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I knew she didn’t have any love for me. I’d kicked her ass more than once in the past for crossing a few lines and running her mouth. The last time had been right after Bash had left and she’d gotten in my face, rubbing the fact that she’d been one of the first to fuck my man before he’d even patched into the club.
Long fingernails came out and tangled in my hair. I didn’t struggle right away. After fighting with her I knew that she liked to play dirty and I wasn’t going to give her a reason to start kicking me in the stomach. Bubbles knew that I was pregnant but I didn’t think she cared at that moment.
“This is going to be fun,” Bubbles murmured and her lips lifted as she glanced over my shoulder at the mad man trying to burn my bar down. “Can I?”
“She’s all yours, babe.”
At the sound of Samson’s voice, instinct took over. Whether this bitch kicked me or worse I had to get away from her and the psycho having a field day burning down my bar. The heat of the flames was getting higher, and the scent of burning wood, plastic, and liquor was starting to turn my stomach even as the growing smoke made my eyes start to water and burned my throat. The urge to cough was starting to become more of an necessity to expel the fumes invading my lungs.
Bubbles’s hands tightened in my hair but I refused to give her the satisfaction of crying out. I reached for her hair and held on just as tight as she was holding onto mine. When she tried to jerk me closer, her knee coming up to connect with my abdomen, I twisted to the left and took a handful of her dried-out blond hair with me. But she didn’t release her hold on me as I’d hoped.
She shook my head, hard. I felt hairs give way and bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming out in pain. Her smile turned just as vile as Samson’s had and I mentally cringed.
Fuck, this wasn’t going to end pretty.
Chapter 15
&nbs
p; Gracie
If you had told me I might actually like working with Jenkins, I might not have believed you. The first day I’d walked into his office and explained to his secretary why I was there I was still skeptical about the entire thing. Five minutes later, I was laughing with the middle-aged woman that ran the lawyer’s day-to-day business life.
Samantha was a nice woman, petite, and she had the most beautiful caramel-colored skin that I’d ever seen in my life. I quickly realized that she was also Jenkins’ girlfriend. Apparently they had been together for more than fifteen years, pretty much since Samantha had started working for him. I was surprised by that, because Samantha didn’t look like she would be one to settle for a long-term relationship with someone and not be his wife by then. But I’d also quickly learned that it was by Samantha’s choice that they hadn’t married or even so much as gotten engaged.
Jenkins obviously loved and adored Samantha, but she was quite possibly the only person in the world that he did love. After two days of working for him I realized that the man was an exceptional lawyer, obviously enjoyed his job, but didn’t seem to care about anything else other than it and getting Samantha home as fast as possible at the end of each day.
Besides Samantha, Jenkins and Jenkins Attorneys At Law—there wasn’t a second Jenkins, but when he’d named his practice he’d said it sounded better to have a second name on the building and had simply went with putting his name on the front door twice—there were also five other staff members. Two of which were paralegals that I had to work with closely as well as three personal assistants that handled certain aspects of Jenkins’ day to day. One of the assistant’s jobs was simply to set up appointments, which I’d learned sometimes had to be scheduled weeks in advance due to Jenkins’ caseload.
I realized that the man really was in desperate need of another lawyer to help take off some of the stress from his shoulders and dived in to help out as much as possible considering I was neither a paralegal nor a lawyer. From day one, however, I began learning more and more things that I knew I would never have come across in a law class.
Everything from personal injury cases to speeding tickets and custody battles came through the office on a daily basis, and I found that I was really looking forward to eventually taking over for the man that was quickly becoming my mentor. My work was not particularly fun at times, but I honestly enjoyed every minute of it. Even when it got particularly frustrating, I still enjoyed it.
“Gracie, you told me to remind you when it was a quarter to five,” Samantha said as she stepped into the smaller office Jenkins had given me right beside his own.
