Hellbent (Four Horsemen MC Book 5) (23 page)

Jerry growled at him. "Get the fuck off my property."

Shep shot a desperate look at Noah. What fucking good was his tattoo if it protected him but not his … not Noah?

How the hell was he supposed to just leave him here?

But Noah nodded, a sullen look on his face as he regained his feet. Blood dripped from the corner of his eye and he winced as he straightened.

Shep clenched his fists and turned around. He walked slowly to his truck. The bitter hole eating Shep's stomach every step of the way almost turned him around. If he hadn't been certain going back would just antagonize the bastard and make things worse for Noah, he wouldn't have made it back to his truck.

He sat on the tailgate, sobering up, unable to shake the fucking certainty that shit was about to spin out of control. And Noah's goddamn father was just the shitty icing on the cake.

You have a fiancé. You're about to graduate seminary. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Shep couldn't tell if the voice in his head belonged to him or to his father. But either way, he couldn't deny what he'd felt tonight. What he'd wanted. What he'd almost …

He swallowed hard. Amy didn't deserve this. She was happily planning a big church wedding. She'd been his best friend since his freshman year. They had been saving themselves for marriage. Sure, they kissed and held hands, made out a little. Amy had pushed for more, but he'd always played the waiting card.

If she knew the truth, she’d never speak to him again.

The first time he’d thought a guy was pretty, he’d made the mistake of saying it in front of his father. He’d been grounded for months. His father had used the time to try to ‘reform’ his son. After everything his father had put him through, shoving him into pray-away-the-gay camps, forcing him to pray for forgiveness daily, to beg God to turn him into a righteous man—he’d finally had enough. He’d given in. Found himself a pretty girl at church, asked her out and pretended.

But nothing they'd ever done had awakened the wave of lust rolling through him now just thinkin' about
almost
kissing Noah. Honestly, it wasn't the only thing he'd been thinking about. Picturing. Fantasizing. And this wasn't the first time.

He wanted to fuck Noah.

He couldn't deny it anymore. He didn't want to wait with Noah. He didn't want a big ceremony and a hollow parental blessing.

He wanted Noah.
And only Noah.

Raw, naked and filthy. In the mud in front of his trailer, in the bed of Shep's dying truck. Right here. Right now.

Maybe Jerry was fucking right. Maybe Shep should stay the hell away from Noah before he threw away everything he'd been working for. Before he dragged Noah down a path he didn't deserve to be on. Shep only had five years on Noah, but he still felt responsible for him.

Shep lit a cigarette. Was he really a good man? Maybe. He tried to be. A better man than his father had been. He wasn't so bad. But was he a righteous man?

He didn't feel righteous holding his fiancée's hand while he wondered where Noah was, what he was doing.

He didn't feel righteous with his lips a breath from Noah's tonight, their limbs tangled in the dirt.

He didn't feel righteous when Jerry punched Noah.

And he hadn't felt righteous turning the other cheek.

He felt vengeful, his anger an electric force building inside, filling up all of his cracks with a lethal burn. He had grown up around an MC; he had seen violence. Street justice. Witnessed enough blood to turn his stomach. But he couldn’t escape the feeling in his chest when an asshole that deserved it got what he deserved. Maybe his father was right. Maybe he had demons inside him.

That kind of violence didn't sound sick to him right now.

It sounded like the best fucking plan he'd had all day.

Shep wasn't the kind to sit on a decision once he'd made it. He'd spent enough time agonizing over the repercussions, the fallout. But he couldn't marry Amy.

And he couldn't continue his seminary path. Couldn't pretend hiding in a pulpit would make him right with God. Couldn't hide his sins with the robes of a holy man the way his father had.

But what the fuck did that leave him?

What path was he on now?

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he finally felt sober enough to drive. He started the truck and the clock blinked on. Shit, it had been three hours. He drove home, eyes bleary. He kept seeing Noah’s bloody face in his mind. He pulled into his driveway and made his way inside.

He leaned against the kitchen counter, thinking about the night he’d come home and found his mother, dead in the living room. A syringe protruded from her skinny arm, her head pillowed on the carpet, eyes open and unseeing. He couldn’t help but wonder if he could’ve done more, gotten her some real help.

