HIS SWEETNESS (WOUNDED SOULS Book 1) Read online

  “Deck.” Her weak-arse protest to get me to get off her was not going to deter me at all.

  “No, Charlie. Listen to me. Please, Charlie, please.” My desperate tone must have reached her. Because I was desperate. Desperate for her to get this shit and mark it.

  Her eyes went soft, and while the fight wasn’t quite gone, she was listening.

  Dropping my forehead to hers, I breathed in her scent. It never failed to calm me. Even at the club with the smoke and filth, I could still smell her.

  “When I couldn’t find you after school, I was concerned. When I heard you had been crying and was upset, I was worried. When I couldn’t find you, and half my club was out looking for you, I was frantic. But, Sweetness”—I dropped my lips to hers, needing a taste to still my inner beast—“when I saw you on that stage, baby, I was fucking gutted.”

  Charlie’s hand reached up and cupped my cheek. Her eyes then filled with unshed tears.

  I turned my mouth and gently bit the inside of her palm, then licked and kissed it. My hand covered hers and held it to my face.

  “I won’t have it, Charlie. You are mine. Fast or not, this is us. If you need help, you ask me. You need money to get your fucked-up family off your back, you come to me. Jesus Christ, woman, if you want a fucking cup of coffee, you…come…to…me.”

  I knew she was about to protest, independence and all that crap, and I got it, I did.

  “I have never had this need with any other woman in my life except Shiloh.”

  I wanted to tell her I loved her. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But I knew I was overwhelming her with the moving of her stuff. One step at a time, Deck.

  “You mean the world to Shiloh and to me. Your place sucks shit. And your cat is a fluffy girlie-girl cat, and Shiloh is going to want it for her very own. I want you here with me. In my bed. I will give you the money you need that you were trying to make at Gypsies. And let’s just see how we go.” It sounded like I was giving her a choice, but I wasn’t. She was mine.

  She looked at me like I had lost my mind, but she was also smiling that perfect fucking smile that was just mine. My smile.

  “We need to talk about your tendencies for taking over and making decisions for me.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “We also need to talk about me paying you that money back.”

  “So yes, then?” Yeah, right, dream on, Sweetness.

  “We need to figure out how to get my car back.”

  Not happening, dancing girl. That piece of shit should be crushed by now. I wasn’t ready to tell her she was driving my truck from now on.

  “Sweetness, say yes.” I groaned as her hand traced a line down over my arse before squeezing my cheeks.

  “Yes, Deck Johnston, I want to see where we can go, so yes, I will move in here with you.”

  She opened her legs to make more room for me. My cock had come to life when I’d flipped her underneath me, but I’d tamped his shit down so I could get Charlie to agree with me. Now that she had, it was his turn.

  “Can you take me again, Sweetness? Are you too sore?” I whispered seductively against her lips. I knew I probably shouldn’t, but Charlie didn’t seem to be thinking that. Reaching between our bodies, she fisted my cock and guided it to her wet core. She still had our juices dripping from her, so our combined releases helped her body take me again so soon after her first time.

  I groaned at the contact and pushed myself forward in one hard thrust, filling her completely.

  “What was it you said before about watching your cock go in and out of me,” she asked. Her voice was shy when she said the word cock, but fuck, if it didn’t make me harder.

  “Yeah, I believe you wouldn’t let me,” I replied, playing along with her seductive game

  I pulled out and then slammed back into her. Once, twice, three times, and each time, her beautiful tits bounced with the force of my thrusts.

  “Well, soldier boy, you best get to watching.” Her voice was husky, the effort to talk too much for her. Our first time was so slow and gentle, but this time, I was showing her fucking heaven.

  Without pulling out of her completely, I moved back from her until I was on my knees. With her legs wrapped around my waist, her butt was lifted off the bed and sitting on my thighs. This way, I could see her perfectly.