My eyes lifted from the police statements I’d been reviewing from a recent personal injury claim from a hit and run and glanced at the little clock icon on my desktop computer. It was four forty-six and I needed to get going if I was going pick up the huge cake that Raven had ordered for her brother’s homecoming party tonight. I needed to get going so that I could pick it up and then help her set the monstrosity up before the MC got home by six.
Shutting down my computer, I pushed all my files back into the leather backed folder and locked them in my desk. Shooting Samantha a smile I stood, picking up my purse, keys, and phone as I did. “Thanks, Sam. Guess I had better hurry. Raven is going to be freaking if I’m just a few minutes later than I promised I would be. She’s so excited about Jet coming home that she’s been dancing and singing to herself for days now.”
The skin around Samantha’s rich dark eyes crinkled as she grinned. “Wow, she really must be excited. That girl would do anything for her brothers, but Jet—he’s her rock. When Max died, Jet had already been acting as second father to her.” The grin dimmed. “It must have been pretty hard on her to have been away from him for so long.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. Even though I only knew just a little about Raven, I’d realized from the start that Jet was the one that meant the most to her of her four brothers. “I’m happy for her and the rest of the Hannigans.”
I was also nervous as hell about meeting the man who was what I guessed was the patriarch of the Hannigan clan. I knew why he’d gone to prison, and honestly I was a little proud of the man I’d yet to meet for taking care of his family the way he had. Sure, he’d killed a man and had gotten convicted of manslaughter, but he’d been protecting his… well, I wasn’t all that sure what Felicity Bolton had been to him, but he’d still been protecting her.
I walked with Samantha out to the front of the office and waved goodbye as I left and climbed into the Chevelle that I was still continuing to drive. Hawk’d had the driver’s side window replaced and the interior cleaned up since I’d dripped blood all over the steering wheel and seat when Harley had attacked me. I didn’t know how much longer I was going to drive this car, though. It was a little too powerful for me, and now that I was making some seriously crazy money working for Jenkins I was going to be able to put a good bit of money down on a smaller car. I hadn’t mentioned it to Hawk yet, but I would soon.
I just didn’t want to start an argument with him when things had been going so smoothly over the last few weeks. My cheeks heated in reaction as flashes of our nights tangled in each other’s arms played through my mind like a slide show. I had to admit that our passion seemed to grow more intense every day. Our lovemaking was becoming more and more daring with each passing night that we slept in each other’s arms. I loved every moment of it and was beginning to lose the inner battle I continually had with myself over telling him I loved him when he was deep inside of me, driving me toward an orgasm that left me oblivious to the world at large.
The only thing that was stopping me was that he hadn’t even hinted that he loved me as much as I loved him. Sure, I suspected that his feelings were strong, but I was terrified of finding out that it was just the incredible sex we were having and not that he loved me as much as I loved him.
I pushed the thoughts of my biker out of my head as I drove across town to pick up the huge cake that Raven had spent over an hour discussing with the baker, specifying how she wanted it designed. I only knew it was supposed to have a motorcycle on it and something along the lines of “Welcome Home Brother” on it. Other than that, I was clueless on what the cake looked like.
I definitely wasn’t expecting it to take two people to carry it out to the car and securing it in the trunk—the only fudging place big enough to hold it without the fear of it slipping around. I drove ten miles under the speed limit to the bar and was still so worried about any sudden jarring disrupting the cake that I slowly slid into the parking lot and came to a gentle stop beside Raven’s Challenger.
I jumped out of the car, ready to run in and have her come help me carry the cake in because there was no way I was going to chance taking that thing on my own. The sudden bitter smell of smoke in the air forced me to stop and glance around. The scent was so strong that I instinctively knew that something was very, very wrong.
Glancing around, I tried to pinpoint where the smell was coming from. I caught the distinct smell of burning wood and melting paint, and it was so strong that I knew it was coming from somewhere close. The only problem was that there wasn’t anything other than the bar close enough to produce a smell that powerful. My eyes lifted skyward and my heart stopped when I saw the smoke lifting into the air, coming from the far side of the bar.
