by Blue, Jayne
She drove off and I headed back into the club. Brax and Colt waited inside for me. Kellan was with them too. My heart dropped a little and my back went up. Something didn’t feel right and their expressions were grim.
Whatever the hell the club leadership had to tell me, I knew it was bad.
Chapter Sixteen
Tara
For the next two weeks, Joker consumed me. It was real, exciting, new. His voice sent ripples through me. His touch ignited me. His lips sent me over the edge.
But we took things as carefully and slowly as we could for Toby’s sake. His fifth birthday party was coming up and the club planned a big party for him complete with pony rides behind the Den if it didn’t get too cold. It was set for next Sunday on the land behind the bar.
The Thursday before it, I lay in Joker’s arms. He traced lazy circles over my nipples, making them pebble. My sex still throbbed from our vigorous lovemaking. Joker and I didn’t just have sex. Every time was like that first time. He opened me up in new ways, brought out dark desires I didn’t even know I had. And once was never enough. I knew before the night was through, he’d have me bent over the bed again, pressed up against the shower door, and if I was very, very obedient, he promised to take me spread-eagle over the kitchen table.
“Mmm.” He had me positively purring.
“So Sunday,” he said. “For Toby’s party. I want you to be there.”
I went up on my elbow. It was late, past midnight. Joker was staying over at my place for the first time. Toby had a sleepover at Brax and Nicole’s house. Their son Victor was just a few months older than Toby. They apparently hadn’t seen each other much since Brax and Nicole were out of town.
“That’s a big step,” I said. “He didn’t really ask me much about when he saw us together at the club. What have you told him?”
Joker smiled. “I told him I really like you a lot. That you’re a special friend and I asked him how he’d feel if you came over sometimes.”
“Whew. How’d he take it?”
Joker’s smile widened. “He told me he knew I wanted you to be my girlfriend since I saw you at school that first day.”
I couldn’t help it. I erupted in laughter, snorting against the pillow.
Joker reached over and swatted me on the ass. Then he pinned my arms above my head and straddled me. “You laughing at me, Miss Tara?”
Still giggling, I nodded. “Your son’s pretty smart, Joker.”
Holding me in this position aroused Joker. I felt it too. But we’d only just finished twenty minutes ago. It didn’t matter. Joker grew hard against me. My body answered with a rush of heat.
I gasped. “Joker, we just ... I can’t …”
“You can,” he said, his voice growing husky. He reached down and stroked himself. I could protest all I wanted, but Joker found the proof of my arousal at his fingertips. I was soaked again.
“Oh!”
He slid into me. My legs fell open. My back arched to receive him.
“You can take it, baby. This and a whole lot more.”
“Yes.” It was true. It was as if my body were made for his. Joker dug his toes into the mattress and pressed himself inside me as far as he could go. He stayed there, still and rigid, filling me.
I reached up and smoothed the hair out of his eyes. As much as he filled my body, Joker filled my heart. Still, Toby’s reaction made me nervous. Would he accept me if things between Joker and I grew even more serious?
“I love you,” he whispered.
I strained upward and met his lips. “I love you too.”
It was the first time I said it like that. Definitive. No equivocation. The words set me free. I felt like I could fly.
Joker leaned down and swirled his tongue around my nipple. Then he brought my hands up, lacing his fingers through them as he held them above my head and fucked me properly.
This was for him. I sensed his need. He would wring himself dry inside of me. Then later, we’d take that shower and I knew my man would treat me very well indeed.
My man.
Oh, it felt good to admit it. Even better to say it.
“I love you,” I whispered, kissing the top of Joker’s head as he nuzzled against my chest. He was spent for now.
He grew quiet. I knew there was another elephant in the room. Something he’d been dancing around for days. There, in the dark stillness, I decided to call it forth.
“The charges against you,” I said. “Is there anything new?”
“Bailey’s suppression hearing takes place in a couple of weeks. I’m not worried. Much.”
I brought his hand to my lips and kissed his palm. “I signed the affidavit. I told Mr. Bailey I can testify at the hearing if he needs me too. He said they don’t call witnesses though.”
“Right,” he said. “He’s optimistic. So am I. It’s just …”
His voice trailed off. “Just what? Tell me.”
Joker went up on his elbow. “I told you I can’t always tell you what’s going on. Club business and all. But they’re going to keep coming for us. And I think I’m being watched.”
My heart dropped. “Watched?”
“Colt’s pretty certain someone knew in advance where we were going to be that night. I know I wasn’t tailed. So it’s possible you were being watched. Who did you tell we were going out that night?”
I swallowed hard. “Laney knew,” I said.
Joker shook his head. “Don’t be mad. But we checked her out.”
“Checked her out?”
“Well,” he said. “She’s not connected to anyone that would cause me trouble.”
Joker rolled out of bed and found his shirt and a pair of his boxer-briefs. I pulled the sheet up to cover me.
My breath came hard. There was still one truth between us I hadn’t shared. It went against everything I’d ever been taught to share. It was nothing. Unrelated. It had to be, and yet …
“They’re going after Toby,” Joker said. His words stabbed through me like a hot poker.
