Bottom Line_Nomad Bikers Page 9

  She puts her hand between our chests and pushes Avery back so she can stand in front of me. “I know the ugliest of ugly, Mitchell.”

  “Is that so?” I push for more, all while watching Avery, not her.

  He rolls his shoulders back before wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her back to his front. By the fierce look in his eyes, he found his person. The person he would lay on the ground and bleed out for. The person he would leave town and never look back for. I see it. I see myself in him right now.

  I want to know more about Meaghan and the man in front of me today.

  “You’re not the only tainted mess in life, Mitchell. You’re not the only one to chase death. You’re not the only one to love Avery,” she fires off at me delivering the blow that I both loathe and cherish. Still, I watch him.

  It kills me inside. The pain, the emotions, the loss—it’s got my head spinning.

  I want him to have this love with her. Yet, I can’t stop wanting him for myself, too. I’m some outsider watching the man I love be loved, adored, and cherished by someone else.

  The glutton for punishment I am looks Avery in the eye while telling her, “Tell me then, lover girl, what’s darkened your soul? Tell me how you love Avery more than me.” I push closer, sandwiching her tiny frame between the two of us as I stare Avery down. “Tell me it all so I can walk the fuck away without looking back.”

  Yes, please share with me how I have lost it all. Release me from the bond that holds me here.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ~Meaghan~

  T he testosterone in the room is overwhelming. The emotions are powerful as these two men surround me both full of love and hate.

  Avery holds me so tightly to him that I can feel his chest vibrate behind me as he speaks. “You owe him nothing, Meaghan. You don’t have to tell him a damn thing, except to get the fuck out.”

  Mitchell laughs sardonically. “Oh, Avery, I see you’ll protect her secrets while you share mine.” The hurt in his voice makes me want to erase his pain.

  I read the letter from Avery’s mom. She’s right, Mitchell loves Avery. He loves him in such a way it makes me fall in love with Mitchell. It’s crazy the way our lives our twisted together, but truthfully to know someone could give up everything to ensure the safety of the person they love, well is there any greater sacrifice?

  Tenderly, I reach up and cup Mitchell’s face in my hands, making him look at me. “I met Avery at the very bar you were assaulted in front of. He was standing on the corner, looking at the ground.” I blow out a breath. While I might have come to terms with my past, I’m still not proud of it. “I was shitfaced and in a dark place in my mind. I walked out onto the sidewalk. Pulling out the knife I keep for protection, I sliced my wrists right in front of him.”

  “Meaghan,” Avery says from behind me. The worry in his voice has me more determined to tell Mitchell everything. Therapy has helped and while Avery wants to protect me I find strength the more I face what happened to me.

  I keep my eyes trained on the wild man in front of me while drawing my strength from the one behind me. “I was a mess. It was the one-year anniversary of my uncle’s death. I came to Leed after he passed away for a fresh start. Then, here it was, the anniversary of the death of the most vile, disgusting man I knew. I should have gone out to celebrate, not mourn my tormentor.”

  His eyes search mine. Whatever he sees fires him up. “What’d the fucker do, Meaghan?”

  I swallow back my pain.

  “Mitchell, drop it,” Avery tells him.

  I continue to hold Mitchell’s head in my hands, not letting him look away from me. “I was his pet, Mitchell.”

  He raises an eyebrow in question.

  “My mother disappeared, leaving me with my grandparents. My grandfather was the first. He used to have me touch him; do things for as far back as I can remember. My grandmother died when I was around two. My aunt ended up coming to visit. I don’t know if she sensed something was wrong or if she really just wanted me. Either way, she asked my grandfather if she could raise me. He only consented when he had a heart attack a month later. I was nine.”

  “The old man’s dead?” Mitchell asks in a wild way that makes me know what he is already planning in his mind.

  “Yeah. I was twelve when he died.”

  Mitchell tries to look to Avery, but I squeeze his cheeks tighter, keeping his focus on me.

  “Was it painful?” he asks, surprising me.

