Chapter 29: Secrets and Promises

They napped there for a good portion of the early noontime until Juice's phone started ringing. When it went off for the third time Raniyah woke him up. Stumbling to the bedroom to answer it, he returned wearing a t-shirt and sneakers with his shorts. "I'll be right back. Just going outside."

"You good?"

Juice looked irritated, "Yeah…it's nothing."

Which meant it was definitely something. Turning back to her phone, she left it alone. "Okay."

He walked out and minutes later she heard the rumble of a bike pull up. It was less than ten minutes before he came back in with a white envelope, flashing her a lukewarm smile and heading to his room closing the door behind him. Taking two deep breaths, he paced back and forth crushing the envelope in his grip. Not only did Lin almost get them killed, but now he was 'graciously rewarding them' for their help? It was a double insult. That fucking asshole thinks he's better than everyone else doing the same dirt as him. Like a fucking suit can keep his hands clean with all the shit he and his family are into! Juice knew Lin was paying them off to forget his deception and he was livid that Clay was accepting it but he understood why…and he hated that he understood. One bloody hand was constantly washing the other. They worked with their enemies because life required it but knowing that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

Standing in his closet, he opened his safe and threw the crumpled envelope inside, closing the door harder than necessary. He groaned standing back up, his injured thigh muscle and tender ribs protested loudly at his attempt to move normally, reminding him one more time to hate Lin. Opening the tiny baggie from Bobby, he took one of the two pain pills left, hoping it took the sharp edge off his aches and helped him calm down. The fucking high and mighty balls on that asshole needed to be cut off.

A tap on the door snapped him out of his thoughts. Raniyah opened it just as Juice closed the closet. "You okay?"

Nodding Juice rubbed over the strip of hair on his head, his heart rate finally slowing and she came closer wrapping up in him gingerly.

"Did you know all this could happen when you left last night?" Raniyah could feel Juice tense. His sigh was not the answer she was looking for. Pulling back, she looked him in the eyes. "I thought you were gonna be honest with me." She said it quietly but for Juice she might as well have screamed it the way it hit him in the gut.

If it had been anyone else but her, he wouldn't have dared to say it straight. "I couldn't tell you where I was going, Ronnie. You know that."

Deep down she did but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. Or that it wasn't scary to see him like that. She didn't know how to describe how it felt to think he was just going to walk in the door at the end of the night and instead, he had come home not even capable of standing on his own two feet.

"How would you feel if I left here and came back beat all to hell?" Her eyes flashed anger. "Needing somebody to carry me through the fucking door?!"

Juice's nostrils flared and his brown furrowed deep at the thought of her face looking like his. Letting her go he took a step back from her anger.

"You left here knowing you could get fucked up."

"No! I didn't. I mean, not like this." Juice slowly lowered himself onto the bed. "I didn't know. None of us did. It wasn't supposed to go down like that."

"Down like what?!"

"Can you sit down a second?" He was uncomfortable enough without the extra space between them making the moment feel ominous. Raniyah knew if she got close to him she would lose her determination to hold him accountable, so she didn't move from where she stood.

Juice's face fell, "Please?"

When she folded her arms and leaned against the closet door, he exhaled heavily, "Ronnie, I didn't lie to you. The stuff that happened…it just happened. Nobody expected-".

"You expected enough to give Chibs my phone number." Making air quotes, she added, "Just in case."

"He made me-."

"What do you mean he made you?"

"About a week ago." Juice shrugged, realizing that telling her this part could make things worse. "He just figured somebody should be able to reach out if something happened. Nobody else has it, just Chibs."

"A week ago." Raniyah's brain scrolled back trying to remember what was going on a week ago, then it hit her. The calls to come to the clubhouse. The trip to Lodi…the repeated phone calls…the night Jay came to her room late, exhausted and shut down but not able to sleep. I knew it!

Raniyah sat down next to him and he immediately linked his fingers with hers. How could she forget his arrest record that she got pulled? His precious motorcycle club wasn't a playgroup. A large part of her wanted to pack him in her suitcase but he was a grown man, capable of making his own decisions. Plus she knew if she pushed, he would stop telling her anything. That's what she would do if he tried to tell her how to live her life. He didn't need a mother, he needed to have somebody to trust outside of his current circle and Raniyah wanted to make sure that he knew she was that person.