“What do you mean?” I sat up.
I reached for the oversized tee-shirt I kept on the bedpost as PJs. I slipped it on and pulled it past my waist.
Joker ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want to bum you out with this. But Christy ... Toby’s mom. She filed a motion for custody.”
My throat ran dry. “Are you serious? When’s the last time she even saw him?”
I already knew the answer. He’d said years.
“Long enough the kid doesn’t remember her. But ... the timing on this is all wrong. She files two days after the drug bust. And she cited it in her paperwork. Someone fed her that info. And I think the drug shit might have even been part of the setup for Christy.”
“You think someone put her up to this?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Colt thinks our enemies are taking things to a new level. Messing with our personal lives. It’s just ... I didn’t even know where Christy was living up until this. Somebody dug deep. Hired a private investigator on me or something.”
I felt bile rise in my throat. He didn’t. He couldn’t have. And yet, this was exactly the kind of thing my father would have used to have done to go after a target back in his prime.
“Joker,” I said. “There’s something I have to tell you.” The words sounded tinny in my ears. Like I was far away or falling through a tunnel.
Joker froze. He pulled on his jeans.
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t actually think these two things are connected. And he’s been retired for years. But you should know. My dad ... he’s ex-FBI.”
Joker’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“It’s not something I’ve ever really been allowed to talk about. He was always undercover. I used to have to say he was a salesman who traveled or worked for the gas company or whatever half-baked cover story my mother invented.”
“What did he do?” Joker asked, his tone going flat.
“He was on some task force in t
he early two-thousands. Gangs and organized crime.”
“Jesus,” Joker said, rubbing a hand over his face. “He knows about us?”
I bit my lip. “Yes.”
“Let me guess: your pops wasn’t too thrilled about you shacking up with a Wolf.”
I drew my knees up and hugged them to my chest. “He was not, no. But he doesn’t run my life. I mean, he’s barely been in it until recently. I’ve tried to at least have dinner with him once a week. But Joker, he’s a drunk. He cheated on my mother more times than I can even count. When she got sick, he bailed. When she died, he pretty much disappeared.”
Joker’s face went stone cold. “Let me ask you this. Did your father retire or was he forced out?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said he was a drunk. Is that all?”
I rose to my feet. “Isn’t that enough?”
Joker started to pace. “Why are you only just now telling me this?”
“Because despite his shitty job as a father, my dad had a hand in putting some pretty bad dudes away for life. He was a highly decorated agent in his prime. And telling people what he really did was something that could have put either him in harm’s way or us.”
“You should have told me,” he said.
“I’m telling you now.”
“Your phone,” he said. “Give me your phone.”
“My what?”
“How long has your old man known we were a thing?” he shouted.
“Joker ... what …”
“Don’t be naive, Tara. The people who want to hurt the club, they’ll use any means necessary. Worm their way in. Stir shit up. I want to know if your old man went so far as to track your phone.”
It was laying on the charger. I grabbed it and tossed it to Joker. He caught it against his chest.
“Take it,” I said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“They’re trying to take my kid away,” Joker said. His eyes were filled with pain. I was torn between sympathy and anger.
“I’m not naive. And everything the club does is legitimate. My father and his former bosses have nothing on you.”
Joker smiled. “No, they’d just be the ones who would know best how to manufacture something. Like planting heroin on me.”
I rolled my eyes. “You and I know that was the most bumbling, ham-handed operation of all time. I’ll tell you one thing: if my dad was in the business of planting evidence, I’m pretty sure he’d know how to do it properly.”
Joker blinked. “You’re probably right. It’s just ... I wish you’d told me this from the get-go.”
“Then what?” I said. “Would you have just said see ya, chick? Is this a deal-breaker? What does my father’s former profession have to do with how you feel about me?”
His shoulders dropped. He came to me and put his hands on my arms.
“It doesn’t,” he said. “But I don’t think you fully understand how badly some people want to hurt my club. Bad enough they’ll use my ex-girlfriend to do it. Or you …”
I put a hand against his cheek. “Never. I swear to you. I’m on your side. Check my phone if you want. The password is 103242. I don’t have anything to hide.”
He kissed me, but the deeper passion we’d shared before was muted.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “And I do trust you. I just ... I need to be sure they’re not using you.”
I nodded. “It’s okay. I’ve said it before. I’ll do whatever I can to help you fight. I’m not playing around.”
“Good,” he said. A bit of the sparkle came back into his eyes. He kissed me again. Then he slipped my phone in his back pocket and grabbed his leather cut off the chair.
I loved this man. He lit a fire inside of me that threatened to burn me through. And when he walked out the door, I felt so cold in his wake.
Chapter Seventeen
Joker
“You sure she has no idea what her old man was really into?” Brax asked. He was fuming. His long blond hair flapped as he paced at the end of the table.
“If she says she didn’t, she didn’t,” I said. We were waiting for Colt and Kellan. They took a meeting with the Grand City, Michigan chapter early this morning. If the Hawks were ultimately behind the police chief’s new push against the club down here, they were the next closest charter and our businesses were intertwined.