But she hadn’t wanted help. They’d done the rehab route a couple times. Things never worked out. Tonight, Noah hadn’t wanted help either. And Shep had walked away.

Not getting his mom help had ended with her death. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He was getting Noah out of there tonight.

Maybe Shep would luck out and when he got back over to the trailer park, Jerry would be passed out. He’d convince Noah to pack his essentials and they’d split. Shep owned his house—it had passed to him after his mother died—he could take in a roommate if he wanted to.

Or maybe taking a man’s son out of his house wouldn’t sit well with an asshole like Jerry. Shep’s tattoo had protected him earlier, but he had a feelin’ he needed something a little more substantial than ink and a promise this time.

He pulled his gun from the top drawer, checking the barrel, methodically loading the cylinder. He tucked it into the back of his jeans, under his shirt. He was probably going to fucking jail tonight. He pulled the cross from around his neck and hung it on the corner of the mirror, finally looking himself in the eye.

What stared back at him was not a righteous man and whatever path he was on—it sure as hell wasn't straight or narrow.

Chapter Twenty-Four

When a brother in need asks for something, give it to him.

~Four Horsemen Prospect Handbook

* * *

A long, low rumble of thunder snapped Shep back to the present. He climbed down from his bench and hopped back on his bike. The sun was setting when he coasted back into town. He only stopped home long enough to drop off his cut and switch out to his old truck. This wasn't about the MC. Tonight was about him and Noah.

Then he headed across the tracks to Hell's Gate.

The headwinds of the coming thunderstorm whipped through the trailer park, when Shep backed through the open gate into the driveway. He parked and stepped out, the broken gate latch clanking angrily behind him. The remains of Pretty Boy's trailer lay scattered before him. The flames had hit so high parts of the surrounding privacy fence were scorched, black fingers stretching across the white-washed planks.

But it was just the most recent trauma. And every year, on the anniversary of this night—the night that had irrevocably bound their lives together—they met here.

Pretty Boy—
no, Noah. In this place, this time, he was Noah—
sprawled in a lawn chair by his blackened fire ring. Smoke curled around his sharp features as he exhaled and ashed his blunt. He stood, whistling lowly as he approached. "Wasn't sure you'd show after the vanishing act you pulled this morning."

"Yeah," Shep said tightly. He reached over and dropped the tailgate. He wet his lips. "I wasn't sure how to look you in the fucking eye and act like I got a goddamn right to be angry with you right now."

Noah took the unspoken invitation and sat on the tailgate. "Doesn't mean you ain't."

The sharp, bitter twang of Noah's voice made Shep's stomach churn.

"I'm always gonna be angry when you're in harm's way." He stared at Noah's face, barely changed in the five years since that night. His features had hardened a little, lost the soft sweetness of youth for the angles of a man full-grown. He was now the same age as Shep had been when they'd met. Shep swallowed. "Let's just say I'm done casting stones, okay?"

"I've really never understood it," Noah said, voice a low, aching rasp. "But I've realized for some fucking reason, you're so full of guilt, you'd give me any damn thing I asked for tonight. Wouldn't you?"

Something low and raw twisted inside, his blood heating at the sensual promise in those growled words. Though he didn't think Noah'd cross that line.

Of course if there was a night for crossing lines, it was this one. Pale lightning flashed across the thick clouds gathering overhead, veiling the moon.

Beneath his feet lay a grave no one but them knew about and it haunted Shep. Filled him with something deep, sharp and feral. Thunder rumbled, low and lean in the distance. He dug the steel toes of his boots into the ground. He had spilled blood on this dirt.

He had enjoyed it.

If the night he killed a man marked the day he fell from grace, the blackened fire ring marked the spot it happened. There should be an impact crater here, like he'd actually crashed into the earth.

Shep climbed up next to Noah, as if distance from the dirt would give him space from his sins. His knee brushed against Noah's. Shep snagged his blunt and took a hit. His voice strained from holding in the smoke, he asked, "Something you want to ask me for?"

"Fuck yes," Noah whispered. He dragged his blunt nails along Shep's hand when he took the blunt back.

