All the Sky (28 page)

He’d never been so hot for a woman, even this woman, in his entire fucking life. Where had that come from? How had this day, her tears, landed them humping on the kitchen floor? Too much thinking. He didn’t care. She was pulling him to her, her body surging up to meet his, and then he was inside her, and oh sweet glorious Jesus. Fuck, it was more intense than…than anything.

He pushed deep, as deep as he could, and she tore her mouth from his with a strident gasp. “Oh yes! Yes oh yes! Make me come! I need to come!

She never talked like this when they were fucking. God, everything was so intense. His brain felt fried, his circuits overloaded, and he yanked her shirt and bra up and latched onto her tit, sucking her and fucking her as hard as he could. His enthusiastic thrusts moved them across the floor until her head was banging into the bottom of the refrigerator, and he had just enough presence of mind to put his hands around her head, taking the impact across his knuckles.

When she came, she went silent and tense, her hand bunching his shirt in her fists and pulling it until the neckline was cutting off his air and he was getting a buzz of erotic asphyxiation—which sent his own climax into the fucking stratosphere. He was pretty sure he nearly blacked out. He definitely saw stars.

When it was over, they lay on the floor for a while. Cory had gone quiet again, but when he kissed her, she brushed her knuckles over his cheek.

“I love you, Cory. I know it’s true.”

She smiled a sad little smile. “I love you, too.”

He picked her up and carried her to bed, where he undressed her, and then himself. Then he got into bed with her and held her while she fell asleep.

They did not speak again that night.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Of all the things Havoc could have done to show Cory that he’d meant the words he’d said to her on the floor of her kitchen, taking Valhalla Vin back over so she could be with Nolan provided irrefutable proof. She hadn’t had to ask, and he hadn’t offered as if he were bestowing on her a boon. He’d simply assumed that he would cover her while she spent her days with her son.

Nearly two weeks and three more surgeries after the day he was hurt, Cory was beginning to relax and really believe that Nolan would be okay. During the first few days, while he slept, lying so frail in that bed, she’d had a hard time imagining him as the boy he’d been. The image of him being pulled out of the ditch, blue and still, had filled her head to brimming.

But then he’d woken, and as soon as she saw his blue eyes, like hers, she knew he’d be okay. Since then, except for an infection they’d mastered quickly, his progress had been steady. He was off the ventilator, sitting up, talking and eating and being as normal as he could be, still all tangled up in the traction device. He was crabby and uncomfortable. But he would recover, and now she believed it.

She’d called her sister, and she’d called Matt. Neither had answered or returned her call. But Lindsay had sent flowers—repeatedly. Matt had responded with one text. Nolan had asked, once, whether his father knew. She answered, simply, yes. And Nolan hadn’t asked again.

The Horde, however, were a steady stream through his hospital room, especially the younger guys, the ones Nolan talked about almost as much as he talked about Havoc—Badger and Omen and Dom. At least once a day, Cory was basically pushed out of the room so the boys could, well, be boys. When they left, Nolan was always in much higher spirits.

Soon, he’d be released, and though he’d be wheelchair-bound for several weeks, Cory got the sense that his social calendar would continue to be full.

She did feel lucky. She could have lost her son on that dark stretch of country road in the middle of a cold night. He could have died alone in a ditch of murky water. But he hadn’t. He didn’t even remember any of it. He only remembered walking, then waking, in a bed, with a tube down his throat. Having been tormented those first few days by the idea that he’d lain in that ditch aware of it all, Cory felt particularly blessed that he had been spared that horror.

Havoc came by every day with lunch. They’d eat a meal together, the three of them, and he’d spend a few hours before he headed off to do whatever he needed to do—run the bar, or Horde business, most of which she still didn’t understand. She needed to understand better, but she was afraid to ask. She was afraid how knowing would change everything. Because the fact remained that they had left open a chance for the possibility that Nolan had been hurt because of the Horde.

That was still an open possibility. No one yet knew who’d hit her son and left him for dead. No one yet knew whether it had been an accident or an intent.

She didn’t know what she’d do—or even what she could do, should do—if her son had been hurt by someone who wanted to hurt the Horde.

