Behold the Stars Read online

  He felt her hands in his hair, lacing above his braid and holding him as tightly as he held her. “Jesus, baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” She didn’t reply; she only held him closer.

  His prepay went off, and he released his hold on her and pulled the phone out of his pocket. Len. As soon as Isaac had the phone to his ear, Len said, “Gotta get back up here now, boss. Think you should bring the girls.”

  “Yeah.” He snapped the phone shut and looked at Lilli. “Something’s up upstairs. We all need to go up.”

  When they got back to the ER waiting area a few minutes later, Dan, Len, and Badger were still standing pretty much where he’d left them. But now a doctor was standing with them. Tall, slim, and pale, her bright ginger hair rolled into some kind of Grace Kelly-looking style. She wore green scrubs under a white coat. Tasha. The only other woman who’d ever spent a night in Isaac’s bed.

  Len nodded as they approached the group, and Tasha turned fully to face him, her amber eyes flaring slightly. Their breakup was…fuck, fifteen years old, but it had been explosive, and things were dicey even now when they were in the same room together. Tash’s father, dead for about twenty years, had been Horde, of Isaac’s father’s generation, and she had stayed a friend of the club, even after his death, even after their breakup, easing their way when they needed real medical attention, keeping things as quiet as she could.

  “Isaac.” Tasha looked at Lilli as soon as she’d said his name.

  “Tash. What’s up?”

  “Show asked me to talk to you. He wants you all with him and Holly. Holly is being released, but Daisy’s been rushed into surgery. They need the girls with them.”

  “What happened?” Lilli asked the question. Tash gave her a quick glance again and directed her answer to Isaac. He could feel Lilli putting the interpersonal equation together. That, though, was a discussion for another time.

  “There’s a lot of damage. We thought we had all the bleeds, but she crashed again. Isaac, it doesn’t look good.”

  “Why aren’t you with her?”

  “I’m an ER doctor, not a surgeon. She’s with who she needs to be with. Come on, I’ll take you to Show.”

  ~oOo~

  When they got to the surgery waiting room, Show and Holly were alone. It was late—only emergency surgeries happened so late in the evening. Holly looked awful, bruised and pale, her long blonde hair plastered to her head. She was a naturally curvy woman, and she’d grown soft and rounder in motherhood, but she looked emaciated and tiny sitting as she was, wan and weak, next to her big old man, in the stark, high-ceilinged room. She was sitting next to Show, but they weren’t touching. When Iris and Rose came into the room, each one holding Lilli’s hands, Show stood and then dropped to his knees, his arms outstretched. The girls ran to him, and he pulled them in tight, his face screwed up in a mask of violent pain. Holly sat where she was, her arms crossed, looking like she’d checked out and left her body behind.

  Isaac knew that something had gone wrong with Holly’s body after Iris, and that she and Show had stopped having sex because the pain was too much. He didn’t know more than that; it wasn’t something men talked about, not even men close as brothers. But he couldn’t imagine how much worse what happened to her was because of that.

  He went up to her, but she didn’t acknowledge him at all. He didn’t know whether he should touch her, or what he should do to tell her how sorry he was, that it was his fault, not Show’s, that she should lay her hate and pain on him. He started to reach out, just to put his hand on her shoulder, but Lilli pulled him back. When he turned to her, she only shook her head and pulled him to sit with her a few chairs away. He hooked his arm across her shoulders and brought her to his chest. He felt an overwhelming need to feel her body, as if he couldn’t believe she was safe if he wasn’t actually touching her. She settled in, her hand snaking under his kutte to rest on his belly.

  His cock swelled. He didn’t understand why. He couldn’t think of a worse time for it. But he felt the need for her acutely. Forcing himself to ignore it, even as his pulse picked up its familiar staccato beat of arousal, he rested his head on Lilli’s and waited.

  Tasha had gone through the doors to the surgical wing after she’d led them to the waiting area. About two hours later, she came back through, this time accompanied by a male doctor in scrubs and a surgical cap. Tasha caught his eye as they walked to Show and Holly.

  “Oh, fuck, no. Oh, no.”