Shep exhaled slowly, the heavy smoking dragging pleasantly through his itching lungs. The noise in his head quieted as the high slowly bloomed in his brain. He narrowed his eyes, fixated on watching Noah's mouth move as he smoked.

Wind whipped between them, the smell of rain rising in the dust. Shep took the blunt from Noah's fingers just as it left his mouth. He took a long, deep drag and flicked it at the scorched earth. Noah's bright green eyes shone with a hazy hunger he felt echoing through him.

Shep grabbed the collar of Noah's prospect cut, his fingertips sliding against the soft leather. He tugged the dark-haired man forward, looking him square in the eye. There was a deep, sucking void in Shep's chest, a guilt so acidic and pervasive it left him hollow.

But sitting right smack in front of him was enough light and heat to beat back the darkness. To fill him up, satisfy the monster clawing at his spine. To burn away the desperation with some kind of holy fire.

Or was it hellfire?

He couldn't seem to make it matter. Shep dragged Noah closer, watching his eyes dilate, hearing his sharp inhale with a possessive satisfaction. "Ask me."

"Be honest." Noah's throat contracted, his skin sliding against Shep's knuckles with the swallow. "That night—if we hadn't been interrupted. You ever wonder what would have happened?"

Shep cursed internally. His stomach clenched with fear and want. It made him dizzy. "Yes."

Noah's hands flattened against his chest, fingerprints blazing through Shep's shirt as the downdraft of the storm turned chilly. He whispered, "Show me."

Noah shoved Shep back against the bed of the truck, sprawling over his chest. He braced his hands beside Shep's head and pulled back to look him in the eye.

And in that second, he might as well have been back in that moment, on the ground outside the trailer, trying desperately not to understand what he really wanted. The emotions hit him like a sucker punch. The confusion he'd felt at the relentless, persistent tug of attraction for Noah, the visceral reaction whenever he walked in the room.

The undeniable realization that what he was feeling—this feverishly intense burn—would never go away. The desperation, the flat-out
need
. Once he had felt these things, he couldn't
undo
it. Maybe he couldn't decipher what had changed, but a man knew when he was branded.

His body arched toward Noah, bowing beneath him. The familiar burn swept through his stomach. His cock hard and straining against his jeans, balls aching. Shep bit into his lower lip, trying to find anything resembling restraint.

Noah had asked for what Shep had been incapable of that night. Back then, he'd been too scared of what he felt, of admitting where this was heading, event though they had both known. Tonight, holding back was a Herculean task.

Noah leaned closer, ghosting his lips over Shep's, a hint of a smirk showing when he pulled back. The jerk was teasing him. He knew what Shep wanted.

That thought alone was almost enough to break him.

"Noah …" Shep groaned, hands fisting in Noah's hair and gritting his teeth against the desire to pull him back down.

Noah's mouth captured his and Shep's whole body vibrated with the connection. Noah deepened the kiss slowly, and deliberately, dragging his hips across Shep's in rhythmic sweeps. Shep's restraint snapped, his whole body rocking up against Noah as he returned the kiss.

Noah gasped, breaking the kiss as he panted. Shep trailed kisses along the perfect lines of his throat, one hand sliding over his shoulders and down his chest to take hold of his hip. With the other hand, he leveraged his weight to flip Noah onto his back. He half-drug, half-shoved them deeper into the truck so their feet didn't dangle over the tailgate.

Thunder rolled above them, the ground shaking the truck as the sky lit up. The smell of rain drifted around Shep, mixing with the taste of Noah and he shivered. The downpour hit a second later, like a sheet of cool water.

Shep didn't give a fuck.

He licked into Noah's mouth, the rain dancing over them, pounding against the metal body of the truck and streaming through the holes in the bed. He fucking wanted Noah. Now. Here. Noah sucked Shep's bottom lip into his mouth and ground hard against him.

Shep surrendered with a soul-shaking shudder.

He grabbed handfuls of Noah's shirt and yanked it over his head, throwing it to the side. Noah's fingers left heated trails along Shep's ribcage as he returned the favor. Thunder rocked the truck as Shep straddled Noah, fingers spreading wide across his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart.