Vengeful Soul by Emma Creed

I’m doing my best to keep her at arm’s length, and she must get the hint because she’s stayed well out of my way today. Earlier, I tried getting hold of Prez again, still without any luck, and I’m starting to worry about how long I’m gonna have to keep this up for.

Gracie has a way of making me forget who I am when I’m around her, she takes the hate out of me and replaces it with greed.

I head to the bathroom, strip out of my clothes, and get under the water. Since last night, all I’ve been able to focus on is how hot she’d looked when I’d pulled back the shower curtain, and how fucking good it felt to have her body clinging to mine all night.

I've had no release from all the tension she’s put inside me and now, with her settled for the night, it’s time to resolve the problem.

I squeeze some shower gel into my palm before I wrap it around my cock. Then closing my eyes, I pull back the vision of her wet and naked in that motel shower. Sliding my hand slowly up and down my shaft, I remember how her lips were soft against mine, and how her pulse beat fast under my fingers when I kissed her. I’m rock fuckin’ hard and with all the frustration that’s been building inside me over the past few days, I know it ain’t gonna be long before I’m shooting my load.

I imagine it’s her touching me, and grip myself tighter, my forehead resting against the arm that’s propping me against the tiles. I keep a steady rhythm while thinking about her mouth, and wondering how it might feel to be inside it. I could fuck that sassy brat’s throat raw for the shit she’s putting me through.

“Brax, I… holy shit!”

I was too distracted to hear the door open, and when I see her standing in the entrance way with her eyes wide open, I quickly hunch my body over to shield myself.

“Get out.” I grab the closest thing to me and toss it at her, but she doesn’t move. Her eyes remaining fixed on my cock, and having her full attention makes it throb against my fist.

“Brax, are you…?” Her mouth drops open. “Oh my god,” she giggles, the bitch is fucking giggling at me, and don’t it just make me wanna drag her in here by her hair, pin her to the tiles and fuck the amusement right out of her mouth.

“I said get out!” I yell at her again, but she ain’t getting the fucking hint.

“I need to take a shower before bed,” she shrugs. “Guess this makes us even…” Her eyes seductively roll over my body, and she shocks the life out of me when she lifts the shirt she’s wearing over her head, exposing those pert little tits to me all over again.

I don’t know what fucking game she’s playing, but with me wound up so tight it’s gonna get her in trouble.

I tense my jaw as she unbuttons her jeans and shimmy’s them off her hips.

I've been wondering all day if she was wearing underwear underneath them, and now it’s confirmed that she wasn’t, I scrub my hand over my face to try and erase the thoughts from my head.

“You don’t mind, do you?” She smiles at me like the devil’s daughter as she takes a step closer. I have to rein some self fucking discipline in from somewhere when she steps under the shower and places herself in front of me, and I watch her as she lets the water soak through her hair.

My restraint is being tested to its limit with her naked body so close to mine. But I won’t fucking break. Not now that I’m sure this is all part of her plan.

I let go of my cock and somehow manage to hold the groan in my throat when the tip of it touches against her stomach, she looks down at it like it’s a temptation, but she doesn’t touch. And it’s agony, pure fucking agony. But nothing I ain’t prepared to endure. I’m all about self preservation. I've practiced it for long enough.

She picks up my sponge and covers it in shower gel, gliding it over her body in small circles that I can’t stop myself from watching. Her body is lathered in soap now, dripping wet, and so fucking close that it would be easy to lift her off her feet and slip my cock inside her pussy.

Is that what she wants?

The only thing I can be sure of is that she wants me to want her, she wants me to pass over my weakness so much that she’s prepared to sacrifice her self respect. And a big part of me, the part that’s pulsing against her lathered up skin, really wants to give it up to her.

I stare back at her, unable to move for fear of breaking. If I ever give in and fuck this girl, you can guarantee it’ll be on my terms… not hers. The few minutes she spends trying to provoke me feel like a lifetime of fucking pain.

I swear if she moves that stomach against me one more time, I’m gonna blow my load all over her skin.

