Craving Absolution Read online

  “So, you’re old,” I called out to Lily, trying to rile her as I made my way to the island separating the kitchen from the dining room. “You have your medical marijuana card?”

  “Hell, no. I’m not that decrepit,” she replied, turning to face me.

  “Bummer.”

  “Said I didn’t have a card, didn’t say I didn’t have weed,” she told me with a small smirk.

  “Hell yeah, mama! Hook us up!”

  “Are you trying to corrupt my auntie?” Cody asked, startling me as he stepped in against my back and leaned his hands on the countertop on each side of me.

  “I think it may be the other way around.”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,” he mumbled into my neck, giving me a soft kiss there.

  “Lily? Farrah?” I heard Gram call from the front of the house.

  “In here, Rose!”

  God, those old ladies had a set of lungs on them.

  “Everything go okay?” Gram asked breathlessly as she shuffled into the kitchen.

  “Yep, no problems. What about you guys?” Cody replied as Gram walked around the island to give Lily a hug.

  “No problems,” Grease answered, setting down Gram’s bags in the kitchen doorway. “Didn’t see shit.”

  “Asa, this is my sister Lily. Lily, this is Callie’s man,” Gram said by way of introduction.

  “Damn, you sure ain’t small,” Lily blurted, looking Grease up and down . . . and then up again.

  “No, ma’am, I’m not.”

  “Callie being so small, you’re lucky your baby didn’t rip her in two,” Lily commented, making Grease’s face pale.

  “Shut your trap, Lily!” Gram admonished.

  “Well, shit! Look at him! The man’s huge!”

  Gram ignored Lily and turned to Grease. “Get that look off your face. Callie did just fine having Will, and I’m pretty sure you’ve seen that he didn’t rip her in two.”

  Grease’s face turned red at Gram’s words, and I had a hard time controlling my laughter. God, Gram was funny alone, but with those two old ladies together? I had a feeling I’d be peeing my pants in the near future.

  “Can’t stay long, little brother,” Grease told Cody seriously, immediately ruining the good mood I’d finally found. They shared a look and a head nod before Cody turned toward me.

  “Come on, Ladybug,” he called quietly, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “I’ll show you where your room is.”

  When Lily called out not to dirty the sheets, I couldn’t even laugh.

  It was almost time for him to leave me and I wasn’t ready. If it were up to us, he would have stayed, but we both knew he was needed at the club. If the families were ever going to be safe again, they had to take care of the threat against them.

  Chapter 23

  Farrah

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured Cody, running my hands over his shaved head as I straddled him on the bed in Lily’s guest room.

  “I hate leaving you, especially after all that shit at the club.”

  My breath shuddered as I remembered Vera’s story, but I shook my head as if it were nothing. “It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t news that Slider didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “I found you wrapped in your quilt, Ladybug. It wasn’t nothing,” he argued, pulling me closer.

  “I’m fine now, see?” I told him, leaning back so he could see the wide smile on my face. “I’ve got Gram and Lily to keep me occupied, and Lily’s shotgun to keep me safe. We’re good, baby.”

  “It still worries me.”

  “Hey, maybe by the time you come back, this’ll have grown out a little and I’ll have something to grab hold of,” I said, pinching my fingers together to try to pull his hair. “Why did you shave it?”

  He chuckled nervously, and my curiosity grew. “You said I looked like a douche bag.”

  “What? No, I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you said only douche bags had my haircut.” He laughed again. “When I left with Grease the first time to meet the guys, I shaved it all off. I didn’t want to look like a pussy.”

  “Aw, shit.” I groaned, but couldn’t keep my lips from curving up.

  “It was stupid.”

  “You should grow a real Mohawk this time,” I said with a kiss. “Let it grow, and when I see you, I’ll cut it for you.”

  “You’re gonna cut my hair?” he asked into my mouth.

  “If—when you come back, I will.”

  “I don’t think it’ll take long,” he said, raising both hands to run his fingers through my hair. “A week, maybe two. Then I’ll come get you.”

