Mason: Inked Reapers MC (12 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LUCY

              Mason watched me rebutton my dress through the mirror. I pretended not to notice, but his eyes on me always left my skin feeling tingly. Running my hands through my hair, I looked him in the eye.

              “I can’t see you anymore,” I announced. He spun around and faced me. His jaw tense, eyes narrowed.

              “That’s not the solution.” He shook his head.

              “Just for a little while,” I assured him. He needed to understand. “Mason. He killed Kerri. She died because she walked out on Sting. Imagine what he’ll do when I say no to him.” I stepped to him, resting my hands on his chest. I could feel the tension there, the stiffness in his muscles, the irritation seeping through his skin.

              “I won’t let him hurt you.” He sounded like a rabid animal, the way he growled his response. 

              “You won’t be able to stop him, and keep the clubs from going to war. Finish this thing you have going. When you’re ready, when I'm ready, we’ll leave. Put all this bullshit behind us.” 

              “And in the meantime? I’m supposed to just let you go fuck him?”

              I winced at his words. That’s exactly what I was telling him he had to do. “If I’m his old lady, he won’t let anyone else touch me.” I rationalized the irrational. I moved my hand to his cheek, running my thumb over his bottom lip, just as he had done to me so many times already.  How this man had left my life off-kilter. “If he goes through with his threat, everyone will be at my door.”

              “I can protect you.”

              “I know. But right now I need you to protect us both. Maybe I can get him to let me get a real job, so I can stow away some cash. When the time comes, when it’s safe, we’ll be okay.” I kept my voice as flat as I could, trying to hide the fear and sadness boiling in my chest. 

              He grasped my wrists with his hands, and pulled them to his mouth. His lips were warm against my palms. “You don’t take any risks. You just stay under his radar as best you can.” The authority returned to his voice. “And you find a way to meet me. Every Saturday morning, here.”

              I shook my head. “He’ll notice. What if he sends someone to follow me?”
              “Here,” he said again.

              “In the bathroom?” I wanted to laugh. How romantic our relationship had turned!

              He nodded. “You got a phone?”

              “Yeah, he gave me one. He checks it constantly. And I don’t have it with me.” In my haste to get inside I'd left my purse in the car.

              “That’s okay. Give me the number.” He pulled out his own phone from his back pocket and I rattled off the number for him as he entered it into the phone. “I’ll shoot you a text this afternoon—just make my contact name something else. A girlfriend maybe. Someone you may have met at the diner?”

              “I can try.”

              He pulled my chin up, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Don’t try. Just do.” He softened his command with a warm smile. Every muscle in my body relaxed when he smiled at me like that. Like there wasn’t anything to worry about. He would handle it all. There was no cartel to worry about, no Jayson to hide from, everything just had hope attached to it. But reality was reality, and losing myself in his eyes and his protection couldn’t be the only thing to count on. I had to do my part.

              “Jayson’s going to start coming to my room, Mason.” I pulled away from him. “What happens then?”

              “I want to tell you to deny him, but I’m not that stupid. He won’t take no for an answer.  Right now, we deal with the shit we’ve been given. But soon, soon you’ll be free of him. I promise. And never again will you have anyone other than me between those delicious thighs.”

              I snorted and rolled my eyes before reaching for the door. He didn’t get it yet. He didn’t fully understand that I had turned into a whore. I was no better than the girls in the back building, giving blow jobs for a few dollars. I may have been given a room in the main house, but that didn’t make me any less like them. Mason would wise up to that one day and he’d toss me aside. 

              “Sting is probably still out there.” I changed the direction of his thoughts. I could see the desire building up in him again. The man was insatiable.

              “I’ll go out first. You hang back here.” He gave me one more kiss. A tender, sweet kiss on my forehead, and then he was gone.  I leaned my back against the door, trying to wipe away the memory of his touch.  I had to forget it, I had to. This couldn’t go on. Someone was going to get killed if we kept it up.

              After a few minutes there was a soft knock on the door. “Hey, Lucy.” Sting’s voice didn’t sound angry. “Lucy, you in there?”

              I looked around for another escape, but the tiny window was too high up and too small to be of any help.

              “Yeah.” I finally answered, unsure of what to do next and not having many options.

              “You okay? The waitress said you’ve been in there awhile.” 

              I turned the water on in the sink and washed my hands. “I’m coming.”