  Her tits were still in my reach, and I could see her pussy sucking my cock back inside her. I could see a tinge of red still on my cock, and the inside of her thighs was smeared with a little, too. Her virginity was forever mine. I was so happy, I wanted to fucking howl at the moon.

  I placed my hands on her thighs, either side of her pubis, and moved faster than I should have—but it was impossible to stop. From her erotic moans and the way her cunt clenched me, I didn’t think she wanted me to stop, either.

  The familiar tingle in my spine was telling me I was about to explode. Jesus fucking Christ, where had my stamina gone? Twice now, I was in jeopardy of coming before her. Placing my hands between her legs, I reached out with my thumbs and played with her folds, touching where my dick moved in and out of her. I could see her clit throbbing with each thrust of my dick. Not being able to help myself, I took my thumb away and quickly licked her juices and replaced them with my saliva. Then pressing my thumb against her clit, I rubbed it in slow circles.

  I expected to feel her clench me tighter—not reach her hand down and rub her fingers up and down my shaft as it pulled out and pushed back in.

  I watched as our hands played with each other—one of my thumbs against her clit while the other one rubbed up and down her slick folds, and her fingers following my dick as it moved in and out of her.

  “Fuck, Sweetness, this is so fucking hot to watch,” I said from between clenched teeth as I barely hung on to my orgasm. She had to go first.

  “Deck, it’s happening, it’s happening,” she cried out as I felt her muscles suck my cock in and not let him out, triggering my own release.

  My hands left her pussy and moved back to her thighs as I brought her even harder and closer against me and rocked into her over and over, prolonging my orgasm as long as I could.

  I brought her closer to me—half under and half against me, lying together as our breathing started to even out. I then pulled the blankets, and without jostling Charlie too much, I reached over to the drawers beside the bed and made sure the baby monitor was on and blinking. I got a quick glimpse of my baby girl sleeping soundly in her pink room before sleep started to pull me under.

  And for the first time in a while, bombings, kids with guns, and soldiers dying didn’t fill my sleep.

  Instead, my dreams were of a blonde dancer who had just given me another purpose in life.

  19

  DECK

  It had been two weeks.

  Fourteen days of Charlie in my bed.

  Three hundred and thirty-six hours of fucking heaven with my woman and my daughter.

  We took care of the late payments and extra money Charlie apparently owed her family. Paid in full, but Charlie didn’t let me pay it all for her. She went to a bank and took out a personal loan. However, I knew it was never going to happen. I had won a major battle in getting her to move in with me. So I let her think she’d won one, too, but I was going to pay off that debt and get her toxic family out of her life.

  She had plenty of family now with the guys at the club. Plus, my parents were annoying the shit out of me to meet Charlie after a Skype session with Shiloh and Winnie. Mum wasn’t going to wait too much longer before she burst into the club and took it upon herself to meet her future daughter-in-law. Yeah, I was taking it there. I had to tackle a few other hurdles first, but the main goal was marriage.

  How do you tell a woman you love her, though? Not once had I uttered those words to any female apart from Shiloh and my mum. I did love her, and the past few weeks made it a sure thing in my mind.

  We shared most parts of the day together. Breakfast with Shiloh, and then I dropped them b
oth off at school together. Then pick them up, have dinner, then Shiloh’s bath time and story time or just sitting in the main room of the compound, watching television or playing pool with the other brothers.

  Charlie’s friendship with Vegas and Stella had really taken off. It made me happy she was fitting in with the others.

  There was a big party on tonight, and I was enjoying the beginnings of it until my phone rang. Leaving Charlie in the company of Vegas and Darth, I excused myself to go talk to the building inspector. The call wasn’t a good one. So sitting in the war room trying to figure out the shit with the construction company was heavily reducing my state of bliss.

  Just the day before, we had more trouble with the bar and grill. More customer complaints about food standards, and now my site was being harassed. Harassment was exactly what was happening with all of our businesses. The only one left alone was the gun shop and shooting range. I rubbed my hands down my face and blew out a frustrated breath.

