Reilly didn’t know what to say. From where she sat, that whole conversation between Rev and Saylor was confusing at best.
She wasn’t sure if she should be upset or angry. Not at him, but for him. When she had stepped outside and saw his shoulders hunched, his head hidden in his folded arms and his phone on the table next to a still smoldering pot pipe, she knew something was very wrong.
Whoever the person was whose name and number she’d written on that slip of paper had given him some sort of bad news. She wouldn’t have even known that Rev was Michael Schmidt if the caller hadn’t happen to mention that Michael might be using the name Mickey.
However, the bits and pieces of conversation she heard didn’t give her enough to go on. So, she said the only thing she could come up with. “I’m sorry about your father.”
He turned those stunning eyes—the bright blue orbs that created flutters in her belly and lower—toward her. “Don’t be.”
“You’re not upset about him being sick?”
“Don’t give a fuck about him bein’ sick,” he answered.
“When I came outside you looked… upset.”
“Nothin’ to do with him havin’ cancer.”
Cancer?
She wanted to keep probing but whenever she bugged the guys, they usually shut her down or shut her out. They all had their secrets, every last one of them, and usually didn’t share. If they did, she imagined it was with each other and not with anyone else. Or for some of them, maybe they shared with their ol’ ladies. Something she wasn’t.
But she knew they didn’t sit around simply talking about shit. Not like the Fury sisterhood did. In fact, when one of the guys saw the ladies gathered—especially when they were drinking—they usually got the hell out of there as fast as possible so they wouldn’t get sucked into whatever the women were up to.
She imagined them screaming, “Gird your loins!” in warning as they ran away.
The longer she sat there without him saying anything else, the more she realized Rev probably wanted to be left alone with whatever was going on in his head. But usually none of them had any difficulty telling her to go away. She’d been told plenty of times to “fuck off” or “get fuckin’ lost.” None of that offended her since it didn’t take long after coming to Manning Grove, and becoming a part of the club, to figure out that was just the way the guys were.
They not only hid their secrets, but their feelings, too.
If she wanted to have a long and somewhat meaningful conversation with someone of the male variety, she did it with her hairdresser Teddy from Manes on Main. That man could talk.
He could also listen. And he certainly could give some great advice. Especially on how to use makeup to minimize the visibility of her scar.
Men bent the ears of their bartenders. Women chatted with their hairdressers. It was the way of the world. At least in a normal world.
The MC world was definitely not normal. Not even close.
“I’ll leave you alone.” She tried to keep the disappointment from her voice.
As soon as she got to her feet, he snagged her wrist and yanked her back down. Maybe he needed some company but didn’t want to ask for it. “You know Dutch is going to have a fit. We’ve been outside for too long.”
“He can wait.”
Yes, he could. Whatever was going on with Rev was more important. Not that Dutch would know. Or care.
But Dutch’s blow-ups tended to peter out pretty quickly and if they didn’t, Reilly only had to teasingly tug on the man’s salt-and-pepper beard and blow him a noisy kiss. That usually disrupted the gruff biker’s rampage and also got her a silent thanks from the four mechanics who were usually Dutch’s targets. Not only with words but sometimes flying wrenches.
She’d also stepped in plenty of times in the past year to prevent Rook and Dutch from coming to blows. She couldn’t imagine how many fights the father and son got into before she rolled into town.
Okay, maybe she didn’t quite roll into town. In actuality, she’d been driven by Judge to the farm from her sister’s house so she could hide out and be safe from her psycho ex-boyfriend. Then after she torched the asshole to death, she decided to stick around.
Any reasonable woman would want to stay when surrounded by a bunch of hot, growly, alpha bikers. The Fury was a single woman’s wet dream.
Though, the truth was, she had nothing and nowhere else. Except for her sister Reese, who was now a part of the club, anyway.
So really, Reilly belonged here. In this town, a part of the Fury family and, even better, the Fury sisterhood, even if she wasn’t an ol’ lady. And might never be.
She just didn’t belong being a secretary in an auto repair shop.
Her sister was right. She had a business degree she was wasting, one Reese helped pay for. She needed to think seriously about doing something with it. To have a clear direction instead of simply floating along.
She had only stayed working for Dutch because it kept her busy, had put enough money in her pocket to rent a tiny studio apartment within walking distance of the garage, allowed her to score a reliable used car and gave her enough “scratch” to buy some really sexy boots.
Admittedly, she had a thing for boots. Ankle, shin, knee or even thigh-high. She loved them all.
But now? Now, she needed to get serious about her future.
Answering phones at Dutch’s Garage was only her “now” and not her future. She loved the assholes, but the dead-end job wasn’t challenging enough.
