Hyde: Northern Grizzlies MC Next Generation Book 1, page 13
I shift as he kicks his leg out. My ass absorbs the blow, but he’s far from done with me. His next kick connects with my stomach, knocking the wind, and whatever was left of my breakfast, out of me.
Gunner lifts me by my belt and tosses me further away. I land face down in the dirt, unfortunately inhaling that instead of the oxygen I desperately need.
“Enough, goddammit!” Anvil separates himself from the rest of the guys who are watching. “You do any more damage, and you’ll lose your daughter, Gunner.”
Gunner never turns to look at him, he just walks over to where I’m trying to balance on all fours and swings his meaty fist down at my head one more time.
*
“Joey?”
I snap awake at the pain I hear in Leslee’s voice, but my body screams out even louder.
“Lie still, Tabby’s here and she’s just going to check you out.”
Opening my eyes, I can’t see very well and it takes me a second to realize that my right eye is only partially cracked open, which is more than my left eye is capable of. There’s a wet rag over the other side of my face, uncomfortably dripping down my neck.
“I love you,” I announce to the blurry figure hovering above me.
“That’s very nice, Hyde,” Tabby replies, holding my eyelid open and peering into it. “But Leslee’s on your other side.”
“Everything hurts,” I respond.
“And it’s going to for a good couple of weeks,” Tabby replies, catching my head when I try to turn in Leslee’s direction. “Keep still. I need to check your ribs.”
“They’re intact,” I tell her. Having had them broken when I was younger, I knew that I wouldn’t be breathing this easily otherwise.
Breathing through my mouth, that is. My nose was definitely broken and my sternum is in rough shape.
“Hmm,” Tabby lets out a low hum. “Gunner had planned to break a few of those. Lucky for you he got distracted.”
Leslee starts swearing a blue streak again.
“Well, let’s get you inside and we’ll take shifts watching you tonight. You definitely have a concussion,” Tabby informs me.
“We are not staying here,” Leslee snarls out.
“They can come to our house.” Bree’s voice rings out above me. “The spare room is set up and I stocked up on ice. We can all take shifts checking on him.”
“Is that okay, baby?” I ask, squeezing—what I hope is Leslee’s hand.
“Yes,” she replies after a moment. “Thank you, Bree.”
Chapter 14
Hyde
“You have to talk to them,” I tell Leslee, the same thing I’ve been saying for the past few days.
“I will. Once you can properly open your eye,” she responds, snuggling into my side. “I’m so sorry.”
“You aren’t dragging your feet over my wounds, baby. When you aren’t fussing over me, I can hear your brain whirling through the replay of what you said to your mom and it’s eating you up as much as it is her. I love you, and your mom and dad do too,” I say, holding my breath in anticipation of the pain before I lean over to kiss her forehead. “I hate to see you this upset.”
“We’ve never fought before, Joe. I don’t know what to say to her,” she confesses, her eyes watering up again. “And every time a new bruise surfaces on you, I want to scream at Dad all over again.”
“I wear all the bruises proudly, if they’re the price for taking you as mine,” I say, trying to tease a smile out of her, but she isn’t in the mood for it. “You’ll know when you see her. She loves you with every fiber of her being, baby.”
“Would I look like a huge coward if I asked them to come here to talk?”
“You’ll only look like a coward if you don’t try to talk to them.” Maybe I should have sweetened my words, but I tend to say what I think.
The kisses she lays across my jawline tells me she appreciates my honesty and she eventually rolls over to grab her phone. I lay there, smiling at how quickly her mom responds to her text and agrees to come over.
“Do you want me to help you shower?” Leslee asks me and I raise an eyebrow at her. “You are kind of rank.”
“You’re a bit annoyed at my coward remark, huh?”
“Let’s just agree that neither of us are wrong…”
The grunt I let out in reply, has me wincing in pain and I wonder how much longer it will take until I can comfortably breath through my nose.
