Hammer's Pride by E.C. Land (brene brown rising strong TXT) 📕

holster I wear under my cut. I place my gun on the nightstand and reach down to pull the knife from inside my boot. Never go anywhere without both. Placing the knife next to my gun, I toe my boots off and remove my cut and holster. I’m fuckin’ exhausted, more than ready to pass the hell out.

Glancing up, I take in Avery, still standing by my dresser, her eyes filled with fear as she stares at my nightstand.

Shit.

Standing to my feet, I erase the space between Avery and myself. I wrap an arm around her and pull her into my body. “Got nothing to fear in here or in the clubhouse, Sunshine. No one here will fuck with you, okay?”

Avery nods her head but doesn’t meet my gaze head up or at all. I step back over to the bed, bringing her with me. “Sit down, baby, you eat anything for dinner?” I ask, thinking of the time and the fact she’d just gotten home from work, and from what Gunner stated, she leaves when it’s dark. I’m guessing she gets home and crashes without eating. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit with how tiny she is.

“I ate at the coffee shop while I was prepping things for when I have to get there in the morning to bake and prepare for opening,” she murmurs quietly, staring down at her hands as she picks at her nails.

The telltale sign she’s lying about eating. She didn’t eat. If she did, then it wasn’t much.

“What did you eat?” I push.

“A sandwich,” she says without hesitation. This is also a lie. One I’m willing to bet she’d practiced in her head.

Sighing, I grab my phone off the dresser and shoot a text message off to Tap, the only other prospect I’m sure about at the moment, telling him to go pick up a couple chicken meals from DR’s Food and Booze. This being one of our restaurants. We have three in total to go with our garage, stripper joint, and two other bars. If we’d wanted to go straight, we could honestly do it without taking a hit to our income, but my brothers and I get off on the adrenaline rush we get from the dark side of shit we do. Granted, when it comes to women and hard-core drugs, that’s a solid fuck no for us.

Putting my phone back on the dresser, I reach out and snag Avery’s wrist and pull her toward me. With the jerking motion, I cause her to lose her footing and fall into my lap. I twist and flip her onto the bed. I don’t miss how stiff her body becomes at this or the fear coming back into her eyes.

“Easy, Avery, I’ve said already, you don’t have nothing to fear here. Not gonna keep repeating myself. Just relax, got food coming. If you want a shirt to change into and get comfortable, I’ll get you one. You’ve been up all damn day and need to chill,” I state firmly, wanting her to hear me and understand exactly what I’m saying.

Slowly Avery licks her bottom lip and nods her head. The sight of the tip of her tongue slipping out of her mouth catches my attention and, of course, goes straight to my cock.

Fuckin’ hell. My hands itch to tear her clothes off, sink inside her and fuck her throughout the night while making her scream my name out loud enough for everyone to hear. Yeah, she’s not ready for something like that. I’d have to work her up to that.

I’m a patient man alongside being a ruthless bastard. I can wait, but I hope I don’t have to wait for long.

I pull back from her and stand up at the side of the bed and decide to help her out by going ahead and grabbing one of my shirts. I toss the shirt onto the bed and jerk my chin to the door on the opposite side of the room. “Why don’t you go get ready for bed? Food will be here soon. You can eat and then crash. We’ll talk more tomorrow when we get up.”

“Um, I have to be up and at the shop by four-thirty to prepare for customers,” Avery says apprehensively.

Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, my brows furrow even more. “That’s only five hours of sleep, Sunshine, you need more rest than that.”

“I’m good, I’m used to it, besides what’s the saying, I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” she states, trying to be funny.

“You gotta fuckin’ be livin’, babe, in order for that saying to be true,” I point out.

“Doesn’t matter, I have to be there to open, and then when I close, I need to get my tail to the store to restock what I’ll need for the next week. I’ll also need to get back to my house and do some cleaning, fix what I can fix, figure out what I need to replace.” Fuck me if this woman doesn’t give me a headache. But I gotta commend her for the fact she’s trying her fuckin’ best to pull her shit together.

“Avery, baby, you’re not gonna be back in that house until we know what the fuck is going on or who did that shit. You’re also not gonna be the one goin’ in there to clean that shit up. Do you even know what the hell those words were painted in?” I snap the last part out without meaning to.

“No,” she mutters.

“Didn’t think you would, Avery. It was fuckin’ blood, babe. In your room, you missed it due to the carnage but whoever destroyed your house left the body of a dead animal in your room. They used animals’ blood to paint your walls with those words calling you a whore. Now don’t even think for one minute I’m gonna allow you to go back there until it’s safe.” Memories of my sister-in-law and brother’s blood painting the floor of their house pop into my head.

Fuck.