Page 95 of Girth (Marked Skulls MC 1)
“She looks happy, doesn’t she?” I said as we stood at her bedroom door, watching her breathe peacefully. Nico wrapped an arm around me and kissed me.
“Yes, she does. She’s our happy little princess,” he declared.
Holding hands we walked back to the living room. We’d tried to clear up the traces of the party but there was still a lot to do. The next day being a Sunday, we decided to leave it till then.
Nico poured us wine into two glasses and we walked out to the back garden. Porch chairs were set up under an umbrella and the solar powered fairy lights had come on in the garden.
It was a beautiful summer’s day and the sky looked a perfect shade of purplish-orange while the sun set. Nico and I sat together, drinking our wine and talking.
We still couldn’t get over how happy Avery looked and how much of a success the party had been. We’d come a long way from that night in Seattle when we’d made our escape in the wee hours of the morning.
Now, Nico’s construction business had successfully kicked off and he had several lucrative projects in hand. We’d saved enough money to buy ourselves a beautiful villa in a fancy suburb in Rome. Avery had many friends and so did I.
I even spoke Italian now…which meant that the city didn’t seem so strange to me anymore.
“I think it’s time that Avery saw Seattle,” Nico said, when there was a lull in the conversation. My eyes perked up when I heard that and I looked at him with excitement. We’d been in Rome for more than two years now and hadn’t returned to America once.
“I promised you Christmas and it’s Christmas when we’ll go for a visit,” Nico declared. I squealed and threw my arms around his neck while he laughed.
“Christmas? Oh my God! My parents will be so happy to hear that! Avery will love Seattle in Christmas!” I couldn’t stop gushing with joy. It wasn’t until now that I realized how much I actually missed our old hometown. Even though Rome was home now and we were perfectly happy here.
“Yes, I know. I’ve arranged it already. Just a few more months and we’ll be flying into Seattle,” Nico said and he kissed me.
What started off as an innocent, excited kiss turned passionate. I leaned over him, making my chair nearly topple as I kissed him. Nico laughed and pulled me on to his lap. I was straddling him now as I kissed him. My tongue sliding in and out of his delicious mouth. His hands were on my waist and then traveled down to my butt.
“We’ve never done it out here,” he murmured in my ear. His voice was drowsy and deep. I bit down on my lip.
“We have neighbors!” I scolded him but he nibbled my earlobe in response.
His kisses traveled down my chin, my neck…till finally he was nibbling on my breasts through the material of my blouse. I weaved my fingers in his hair, swaying backwards while he touched me.
“Kennedy…” he said my name and scooped me back straight again. I stared at him with desire dripping from every pore of my skin. I was ready to strip right here, right in the garden…I didn’t care about the damn neighbors!
“Nico!” I exclaimed, alarmed that he was stopping now.
“I know Avery is happy, but are you happy here, beautiful?” he asked and stroked my hair.
I sighed and smiled, before I nodded my head.
I held his gaze strongly. I knew he still blamed himself for everything that happened. For us leaving Seattle. For how drastically my life had changed.
“I am very happy here, Nico. This is our life, our home…I mean, look at it!” I replied and I tracked the cozy beauty of our back garden. “I wouldn’t even dream of a home like this in Seattle. Besides, we get to go to America now. Don’t blame yourself anymore, Nico,” I told him and he kissed me again.
He caught my hand and gently tickled my arm. I could sense there was something on his mind.
“Nico…what is it?” I asked him and he fixed his deep gray eyes on me again.
“I was thinking that now since we’re settled here. And we’re married…maybe we could try for another baby?” he asked.
My heart was racing in my chest. It was like he’d read my mind! I’d been thinking about another child for some time now. The more Avery grew up, the more I wished that she had a sibling.
“Yes!” I exclaimed and we hugged.
Nico stood up from the chair, lifting me up along with him. He was carrying me into the house, to our bedroom. I kissed him while he did. I was happy…I was in love. I had a baby with the man who was always meant to be mine. Even back in high school I’d known that Nico Rossi had the potential to change my life, and now he had.
He shut the door behind us and dropped me on our king-sized bed. I laughed as he joined me on it.
“I can’t wait to watch our family grow,” he said before he kissed me again.
Hawk (The Road Rebels MC #1)
by Savannah Rylan
Chapter 1
Hawk
“I’m so sorry, Sydney.”
“No… Hawk. It can’t be him. Please tell me it’s not him.”