What Gracie doesn’t know about me is that I was trained by Vex, and part of Vex’s training involves pain tolerance. I've earned most of the scars on my body from the lessons he taught me. And I sure as hell didn’t learn his hard way to be taken down like this.

I keep my eyes fixed on hers, feeding on her determination and feeling myself growing in strength. I still hold all the control here and Gracie needs a reminder of that.

When she gives up on her attempt and moves to get out of the shower, I squeeze my hand around the top of her arm and drag her back, slamming her slippery body onto mine and making sure she feels every hard inch of me press into her lower back. I fist her soaked hair and use it to tug back her head, exposing her long, slender neck to my mouth

“Don’t fuckin’ test me again,” I warn. Then deciding I deserve some form of satisfaction as a reward for my restraint, I sink my teeth into her neck, sucking hard and raising her blood to the surface.

Her helpless moan sings straight to my dick and I quickly release her, pulling myself away and wrapping a towel around my waist before I slam her forward and fuck her hot little body into the tiles.

I don’t look back, and I get the fuck out of that bathroom before I do something I’ll regret.

Despite the leeway I’m giving her, she’s still trying to fuck with my head. Does she really think seducing me will earn her my trust? Especially now that we both know she’s all out of options.

The world’s a big place to defend yourself in, especially when you don’t know who's coming for you. Gracie has no clue what’s coming for her and what scares me more than any of this, is that right now, neither do I.

I don’t go to the spare room, I’m far too wound up for sleep. Instead, I head to my room, quickly throw on some clothes then go downstairs.

On my way out to the porch, I pick up a bottle of vodka from the kitchen.

I’ve was stupid to bring her here. In doing so, I’ve shared a part of me that I’ve never shared with anyone.

When I found out Nyx was living with the Souls in Manitou Springs, I needed a place close enough to keep an eye on him, somewhere near, but far enough away to keep myself private. I may be a nomad, but even drifters need a base. Manitou Springs has been mine for way longer than any of my Soul brothers know it has.

And now I’ve tainted my private space with her.

Tilting back my head I look up at the stars, Mama used to promise we’d live in a place like this someday.

“A real quiet place, Braxton, with a porch, and one of those swings that we can sit and watch the stars from.”

Instead of telling us bedtime stories, Mama would tell us her dreams. The future she wanted us to have was real pretty.

I wonder what she’d think of the men we’ve become.

Nyx was too young to remember her, but I’m too selfish to share my memories with him. Just like this place, they’re private, they belong to me, and I need them. I need them to remind me of the man I might have become if Tobias Saunders hadn’t ripped Mama and her dreams for us away.

Who knows, maybe I’d have become a man worthy of the girl I brought here.

I don’t know how long I’ve been out here listing in my head all the fuck ups I’ve made since I took Gracie from her home, but half the liquor in the bottle has disappeared, and I have every intention of setting to work on the other half.

The bottle drops out of my hand when a piercing scream comes from upstairs, and I run through the cabin, taking two steps at a time, and charge through the bedroom door to where Gracie is supposed to be sleeping.

I stop and take a breath when I see her, alone and unharmed.

“Brax.” Her arms reach out to me, and I have to battle all my instincts and restrain myself from going to her. For all I know, this is just another mind fuck. But even I can see that there’s something wrong. Her chest is struggling to take in air, and she’s drenched in sweat.

And I fucking break when she says, “Please,” in such a tiny helpless voice, I swear it pierces a hole in my stone-cold heart.

I go straight to her, scooping her up and holding her tight to my body. I even let a hand stroke through her hair. Mama used to do it to me when I had night terrors and I’m sure that's what Gracie has woken up from.

“You’re all right. It was just a dream. You're fine.” I don’t sound like myself. I don’t feel like myself either. I’ve lost a little control and I gotta get it back somehow.

“I saw them all over again, only this time you weren’t there,” her mouth muffles against my chest, her tears soaking through my T-shirt. She’s clinging at it so tight, I can feel it stretching against my skin.

