Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men, #2)

by Giana Darling

Guardian Monster: Pick you up ’round the block at 9pm tonight. Tell your parents you gotta sleepover or somethin’.

I knew in some freakish place deep inside the gut a me that Lou was made for me. She was it.

My ex-wife had been a mistake, every other woman a blip and Louise Lafayette, the forbidden girl, the worst option, was the only one for me.

Hair flying, arms pumping, smile spread clean across her prettier-than-all-else face, Loulou ran at me like she’d done when she was seven and she would, I knew, until she could run no more. And, like I’d done when she was seven and like I would, I knew, until I could stand straight no more, I caught her in my arms and hefted her tight against me.

She buried her head in that place she liked under my right ear, her nose pressed to my throat, her lips to my pulse point and her forehead in my hair. And fuck, it felt like home to have her there.

“Ten years waitin’ for you to grow up so I could do this.” Then I slammed my mouth to hers.

She was done prayin’ at the alter of another man’s church, now she worshipped at my feet and made me feel like my namesake, God of fuckin’ Olympus.

“You come for me, you do it sayin’ my name. You do it knowin’ you’ve got me inside you and you do it knowin’ all that I am.”

“You be a good girl and come for me right fuckin’ now,” I said then ducked down to take the junction of her left shoulder and neck in my mouth, holdin’ her still with my teeth.

Loved fuckin’ everything about this girl. If I’d had any doubt before, it was fuckin’ clear to me now that Lou was mine. Didn’t give a single fuck that there were a million and one fuckin’ things that made her forbidden to me. That her father would try to toss me back into prison for it. That my enemies would try to maim, torture and kill her for it. That my own kids might throw a shit fit ’cause of it. I was keepin’ her.

But I did feel the grace of God last night, a different kind of god, one made of thunder and motor oil and wicked deeds, held together by leather and ink.

I’d always believed that Christianity wasn’t for everyone, that faith was a special and intimate kind of thing that had to occur to you naturally, and express itself through you organically. Now I knew what deity I’d pray to and die trying to please. Zeus Garro.

“Such a good fuckin’ girl takin’ all’a this in that tight little cunt,” he praised me.

“That’s it, little girl. Come for Daddy,” he growled.

“You’ll be my old lady. You’ll stand by my side at club parties, at functions. You’ll sleep in my bed as much as possible until I can get it so you do that every damn night. You’ll meet my kids and suffer through that drama with me ’cause they’re my life and so’re you. You’ll take my cock whenever I want to give it to you and you’ll take my words whenever I need to give ’em to you. And when I’m an asshole, ’cause I’m a man and I got that in me to give, you’ll give me a piece of your mind and then forgive me.”

“I’m sorry.” He stared hard at me for a minute and then nodded. “Right. Turn around, bend over and hold on to your fuckin’ ankles.”

He leaned into me with a soft sneer and said, “Bend over and hold on to your fuckin’ ankles. I’m gonna fuck you in this cheerleader getup like I planned to do later tonight, only I’m gonna do it here so when you go back out and break up with that kid, you’ll have my cum inside you.”

He cupped the entirety of me in his big palm. “This is mine now. My cunt to eat, fuck and play with. Mine to take whenever I want.”

Even now, King had her scarred hands in his, rubbin’ at the marks in her palms absently like he still wished he coulda changed the fact she got ’em in the first place.

How ’bout I knew what it was like to want someone younger, to want someone so fuckin’ forbidden it made you dark and corrupt even to think’a having ’em? I know love when I see it and you think I got that from bein’ with my fuckin’ ex-wife? No fuckin’ way. I know that shit ’cause I helped raise a little girl with the soul of a fuckin’ angel and when she turned into a woman and still somehow had that fuckin’ soul after everythin’ she’d been through and I got the chance to hold that kinda woman in my arms, you think I was nuts enough not to take it?”

Mute looked satisfied, his arms crossed over his chest and a hint of a fuckin’ smile round his mouth. Yeah, the bastard had done it on fuckin’ purpose.

“Bad day for my guardian monster,” she whispered, her hand comin’ up to stroke my cheek and into my hair. Fuck but her sweetness did me in. “Roughest in a while, all good now I got my girl with me,” I told her honestly.

“Jesus,” she cursed, her legs shakin’ violently on my shoulders. “Zeus,” I corrected her before bitin’ into the tender junction of her groin and thigh. “There’s no God but this devil in your bed.”

“Gonna fuck these pretty cherry-tipped tits and cum on your cherry-red lips,” I growled. “Such a fucking poet,” she sassed because only she would sass me while I titty fucked ’er.

“Fuuuuck,” I groaned as my spent dick twitched at the sight. “Musta been a saint in another life to deserve this.”

It didn’t make sense but that’s what my time with Lou always reminded me of, a religious experience. I felt cowed and unworthy of her goodness, moved to the point of reverence and devoted to the point of worship. I wanted her to be my religion, the reason the sun rose and fell each day. The reason for my entire fuckin’ existence.

“You wake up in my bed after a night of takin’ my cock, it’s me who’ll make breakfast. You want lunch or dinner, I’m good with that ’cause breakfast is the only thing I got in me to make. It was a long eighteen years of microwave dinners for my kids and makin’ fuckin’ salads and shit so they got the right nutrients. Done with that now so I eat what I want and what I want is usually meat with a small side of veg. You wanna take over cookin’ when I get you in my house permanent, like I said, I will not complain. But never breakfast. Want my girl warm, relaxed and ready for another round of cock in the mornings. You get me?”

