Greatest MC Romance Box Set

by Blair Grey

  Her eyes rolled as she handed me an extra-large box for me to go fill up. “No. He’s self-employed.”

  “Oh yeah?” I filled up the box then closed the lid as I walked back up to her. “What’s his business?”

  “You know, just stuff.” Deliberately being vague, she ran the gum over the scanner. “This is Max’s favorite gum. I’ll have to remember to get him a pack before I leave work in the morning.”

  So Max likes the same gum and the same size of popcorn that was in the car. Laughing, I asked, “Seems your boyfriend and I have similar tastes.”

  “Right down to the root beer. Only he’s trying to watch his weight right now and he’ll only get the medium-sized drink. But he’s so stupid cause he’ll get two of them. I told him it’s more cola than a large, but he says it’s a process of easing into drinking less cola by drinking out of medium cups instead of large ones.” Another eye-roll and she had my purchases tallied up. “That’ll be five dollars and forty-nine cents, please.”

  Pulling out the cash from my back pocket, I felt I was on the right track. “Here you go.” I placed a ten in her hand. “I’m new in town. What do you guys do around here for fun?”

  “Me and Max like to hang out with his friends a lot. They’ve got this little bar.” The bell rang, signaling another customer had come in. “Welcome to Rudy’s Corner Store.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tall man with a ballcap on coming inside. His black mustache was so thick that it had to be fake. When I turned to check out why he had something like that on, I saw Dean Strong looking back at me.

  He smiled, creepily. “Good evening, ladies.”

  Gathering my things, I spoke quietly to the cashier, “I’ll see you around. My apartment’s near here.”

  “That’ll be great.” She ran her finger over her nametag. “I’m Greta. And what can I call you?”

  “Nicki,” I said quickly then turned to leave. “Later, Greta.”

  “Later, Nicki.”

  Hurrying to my car without trying to look as if I was rushing, I barely got the door unlocked when I heard Dean come up behind me. “You gave her your real name?”

  “I see no reason to try to come up with an entire fake life.” I couldn’t help but stare at the stupid fake mustache that was way too big for his face. “What are you calling yourself?”

  “Rod.” He tugged on the bill of his blue ballcap that had nothing on it at all. No man wore a baseball cap with no team logo on it. I guessed Dean hadn’t got the memo on that in disguise school. Wherever that was. “Nice to meet you, Nicki.”

  “I need to get going.” I tried to get into the car but his hand on my arm stopped me.

  “I need a date for tonight. I’m going to the Executive Viper to see what kind of trouble the Iron Cobras have brewing. You would look great on my arm.” He looked me up and down. “Well, after you go put on something nice and put on some makeup and take your hair out of that ridiculous ponytail. What are you, twelve?”

  “It’s what they had in my apartment. And I’m not going to that strip club. I’ve told you that already.” It occurred to me that he’d stopped there on purpose. “Did you find out what kind of car they gave me?”

  “All the way down to the license plate.” He smiled as he thought himself to be as smart as hell.

  “Stalker.” I shook my arm, making him let me go. “Have fun at the strip club. That’s right up your alley.”

  “I actually hate going to those things. The women are beneath me. I have another type I go for. But you know that.” He grabbed the door as I’d managed to get into the driver’s seat and had tried to close the door. “When are you going to stop fighting this?”

  “Never. I don’t want you. I never did.” Setting my jaw, I didn’t want to deal with this shit the whole time I was in Baltimore. “You will never get the best of me again. I can promise you that. You won’t take from me what is mine to give again.”

  “Like I took it from you.” His eyes narrowed as he looked pissed. “Why you keep talking like you had nothing to do with what we did, I will never understand. It takes two to tango.”

  Fury blasted through me. “Let go of the fucking car door. I’m leaving and if you’re still holding it when I hit the gas, it’ll rip off.”

  “Admit it and I’ll let go.”