We take our time in the shower and after she’s cleaned every inch of my body, Leslee kneels in front of me, using my frame to shield her from the spray. Giving me a little grin, she licks the length of me.
“There’s not much time,” I remind her. The last thing we need is for her parents to hear us when they arrive.
“Well, in that case.” Leslee’s teasing voice is cut off the moment she slides her lips up my cock. Her soft, warm mouth envelopes my flesh, gently sucking as she bobs up and down the length of me.
I brace one hand on the shower wall behind her and I wrap my other fist through her hair. My body still aches from the beating I took, but sleeping next to Leslee without any relief has been more painful. A groan escapes me when I feel her soft hand cradle my balls, and I’m almost afraid to ask how she knows to stroke my frenulum with her middle finger.
Jesus Christ. I’m more certain than ever that this woman will be the end of me, and I’ll enjoy every fucking second of the journey.
“Open wide,” I demand, straightening from wall, I pull her head back with one hand and grip my cock with my other. “Show me what a dirty girl you are for me.”
“Just for you,” she coos back to me, reaching down to push her tits together as she opens her mouth and sticks her tongue out.
Right in time for me to paint her pale skin with my seed. The first spray coats her chest, before I aim further up and pump the remains into her mouth, holding her head at an angle so I can watch her eyes. I see the moment she stops herself from swallowing my cum until I’ve finished—like she’s taking it as a personal challenge.
I smile, wishing she was ready to deep throat me but knowing we’ll have to find our way around her gag reflex first.
“You better get cleaned up,” I tease her while I gently swipe my thumb down the side of her mouth.
She turns her head, capturing my digit between her lips and licking the pad with her tongue before leaning forward to do the same thing to my dick.
“Stop that,” I groan, reaching down to help her stand up before shifting to the side so the water can wash my release away.
Reaching back, I grab the soap, but she takes it from me before waving me out of the glass enclosure.
“Go get dressed,” she says, laughing at me, twisting to keep her chest from my view. “Or we’ll never get out of here.”
Leslee
I yank open the door to the room we’re staying in, only to see Mom’s hand raised, prepared to knock.
“I’m sorry,” she blurts out, looking uncomfortable. “I didn’t want to rush you, but I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“I love you, Mama,” I say, wrapping my arms around her.
“I loved you before you existed,” she whispers the reply she’s used a thousand times over the years.
Mom’s hands come up to cup my face and I hate seeing the tears in her eyes.
“I’m not ready to let you go yet and have been so angry about…” she confesses to me and I feel her body tense up. “He’s my age, Le-Lee.”
“Come here, sit down,” I let out with a sigh, thankful that I took the time to make the bed, as I pull her into the room to sit with me a moment. “All these years, you—I think more than anyone else have known how I felt about him. No matter that I consider Gemma my sister, or maybe because of that, I couldn’t talk to her or anyone about my feelings because being teased would have cut me too deep.
“I understand that Joe and me might not make sense to others, but I’ve always known that he was my future. You and Dad have talked about it before, I’ve overheard you,” I tell her, still not sure of how to communicate the depth of my emotions. “Hearing you call it a crush devastated me. I will not apologize for making my move on him when I had the chance, Mom, but I am so sorry for what I said to you. You’ve always had my back, now I need you to again because Dad will be impossible otherwise.”
“Me, having your back, sometimes means having to tell you my concerns—whether or not you like hearing them. And now, it also means I have to let you go,” she fervently whispers, trying to keep the tears from rolling down her face.
“Mom, I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to stay here,” I insist as she draws me in for a hug.
“Christ, I hadn’t even considered you two moving away. I meant that as a mom, I have to trust that I’ve taught you enough to…”
“He likes my lasagna better than yours!” I blurt out, interrupting her before she gets too mushy and she nearly pushes me off the bed in her haste to look at my face again.
“Blasphemy!” she mock screams at me, a smile pulling at her lips as her eyes light up.
“It’s true. And he said that my waffles were the best ones he ever had.” I can’t help but to say that with an air of superiority.