“I’m here now, I got ya,” I reassure her, pulling back and grabbing her face so she has to look at me.

“I ain’t gonna let anything happen to you,” I tell her firmly, though all I can focus on is that bottom lip trembling. I want to press my lips hard over hers to make it stop. I wanna taste her tears. Fuck. I want to take all the bad outta the world single handedly so she never has to suffer.

How the hell did I not fuck her in the shower?

“Please don’t leave, Brax, stay with me, no more games, I promise,” she begs me, and I go against all my better judgment and nod back at her, my thumb stroking away one of her tears from her face.

Why the fuck am I shaking?

She snuffles and offers me a brave smile. I learned real quick how much Gracie hates showing weakness. She thinks it gives me pleasure, when in reality she couldn’t be more wrong. Somehow her weakness has become my own. I feel the burden of it weighing down my shoulders. It’s crippling, and it scratches under my skin because it doesn’t belong there.

I fucking hate it.

She snuggles back down onto the mattress, pulling me down with her and I keep my arms tight around her body, trying not to take fulfillment in the way she relaxes against me.

Everything in my head tells me what I’m doing is wrong, but I can’t have her cry on me again.

“I’m trusting you, Brax. Not because I have to, because I want to,” she tells me sleepily. And my eyes stare hard into the back of her skull. The bitch might as well have just stabbed a fucking knife right into my chest, because I'm not a man you trust. I’m one you fear.

Braxton Marshall knows only ruin, and I've come to the conclusion that I really don’t want to ruin her.

When I’m sure she’s gone back to sleep, I slowly let my fingers slide through her hair, and when I touch my lips carefully into the top of her head, the scent of strawberry shampoo fills my airways. I knew it would smell good on her, that’s why I picked it out.

Breathing her in like this, I could almost forget what hate feels like. I wake up craving pain, and I go to sleep at night exhausted from seeking it.

And now, for the first time in twenty years, I find myself craving something different before I close my eyes. Something that’s physically close, but just like Chop, out of my damn reach.

I close my eyes, and instead of asking myself how I’m gonna end the man who ruined my life, my mind asks itself a different question.

How the fuck am I gonna get this girl out of the trouble she’s in?

I get up extra early and busy myself with jobs around the house. I haven’t spent all that much time here lately. Shit’s been busy at the club so it’s been easier staying at my cabin on the compound.

There’s plenty of things that need patching up, and I decide to start with the porch step.

I don’t know how long Gracie has been standing watching me, but when I lift up my head, I catch her staring down, her hair wet and hanging loose over one of her shoulders.

She hands me the coffee cup that she has clutched in her hand, giving me the same awkward smile that she did yesterday. The one that makes my dick hard and my lips fucking twitchy.

I feel myself fall a little harder for her, and worse… I’m sure that she can see it too. She isn’t afraid of me anymore. In fact, somewhere between me taking her from her room and me cradling her to sleep last night, the roles have been reversed. Because now, the pretty blonde girl standing in front of me wearing my shirt, has me fucking terrified.

I take the coffee and turn away from her, resting my ass on the step while I drink it.

Gracie decides to taunt me like that for the next few hours, wherever I go, she’s there. I can’t get away from her, or those innocent looks she keeps throwing at me. They turn me on more than the seductive ones she tried to break me with.

I’m agitated, pissed the fuck off, and my cock has been hard for the past two nights without release. But no amount of needy eyes and licking lips are gonna make me give in to her.

I come back into the cabin around lunchtime, ready to fix something up for us but she’s got me beat. Her tight little ass cheeks hang out the bottom of my shirt, as she dices up some salad with the biggest, sharpest knife my kitchen has to offer.

I sit myself on the kitchen side next to the sink and take in the view. She knows I’m watching her, and gives me a satisfied smile over her shoulder.

"What ya staring at?" she asks, turning her head back to focus on chopping.

"Ain't starin’, darlin’, just wonderin’."