She was pretty sure Dutch was surprised to see her when she walked in every morning with their donuts and coffee from Coffee and Cream from the other end of town. But she figured the cash stuffed into the coffee can in the break room was better spent on decent coffee and fresh pastries than that generic ten-pound bag of beans Dutch bought at some warehouse store near Williamsport.
They could drink that crap the rest of the day but they should at least start their morning out right. However, her daily lattes and glazed crullers had widened her hips, slightly thickened her middle, and made her bras overflow.
She needed to do something about that, too.
But not this minute. Right now, she had another issue to deal with. Reilly reined in her thoughts and studied Rev’s quiet profile.
The man was hot as fuck.
Hot. As. Fuck.
While most of the Fury men were considerably hot, Rev was at the very top of that roaring flame.
Every time one of the bikers got clubbed in the head with the “ol’ lady” stick—what the sisterhood called the members getting snagged and bagged—she had been relieved it hadn’t been Rev.
She had a few fantasies about the other guys—how could she not?—but every time she broke out her purple Greedy Girl G-Spot Rabbit Vibrator, it was Rev’s blue eyes, his tattoos, his numerous piercings, his panty-soaking raspy voice, and those luscious lips—ones she’d love to have pressed on her upper and lower ones—she thought about. Dreamed about. It was thoughts of Rev replacing her Rabbit that made her orgasms even more intense.
Reilly shifted on the hard wooden seat. Rev was currently having a crisis. She shouldn’t be daydreaming about getting him naked and riding his cock until they both passed out.
Wait. Was that even possible? She didn’t know but she was willing to try, even though he might not be.
The only sex she’d had in the past year—due to her dear sister’s fear of her getting involved with another abusive fuckwad like Billy—had been with one buzzed guy while crammed in his two-door coupe behind Crazy Pete’s and he’d lasted about twenty seconds, if that, and…
And a failed attempt with a Fury member.
Who was not Rev.
But they ended up aborting that mission after massive drinking, furious flirting and something tragic happening…
Fear freezing him.
Apparently, Reese, Deacon, and even Judge’s looming threat of a “blanket party” if any of the members attempted to touch one of the women on the “Don’t Even Fucking Think About It” list, was enough to kill any man’s hard-on.
Reilly had heard the details about what had been done to Cage. She heard about it multiple times whenever she flirted heavily with any of the guys. She could see it in their eyes. Having sex with Reilly was not worth being clubbed by the six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-forty-pound sergeant at arms.
After seeing the result of Cage’s own blanket party, she might agree. But that sucked for her because it meant if she was going to have sex with anyone, it had to be some random guy who didn’t wear a Fury cut and ride a “sled.”
The man next to her did both.
Which sucked. It really did.
That also meant her life was being controlled by someone other than herself. Even if it was only her sex life. Because normally her sex life was a big part of her whole life. Except for now.
And she did not like that one bit.
However, she knew the guys had to agree to the by-laws and rules to remain a patched member in good-standing. She also knew she had to respect those rules and by-laws herself to also remain a welcomed part of the club.
Was she willing to give up any of that just for the opportunity to get between the sheets and sweaty with any of the single Fury members? She stared at Rev.
Yes.
No.
Shit. Maybe.
She shook herself mentally.
The man next to her was already dealing with enough shit. She shouldn’t be adding to it with her desire to jump his bones.
She shouldn’t.
She wouldn’t.
At least, not right now.
However, if he didn’t say anything soon, her thoughts would continue to spiral down a delicious but dangerous path. He needed to either officially finish this conversation by getting up and walking away or continue it since he had forced her back onto the bench. A sign he didn’t want her to leave just yet.
Not sit there like Cujo had bitten his tongue off.
Men. Frustrating as hell.
“Why would you tell this Matthew, whoever he is,” hint, hint, “that Saylor is dead?”
“To them, she is.”
Them. His family? Was Matthew part of his family?
“The reason Saylor came here…” She mentally sighed when he didn’t pick up on her prompt. So, she continued leading him in the direction she wanted the conversation to go. “You said they didn’t want her to come home after her release from juvie because she was out of control. But you told this Matthew, whoever he is,” hint, hint, “she’s dead.” She waited, mentally poking at him to explain.
“Matthew’s my uncle. My mother’s brother.”
Finally!
Rev locked his damn irresistible eyes with hers. “Haven’t told anyone this. Shouldn’t be tellin’ you, either, but…” Reilly hung on that last word, watching his lickable, kissable lips move as he spoke. “They wanted her to come home.”
Hold on. She blinked, confused. That wasn’t what Rev or Saylor had said. “Oh. But—”
“That was the last fuckin’ place she wanted to go and, even if it wasn’t, there was no fuckin’ way I was lettin’ her go home. Not then, not now. Not fuckin’ ever.”
