Misappropriate Excerpt

Meggie

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Megan Caldwell said. She glared at the three men surrounding her after listening to their suggestion that she go away so her husband, Christopher “Outlaw” Caldwell, could enjoy the bachelor party they’d planned for him. They’d waylaid her on her way from meeting with the lady she’d hired to help her decorate her and Christopher’s house. Meggie only had time to open the door to the room she shared with Christopher at the MC, thank her mother for babysitting, and watch Dinah scoot through the wall of men Meggie now faced. “CJ and I will stay in the room and—”

Mortician, Enforcer of the club and the man with a variety of handy skills, folded his arms, muscles rippled on his brown skin, while the skull ring he never seemed to remove leered from his middle finger. Though cold outside, he wore short sleeves under his cut. “C’mon, Meggie,” he persisted. “You think Prez’ll enjoy himself knowing you and his kid right down the hall?”

She glanced back at her sleeping son. Judging from her achy breasts, his feeding time was approaching. Only seven months old, he was the size of a baby twelve or thirteen months and already a smaller version of Christopher with the blueness of his eyes changing to a deeper shade of green with each passing day. Her hair might’ve been golden, but her son’s was just as black as his daddy’s. A daddy who didn’t let him very far out of his sight. Besides, she didn’t have time to just leave with the near completion of their house and their church wedding ceremony coming up soon, scheduled to happen in a month. In the beginning, the service was to have taken place on Valentine’s Day. Now, February 14th was two days away. The wedding had been pushed back to March 14th; Christopher’s bachelor party hadn’t been. As much as she loved Valentine’s Day and would’ve enjoyed having her church ceremony coincide, their new wedding date would be even more special. CJ would turn eight months the same day.

“Christopher isn’t going to like this. He won’t want us—”

“Is it him or you, girl?” Digger, Mortician’s real brother, asked, cocking his head to the side.

All right so maybe it was her a little as well. But they wanted to throw her husband a bachelor party, complete with the Bobs—those women paraded out for special occasions and their exceptional oral skills.

“We’re already married,” she pointed out, jabbing Digger in the chest. He was taller than his older brother, a little less broad in the shoulders, arms, and chest. Mortician was ripped. Digger was muscled but…she frowned. Was she actually sizing up her husband’s officers?

“Why does he need a bachelor party?”

“Right, Meggie,” Val, the bald RC, grunted. His mouth kicked up in a smile, revealing the sexy dimple that made him irresistible to so many girls.

Umkay. Yes. Yes, she was sizing these men up. Men she’d known for over a year and thought of as friends and older brothers.

“Why you need some big fucking church wedding?” Val went on in the steely voice he adopted for intimidation. “You already married, huh?”

She’d walked right into that one. She stepped farther into the hallway, so their voices wouldn’t prematurely awaken her son. She’d be so glad when their house was finished because she was sick to death of living day-in and day-out at the MC. “Where am I supposed to go all of a sudden?”

“I’m with Megs,” a voice to the right of her said. Johnnie, Christopher’s cousin, and the club VP, leaned against the wall next to her.

Meggie looked at the ankle boots she wore, not wanting to stare at Johnnie. The one glimpse she had seen of his chiseled face, when she’d glanced between the space created by Mortician’s head and the wall, proved enough for her.

“Christopher will have your balls if he knows you’re pressuring his wife to leave,” he continued.

Johnnie’s blond hair, longer on top than on the sides, made his silver-gray eyes stand out. The heat of his gaze lasered her profile and she shifted her weight beneath his scrutiny. She didn’t have to look at him to know he studied her. He always did. And not in a brotherly way.

“I’m suggesting you asswipes back off,” he said lazily.

Meggie rocked back on her heels, satisfied at his defense. “He’s known about this bachelor party all along. He’s never once said he didn’t want me there. Or, at least, on the premises.”

“Prez wouldn’t want to upset you,” Mortician went on. His dreads had grown even longer in the months since she’d met him. Today, they were queued, and his strong neck flexed with his movements. “But we gonna have associates, hangers-on, and brothers from our support clubs as well as dudes from our out of town chapters. You know if you’re here Prez’s either gonna want you out there with him or he’s gonna be in here with you. How’s that gonna make him look to the other brothers?”

