Shattered Grace (Rough Jesters MC Book 9) Read online

  When she freed my cock, I groaned against her shoulder, her nimble hand stroking me lightly. Whatever she was seeking, I wasn’t sure I could give it to her without losing a piece of myself.

  But fucking her? I could do that. I craved it.

  Jill stood and divested herself of her own jeans, giving me one long look at her body before she was sheathing herself on me, causing us both to groan. I grabbed her hips and held her in place, wanting to lock in the moment and not hurry it.

  I never wanted to hurry with Jill.

  She had no idea what she did to me.

  When she leaned in for a kiss, I wrapped a hand around the back of her head and devoured her mouth, giving it just as she was about to. This was no tender moment, but two people who needed each other. My other hand slid down between us, finding her hot, swollen clit pulsating with need. Jill gasped in my mouth, but I didn’t let up, stroking her as I felt her getting wetter around my cock.

  Hell yeah, this was how it was supposed to be.

  And I knew I could make it even better for both of us.

  ***

  Afterward, we lay in my bed, our bodies cooling in the air-conditioned room. I held Jill close, one hand right below her breast, feeling her heart hammer against her rib cage.

  Hell, I couldn’t breathe, my eyelids heavy now that the edge was eased somewhat.

  “You know I didn’t do what they are saying about me.”

  I froze, her soft words catching me off guard. Was this her breaking down her barriers to me? “You don’t have to tell me.”

  She chuckled. “We’ve slept together three times. Isn’t there some rule about sharing our deepest, darkest secrets?”

  I smiled as I pulled her tighter against me, pressing my lips to her hair. “Are we keeping count now? I could start drawing marks on the wall like a prisoner if you want.”

  She didn’t laugh and I swallowed. “I’m serious, Jill. You don’t have to tell me shit.” I already knew all I needed to know and even if she was guilty, it wasn’t gonna change the way I felt about her.

  “He told me I was going to be a star,” she said after a moment, her voice barely above a whisper. “He praised my writing and said it was as good as any writer out there. He said I was going to blow them away and take them by the storm.”

  I hated the fucker. I could hear the pain laced in her voice and it made me want to hunt him down, to put him through pain unlike anything he had ever experienced before. I knew torture and for her, I would do it.

  “He preyed on me,” Jill continued. “I know that now, and I hate admitting to anyone that I was weak enough to fall for it. I thought he really cared about me not only as a person but as someone he could love.”

  Her voice broke and I swore, flipping her over to where she was looking at me. Her eyes were filled with tears and I felt helpless about what to say or how to make this better. “What he did to you, it’s not because you are weak,” I forced out, my anger barely controlled. “It’s because he is a fucking asshole and you are a good person for trusting in him.”

  She let out a choked laugh, wiping at her eyes. “I’m not a good person, Keith. I destroy people with my words and have never thought about what I put them through. I sleep well at night, never once questioning my actions.”

  “That doesn’t make you a bad person.”

  Her eyes widened just a fraction. “Then what does it make me?”

  Hell, I didn’t know how to answer that question. She was right, but every fucking person in the Rough Jesters would have the same answer that she had just given me. We destroyed people, even if they were enemies to us. Bad fuckers had families too. “No different than me,” I finally said, rubbing a thumb over her cheek. “None of us are perfect, Jill.”

  She shuddered under my touch. “I was so angry at him, so hurt that he had done me that way. I had worked my ass off on that project, believing every word he told me about how I would get what was coming to me in the end.” Jill let out a small chuckle. “I guess I did.”

  I would kill the fucker. Someday, somehow, I was going to put my hands around his fucking throat and squeeze the life out of him, letting my ugly mug be the last face he ever saw.

  Jill drew in a breath, her eyes on mine. “Will you be honest with me, Keith?”

  I swallowed. “I will do my damndest to try and be.”

  She seemed to accept my answer, looking away. “Are you using me?”

  Hell, that was a loaded question in itself. Weren’t we using each other? She wanted a story that would give her the life she had always dreamed of and I was in charge of making sure she didn’t get all of it. I was the only thing standing between her future and that of the club.

  I decided to answer her honestly. “Yeah, Jill, part of me is using you.” It was the good parts of me that weren’t, like the man that was lying in this bed with her right now, listening to her pour her heart out and wanting to take away the pain in her voice.

  That man wasn’t.

  Jill sighed, meeting my gaze. “That’s the answer I was looking for. Thank you for being honest.”

  “But,” I continued, pulling her flush with me. “Anything we do in this fucking apartment, in this bed, is not part of that. I hope you know that.” I wasn’t sure what the hell would happen once this was all over with, but one thing was for sure; I wasn’t about to let her think that this had been part of the plan all along.