“Say another word and I’ll be sneaking peas into your food for a year!”
“You. Are. A monster!” I teasingly screech back at her, just as my last encounter with peas comes to mind. “Hey! Where’s Joe?”
“Hyde’s with his parents and Gunner in the living room,” she tells me, waving her hand like it’s not a big deal. I spring off the bed and head out with her calling after me not to worry about anything.
I take a deep breath the moment I enter the room to see them sitting around the L shaped sectional. Bree is sitting near Joe, obviously fussing over him, as Dad and Flint sit in awkward silence, watching them from the recliners they’re sitting in.
Joe looks up and smiles at me the moment I come to a halt in the entryway and Dad immediately stands up, holding his arms out for a hug. Turning on my heel, I lean over the back of the couch near the sliding doors to give Joe a kiss, then I motion for Dad to come out to the backyard with me.
He takes a long pull from the drink on the table next to his chair and follows me, closing the door behind him. Dad stands with his back to our audience and I backtrack, stopping an arm’s length away from him so he blocks my face from everyone’s view.
“I can’t believe you did that to him, Daddy,” I say, cringing as my use of ‘daddy’ over ‘dad’ makes me sound like a child. His expression doesn’t shift if he even notices it.
“No matter how upset you are with me,” he starts, keeping his voice low. “I want you to know that not only would I make that choice again, but I will do worse than that if he ever hurts you.”
I always feel like I shrink when I cross my arms over my chest. Dad’s the complete opposite, he looks even bigger. Even in his early fifties, his body is as strong as I always remember him being, his face granite as he looks down at me.
My eyes widen in surprise, more so when I don’t see any room for compromise in his expression. “Did you at least apologize to him?”
“No. And I won’t. Did you apologize to your mother?”
“Yes, because that’s what you do when you fuck up,” I answer, exasperated at his stubbornness. I square my shoulders back, making use of my full height rather than shrinking away from him. “At least, I remember someone teaching me that along the way.”
“I didn’t fuck up, baby girl. I calmly and deliberately beat the shit out of him for touching you. I won’t ever apologize for that,” Dad says with a dismissive shrug. “He’s alive because I know that you’re in love with him and I won’t be a jackass over your age difference when it’s not much more than your mom and me.”
“Well, thank goodness for small favors,” I snap back and notice his eyes softening for a split second.
“You can be as pissed off as you want to be with me, but don’t ever think I don’t love you,” he says in the same growly tone of voice.
“What hurts the most, is knowing how much you love me and seeing what you did to Joe. Dad, I…”
“You marry into this life, you’re gonna have to deal with worse, Leslee,” Dad growls out the words. “Fuck, you were maybe a year old when Riley had to see them drag my bullet riddled body into the clubhouse.
“If I hadn’t beaten the shit out of Hyde, if all the punks who patched in after him, hadn’t witnessed that, humph. They’re also gonna see that he’ll be under a microscope over the next year or so… they need to know there’s a standard of how we treat our women and kids.”
“All the punks,” I slowly repeat his words, knowing they sound familiar. “You’re quoting Garth Brooks now?”
“He’s right. ‘Everyone who comes before us is a God. Everyone after us is a punk.’”
“I’m pretty certain that the almighty Garth was referring to other industry leaders,” I mutter, replaying our conversation in my mind. “I love you, but if you ever try anything like that again…”
“I very well may, so let’s not go tossing threats around. Nothing’s ever gonna change how I feel about you or the lengths I’ll go to, to protect you.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, I shake my head at him. “What happened with the exchange?”
“Let’s go back inside, so I don’t have to repeat it to Hyde,” he replies, dropping his arms back down to his sides. “Can I get a hug now?”
“Not until Joe’s healed,” I respond, but I soften a little, squeezing Dad’s arm when I pass him to rejoin the others.
