“I’m sure we could come to some kind of agreement.” One pudgy hand reached out, a stubby finger skimming down my sister’s arm.
I put Lexa on her feet and was beside the motherfucker in two steps, ready to break every bone in his hand. I didn’t care if Lexa saw or not. No one touched my sister. That had been beat into my head from the day she was born. Protect Raven no matter what. Don’t let anyone touch her.
Raven grabbed the plumber’s hand and bent the finger he had touched her with back until he was screaming like a girl. I heard a distinctive snap a second before I wrapped my hands around the fucker’s neck.
“O-w!” the man shrieked and Raven and I both looked down to find Lexa kicking him in the chin.
“You don’t touch my momma,” she yelled up at him. There was a fierceness in her blue eyes that I recognized as her father’s, and had to bite back a laugh.
Raven snatched Lexa up and kissed her cheek. “It’s okay, Lexa. Uncle Hawk will take care of him now.” She settled the toddler on her hip and turned her gaze back to me. “I’ll call Bash.”
Oh, shit. I hadn’t even thought about my club prez. The grin that split my face at the idea of this idiot having to face Bash was evil and I didn’t try to hide it. The plumber was going to have to cancel his next appointment.
“Am I in trouble?” Lexa asked as Raven walked toward the door.
“No, baby.” Raven assured her as she opened the front door. “You did good. Thanks for helping me. It’s good to protect the ones you love.”
“Daddy won’t be mad at me?”
“Not even a little,” she promised and the door shut behind them.
“Let go of me.” The plumber demanded, seeming to snap out of his daze and realizing that I had a death grip on the back of his neck. The pain in his hand from his broken finger must have stunned him and now he was starting to realize he might be in trouble. “I have work to do.” He struggled against my hold. “Let go, man.”
“I doubt you’ll be working much the rest of this week, motherfucker,” I told him and did the one thing I’d wanted to do since this jackass had showed up at my bar.
Slamming his face into the bar top only gave me even more of a mess to clean up, since I’d broken his nose and the blood had splattered across the clean surface of the top. I didn’t care, though. It did what it was supposed to do—shut him the fuck up, knock him out cold and make him fall to his knees in front of me before falling on his face at my feet.
I popped my knuckles and went into the back room to get the bleach to clean up the blood, anticipating the arrival of my future brother-in-law.
--
We kept the bar closed Monday night. The mess in the bathroom was too much for just me and my brothers to deal with, and we needed to bring in a crew to clean up the bathroom or the health department was liable to shut us down.
Bash and I got home at the same time. He had a little blood on his shirt from the beating he’d given the plumber, but at least the prick had walked away from it. If I’d had my way that fucker would have been left crippled, but that was probably just the frustration of having to deal with him before the whole thing with Raven had happened. Still, the guy wasn’t going to be fixing any pipes for a few weeks.
The whole thing had left Bash in a piss-poor mood and he stayed in his and Raven’s room for the rest of the night. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t be happy to get called from work to find out some guy had tried to proposition my female either.
Gracie didn’t get home until dinnertime, and I wanted to jump in and ask her about her day but she looked so distracted that I waited until we were in bed later that night before bringing up her day at work.
“Hmm?” Gracie sat down her hairbrush and lifted her eyes. “What did you say?”
“How was work? Did you overdo it?” She looked tired and so distracted that I was ready to ask her not to go in the next morning. Maybe her head was bothering her. She was still recovering from that fucking concussion, she needed to relax—she didn’t need to be going into the garage and dealing with that shit.
Her lips lifted in the first smile I’d seen from her all day. “No, I didn’t overdo it. I promise.” She sighed and pulled something out of the drawer beside the bed. Handing it over, she bit her lip.
“What’s this?” I asked and skimmed over what looked like a contract. It was Jenkins’ agreement, but she hadn’t signed it yet.
Why the fuck not?
“I had someone offer me something crazy today. A job and a scholarship and all kinds of nonsense that I’m still struggling to believe are real.” She sighed and took the paper back. “But I wanted to talk to you about it first.”
I didn’t know what I was more surprised about right then. The fact that my girl, who was always going on and on about being independent, wanted to talk about something that affected her lift in such a major way; or how hard my heart clenched at her wanting to include me. When I’d talked to Bash and Uncle Jack about setting all of this up with Jenkins I’d never imagined that Gracie would want my advice on it. I just thought that she would take it without much of a struggle.
“Okay, so lets talk about it.” I grabbed hold of her waist and pulled her onto my lap. She shifted so that we were facing each other and her legs wrapped around my hips. Yeah, that was better, but now my dick was rock hard and I had to fight through my need for her in order to concentrate on more important things.
She shifted and I had to bite back a groan. All she was wearing was one of my T-shirts and a pair of cotton panties. Panties that were already damp with a need that was just as hot as my own. Since we’d first made love on Friday night I’d been taking it easy with her. She’d been so sore on Saturday morning that she’d walked a little awkwardly. While the alpha in me had grunted in pleasure at knowing that I was the one to put her in that condition, I’d hated to see her in any kind of pain. I’ve taken my time with her ever since, making sure that things didn’t get too out of hand for her, but I was dying to let go and take her the way I craved.
“Jacob Jenkins wants me to take over for him when he retires. He represents the MC, which you must know.” She bit her lip again then shook her head, distracting me from images of tossing her back onto the mattress and thrusting deep into that sweet, hot, gloriously tight pussy. “Would you be okay with that? Me being the lawyer for the club?”