Clubs: Motorcycle Club Romance (Savage Saints MC Book 6)

by Hazel Parker

  Cassie.

  Try as I might to continue downing my thoughts of the evening with alcohol, Cassie kept popping up. Maybe I had been a dick to her by leaving her as I had. Maybe I shouldn’t have just walked away in anger the way I did. I definitely shouldn’t have been aggressive as I was trying to get laid.

  Sex with Cassie was fun, not that I could recall with perfect memory. But sex with Cassie was even better because of the intimacy we shared. Trying to get laid with Cassie now without that intimacy was like trying to have a car without the engine; sure, it might feel good to be inside of it, but it couldn’t go places without the missing item.

  Still, compared to the options tonight… even though, objectively, the girls here had bigger breasts, thicker asses, and apparently more of a sex drive than Cassie, none of them had the bond that we’d once had.

  Goddamn, I sounded like a fucking bitch.

  It was a damn good thing that no one ever knew my true thoughts and feelings.

  Well, if not Cassie, since you fucked that up… then who?

  Honestly, I didn’t see anyone. Sure, I saw girls that probably gave mean head or could ride in bed like a fucking champ, but none of these girls interested me.

  I decided that there was just no place for me tonight. Going home now was probably the best option. I could get my emotional shit together in the morning.

  It was that, or—

  “Hey, Barber.”

  I recognized that sultry voice from last week. Shit. Diamond.

  I fully prepared myself for her to mock me and tease me about how nothing could get me off. I knew I’d performed like shit in bed, and it wasn’t likely to get any better given the mental anguish I was going through with Cassie right now.

  But when I turned and saw her in the cowgirl hat, the low-cut top, and the shorts that had her ass spilling out… I mean, holy fuck. If I’d seen her from far away, I doubt I would have had the same level of attraction but seeing her up close like this was a gift from God. It was ridiculous.

  “Leaving already?” she said with a smirk as she posted up next to me.

  “That was the plan,” I said, trying to keep my eyes averted from hers; to look into them was like looking at the Medusa, a part of me would become rock hard.

  “But why?” she said, and I swore she jiggled her breasts then as if calling me over. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time we hung out?”

  I gulped. I just needed to get out of there.

  “I’m under a lot of stress, Diamond,” I said. “I would appreciate it if—”

  “I know just the cure for that,” she said, stepping forward and putting her hand on my cheek.

  I knew last week that I could not fuck my way past my feelings. I knew today that I could not fuck my way past my feelings. Such a thing might have been true at twenty, but not in my thirties.

  But… Jesus, those tits. And what did I really have in the way of feelings, anyway? For some girl I’d treated like shit at the bar and who wouldn’t do anything with me anyway?

  “Come with me,” I growled, my voice half erotic, half resigned to how the night was going to go.

  At least I hadn’t had a sexual release in a week. Given that, maybe just by my sexual needs alone, I’d come. I didn’t even care if I finished while she stripped and teased. I just wanted something to go right, and an orgasm seemed like a pretty good way for things to go right.

  Plus, I realized on another level… if instead of using this as a way to get over Cassie… if I fucked Diamond like I was on camera and the world would see… hell, maybe some revenge fucking of sorts would work.

  Boy, your head is really fucked right now, huh?

  But once I got Diamond to my studio, the attitude of becoming a beast in bed worked wonders for me. I grabbed her by the throat and pressed her against the wall, kissing her lips before moving to her neck.

  “Oh, Barber,” she moaned, her voice an airy breath, her skin soft, tanned, and quivering.

  Her right leg wrapped around me, and if I dropped my pants and simply moved her shorts to the side, I’d be inside her right now. Not yet, though. Not yet.

  Once I’d had enough of her like so, I yanked my right arm toward the bed, tossing her down.

  “Oh, now this is the Barber I’ve wanted to see!” she said excitedly.

  Outside, the music stopped suddenly, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking for an excuse to stop; I was looking for an excuse to get out of my head. If that meant fucking the girl who had to use her right palm to make me shoot my load, then so be it.

  She sat up on the bed, put her hands on my shirt, and kissed my stomach. I closed my eyes and leaned back.

  And when I did that, I saw Cassie back at the bar.

  I saw how I had demanded she come with me, ride with me on the bike. I saw how she had begun to tear up at that.

  What the hell had happened to me? What the hell had turned me into a drunk-driving idiot? What the hell…

  “Barber!” Richard yelled, coming to the room where we had our meetings.

  I thankfully had had the presence of mind to shut my bedroom door, but that didn’t mean Richard wouldn’t know where we were.

  “Barber, I need you out here!”

  I looked down at Diamond, who had my jeans in her mouth. I was hard, but I was also rapidly losing it. The thought of Cassie had catalyzed it, but Richard’s call had really shut it down.

  It was probably for the best, anyway. I couldn’t think straight, and I couldn’t keep my thoughts consistent; one minute, I was begging for Cassie back, the next, I was trying to fuck a stripper from Tennessee in the hopes that it would help me get over the first girl.

  “Later,” I said.

  Diamond looked pissed as all hell. Who could blame her? But her emotions weren’t a concern of mine. I pushed my shirt down, made sure my jeans were still buttoned, and opened the door.