They’d found her boy, they’d helped her, they treated them like family, and they’d given Nolan a place to be, a place that made him happy. Friends. And they’d given her and Nolan, both, this man, Havoc, who was a centering peace in their lives now. Who loved them, who cared for them. The most unlikely pillar of strength and support, but no weaker for it. And she loved him fiercely. What’s more, she trusted him.

The thought that she’d misplaced a trust she’d held so dear was too much to think right now. So she set it aside and tended to her son.

The questions she had could wait.

~oOo~

Nolan was getting stronger daily, and the doctors were beginning to suggest that he’d be able to go home in the next few days—before Christmas, certainly, barring any setbacks. He was out of traction, and they were getting him up and into some light physical therapy. It made him hurt, but he was too glad to have some release from his bed to complain about some new aches.

Havoc had brought pizza and garlic knots for lunch from a little mom and pop pizzeria he knew of near the hospital, and the three of them were gorging themselves. Nolan was in an especially good mood—Kristen, the cute nurse whom both Nolan and Havoc had been aggressively ogling for days, was on shift, and by their account she was having a really good boob day. Cory had rolled her eyes at that, but she had refrained from pointing out to them that Kristen was quite obviously wearing a padded push-up bra under her purple floral scrubs. Though indeed she was showing a lot of cleavage for a nurse on duty. But hey—to each her own.

Cory sat back and enjoyed her boys’ banter. Even on days when Nolan was moody and grousing about his immobility or his discomfort, he cheered up a lot when a man in a kutte walked into his room. She wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t naïve. She knew what was happening. Hell, at this very minute, as she pulled apart a garlic knot and picked at it, Havoc and Nolan were looking through a motorcycle magazine, talking about engines and customizations. She understood that there was a very good chance, an excellent chance, that her son would want to join the life that Havoc, and the others, had shown him.

And she knew that she didn’t know enough about that life to know how, or even whether, to help him make another choice.

Nolan wasn’t like the men of the Horde. He was young, not yet a man, but she couldn’t see how her quiet, moody, introverted, creative child could evolve into the man sitting on the nightstand next to his bed—his broad, inked body, his scarred, calloused hands, his natural scowl. And she didn’t see how he could find a place in that life as the person he was. Though, somehow, he seemed to have done so already.

She tried to understand what the right thing was. As his mother, what should she do? Let him find the thing that made him happy, whatever that was? Or point him away from a thing that could hurt him—that maybe
had
hurt him—no matter how happy it made him?

He’d be sixteen in April. She wasn’t even sure how much sway she had left.

Beset by such thoughts, she didn’t notice his door swing open, not until Nolan and Havoc stopped talking and Havoc stood up. She turned, and saw her sister come into the room, partially hidden behind yet another worthless but expensive floral arrangement. Alex was right behind her. As they came in, he held the door, as if expecting someone else to follow, and Cory had a second to wonder if they’d brought the twins with them, which would be shockingly uncharacteristic of Linz—though showing up at the hospital for the first time almost three weeks after Nolan had been hurt was enough of a shock.

Then the person Alex was holding the door for came into the room, and Cory realized a whole new level of shock. Matt. Nolan’s father. Here. With her sister and brother-in-law.

Days after Cory had tried to reach him about Nolan, she’d received a text. One line:
Keep me posted
. And she had. She’d texted him updates regularly about their son’s recovery. He had not responded again. And now he was here, in the room.

She stood, setting aside her half-eaten lunch. Havoc came over to stand with her, one step in front of her, as Cory found her voice. “Linz? What’s going on?”

Lindsay, Alex, and Matt were lined up near the door, Linz still holding the floral arrangement. They all just stood there, not answering. Cory could feel Havoc’s tension as he tried to sort out the situation.

Lindsay found her socialite manners and took the flowers to the windowsill, where all the other arrangements were. Then she turned with a bright smile. “We came to visit, silly. I’m so sorry we weren’t able to come sooner, but things with the twins have been crazy—ballet and soccer and music lessons. Just crazy. Not a second to breathe.” She turned to Nolan. “And look who came to see us, Nolan!”

Nolan just stared. Cory could see the angry tumult going on in his eyes. Havoc was watching him, as well, and she knew he saw Nolan’s pain.

Havoc turned to her. “Fill me in, Cory.”

