HARD KNOX

Hey darlin
’

You
’
re
about to read my debut novel,
HARD KNOX
. Each and every book I write
contains a part of me. Some of this is true. Some is this is altered from the original
way it happened in my life. Some of it is all wild fantasy.

Hope you
’
re ready
…
I know I am.

See you on the other side.

-
       
Jax

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HARD KNOX

I let her slip
away from me once
–
this time, I
’
ll
kill to keep her close
…
because this time, she
’
s
pregnant with my baby.

*

It was a lifetime
ago when I first met Ana as she stepped out of the moving truck. From the
second our eyes met, it was instant fire. What came after that was years of
wild lust and a romance that seemed impossible to kill. Until I got patched
into the Reaper
’
s
Bastards MC and all our lives changed.

Now, the MC is
falling apart, my old man is in prison on a life sentence, and the only thing
that makes sense is the secret fling I
’
ve
been having with Ana for years. It
’
s
our secret, but I
’
m
tired of that. But there
’
s
a big problem. She
’
s
running with a rival crew who wants to take out me and my club for good. So I
make the call to everyone in the MC to put the leather cuts back on and gear up
for war. The first strike comes in the form of murder
…
and that
’
s when all hell breaks
loose for good.

In the mirror, I
tell myself to get ready for a different kind of war. A war with love. Because
this time, with Ana, it
’
s
all or nothing.

chapter one

(knox)

*LATER*

I knew it was so fucking wrong, but
she felt just so fucking right. The windows were shut, the door locked, and it
was just us. Finally, just us. The way she sat on the corner of my bed, I could
tell she was nervous. There was a virginal look to her in that moment, the
light splashing against the left side of her face. Good thing too because if I
saw the right side of her face it would piss me the fuck off again.

No woman deserved that kind of
treatment. Or this kind of life.

Shit, Ana didn’t even deserve me.

But you know what?

I was the greater of all fucking
evils and that meant I was the one who could protect her. Shit, maybe even love
her. Like that hadn’t happened already though.

I stepped toward the bed to gauge
her reaction to me. To finally being alone with me. To finally having the
chance to bring all those flirty eye fantasies to fucking life. Goddammit, if
this woman knew how many times I had shot my load thinking about her. Into
dirty shirts when I jerked off. Into the shower, watching it go down the drain.
Hell, shooting my loads into other women’s mouths, pussies, anywhere I felt
like fucking, there were plenty of times she popped into my mind as my dick
shot.

Before I could say a word her hands
grabbed at the top of my jeans.

Fuck, she wanted it as bad as I
did.

I knew what it was though.

Comfort.

The temptation ran way too fucking
high between us and now there was no stopping us. She wanted me to fuck her,
hold her, make her sweat and scream, all in one wild night so she could pretend
her life wasn’t a fucking mess.

I was fine with being that guy for
her. Hell, I had  dreamt of it for a long damn time. So many times our paths
had crossed during my rise to power on the streets and yet I never plucked her
flower and drank her nectar. I let it mature for years, at my own expense.

Now everything was destroyed.

And she was going to comfort me as
much as I was going to comfort her.

I touched her jaw, calmly, so I
didn’t scare her.

I saw the blood on my ripped up
knuckles, reminding me of what I’d done.

Our eyes met and we both knew it…

The second we fucked, we were
signing our own death warrants.

chapter two

(knox)

*THEN*

It all started when a yellow truck
pulled up to the apartment house right next to mine. Looking at the front of my
house, you’d never know there were two apartments in it. It was a big house
split into two. My grandmother lived on the bottom floor and did nothing but
chain smoke while watching game shows, talk shows, the news, and back to game
shows. The smell filtered up into our apartment where I crashed with my
parents. Ma worked two waitressing jobs at two restaurants across the street
from each other. She’d fucking literally walk across the street and change her
shirt to put in another eight hours of small tips, ass grabs, and fighting with
another dickhead Italian who thought his little shithole restaurant was the
best in the world.

My old man couldn’t keep a job if
his hands were lathered in super glue. He’d been up and down every auto shop in
town, twice, and was still struggling to keep things going forward. Little did
I know there was a good reason for it. Fate would eventually kick in and he’d
meet up with some guys at a garage who had a side thing that involved
motorcycles. They were big, tough, and they were nothing short of criminals who
lived a life so free, it would change my life for forever.

I was the coolest kid not in
school.

I stood on the front porch of the
house, one of my grandmother’s cigarettes in my hand. I lit the fucker up and
watched the yellow truck. The house right next door had an upstairs and
downstairs apartment too. It was pretty obvious though it was an apartment. In
the downstairs lived an old man who was a complete asshole. Me and the boys
drove that son of a bitch nuts, so much that he had a fucking stroke last
summer. Noah and Elijah got skittish when it happened and broke away from me
and Kingston. Spencer offered to mow the old man’s lawn for the rest of the
summer while he recovered.

Me?

I didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t my
life. It wasn’t my problem. Fuck, come to talk to me after you watch my mother
sit at the small table in the kitchen, laying out crumbled up one dollar bills
that stunk like dirty ass cheeseburgers and cry her eyes out when she was short
a couple hundred for rent and utilities. Then she’d go downstairs to ask my
grandmother to ease up on the rent. You know what would happen then? My
grandmother would hit her.

Fucking right.

My grandmother, all five foot
nothing of her would wind up and smack the shit out of my mother like she was a
child.

All the while my old man was out on
the street hustling. See, at that time, he was moving illegal car parts and
hustling motorcycle deals, working his way into the club that would save all of
us.

Anyway, back to the fucking yellow
truck.

I saw a woman hop out of the driver’s
seat of the truck. She was an adult, but damn, she was kind of hot. She
stopped, put her hands to her hips, and looked up to the second floor apartment
that was her new home. The other people that had lived there before were real
treats. A single mother with three daughters and she treated the place like her
own porn and drug house. I hooked up with her oldest daughter and saw enough in
that place that it was nice when the FOR RENT sign popped up in the window.

I would never knew what happened to
the family that left, which was good.

The woman outside the yellow truck
looked at me. I put my hands to the railing on my porch and leaned forward. I
grinned and took a drag of my smoke.

She quickly turned her head.

I guess she was too adult for a
little wild thing on the side.

I started a countdown in my head
until I would be able to get close enough to fuck that woman, but the countdown
went to zero when the passenger door opened.

And that was the moment I met her.

That’s when fucking Ana came
crashing into my life.

Long legs in tight jeans, a red
hoodie, blondie hair sort of messy, and a pink bag tossed over her shoulder.
She took two steps and froze when she saw me. The second our eyes met, I knew
we were going to end up in some serious trouble.

And then she made the first move.

She fucking waved to me.

Just like that
… she
sealed her fate for the rest of her damn life.

The yellow truck left and turned
around. It backed up to the steps of the apartment. I just stood there,
enjoying a second smoke. Yeah, it was a bad habit to pick up at a young age,
but it was the only thing that kept me calm and focused. I was still a few years
away from the beginning of my reign in pussy so cigarettes were all I had. I
would get drunk but that cost money and any of the booze in the house was
consumed by the old man. He drank whiskey when he brushed his teeth. It was
like water would poison him or some shit.

Ana’s mother walked to the back of
the yellow truck and opened the door. There wasn’t much shit in the truck but
enough that it would make the job a pain in the ass for two people.

Chivalry wasn’t quite in my arsenal
so I stood there and watched as the two of them fought to take boxes out of the
truck. A few times, they both would look at me as though they fucking expected
me to help. I wasn’t some goddamn butler or something.

Then they got to the beds.

Ana’s mother tried to slide one of
the box springs out and it toppled over and almost smacked Ana in the face. She
jumped back and yelled. Then her mother lost her cool. She dropped to her knees
and started to pound on the box spring, breaking down into tears.

Now that got my attention.

I stood at the railing again,
watching the scene unfold.

Ana went to her mother and touched
her back. Then she looked back at me. From the distance, her blue eyes
instantly sank into me like goddamn fangs on a venomous snake.

I took the cigarette from my mouth
and tossed it over the railing. I jumped the railing and walked over to them.

“Hey,” I said to Ana.

That’s when she told me her name.

Her mother had already stood up and
walked away, probably embarrassed that she was crying like a damn fool.

I grabbed the box spring and picked
it up. “Where we going with this?” I asked Ana.

“My mother’s name is Abby,” she
said. “I don’t know why I just told you that.”

“Abby and Ana,” I said. “Sounds
like a crappy kids’ show.”

She smirked.

Her mother then appeared, looking
cleaned up.

Her mother had some dirty ass
hollowed out eyes. I could tell right from the jump she was a mess.

“Where to, Mrs….” I stopped for
effect, knowing I was being an ass for even dropping the whole
Mrs.
thing.

“Abby is fine,” she said.

I looked at Ana.

Later I would find out Ana’s father
had been caught cheating and had tried to attack she and her mother, leaving
his ass in jail and Ana and her mother on the street. That explained why she
was in my shitty neighborhood.

I lifted the box spring on my own.

“I can help,” Abby said.

“I’m good,” I said.

I grew up strong and wasn’t afraid
to show it off. Oh-fucking-well to anyone who didn’t like it. I had a rusted
weight set in the musty basement of the apartment-slash-house. I lifted. I ran.
I got into tons of fights. I was built to kill, but at that point in life I
hadn’t killed anyone.

I carried the box spring up to the
apartment. How ironic that the box spring was for Ana’s bedroom, the same room
where I hooked up with some chick before. We didn’t go all the way in there
though, but damn close.

The same would happen with Ana
…

I carried up the box springs, the
mattresses, half taped, overflowed boxes, and all the small pieces of
furniture.

My boy Matteo cruised by on his
motorcycle and saw me. He stopped for a little bit to help me get the couch and
love seat upstairs. The entire time I worked, I just kept staring at Ana.