  The building inspector visited the site during one of my absences today and demanded a retaining wall built behind the new building after a soil sample deemed it too sandy and unstable to hold any potential collapses at bay.

  What a load of frog shit!

  I had seen the results of the soil samples before any building started, and there was no mention of sand or unstable ground then.

  A retaining wall at this stage of the game was going to be on me, financially. We had already told the clients it was good to go with the samples, so changing it halfway in wasn’t going to go well in my favour.

  I didn’t like the feeling of my hands being tied.

  Someone was messing with me. And worse, they were messing with my club.

  I had a strange and uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was like someone was stalking us. And the stalker knew how to play.

  “Brother.”

  I looked up and found Creed watching me from the door of the war room. His bike shop just received a notice of eviction, which was a load of shit since the club owned the building. The notice came from the town’s council stating the building’s owner had passed away and to remove all things from the building as it had been deemed derelict.

  So, for Creed, he spent his day at town hall with certificates of ownership, banknotes, and God knew what else they wanted to see as proof of who was the rightful owner of the building.

  Everything that had happened so far with the bars, bike shop, and strip club had been a pain in the arse stuff. Stupid time-wasting cleaning and hours lost at town hall proving shit. But now it was starting to cost real money. This retaining wall was going to cost at least ten grand, not to mention it cost two hundred and sixty dollars every time the inspector ordered another soil sample. His bill wouldn’t arrive until after everything was finished, which would add another few grand just for his bullshit time.

  “Heard you had fun today, Creed.”

  Creed harrumphed and came into the room to sit down across from me. His expression was normal—controlled and pissed off. An IED had gone off, killing two of our own and severely wounding Creed, Squid, and Seb. Creed had only been back with the unit a short while after a bad accident that happened during one of his visits back home to his wife. Although he hadn’t been badly injured in the motorcycle accident, his body took a beating with road rash and his chest and back still bore the scars from it. Even worse, though, was the instant death of his beautiful wife, who had found out just the day before that she was pregnant. My thoughts were all over the place about what had happened to Creed’s wife. I personally didn’t think she should have been on his bike, but I kept that thought to myself. My brother had enough to deal with without me making him feel worse.

  Coming out of my memories, I passed Creed the papers I’d put together on what had happened so far.

  “Something ain’t right about this fuckery, Deck.” Creed growled as he looked over the complaints. “Fucking mouldy cheese is one thing, but saying there are drugs at Body and Soul, getting eviction notices, and now fucking retaining walls and bad soil samples. Brother, this shit is deliberate.”

  Nodding my head, I agreed. It felt like a vendetta. It was just too personal against not just one person but the entire club. All of us. But why?

  “What the fuck, Creed? Who would have a reason to get us in shit like this?”

  Creed tapped the papers with his hand. “Been thinking about it. Got a few ideas. Need to get Booth and the team in here later for a show-and-tell. Yeah?”

  Agreeing again, I went to answer him when Ford, the human hurricane, burst into the room. His eyes searched until they landed on me.

  “Brother, got some bad news and some good news.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head. Of course, he did. “What?”

  “Well, the bad news is your woman ain’t got a high tolerance for alcohol.”

  “She what?” I asked. What in the flying fuck was this man talking about? Charlie was out in the main room with Darth, Vegas, and Stella. I’d left her there myself not a half hour ago.

  Ignoring my question, Ford pressed on. “The good news is she can dance like a fucking angel sent to us from heaven.”

  His words took my mind back to the night at Gypsies. Instantly, I was up and out of my seat, pushing the grinning Ford out of the way. I vaguely heard Creed muttering behind me, “This isn’t going to end well.”

  No, it was not. If Charlie was doing what I thought she was doing, I was handcuffing her to our bed for the rest of her life. Enough said.

  Charlie was not going to be spending the rest of her life handcuffed to our bed—unfortunately. The soft, haunting music filled my ears as I burst into the main room and stopped dead in my tracks. My sudden stop made Creed and Ford come up short and push into my back, but it made no impact on me because the sight before me took my breath away.