When she turned her body to face him, Juice didn't raise his eyes from his lap. Raniyah took a deep breath, hoping to get this right. "Okay look…I get that there's shit you can't tell me. I do, okay? I just need you to know that there's shit you can tell me. I promise not to freak out or go off. I just-".

They were circling a huge grey area. Juice's hand in hers cinched a little tighter so she knew he was listening and felt safe to continue. "You don't have to hide from me. If you need me then that's all that matters…even if however you got to that point was fucking stupid."

Juice let out a little chuckle finally raising his eyes to hers. Raniyah gave him a limp smile. "Cause let's face it, a bunch of guys with their own clubhouse and matching outfits are definitely going to do some dumb shit."

Juice's chest jumped from a silent laugh, his eyes dropping back down again. "Fuck you."

"Fuck you! Grown asses running around here getting stabbed."

Juice laughed again. He didn't look up from her hand in his when he said, "I hear you."

"Do you?"

Nodding, Juice raised his head and turned toward her. "I wanna be that for you, too."

Relief that she was heard brought a soft smile to her lips. "You sure about that?" She teased, "I'm a lot."

Juice cut his eyes at her, "I think I can handle it."

The kiss he pressed to her lips was soft but he lingered, awakening a need for more in her. Leaning in, she captured his bottom lip as she traced his jaw, kissing him fully. The silence between them was comfortable now. Raniyah ran her thumb over the bandage on his leg. The dark-colored stain showing through made her wrinkle her nose. "So did you at least fuck up the guy that did this?"

Juice's eyebrows shot up, "Really?"

"I'm just sayin'…fuck him. Look what he did."

"One of 'em still had his face in the dirt when I left." Standing up, his smirk was inappropriately adorable. Juice pulled her up with him, wrapping his arms low around her waist he squeezed her. Testing the water between them he bumped his nose on hers. "Hey, girl."

Knowing what he was doing, she rolled her eyes, "Hey, boy.

"You hungry?"

"When am I not?" She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead as if feeling for a fever. Then started checking his head for lumps. "You bump your head while you were out there actin' a fool?"

Fanning her hands away, he chuckled, "Okay, Mom. Cut it out."

Her eyes widened, "Mom? Boy! I will poke you!" Backing up her threat, she gave him a squeeze around his waist.

"Hey! Oh!" He coughed out a laugh, groaning and curling in on his tender side. "What kinda shit is that?!"

"The kind you get when you scare me half to death."

Neither one wanted to get dressed to leave, so they settled on leftovers and a movie. It was like old times to spend the rest of their Friday afternoon lazing around, snuggled up in their momentary cocoon of solitude. No club, no work - just talking and laughing and peace.

0.o.0.o.0

Waking up curled around Raniyah's back brought a lazy smile to Juice's lips. Somewhere in the room, he could hear a phone buzzing that he assumed was his given that it was a Saturday, but he made no move to get it. The one thing that he had been scared of happening while she was visiting happened. Things went to shit and she didn't run. He got hurt and she stayed. Juice didn't know that joy could feel so big inside of him. Part of him wanted to wake her up just to see her eyes, to hear her voice. And then he remembered that she was leaving and his smile deflated. Unconsciously his hold on her tightened just a little bit and he nuzzled his face into her hair. He wondered what she would say if he asked her to stay. He let his mind toy with what it would be like to have her there, in his bed every morning, for her to be his old lady for real. He kissed her shoulder as lightly as he could thinking…Every day. I could have this every day.

Then common sense stepped in and shut the whole fantasy down. Selfish. Dick move.

Raniyah stuck in this tiny town with not enough to do and croweaters to deal with while he worked and made moves for the club? Gemma riding her ass for fun, finding ways to test her loyalties to the club when all her loyalty already belonged to him. And she could never bite her NY tongue for the sake of keeping the peace for long. On the other hand, isn't that what she had always been good at - finding her place in every situation? Fitting in and having fun? She gathered and connected their crew in high school, she lived with strangers in college…couldn't she do that in Charming? He exhaled heavily at the thought. He could never ask her to make that kind of sacrifice. Carefully he pulled away from her, sitting up and putting his feet on the floor. No way.

Feeling a hand on his back, he looked over his shoulder. Her sleepy squint jump-started his heart. "It's too early." She grumbled at him, her eyes already closed again.

Sliding back under the covers next to her, he warmed when she kissed his chest and snuggled into him. Dropping a kiss on her forehead, he tried to doze back off but his thoughts wouldn't let him rest.