  “I’m trying really hard not to ask questions, because I know that’s how you guys roll. But I need you to tell me that everything is going to be okay,” I replied before leaning in to bite his chin gently.

  “It’ll be fine, I promise. Ladybug, if you keep doing that I’m going to . . . fuck.” He hissed as I ran my mouth down his throat and sucked on his Adam’s apple.

  “You have to be quiet,” he ordered, pulling me with him as he stood from the bed. He walked over and pulled my quilt from where it was lying on top of my suitcase, and spread it over the edge of the mattress.

  “I can be quiet.”

  “No, you can’t,” he murmured, spinning me to face the bed. “I’m going to fuck you fast and hard, and you’re gonna want to scream.”

  I felt myself growing slick as he unbuttoned my jeans and ripped them down my legs. My underwear went next, and as I stepped out of the clothes around my ankles, his fingers slid into me from behind.

  “Already fucking wet for me, goddamn,” he said quietly, reaching up with his other arm to push my torso down onto the bed. “Stay just like that. Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

  His voice was hoarse and his hands sure as he pulled his fingers out of me to push my shirt up to rest above my breasts. When he stood up, I glanced his way and saw him pointing his phone in my direction.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking your picture,” he answered with a wry smile as he put the phone on the nightstand and unbuttoned his jeans.

  “Great,” I mumbled, my face burning as I dropped my head to the bed.

  I heard him pushing down his jeans and rolling on a condom as I waited, and every little noise ratcheted up my impatience. I knew we didn’t have much time before Grease came looking for him, and I wanted to be able to touch him one last time before he left. A sense of foreboding had me instigating sex with him, even though I knew there were people just down the hall.

  Simply put, I was afraid. I was afraid that whatever he was going to do would take much longer than a week. I was afraid that someone would find us out there in the boonies, and we’d be sitting ducks. I was afraid that he’d go back to the club, and Slider’s problem with me would rub off.

  I was afraid that for one reason or another, he wasn’t going to come back for me.

  My muscles tightened in anticipation as he came up behind me, his jeans rubbing against the back of my thighs before I felt his hands run from my shoulders to my hips. I relaxed into the bed, arching my back when his nails dug into the cheeks of my ass and scraped down the back of my thighs.

  Cody groaned, pulling my cheeks apart as he bent his knees slightly and pushed inside me. “One day soon, I’m gonna have more pictures of you,” he said. “Kneeling on the floor with my cock in your mouth, laying on the bed with your legs wide, wet and ready for me . . .”

  He moved slowly, watching himself move in and out, and it drove me crazy. I wanted him to move. I wanted to feel his balls slapping against my clit and his hips pushing against my ass.

  “You’re not taking any more,” I replied snottily, gritting my teeth as I turned my head to look at him. He was holding my hips still as I tried to push back against him, and it was driving me insane. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

  He laughed quietly at my squirming and jerked me back hard as he thrust forward. “What type of girl is that, Lad
ybug?” he asked with a smirk. “You fucking love it. You love that I wanna see your wet pussy even when you aren’t around.”

  “Oh God.” I moaned, unable to argue. He was right, I loved it, and the picture he’d painted had me growing even wetter.

  “Quiet, Farrah,” he ordered, picking up the pace until he was moving in a smooth, fast rhythm. “I’m going to fuck you hard, and you’re going to be really, really quiet. Aren’t you, beautiful?”

  I nodded my head, dropping it to the bed again as my nipples rubbed against the stitching on my quilt. When one of his hands left my hips, I braced myself in anticipation, picturing what he was doing in my head. I knew what was coming, but I still yelped as I felt his saliva-covered thumb slip into my ass.

  “You’re going to be so fucking sore,” he rasped, turning his hand so his thumb stayed planted but his fingers surrounded where his cock slid in and out, rubbing my lips where they were stretched wide around him. “You’re going to be thinking about me for days after I leave. Every time you sit down, you’re gonna feel me here.”

