Craving Redemption
By Nicole Jacquelyn
Copyright © 2014 by Nicole Jacquelyn
All rights reserved.
Cover photo by Kara Pesznecker
Cover designed by Sommer Stein
Edited by Tiffany Tillman
Proofread by Natasha Tomic
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Visit my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/authornicolejacquelyn
Dedication
To the woman who was my safe haven.
You taught us that we don’t have to agree with someone’s choices to love them,
family is important,
and food can be a sign of love.
You fed us constantly.
I love you and miss you Gram.
This one is for you.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Epilogue
Prologue
Callie
I’d gotten a call from my baby brother almost three months earlier, telling me he’d been shot, but not to worry. Who did he think he was talking to? I’d been taking care of him since the day they brought him home from the hospital—that wasn’t likely to stop just because he was doing God knows what in some town in Oregon. I’d never stop worrying about what was going on with him, just like he’d never stop standing between me and the world. That was why he was in this mess in the first place—why he gave up his education at one of the most prestigious universities in the country and joined a motorcycle club—leaving me all alone.
I hadn’t had any say in the matter. He’d left with Asa that day a year ago and I’d been too wrapped up with holding myself together to be able to stop it. I’d been such a mess—in shock and trying to figure out how it had played out the way it had. But I was no longer that broken girl who allowed herself to be patted on the head and told that everything was going to be okay. I was going to bring my brother home, no matter what I had to do.
When I pulled up to the gate, there was a man leaning against the fence outside. When he saw me, his shoulders stiffened for a minute before relaxing again as if he wasn’t overly concerned about what I was doing there. That was his first mistake. Then he grinned at me, checking me out and staring at my chest as he started toward my car. That was his second mistake. His third mistake was to walk up to my window and lean in, never even glancing at my hand that rested in my lap.
If he had seen me as a threat instead of staring at my boobs, he wouldn’t have been so surprised when I pressed the Taser against his chest.
Once he was down, I got out and rolled open the gate in front of my car. I was glad, but a little baffled, that there was no lock on the gate. They must have trusted whoever was guarding the gate to keep intruders out. Their mistake.
I started back for my car, skirting around the man lying on the gravel. I wanted to just leave him there. I really did. But the light was fading, and I was afraid if I left him lying there in the middle of the driveway someone would drive right over his ass. So instead of hopping in my car and heading down the road before someone could catch me, I leaned over and grabbed both of his ankles. It took me forever to drag him to the side of the road, and by the time I got him settled he’d begun to twitch as if he was waking up. I needed to get the hell out of there.
I once again walked toward my car, grabbing his phone off the ground as I passed it. If he woke up before I got to the big house, or whatever the fuck it was called, I didn’t want him warning anyone I was coming. I didn’t need them waiting for me. The only thing I had going for me at the moment was the element of surprise.
I pulled the car through the gate, but my conscience wouldn’t let me just leave things as they were. Jesus, I needed to stop having such a freaking bleeding heart. I left my car running and quickly ran back to shut the gate before heading down the road. They weren’t going to be thankful that I knocked out their guard, but at least I didn’t leave the gate open. That had to somehow work in my favor.
When I pulled up to the huge building, I could see there was some sort of gathering going on, but it didn’t stop me. Not once did I think I should come back or wait until a better time. I was on a mission to get my brother the hell out of there and nothing was going to stop me.
I knew it was a bad idea—knew the entire trip was one step away from a clusterfuck—and as soon as I saw Asa I took that final step. I was so consumed by rage; my vision had darkened at the edges. It was his fault. All of it; from the son I had at home in some shitty worn down apartment, to the fact that my brother was living in some biker compound in the middle of goddamn nowhere ruining his life and ultimately getting shot. It could all be traced back to Asa. The bastard.
There was a couple standing outside when I pulled up, but before I could even get my rental car’s door open, the man was shouting toward the building. I couldn’t understand what he was saying over the pounding in my ears. I was finally there; I knew it from the leather vest that the man was wearing. It was almost identical to the one Asa had worn for as long as I’d known him.
I knew I looked like a crazy person, but when men started swarming out of the club, I used the only protection I had and started waving the Taser around. I was hoping they wouldn’t be able to tell what it was until I could figure out what the hell I was going
to do. I hadn’t thought things through very well. I’d been so anxious to get there that the ramifications of driving into a Motorcycle Club’s compound uninvited had barely crossed my mind.