              When I pulled the door open Sting stood in front of the door, looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and concern. “You okay?”

              “What? Yeah. That coffee just hit me too hard this morning. I should have eaten first.” I tried to walk past him but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back to him.

              “I saw those Reapers in here. They talk to you?” His grip bit into my skin, pinching the tender spot under my arm.

              “Who? No one talked to me, Sting.” I wanted to look around the restaurant, to see if Mason was still there, but I couldn’t feel him.

              “Good. You stay away from those pricks.” He pointed his fat finger in my face, inches from my nose. What had Kerri seen in him? Spit pooled in my mouth, begging to be hurled at his face, but I resisted the urge. We may have been in public but that wouldn’t stop Sting. 

              “I got that message already from your big brother.” I yanked my arm out of his grip and headed toward the door.

              “Didn’t you order breakfast?” he called after me. I ignored him and kept walking. 

              He followed me the entire drive back to the compound.

MASON

              Massy was chattering away at the kitchen table in their new house. Something about buying a new dishwasher or something. I wasn’t listening anymore. My mind was on Lucy and wondering how the hell to get us both out of the fucking mess we were in.  

              I had to remind myself more than once that barging into the complex and just taking her out of there would only result in more bloodshed and wouldn’t get us the happy ending she deserved. Tick lit another cigarette and blew the cloud of smoke into my face.

              “You even here, man?”

              Massy stopped talking and focused on me. “Yeah, Mason. What’s the deal? You’ve been in lala land the last few times I’ve seen you. What gives?”

              “It’s that chick again.” Tick shook his head. “He’s got the hots for a Disciple chick.”

              “She’s not a Disciple,” I ground out, slamming my hand down on the table.

              “Okay. Okay.” He shook his head. “He’s got it bad for her. I’ve never seen him like this. This guy used to stick his dick in any pussy that could tolerate his hard ass, now he won’t even talk to the whores at the clubhouse.”

              “Really?” Massy looked at me with that knowing look. The one chicks got when they thought they had you pegged for keeper material.

              “I don't’ want to talk about this. I thought you were making us dinner, woman?” I waved my hand at the empty table.

              “Yeah, it’s in the oven.” She waved at hand in the air. “If this girl’s with the Disciples, I can’t imagine Marcus is good with this.”

              “Good with it? He hates it. Fucking told Mason here that he is to stay away from her. You know what this blockhead does?” Tick scratched his smooth head while he continued to shake it. “This asshole goes and fucks her in the bathroom at the diner.”

              “I didn’t say I fucked her,” I interjected.

              “You didn’t have to. I saw that look on your face when you came out, and then I saw her as she got in her car a bit later. That girl was well fucked, and it sure as hell wasn't Sting.”

              “So what are you going to do, Mason?” Massy stopped laughing. “Is she worth getting kicked out of the club?”

              “Out is the goal, but no, getting booted isn’t going to help.” I rubbed the back of my neck. All of this plotting and planning was starting to wear me down. Massy gave Tick a worried glance then stood from the table.

              “Maybe I can talk to her, or Marcus. I’ve known him since we were kids. He dated my older sister for a little while, maybe—”

              “No.” Tick gave her a pointed look. “You stay the fuck away from Marcus and all of this. I’ve already told you, I don’t want you at the clubhouse anymore. Not until this is all over with.”

              “You’re being an overprotective ass,” she shot back at him, but I could see she didn’t hold much heat behind the words. Her eyes were getting that glassy look Lucy started to get when I started giving orders.

              “That might be so, but it’s your ass I’m protecting. You listen to me on this, Massy.” He stepped around the table and pulled her to look at him. “Don't you dare do anything dangerous or stupid. You stay out of this, got it?”

              “Yeah.” She nodded, but I knew that look too.

              So did Tick. “If you step so much as one toenail in the clubhouse, I swear you won’t sit for a week.”

              “I’m pregnant,” she huffed. Neither of them seemed to mind I was in the room. Then again, we’d been family for so damn long, it wouldn’t surprise me if he carried through with his threat right there.

              “Your ass can still take a beating.” He made his point with a pinch to her well rounded backside. She only shook her head and let out a loud sigh.

              “Whatever.” With an exaggerated eye roll she turned and went back to her cooking. As tough as Massy always presented herself, when it came to Tick she softened like warm butter. 

