Puck’s Property by Monique Moreau

ChapterTwenty-Five

Ava refused to pick up his calls or reply to his texts, leaving Puck with no choice but to go to her house. It had started to fucking blizzard outside, a match for the bleakness in his soul after Abby told him about her conversation with Ava earlier in the day. Shivering in the cold, he hunkered down and waited. Too preoccupied to check the weather and needing an outlet, he’d ridden his bike to Ava’s house before the snow began to fall. If she didn’t let him in, he was going to have to call Whistle to pick him up in a cage. The sleet—hail, whatever the hell it was lashing down on him—was like miniature knives cutting into his face. He poked away on his cell for an hour as he waited, allowing cold, wet snow to settle in the gap between his nape and his collar. Another hour passed, and his fingers were too numb to mess with his phone. Tucking his freezing hands into the pockets of his jacket, he continued his watch. Worry began clawing at his throat. Where in the fuck was she?

About a half an hour later, her car came rolling slowly through the haze of falling snow. Fucking finally. Hurrying up the walkway to her front entrance, she hitched her tote bag higher up her shoulder and glanced sideways at him before passing by as if he didn’t exist. Alright, he deserved that. Muscles stiff, he got off his bike and made his way to her. She was about to close the door in his face, but he jammed his boot in the gap and planted a hand on her door.

“What do you want, Puck?” she asked in a dejected tone. Her gaze darted to the side. “Oh.” Two large bags spilling with clothing were thrust at him. “Here you go. This is what you came for.”

Ignoring the bags, he said, “I didn’t come for my stuff.”

“Take it anyway.” She shoved the bags at him again.

“Can’t. Won’t fit on the bike.”

“Fine, I’ll drop it off at your place once this blizzard is over,” she replied in a harried tone. “Go home. It’s setting in.”

“I’m not leaving until we talk.”

“Go away, Puck. We have nothing to talk about.” Her face was drawn and her eyes red-rimmed.

Christ, it felt like steel claws were tearing into his chest and shredding his heart. He was a fucking asshole to make a girl like her cry. “Baby girl—”

“No, don’t baby girl me. Go away, I don’t want to see you,” she countered and shoved him hard in the chest. He stumbled back a step, dislodging his boot from her door, and before he could say another word, she’d slammed it in his face. Tipping his head forward, his forehead thumped the door. He was freezing his ass off, his head began pounding again, and melted snow dripped down his nape.

Pivoting around, he stalked back to his bike. Sleet hacked at his uncovered head and face, needling his skin until it was numb with cold. Shivering, he crouched down on his bike and waited, the wind chime the only thing keeping him cold company. Close to an hour passed, and every so often, the curtain of her front window flickered. Good, she was checking on him. Darkness encapsulated him. The wind howled in his ears, and they got so cold he had to cup his hands over them to keep them from freezing. His jaw went tight as he braced against another cold gust of air.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, because he was too cold to yank off his gloves and check his cell, but eventually, the light of her porch turned on and the front door swung open. Stepping into the lamplight, she called out, “Go home.”

A shiver shook his entire body. He yelled back, “I can’t. It’s too slippery to ride out, and my phone’s dead. I can’t call anyone to get me.”

Her eyelids sank down for a moment. Hauling in a belabored breath, her eyes snapped open and she glared at him. “Fine, come in and use my phone. No funny business, Puck. I’m not joking.”

Slowly, he peeled himself off his bike and made his way toward her. His upper body was soaked to the bone. He stomped on her snowflake-themed welcome mat and shook his iced hair with his gloved hands before stepping into the warm glow of her home.

Through the chatter of his teeth, he said, “Th-thanks.”

Staring at him angrily with her fists on her hips, she accused, “You’re frozen and wet. What were you thinking, coming out here on your bike? You’ll catch your death of cold.” Not being able to help herself, she tugged at his open jacket and helped him strip it off. Striding toward the kitchen, she called out, “I’m going to hang your jacket to dry. Go grab clothes in the bag by the door. I’m going to run you a bath. You need to warm up.”

He didn’t want to appear eager, but he was thanking God above that his ruse had worked and gotten him access. His eyes glided across the furniture and objects he’d become accustomed to in the weeks he’d lived there. Being in the warmth and comfort of Ava’s home transferred the ache from his bones straight to his heart.

Ava poked her head into the living room. “But don’t think you’re staying. Who do you want me to call? I want to make sure someone’s here to take you away the moment you’re done with your bath.”