Just as I was beginning to get really scared, I saw Asa walking through the group and all the anger inside me wiped away any fear I had felt. That’s when I started screaming.
“You fucking dick!” I yelled, my voice sounding tinny and quiet in my ears, though my throat was aching with the power behind it. “Where the fuck is my brother?”
He started walking toward me, and the look on his face had me retreating. “The fuck are you doing here, Callie?” he yelled back, running his fingers through his hair. “You’re outta your goddamn mind!”
I wasn’t thinking straight. I was scared that I wouldn’t see my brother in the sea of faces before me, afraid that he hadn’t been telling the truth when he’d told me he was fine. It had taken months of eating ramen noodles to save up enough money to come get him, and I was terrified that I was too late to help him.
I was still taking backward steps toward my car as I screamed at Asa, searching the crowd for any sign of my baby brother and finding none. He wasn’t there. Oh God, he wasn’t there.
I’d started to panic by the time Asa reached me and didn’t hear much of what he said as he pried the Taser from my fingers. My heart was so loud in my ears, and my breath was coming at such a fast pace, that I knew it was only a manner of minutes before I passed out. It had happened once before, and though I tried to beat it, I just couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. Oh God, where was Cody? Why wasn’t he there, in between me and Asa, making peace and wrapping his arms around me? He had to have heard us yelling; if he were there, he would have come for me by then.
When Asa tossed the Taser to the ground, effectively disarming me and making me completely defenseless, I snapped. Completely and utterly lost it.
I swung my fist at his face, grazing his jaw as he twisted to dodge it. I didn’t stop there, though. I was on autopilot, using every single move I knew to hurt him. I wanted him to hurt as much as I hurt. I wanted to punish him and I set out to do it with a single-minded intent that would have scared me, had I been thinking clearly. He let me hit and kick him for a few seconds before wrapping me up in his arms and lifting me off the ground. When I swung at his face again, he pressed it into my neck where I couldn’t reach, so I pounded on his back instead. My mind was completely blank beyond the need to hurt him, my throat making little sounds of distress that I wasn’t even aware of.
The harder I struggled, the gentler he became; his arms more comforting than punishing, even though I was acting like a crazy woman. When I ran out of options and my arms and legs felt like lead, I made a last ditch effort to punish him and bit down on his shoulder as hard as I could, tasting blood but refusing to let go.
His voice broke through when my body became too exhausted to fight anymore and my mind finally began to clear.
“It’s okay, baby. He’s fine. He’s fine. It’s okay. Shhh,” he told me quietly, rubbing my back softly even though it must have hurt like hell where I had my teeth clamped down on the muscle of his shoulder. My breath caught on a sob as I finally relaxed my jaw and let my body go limp, instinctively knowing he would never let me fall. I tilted my head back and looked up at him through my tears, silently begging him to fix things. He brushed my face gently, rubbing at the blood on my cheeks as my entire body jerked with silent sobs.
“Fuck, baby, what were you fuckin’ thinkin’?” he asked me before sliding his mouth down over my nose to my lips.
While surrounded by angry bikers, with his blood on my mouth and tears running down my face, he kissed me for the first time in three years.
God, I loved him.
Chapter 1
Callie
5 years ago…
I shouldn’t have been at the party. It had been a bad idea from the very beginning, and that was before my ride had vanished into the upstairs of the house to have a drunken one-night-stand with a guy who had more acne than facial hair. It wasn’t my scene. I’d prided myself on being the wild child of my high school, but nothing had prepared me for that part of town. I didn’t know the names of the drugs that were spread across the coffee table, and I didn’t want to know—I didn’t even want to be near them.
I had decided to flip my parents the bird by going out with a friend that I knew they thought very little of. They’d grounded me the night before for breaking curfew by a measly ten minutes, but then they did me the favor of going out to dinner with my dad’s boss, leaving me all alone and full of teenage spite. I called Mallory to pick me up, and within fifteen minutes of their departure, I was on my way to Chula Vista with a girl who smoked pot while she drove and carried a flask around with her at school.
When we arrived, I stuck close to Mal, practically holding her hand as we walked through the house full of people who were both older and harder than anyone I’d partied with before. High school house parties, where we’d stolen our parents’ liquor and spent the night with kids we’d known since grade school, hadn’t prepared me for what we walked into. Mal seemed to blend into the crowd. She laughed at jokes I didn’t understand, and nonchalantly nodded her head to the music blaring through the speakers, while I stuck out like a nun at a Rob Zombie concert.