  “Let go of the idea that I will ever want you?” It was almost worth saying what he wanted me to say if he would just leave me alone.

  “I meant the door.” He laughed as if it was a joke. “You’re kind of stupid sometimes.”

  I felt stupid at the moment, still sitting there talking to him. “You’re in my way.”

  “I know. And I don’t plan on moving or letting up. Some females require pressure. I’m beginning to think that about you, Johansson. The whole theory of you being immature isn’t holding water for me any longer. The pressure theory seems more plausible.”

  Like I gave two shits about his fucking moronic theories about why I didn’t want anything to do with him. “Leave me alone. I didn’t come here to continue to deal with you. I’ve got a job to do. I need space away from you to be able to do it. I was onto something when you came in.” He made me furious and I had to stop talking to him or I’d really lose it. “Just let go of the fucking door!”

  “No,” came his stern reply. “I’ve got one more thing to say to you before you go. It’s time you stopped acting like I did something to you that you didn’t want to be done. If you won’t admit it because you don’t want to face the fact that you made a fool out of yourself, then I get that. But you need to stop treating me like I’m some kind of a fucking criminal.”

  You are a fucking criminal!

  Throwing the car into reverse, I backed up fast, the door jerked out of his hand, slamming shut. That didn’t stop him though. He kept coming toward me, shaking his fists as he shouted something that I didn’t even care to hear.

  Why can’t this fucking asshole just disappear?

  Chapter Five

  Garrett

  Tired of looking at the glare of my computer screen, I looked at the time and found it to be nine already. “Time to call it a day.” Hitting the print button, I’d found a picture of the only woman in the DEA with the last name of Johansson. Nicole Savanah Johansson had blonde hair, blue eyes and a smile that could light up a room. She was a knockout – and that was just from her agent photo.

  It bothered me clear to my core that Dean Strong had hurt her in any way. She did look like an angel. And her eyes said she had a good soul and heart too.

  I could read some things about people. The eyes told me much more than anything they could ever say to me. Meanness came from deep within and it came out in the eyes. But so did goodness. And she had the latter in spades.

  Going to grab myself a beer as the picture printed out, I found my fridge beer-free. “This will not do at all.”

  Going to get my car keys off the table in my bedroom, I picked them up before stopping by the printer to get the picture it had spit out.

  Folding it up carefully so I didn’t crease her pretty face, I put it into my wallet for safekeeping. Just being able to get a look at the woman he’d raped would help me do what I needed to do.

  My new Camaro looked great in the city lights as I went to get into it. I’d bought her only a month ago and found myself still dazzled every single time I saw her. Next to my Harley, that car was my true love.

  A man can have more than one true love.

  Sliding into the soft, creamy leather, I inhaled the new car smell that mixed well with the leather’s scent. “You’re so beautiful, Red.” I’d named her red because of her hot red color. My bike was named Betty because she was hot in a down to Earth way, the same way Betty Rubble from the Flintstones was. Plus, the bike was black and so was Betty Rubble’s hair. It all made perfect sense to me.

  Going to work as a computer tech for the Iron Cobras had been very profitable for me. That was one of the best things I’d learned while in the Nav
y. Computer skills along with fighting skills made me a great fit for the MC I’d come to love.

  Each night, I drove my car to a garage I’d rented to keep my beauties in. The street was no place for my true loves. The garage was two blocks over from the old textile building I had a loft apartment in.

  As I pulled up to the well-lit entrance, I pushed the button on my visor to open the gate, then pulled in and went to my garage. Pushing the button again, my garage door opened and there sat my Harley Softail Slim in denim black. She seemed to smile at me as I pulled into the empty spot next to her. She knew she was about to get ridden and she loved that.

  Getting out of the car, I patted the driver’s door. “See ya tomorrow, Red.” Taking my helmet off the seat, I climbed onto my bike and sighed as my ass fit exceptionally well there. “Hello, Betty.” Slipping the helmet over my head, I pulled the full, dark facemask down to cover my face. It kept the cold air away much the same way the leather jacket and gloves did. It also served to dampen the harsh glow of oncoming car’s headlights while driving at night.