That night would forever sit in my memory as the night my entire life changed. The infamous shootout between The Devil Saints and The Road Rebels not only left multiple people dead but made the headlines and forced both clubs to go under the radar. I was in my twenties when I was a prospect for The Road Rebels. My father, Joe, was the Vice President of the motorcycle club. He was highly revered. A real chest puffer. He knocked up my mom at some motorcycle celebration at the beach on the West Coast, and she showed up at his doorstep nine months later with me.
“Dad! No! Stop!”
The gunshots called out like raging lightning strikes. They tore through the air, whizzing by our heads as motorcycles came rumbling down the road. The Devil Saints had been looking to stir up trouble with us ever since our treasurer had been found hooking up with The Devil Saint’s President’s wife.
John had been an idiot. Why the fuck couldn’t he have just kept it in his pants? The Devil Saints had always been looking for trouble. Their club was conceived as a split faction from another major club out in the Grand Canyon valley, and they brought nothing but heartache and sorrow wherever they went. Their motorcycles were loud, their jackets and paint jobs were bright, and they had no issues unloading gun magazines into anyone that looked at them in a way they didn’t approve.
Why the fuck did Sidney’s father, have to fuck the President’s wife?
Bullets were flying as I raced to my father. He was taking fire as he ducked behind a car. People were screaming, and magazines were being reloaded. My father pressed a gun into my hand so I could fend for myself, then he went back to what he knew best.
Shooting at those who shot at his loved ones.
“Hawk! Help!”
I took off running, hearing Sydney’s cries for help. My heart hammered in my chest. Was she hurt? Was she bleeding? Had she been taken? The Devil Saints were ruthless bastards and would stop at nothing to get the information they needed.
Even if it was pouring from the scared lips of a 20-year old girl.
I could still remember how petrified I was when I heard Sydney shriek like that. She had been raised by her father as well after her mother dumped her at the main lodge. That was common with women nowadays: take a wild vacation, have a tryst with a biker, then dump the child when they didn’t want to take responsibility for their actions. Sydney had grown up tough, and her father raised her to protect herself. She knew how to shoot a gun with accuracy by the age of twelve and could single-handedly take me down by the time we were teenagers.
I fell in love with her on the spot the moment she pinned me to the ground the very first time we sparred.
I slid towards Sydney as I saw her cradling someone’s head. Blood was leaking everywhere as it spurted onto her blue leather jacket. Tears were pouring down her face as I crawl
ed to her, shooting out to my side as someone attempted to charge us. I didn’t even look to see how long it took for the fucker to bleed out because I recognized who she was cradling the moment I saw his eyes.
John.
Her father had been shot.
Raking my hands through my Mohawk, I stared out the window. Never in my life had I ever seen Sydney cry that way. She was tough. Tougher than any girl should’ve been for her age. She and I had seen things no child should be privy to, and it was another reason why we got along so well. Our fathers raised us, schooled us, and strapped us to their motorcycles when we took trips. We grew up on the road. We understood the in’s and out’s of how each other was being raised, and people actually took bets on when we’d finally tie the knot.
But she left before we could.
“Please Daddy,” Sydney begged. “Just hang on.”
Blood was pouring from Joe’s mouth as I ripped my jacket off. I peeled my shirt off my back and pressed it to the gunshot wound in his chest, but his stomach was littered with iron. There wasn’t a chance in hell he would make it, and we both watched as the light slowly slipped from his eyes.
“Hawk,” John choked out.
“Yeah. Yeah, John. I’m right here. Just… conserve your energy.”
A bullet whizzed by my head, and I got up. I shot the man who was aiming a gun at us right between the eyes, then ducked back down before his body hit the ground. I reloaded my gun without even thinking as Sydney’s eyes widened at me, and for the first time, I saw it.
I saw Sydney fear me and what I had become.
“Take care… of my… my baby,” he said.
“That’s not gonna be necessary,” I said. “Because you’re gonna live to take care of her yourself.”
“Promise me, boy. Pro-... promise…”
“Daddy! No! Please!”
My hands shook as I sat at her father’s desk. Joe and John were always made fun of because they wanted legitimate desks in the main lodge where we all congregated. Hell, they had been made fun of when they suggested building this fucking building in the first place. ‘Motorcycle clubs don’t have lodges’ the members had complained. But, Joe and my father were dead set on it. They thought we needed a safe place to meet up. A haven for us all to gather at. A place to hold our family dinners and return to after trips we all took together. They kept teasing our fathers about wanting ‘office spaces’ and shit like that, but I knew why they wanted this place.
