A million thoughts whirred to life inside my head.
Some mean, some bad, some evil.
I wanted to know exactly how long that evil fucker had been grooming her. I wanted to know what had gone on under my roof without me knowing it. And, more than that, I wanted to know, word for word, what had happened to him. I needed to know the details.
I needed to know he’d been made to pay.
I needed to know that he’d suffered.
I said none of that, however. I just hugged her close and rasped, "We’ll work out a way to make you feel safe, baby girl."
And if that meant moving Storm into the spare room permanently, then that’s what I’d do.
Even if that would kill me, slowly, I’d bear the burden, because making Cyan feel safe again was my top priority.
My only priority.
Right now, she mattered more than Storm or me or anything else, and getting her back on track, correcting the wrongs that had seen her take solace in a man nearly double her father’s age...
Perhaps I’d never understand how the bastard had wormed his way into her defenses, but truthfully, for all the therapy in the world, I didn’t have to understand.
I just had to make sure it never happened again.
Ever.
Nine
Keira
PAST
I hated it when Storm slept at the clubhouse.
Four years together, and I’d grown so used to it that I never slept right without him.
I knew why, as well.
Rene.
I blew out a breath as I rolled onto my side.
We’d gotten the call at five PM that she’d been found on the roadside like she was trash, the victim of a hit-and-run accident.
I’d always kept myself apart from the Sinners, had never really known how to fit in with them or the women, had never known how to act around them and Storm had never made me get involved. Rene, though, I’d come to know better than most. Bear, not so much as his woman, but enough for it to count. I knew them both not as Prez and his Old Lady, but as the people Storm considered family.
Sure, Nyx, Rex, Link, Steel, and Maverick were his brothers, but Rene and Bear were different. He thought of them as his parents and, to be honest, I was raising Cyan that way. They were her only grandparents and, last night, someone had stolen Rene from us all.
I should have been with Storm. I should have been there for him, but getting into my car, driving over to the clubhouse… it was like a weird form of social anxiety.
Everything about that place sent shudders rolling up and down my nerve endings.
It had always been that way, always.
I wished it weren’t, wished I could relax there, but I’d just never been accepted by them. The few times I’d visited, they always looked at me funny, like I was a cop or something rolling through their gates, sitting on their turf…
If I felt weird there, it was something they’d helped perpetuate.
Still, today was different.
Today was…
Rene was dead.
I released a shaky breath as I sat up, staring at the empty side of the bed, wishing he were there, wishing yesterday hadn’t happened, but I knew I was going to have to grow a pair. Knew that, today, I was going to have to go to the clubhouse to help out.
Showering and getting dressed took a half-hour longer than it should because I dawdled so much.
I knew Cyan wanted to see her dad, and I knew he’d missed her as well, but I dropped her off with a neighbor, deciding that would be easier all round seeing as we hadn’t shared the truth about Rene’s passing with her yet.
So, when I rolled up the road to the compound, I was on my own, and it made me even more nervous.
The gates opened up and I crept through them, edging along as I smiled at a Prospect I didn’t recognize but who apparently knew me, and when I parked, there was a lull to the clubhouse.
An odd atmosphere that spoke of the hazy shadow that grief cast over a building.
Bear might be the head of the Sinners, but Rene was his heart, which meant she was the soul of the place.
Everyone loved her.
Everyone.
She was sweet, so kind. Loving and giving and…
She was none of those things anymore. Someone had taken her from us.
Gnawing on my lip, I grabbed my purse and jumped out of my car. The creaking of the gates, the slamming of my door, it seemed to echo around the yard, and it was weird. So weird. The clubhouse was always the opposite of silent, but right now, it was eerily so.
Though I’d been here relatively few times, I knew where Storm’s room used to be and figured he still had a bedroom that he slept in when we argued or when he had to work late.
A part of me had always wondered if he’d used it for other things—I was naive but those clubwhores were around for a purpose—yet he’d never given me a reason to worry. His clothes were never peppered with the scent of another woman’s perfume, and he didn’t come back with hickeys or anything like that.
Mom had once told me that men had urges a wife couldn’t always satisfy, and that she should be grateful when they went ‘elsewhere’ to appease them.
If that were true, then I was just curious what kind of urges those would be. Storm never did anything weird, and we’d watched porn together, so I didn’t think he was going to pull out a fetish from his bag of magic tricks.
Funny how the state of my marriage was the only thing I was confident about when I entered the clubhouse, and not even that was enough to make me feel at home here. To feel accepted.
I heard a game of pool being played in the bar, heard low mutterings, even heard the soft sounds of tears as someone cried, and they all made me anxious. But when I headed up the stairs, I zeroed in on Storm’s room, entering it and finding him in bed. He was fully dressed, his eyes were open, and he was…
My brow puckered.
Was he drunk?
That was when my anxiety soared.
Storm rarely got drunk.
"Keira?" he rumbled, but his head didn’t tilt toward me. "Keira?" he repeated.
I licked my lips. "I’m here, Storm," I said softly, slipping out of my shoes and heading toward the bed.
Whatever I’d anticipated from this morning, be it making a lot of food for the brothers, or just holding Storm’s hand, or even helping to organize the funeral, it wasn’t that I’d be climbing into bed with him.
The place stank of something weird, I wasn’t sure what. It was kind of fruity. A little like tobacco but funky.
Pot?
No. Storm didn’t smoke pot.
Still, had he last night because of his grief? He’d certainly been drinking, but I couldn’t get angry when he was trying to cope with the loss of a woman who he loved like a mother.
Clambering onto the mattress, I slipped my arms around him. He was a very tactile man for a big, burly biker, always hugging me and curling around me like he couldn’t stand for there to be an inch of space between us. I’d grown to crave it, much as I craved him. We were like oil and water, but I liked to think we worked.
Then he stunned me. His mouth collided with mine, but there was none of the patience I was used to.
No delicate kisses, no soft pecks that made me hunger for him.
This was raw.
Brutal.
Edgy.
He thrust his tongue against me so fast and so hard that it stole my breath, leaving me winded and reliant on him for air as he—there was no other word to describe it—fucked my mouth.