Madeline Sheehan - Unbeautifully

And kissed her.

Fucking kissed her.

Kissed the fucking shit out of her.

Kissed her the way he’d been wanting to kiss her since he’d left her.

“Fuck,” he muttered in between kisses. Suffocating, nearly violent kisses that were growing harder, even more demanding.

Ah, god, he was touching her now and she felt just as good as he remembered, soft and smooth skin molded tightly over beautifully toned muscles.

“I want you,” she breathed out, her words barely audible over the pounding of his heart.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah, baby,” he rasped and slid his tongue back into her mouth.

He kissed her again, harder, his hand fisting tightly in her hair.

Her fingernails bit into his neck. “I love you,” she cried softly, breathlessly, but no less demanding. “And…I want you now…right now.”

• • •

“Oh god,” I breathed. This was actually happening. Ripper was home, I was in his room, on his bed, and he was nearly inside of me.

“Need you baby,” Ripper rasped, pushing my legs further apart. “Need you so fuckin’ bad.”

“Yes,” I whispered, arching my hips for him. “Please…”

“Fuckin’ love that,” he muttered. “Missed that.”

“Love…what,” I panted.

“You beggin’ me, baby,” he whispered, teasing me with his tip. “You beggin’ me for my cock,” he continued, pushing inside of me.

Oh god, it was so good, so all-consuming, filling me to the brim.

Which was why, when I burst into tears, I hadn’t a clue as to why.

They weren’t just any tears; they were an ugly, unstoppable, body-wracking waterfall of hiccupping, breathless sobs.

It was suddenly too much. Me. Him. Dorothy and Jase. ZZ. The club. Everyone and everything. Too much pain and sorrow, years of it, one tragedy after the other, too many bad memories of wasted moments spent yearning, wishing, and aching for something I’d thought I’d lost forever. Too much effort spent trying to fill the hole inside of me, a hole that had grown too big, too deep, and no matter how many new moments and memories I tried to shovel inside of it, it remained forever empty.

Now he was here. I was in his room, in his bed, and he was inside of me.

How had this happened? ZZ had been down on one knee in front of me, asking me to marry him and now…

It didn’t make any sense.

Did love make sense?

Oh god, it was all too much.

But like most things involving Ripper and me, they were always impulsive, messy, and confusing, giving new meaning to the term whirlwind romance.

Hasty, impetuous, we were like lightning and tornados in a flurry of both excitement and agitation, making rapid, rash decisions, feeling, only feeling, never thinking, all the while heading face-first into a churning whirlpool of turmoil and not caring who we hurt along the way.

It was too much.

I was aware of Ripper leaving my body, felt the warmth of him disappear, and I cried even harder, the loss of his touch stirring up more unwanted memories.

Then he was back, slipping his hands underneath me, picking me up and cradling me against his chest. I burrowed into him, gripping him as hard as I could, sobbing even harder, unaware of anything but the naked pain that I’d tried for so long to ignore, that had all at once broken through the surface and found it had nowhere to go.

“I can’t do this,” I cried. “I can’t…I can’t.”

“Shhh,” he whispered, stroking my tear-soaked hair. “You don’t have to do anything, baby, nothin’ at all.”

Scrubbing a hand across his face, exhausted from spending the night at the hospital, Deuce, followed by ZZ and Tap, stalked inside the clubhouse and found Blue, Mick, Adriana, Cox, and Kami sitting at the bar, sharing a bottle of whiskey.

He headed their way and slipped onto the stool beside Kami. Tap took the seat beside him and ZZ headed for the hallway, for Danny he guessed. He’d seen her Jeep out front when they’d pulled up.

“How’s Dorothy?” Kami asked. “And the baby?”

He sighed. “Baby’s fine, healthy little boy. And D just got out of surgery. They got the bullet out and now they’re keepin’ her in a fuckin’ coma, somethin’ to do with swellin’.”

“Jase?” Cox asked. “He okay?”

No. Jase was a fucking wreck. Between Dorothy getting shot, almost losing his newborn son, Chrissy getting hauled off to jail and the club being questioned by the police, Jase was definitely not okay. Nobody was. Dorothy, Deuce considered one of his boys; she’d sure as fuck been around long enough, and Chrissy was Jase’s old lady, which meant she too was family.

Nothing about this was okay.

Christ, he was fucking exhausted.

“He’ll manage,” he said.

The small group fell silent. Nobody needed to speak, everyone already knew what the other was thinking.

