Priest: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Viking’s Rampage MC: Tucson Chapter Book 2)

Inever knew what a sly dick Hush could be. When he said he had a friend who could help us with Caitlyn, I should have realized what he was doing. I would’ve if I’d known Jenny was back in Tucson. She hadn’t told me. Not that it was surprising since I’d cut ties with her about six months ago. She wasn’t obligated to tell me anything about her life, yet I was still pissed.

Her skin was warm and soft and I had to fight the urge to crush her against me and kiss her. The need building up within me was making me extra jittery and angry about the situation, something I became aware of as she struggled in my hold.

“I can walk on my own, Priest. There’s no need to drag me back to your cave like a Neanderthal.”

Pausing, I glanced back at her. She was practically having to run to keep up. She was only about five-six and I had a full foot on her. She was trotting along behind me, trying to keep pace with my longer legs.

“Thank you,” she said in a clipped tone as I slowed down.

A grin formed on my face. I loved her fiery nature. We’d only met a little over a year ago, but this woman had burrowed her way beneath my skin. I’d been ready to consider making her my old lady, even though she lived in Texas at the time. That had come to a screeching halt, though, and I’d ended things with her. I deserved the angry look she was flashing at me.

“Come on, Jenny,” I muttered and took her hand instead, slowing my pace a bit more. She was always a ball of energy, but that didn’t mean she had a chance of keeping up with my ground-eating stride. She followed me upstairs, not pulling her hand from mine, and let me lead her into my apartment.

We all lived on the compound. Everyone preferred it that way so we could all be close by when needed. The single guys, without families, had one bedroom, dorm style rooms. The rest of us had these apartments. All of the officers had apartments as well—except Hush who’d given up his when he left. Lockout already had a few of the prospects cleaning out his old one and he’d be moving in soon.

I shut the door then turned to find Jenny’s chocolate colored eyes watching me closely. The first day I’d seen her, those eyes had drawn me in from across a crowd. Her hair had been loose and wild and I’d longed to run my fingers through it. Her hair suited her small heart-shaped face and wild, fiery temper. Something I learned later after I’d started getting to know her. Now she was a foot away from me and those eyes were disarming me again. That wild hair was tamed into a ponytail and something inside of me was screaming at me to let it loose. To give it that wild ‘just fucked’ look.

Despite being a private person, I’d almost called her more times than I could count to explain my last text. But to do that would undo the whole point of sending the message. Seeing her standing before me, now that things had settled down a bit for me, made me hopeful. Maybe we could pick back up where we left off.

The wary look on her face and the hurt lurking there in her gaze were telling. She wasn’t going to make this easy. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to give Hush a hug of gratitude from one brother to another, or punch him in his fucking face. Probably the latter. The asshole should have told me that she was the friend he was calling, and that she was here so that I could go talk to her instead of ambushing both of us this way.

“Look, Jenny. I’m sorry for the way I left things between us.”

“It’s fine.”

Every man on earth knew what that meant. Shit was not fine. It was anything but fine and the hurt-filled expression on her face deepened. It tugged at my heart and I hated that I’d put it there. I’d planned to tell her what was going on. She would’ve understood, but I’d been sworn to secrecy. It was stupid, and juvenile, but my ex-wife had pleaded with me to keep her secret.

We may have divorced years ago, but it’d been amicable—eventually—and Wendy was a good woman, so I hadn’t explained. I’d just let Jenny go because, at the time, I was being pulled in too many directions and she was the only thing I didn’t have a concrete commitment to. Was it a dick move? Absolutely. Did I regret it now? Fuck yes.

The awkward silence spread between us. “What brought you back to Tucson?” It wasn’t what I should be asking. I should be telling her why I’d cut things off—Wendy’s secret be damned—but she just seemed so damn uncomfortable and I hated that I was the cause of it.

Tears welled in Jenny’s eyes and panic had me reaching for her. She stepped back and shook her head, rubbing the back of her hand over her eyes. She refused to look at me.

I felt like a pile of dog shit. This was not going the way I’d planned. If the whole Silverbells mystery hadn’t popped up a few weeks ago, I would have been on my way back to Texas, to talk to Jenny and make things right. It’d always been my intention to get her back. Not that I’d had her in the first place, but I wanted to change that.

“What-”

“Sorry,” she said softly. “I moved back a week ago because my grams died.”

“Shit.” I scraped a hand over the rough stubble of my short hair. Keeping it neat and trimmed down was a habit left over from my military days and I still preferred it. Long hair was too much work. Jenny had told me she’d moved to Texas in the first place to be with her ailing grandmother. My question had put more misery and sadness in her eyes and I wanted to kick myself. “I’m so sorry, Jenny.”

She didn’t fight it this time when I tugged her into my arms. She melted against me and I had to bite back the groan building inside my chest. Her body was full and felt perfect resting against me. Before everything had taken a turn for the worse I’d been biding my time before I could get between those rounded thighs. The need hadn’t gone anywhere. If anything it’d built during our time apart.