I’d dressed to impress, pairing low-waist jean shorts with a skimpy tank top that showed a sliver of my belly. I felt almost reckless when I left the house, as if I’d turned into a sluttier version of myself as a final fuck you to my overly strict parents. But when we got to the party, my version of slutty was a joke compared to what the other women were wearing. And they were women—older than us by at least a couple of years in age and hundreds of years in experience. It was mortifying, like we were playing at being grown-ups.
I was hell-bent on proving a point to my parents; I could do what I wanted. I wasn’t going to be treated like a child when I was practically an adult. So, even though all of my internal warning systems were screaming, I accepted a cup of some sort of alcohol from a man I’d never met. Then I smiled how I’d practiced—with my mouth closed tightly over my teeth and my left cheek showing off a dimple.
The house was full of people dancing, drinking, and yelling over rock music that I’d never heard before. It’s not that I didn’t listen to rock, I listened to everything really, but this was angrier than I preferred. I couldn’t even understand the words—where was the fun in that type of music? I was sitting in the corner, on an ottoman that had been pushed aside to clear the floor, and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. I wasn’t feeling rebellious anymore. I wasn’t angry at my parents and I was no longer trying to prove a point.
I just wanted to go home.
Whatever I’d drunk when I first arrived was making me feel really sick to my stomach, but I was too afraid to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to stand up and be noticed. These guys were not the kind I was used to; the ones I could wrap around my finger with a flip of my hair and a wide smile. They were big, and tattooed, and they passed around the women as if they were Fireball whiskey and they needed a shot. I’d seen one woman leave the room four separate times with different men, and each time she returned looking dazed, unkempt, and strangely satisfied. I knew what she was doing, but having it play out in front of me made my face heat in embarrassment. I was so out of my element it wasn’t even funny.
I just wanted to get the hell out of there, but unless I wanted to call my parents for a ride home, I was stuck.
I was sixteen. I would have rather run home barefoot through broken glass than called my parents to have them pick me up from a party. It was bad enough that I’d gotten braces during my junior year of high school, pretty much ensuring that I wouldn’t smile with my mouth open for the entire year—I didn’t need my mommy picking me up from a party, too. There was no way in hell that my mother would just quietly pull up to the end of the driveway. Even with my dad trying to calm her down, she’d be at the front door
yelling and chastising in Spanish, making me look like a twelve-year-old.
So, I sat in that corner for over an hour as my stomach grew worse, until finally, I thought I would pass out or vomit all over the carpet. The thought of puking in front of all the people around me was enough to push all my fears aside. I had to find a bathroom. As I stood up, the world began to spin, and I leaned my hand against the wall to get my balance. Shouldn’t that drink have worn off? It had been hours since I’d had anything. It shouldn’t have been getting worse, but it was. I’d only felt that way once before—my parents had been out of town and I’d raided their liquor cabinet with my baby brother. God, I wished I were home with him. He would’ve seen the problem and gotten me to a bathroom. Hell, he would have put me to bed by then.
I took a couple steps away from the wall, and that’s when I grabbed the attention of the room. I felt eyes on me as I made my way across the floor, shuffling my feet across the carpet. My legs felt heavy and unsteady as I reached the entryway to the house. My head was spinning as I tried to decide if I should make my way out the front door that was so close, or to the bathroom at the end of the hallway. I turned slowly toward the front door, thinking that would be my safest bet. I only took a couple of slow steps before there was a guy behind me, both hands holding me steady and making my skin crawl as his fingers pressed into my belly through my tank top.
“Where you going? The party’s in here, sweetheart,” he told me, pulling my body toward the living room again.
I couldn’t seem to get my legs to stay put, and the heels of my Vans squeaked on the wood floor as he pulled me back. My fingernails were digging into his forearms, but doing little damage as I stuttered and squeaked, trying to get him to let me go.
“I need—I’m going to be sick,” I groaned desperately, cringing as he started chuckling.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I knew I didn’t want the man touching me. His free hand was roaming all over my thighs and breasts, and my heartbeat roared in my ears when I realized he really wasn’t going to let me go. My struggles seemed to make him bolder and I whimpered as his hand started to slide up my shorts.