0.o.0.o.0

Later that day, when Raniyah heard Juice come out of the bathroom she came down the hall to tell him that his phone had been ringing but the words didn't come out because he was standing there already checking his phone - a towel around his waist and skin glistening, still wet from his shower. He turned around giving her a quick smile, oblivious to the way he wound her insides into hot knots. While he frowned at his phone, typing out a reply she wondered if she was ever going to get used to this grown-man version of her Jay. Every day his physique sent her thoughts spiraling, his voice curled her toes. Stepping into the room she thought, I'm going to hell.

Done with his messaging, he sat on the side of the bed to re-bandage the cut on his leg, adjusting his towel to expose his thigh and nothing else.

"Let me finish that."

Juice cut his eyes at her. "I think I can handle it, Ronnie. It's not that big a deal."

"Shut up and let me do it."

Juice huffed but moved his hands out of the way. As she worked, he thought her fingers feathered across the inside of his thigh more than necessary. After a few times of his muscle jumping in reaction, she looked up with a playful twist of her lips, dimples popping, letting him know she did it on purpose. Finished, she focused on his face. Smoothing her thumb across the stitches in his eyebrow first, she leaned closer letting her hand rest on his. "When do you take those out?"

Her voice was soft and just breathy enough to hold his attention. After a pause, Juice stopped staring at her mouth long enough to answer, "In a week or something."

"Your eye looks better today. So did your leg."

Juice cleared his throat. "Yeah?" He watched her fingers drifting down settling in to toy on the inside of his knee.

"Mm-hmm."

Juice stayed still, watching her lower her head to kiss the bandage. Raniyah sat back up and placed a barely there kiss on his lips before bending her head again. He held his breath while she kissed the skin on the side of his bandage. Getting up, she stood between his legs and pressed her hand into his chest tipping him back. Still standing she bent at the waist, placed her hands on each side of his hips and nuzzled her face lightly across his stirring erection still covered by the towel. He had closed his eyes in anticipation but they opened wide in surprise from the triple sensation of the heat of her breath, the caress of her cheeks and lips, plus the scraping texture of the towel on him. Sitting up on his elbows, he couldn't stop staring at what she was doing. Stroking up and down his growing length with her cheeks, then dragging her lips, open-mouthed over the tip, slowing just enough to let her breath seep through the towel and warm the area before moving on.

Opening the towel a little more, every dirty thought she'd ever had prepared her for this moment. Her focus on his pleasure was as selfish as it was giving. Planting a warm kiss on the top of his thigh just above his injury, she opened her mouth to lave her tongue over the exposed area. Tasting his freshly scrubbed skin on a path closer to the dark hair that began where his thigh and his pelvis met. He hissed out a breath, lifting his hips involuntarily for more, muttering curses within his gasp when she ran her tongue lightly up that crease. She watched his face while he watched her hands pull the towel loose completely, exposing him. The need to see the dazed look in his eyes was irresistible. Her Jay. Mine, she thought as she drug her tongue hot, flat and wet up his shaft from base to tip and he flopped his head back on the bed. Her hands skittered over his thighs, scraping her nails across the tops all the way up to his pelvic bone while she took just the head of him into her mouth, her tongue caressing around the rim. The muscles in his thighs and abdomen fluttered repeatedly in response to her nail's torturous trailing. His breath, now coming in jerky gasps, was music to her ears. She wanted him so badly but she wanted this more. Again she wreaked havoc on his nerve endings with her nails running across the tightly stretched skin over his hip sockets while she tongued him, forcing him to grip the blanket under him with both hands for control, his eyes squeezed tight.

"Ah shit, Ronnie!"

Releasing him, she lifted her head loving the wonderment on his face. As far as she was concerned any man in her life before that day had just been practice for right now. Every time Jay said her name, her body throbbed a little more. His moans made her brave, confident. Placing both hands on his knees she nudged, indicating she wanted him up further in the bed. He scrambled to reach the head of the bed but she stopped him midway taking him into her mouth again. She released him, wetting her lips to be able to slide further and further down his shaft. Her tongue slip sliding over him again and again until she had taken the entire length of him in.

