Vindication: A Motorcycle Club Romance (26 page)

A wave of sincere relief melted down
my skin. “Thank you. I would be fucked without you.”

“We’ll get you through this. I hate
to run but I have a meeting. Call me if you hear from any of the guys.”

“Will do,” I said, and hung up.

Quiet descended on the room like slow
death. For what felt like days, I sat at the edge of the bed and watched the
rain roll down the windows. Food would help my mood, I knew, but I couldn’t
make my feet move for the kitchen.

Instead I looked at my clock and saw,
thanks to my sleeping in, that I only had a few short hours before Laurel would
be expecting me at the Graveyard Club. And through all the gray numbness trying
to swallow me whole, the thought of her red-lipped smile shone like the sun.

It was the best—hell, the only reason
I had not to crawl right back into bed and sleep the storm away.

I carried far dirtier thoughts of her
with me to the shower.

~
SEVEN ~

Laurel

Noah and I hadn’t exchanged numbers, so I had no idea
what time he might expect me at the Graveyard Club. To play it safe, I went
with the fashionably late option, showing up just as the first band was ending
their set. Tonight clearly wasn’t a hardcore showcase. Instead I watched a
beautiful young woman and her long-haired male partner arrange a modest
acoustic setup with guitars, a bucket drum, and a cello. The music was mellow
and lovely, her voice a deep, jazzy timbre, but it concerned me that maybe Noah
wouldn’t be showing up for a show like this. Maybe he had just been paying lip
service in automatic reflex to what he figured was a groupie.

Panic hit my chest. For the first
time, I considered that eventuality: what if he doesn’t come back? I’d been so
caught up in last night’s success—and its dirtier memories—that it didn’t even
hit me for a moment that Noah might just flat out disappear on me. After all,
if he was the womanizing bad boy he had the reputation for, what would keep him
from finding an easier, better piece of ass for the night?

The thoughts started to drag me down
a bit. I mumbled a curse to myself under my breath as I took the shot of
Jameson that Kevin put down in front of me.

“What’s that, darlin’?” he said.

“Oh.” I coughed a little. “Sorry, I
was just talking to myself.” Wait, what was I thinking? This was perfect. I
wasn’t going to let Noah not showing up stop me from getting my shit done, and
Kevin was probably a gold mine of a source. “Actually, I wanted to say this is
a nice setup you’ve got out here.”

Kevin beamed. “You’re a pretty little
flatterer! I know she’s a shithole. But she’s
my
shithole.” He laughed.

I laughed with him. “I just mean it’s
nice to see an independent place with some roots still fighting the good fight
around here. I can’t believe how much the city has changed.”

Kevin put down the glass he was
drying and leaned on the counter toward me. “Oh, that it has.” He shook his
head ruefully. “It’s tough out there. But whatever voodoo’s out in these woods,
it keeps us going, and I’m gonna be here until it stops.”

I smiled. “I like the way you think.”

“So, you waiting for Noah?” He didn’t
even try to hide the sly smile on his face.

My cheeks flushed red for reasons I
didn’t quite understand. “Yeah. I mean, I guess. I can’t get a hold of him if
he decides to flake out on me, so it might just be you and me tonight, Kev.”

Kevin laughed at that. “Oh, that
ain’t gonna happen. Him, flake out on a girl like you? Nah. He wouldn’t have
invited you back here if he was gonna flake out.”

“What makes you say that?”

Kevin waved his hands around, like he
was showing off the bar at an open house. “This place is practically his second
home, so he’s not gonna ask the D-squad to keep showing up, if you know what I
mean,” he said with a wink.

The thought of Noah trying to keep me
hanging around his second home warmed me up inside. “He’s been coming here for
a long time, huh?”

“A long time!” said Kevin. “He was just
a skinny, pissed-off fifteen-year-old sneaking into shows when I first met
him.”

I laughed. “Now
that
is hard
to picture.”

“Couldn’t keep the little fucker out
of here. But he wasn’t like some of the little punks sneaking in, trying to get
wasted. He didn’t care less about the booze. He just wanted to see the shows.
So I stopped trying to keep him out after a while, and wouldn’t you know it, he
just… never really left.”

The memory was overwhelmingly
adorable, and it began doing heavy battle with the idea of Noah I already had
planted in my head—mean, selfish, murderous Noah Hardy, always looking for a
fight until the day he finally went too far. Could that really be the same
scrawny Noah sneaking into hardcore shows? Had his love for the music turned into
something so twisted and upsetting that he would lash out at an innocent
person? I couldn’t reconcile the ideas. Especially not after last night.

Or was I just making the same mistake
I made before, and getting too close?

“It’s clear he really loves this
place, and you,” I said. “It’s nice to see that kind of loyalty nowadays.”

Kevin’s expression turned serious.
“There’s not a goddamn person out there as loyal as Noah Hardy. That kid would
run into a burning building to get someone out of it and then pay their medical
bills. The only reason this place isn’t
more
of a shithole is all
because of him.”

“What do you mean?”

“All I ever have to do is call Noah
if something around here needs fixing, and bam—he’s got it taken care of the
next day. Two years ago, he gave our sound system a complete overhaul. He was
on leave from tour once when I threw my back out, and he spent his vacation
runnin’ the place himself until I was back on my feet. That couch you guys…”
Kevin suddenly stopped, and gave an embarrassed, but sly, cough. “That couch in
the green room? Noah bought it for us.”

