He only hoped his mom would have been with him like Chelle was with her girls. Though, imagining that made her being torn away from him even harder.
He was goddamn robbed.
He closed his eyes and just breathed, pushing down the fury and renewed drive for revenge beginning to bubble up from his gut.
No. Not now.
When the bed shifted, he opened his eyes just as Chelle was putting the plate on the tray next to him and saying, “Maddie made Oreo pie just for you.”
His blood ran cold.
Oreo pie.
He stared at the recognizable and still intact dark brown and white cookies that made up the outer edge of the slice. More crumbled Oreos topped what looked like a layer of chocolate pudding and whipped cream.
His stomach rolled.
“Chelle,” he barely managed to get out.
“What? You look green. Is it the meds? The pain?”
Oh fuck. “Grab me a can. Somethin’.”
“A can?”
“Gonna puke.” Jesus, she needed to hurry the fuck up.
She bolted from the bed into her bathroom and was back in a flash, shoving a shopping bag-lined trash can into his chest. Luckily, she was just in time.
With a groan, he leaned forward, jamming the can between his thighs. As everything he had eaten not even ten minutes earlier surged up, she rubbed his back and held his hair out of the way.
Just like a fucking mom probably would.
He kept puking until his stomach ached and felt hollow.
When he was done heaving, when there was nothing left in his gut, a wet washcloth appeared in front of his face. He wiped his mouth and muttered, “Musta been the meds.”
She pulled the can from between his legs and removed the bag. “I’ll get you some ginger ale to settle your stomach. And another bag. I’ll leave the can within reach, just in case.”
Just in case... The only thing making him sick to his stomach was...
“Chelle... Take the pie.” He kept his eyes averted from the plate, but he knew it was there. He could smell it, even over the puke. A smell he’d never forget. He swallowed the saliva flooding his mouth again. “Tell Maddie...”
She grabbed the plate and quickly dumped the piece of pie into the bag and showed him the clean plate. “I’ll tell her you loved it, but now need to rest.”
“Yeah.”
She left with the tray and the tied-off garbage bag in her hands.
This was exactly why he couldn’t promise forever.
He never knew what the fuck would happen next.
This time all it took was a goddamn slice of pie made with cookies that one of his owners used as a reward. When he did what he was told. When he didn’t fight. When that particular “daddy” thought Julian had been a good boy.
When his “uncles” and “daddies” used bribes like TV time, music, video games, and even treats like Oreos, he tried not to be good. He always chose to be bad.
And when others wanted him to fight, he always tried to seem willing instead.
They robbed him of his mother, he wanted to rob them of as much pleasure as he could.
So, fuck no, Julian wouldn’t do shit simply to watch TV. Or to play video games.
Or even eat a fucking Oreo cookie.
What they wanted, he didn’t.
All Julian wanted was his mother.
And to be free.
“Are you ready for your sponge bath?” Chelle teased as she entered her bedroom and closed the door behind her.
A low chuckle came from Shade as she approached. “Didn’t know a sponge bath was a choice or woulda started demandin’ them a week ago.”
“Well, since I assisted you in the shower earlier, a sponge bath isn’t necessary.”
“Shoulda let me decide that.”
She skirted her king-sized bed and put the book she’d been reading down on the nightstand.
He flipped the covers back for her and after kicking off her pink fuzzy slippers and shrugging out of her pink fuzzy robe, she climbed in next to him.
He grabbed the remote next to his hip and turned off the TV. He had to be crawling out of his skin to get out of this bed and room. He still had a week to go before he was allowed to put weight on his leg. He got around her master suite without a problem using the crutches. And occasionally he worked his way downstairs. But for someone who was used to doing what he wanted, when he wanted, and a lot of that “doing” was in the wind on his motorcycle, being stuck in her house had to feel like jail.
Quite a few of his brothers had stopped in and that was when he’d make his way carefully down the stairs. He didn’t want them in her room. He acted like the master bedroom was their private domain and didn’t want to share it with any of them.
Some of the Fury ladies—the sisterhood he called them—had also stopped by. All were super nice and friendly, and wanted to help out where they could.
Being a nurse, Jemma, Judge’s sister and Cage’s “ol’ lady,” visited every couple of days to check to see if his stitches were starting to dissolve, and to check for signs of infection and make sure the bone bruise was healing properly. Chelle was relieved when she said everything looked as it should, but mostly due to the fact Shade had followed the doctor’s orders.
Chelle had a feeling he only did so because his president had forced him to.
Either way, he was slowly getting better. He no longer had any symptoms of his concussion. His healing scalp was starting to itch and he was still forced to wear the leg brace by Jemma’s orders.
He probably hated being stuck in her bed most of the day, but she didn’t find it any kind of hardship. She loved walking into her room and seeing him in her bed. He certainly was a sight that made her warm all over.
Selfish? Yes. But she got over that feeling quickly whenever he’d wrap himself around her possessively every night. Come morning, she’d wake up to his erection tucked in the crease of her ass. Also every morning, she helped relieve that erection in one way or another.
She grinned and her nipples were already pebbling at this morning’s memory.
“What?” he asked, shooting her a suspicious look.
“I was just thinking about this morning.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Been thinkin’ ‘bout how you used your mouth on me before you left. Think you sucked what brain cells I have left outta my dick this mornin’.”
She rolled her eyes, but remembering the taste of him on her tongue made her pussy twinge.
Every morning she also made sure he had everything he needed before she left for work and, if the girls were home or came home before she did, they always checked on him, too.
One hard and fast rule she made was he wasn’t to go up and down the steps when no one was home. She did not want to walk in the door at the end of the day and see him lying in a heap at the bottom of the steps.
She hoped he followed that rule but didn’t ask since she didn’t want to be a nag. She also didn’t want to sound like an overprotective, hovering mother, even though that was difficult not to do. It was only instinct even though he was too old to be one of her offspring.
Thank goodness because that would be even more awkward.
Eleven years difference between them was bad enough. It might not bother him, but sometimes it bothered her. If what she had with him was only sex, it wouldn’t bother her as much, but at some point they both realized what was between them was way more than sex.