Rook's Control Read online

  She heard music, laughter, bottles clanging together, and groaning coming from the other side.

  Her heart was racing, her pulse quickening, and she knew, just knew, what she’d find on the other side.

  Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she prayed to whoever would listen that she wouldn’t see Rook fucking some sweet-butt. She didn’t know if she could handle that.

  But the truth was she knew what she’d probably see on the other side: Rook shitfaced, a girl in his lap, bouncing up and down, or maybe her head between his legs as she sucked him off. That image hurt, but Bobbie couldn’t bleach her brain free from it either. She was just facing reality. This was an MC, after all, and these boys partied like there was no tomorrow. They earned it, but she also was in love with Rook, even if it was one-sided, and her pain was all too real.

  ****

  Rook was blitzed, so fucking drunk and high he couldn’t even see straight, let alone get up and walk to his room and crash for the night. The boys were all in this backroom, drinking, getting shitfaced after just taking out M. They all needed to let loose, to just forget about all the blood and violence that surrounded them on a normal day.

  It had been a couple of days, and all he wanted to do was forget about everything, forget about why he’d never live a “normal” life. He wanted to forget about the fact he couldn’t stop thinking about Bobbie, about what he’d said to her, turned her away from him.

  And then he’d turned and left her standing there, the hurt on her face engrained in his head.

  Things had calmed down on the whole Pierce and Cain thing, and now that Pierce was with Fallina, had claimed her as his old lady, Cain had eased up. But that didn’t change the fact of what Rook had said to Bobbie, or how he’d pushed her away.

  He’d fucked up in that regard, because the truth was he cared about Bobbie. He fucking loved her, and that was not good. He couldn’t let himself feel that for her, couldn’t get close to her if it was more than just dominating her while he fucked her. He’d be no good to a woman, and having an old lady, having that responsibility, was not something he wanted to handle.

  Call him a bastard, call him selfish, hell, call him a motherfucker that deserved solitude. It was all true, and he accepted it.

  Even now he still felt like an asshole, but he couldn’t let her think there could be anything between them aside from the rough sex they shared. That was all he could offer her, all he could ever give her.

  If she honestly thought he could give her a life outside of this club, one that had her as his old lady, a family down the road, she was delusional. He’d never been the type of man to give comfort when it was needed, to see a sad woman and have the need to make her happy. He’d never been soft in any regard, and he wasn’t going to start now. He couldn’t. He’d stuck with himself, been loyal to his club, and fucked when he needed release. That was him, who he was, and he wouldn’t change. He couldn’t change for anyone.

  He swigged his beer and then grabbed the joint offered to him. He could barely keep his eyes open, let alone hold the bottle and joint, but he managed, because right now he just needed to be lost.

  He rested his head on the back of the couch, closed his eyes, and let the numbing pleasure of the alcohol and drugs move through him. After a while he felt pressure on him, shuffling, and someone rubbing their hands all over his body. But when he opened his eyes his vision was blurry. The person on him was clearly a woman, her short dark hair moving back and forth, and she ground on him. But he was too blitzed to get hard.

  “Bobbie…” he said her name softly, his voice thick, slurred. He could hear it, feel it.

  “I’ll be whoever you want me to be, baby.” The voice was feminine, slightly slurred, too, but it was definitely not the woman he was currently thinking about, who he shouldn’t be thinking about.

  He lifted his head off the chair, blinked a few times, opened his eyes wider, and when his vision cleared, he saw that the woman on him was nothing but a club whore, and a dirty one at that. She was one that was newer, had slept with all the guys in any and all ways, and who currently was trying to shove her hands down his pants.

  “Fuck no,” he stammered out, grabbing her upper arms, about to push her off, but someone standing in the doorway caught his attention. Everything inside of him froze. “Oh shit.”

  Bobbie.

  The expression on her face was a mixture of shock and sadness. She looked utterly heartbroken, and he knew it was because of him. Not only had he been a prick to her just a short time ago, but now she clearly thought something was going on with this tramp.

  He told himself before this that he shouldn’t care about her, but it wasn’t a simple fix, if he even wanted to try to fix it.

  Rook pushed the sweet-butt off of him, wanting to go to Bobbie, but when he looked at the doorway again he saw she was gone. Yeah, he’d fucked up, and he couldn’t even stand up and steady himself to make it right. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise, because although he did care for her, wanted her even, he wasn’t a good man for her.

  He wasn’t a good man for anyone.

  Isn’t this what you wanted? Didn’t you tell her you wanted nothing more than pussy from her? You can’t exactly act like the good guy when you pushed her aside.

  Yeah, he’d fucked up, but even if he wasn’t too drunk and high to stand he wouldn’t have gone after her. The sooner she realized he wasn’t any good for her the better.

  Chapter Three

  Bobbie looked at herself in the mirror, smoothed her fingers over her eyes, and breathed out slowly. She shouldn’t be sitting here moping over a man that clearly didn’t want her. She shouldn’t be thinking something was wrong with her just because Rook had pushed her aside as if she hadn’t meant anything. If he didn’t want to admit there was something between them why should she try? Maybe that was immature, or maybe she was going the higher route, realizing that she shouldn’t have wanted a man like Rook anyway.