  “Richard, what’s going on?”

  Our president was breathing quickly, though he didn’t look injured or hurt. I could hear bikes revving outside. Something had happened, but to try to guess what was futile.

  “One of the dancers at the club just got murdered; we just found out.”

  Oh, no, no, no, please not Cassie.

  “Where?”

  “Downtown,” he said. “Just outside Downtown Cocktail Room.”

  Oh, God, Cassie…

  “It was one of the more senior dancers.”

  Wait. What?

  “Crystal, I think. She was going to go and meet Cassie for a drink, but I guess the Sinners got her. Come on. We need you to get this shit cleaned up quickly.”

  I didn’t think I had ever sobered up so quickly in my life. I didn’t even remember that Diamond was in my room as I strode out the exit with Richard, heading for my bike, and driving back the way I came.

  I may have still had alcohol in my blood, but bad news was the exact kind of thing that sobered up even the most serious of alcoholics.

  * * *

  It was a gruesome scene when I arrived, and the Chief of Police, Mario Gutierrez, had already put a tarp over Crystal. Some of the other Saints stood around, heavy looks on their faces.

  And there, just at the edge of the crime scene, head in her hands, a police officer standing nearby to protect her, was Cassie, bawling.

  It could have just as easily been her. Had she walked out here to meet Crystal, it could have just as easily been her. And if the attack had taken place… how the fuck would you live with yourself if you knew her death was because you’d left in a drunken hurry?

  “They got her as she was walking,” Mario explained to Richard and me, though I was only half listening. “This was out of the blue and cold. We don’t have any previous connection between her and any members of the Sinners.”

  “They know they can’t strike at us, so they’re striking at the ones we love,” Richard said with boiling anger. “Goddamnit.”

  “Listen, Richard,” Mario said, dropping his voice low. “If
you boys are planning something, I’d suggest you do it quick. At the risk of sounding blunt and offensive, there’s a hell lot more pressure when a pretty white girl gets killed compared to some biker in the street.”

  None of us had any interest in fighting that point. The point I was more concerned with was what it meant for the other girls.

  I walked over to Cassie slowly, my arms folded. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. I wasn’t sure what I could say. I just wanted her to know… what, exactly?

  “Cassie,” I said.

  But she averted her eyes as soon as she saw me approaching. I looked to the officer, a young man named Chris Buck, who knew who we were, but even he seemed defensive of the girl. What could I do?

  “Cassie, can you talk to me?”

  But Cassie only moved between Officer Buck and me. Only then did I realize she was acting this way because it wasn’t me who had been abandoned; it had been her. And unlike before, lives were at risk.

  “Officer Buck,” I said. “Let her know the safest place to go after this is The Red Door. If she needs anything, give it to her. I’ll reimburse you if need be.”

  Officer Buck nodded. I took one last look at Cassie. I had never seen her look so vulnerable, so scared, so wounded.

  And I had never felt so helpless.

  Chapter 8: Cassie

  I began to wonder why I was even here anymore.

  My former lover, who had turned into an alcoholic apparently, had become an emotionally unstable person, one second walking out on me for me not fucking him and the next offering his support. My best friend, or at least the closest thing I had to a best friend in the club, had gotten murdered in cold blood during a drive-by. And the club that was meant to protect me apparently had its own internal friction.

  Crystal’s death rocked my world. I’d dealt with some awful things in the past, and I was no stranger to the death of a loved one. But this… Crystal was healthy. Crystal was well-liked. Crystal might as well have been the second-in-command to Mama, and she was a leader that we all rallied around.

  And worst of all, it could have been me.

  Maybe it should have been me.

  Maybe, given how badly I’d fucked up the last fifteen years, I should have just walked out to Crystal and taken the bullet for her. It’s not like anyone would have missed me. God knows my parents wouldn’t have given two shits—they hadn’t since my tragic incident all those years ago. Brett might in spurts, but it was far more likely that just after he started to feel solace and sympathy for me, he’d revert right back to being pissed off and then happy that I was gone.

  Why am I here?

  The question didn’t go away, but it wasn’t a strong enough question to keep me from showing up on Thursday. Granted, a huge part of that was the numbness and pain I was still feeling. Had it been a week later, I probably would have begun looking for work at one of the strip clubs, even if it didn’t pay as much as The Red Door.

  That, and I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have any friends here. I didn’t have anyone, really, except maybe Brett when he was in a good mood.

  And he had been when he was sober. But as soon as he got buzzed, as soon as some stress hit him…

  For all of us in the changing room, there was no laughter, no giggling, no gossip about who had hooked up with whom. There were no rumors about which guest was going to show up to The Red Door tonight. The place felt like, well, it felt like a funeral, and with good reason.

  “Ladies, gather round,” Mama said, her voice ringing out as she entered.

  Even Mama, the usual blunt and humorous leader of the dancers, had a subdued tone. She was withholding her usual free tongue, unwilling to speak her full mind. We all moved around her, but that was more almost just out automatic movement rather than a desire to hear her.