  I blink trying to gage why he’s asking. “Yeah. Pneumonia. They say he drowned in his own fluids at home. It was five days before someone found him.”

  “Good,” Mitchell says, blowing out a breath. “The uncle fuck with you?”

  I nod and fight back the pain. To be forced to do something, to be taken against your will, it’s a crazy amount of emotions you cycle through. There is anger, resentment, sorrow, and then the mind-fuck you go into when you try to justify why you became a victim in the first place and suddenly you find yourself trying to make sense of someone else’s fucked up behaviors.

  “Meaghan,” Avery says, trying to pull me back, to which I stand firmly in place.

  “He can know. He should know,” I tell Avery, never taking my eyes off Mitchell. “My uncle called me his pet. He would pet me like a cat or a dog. My aunt never seemed to notice that he would call me over to sit beside him. She never paid attention to the way he always had his hands on me—”

  “How far he take shit?” Mitchell cuts me off.

  “All the way.” I feel the trembling building but Avery holds me and my body calms knowing he will always keep me safe.

  “And he’s dead, too?”

  I nod. “It messes with my head. You see, I hate him—my uncle. I despise him. But I also have these mixed up feelings. Because he worked to pay for the house I lived in, the clothes I wore, the food I ate. While he did things—bad things—he was also at every softball game I had. He paid for my college. Then he died. I was relieved and sad all at the same time. It still messes me up.”

  I shiver, thinking about how twisted it is that I somehow miss him.

  “Dr. Shasket said that is normal, Meaghan. When you have a connection to someone, even though they hurt you physically, your emotions still crave the good they gave you, even tied to the bad,” Avery reminds me what we learned in therapy.

  Since the night he watched me stand on the sidewalk and slit my wrists, Avery has been my center of gravity. He found me a support group that meets twice a month. He even drives me the hour each way. At first he sat in the chair beside me. Then in time, he shared his own story. As survivors we have bonded. As friends we have overcome. As lovers we have moved mountains in what effects us and we gather our strength in each other.

  “Therapy?” Mitchell asks, finally forcing his face from my hands to look at Avery.

  “Needed some help,” Avery calmly tells the man in front of me who seems ready to snap. “Meaghan and I found we had some things from our past in common. We started going to therapy together. It was easier together than alone. From there, things grew.”

  “Avery took me home that night. He could have called an ambulance, to which, I would have been committed. It would have made my head-trip worse. Instead, he took me into his open arms. He cleaned my self-inflicted wounds. He gave me a quiet, safe, and calm place to think.”

  Mitchell’s attention comes back to me.

  “He accepted the broken mess that was me.” I tell him and see the same feelings cross in his features.

  “How’d my story get shared with you?” Mitchell asks me with this tick in his jaw that clearly shows he’s at war with himself over something.

  “Avery told me how you gave him a safe, quiet, calm home. He told me how you knew what Butch did to him and you never turned away. On the darkest of my every day, Mitchell, the stories of what you gave to Avery reminded me I wasn’t alone, and I could get through it with Avery. And Mitchell, Avery got through it because of you. In time, the wa
y he spoke of you, the connection you two have, I found myself wishing for you as much as Avery does.”

  Mitchell half-laughs. “Woman, how fucked are you that you want two gay men in your life?”

  “I would hardly say the two of you are gay when you both clearly sleep with women, as well.”

  “Then what the fuck would you call it, fairy girl?”

  And that is where the peace washes over me. A stupid nickname he’s given me in an instant of meeting me and suddenly it’s like I have my own connection to Mitchell “Trapper” Gates.

  My connection, my gut reaction to Avery saved my life. Following those same feelings, with Avery’s arms wrapped around me from behind, I roll up on my toes and press my lips to Mitchell’s.

  Pulling away, I smile. “I call it a connection. I call it a chance at real. I call it the potential for unconditional love.”

  No matter all the ugly in my life, everything beautiful has been what I share and built with Avery. Through him, I have come to know Mitchell in a way that my heart longs to have him as much as Avery. In all the crazy, this is the calmest I’ve ever felt in my heart and with my body.