  There, in the middle of the room, furniture pushed against walls and out of the way, my woman was dancing. A beautiful vision in tight yoga-type pants and a tight tank top with her feet encased in pink ballet shoes, and her hair pulled up into a messy bun. She had the biggest smile on her face as she spun around and around in the same spot. A pirouette I thought was the term I had heard her use to Shiloh when they were practising for the upcoming ballet recital, where Shiloh had a lead role.

  How did she not get dizzy? I was mesmerised by her, completely. The music dramatically picked up, and Charlie threw herself out of the spins and started to jump across the room, her legs moving incredibly fast, and her leaps high. But then I heard the beautiful sound of my daughter laughing and giggling, shouting out her delight as she chased her teacher around the room in her own version of the leaps Charlie was performing.

  I couldn’t help but laugh at Shiloh as she tried hard to keep up, dressed in her pink tutu and her beloved black, chunky boots. Then, all of a sudden, Charlie stopped again. I was in awe of the way she could stop and change the direction or the step she was doing all with grace and poise. There was nothing clumsy about any of her movements.

  Laughing aloud, Charlie turned and faced Shiloh. She then ran to the little girl, and lifting Shiloh high in her arms, Charlie began to dance again, holding Shiloh to her chest. Shiloh’s legs wrapped around Charlie’s waist as they held each other’s hands like they were doing the waltz or something.

  Charlie’s hips gyrated side to side while her torso circled like a belly dancer. My daughter laughed and shrieked with so much happiness.

  When I looked around, I saw my brothers also laughing and smiling at the antics of my girls.

  Darth was standing behind Vegas with his arms wrapped around her middle, and both were smiling as they swayed to the music. Stella was standing beside them with Mannix and Rainn, his girl from Body and Souls who had taken over Charlie’s contract at Gypsies a few weeks ago. Rainn was not a club soul girl—or a club whore as other MC clubs called them—but she worked for Mannix, and they had a strange relationship. It seemed like both of them were content
to just hook up occasionally, and Mannix was still active with the girls who came to the compound. From what I knew about Rainn, she was a nice girl—beautiful body and gorgeous long ruby-red hair. It was obviously from a box, but it suited her, and she suited Mannix, but my brother was hardened against women and relationships.

  Leaning in closer to Vegas, I tapped her on the shoulder. “Ford said something about alcohol and Charlie.”

  Vegas let out a laugh. “Yeah, Steel made her a shandy. At first, she had a taste of the beer but wasn’t too keen on that, so he added some lemonade to it, and it was instant love.” She laughed again.

  A shandy? Really? Wow, it would seem my woman was a bit of a lightweight. Not that I cared. I had lost interest in drinking big as soon as Shiloh had been born. I never wanted to be drunk or over the limit if she needed me.

  “How many did she have?”

  Darth looked over at me and smirked. “Half a glass, brother,” he replied drolly.

  “Got no problems with the alcohol supply with Teach around, Deck,” Steel called out from across the bar. Always the bartender, whether it be at the bar and grill or there at the club. Steel was in his element slinging drinks and enjoyed it as much as his abilities to blow shit up. His training and specialty in the unit had been bomb detonation and was a fucking genius with a block of C-4 and some detonators. He was also deadly accurate with a rifle and had been the best sniper ever to come out of the commandos.

  Over on the impromptu dance floor, Charlie and Shiloh stopped dancing. Taking my cue to have my girls all to myself for the rest of the night, I decided to give the party a miss.

  20

  CHARLOTTE

  I was so hot. The compound was full of people. People I had never met before. I mean, I knew the guys of the club, or brothers as Deck called them, and Vegas and Stella, but tonight, the place was jammed with so many other faces.

  And the women, they were beautiful—well, most of them. Mannix had arrived with a stunning red-haired beauty named Rainn. Even her name was beautiful. But the silly man had left her talking with Vegas and Darth while he took off to talk to a woman made up to look like a hooker.