“Loki,” he croaked out. Loki was working tonight, so he’d have to get someone else to come get him. Fucking sue me if I try to snatch what time I can.

“I’ll call Abby to tell him,” she said, and then the door to her bedroom slammed shut.

Puck slowly toed off his boots and peeled the frozen, wet clothing off his shivering body. He might be a big man, but it had to be around thirty degrees out there. Add sleet on top of the low temperature, and he was clenching his teeth to keep them from clattering against each other. Scooping up his clothes, he walked to the bathroom buck naked.

He breathed in a sigh of relief the moment he stepped inside the steaming heat of the bathroom. A full-body shudder overtook him. His frozen toes wiggled in the soft strands of the fluffy bath mat beneath his feet. After dumping his clothes into the dirty hamper, he lowered himself into the bathtub with excruciating slowness. He gave a hiss at the first contact of his red, chapped skin with the hot water. Bit by bit, he dipped in until he was able to submerse his entire body. Twiddling his toes, he worked to get feeling back into his numb feet.

Sagging back against the lip of the old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub, his eyes drooped in the bliss of being in the hot bath, of being in his woman’s house. His eyes drifted over everything that was hers, the bottles of shampoo and other beauty products, along with a large shell filled with bath bombs on one end of the tub. She’d corrupted him, dammit, because he no longer felt comfortable anywhere else. Not his house, not the clubhouse, not Loki’s apartment. This was his home, and he damn well knew it was because of her. A slight moan slipped out of his parted lips. It was going to be a fight to get her back. The anger he could handle. It was the look of hurt and dejection that drove him to the brink. Sitting in the steaming, blazing-hot water, the depth of his loss settled in his gut. She should be in here with him now, lifting and impaling herself on his hard cock.

After Loki’s rant last night, Puck had called Kingdom and given him the rundown of what had happened. In an unprecedented move for the Squad, who had a rep for reacting first and getting answers later, Kingdom had made a unilateral decision to abort their plan and set up contact with the president of the mother chapter of the Renegades. After a few hours, the president came back with a statement that it wasn’t the Renegades who’d busted up the bar. Proof was yet forthcoming, but whatever the president had said to Kingdom was enough to convince him. The Renegades’ president was cooperating fully to figure out what the hell happened. On the upside, Ava’s family and the Harley dealership were safe. That was one of the things he’d wanted to tell her. On the flip side, it gave her more ammunition to keep his ass kicked to the curb.

The door to the bathroom creaked open, and two fluffy white bath towels materialized on the stool beside the sink. Patchy had slipped through the crack of the open door and jumped on the towels. Fuck, he even missed the flea-bitten cat. He had every intention of exploiting Ava’s natural good-heartedness and sympathy, but it was her stubbornness that concerned him. After he was warm enough, he washed himself down and stepped out of the tub. The warmth, along with the scent of her and her home, had pushed his looming migraine away. But with the relaxation came stimulation, and he was currently sporting a hard-on. Not just any hard-on either, because his erection was for the woman he couldn’t simply sweep up into his arms and carry into the bedroom to fuck to his heart’s content. The ache of knowing she was beyond his reach kicked him in the gut again.

Finally dressed, he padded into the living room in his socks. Ava was sitting primly on the edge of the couch, her arms folded over her chest, one leg crossed over the other. He took in the sight of her, looking soft in a red sweater dress that hugged her shape and showed off her creamy skin. Damn, her skin was begging to be blemished by his tongue and teeth. Standing before her, he took his time to memorize her features.

“It seems like everyone’s too busy to pick you up right away.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you do this on purpose?”

“’Course not,” he replied gruffly. Hell yeah, I did. “I’d never pull shit like that.” I’ll do it again in a hot second to get you under me. “What kind of man do you take me for?” The kind who’ll do whatever it takes to get you back.

Her slitted eyes tracked him suspiciously as he sat down beside her. “Puh-lease, do you think I was born yesterday, Puck?” You’ve used blackmail before, or have you forgotten?

“I don’t have to do shit like that anymore. I’m not in jail.” Hell, I don’t need to re-use the same tools. He leaned in and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “How you doin’, baby?”

Her chest lifted and fell in response to his touch. He knew the effect he had on her. Fuck, he didn’t need his hard cock choking in his boxer briefs to tell him it was mutual.

Between pinched lips, she warned, “Don’t call me that.” Smart woman that she was, she moved away from him.

“Ava, I called it off,” he started. “You don’t have to worry about your father and sister. About the shop.”

