Wack.

He slapped my ass with his open palm. Hard. The bite of the smack stung where I was sure he’d left his mark. He tossed me into the truck with a caveman grunt and slammed the door behind me.

I was confused as all hell.

I was so angry.

I was also elated.

I was in lust so hard that I was in physical pain.

I was really fucking angry.

I was head over heels in love.

Motherfucker.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Bear

I KEPT MY mouth shut during the entire five-minute ride back to the grove. I was too fucking angry to talk. The overwhelming need to both fuck her and punish her occupied every inch of my being. I cracked the joints in my neck and shoulders, trying to find some sort of relief from the agony in both my mind and my aching cock before it was too late and I took it out on Ti… and her pussy.

When we got to the grove, I told Ti to wait in the truck while I went inside. Rage was rubbing her temples, I assume just waking up from the drug-induced sleep Ti had put her in. If I wasn’t so fucking pissed off that Ti defied me and sought help from that cock-suckin’ cop, I’d actually be kind of impressed.

“Bear, don’t you fucking start with me, this wasn’t my fault,” Rage said with a groan. “I didn’t know your fucking girlfriend was psycho enough to drug me.” She stood and shook her head from side to side like she was trying to clear the fog. “On a brighter note,”—she stretched her arms over her head—“so that’s what sleep feels like.”

“I need some time with Ti. Be back tomorrow morning,” I barked.

“Tomorrow?” Ti asked from the doorway, again not doing what she was told.

Bear, Yo bitch be feisty! Me likey. Ghost Preppy chimed in.

I scratched the back of my neck. “Yes, tomorrow. I have shit to do and I need you here for one more night. Do you think you can listen to me for once and do that one thing for me, Ti, and just stay fucking put?” I turned back around, but Rage was gone. The back door flapped against the frame.

I guess I didn’t need to tell her twice.

“Don’t bother, Bear,” Ti said, I turned around in time to see her lips form a straight line as she made her way back down the steps.

Fuck. My blood started to boil. This was not how I saw this going.

I caught up to Ti in a few strides, spinning her around and holding her by the elbows. “I’m on the fucking edge of my control right now. If you stop acting like a spoiled brat for two fucking seconds, I could explain to you why—”

“Why you’ve been out for two fucking weeks but haven’t bothered to contact me? To come for me?” Ti interrupted. Her brows narrowed, the lines of her forehead marring her perfect pale skin. I paused, not realizing she’d known about my release being secluded out in the sticks. “Deputy Douchebag tell you that?” I asked. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t going to tell her about it. I’d come to her as soon as I could.

And now that I was finally with her, I wanted to choke her.

While my cock was inside of her.

“It’s okay, Bear. You aren’t under any obligation to me. You don’t have to protect me anymore. I’m fine on my own. If you don’t want me then…” She struggled against me, but there was no fucking way I was letting her go as her anger turned to sadness. Her voice cracked. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“You think I don’t fucking want you?” I asked. For a smart chick, she could be dumb as shit.

She nodded. “Why else would you—” I cut her off and although I knew she was upset, for some reason that only enraged me more.

“I don’t know, Ti. Maybe because I’m about to go to war with my old man and I had to meet with some of my old brothers who want to fight on my fucking side. Maybe because I think the key to winning the war might be my dead fucking mother who by the way showed up to visit me in County. Maybe because it wouldn’t look good if the first thing I did when I got released was go and see my girl whose parents I confessed to murdering so I thought a week or two to let that shit blow over was the best course of action. Maybe I felt like keeping you out from behind bars and in my sight where I could protect you was a little more fucking important then my raging undying and motherfucking overwhelming need to be with you!” I yelled. I seriously considered shaking some sense into my girl. Ti bit the side of her thumb.

“You don’t think it was fucking painful for me in there? Not to hear from you? Not to see you? I almost caved and called you a million times, but when I thought about what harm that could cause you…I couldn’t,” I finished, searching her face waiting for some sort of reaction.

She twisted her mouth the way she does when she’s thinking. The redness in her cheeks faded to pink. Her tensed muscles relaxed under my grip. “Well, when you put it that way,” she mumbled, looking off into the grove and then up at me. “Your mother really visited you in jail?”

I nodded. “Shot by my old man and tossed into the bushes on the side of the road, and she shows up twenty-five years later to say good-bye to me.” I laughed, because the entire thing was fucking absurd.

“Where’s she been all this time? And why find you now?” Ti asked. They were the very same questions I’d asked when she’d showed up.

I shrugged and told Ti how my mom thought that Chop somehow kept her captive, the idea that she’d been drugged all this time, and how Sadie said she wasn’t clear on any of the details.

“She’s why you have to leave again?” Ti asked, leaning into me instead of away from me like she had been. My cock jumped.

“Yeah, if she was important enough to my old man to keep locked up all that time, having her in my pocket wouldn’t be a bad thing. We might be able to use her to get to Chop and end all this.”

“We?” Ti asked.

“We,” I confirmed, and then I filled her in on the conversation I’d had with the brothers in the yard.

Ti smiled. “You have a club again,” she said, beaming up at me. Her reaction took me off guard. She seemed happy that I might find my way back into club life, when I thought it would be the last fucking thing she’d ever want.

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t go that far. I can’t. I don’t trust them anymore,” I admitted. “I’m not trying to run a mutiny. I’m still not a Bastard.” I paused, searching my brain for the right way to explain what I was trying to do. “This is more like banding together for the sake of revenge.” I told Ti the story of what happened to the BBBs and she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.