  Lilli sat up. She apparently hadn’t seen the doctors come in, because she sat up straighter, seeing them now, and then turned to Isaac. “What? What is it?”

  Isaac didn’t answer. He watched as Tasha put her hand on Show’s shoulder. She said something, and Show nodded and lifted Rose and Iris off his knees. Tasha took their hands and turned around, looking like she wasn’t sure what to do next. Lilli stood and collected the girls, bringing them back to Isaac. When her eyes met his, Isaac knew that she understood, too.

  Tasha went back to Show and squatted at his side. The other doctor looked around uncomfortably and then sat in a chair almost facing Show and Holly. Isaac couldn’t hear, but he didn’t need to. He wasn’t surprised when Show dropped his face into his hands. Holly only nodded, her face blank.

  After a few minutes, the foursome stood. Show came over, his face wet with tears. Without saying anything to Lilli or Isaac, he squatted in front of his little girls. “Jesus wants Daisy to live with him in heaven, girlies. She’s sleeping now, resting up for the trip, but I want you to come back with Mom and me and say goodbye.”

  Iris put her head on her father’s shoulder. “No scary men in heaven.”

  Now Show looked at Isaac, and their eyes both filled with tears. “That’s right, baby flower. No scary men in heaven. Come on, now. Don’t want to keep Jesus waiting, right?”

  When Show stood and took his daughters’ hands, Isaac stood too. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know what he should do. But it seemed wrong to sit. Lilli rose with him. Len, Dan, and Badge followed. They stood silently. Isaac held his friend’s eyes until Show nodded and then turned around. Leading his girls, he followed the doctors and his wife through the doors to say goodbye to their first child.

  Who had been raped to death.

  Isaac stood and stared at the silver doors through which his friend had passed. Rage swirled with guilt and grief and filled him up, whirling to a poisonous foam in his heart and head. When he was full to bursting, he spun around with a roar, grabbed up the chair he’d been sitting in, and threw it across and out of the room. It slammed into the hallway wall and landed with a crash on the floor, sliding several feet down the hallway.

  Lilli put her hand on his arm, and he shook her off. He stalked after the chair, picked it up, and threw it again. A nurse came through the doors, saw what was going on, and then went back through. Probably to call security, but he just didn’t give a fuck. He had to put this anger somewhere. He stalked up and down the hallway, hoping a guard would confront him. That would help. He could use a good fight right now. He needed to hit, he needed to hurt. He needed to get it OUT. He slammed his fist into the wall, taking a gouge out of the plaster with his rings. Not enough. He did it again, and this time felt the skin break on his knuckles. Good. He did it again. And again.

  And then Lilli was on him, holding his arm. She put her other hand on the wall, over the bloody patch, and he pulled up at the last second, before he drove his fist into her hand. Fuck! He glared at her, jerking free, but she grabbed him again. She didn’t say a word, just held on and stared at him. But fuck! He needed.

  She had his kutte in both fists. She broke eye contact with him to look around, and then she was dragging him a few feet down the hall to a door. She tried it. When it opened, she pulled him into the dark space and closed them in.

  They stood in the dark, the only sound Isaac’s labored breathing, and then light came on above their heads, as Lilli found the switch. Linen closet. Why the fuck had she brought him in here?


  “What the fuck, Lilli?”

  She still said nothing. But she reached over his shoulder and grabbed his braid, yanking his head down to hers. She kissed him violently, her free hand pushing under his shirt to rake at his bare skin. She grabbed his belt and worked it open, then yanked open the fly of his jeans. Her touch left electric traces over his skin, and he groaned. He got it—she got it. His beautiful, amazing woman, redirecting him. He put his hands around her waist and shoved her against a wall of shelves filled with blankets. He worked her jeans open and pushed them down off her hips. She toed off a boot and pulled one leg free of her jeans, then wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Give it to me, Isaac. It’s okay. You know I can take it.”

  His heart ached for Show and for Holly. But he needed this. He need Lilli. He needed. He needed. He grabbed her thighs and lifted her up, hooking her legs around his hips as he sank deep into her. Sweet Jesus, the feeling of her hot pussy enveloping his bare cock.

  She gasped and then said, “Hold up, love. Condom.”