  It’s something I don’t expect anyone else to understand. It’s ours completely. And like life, I have made peace with it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ~Avery~

  I lean down and kiss her neck. Meaghan came into my life at the very place I thought I lost everything. That was the night my life turned around.

  Seeing the pain in her eyes, the desperate way she wanted to end it all, something inside me clicked. I could spend a lifetime waiting for Mitchell to come home and face me, or I could have a lifetime living.

  I knew loss.

  What I didn’t know was how to hold on.

  Meaghan gave me that.

  Every time I got hung up on myself and my problems, she would give me the soft look that reminded me of how much we both still had left to give. It wasn’t about what was taken from us that would define our lives, but rather how we moved on that foretold our future.

  “What the fuck do you want from me?” Mitchell asks me while looking between Meaghan and myself. “I told you, Avery, it wasn’t about you bein’ a man back then, and it still isn’t now. It’s just you.”

  “Why didn’t you come home, Mitchell?”

  He starts to step back, but Meaghan reaches out, snaking her arms around his waist and pulling him to us.

  “I was young, dumb and, honest to God if He’s real, I wanted to die.” With that, he pulls away harshly to pace the open space of our downstairs. “I’m a pussy-ass motherfucker who just wanted to die rather than explain to the world I was in love with a man. I am still in love with a man. A man who took me at my worst and made me my very fuckin’ best.”

  I release Meaghan and go to Mitchell, my heart swelling with every step that draws me to him. I have waited years to hear these words from his lips. The two of us are like pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. Attaching together we make the whole picture be seen, but apart, nothing can be complete.

  “I’m stronger now, Mitchell. I’m ready to tell the world. I love a man who loved me, the broken mess I was. That I love a woman who shows me every day the things I have to give to the world. I don’t give a fuck what anyone says, does, or the shit they wanna give us. I just want you to stop running from this shit between us because no one will ever have me the way you have me.”

  Mitchell looks up at me, his eyes blazing with fire.

  With need.

  With want.

  With desire. Lust.

  More than anything, with love.

  He reaches out to grip my face before pulling me to him. Our lips crash, our mouths open, our tongues tangle for dominance.

  Yes, Mitchell “Trapper” Gates, I’m not a boy anymore.

  I reach between us and cup his jean-covered cock in my hand, feeling it harden in my grasp. Knowing I get to him, I relax.

  He releases my head to slide his hands between our bodies, unbuttoning and unzipping my jeans, freeing my rock-hard cock. He strokes me.

  I shake off the thoughts of forbidden and remember who I’m with. This isn’t wrong. This is a man who took far more punishment than he should have in life … all for me.

  “Ain’t nobody hurt you like me,” Mitchell grinds out while still kissing me.

  “You here now? You home now, Mitchell?”

  He continues to pump me as I release his cock and slowly stroke his velvety shaft.

  When he pulls his head away from mine, I swear his eyes almost roll back.

  “I don’t know where I am.”

  I stop stroking him. “This is me, you, and Meaghan. I won’t be without her. You’re here, then you … are … here.” I stroke him as I accentuate my last few words. “Not playing games—too old for the shit. Not gonna wait around for you. What I got is good. What I want is more.”

  “Ain’t nobody loved me like you love me, Avery,” he tells me honestly, and I see the pain in his eyes from all the times he’s spent fighting what is between us.

  “No one ever will either, Mitchell.”

  Fuck, I fight my impending release as he continues to stroke me at a steady pace with a firm grip. A handjob has never felt so good.

  “Don’t know how to do this shit, Avery.”

  I laugh, taking his thick length back in my hand and rolling my wrist as I jack him off. “Neither do I, but we will figure it out.”

  Meaghan comes to join us, her small frame standing to the side of us. “Together, we figure it out together,” she says with a sultry smile before taking both our hands off each other and stroking our cocks together in her hands.