Opening the sliding door, I immediately notice the worried look on Mom’s face and give her a little nod before crossing to sit next to Joe. As I’m lowering myself, he pulls me over onto his lap, getting a loud gasp of surprise from me. I know how much pain he’s in, even if he refuses to acknowledge it in front of our families.
“Is that necessary?” Dad asks, glaring at us from the doorway.
“Come on, you said you’d tell us about the trade,” I remind him, ignoring his question. Flint just chuckles before refilling their glasses.
Sighing in frustration, Mom reaches her hand out for Dad to join her, nearly pushing him onto the chair he had vacated before sitting on his lap. Joe snorts, while I bite the inside of my cheek to keep the smile off of my face.
“Throttle’s contact set up the meeting,” Dad starts, and I don’t miss how he’s more than halfway into the actual story of what happened since I got shipped off, as he mentions the current vice president down at the Flagstaff chapter. “It was at a library of all places. Son of a bitch that I was meeting with wasn’t much bigger than Leslee and thought it was hysterical when the first chair I sat on cracked.”
While I manage not to laugh at the image, Dad narrows his eyes in my direction when I snort.
“Hush,” I say, lightly smacking Joe on the shoulder while keeping a straight face in an attempt to cast the blame for the noise on my Ol’ Man.
Turning back from his surprised expression, I notice Mom and Flint trying not to laugh at us.
“Don’t tell me you carted the drugs into the library?” Joe asks for clarification.
“Hell, no,” Dad grunts. “We just had a chat to clear up any misunderstandings and he slid me an envelope for Parks’ family. Seems the Navaja subcontracted the work out in North Carolina and the men who met the plane were more aggressive than their instructions called for.”
“But they have their drugs back and we don’t have to worry about them anymore?” I ask Dad and catch his eyes shifting over to Joe’s. They obviously have an understanding that I’m not privy to. “What? What does that look mean?”
“We made the exchange in the parking lot of the library,” Dad replies with a sigh.
“Exchange?”
“They had Trinity and thought we wanted her back.”
“But we don’t,” I immediately snap out, sitting up straighter.
“We don’t,” Flint interjects. “But she’s still Molly’s family, so she came back with the men.”
“She’s here?” I growl, leaning forward to stand up until Joe’s arms tighten around me and I turn to glare at him. “You knew about this?”
“Yeah, I was just hoping she’d be gone by the time you found out.” Joe gives me a sheepish look as he rubs my back.
“But she’s been banished.” I point out the obvious and as I look at each man in turn, I’m met with the same blank expression by all three of them.
“She’s at the motel near the diner,” my mom bursts forth with that pertinent piece of information and the men, collectively, look at her with a groan.
“Didn’t the original one burn down? Didn’t Aunt Charlie say it was faulty wiring?” I ask, propping my elbows on my knees as I quiz Mom with a smile starting to form.
Joe pulls me back up against his chest, with more strength than he’s shown since Dad beat him up. His right hand moves up my neck to direct my gaze back toward him.
“Le-Lee, they hurt her and she needs a couple more days to recover. Then we’re buying her a bus ticket back to Indiana. She’s agreed to go back and live with her father,” Joe informs me.
The fact that everyone in this room is already aware of this pisses me off to no end.
Trinity has managed to manipulate nearly everyone she’s ever come into contact with, so it’s not like her skills are getting duller with age. This isn’t me being jealous of her dating Joe years ago, it’s that I know she always finds a way to twist situations to her advantage.
“Let go of me, please,” I whisper to Joe, my lips within inches of his. “We’re good.”
He leans in, giving me a fast, hard kiss, before releasing me.
“I’m blunt and straight-forward. I undoubtedly got that from you, Dad,” I say, giving each of them, even Bree, a stern look. “Y’all have always known what I want because I will tell you straight out. That bitch has had, what? Three or four days, sitting in the room the Grizzlies are paying for—and meals too, I’m sure—and she’s working out how to come sideways at Molly, or Jasper, or God knows who else, to get even more. Because that’s what she always does.”