  No. No. Jesus Christ, no. He needed. “No, baby, please. Make a baby with me. Fuck, make a baby with me. I need it. I need you. I need a baby with you. A family. A chance. Please. Lilli, please.”

  He didn’t even know what he was saying. It was insane to want to get her pregnant now, he knew it was. Show had just lost his baby. Violence—club violence—had taken her, taken her horribly. How could he ever want to bring a child into the world they now lived in? It made no sense.

  But he did. Now, more than ever. It was important. It was crucial.

  They stared at each other, Isaac feeling like he was one slender thread from losing his mind completely and for good. He tried to read her look, but all he could see was intensity. He tried to send his plea through his eyes. He’d never begged for anything the way he was begging for this.

  And then she nodded.

  Relief washed over him with such gusto that his vision blurred. When it cleared, he leaned in and kissed her, plunging his tongue into her mouth, tasting her, savoring her. She tightened the grip of her legs around his hips, and he moved. He didn’t try to make it last. They were in a fucking linen closet in the hospital, and Show was saying goodbye to his daughter. What was happening here was as wrong as it was right. It was neither. It was necessary.

  He slammed into her, driving himself to desperate release, holding her close, not sure if she was finding any pleasure in their coupling. But then he felt her muscles spasming around his cock, skin to skin, and he heard the familiar sharpness in her exhales. “Oh, yeah, baby. Yeah. Come with me. Baby, come with me,” he rasped.

  Her forehead on his shoulder, she nodded again, and he picked up his pace, pushing one hand between them to tweak at her clit. Then her body tensed, and he felt her teeth bearing down on his kutte. He thrust a few more times and then came inside her, free inside her, biting down on his own lip until he tasted blood.

  When it was over, he dropped his head to her shoulder and sobbed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him, Lilli held Isaac as he wept. He was still hard inside her. Bare inside her. She’d let him come inside her. Intentionally. Because he wanted to make her pregnant—when they fucked in a hospital linen closet, while, down the hall, Show and Holly said goodbye to their dead daughter. Her head wanted to spin, but she held that tight, too. She was in battle mode, dealing with what was before her, letting her higher mind do the higher thinking without taking her attention away from the immediate.

  They were going to need to talk about the idea of a baby again—soon—when they could talk calmly. It wasn’t a decision they could make like this. She’d let him because he’d needed her to let him. But they needed to talk it through calmly before they committed to a decision of such magnitude.

  Isaac was quieting. He took a deep breath and lifted his head from her shoulder. His face was wet with tears and sweat, and Lilli uncoiled an arm from his neck and brushed her hand over his cheek, wiping his grief away. “You okay, love?”

  He laughed quietly. “No. But I’m with you, so I will be. I love you so much, Lilli. So much.”

  “And I love you.” Pressing her lips to his scarred cheek, she murmured, “We should get back out there. Show’s gonna need you.”

  He nodded, then lifted her and pulled out. She dropped her legs, and they put their clothes back to rights. When they were ready, Isaac pulled her into his arms and held her for another few seconds. Then he opened the door, and they went back out into the hall.

  No sign of Show yet. Dan, Len, and Badger were sitting quietly in a corner of the waiting room, which was still empty but for them. Len made eye contact with Lilli as she and Isaac came into the room. He nodded, and in that gesture she read understanding. She took Isaac’s hand, and they sat next to his brothers. They sat vigil for Show and his family.

  Show, Holly, Rose, and Iris came through the double doors about half an hour later. Show look ravaged. He opened the door, and Iris and Rose went through, looking sad and something like confused. Holly came through, her face a stony mask, but then Show put his hand on her back as she passed him, and she flinched as if he’d hit her. He pulled his hand away. Even from across the hall and across the waiting room, Lilli could see how pain tore at him.

  The broken family walked into the waiting area, and Lilli and the Horde stood. Holly froze in the middle of the room, staring at Isaac, and something on her face seemed to slip. Show was standing right behind her, his height and breadth dwarfing her. It always did—he was a full foot taller than his old lady, and though she wasn’t thin, his mass was considerably greater—but she seemed much smaller in this moment, her body bruised and brutalized, her heart broken.