              “She goads me too easily.” Tick laughed as he watched her walk away. “I think the idea of us getting out of the club scares her, but she won’t talk straight about it. Always curves this way or that.”

              “She’s never known anything but the club, Tick,” I pointed out. Her mother had been an old lady to a member, and her sister was married to one.  They moved out of state, transferred to a smaller charter up north.

              “I know.” He ran his hand over his head again.

“This domestication of yours.” I waved my hand in the air. “It works for you? You like it?”

He studied me for a long minute, like he was searching for something. “Remember when we were kids and we’d see the other kids with their dads? We’d play that game, trying to make up a dad for us?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “It was a stupid game for stupid kids,” I added. That time was a world away from where we were. Neither of us knew our dads and it took a long while before I wised up that I never would.

“Nah. It was two kids trying to fill up this hole our assholes dads left when they walked out.” I didn’t say anything to that. He wasn’t wrong. “I don’t want my kid to ever sit on a porch step trying to remember what I looked like, or try to replace me with some imaginary father.”

              The image of Lucy swollen with my baby inside her belly hit me, nearly knocking the breath out of me. Her dark pixie hair pinned back away from her face, wearing one of those summer dresses she likes, and her hands rubbing her belly. My baby. My girl.

              “You don’t have to leave the club, Tick. You can have Massy and the baby with the club’s support.”

              “Fuck that. “ He snorted. “I’m not gonna risk my ass for no cartel bitch. That deal is going to get us killed. Look at Jasper. We still haven’t found him, and tell me you don’t think those fucking Disciples put a bullet in his head the minute he wanted to phone back to us.”

              He had a point. We both knew, hell, we all knew, that was exactly what happened. Marcus didn’t agree, but that wasn’t a shock. It was just one more thing he seemed to turn a blind eye to when it came to the Disciples.

              “You’re right. I know it, man. Okay. Then we keep moving towards getting our out.” I finished off my beer.

“So how many more runs do you think we need before we can start laying the groundwork for our out?”

              “I think at least two more big ones. You know, there’s a chance Marcus won’t let us out that easy.”

              “Because of Lucy you mean.” He plopped back down at the table with me. “You know if you take her, help her get out of Jayson’s clutches, he’s going to come after you. And if he comes after the club, Marcus will join him.”

              “I know all of that.” I nodded. “You think I should leave her be? Let her be old lady to that asshole? Would you leave Massy there?”

              “Massy is different. She knows the life. This girl, Mason, she got looped in there. Lucas was telling me about her. She was a friend of one of Sting’s girls. Her mom had died a bit ago and she was trying to get on her feet. She knew that friend from high school or something. Anyway, somehow she ends up at the club, free room and board, but she doesn’t know Jayson. He doesn’t play that way. Not with a hot chick like her.”

              “I know all of this already,” I growled.

              “Then you know that Jayson and Sting killed that girl, her friend. Those assholes don’t just let the girls go if they don’t want them to go.” His eyes bored into me with frustration.

              “I know what you're telling me, what you're trying to warn me from, but I'm telling you, I’m not leaving that girl back there. You’re right. She has no fucking business in this life. She has no idea what those guys or any other club can do to her, not really.” I shoved away from the table and started to pace the kitchen. “I know that getting her free of them will put a mark on me, and her, and my mom.”
              “Your mom?” Tick glared up at me.

              “Jayson told her that if she doesn’t back off he’d go after my mom and me.”

              “That fucking pussy. Did you say something to Marcus?”

“Fuck no. I don’t trust him right now. Something’s going on with him and this cartel thing. I get that it’s bringing in a lot of cash to the club, but there’s something more. Something he’s not telling us. Besides, he told me to stay away from Lucy, remember?”

“Man, you really know how to get tangled up in shit.”

I pulled out my phone after it buzzed and grinned at the screen. Lucy. 

He’s letting me out tomorrow afternoon for “coffee” with my friend.

“I know, but you’d do the same for Massy,” I countered again while I typed my reply.

I’ll stash my bike in the garage at the diner. Meet me there.

Tick stared off into the kitchen where Massy was mixing together pasta and her homemade

sauce. “I’d do pretty much anything for that woman.” He shrugged and left me sitting with my phone in my hand while he went to her, wrapped his arms around her middle. and kissed her neck.

             
Don’t be late,
I texted. I was counting down the minutes until I’d have that girl in my arms again.