“When’s your guy getting here?” I asked for maybe the hundredth time. Brax had a contact who did computer and phone forensics. If there was anything fishy about Tara’s, he was the guy to tell us.
“He’s supposed to call me any minute,” Brax said.
I’d been through hell in the last twenty-four hours. Tara’s old man, a fed. Not just any fed. She’s said he was on gang and organized crimes.
I could see how the scenario went down. Gavin Kimball finds out his daughter’s dating a Wolf. He starts sniffing around, looking for intel just like any concerned father would. That part didn’t bother me in the slightest. But if he’d reached out to Chief Davis, it didn’t take a criminal mastermind to figure out how the two of them would find themselves with a common purpose.
It wasn’t Tara’s fault. It would have been easy to blame her. For all his flaws, she had some loyalty to her old man I could respect. But I had loyalty to the men at this table and all the others who wore the G.W.M.C. patch. My stomach churned thinking just what that might cost me this time.
Colt and Kellan walked in looking grim-faced.
“What’ve you got?” Brax said.
Kellan carried a thin file in his hand. He tossed it to the table.
“Gavin Kimball was about as bad a dude as they come on that side of the fence,” Kellan said. “Came up in the Detroit Police Department. Worked their gang task force in the late eighties before the feds recruited him.”
I buried my head in my hands.
Colt spoke up next. “He went deep,” he said. “He’s the one behind the operation that brought the Iron Renegades M.C. down in ninety-eight. He infiltrated the club. Went so far as making probie.”
“Jesus,” Brax said. “Joker, man. She set you up.”
“We’re talking about her old man!” I shouted. “Not Tara. She would have been something like four years old at that time. She was living with her mom. She says she rarely even saw her dad in those days.”
“That part checks out,” Tate said. “Bailey found court papers.”
My blood ran hot. Nobody had told me they went digging at the courthouse. As I looked around the table, barely anyone would look me in the eye.
“Never divorced,” Tate continued. “More than likely, that was for insurance reasons. Kimball had good medical with the feds. The mom was sick a lot. Breast cancer that kept coming back. Anyway, they were legally separated with a custody deal in place. From ninety-six through oh four, they didn’t live together.”
“Joker,” E.J. said at the other end of the table. “You ever think maybe Davis put that girl in front of you in the first place?”
“What?” I said. “You’re out of your mind. No. She’s been working at that daycare for years. Unless Kimball or Davis can add mind-reading to their resume, it was a coincidence. She isn’t playing me.”
Colt dropped his head. “I don’t think she is either,” he said. “Neither does Amy. But we have to assume her old man’s been feeding intel to Davis or worse.”
Brax’s cell phone rang. My heart lurched as he read the caller ID.
“It’s my guy,” he said. He turned his back to us and walked out of the room.
“How much have you told her about the club’s businesses?” Kellan asked. I resented the accusation in his tone.
“This is nuts,” I said. “I didn’t tell her anything more than you would have told Mallory when you first hooked up with her.”
Kellan’s eyes flashed. The hell with it. It was the truth.
“And there’s nothing about our business that’s a problem,” I reminded him. “I don’t give a shit who Gavin Kimball is.
If he’s got half a brain, he would have figured out in two seconds that the Wolves are legit.”
“We weren’t in the nineties,” Tate said. “For a guy like that, old habits and old reps are gonna die hard.”
“You told her about Christy?” Kellan asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Nothing to hide there either.”
“Kimball doesn’t have hardly a pot to piss in on his own,” Colt said. “He’s living off a pension but he’s got a drinking problem.”
“Tara says he’s a drunk,” I said.
“He’s seen some shit in his life,” Colt said. There was a trace of sympathy in his tone and it made me feel better to hear it. Not for Gavin Kimball. Fuck that guy if he came after me the way we thought he might. But for Tara. Whatever this was, it wasn’t her fault, dammit.
“Tara was not feeding Kimball information about the club,” I said. “But she didn’t lie about her association with me.”
“What does she think about all of this?” Colt asked.
“She doesn’t think her old man would be in it to hurt me.”
“You ever tell her about our issues with Davis?” Kellan asked.
“Nothing detailed,” I said. I racked my brain trying to remember if that was strictly true. “But it doesn’t matter. She was there when I got popped with that heroin. She saw those idiots plant it on me. She grew up around a cop. She knew what kind of bullshit she was looking at. If she were in on it, why the hell would she have signed an affidavit to what really happened? Why not just back up the dirty cops’ story and let me twist in the wind?”
The guys at the table exchanged looks. They knew I was right.
“It makes sense,” Colt said. “Unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless she saw it as an opportunity to prove her loyalty to you as quickly as possible. So she could get in even deeper with you.”
“Which she did,” E.J. added.
I slammed a fist to the table. “No. No way. Fuck that. That’s not what’s going on. And you’re all forgetting the fundamental fact. Tara’s not a cop. She’s a daycare worker. Unless you got some sort of top-secret intel you’re not sharing that says she’s some kind of next-generation spy.”