  Starting her up, I sat there a moment, just taking in the smells, sounds, and vibrations of my bike. Looking at my Camaro, I knew I’d made a couple of wise as fuck purchases with the money I’d made in the last couple of years, working for the MC.

  Gliding out of the garage, I clicked the button on my key-fob to close the garage behind me, then went to the gate that opened on its own to let me out.

  Zipping down the nearly empty street, I stayed off the main roads to avoid traffic. The traffic in Baltimore was no joke. And it made for aggravating times when sitting on a bike, instead of cruising on it.

  Rudy’s Corner Store was close enough to my place to make it the go-to convenience store for me. Plus, the popcorn was always fresh when Greta was working.

  A full moon hung low overhead and in the distance, I could hear the sounds of ships’ whistles blowing as they came into the harbor. A clear, cold night with hardly any traffic on the road only a bit after nine wasn’t common. So, I slowed down to enjoy it.

  I’d learned to slow down to enjoy things from a guy I’d met while in the Navy. He’d had a rough time growing up too. He’d been a fat kid who everyone had made fun of. But he’d worked hard and got into shape after graduating from high school. Then he joined the Navy and he’d gone on to become a SEAL.

  I’d dropped out after not making the SEAL team. My PTSD, which didn’t come from anything to do with the military, made it so I wasn’t a good candidate for that coveted position. Another thing I could blame my father for.

  Failed relationships were the first things I could blame on him. It was sort of impossible to think of myself as a heterosexual man who only likes women when I was molested by a man and had orgasms from it. And it didn’t make it any easier that I had never told any of my love interests about my past. So, when I acted distantly and shut myself off when a bad memory would occur, no one ever understood what they’d done wrong.

  Most men love a good hand-job – just not me.

  I tried not to get too down about life and love. I was only twenty-five. I had lots of time ahead of me to get over things. Only, so far, what I’d been doing wasn’t working.

  Javier’s idea sounded good – in theory. Going back in time to make myself think nothing had happened to me and I’d been able to make my father stop simply by yelling for my mother didn’t seem plausible.

  The thing was that my sister had killed herself. She was always quiet and reserved, so there’d been no changes in her mood to show anyone that she was depressed. And she’d never said a thing to anyone about my father abusing her in any way.

  I still didn’t know if he’d done anything to her or not. But I didn’t know what else could’ve been so bad in her life that had made her want to shoot herself in the head.

  No one had picked on her in school. She’d only had a couple of friends. But when one is reserved, one doesn’t even want many friends.

  Our grandfather had a couple of handguns at the top of his closet that he kept for protection. One was really our grandmother’s that he’d given her when they were younger, and she would travel to come to see us wherever we happened to be when Mom and our father were still together. My mother had drug us all over the country to be able to stay with the man.

  It never made a hell of a lot of sense to me why she wanted to stay with him in the first place. He was never around and when he was, he was either asleep, not talking to anyone anyway, or being mean.

  He would get sent to another base and there we would go shortly after. He was never happy to see us either. I could remember one time when he actually asked her what we were doing there.

  If I had a wife and family I would never want to treat them like garbage the way he treated all of us.

  Maybe our father never touched Sandra. Maybe it was just those years of being ignored by him and somewhat by our mother as our pleas to be able to stay in one place and go to school were ignored by her.

  When we’d moved in with our grandparents, things had gotten okay. Things settled down. We all got to go to school with the same people for years. And we had a family. Not a normal one – but who has a normal family anyway?

  Not knowing why my younger sister had made the decision to take her own life made this place inside my heart that felt empty. But not just empty, it was like a vacuum that sucked in bad feelings.