Unfortunately, the more he talked, the more confused she got. Conversation was supposed to clear up misunderstandings, not make them more convoluted. Someone needed to tell Rev that. Or steer him in the right direction. That somebody was her. “I thought you called her so she could go with you… to wherever home is.” Hint, hint.
“No.” He shook his head. “Shouldn’t have called her.”
Now, instead of wanting to ride his cock, she wanted to strangle him. “But she needed to know her father—your father—is ill, right?”
“Why I called her.”
“But you don’t want her to go with you to… wherever.” Hint… Oh, fuck it. “Where is wherever?”
“Reilly.”
“Rev. Seriously. I was going to go back inside and leave you alone, but you forced me to sit back down. I’m thinking there’s a reason for that. Am I wrong?”
He turned his gaze from her to stare out over the storage yard, which was really more of an organized junkyard, full of old vehicles, stray cats and rats. Mud, too. She couldn’t forget all the damn mud.
Even under his thick, but short, dark blond beard she could see his jaw clenched tight.
“I’m not wrong,” she whispered, turning on the bench until her thigh was pressed against his. She brushed her fingers over the short wiry hairs covering his tight jawline. “I can’t sit out here forever, Rev. Dutch is probably throwing things right now. Especially if the phone is ringing off the hook in the office and I’m not there to answer it.”
“Go inside, then.”
“You didn’t want me to go back inside,” she reminded him softly. “You wanted me to stay. I’m here. I’m listening.”
His eyes squeezed shut. “Can’t fuckin’ think straight.” He opened them and jerked his chin toward the slip of paper. “Don’t ever take a call from that man again.”
“Okay.”
“He calls, you hang up.”
“Okay.”
“No. First tell him to fuck off, then hang up.”
“I’ll do that.” She stared at him a few more moments while he worked through whatever emotion was crossing his face. “What are you going to do?”
He scrubbed both palms down his face to wipe that emotion away and sighed. “Don’t know.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Don’t know.”
Maybe she should ask questions he knew the answers to, to make it easier for him to process whatever he was attempting to process. “Where do they live?”
“Outside of Coatesville.”
Coatesville. Coatesville in Chester County?
Reilly blinked.
Coatesville was not far from where she lived prior, before moving in with Reese all those months ago. Where she lived when her former boyfriend almost killed her.
When her former fucknut of a boyfriend scarred her face.
Before she slammed the button on the furnace with her former abuser inside.
Still alive. Still breathing.
Until he wasn’t.
Her heart kickstarted in her chest and began to thump heavily.
Every time she was reminded of that day—even though she avoided talking about it, even though everyone avoided talking about it—she relived it like it only happened five minutes ago.
Her shoving past Deacon, her eyes focused only on that red button.
The whoosh of the burners lighting. The muffled screams.
Then feeling nothing but relief.
The sense of freedom washing over her. Filling every cell in her body.
The tension gone.
The fear gone.
The abusive asshole… poof… gone.
Unable to make anyone a victim again.
With one simple push of a button a rabid animal had been reduced to a pile of worthless ash.
She jerked back to the present. To Rev. Where were they? Oh yeah. “Are you even considering going?”
“Don’t know.”
He was. For whatever reason.
“If you do, you shouldn’t go alone.”
“Saylor ain’t goin’.”
“Then, don’t go, either. I see you’re torn. That means there’s a reason to be torn. Leave the past in the past. Like Elsa, just let it go.” She stood up. Her work here was done.
He frowned. “Who the fuck’s Elsa?”
She rolled her lips under. Even if she told him, he wouldn’t know. And then she’d have to admit why she watched Frozen a half dozen times with his sister and Cassie’s daughter Daisy.
“Nobody you want to know,” she murmured. She smiled down at him, once again plucking at the spiky dark blond hairs on the top of his head.
He kept his hair short but used a lot of gel to spike it at the top. While she preferred the shorter hair on him, some of the other guys could rock the long-haired look. Like Shade. And Easy.
Even Cage’s longish, disheveled hair fit him perfectly. During one of the sisterhood’s “Wine and Whine” get-togethers, Jemma drunkenly confessed one night it was the perfect length to grab ahold of and manipulate his head for certain activities.
That confession made Reilly drink even more wine, since she was feeling sorry for herself for having no one to partake in those “certain activities.”
Also, unlike the rest of the guys, Rev had several barbell piercings in both ears and a hoop in his left nostril. The only other Fury member who had piercings like that was her sister’s ol’ man, Deacon.
She dropped her gaze to Rev’s chest when she realized she’d seen his cock plenty of times, even his naked ass cheeks—which, if anyone asked her, were a solid fifteen on a scale of one to ten—as he had sex with sweet butts back at the farm, but she’d never seen him without his shirt on.
Huh.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask whether his nipples were pierced. But that would be a weird question to ask while they were discussing whether he would go home to visit his dying father.