Goddamn, she was something. She
tossed a set of earbuds in and played with her music player, but I caught her
looking at me. I caught her smiling. I caught her fucking blushing at me. She
was like a little rosebud, waiting to bloom, waiting to get cut and kept until
she was done. The shit that went through my mind almost seemed unnatural, but I
was man enough to know what I felt.

I spotted Matteo ten bucks, a
handshake, and a promise of some good grass from another friend of mine for
helping with the furniture.

“Damn, that’s a fine piece of ass
moving in,” he said when we were outside.

He had a cigarette in his mouth.

When he said that, I fucking
snapped. I grabbed his throat and slammed him so hard into the moving truck, it
left a small dent. He spit the cigarette at me and his eyes went wide.

“… the… fuck…” he managed to say
through my tight grip.

“You don’t look at her,” I said. “You
don’t think about her. You don’t mention her to anyone in this fucking town.
You got it?”

I let Matteo go and he coughed. “Jesus,
bro. What the fuck?”

“Just don’t,” I said. “Okay?”

Matteo put his hands up. “Christ,
man. I just said she was fucking hot. I didn’t say I was going to hit it.”

“Keep it that way,” I said. “Nobody
is hitting her. Nobody is getting near her.”

“She’ll get eaten alive in this
town,” Matteo said. “You ready to protect that?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” I said.
“Now.”

Matteo fucking left and I was
pissed.

I walked around the truck and saw
Ana standing there, one earbud in, one dangling down the front of her red
hoodie. She just stared at me. I don’t know how the fuck she wore a hoodie when
it was so warm out. I stood there, my sweaty t-shirt clinging to me, my veins
throbbing from working so damn hard for her and her broke ass mother.

“Shit,” I whispered.

Ana turned and stormed away.

I followed her, walking slow,
pausing in the apartment as her mother lifted a box to the coffee table.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“I think so. Stay right here.”

Her mother walked away and I darted
for the bedrooms. I found Ana sitting on her bed. She had her head down. I sat
next to her and reached for her chin. I forced her to look at me, seeing the
tears in her eyes.

“Ah, damn,” I said. “Fuck Matteo,
okay? I’m sorry for what you heard out there. We’re all competitive around
here. It’s hard to explain, Ana. Okay?”

“I don’t want to be left alone,” Ana
said. “What did I do so wrong that my own father doesn’t love me?”

I touched her shoulder. She was
still a stranger to me but time was to fix all that. “My opinion? I’ve known
you for, what, two hours? Anyone that would walk out on you is a fuck head. A
complete piece of shit. Maybe you should remind yourself of that. Okay,
darlin'?”

Darlin
’? Where the fuck
did that come from?

It was the first time that word
slipped out of my mouth. I’d call everyone woman I’d meet
darlin
’
after that, but the first was always for Ana.

“You must think we’re dirty and
poor,” Ana said. “Look at us.”

I grinned. “Look at me, Ana. I’m
dirty and poor. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to help. Why? I don’t
fucking know. I saw your Ma hit the ground and it just… I don’t know. I’ve seen
my Ma cry too. It’s not a good feeling. It’s a real shit feeling.”

“Thank you,” Ana said. Then she
started to smile.

“What’s funny?”

“I don’t even know your name.”

Shit.

How dumb of me. So caught up in her
I forget to toss her my name.

“Knoxville,” I said. “But you can
call me Knox.”

Her eyes lit up.

Yeah, I’d learn then and forever
that women loved my name. I always got asked if I was named after the city or
some dumb shit. That left the door open for me to make some flirty ass comment
about me being me and before I knew it, they were on their knees with their
mouths full.
No more talking then.

“Hey, I’m right next door,” I said.
“If you ever need anything. I live upstairs.”

In fact, our windows face each
other.

Give it a year and, shit, I’d catch
Ana standing in her bedroom in nothing but a towel. She’d look at me and look
around to make sure the coast was clear. Then she’d open the towel for a few
seconds, showing me why she wore a hoodie that day - and for most days. Because
she had the greatest tits ever.

But back then on that first day…

Ana tucked her shoulder and touched
her cheek to my hand.

We were in silence, which was never
good. Silence was either bad, meaning I had to split or silence was good,
meaning it was time to get dirty.

I inched toward her lips, my mind
and heart racing together.

Her bedroom door opened and I
quickly stood up, the fucking moment ruined.

Her mother stood there, nostrils
flared. She was hot though. For a woman older than me, damn. She just needed to
get rid of those dead eyes. I could have helped with that but it would have
never ended well between us.

In her hand she had some crumpled
up cash.

“I wanted to give you this as you
were leaving,” she said to me.

“Money? Why?”

“Because you helped us,” she said.

I walked to the doorway and
laughed. “No. I’m not taking that. I never do this kind of thing anyway. You
caught me on a good day. Keep it. Get some pizza or something.”

I looked back at Ana and winked.

I felt fucking great when I left.

And meeting Ana wasn’t the only
memorable thing about that night. My old man came home wearing a new leather
cut. He had gotten himself patched in to the motorcycle club. They were called
Reaper
’s
Bastards MC
. I asked him if I could wear the thing and he gave it to me. I
hurried to my room and put it on.