  Deep inside I knew that I didn’t deserve to be truly happy since Sandra was so miserable and I’d never noticed that. I had to have ignored her the same way our parents had. And that made me a bad big brother. But not just that. It made me a bad person.

  Being humorous helped me hide how I felt about myself most of the time. And when it wasn’t helping, I didn’t talk to people much and tried not to leave my house until I’d gotten myself back under control.

  At least I could get it under control. Sandra must’ve lost that ability. I hadn’t ever thought about killing myself. Not sure why, but I just hadn’t.

  It just would’ve been nice to know why she did it. The fact that I would never know that added to the weight I’d carried on my shoulders since I was ten years old.

  I’d heard my mother crying once - after we’d moved to my grandparents’ house. She’d been talking to her mother. She said she missed our father. She missed everything about her old life.

  I couldn’t believe she’d said that. And I couldn’t believe the amount of guilt I felt about taking that away from her. If I hadn’t told her what he was doing, we would’ve stayed with him and she might’ve been happy.

  Mom was not a happy person. She hadn’t been since the day we’d left him. A recluse, she didn’t like for us to visit. It had been years since I’d seen her. Every once in a while I would send her a text and she would reply days later, telling me she was fine and not to worry about her.

  No words of love were ever exchanged. I had no idea if I was capable of loving a person.

  My grandparents loved us and gave us more attention than our parents ever had. But it wasn’t enough somehow. Maybe it was too late. At least for me and Sandra. Stacy seemed okay though.

  She had her head on straight. Grandma had taken her under her wing since she was barely two when we came to live with them.

  Wish we’d left him earlier.

  Pulling into Rudy’s parking lot, I couldn’t help but notice the man and woman who were clearly having an argument. Parking on the other side of the building where the cashier parked her car, I didn’t want to get my bike too close to that action.

  If the woman got mad enough, she might get into the car and drive it recklessly and if she hit my bike I might go berserk. No one needed me to do that.

  They guy wouldn’t let her arm go and as I looked him over, I thought he looked familiar, but he had this way too thick and way too black mustache.

  Why would he have on a fake mustache?

  He looked like an evil villain in a play of some kind. That had to be it. No one would purposely wear
something that fucking stupid.

  The woman’s blond hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and she had on jeans and a white t-shirt. She was trying to get into a tan car, but he wasn’t letting her do it.

  Only one other car was in the parking lot, a black Nissan Sentra. It must’ve been his, as I didn’t see any other customers inside the store. Only, Greta, the cashier, was inside, watching the couple the same way I was.

  With no real violence going on, it wouldn’t make sense for her to call the cops. But something wasn’t right, and anyone could see that.

  Something about both of them seemed so familiar to me.

  Can that be her?

  Nicole Savanah Johansson was in my pocket and it seemed the real girl might be the one trying to get away from the man who didn’t seem to want her to get away at all.

  Pulling out the paper with her picture on it, I looked at it hard then looked at her. One thing stood out very clearly to me. Both – the picture and the woman had a small dark mark on the lower half of their left cheeks.

  They’ve got the same birthmark!

  I’d also printed out a picture of Dean Strong and had put it into my wallet much earlier. Pulling that paper out, I found his shoulders were square, the same way the man in the picture was. And his hair was a deep shade of ash blonde – so deep that it looked more black than anything else.

  Suddenly, the woman I was pretty fucking sure was Johansson got into her car and a few moments later, she backed up. The door slammed shut but the man kept going toward the moving car.

  With his hands in the air, he shouted, “You fucking cunt! You think you’re so good- so perfect! Well, you’re not. You’re not too good for me. I took you once and I’ll take your ass again. Just you wait and see!”

  The woman sped away, her taillights disappearing as she turned the corner. I couldn’t imagine how she must’ve felt with the motherfucker who’d raped her shouting those things at her.

  Something inside of me broke and I got off my bike, leaving my gloves and helmet on as I made fast, long strides toward the man. “Strong!” I shouted to be sure it was the man I thought him to be.