She nodded and cleared her throat. Still far too stunned to be able feel anything like anxiety or trepidation about what could happen. “Hav, this is my sister, Lindsay, her husband, Alex, and…and Nolan’s father, Matt. Linz, Alex, Matt, this is Havoc.” Nobody moved or made any gesture of greeting. Not even the basic rules of civility were being followed, and that said a lot about why Linz and Alex were here.

She thought it might say a lot about why Matt was here, too. Nobody was yet paying much attention to Nolan. Even Matt hadn’t yet, as far as Cory knew, looked at their son. All eyes were on Havoc.

And then Alex took a step forward. “So
we’re
all family. Who are you, exactly?”

Cory thought that her brother-in-law must be deluded by his own sense of power. Sure, his success in business and his financial standing gave him a lot of figurative muscle in the world in which he lived. But it made for poor armor in the rest of the world. To disrespect a man like Havoc, even in that cultured, snidely passive way, was monumentally stupid.

Havoc, who was not quite as tall as Alex, but significantly bigger otherwise, took a step forward himself. Cory was afraid he was going to answer the challenge with a fist. And Alex would most certainly press charges for assault and battery.

But before either Havoc or Cory could respond to Alex, Nolan did. From his bed, his voice steady and strong, her son said, “Hav is family. More family than anyone in here but Mom. Unc—Alex, Lindsay, get the fuck out. I don’t want you here.”

Cory was impressed—still worried about what was next, but impressed. Lindsay gaped at Nolan for a few seconds, then turned her affronted face to Cory. “You’re just going to let him talk to us like that? After everything?”

“I am. As I recall, he’s turning Alex’s words back on you. So, yes. You’re not welcome here.”

Lindsay teared up and put her hands on her face. Cory thought it was probably about half theatrics, but she, too, felt sad about what was happening. They’d come upon a turning point. She and her little sister had never had much in common, they’d never been particularly close, but neither had they been enemies. And Lindsay and Alex had taken them in when they’d lost almost everything. That charity had come with a steep psychic price, but it had been charity nonetheless.

But they had brought Matt here. She still didn’t understand how Matt was part of this disintegrating picture. Lindsay and Alex hated Matt.

Alex pulled his wife into a one-armed embrace, and then he lit into Cory. “Everything we’ve done for you. Put a roof over your head—you and your shithead of a kid. You ungrateful bitch.”

Havoc shook Cory off and went for him, yanking Lindsay away and grabbing Alex by his pressed and starched Ralph Lauren oxford-cloth shirt and half-carrying him until he slammed into the wall near the door. Cory ran up and put her hands on Havoc’s arm.

“Don’t Hav. He’ll press charges. Just let him leave. Please.” She could feel Havoc’s anger in the way his taut muscles moved under her hand.

Alex smiled, a superior smirk that was impressive in its stupidity. “Pretty smart for a biker whore, isn’t she?”

The next second, Alex had a mouthful of silver rings and scarred knuckles. Lindsay screamed; Cory grabbed her and held her off.

Havoc released him, and Alex went down, holding his broken mouth as he slid to the floor. Then Havoc squatted in front of him.

“He won’t press charges. He’s an asshole and an idiot, but I bet he’s smart enough to know how I can make him pay if he makes another mistake. Am I right?” Alex stared for a long time and then finally nodded. Havoc helped him stand. “I bet a nurse can get you an ice pack on your way out.”

He opened the door, and Lindsay and Alex, holding each other as if they’d just survived a horror, moved to the door. Matt moved in the same direction. He’d not yet said a fucking word, and now he was leaving without even talking to his kid. Why the hell was he here at all?

“Matt. Wait.” He jerked around at Cory’s words. Havoc turned to her, too.

But she wasn’t interested in what either of those men wanted right now. Instead, she turned around and looked at her son. He seemed tired and sad, but calm. Calm enough, at least. “What do you want, kiddo? You want him to leave or stay?

Nolan looked at her. He looked small in that bed, but he looked grown up, too. He’d had to deal with a lot in his young life—not the least of which was his father’s abandonment of him. And now that father was in the room with him, looking decidedly fearful, eyeing Nolan and Cory and Havoc in turn, as if danger could come from any corner.