Page 55 of Mischief Mayhem
I smiled at just how much joy V had actually brought into my life in the last few weeks—hell, in the ten months since she’d come home from college. There was no one who gave me shit as well as she could, and I loved bantering with her.
“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile that big,” Ru said, blowing out a disbelieving breath, “and that’s saying something. What about your celibacy streak?”
“Thank you for suggesting it in the first place,” I said, recalling the conversation she and I had outside the clubhouse last June, the one where she made me realize I needed to start treating myself better if I wanted better. “You helped me, Ru. More than you know.”
“Hey, you cunt,” came a loud roar over the crowd. “I wasn’t done with you.”
“You’re done with me now,” shouted a familiar voice in return. “Back the fuck up or I’ll stomp your face in, you old greasy pervert!”
“Say that again,” he growled, but I was already out of my seat.
I knew that raging feminine war cry. I’d pulled V off enough fuckers in this bar to recognize it over the thumping bass and loud-ass bikers. By the time I got to her, she’d already swung on the guy, nailing him in the cheek with her right hook. She raised her hand to do it again, but I wrapped an arm around her elbow to hold her back. My heart hammered in my chest, fury racing through my blood at the thought of whatever this guy could have done to warrant this reaction out of her.
I saw red, and I knew only one thing as I pulled her away—I’d protect this woman with my life.
“You fucking piece of shit!” She kicked out at him, nailing him in the chest with her heel. “Don’t you ever touch me again! Don’t ever touch me!”
Slicing hot rage rushed through my veins, and I didn’t think, just reacted. I shoved the guy back and got between him and my girl.
“What the fuck’s your problem, huh?” I pushed at the angry fucker whose name tag said Hoss as he was trying to get to V again. “You wanna fight?”
“Is that your bitch?” Hoss nodded to V, wiping at his busted bottom lip. “Put a leash on her before I have to fucking teach her a lesson.”
V wouldn’t have started shit with a stranger for no reason. If she was in this guy’s face, he did something to deserve it, and I’d bet it had to do with the weeping woman standing next to her.
“Lesson?” I raised my eyebrows and laughed. “You’re a real dumb motherfucker, aren’t you?” Just seeing his hands on her was enough to make me want to kill him, but hearing him refer to her like that set me off. I swung on the dude before he had a chance to say anything else, knocking his ass back. He lost his footing and fell to the ground, where I grabbed his shirt, holding him up so I could hit him again.
Wrath rolled through me, incinerating whatever restraint I had left. I collided my fist with his face, over and over again, until I felt he’d learned his lesson. MCs on our territory were here as guests. End of story. He didn’t get to come to Madison County and touch our women, regardless of what club he belonged to.
“Maybe that’s how you talk to your old ladies,” I snarled, grabbing his bloody shirt to hold him up so I could spit in his face. “But here, you treat people with respect or you get your face stomped in.”
“Hollywood!” someone shouted. Massive arms wrapped around my elbow, hauling me up, and another set circle around my waist. “He’s done, man! He’s done.”
It was Saint, KC, and Bear, each of them grabbing a piece of me to pull me back. At my height and weight, it took three of them to get me off him and Verona cupping my face to get me to stop huffing fury.
“Get him out of here!” Thor shouted, coming over to assess the guy on the ground. “V, take him home.”
“He started it,” V snarled, pointing at the girl to her right. “He practically groped her in the hallway.”
“Go!” Thor pointed to the door and growled before returning the bloody bastard on the ground.
I spit at him, disgusted with men who thought they could treat women like shit just because they were older or bigger. I was the biggest person in this fucking club, so by that reasoning, I could own them all. I had to consciously rein in my anger so I could turn my back on the mess we’d made.
“C’mon,” V said, tugging my shirt toward the entrance. I went willingly, rubbing my busted knuckles as I passed the girl she’d saved in the first place. Reunited with her friends, she hung on to one of them while they consoled her. It didn’t fucking matter anymore. I didn’t need to know the situation to make mincemeat of that bastard’s face. No one put their hands on V like that, regardless of whether I was fucking her or not.
“Jesus, Hollywood,” she said. “I had it handled.”
“Yeah, it sure looked like it.” I grunted, shifting my shoulders to work out some of the tension from the fight. “You and that Montgomery temper.”
She laughed, shaking her head. If there was one thing that ran in that family, it was their hot-blooded reaction when things didn’t go their way. KC had been known to fly off the handle anytime Alba so much as got a paper cut, and I’d seen Castor tear through people with his bare hands. Crow was the worst of them. For as much as he was the calm and collected patriarch, he’d gotten the title of president for a reason. The things I’d heard about what he’d done to a former SRMC member-turned-traitor still haunted my nightmares.
When we got to my truck, she stopped and turned to face me, leaning up against the driver’s side door while she pulled me closer by the belt loops. Grinning up at me, she pushed up on her toes to plant a kiss right on my lips.
“That was hot,” she said. “If I didn’t want you before, I certainly do now.”
“Yeah?” The fever from the confrontation drained out of me, replaced by an entirely new warmth that had me arching my hips toward her, seeking friction for a greedy cock that wanted to sink itself deep inside her. “How bad do you want me?”
She bit her bottom lip and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down so she could whisper in my ear.