  I groan. Mitchell moans while looking me in the eyes. This—lust, love, anger, frustration—the emotions all create this need, fire, and desire for so much more.

  “Upstairs,” Meaghan whispers.

  I nod as Mitchell bites his bottom lip before gesturing for us to lead the way and Meaghan stops working her magic.

  I never thought the day would come when I found love with more than one person. I never thought I would be in a situation where Mitchell and I could actually take things between us to a level neither of us imagined when we became friends all those years ago.

  The trip to the bedroom is fast. The dropping of our pants as Meaghan strips for us both happens too quickly, but not quick enough.

  Meaghan is the first to lie down, spreading herself. With a crook of her finger, she calls me to her.

  I lie over her, kissing her. Reaching between us, she guides my cock inside her.

  “Fuckin’ wet and ready, baby,” I comment as I sink to the hilt.

  “You and Mitchell together, nothing hotter, Avery,” she pants as I slide out.

  I look left as she motions for Mitchell to join us. He watches, but doesn’t move, so I slide out of her.

  As I climb off the bed, Meaghan moans before fingering herself in front of us. Grabbing lube out of the nightstand, I take a deep breath before I toss the bottle to him.

  “Butch isn’t here, Mitchell. He’s got no power. Take it away. Take his mark away,” I whisper, looking at the one man I trust with my mind, body, and soul. Then I slide Meaghan’s body down to the end of the bed where I spread her wide and slide back into her.

  With my hands over her head, I brace my weight so she won’t feel the impact while exposing my ass to Mitchell.

  “This is what you want?” he asks me.

  “Only if it’s what you want.”

  I wait, my cock throbbing inside Meaghan, my body craving Mitchell’s touch.

  “I should hate you for the hurt. I should punch you. But Mitchell, I just want to be with you. I just want a life with you in it. You’re a kinky fuck; that I know from the stories you shared.”

  Meaghan lifts her head. “You want kinky, we got kinky, baby.”

  Needing no more invitation, Mitchell moves behind me. With a squirt of lube down the crack of my ass, I thrust inside Meaghan, who raises up, wanting more. I drop
my mouth to her nipple just as Mitchell spreads my ass cheeks wide.

  I tense for a moment, to which Mitchell releases me.

  “Not gonna hurt you, Avery. No.”

  Again, I thrust in and out of Meaghan, finding my center and calm, but I’m still missing something.

  “Dammit, I need you, Mitchell! I need you in me!” I yell out my frustration.

  Sex has been good with Meaghan, but it’s always lacking because I have always thought of him. Now he’s here and not giving me what I need.

  Before I can get a hold on my emotions, I feel him open my ass and dip his fingers into my hole. At first, I want to jerk away in instinct.

  “Avery,” he growls, and my body instantly relaxes for him. I hear the sound of foil tearing and see the condom wrapper hit the bed beside us.

  In just a moment, he goes from pumping me with fingers to sliding in inch by inch. Every move he makes sets the motion I make into Meaghan.

  Before long, the room smells of sex as we hit our rhythm. I feel like it’s a made-for-television moment where I should scream out, “Don’t stop fucking me!”

  Over and over Mitchell pulls at my hips, thrusting in and out of me. It pushes my body over Meaghan and I slide in and out of her with her pussy walls milking my cock.

  Mitchell’s pace quickens. It’s erratic, throwing me off before I feel him stiffen before his gives out a guttural moan as he climaxes, sending Meaghan over with him. The aftershocks of her orgasm clamp down on my cock like a vice grip, and I find my own moans muffled when Meaghan grabs my face and kisses me.

  We fall together, tangled up a mess of each other, yet satisfied.

  Calm.

  Peace.

  Home.

  For the first time, I feel like I found home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ~Mitchell~

  I wake up slowly, feeling an arm draped over my waist. It takes me a beat to let it all sink in. At twenty-eight years old, I’ve seen a lot of shit, done more than my fair share of shit. I have never shared a bed with anyone but Avery. The fingertips resting on my belly are small and soft.