“Did anyone call Tegen?” Adriana whispered tearfully. “To tell her…that…th—” She broke off and covered her mouth with her hands. Mick pulled her barstool closer to him and folded his arms around her.

“Far as I know, Cage called her last night,” Deuce said. “Girl’s probably on her way here as we speak.”

Adriana nodded jerkily.

Speaking of Tegen…

“Where are my kids?” he asked no one in particular, feeling a sudden overwhelming need to see each of their faces. “And Eva? Is she home?”

At first it looked like no one was going to answer him.

Finally, Kami said quietly, “Eva’s home. With Ivy.”

“Cage?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the odd expressions being exchanged around the bar.

“Sleepin’,” Cox said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “He got in about an hour before you.”

“Okay,” Deuce said slowly, carefully studying the somber faces around him. Something wasn’t right and it had nothing to do with Dorothy and Jase.

“Yo,” ZZ called out, walking from the hallway into the main room. “Anyone seen Danny? I can’t find her anywhere.”

Yeah, something sure as fuck wasn’t right.

Deuce swiveled around on his stool. “What the fuck you mean ‘anyone seen Danny?’ Her Jeep’s out front, you’re her man, so I’m thinkin’ that means you should know where the fuck she is.”

ZZ put his palms up. “Prez, chill, I just got back too, okay? And she ain’t in her room. Or mine.”

Feeling what he knew was unnecessary panic stemming from what had just happened to D, but also knowing you can never be too fucking careful when it came to your family, Deuce jumped off his stool and stalked off toward the hallway, yelling Danny’s name.

“Wait!” Kami yelled, running after him. She dodged past him and came skidding to a stop a few feet in front of him. “I’ll call her,” she said breathlessly, holding up her cell phone.

He stared at her. What the fuck?

“What’s goin’ on?” he demanded, looking back toward the bar at Cox. “Where’s my fuckin’ daughter?”

Instead of answering him, Cox looked at his wife. “Kam,” he said quietly. “Don’t.”

Kami waved him off. “It’s ringing,” she said, her cell phone pressed to her ear.

Fuck this shit. Grabbing the cell phone from Kami, he put it up against his ear and continued down the hallway.

Three seconds later he heard Danny’s ringtone. A song by Lady Foo-Foo, or some such shit.

He stopped walking and turned to his right, staring in disbelief at the door in front of him.

“Shit,” Kami whispered from behind him.

“You’re the one who fuckin’ called her,” Cox muttered.

Deuce glanced over his shoulder and found all of them, Kami, Cox, Mick, Adriana, and ZZ standing there. Even Blue had left the bar to join them in the hallway. Which was pretty much unheard of. Blue didn’t leave the bar for much. He wasn’t even sure the old asshole even slept.

“What the fuck is goin’ on?” ZZ asked, grabbing the phone out of Deuce’s hand. The guy shoved the phone in Kami’s face. “Dial her again,” he demanded.

Looking nervous, Kami took her phone and glanced up at Cox.

Cox shook his head. “Fuckin’ do it,” he said. “Brother deserves to know.”

While the short exchange took place, Deuce had been frozen, in a state of shock. Danny was in Ripper’s room? What the motherfuck?

The minute Danny’s phone began ringing again, he snapped back to attention and watched as ZZ turned toward Ripper’s door, his expression quickly shifting from confused anger to outright shock.

And Deuce felt for him. He really did. As much as he hated Danny being with one of his boys, ZZ was a decent man who loved the fuck out of his daughter.

“What the fuck!” ZZ roared, lunging for Ripper’s door.

Deuce caught him, grabbed him by his neck, and slammed him into the opposite wall.

“Prez!” ZZ bellowed, trying to get free. “LET GO OF ME!”

“Why?” he asked calmly, feeling anything but. “What are you gonna do? Storm in there, guns ready? I know she’s your girl, but she was my girl way before your sorry ass, and I ain’t gonna let you do somethin’ stupid that could get her hurt.”

He turned to the peanut gallery. “I know you assholes know somethin’, so someone better start fuckin’ talkin’.”

“Sorry, Prez,” Mick said, stepping forward when no one else would. Curling his hand into a fist, his VP pounded on Ripper’s door.

“We don’t know much, just that Ripper and Danny got some deep-rooted shit between ’em.”

Deuce’s eyebrows shot up. They did?

ZZ, hearing this, struggled harder and he was forced to tighten his grip on his boy’s throat. “Reel it in,” he growled.

“Fuck you,” ZZ spat. “You reel it the fuck in, that ain’t your old lady in there with motherfuckin’ Ripper!”