  “I know what happened two days ago… it’s horrible, it’s fucking awful,” she said.

  Her voice was wavering already. It was always said that Mama could be tough as hell on the ladies, but she also defended us and protected us from the club’s bikers. If ever there was a single silver lining in the mess that was this hell, it was that her love and commitment to us were on full display right now.

  “I’m going to go into a meeting here shortly with the rest of the Savage Saints, and we are going to get justice for Crystal’s death. I can’t promise you right now what’ll happen, but… damnit, that girl was a real saint. I think every one of you can speak to the kind of woman she is; how she’d be just as likely to take one of you out for coffee before a performance to give you encouragement or speak to you until sunrise at the conclusion of a show to lift you up. I know for myself, I’ve dealt with some shit, and ladies, she was just as much a support system as anyone in the club.”

  Heads nodded, but no one was really listening. Crystal was too well-loved for people to listen without going into their own heads about what the older dancer meant to all of us.

  “With that all said… we have a show tonight,” Mama said. “I know that Crystal would tell you all to be present, perform well, and earn their applause. I’m not going to tell you that. I know that this is all so much, and The Red Door is allowed a performance like this every once in a while. Just do what you can; if you feel like you’re going through the motions, fucking go through the motions. The important thing right now is to perform and then heal. I’ll be in that meeting for about half an hour, but then I’ll be around for anything you guys need. OK?”

  Again, we all nodded, but I couldn’t say if we nodded because we heard Mama or just because we heard her stop speaking and her tone end on a question. For me, it was a little bit of both.

  I kept thinking about how much Crystal had done in coming to me after my first show and other times before and after shows. My biggest regret was not getting to know her better; did she have dreams of going to school someday? Did she have hopes of something beyond the dance stage? Or was she someone who had found contentment and happiness up there?

  Was she someone who had realized her dreams, or someone whose dreams would go to the grave with her body?

  Those questions lingered in my mind like a virus as I prepared. I was part of the opening act for the show, and when the time came, I was able to block out everything that happened… at first.

  It only took a mere ten minutes, though, to realize something that was either a convenient fact for the club or an unfortunate mistake.

  No one in the audience knew that one of the more seasoned girls had been murdered less than forty-eight hours ago.

  In fact, no one in the audience knew our names. They didn’t hand out programs. Granted, to some degree, this was because of the anonymity of the club, and that was something that was usually appreciated.

  But the way they cheered, the way they whistled, the way they just looked at us was not the kind of look someone gave when they knew someone was going through some serious tragedy.

  As far as I could see, they probably figured that since they had paid their money, they were getting a show, and they didn’t give two shits, or even one shit about the circumstances of the show. This wasn’t like law, where at least I would have a relationship with my clients. This was just…

  We were a fucking zoo. And at the zoo, if an animal died, they just swapped in a new animal. Sure, maybe some more conscious zoos would hang a sign honoring the fallen animal, but even that would last no more than a few weeks before it became business as usual.

  Mama cared for us, of that, I had no doubt. But the owners of the club? The Savage Saints?

  We were just a pair of tits, a nice body, and a skilled dancer to throw up on stage to extract thousands of dollars from celebrities, businessmen, and politicians.

  Fuck that.

  I needed the money to go to law school, but some quick calculations while I was off-stage told me that I didn’t need to be there that long to have enough money to minimize my future debt burden. In fact, it was less than a year.

  Six months.

&
nbsp; I knew right then and there that I was going to stay for six months, save my money like a penny pincher, and then get the hell out of town.

  Six months to freedom. Six months to safety.

  Six months to never see Brett Pierce again.

  * * *

  When the show ended, the crowd cheered.

  But they didn’t cheer like an announcement had come about the circumstances under which we performed. In fact, there were no microphone moments, no moments of silence, nothing. We kept on our smiles because the performance required us to look a certain way, but as soon as the curtain dropped, all of us moved back to the changing room.

  Mama came in, but she didn’t say anything to us as a group. Instead, she remained on the periphery of the room, by the exit, offering private words of encouragement. I suppose that only further cemented how much I liked Mama, but it didn’t do anything to change how I felt about leaving in six months.

  When it was my turn to leave, Mama gave me a soft smile. But instead of giving encouraging words, she followed up her smile with a hug.

  “I know you were going to see her on Tuesday,” she said. “I’m sorry, Cassie. You’re a stronger soul than I could ever be.”

  I squeezed tight, murmuring my thanks before I moved on to the exit. Maybe if this weren’t real life, Mama would have some inspirational words to get me to reconsider my six-month deadline, get us to avenge Crystal’s death, and live our lives in her memory.

  But real life had a way of being a lot drabber and a lot tougher than anything like that. Real life just meant that Mama’s words, as appreciated as they were, more or less went in one ear and out the other.

  I pushed open the door and headed to the parking lot.

  “You did great out there.”

  I paused, considered not turning around, and then only did so because to ignore Brett would have made things worse. I looked over my shoulder, said, “thanks,” in a very soft voice, and started to walk away.

  “You’ve got some amazing heart, Cassie,” he said, again stopping me in my tracks. “It’s a damn shame I didn’t recognize that on Tuesday.”