"I know what guys like you are about. The things you get up to…" She places the knife down flat on the chopping board and twists her body around to face mine.

"Ya do, do ya?" I decide to humor her, she looks too incredible in my shirt not to. Damn this girl knows how to fuck with me. How can I go from being so angry at her, to actually wanting to play her games? I shouldn't even be entertaining the thoughts she puts in my head. That's not what she’s here for.

She shouldn’t be here at all.

Walking slowly toward me, she places herself between my open legs.

"We got time to pass, maybe you could teach me?" She runs her tongue over her lips, attempting to look sexy and fucking nailing it. My cock is stretched to full potential, begging me to take her up on the offer, but I can't complicate things and with Gracie waiting so eagerly for my reaction, I give her one.

I snake my hand around her throat and pull her in closer. Her lips pick up into a smile which I know won’t be there for long.

"You wouldn't have the first clue where to start with a man like me," I tell her, curling my hand around her neck and cupping her nape. I take a chunk of her hair in my fist and pull back, forcing her neck to rise up in front of me. I see the mark I made on her last night and for a second, I think about sliding my tongue over her stretched-out skin. I know now that she tastes just as good as she smells and I want to make her moan again.

But I manage to find restraint from somewhere.

“You made a promise. No more games, remember? Don’t forget what this is, Gracie,” I warn her spitefully, before sliding my ass off the counter and letting my body connect with hers. I stare her down for a few seconds before releasing her hair and stepping away. Then I head straight to the shed and call Jessie.

“You got to hurry this shit up, man,” I tell him as soon as he answers.

“That bad, huh?” he laughs back at me.

“Summat like that.” I pick up a hammer from my workbench and slam it down hard, denting the wood.

“Look, just hang in there, brother, Prez got a lead on Chop, so him and Troj had to chase it up, he should be back in a couple days.” Just hearing that man’s name kicks up more rage, and my fists tense so tight that I nearly crush the cell in my hand.

That asshole didn’t just kill my mom and his own brother’s wife. What no one else knows, not even Jessie, is that he also killed Brian Donavon. I’d been there the night Chop rode out to Utah to meet with the president of the Charter I was prospecting for. I was just a grunt back then, no one took me seriously. But I always kept my ear to the ground, and I learned that being underestimated got you a lot of information.

I’d been working the bar, the night Chop met with Jessie's dad, and knowing that something wasn’t right even before Chop got there, I’d managed to record that whole conversation. I sat on that recording for a long time while I built the club’s trust, and a few years ago, I mailed a copy of that recording to Chop to fuck with his head.

Then I paid the club a visit so I could watch his reaction.

I was gonna kill him that night. Slit the fucker’s throat so everyone could watch him bleed out. That was the night I discovered Nyx was prospecting for Jimmer Carson, and things got a whole lot more complicated.

I realized then that I had to be smart and bide my time. When Tobias Saunders or Chop, as he renamed himself, got his justice, I was gonna be the hand that fed it to him, but the club didn’t know what kind of man he was back then and I would have suffered the consequences for taking the life of a fellow brother.

“Brax, you still there?” Jessie reminds me that he’s still on the line.

“I'm still here.”

“Just hang on in there, Mads is workin’ real hard at getting us some leads. In the meantime, if you need anything, you call, okay?”

“Hurry it up, Jess,” I tell him, before hanging up and making my way back to the house.

Gracie has served up two plates at the table and there’s a bowl of salad in the center. She looks up at me sheepishly as I walk in and take a seat, then she pulls something out of the oven that smells amazing.

“This looks real good,” I tell her when she places it on the table. Naturally, she ignores me, and it’s the least I deserve after being such a cunt to her. When she takes the seat opposite mine, I smile to myself when I look over to Duke's bowl and see she’s fried some beef up for him. He looks up at me, wagging his tail, and I nod for him to dig in.

We eat in silence, just the sound of Duke licking his bowl and chasing it around the floor.

Gracie tidies up after dinner, and I head back out to the shed for some space.