  Then, with her two youngest, now her only, daughters at her side, Holly turned around, pulled back one shaky arm, and slapped Show across the face so hard the force turned her whole body. Then she did it again. And again. Show closed his eyes and stood for it, his head turning with the impact and then coming back to center to take it again.

  The girls looked shocked and terrified, and Lilli started to go to them, thinking to pull them away, but just as she moved, Isaac’s hand was on her arm and he went forward instead. But when he got there and took hold of Rose and Iris’s hands, Holly wheeled on him. Her stoicism entirely shattered now, she was in a frenzy of rage.

  She screamed at Isaac and yanked hard on Rose and Iris’s other hands. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY GIRLS. GET YOUR FILTHY, MURDERING HANDS OFF MY CHILDREN!” The girls began to wail. She pulled them to the far side of the waiting room and sat them down. Then she turned back to Show, who had not moved. Isaac was standing next to him now; Holly stepped between them, her back to Isaac, and looked up at Show. He tipped his head down to let her look him in the eye. When she spoke, her voice was low and steady.

  “You keep away from us. You keep away. I’m taking them and going as far away as I can. You keep away.”

  Still Show didn’t move. Holly turned back to Rose and Iris and took their hands, pulling them up from their seats and heading toward the elevators, and still Show stood, rigid, in the middle of the waiting room.

  Lilli went after Holly and put her hand on her shoulder as she was pressing the elevator button. Holly flinched and looked back. “Get out, Lilli. Get out now. There’s nothing but death and ruin here.”

  Ignoring that statement for more immediate and practical concerns, Lilli asked, “How are you getting back, Holly? You need a ride back to town. Badger’s got the van.”

  Holly laughed. “I’m not going anywhere with any of them. I’ll call somebody.” The elevator opened, and Holly dragged her weeping daughters in with her and pressed the button. When the door closed, Lilli turned and went back to Isaac and Show. Show still had not moved. Isaac now had his arm over Show’s shoulders. Len, Dan, and Badger were standing nearby, looking somber and uncomfortable.

  Isaac shook his friend a little. “Come on, man. Let’s sit down.” Le
tting Isaac lead him, Show finally moved. They sat together. Show stared at the floor between his feet.

  Len turned to Badger. “Go get coffee for everybody or somethin’, man. Get lost.” Badge nodded and turned to do as he was bid.

  Knowing that she, too, was an intruder in this moment, Lilli put her hand on Isaac’s shoulder. He looked up and gave her a ghost of a smile. “I’m going to help him with the coffee.” She bent down and kissed his cheek, then followed Badger.

  ~oOo~

  The night was edging into dawn when they made a somber caravan back to Signal Bend: Isaac and Show riding side by side, Lilli riding bitch with her man; Len and Dan riding behind; Badger picking up the rear in the Horde van. They all pulled into the clubhouse lot. Show dismounted and strode immediately into the clubhouse without comment or pause; Isaac and Lilli, and the others, followed him. The rest the Horde were there, most of them at the bar; all stood when Showdown came in. When he continued through the clubhouse, headed straight toward the dorm, Isaac called out, “Show. Hold up, man.”

  Show stopped. He didn’t turn around. He stood in the middle of the clubhouse as he’d stood in the middle of the hospital waiting room. Unmoving. Immovable. Isaac walked around him and faced him. Lilli went the bar, giving them space, and watched. She and Isaac had barely talked all night, had said almost nothing at all to each other since they’d come out of the linen closet.

  As tall and massive as Show was, Isaac was bigger. He laid his hand over his friend’s slumped shoulder. “Don’t go off by yourself, brother. Not tonight. I don’t want you alone.”

  Show lifted his head. Lilli was behind him, but she knew he was looking Isaac in the eyes, and she could almost feel his expression of livid grief. “Too late.” The words were softly spoken, but clear. Show sidestepped Isaac and continued on to the dorm. Isaac turned and watched him go.

  Then Lilli went to him and circled her arms around his waist. He looked down at her, his green eyes dark and bleak. Pressing his lips to her forehead, he held there for a long moment, then said, “Let’s go home, Sport.” She laid her head on his chest and nodded.