She tucked it away for the future. Deacon had his nipples pierced and Reilly had all kinds of questions that neither Reese or Deke would answer. However, she’d caught her sister touching them over top of Deke’s shirts when she didn’t think anyone was watching.
She took that to mean Reese liked them and Deacon really liked them.
Rev wrapping an arm around her hips and his hand squeezing her waist fished her mind back out of the gutter, where it tended to do the backstroke for laps at a time. Probably because she was so damned sex starved right now. She could ride a freaking lamp post and think it was the best sex ever.
“Know you don’t talk about it and don’t expect you to. But… Know how you wanted to ensure that motherfucker was dead?”
That motherfucker?
Ah, shit. Her fingers stilled in his hair. He not only fished her out of the gutter, she was now flopping around fighting for breath on the sidewalk.
“Kinda want the same thing. Ain’t upset he’s dyin’. Hope to fuck he’s sufferin’. And truth is? I want to be there to witness it.”
“Rev.”
“You don’t even know, Reilly. Ain’t even gonna go there. But trust me, if you knew, you’d see why I’m sayin’ what I’m sayin’.”
Shit.
She had hated her parents—both of them—for abandoning her and Reese. Her mother might have lived in the same house, but she was never present. She wasn’t a mother. She was only a living, breathing object they had to step around when she was passed out drunk.
But she never once wished her parents dead.
The only person she did was Billy Warren. And not until he’d almost killed her.
Twice.
Okay, maybe she wanted some of the Shirleys dead for all the shit they’d pulled with the club. But right now, she wasn’t going there. And right now, things were quiet for them. For good reason.
More importantly, right now, she was trying to understand a hatred for a parent that ran so deep that made someone want to visit that parent just to watch him suffer before he took his last breath. “I don’t think that’s healthy.”
“Might not be healthy but thinkin’ it’s needed. Some kinda goddamn closure.”
“So, you’re going to go.”
He tipped his head up to her. “Yeah. Gonna go. You helped me decide.”
Oh sure, lay a guilt trip on me. Thanks for that free ride, Rev.
“You shouldn’t go alone, Rev. Especially for the reason you’re going.”
“Saylor ain’t gonna go.”
“Not Saylor. Take someone else.”
“Ain’t takin’ anyone else. This ain’t a trip for me and my bestie. That’s women shit. Just gonna go down, see it done, and get the fuck outta there.”
See it done.
Like help it along? Shove his father to the end a little quicker?
“When are you going to go? You’ll have to give Dutch that news. You know he won’t be happy about you just up and leaving like that.”
“Gonna have to get over it. Just gonna pretend that I give a fuck about my sperm donor instead of hatin’ his fuckin’ guts, then Dutch can’t say shit. What boss won’t let an employee go see his dear dyin’ dad?”
None. Even Dutch.
“When?” she asked again. She needed to know because a plan was already brewing in her head. All she had to do was smooth out some of the rough details.
One of them being Dutch, who took that moment to fling the back door open and bellow, “What the fuck! Think I’m payin’ you two to sit out here and watch the fuckin’ weeds grow? Get the fuck back inside, or you’re fired.”
Reilly bit her bottom lip in an attempt to hide her grin. “Told you.”
“Didn’t need to tell me how grumpy that asshole is.” Rev didn’t hide his grin.
Holy shit, it was as beautiful as the man himself.
If Dutch wasn’t glaring at them, she’d be tempted to tuck her fist under her chin, bat her lashes at Rev and sigh dreamily.
Snort. Rev would probably think she bashed her head on a corner of a raised car lift.
“You supposed to be touchin’ her like that?” Dutch shouted. “I don’t get to touch her, you fuckin’ don’t get to touch her.”
The door slammed shut.
Rev chuckled, which was nice to see.
Reilly snorted out loud this time. “Like I’d let him touch me.”
Rev released her and stood up, stepping from between the bench and the table. He offered his hand to help her step over the bench, too.
“Never know. The man’s got snatch droppin’ at his feet left and right. Must be a reason for it.”
“And you don’t?” The sweet butts and the hang-arounds practically got into fistfights over him some nights.
Reilly would like to know what they were fighting over.
“I do all right.” He grinned and his blue eyes held a sparkle.
She rolled her own.
He went to pull away but Reilly tugged on the hand she refused to let go. He turned back to her with his eyebrows pinned together.
“Hey, I know you guys aren’t big into talking, but if you need to, I’m here. Just putting that out there into the universe.”
He tilted his head as he stared at her. “The universe heard it and appreciates it. Now, get inside before the old man fires your sweet ass.” With that, he smacked her ass so hard, she jumped and squealed.
But damn…
What she wouldn’t do for a little more of that…
To hell with “a little.” She’d take a whole hell of a lot more.