I keep all my favorite bikes out here. Pulling the sheet off my bobber, I run my fingers over the leather seat.

Back when I joined the club it hadn’t been about the bikes for me, and as strange as it sounds, that’s the case for most of us. Over the years I’ve learned to appreciate them, there’s nothing better than the freedom of a ride. It’s a freedom I could do with right now, and an escape I’m tempted to take. I just can’t risk leaving Gracie up here alone.

When I walk back out to the yard, Gracie is searching the ground on her hands and knees frantically.

“What is it?” I ask, rushing toward her.

“My locket.” She clasps her hand to her chest where her gold locket usually sits. “I remember having it on the porch before we went for the walk last night, I was thinking about them and I always fiddle with it when I think about them. I…I must have lost it. I can’t lose it, Brax, I can’t.” She’s in a real panic, one almost as bad as the one she was in when her life was in danger.

“Calm down, we’ll find it.” I start searching myself but after a good look, we come up with nothing.

“Come on, we’ll trace our steps, we still got a few hours before it gets dark.” I move through the grass, carefully kicking it apart with my boot.

“Why's it so important to ya?” I ask her out of curiosity. I swear if I’m wasting my time sifting through grass up to my knees to find some pathetic trinket her pussy boyfriend got her… I’m gonna flip.

“My parents gave it to me for my graduation. It was the last thing I got from them before they died,” she tells me through tears, following me through the trail I’ve made, on her hands and knees.

“Hey…” I pause, turning around, and she looks up at me from the ground, her green eyes matching the blades of grass she’s crawling through. “We’ll find it, okay?” I promise, and she nods her pretty head back at me before getting back to her search again.

I’m about to suggest we go back to the house and search again tomorrow, when I hear her excited voice call out.

“I got it!”

Turning around, I find her resting on one of the large rocks, clutching the tiny golden chain between her fingers, with a relieved smile.

“I found it,” she tells me again, as I approach her and sit down beside her. She opens the locket, revealing a tiny picture of her and two other people that I assume are her parents.

“I still can’t believe they're gone.” She rubs her thumb affectionately over the photograph. I’m not good at deep and meaningful. So I do the only thing I can do, and keep quiet.

“My mom was always so worried about me, so paranoid about every little thing. She forgot to worry about herself.”

“How did they die?” I find myself asking, which is ridiculous considering I shouldn’t care.

“Car accident, they ran off the road up at Pines Peak, police reckon Mom must have swerved to miss a deer or something.” She takes in a stuttering breath, and I give in to my instincts and let my arm drape over her shoulder. Holding her always feels right, no matter how much my head tells me it was wrong.

Right now, Gracie needs someone, I want that someone to be me.

“That’s it.” She suddenly pulls herself away from me, her fingers fumbling as she tries to take the photograph out of the casing.

“It’s not working, I need something sharp,” she says desperately.

“Slow down, what are you doing?” Taking her hands in mine, I hold them firm to stop them from shaking.

“I just remembered, when my Mom gave this to me she said something, something that at the time I paid no attention to because it made no sense, but now…”

“What did she say?” I ask, tightening my grip on her hands.

“She told me to always keep this close. That help can always be found behind the people that love you.”

“Okay.” I nod, not fully understanding what’s got her so excited, it sounds like a logical thing for a mother to say to her daughter.

“Brax, what if there’s something hidden behind this picture?” She looks up at me hopefully.

“Something like what?” The locket's so tiny.

“Answers, anything. There has to be a reason why those men came for me, and why your Prez wants me too. I don’t trust your Prez, Brax, but something inside me is telling me that I should trust you.”

“Really?” I feel my forehead crease together. Yeah, she told me that last night, but she was scared then.

“Why?”

Gracie pulls her eyes away from the picture and lifts them up to mine.

“Because I don’t think you’d let anyone hurt me.” Her voice is so sweet and full of belief, that for a moment I drop my guard. My head nodding to confirm she’s right. It kills me to admit it but there ain’t anyone that I’d let harm her. Not even me.