Her shoulders fell, and she unconsciously let out a puff of breath. “Good.”

“We’re good, then?” he asked.

She barked out a bitter laugh. “No, Puck, we’re not good. We’ll never be good again.”

“Damn, woman,” he replied, riffling his hair in frustration.

“Don’t act as if you don’t have something to do with that. You walked away, for the second time. You bullied your way back in my life, and I allowed it to happen, but you won’t get a third opportunity to hurt me again. Anything else?”

Scrubbing his hand over his face, he let out a heavy sigh. “I want you back. I made a mistake. Realized it when it was happening, but I wasn’t in the right state of mind to do anything about it. I’m back now to repair whatever I did wrong.”

“Yeah? And what did you do wrong, Puck? Spell it out for me. Prove to me that you know, because I’m not sure you’re aware of it.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a kid or one of your clients. I damn well know I didn’t come to you when everything went down. I didn’t fight for you, and I put you in a fucked-up position. Instead of putting you first, like I should have, I got caught up in my responsibilities to the club. I’m a solider, and it was my knee-jerk reaction. I was fueled by guilt that I was responsible for what happened. It pushed me to rush and fix the problem ASAP, without thinking about the repercussions for you or your family.”

Her shoulders slumped forward into a hunched posture of defeat. “It’s obvious you have a blind spot when it comes to me. I understood eight years ago. But now? There’s no excuse.”

Incredulous, he replied, “You think I have a blind spot when it comes to you? That’s goddamn bullshit.”

She gave him a brittle smile, all pressed lips and no teeth. “No, it’s not. It’s a pattern. You’ve done it once, twice. You think I’m foolish enough to allow this to occur a third, fourth, fifth time?” A deep notch furrowed between her brows. “That’s not going to happen.”

“I don’t have a blind spot,” he growled in frustration. Of all the things she could come up with, that one was ludicrous.

“Sure about that? Because you didn’t factor me into your decisions,” she finished, swallowing a sob. She looked so small and vulnerable, her chest caving in, that he wanted to grab her and cradle her in his arms. Caress her hair and murmur in her ear how much he loved her.

“I was riddled with guilt, and…and I was…I was out of it. I was fighting off a panic attack throughout the day.”

She jabbed a finger in his direction. “Ah-ha! So you admit it finally. God, you couldn’t even tell me about it. I had to hear it from Abby. Do you know how humiliating that was? But it wasn’t as painful as knowing you didn’t feel safe enough to tell me. I don’t even understand why. I wouldn’t judge you. I was pushing you to find help—”

“I couldn’t look weak,” he shouted. Rising to his feet, he paced the small living room, yanking at strands of his hair. His lungs felt like a belt had been tightened around them. He stopped, his back to her. Closing his eyes, he breathed in slowly and confessed, “Happy? Now you know. I can’t appear weak. Not to anyone. Most of all, not to you. Eight years ago, you looked up to me. I can’t have you look at me any differently, especially since we met while I was incarcerated like a fucking asswipe of a criminal. Your sympathy makes it worse, not better. You look at me with pity, and I can’t fuckin’ stand it.” He clenched his teeth and seethed out, “No one looks at me with pity.” Whipping around, he turned to face her. “Lust, I want. Love, I need. But pity? No, I won’t have it.”

Ava’s mouth parted in shock. His erratic heaving breaths were the only sounds in the silence that hung between them. She swallowed and opened her mouth to speak—

The doorbell rang.

Christ fuck, right in the middle of a discussion. His gaze cut to her. Jabbing his index finger toward the entrance, he swore. “I’m going to be waiting right outside that door every day when you get home.”

Grasping her elbows in a hug, she moved to the door. With a hand twisting the doorknob, she retorted, “Be my guest, but we’re not getting back together.”

On the other side of the entrance stood Whistle. Good, dependable Whistle. Puck put on his cold-ass boots. By the time he was done, Ava had thrust his jacket in his face. He shrugged it on and stepped into her space. Her eyes dilated. His head swam in her fragrance, but he restrained himself from hauling her against him like he wanted to. There’d be time for that later.

Tipping his head down, he gave her a smug grin and vowed, “We’ll see who wins this fight. If it’s a prizefight you want, then we’ve just finished round one. Eleven more to go.”

He turned on his heel and joined Whistle.

“Puck,” came his name behind him. Refusing to turn around, he paused and held his breath. “Don’t forget your bags.”

Biting back a retort, he marched out and closed the door behind him. He’d be damned before he took his stuff out of her house.