  Jill reached up and cupped my cheek with her hand. “You’re hiding things from me.”

  “Hell yeah, I am,” I answered roughly. “I can’t tell you everything.” It wasn’t time. “This shit is dangerous, Jill, and it could get you killed.”

  She dropped her hand, tucking it at my waist instead. “Can’t you at least tell me what I am in for?”

  I pressed a kiss to her temple. “No, I can’t, but you will learn in due time, Jill. I promise you, when the time comes, I will tell you everything.” If that day came and I wasn’t in prison.

  Her hand tightened on my waist. “You don’t trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” I argued. “It’s just not my place to tell you yet.” I had been given orders, orders I fully intended on abiding by.

  Jill curled up next to me. “All right. I trust you.”

  I tangled my hand in her hair, my jaw clenched as she drifted off to sleep against my chest. I didn’t like the way this made me feel, that she trusted me enough to make sure we both came out on top.

  It wasn’t gonna happen. Somewhere along the line we were gonna be at odds with each other and I wasn’t so sure that I could get us out without Jill getting hurt.

  Or me.

  “Shit,” I muttered, feeling her shift in my arms. When had this become such a fucking mess? I should have never slept with Jill, never put my hand on her, because now my fucking heart was tied up in this shit.

  I had feelings for Jill, real feelings. Now I wanted to protect her from what was likely to happen. I couldn’t protect her if the club decided not to give her any more clues. She would fucking hate me for it but my loyalty was to the club first.

  Surely Jill could understand that. If she couldn’t, then this was just a fuck and nothing else.

  Chapter 17

  Kris

  I threw back the covers and climbed off the bed, wincing as I stood. The cramp in my foot was unbearable, but that was the least of my concerns at the moment.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I looked over at Rex, rubbing my stomach idly and hiding my true nature from my husband. “I’m okay. I just have to pee.”

  His gaze narrowed and he was already throwing the covers back. “You’re lying to me.”

  What I really wanted to do was throw myself at him, though I knew he would yell at me for doing so. My hormones were so out of wack with this pregnancy, but seeing the sleepy look on his ruggedly handsome face, the way his hair was tousled from sleep, made me want to fuck him until we were both sated.

  Problem was, Rex refused to touch me. After my scar
e a few weeks ago, he was treating me like I was made of glass and I hated it. I was stronger than he thought me to be and just because I was carrying our kid didn’t mean that I couldn’t continue to be me. “I’m fine,” I said as another wave of dizziness fell over me. “Go back to sleep. You’ve only been there a few hours.” He had come in around three in the morning, climbed into bed and pulled me close, promptly falling asleep as I curled around his warm body.

  I loved him, everything about him, but the truth was, I was lying to my husband.

  Before he could question me further, I walked into the bathroom, leaving the door cracked just a little so that he wouldn’t freak out and try to break down the door. I felt like shit. It wasn’t the nausea. That had passed with the first trimester.

  Now I was constantly dizzy and though I hadn’t told a soul, save my doctor, I was spotting every once in a while. I didn’t want Rex to freak out. He had enough to worry about with the club and the good ol’ US government bearing down on us. What if they threw us in jail? I didn’t want to have this kid in prison, for it never to see its father or its mother and be raised in a house of love.

  That was what we had. A house of love.

  And Rex. The nervous energy melted into some great moments between us, moments that only solidified the fact that I knew he was going to be a great father. It was the way he gazed at my stomach, watching our child roll from one side to another. It was the way he pressed a kiss on it every morning before he left, whispering words that only our child could hear.

  I loved the hell out of him, so much that I couldn’t imagine life without him, which was why this whole issue with the government plus the cartel really worried me.

  I wasn’t about to say we didn’t deserve this. We knew the dangers of what we were doing, what the repercussions could be, but now that I was pregnant, the club wasn’t my first priority.

  This child was. I had to ensure that both its mom and dad watched it grow up, that we were both there for all the firsts.

  If that was the case, then Rex and I both would be staring at the clubs and our involvement in the future. I could walk away. Hell, my own club was in shambles anyway.

  I just wasn’t so sure he could. The club was his baby, everything to him. I knew he loved me, but sometimes love wasn’t enough.

  Clenching the vanity, I fought past another dizzy spell, the pain in my head increasing. I knew what was causing my symptoms and it scared the hell out of me. Preeclampsia my doctor had called it. I hadn’t told Rex, but I was under strict instructions not to be stressed out.

  Yeah, right. That wasn’t going to happen and though I was trying to reduce my stress and keep my blood pressure down, it wasn’t helping.

  A beach with my husband, with nothing to worry about except whether we were getting sunburned or not, was the only way that I wasn’t going to have any stress. We both deserved a vacation.