  I couldn’t catch my breath as my orgasm built, and the hand on my hip slid forward between my pussy and the bed. I completely stopped breathing when his fingers hit my clit and the ones covering me from behind pinched my lips hard against his cock.

  Dear God.

  My eyesight grew fuzzy as my orgasm hit, the mixture of pleasure and pain making me writhe against him. I didn’t know if I was trying to get away or move closer, but it didn’t matter because Cody wasn’t letting me move. He slammed inside me in unmeasured strokes, cursing and praising me as he warned me to be quiet.

  By the time we were both spent and he’d pulled out of me, I wasn’t sure how I’d ever move again. I could feel my pussy throbbing in aftershocks and my body breaking out in goose bumps as he cleaned me up with tissues off the nightstand, and I didn’t even open my eyes to see where he stashed the used condom.

  A knock on the bedroom door had my eyes flying open. “Time to go, little brother,” Grease called through the door. “Tried to give you some time, but I just got a call from Slider.”

  “Be right out,” Cody replied.

  “Hand me my pants?” I asked quietly, sitting up. Our time was really over, no more procrastinating.

  “Call me if you need anything, okay?” he said, holding my jeans and underwear out together so I could step inside them. “Even if you think it’s nothing . . . call.”

  “I will,” I answered as he buttoned my jeans and wrapped his hands around my waist. He leaned in to rub his nose up the side of mine, the same way I’d comforted him weeks ago, and the gesture almost broke me.

  “I love you.”

  “Love you too, handsome.”

  I followed him into the entryway where the old ladies and Grease were waiting, but I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes when I got there. My mask was on, though I wasn’t sure who I thought I was hiding from. Every person around me except Lily had seen me sans mask, but I didn’t care. If I was going to say good-bye, knowing that bad shit was going to happen before anything was resolved, I needed my mask. I needed the comfort and poise it brought me when I was feeling anything but confident.

  I was afraid if I didn’t wear it, I’d beg him not to go or burst into tears, and neither of those behaviors were acceptable.

  Instead, I’d wave good-bye as if I didn’t want to chase after the car. Afterward I played cards with Gram and Lily as if my mind wasn’t an hour north with a man who had the ability to shatter me, and later, after the house was quiet and I was wrapped up tight in my quilt, I cried myself to sleep.

  Chapter 24

  Casper

  The ride to Eugene was silent. Sometimes I forgot how thoroughly entrenched Grease was in our family, until times like those when I knew his anxiety over leaving Gram and Farrah was as bad as mine. Neither of us liked the situation but there was nothing to say, no argument or excuse to make.

  We left them based on the belief that no one would find them or connect them to the Aces . . . and that was a pretty fucking huge leap of faith.

  When we got to the club, the sun had already set and things were quieting down. There were so many families inside, most of the brothers had taken to drinking outside at the picnic tables so they wouldn’t get bitched at by their wives, and were keeping things pretty calm.

  I dreaded seeing Slider, my blood boiling at the shit he’d put Farrah through, but I knew I couldn’t put it off. My loyalty had never been an issue; the club had taken care of my family in the past, more than I could ever repay. But for the first time, I didn’t want to be there. I was livid that I’d had to choose between the woman I loved and the club I’d thought would have my back. If anything happened to Farrah, I knew I’d burn the place to the ground and screw the consequences.

  “Casper!” Poet called the minute we’d stepped out of the car. He started toward us, Dragon following close behind, and I wanted so badly to fucking ignore him. I didn’t have time for his excuses and platitudes. His daughter wasn’t outside club grounds when there were people specifically targeting Aces families.

  “What’s up?” I asked coolly.

  Grease came up behind me and set his hand on my shoulder in warning, but I shrugged it off. I didn’t need his fucking warnings.

  “Talked to Vera,” Poet said as he reached me. “Got the story from her.”

  He shook his head and ran his hand over his beard before continuing. “She wants you to know that she’s working on Slider. Says in a coupla days she’ll have talked him down enough for Farrah to come back.”

  I scoffed. “You think she’ll ever fucking step foot on this property again? He called her a cunt. A club whore. He’s her father.”

  “Boyo, you weren’t there when Natasha took Farrah away. It was a fuckin’ mess. Slider was tearing apart the clubhouse every fuckin’ day, and Vera was locked up in her room, refusin’ to see anyone.” Poet sighed. “There ain’t a whole lot that can get to Slider, man’s as cool as they come, but the moment he knew where his daughter was, he was like a man possessed. Imagine not knowing where your child is for fuckin’ years and then findin’ her, but she ain’t nothin’ like you’d thought she’d be.”

  “She’s nothing like he’d thought she’d be?” I yelled, the veins in my neck throbbing. “I wonder how the fuck that happened?”

  “Calm down.”

  “This is—” I looked at the ground as I felt Grease’s hand on the back of my neck. “He’s her father and he failed her. Over and over again. He doesn’t like her? Who the fuck cares? So stay the fuck away from her! But he forced her out of the only place in the goddamn country that she was safe, all because his wife fucking blindsided Farrah and then got her feelings hurt. I hope to fucking God I never understand that shit.”

  “Enough!”

  I turned my head to find Slider, bleary-eyed and wrecked, standing just outside the doors of the club. “I need you, and that’s the only reason you’re still standing, you preachy little fuck. But one more word and I’ll fucking drop you.”

  Grease’s hand squeezed tighter on the back of my neck, keeping me silent, and I thought my head would explode as I tightened my jaw to keep my mouth closed.

  “We got business to take care of.” Slider cocked his head toward the back room and ordered, “Church,” then spun back around and disappeared through the door.

  We followed him in, anxious to hear the plans for fixing the fucking mess we were dealing with.

  “He’s a good man,” Poet told me quietly as he passed me. “He ain’t got no point of reference for this shit. Think about if it was your woman, crying like her life was ending.”

  I looked him straight in the eye and told him the only thing I could. “It was my woman, crying like her life was ending. But mine stopped breathing until she passed out because she couldn’t fucking deal. So I’ve got no sympathy for his.”

  He moved ahead, his gaze on the floor, and as soon as I knew we wouldn’t be overheard, I looked at Greas
e.

  “I’ll see this through until I know the women are safe. But after that, I’m out.”

  Chapter 25

  Farrah

  The days flew by surprisingly fast. I talked to Cody daily, getting updates on what was happening with the club, and before I knew it two weeks had passed. The club still wasn’t anywhere close to figuring their shit out, and I’d had to quit my job at the salon, which sucked. I really liked it there, but thankfully I wasn’t spending any money at Lily’s house, so I was okay financially at least until we got back to Eugene.

  It was idyllic in that little valley, and for the first time in years I felt fully relaxed. We spent our time outside on the back porch, drinking sun tea and playing cards, or out in Lily’s little garden that was surrounded by a fence to keep the local wildlife out.

  Speaking of wildlife, she had deer. Like actual freaking deer that came onto her property to eat her grass and lie in the sun. My entire life had been spent in the suburbs, so the first time I’d seen a doe and her two little babies, I’d stood there with my mouth open for God only knew how long until the sound of Gram and Lily laughing at me had broken me out of my stupor.

  I’d grown comfortable with Lily right away, which I really shouldn’t have been surprised about. She was so much like Gram, taking me in as if I belonged to her. My little personally chosen family had grown yet again, and it felt good. Really good.

  A few days into the second week, I’d hopped out of bed at the butt crack of dawn to try to catch sight of the deer family, and had spent the next few hours sitting on the back porch in my cutoff shorts and one of Lily’s old T-shirts. It wasn’t until I’d gone to the bathroom after lunch that I realized that I hadn’t done anything with my makeup or hair all day.

  It was the first time for as long as I could remember that my bare face and naturally loose hair in the mirror didn’t make me want to turn away in revulsion. I’d tanned a bit after all the time spent outdoors, and my hair had lightened in the sun.