  It wasn’t as if he’d ever told her something more could happen between them. No, it was her own fanciful feelings that she could have that happily ever after. It was a stupid thought, a ridiculous idea.

  “You should have woken up a long time ago,” she said to her reflection.

  Life sometimes sucked, and she needed to get through this hump in her life. She wasn’t a piece of ass, wasn’t just going to be a warm hole he could stick his dick into.

  Feeling resolve that she’d move on, that she’d try to get over him, Bobbie got in the shower and tried to put anything everything that had to do with Rook and the club behind her. It would be hard, but the route she was going now wasn’t any easier.

  ****

  One week later

  It was hard when someone was alone, with only the silence to be their companion. It had someone thinking about the past, about shit that shouldn’t matter anymore. That was what happened now with Bobbie, but she didn’t stop her mind from thinking about specific things. It was what made the situation real.

  She lifted the cold beer to her mouth and took another drink from it. She was getting drunk, had just gotten off work, and all she wanted to do was forget about everything, but of course that wasn’t going to happen.

  It had only been a week since Bobbie had seen Rook with a sweet-butt on his lap, her hands down his pants, but it seemed like eternity. She’d focused on working at the small café job she had, the one that helped pay her bills. It was easier to try to immerse herself in things that didn’t remind her of Rook or the club, but the truth was she still thought about him constantly.

  She took another swig from her beer, knowing that not going back since the shit had gone down was probably an immature move. But who was to say she couldn’t act on her emotions? Who was to say that how she reacted when seeing the man she loved in a compromising position, didn’t grant her a little leeway in acting irrationally?

  Yes, she had nothing with Rook that would require more than for her to submit in a sexual way, but that didn’
t matter. She loved him, and nothing would change that, not even the thought or visual of him with another woman.

  Bobbie had thought of distancing herself from the club, but the fact was she enjoyed being with the other women and the guys. It wasn’t just about sex, not to her at least. Yes, she’d been with a couple of the other bikers in a sexual way, but that had been before she’d committed herself to Rook. And when she had given herself sexually to those bikers it had been a mutual one-time thing, one that consisted of her needing their hard bodies because she’d been drunk, having a good time, and she’d wanted a warm male body.

  That seemed like forever ago.

  But she also knew that Rook hadn’t been with any other women, at least not the ones at the club, in a sexual way, not since they started really getting into it. It was this feeling she had deep inside of her, this knowledge that when he was with her he was really with her. She had also talked with the other girls, and knew that they hadn’t been with Rook in months, longer than when they’d actually started their … relationship, or whatever it was they’d had going on.

  That’s not a relationship. That’s you submitting to a very dominant man.

  She finished off her beer, set it on the coffee table, and closed her eyes. She was so tired, but not physically. Her mind was tired, her body just wanting to say fuck it and pack up and leave. And she could. She could just leave. She didn’t have to stay here. Nothing held her back.

  Jana.

  Braden.

  Rook.

  She had things that held her back, things that she loved, that she’d be devastated by the loss of. Even if their being taken away was because of her own doing, she knew that she would die inside if she couldn’t see those people, talk to them, let them know how much they meant to her.

  Rook will never be the type of man you can talk to, share your dreams with, or say you love him and hear it back.

  God, she was so depressed, but she was making it worse by sitting here getting drunk and thinking about it all.

  Although she could leave, start over someplace else, she didn’t want to. She couldn’t leave everyone behind. She did love the club, had grown friendships with the men and women within it, and, although she thought about leaving, just packing her shit and starting over, she couldn’t.

  Thinking about leaving had her thinking about her past.

  Bobbie had once left everything behind, just packed the shit she could carry, emptied her bank account, and said fuck it all. That’s why she knew she could start over, could have a new life if she really wanted to. A new life didn’t scare her.

  Although she’d been in the same small town for her entire life, she’d known that she didn’t want to die there as well. She might never do anything big with her life, might never accomplish anything more than just being happy, but that was fine with her. As long as she was happy she didn’t care.

  You’re not happy, not right now, at least.

  So she’d just gotten in her car and driven, and didn’t stop until she had left everything she knew behind and had ended up in River Run. She knew that leaving then had been the right decision, and that’s all that mattered to her.

  As she sat here thinking about all those years ago, about right here and now, all Bobbie could see now was a future that didn’t have anything for her.

  You didn’t have a future before. Wanting Rook when you know he isn’t the type of man to have a relationship is not something that you should dwell on.

  She didn’t have family aside from Jana and Braden, and although she loved them more than anything else, she also wanted to be able to have a life like them. She wanted a man that worshiped her like Tuck worshiped Jana.

  Jana, her sweet friend that had been in such a shitty relationship before she met the biker who now treated her like his Queen. The only good thing that had come out of that for her had been Braden, Jana’s young son. And then all the shit with Jana being kidnapped by her ex—God, Bobbie was lucky she even had her friend with her still.

  She looked around at her small apartment, taking in the fact this was her home, or as close to a home as she’d ever have. It didn’t hold many trinkets that showed how her life had been, didn’t have pictures on the wall or an afghan her grandmother knitted for her hanging over the couch. It was lonely, cold, and that was how Bobbie felt right now.

