under control, but something about Kicks’ face told him different.
“Does this happen a lot?” he asked, waving his hand. “People getting shot at? Random professors being put into protective custody.”
Kicks snorted and shrugged, draining the rest of his beer before heading to the fridge for another. “It wasn’t like this before—when I first patched in. But last year, some shit went down with our VP, and all this has been at our heels since then.” The fridge door slammed, and he didn’t speak again until after he’d taken another long drink. “I didn’t come from another club though, so I’m not really sure what’s normal and what isn’t.”
Jude’s brow furrowed. His understanding of biker culture was shaky at best—terrible TV dramas and the old bubbes in his service who would always clutch the ends of their scarves whenever the motorbikes rumbled by. But he thought he was right in assuming it was a culture that people didn’t just trip and fall into.
“So, what did you do before all this?” he chanced.
Kicks stared at him like he wasn’t sure he was going to answer, then he let out a noiseless sigh, his shoulders rising and falling with it. “I was in the service. Army,” he clarified. Jude stared at him and realized he could see it in the way he carried himself, the way he was always turning his head from side to side, like he was trying to make sure he didn’t miss anything. “I wasn’t in long. I got hurt.”
“Were you deployed when it happened?”
Kicks stared at him, and there was something in his face that looked haunted. “No. No, I…” He licked his lips, then glanced away. “Some shit went down when I was on leave. I got hurt, couldn’t serve anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Jude started, but Kicks scoffed and shook his head.
“Don’t be. Is what it is.” He pushed away from the counter and started toward the hallway. “Look, I’m gonna head outside and make a couple calls. Make yourself comfortable. We’re gonna be a while.”
Kicks didn’t give him the chance to say anything before the front door slammed, and he was left there in total silence, wondering what the hell was supposed to come next.
5
It wasn’t until Kicks got outside that he felt like he could breathe again. When he picked up the rabbi, he was expecting the irritation he felt at the babysitting job. He sure as shit wasn’t expecting to have to outrun his goddamn erection because the man had a fucking filthy mouth and a command about him that made Kicks want to drop to his knees and do anything the man asked.
And he had a feeling Jude wouldn’t have turned him away if Kicks had begged for attention. He would have put his fingers in Kicks’ hair, he would have held him in place, he would have told him to…
He cut his thoughts off with a gasping breath and forced himself to put more distance between him and the house. Trudging through a small clearing, hoping he avoided any poison ivy, he sagged against the trunk of a tree and tipped his head up. His gaze was foggy, focusing his eye on a large cluster of moss that hung just out of reach. Calm settled over his bones once again, though his fingers were still shaking, and his dick was still hard.
He’d always loved forests like the canopy above him when a kid. The first time he’d ever seen Spanish moss was when his parents had taken him to New Orleans. They were too broke to stay in the city, so they got a room just outside it and took the bus to the French Quarter every day for the four days they were in town. He remembered staring in awe at the passing trees, having read descriptions in the romance novels he’d stolen from his mom’s bedroom when she wasn’t looking. There was something otherworldly about it, and he never quite forgot it, even when he was shipped out to the ugly pine forest of upstate New York with nothing but brown trunks and evergreens for miles and miles.
Now, this view was home. The swamp was no longer alien, but a comforting reminder that he’d found somewhere to belong. His brothers were his family—and he would more than just die for them. He would kill for them. He would commit unspeakable acts and use his carefully cultivated talents to bend and break laws in order to keep their heads above water.
And he