  But that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon, especially if we couldn’t get this mess behind us and move on with our lives. I worried about all our friends, about the relationships they had built and the children some of them had.

  They trusted us to keep them safe and I was worried that was going to be one of the promises I couldn’t keep to them. We weren’t the only ones that had a lot to lose.

  Spots appeared before my eyes and I swore under my breath. This was the worst of the attacks I had been experiencing recently. God, we couldn’t go through this right now! The club needed Rex and I needed for him not to worry about me.

  But as the darkness started to close in, I screamed for his name anyway.

  Chapter 18

  Rex

  She was taking years off my life.

  I sat beside Kris’ bedside, my hand tightly on hers like she was going to disappear at any moment. The way she had screamed my name; I never wanted to hear that from her lips again. I had made it just in time to catch her as she fainted, the next minutes a blur as I called 911, worried the entire fucking time about not only the baby, but my wife.

  I couldn’t live without her, but man, I was fucking pissed at her as well. The doctor had told me about their conversation, the one that she had kept from me, and he said how serious it was to her life and the life of the baby she carried.

  Kris had known the dangers but hadn’t told her own husband. I knew she probably didn’t because I would worry, but I worried regardless.

  Every single fucking day.

  Didn’t she know how much I loved her? Didn’t she know that my life was meaningless without her in it? How long had we fought to be together?

  I didn’t want that taken away from me. I would give up the damn club, and everything I fucking owned to have her happy and healthy.

  Kris stirred and I swallowed the irritation that I felt about her lying to me. She and I were gonna have a talk about that. When she opened her eyes, I gave her a faint smile, though I knew the hardness was still showing in my eyes. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty.”

  She immediately reached down to touch her belly. “The baby—”

  “Is fine,” I finished for her, clearing my throat. “No harm. I caught you when you fainted.”

  The relief was apparent on her lovely face. “So you know.”

  “I know you have been fucking lying to me,” I said in a deadly calm voice, squeezing her hand. “Dammit, Kris, I can’t lose you.”

  Her tired eyes focused on mine and I saw the circles of exhaustion under them. After this was all said and done, she and I were gonna take a fucking vacation, somewhere warm where I would worship her body until she understood how much I loved her. “I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper. “I don’t like feeling helpless.”

  I laughed harshly. “Helpless? Woman, you are carrying my child. There’s nothing helpless about you, but I can’t fucking argue with you about it if you are dead.” The very thought of seeing her in a casket froze my blood in my veins. I never wanted to be in that position. They would have to take me out as well.

  A tear escaped her eye and I smothered a curse, wiping it away gently. “Please,” I begged her. “Please, Kris. You and this kid mean everything to me. Promise me you won’t try to hide this from me. The minute you have any symptoms like this again, you are gonna tell me.”

  “I promise,” she sniffed. “Can I get out of here now? I just want to go home and spend the rest of the afternoon in your arms.”

  The knot loosened in my chest as I stood. “That sounds like a damn fine idea to me.” I would keep her protected, keep her safe, and if the time came for me to give my life for hers, I would do so in a hot minute. She had done so much for me, had come back into my life when I needed her the most and taken a bullet for me.

  It was the least I could do to take one for her, though the bullet I was worried about wasn’t gonna kill me instantly.

  It was gonna kill me slowly, separating me from the family I had grown to love and from those I couldn’t live without.

  Chapter 19

  Jill

  Disturbing news this evening being reported by multiple news sources. A lone gunman burst into a Mexican hospital, injuring a security guard before he was shot dead by a visiting police officer. Had the officer not been present, we would be reporting mass casualties.

  I sighed as I watched the two news reporters continue to discuss the horrible news, my eyes trained on the front page of the New York Times that they were displaying.

  It wasn’t hard for me to realize that Julian had written the article, not with his damn smiling face under the headline.

  While it was a near tragedy averted, I hated the fact that he was getting national attention. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that he had gotten someone to write it for him as well.

  He probably had.

  Flipping off the TV, I threw the remote on the bed.

  A bed I hadn’t slept in quite some time. No, I had been spending most of my time at Keith’s place, in his arms, and watching him take little pieces of my heart.

  The problem
was, I wasn’t getting any new information to help my cause. Sure, I was enjoying myself with Keith, but I had come to Castillo for a reason and that reason was horribly failing. I could have easily found out about the gunman at the hospital, writing up a draft online before Julian had even taken his morning coffee.

  Instead I had been rolling around in Keith’s bed, arching against his tongue on my skin.

  Sinking on the bed, I put my head in my hands. I hated being a failure. I wasn’t the type of person to be in the position I was in. I wanted to win all the time. Julian had taken the fight out of me, my competitiveness shut down and pushed in a corner.