  She looked at the one and only picture she had that sat on her coffee table. It was a picture of her, Jana, and Braden at the park just last month. That was her family, the people she loved so much.

  If Bobbie planned on staying then she needed to decide if she’d ever face Rook again, and if she did, would she tell him how she felt about him?

  ****

  Rook was drunk.

  Shitfaced.

  Blitzed.

  Totally fucking obliterated.

  And damn did it feel good to be disconnected, if only for a short time.

  But he’d been like this for the last week, and he was starting to realize that drinking was not making shit better, not in the long run. He might feel okay for a short time, but then his anger, his emotions that he kept buried, came up like another entity.

  “Give me another.” Had he said the words out loud? Did they even make sense? He knew he was having a hard time even holding his head up right now and keeping himself seated on the barstool, but talking might be too much for him.

  Rook stared at Tank, the other man’s focus on him, the glass in his hand dry, yet the big motherfucker was still drying it. Tank had been prospecting with the Brothers for nearly a year now, and his dues were almost up. Although they still had to vote, Rook was positive he’d be patched in. He was loyal, badass, took care of shit without question, and would make a good addition to the Brothers of Menace.

  “You gonna just stare at me or pour me another fucking drink?” Rook knew he’d slurred the words out then, but obviously Tank understood him because he grabbed the bottle of scotch and filled up Rook’s shot glass. Tank then set the whiskey bottle on the counter beside Rook.

  “I’ll just leave it for you, man.” Tank went back to cleaning off the glasses.

  “Don’t you know when to cut a bastard off?” Rook mumbled out, picked up his glass, and took the shot.

  “I just hand out the booze. I’m not anyone’s old man, and don’t tell people, least of all Brother, what to do.”

  Rook grunted.

  “You want to pass out at the bar and sleep in your own vomit?” Tank shrugged. “Have at it.”

  Rook ignored Tank for a second, but he was drunk enough to know that if he kept talking shit would get real. It always did.

  “Women,” Rook said that one word, and it hung between him and Tank for a second.

  “Yeah, women,” Tank said, but kept a stoic expression.

  “You try to keep them at a distance, but pussy isn’t enough sometimes.”

  Just shut the fuck up already.

  But Rook was too drunk to listen to that little voice of reason inside of him.

  “Pussy is all good, Rook, but it doesn’t make a man a man.”

  Rook knitted his brows. “What the fuck does that mean?” He hiccupped and tried reaching for the bottle, but his hand-eye coordination was shit. He missed it by a good few inches, and decided to give up.

  “Shit,” Rook said. “I don’t need anymore.”

  “I think you’re pretty good on the consumption area, brother.”

  Rook eyed the big motherfucker. “You know you got your name ‘cause you’re built like—”

  “A tank,” Tank grunted the word out. “I know, Rook. I was there when it was given to me, remember?”

  Rook waved off Tank’s words. “Whatever.” Rook turned in his seat and stared at the club. The guys were partying pretty low-key today, with a few card games going on, and the rest of the guys sitting on the leather couches in front of the big screen TV. The sweet-butts were in the back making dinner, but Rook’s dinner was the alcohol splashing around in his gut. The TV was loud, show
ing a football game. Rook had never been into sports, yet he found himself staring at the screen.

  “I don’t know what happened between you two, but I can tell it’s bothering you.”

  Rook turned back around and faced Tank. “What are you talking about?”

  Oh, Rook knew what the prospect was talking about, but that didn’t mean he’d admit shit. He hadn’t told anyone how he felt for Bobbie, didn’t plan on it either. That was his own cross to bear, his own inner demons he’d wrestle with.

  Tank set the rag down and braced his forearms on the counter. “You know what I’m talking about, but I’m not going to lay it out there.”

  A moment of silence passed between them.

  “You don’t know shit, Tank.”

  Tank straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. “I know the shit you said to Bobbie ‘cause I was right here when you said it.”

  Another moment of silence passed, and Rook ground his teeth together.

  “I know that after you left to handle the Cain and Pierce shit that girl started crying.”

  “Yeah, because she knew she shouldn’t have said anything to Cain.” But Rook knew that wasn’t the case.

  Tank shook his head and breathed out roughly. “Man, you can hide it all you want, and she can hide it, too. If you both want to act like you don’t mean anything to the other what the fuck do I care?” Tank shrugged. “It’s no skin off my back, but I’ll tell you this.” Tank leaned in again. “You’re obviously hurting.” The prospect looked at the bottle of scotch and then back at Rook. “And drinking isn’t going to make your shit disappear.”

  “Tank, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rook said again. He scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling like a piece of shit.

  “I know that last week Bobbie came looking for you. She was told by Nilla you were in the back partying, and when she came back she was crying and left the club without saying anything to anyone.”

  This pressure in Rook intensified at that. He knew he’d hurt her, and he knew he was still hurting her by not going to her and talking to her about it all. For the last week he hadn’t tried to make contact with her, hadn’t tried to make things right. He figured she was better off without a sadistic asshole like him.