I was legitimately blown away by what
Kevin was saying. Plenty of huge rock stars took care of their families and
things, and some made big spectacles of giving to charity. But even as one of
the industry’s more high-tier journalists, I had never heard a single peep
about Noah Hardy ever taking care of anyone. He never talked about Kevin or the
Graveyard Club in any interview I ever read, and that was after three solid
days of archive-digging and research until my eyes were so dry they hurt. But
clearly, this place was Noah’s soul.

It hit me in that moment that Noah
was protecting it. He didn’t talk about the Graveyard Club because he knew what
happened when fame hit a little place like this. It didn’t always go the way of
iconic clubs like the Viper Room. Sometimes fame destroyed things, and it was
clear Noah never wanted to take that risk with this second home of his.

All of a sudden, the image of Noah
Hardy in my mind seemed a lot blurrier.

“He really does sound like a special
guy,” I said to Kevin. The words from my own mouth surprised me, but there was
no lie in them.

“He is,” said Kevin. “And I’m lucky
to have him around.”

I smiled at Kevin. “I’m glad you do.”

“So, what brings you out this way? I
don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here before.”

Kevin’s question froze me up for just
a minute, but I was practiced at this. I took a sip of beer before I answered.
“I just moved here about a month ago, trying to get in on the local scene. One
of the dudes at Silver Spoons Records told me to check you out.”

“Ah, Brad, that son of a bitch,” said
Kevin with a grin. He slapped his dish towel on the counter. “Always lookin’
out. I’m glad you found the place. You need another shot? Noah’s tab never
closes.”

I laughed and nodded, “Hell, in that
case, bring me two.”

Kevin walked away to fulfill my
request. Over the sound of the gentle folksy music coming from the stage, the
door to the club swung open and closed hard on the jam. A few seconds later,
there was a warm presence at my back, leaning on me gently.

Noah’s musk washed over my senses and
I closed my eyes, breathing it in. My heart jumped in my chest, and the
electric sensation shot down my spine and between my legs. I could feel my
pussy getting wet already as he pressed his handsome face next to mine, leaning
over my shoulder.

His beard tickled the sensitive skin
at my neck and I shivered.

With hot breath, he said, “I’m glad
to see you sitting here.”

It wasn’t the line I expected, but
nonetheless, the words brought with them a severe happiness that washed over my
brain like a tidal wave. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pressed his
hips against my back. His hardening dick pulsed against the top of my ass.

“I was starting to think you weren’t
coming,” I teased.

Noah grunted softly under his breath
and pulled me closer, until my back pressed hard against his muscled chest. I
could feel his heart beating against my ribs. “I’m not, but we could change
that very quickly.”

Fuck, he was dirty. I loved the way
he talked to me. My clit pulsed in my jeans, aching to feel the strength of his
dexterous hands. I bit my lip. “I’m all for that.”

Kevin came back over with the two
shots and put them in front of me. Noah barely seemed to notice the man’s
presence. He kept his face pressed against the side of mine, breathing against
me, one hand laying on my flat tummy dangerously close to my pussy. It took all
my composure to turn away from him enough to take one of the shots. He watched
me take it, and then took the second one himself.

Noah unwrapped himself from around my
body and took the stool next to me. Kevin set us both up with another round and
then, as if through some unspoken communication, left us alone after exchanging
a greeting with Noah. When I saw the heaviness in Noah’s eyes, I knew why.
Despite the welcome warmth of his greeting, there was a storm raging inside
him.

Noah took the next shot and drank
half his beer before he looked back at me again. The quiet, sad tone of the
indie music playing tonight only made him seem more melancholy.

Obviously, it didn’t take an
investigative journalist to know that he was probably rotting from hearing
about Duke’s bullshit interview. All the chatter online, both in the journalist
circles and in the general public, agreed that what Duke was doing was cold as
ice. Of course, there was no agreement on whether he was a giant asshole for
doing it. Some defended his ruthless, capitalistic business sense, and others
wanted to see him burned at the stake for betraying his artistic brothers. It
was that kind of divisiveness that kept people glued to the story.

But what they didn’t see—and what I,
until that moment, hadn’t really considered—was how that same divisiveness cut
Noah to his core. To have someone betray you like that is horrible enough; to
have a chorus of people not just forgiving, but cheering it on? That was a
whole different hell. Just one look at Noah made that clear.

I hoped inside that Noah had stayed
away from the chatter. It would only make him feel worse. Even still, part of
keeping up this cover meant I had to seem convincing, and there was just no
realistic way a girl sleeping with Noah Hardy was going to
not
ask him
something about what was happening. I had to bring it up; my job depended on
it.

“Hey,” I said softly. I waited until
he looked at me. “Look, I know this…” It was not hard to act uncomfortable at
that moment. “I saw the thing with Duke.”

Noah’s expression darkened, but he
said nothing.

Quickly, I continued. “I just wanted
to say—if you want to talk about it, I’m a good listener. But I get it if you
don’t want to.”

Noah watched me, blinking slowly,
thinking. I held his gaze for a second, but soon it just became too intense.
There was so much raging behind his eyes. I turned back to my beer and hoped I
hadn’t struck a nerve with him.

His voice came quiet. “Thanks.”

I nodded, turning to look at him just
for a flash of a second as I did.

He said, “I really don’t want to even
think about it.”

“I understand that,” I said. “You
don’t have to.”

His laugh was more sour than genuine.
“I wish that was true.”

“I just meant… I meant we can try and
get your mind off it,” I said. I turned to look at him. Lust lit up in the
depths of his gaze.

Noah licked his lips and looked at
mine. “I think we should.” He leaned forward and took my face in his hands with
one fluid motion. His kiss was deep, and there was a quiet need in the way his
hands held my face next to his. When his tongue swept around my mouth, I
couldn’t help but let out a little sigh against his lips.