeling guilty, though there was no reason to feel any guilt. Battle and I hadn’t done anything other than talk, despite what my body and my brain were desiring. Ripped called my name from further in the clubhouse and I rubbed my hands down my face and tried to wake myself up. I pushed my hair back from my face and looked around Battle’s room. It was sparse, barring some old photos on the wall, and I stood up and went to take a closer look. Most of them were of old bikes pictured in black and white, but some of them featured Battle and the other Highwaymen. A particular biker was featured heavily in a lot of the photographs, and I guessed that he was someone special to Battle because there were photos of them as kids as well as men. I smiled, tracing my finger over a shot of them both in the skate park I’d met him in the day before. Blood was trailing down the side of Battle’s face from a nasty gash and he held a board which was snapped in two in his hands. You would have thought there would have been tears or something, but both of them were laughing like it was the funniest thing ever. I couldn’t help the slow smile that crept on my face.
“Quinn?” Ripped yelled my name again as he passed Battle’s room and my smile fell.
I swallowed and headed to the door quickly. Ripped wasn’t a jealous man at all; he knew he was good looking and that he could have any woman he wanted so there was no need for him to be. But he was possessive. He liked to own things, people, feelings. He fell hard and fast, pulling everything you were to him like a magnet. I cared deeply for him, but whether those feelings could ever develop into more than that was anyone’s guess right then, no matter how much he tried to railroad me into being his permanently.
The thing was, I didn’t want to be owned. I just wanted to belong. But Ripped didn’t do things by half measures. He was an all-or-nothing man, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I cracked open the door and left Battle’s room quickly, heading down the hallway and toward Ripped’s yelling voice. I found him at the back end of the club, heading toward the bathroom, and he didn’t look happy.
“Where were you? I’ve been yelling your name for fifteen minutes,” he snapped, his eyes grazing over me and probably seeing the hangover from hell still clinging to me. He shook his head and leaned in, his big hand going around the back of my neck and cupping it before pulling me closer to him. He rested his forehead against mine. “You know what? It don’t matter, you’re here now.”
I wrapped my arms around him and let him love me, his large arms pulling me tighter against him. “Sorry, I was busy sleeping like the dead,” I groaned, throwing him a shy smile.
He chuckled. “You were on the whiskey again last night, babe—you know you can’t handle it.” He placed a kiss on my lips and I kissed him back. “Stick to the beer next time, Quinn, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed readily. “Just remind me of this feeling next time.”
He chuckled again and slung a heavy arm around my shoulders.
“So what’s the plan for today?” I asked.
“Gotta head out with the boys to check some shit out. You good to hang here? Thought maybe you’d give that slut Gracie a call or somethin’.”
We walked toward the main clubhouse, the smell of coffee and bacon and the sound of noisy, grumpy bikers hanging thickly in the air.
“Stop calling her that.” I pouted, but he only chuckled.
“Isaac!” Ripped yelled to his newest prospect. Poor kid looked like he’d eaten death, spat it back out, and then death had crawled up his ass and was currently tearing apart his insides. “Get me and my woman a coffee, now!”
Isaac nodded, then winced at the motion and stumbled into kitchen. He was young and didn’t really have a clue about MC life other than he loved bikes and knew everything there was to ever know about them. He was from a conservative family, a family with money and status and everything a white middle-class man could ever ask for, but he’d turned his back on that life in favor of oil, bikes, tattoos, and crime. And despite Ripped being constantly on his ass about things, he’d told me on several occasions how much he liked the kid.
Isaac came back with two cups of fresh-brewed coffee in his hands. He handed one over to me with a grunt and I gave him a sympathetic smile.
“You okay?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Think I’m dying,” he grunted out. His eyes were tinged red, his skin pale and clammy. Poor kid.
“We’re rolling out in ten. Get the bikes ready,” Ripped snapped, staring down at Isaac.
“No problem,” Isaac replied, handing Ripped a coffee and making his way outside without any objection.
“You know he’s about to vomit, right?” I said, glancing up at Ripped.
He smirked. “Yep.”
I pushed at his side. “You’re so mean to him.”
Ripped pulled my body to his and leaned down, pressing a kiss to my lips and making me almost drop my coffee. “You love it when I’m mean.”