“Like he loves and respects his wife,” she snapped.

“Who the fuck are you?” Johnnie snarled, drawing everyone’s attention to a man who’d just walked out of the main room and into the hallway where only members and their guests were allowed.

Sardonic green eyes studied them, and Meggie frowned when she caught a brief glimpse of him as Mortician shifted and turned to the side. A blue bandanna covered the man’s head and a leather jacket that might very well conceal a weapon.

He raised his hands. “Sorry, brother. Looking for the shitter.”

The men now hid her, their backs to her in a semi-circle of towering, muscled protection. Behind them, she stood on her tiptoes to get another look at the interloper, placing her hands on Digger’s shoulders to balance herself.

“This ain’t the fucking way,” Digger growled.

“Yeah, fuckhead. Public shitters in the other direction,” Val added, raising an arm.

Meggie guessed it was to point toward the public shitters. They were on the other side of the main room, in the area of the pool tables and dartboards.

“Sorry,” the man said again, though something about his mocking tone told Meggie he wasn’t sorry at all.

“You forgiven this fucking time,” Mortician called. “Make a mistake like this again and we not responsible for where the fuck parts of you end up.”

Meggie poked Mortician in the back at the threat, though she knew the score. She sighed and thought of Christopher’s bachelor party. Men like the stranger would overrun the place and Christopher’s well-earned reputation as a badass meant everything to him. At the thought, her defenses crumbled. Mortician was right. To her, Christopher was everything she could ever want—a wonderful father and a very dedicated husband. To everyone else…he was both feared and respected because of the way he carried himself and the way he handled things. She wouldn’t want him to lose face because she couldn’t allow him to enjoy his bachelor party without her around.

They turned back to her, and she knew the man was gone. She heard the first stirrings of her son. On cue, her breasts opened like a faucet. “Fine,” she said before they started in on her again. “I’ll call Farrah and Lacey and go to Seattle.”

“Seattle?” they chorused, glancing between one another with consternation. She hadn’t seen her friends since forever, so, maybe, this would be a good time to visit. At least, they’d serve as a distraction about her husband’s bachelor party.

Digger recovered first. “Meggie girl, well, I guess that’ll be cool. We know you won’t change your mind and decide to come back during the party with you being so far away.”

“Seattle, huh, babe?” Val rubbed his jaw, his mouth downturned. “Just don’t call Prez every ten minutes, telling him you miss him. That’ll be just as bad as you being here.”

Meggie shook her head. “I won’t call him every ten minutes, but I will call him—”      

“No, girl,” Mortician insisted. “No calls at all ‘til the next day. If he hears your voice, he won’t have fun.”

“What planet have you three been living on?” Meggie bit out, tapping her foot in agitation. “I won’t like not being able to talk to Christopher at all after just deciding to fly out of town, but he really won’t like not hearing from me.”

Johnnie cleared his throat and pushed off the wall. He reached in his cut for a cigarette, his gaze falling on her swollen breasts. Meggie lowered her lashes and gritted her teeth, flushing to her toes at the lust in Johnnie’s eyes. He didn’t light his cigarette, just held it between his fingers and used it to emphasize his words.

“The woman sleeps next to him every night. She knows him better than we do. I say you three idiots listen to her.”

“You’ve known him all your life, John Boy,” Val said in defense of his argument.

“My point exactly,” Johnnie said. He pointed between the three of them. “And you fucks have known him ten, fifteen years.”

Meggie backed out of the doorway and a little farther into the room. “One call to let him know we’ve gotten there safely.”

“Meggie, c’mon,” Digger said with frustration, “that won’t fly. He’s not going to die without hearing from you for one day. And neither will you.”

She had no time for this. CJ was making his little baby babbles. “Fine.”

Not wanting to hear anymore, she turned, finished talking, needing to get to CJ so she could nurse him. Right before she closed the door, she heard Johnnie mutter, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you bozos.”

(c)2022 Misappropriate by Kathryn C. Kelly