“You fuckin’ suck sometimes H.R.,” he said as he bent down in a pseudo squat so they were at eye level. “But I’d do fuckin’ anythin’ for ya.”

Because that girl lying in that bed was mine the way a sculpture created by an artist was his. I’d formed her soft clay shape with my words then cast it in copper with my hands and finally she’d settled in her current shape. A little warrior rebel with the soul of an angel in the body of a sinner.

“You’re here,” she croaked. I nodded, pulling our tangled hands against my mouth to give hers a kiss. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else.” Tears wet those eyes and made my heart clench. “Even though I seriously suck?” I grinned despite the turmoil in my fuckin’ gut. “Yeah, Lou, even when you seriously suck.”

“Nothin’. You’re still my girl and I’m still your man. You need anythin’, I’m here for you. That includes puke clean up, pickin’ up drugs at the pharmacy, all that kinda shit. It also means you need someone to sit in the hospital with ya and your parents are too fuckin’ selfish to do it themselves, all the better for me ’cause I’m gonna be here every fuckin’ time.”

“Now, I ain’t makin’ you any promises here, little warrior, but if your fine ass is going to heaven—and it fuckin’ well is—I’ll find a way to get there too. If I gotta move into that fuckin’ church and pay penance every goddamn hour, I’ll do it. If I gotta give up boozin’, guns and drug runnin’, I’ll fuckin’ well do it and I’d do it now if it meant I got a place beside my girl behind those pearly gates.”

“You’d probably have to give up cursing too. I think that’s a pretty tall order.” “Fuck yeah, it is,” I agreed before jerking her even closer to me until we were fused together, until I could feel the reassurin’ beat of her heart against my chest. A heartbeat so much more important than my own. “Do it for you, Lou. Do anythin’ for you.”

“Thank you for being my safe place,”

I brushed my lips against his, so silky smooth compared to the roughness of his beard. “I love you, ya know?” He smiled under my questing mouth. “Love you like it’s my religion, little Lou.” Then he pressed his forehead to mine and said, “Just in case there was any fuckin’ doubt, this is your house now and my bed is your bed. Wanted you here anyway, sorry it happened this way, little warrior, so fuckin’ sorry, but glad you’re here all the fuckin’ same.”

He shrugged. “Did some research when I found out Lou was sick.” “You did?” I asked, moved beyond belief and also a little amused that my badass biker had spent the time looking up medical information. “Fuck yeah. Gotta know how to take care of my little warrior. Now, get off me so I can handle your fuckin’ father.”

Mute appeared in the front hall. He didn’t look over at us startled women. Instead, he calmly relocked the door and put his keys on the catch-all table beside the stairs. He watched his booted feet move across the wood floorboards as he crossed into the kitchen and came to a stop unerringly at my side. Only then did he look up at me and when he did a strange garbled groan emerged from his chest. “Foxy,” he said, dropping to his knees and taking the peas from my hand so he could look at the split flesh. “No.” “I’m okay, Mute,” I said softly. “Wasn’t there,” he grunted.

The next time you touch Lou, the next time you degrade ’er or fuckin’ breathe on ’er the wrong way, I’m gonna end your life and I’m gonna do it with my bare hands around your neck so that I can have the satis-fuckin’-faction of feelin’ your pathetic life leave your body. You get me, Benny Boy?”

“Fuck yeah,” he growled long and low as he started to cum in my mouth. “Take my cum, little girl.”

“You lose your moonbeam hair, your bombshell shape and your sexual appetite, I don’t give a fuck. ’Cause I love your soul better than I love anythin’ else and that includes the fan-fuckin-tastic package it comes in. You got me, Lou?”

He cupped his hands around my face and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose. “Love you even when you don’t.”

I looked up with confusion in my eyes. “Want you to cut it for me, Lou,” he explained. “No!” I said immediately. “Yeah, little warrior. See, it’s important to me you get that I’m in this with you. Can’t suffer what you suffer, can’t take that pain from ya like I want to more than fuckin’ anythin’. But I can stand with you. Don’t know if you’ll lose all that hair but if you do, I wanna do it with you.” Tears burned in my throat as I tangled my fingers in the ends of his shoulder-length hair. “But I love your hair.” “You love yours. Mine’ll grow back just like yours.”

“A true fallen angel, too bad for heaven, too good for hell, stuck on earth like a living divinity.”

“You’re the fallen angel here, Lou, and I’m never fuckin’ givin’ ya back to Heaven.”

“I got you,” he murmured into my hair. “I got you.”

“Told the brothers why I cut off my hair. They’re here to do the same.” I blinked at him and in that time, the tears came.

“This is way too much,” I whispered because my voice wouldn’t work properly past the lump in my throat. Zeus’s heat hit my back a second before his arms wrapped around me and his voice moved through my body as he said, “Nothin’s ever too much for family.”

Without him, Mute, Harleigh Rose, and Bea were my angels. H.R. and Bea helped me in the shower, which was embarrassing but necessary and they brushed and braided my hair away from my face.

“Love you, little girl. Loved you for ten years and love you for ten decades more,”

“Even the devil’s got nightmares, Lou, and mine is losin’ ya so you take care, you hear? No fuckin’ rebel schemes or heroics. You get outta there safe.”