"Oooooh fuuuuuck!" Juice's eyes rolled back, unconsciously his fingers dug into her hair. He'd had a hundred blow jobs but not a single damn one of them felt like this. Maybe it was just because it was Ronnie that he was moaning and whimpering like a virgin. Shit! Holy shit! He could feel her nose and lips in his trimmed pubic hair, twisting back and forth just enough to set him to arching his back. Drawing up to his tip again, she held it in the warmth of her mouth and let her tongue snake up and down his rod, before taking him back in again.

He could feel his orgasm galloping to the finish line, tightening his abdomen into a knot, curling his toes. Thinking that they were going to move on, he warned her about how close he was. "Okay!" He gasped out. "Stop for a second."

Ignoring his plea, she lifted his leg up by the crook of his knee to plant his once dangling foot firmly on the bed. She wrapped her arm around his uninjured thigh, holding him firmly in place while she continued to take him on the joyride.

His hand in her hair, gripping and releasing with each tremor that came from her drawing him in enough to bottom out at the back of her velvet throat, had her squeezing her thighs together to soothe the ache screaming for relief between her legs. And when that same hand stroked so softly across the back of her neck while she slowed her pace to worship his tip, it made her wetter than she ever remembered being. Releasing him from the grip she held him in, she let her nails begin a trail up the back of his thigh, teasing across the crease where his leg and tensed buttocks met. Her hand wove a lazy path up then back down the crevice there to the now exposed underside of his scrotum, scratching at them lightly.

"Aw fuck!" He cried out, his hips bucked forward to get away from the sensation overload she was creating there, only to find himself meeting more of her swirling tongue and suctioning lips. The double attack sucked the very breath out of his chest. There was nowhere to go to slow down the momentum, whether he flexed his hips forward or backward, she had his body twitching in a dance she had full control of. Juice could have yanked her off of him but if he were honest with himself, he didn't want it to stop.

He was close, too close. "Ronnie, wait," he gripped her hair tighter but the whine in his voice just encouraged her to keep going.

"Mm-mmm." She hummed out her negative response to his request, denying him the break he begged for. The vibration of it from her throat to his buried tip shocked an intelligible cry out of him, carrying him right to the edge and shoving him off. Clamping her arm around his thigh again for control, she held him locked in place, listening to his low grunts while he came, emptying into her mouth while the delicious spasms hit him in jerky waves. Breathing through her nose, she swallowed, not wanting it to end for him. Slowly, she released her suction letting what was left of their semen and saliva mix escape.

Laying her tongue flat, she gently laved it over his still pulsing length, enjoying his twitches and deep gasps. His nostrils flared with each shuddering exhale. Fighting the instinct to pull her off of him, Juice ran his fingers through her hair waiting, wanting to feel whatever she wanted to do to him next. With eyes heavy-lidded, he raised his head to watch her continue. Her tongue followed up his thickest vein catching the final leaking drips and over his tip drawing a curse from him each time. Growling out moans from her excruciating after-play, he gripped the pillow under his head. He didn't know which was worse, seeing it coming or not.

Juice could scarcely keep his eyes open. Every time he thought she was done, her cheek resting still on the inside of his thigh, she began to nuzzle and kiss and lap at his relaxing shaft. Her free hand wandered, stroking her fingertips up and down the back of his leg.

"Ahhhh...come on!" He shivered and twisted, but his complaints sounded like prayers for more and he could stop her at any time but still left himself at her mercy.

His head rose in disbelief when she took him into her mouth again and moaned. The vibration on his sensitivity slammed his head back into his pillow. "Jesus Christ!"

Her nails lightly scribbled over his balls, and Juice ignored the strain on his thigh muscle as he arched to get away. "Fuck! Okayokayokay!"

At hearing her giggle, he muttered, "Fuck you. C'mere."

When she raised her head again, his eyes were still closed. She kissed his abdomen, loving the way his muscles jumped at her slightest touch. Laying down next to him she kissed him on his shoulder.

She started to sit up but Juice's hand was on her in an instant, his grip on her arm firm. "Where you going?"

"Nowhere. I mean-". She let her sentence trail off. Despite the fact that her body was a buzzing ball of need, she didn't know if he could continue or if he even wanted to.

She only got a glimpse of his face contorting into a wince as he turned on his side before he cupped her face for a hard, hungry kiss. And she got her answer.

.

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A/N: Welp y'all...what can I say? I love you to pieces and thank you for reading. We're coming up on the end but I have a lil surprise for you when we're done. Hope you enjoyed this chapter...see you soon! *kjx*