Right now it was about comforting her though. My hand smoothed over her as I rubbed it up and down her back. As soon as I’d pulled her in for the hug she’d started crying. Her face was pressed into my chest, her tears wetting my skin. It reminded me that I hadn’t put my shirt or cut back on after Hell and I had gone a few rounds of boxing in the gym.

I was sweaty and had inadvertently brought up a recent trauma for her, yet she was snuggling in closer to me. My heart sped up, urging me to protect her from everything in this world. The need to fix all her problems and claim her as mine was riding me hard. If I made one wrong move it’d put me right back in the damn dog house, however, so I held her close and let her sob it out.

After a few minutes she settled down and pulled away from me, wiping her face again while sniffling. I had to fight down the urge to yank her back against me. That wasn’t going to win me any points at the moment so I resisted it.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “It’s been hard…”

“I’m sure. I know how close you were with Gail.” I’d met her grandmother once and we’d hit it off right away. It’d surprised me that the spunky old lady hadn’t cared that her granddaughter was getting involved with a biker. If it had bothered her she’d never made it known.

“Why did you bring me up here, Priest?” she asked with a sigh. It wasn’t irritation, but an overflow of emotion that caused the question. The release of tears had probably felt good, but seeing me was clearly bringing those emotions to the breaking point.

I crossed my arms over my chest to keep from touching her. If I did, I would kiss her and that would likely just get me slapped. “I wanted to apologize to you.”

“I appreciate that. Don’t worry, I’m still willing to help with whatever I can for the club, despite what happened between us.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, Jenny.” We knew she was trustworthy, thanks to her involvement with the Texas Chapter. Even if she refused to help us, we wouldn’t hold it against her. “I just want to make sure you’re okay and explain what happened-”

A knock on the door interrupted me. A growl of frustration building in my chest, I turned and yanked the door open. I instantly swallowed my irritation because Caitlyn was standing there, silent as the day we’d first brought her home. We’d found her out in the Silverbell area where she and her mother had gone missing.

Seek had called us out to search after the cops had given up. Seek being in Search and Rescue, and having two badass canines meant we’d ended up finding the girl and her mother. Unfortunately, her mom was dead at the hands of some unknown group of men. We’d found them before they’d had a chance to harm Caitlyn, much to our relief.

“Hey, Sweetheart,” I said, squatting down so I wasn’t towering over the little girl.

She gave me a hesitant smile, her eyes moving past me to land on Jenny. I could feel the stunned silence behind me and cringed. I hadn’t even gotten to clear up what’d happened between us and now I had to explain this.

Caitlyn had latched onto me as soon as we’d found her. She’d somehow sensed that I could be trusted and would protect her. She refused to speak—a child therapist we’d taken her to said the trauma she’d endured was keeping her mute—but she obviously felt safe with me. I was damn good with kids and they seemed to sense that. They always gravitated my way. I didn’t mind at all. Caitlyn was a sweet girl who’d been dealt a shitty hand.

“Caitlyn, this is my friend Jenny.” I glanced over my shoulder at Jenny. “This is Caitlyn. The reason Hush asked you to come here today.” I stood and held out my hand for the girl. She took it, and I told Jenny, “We’ll drop her back off with Sylvia and I’ll take you to the meeting. Lockout and Riptide are probably getting impatient anyway.”

Irritation was boiling over inside of me because everything seemed to be conspiring against me. Instead of me going to Jenny and showing her that I wanted her back, she’d shown up first. Now she’d likely question whether I even wanted her or if it was just convenient. My ex had taught me a lot about women—and most of it not in a good way—so if Jenny was anything like Wendy my assessment would be spot on. There wasn’t much I could do about it now. I’d used up all the time I had and I wasn’t willing to piss off Lockout by making him wait longer than I already had.

“It’s nice to meet you, Caitlyn,” Jenny told her with a friendly smile.

Caitlyn gave her a shy smile as we walked toward a room we kept upstairs for the kids to play in. Sylvia opened the door just as we approached and the worry melted off her face.

“Sorry, Priest. I didn’t even see her slip out.”

“That’s alright, Syl. Appreciate you watching her while we have this meeting.” I introduced Sylvia and Jenny then let the sweet butt take the girl back inside the room. Caitlyn paused in the doorway, looking back at me. “Don’t worry, Kid. I’ll come find you as soon as this meeting is over. Deal?”

She nodded solemnly and followed Sylvia inside. As soon as the door shut Jenny launched into a tirade of questions.

Chuckling, I held up my hands to ward off the assault. “It’ll be better to answer everything downstairs. Come on.” I waited until we hit the stairs before telling her, “I didn’t get a chance to finish our talk. I plan on doing that.”

She shot me a challenging look, but didn’t respond. I was just glad the sadness had departed long enough for her curiosity to get the better of her. Anything to get that look out of her eyes.