by KB Winters
He was such a jerk. How could I have slept with him and enjoyed it so damn much? His big damn cock left me dickmatized, that was the only thing that made sense. That and my long history of making appallingly bad choices when it came to men. “This coming from a biker-slash-cowboy?”
“This biker-slash-cowboy saved your ass from a beating earlier.” Even as he said the words, Holden’s nostrils flared, and his free hand flexed in anger. “Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t. Ever.” He had saved me. Ken had never raised a hand to me before, which only confirmed that I was right to leave.
“A biker gang, really? How’d that happen?” It didn’t sound like the boy I remembered, then again I never would’ve imagined Holden was packing a python in his pants.
“A motorcycle club,” he clarified with a shrug. “Same way any other club forms, I suppose. We’re all vets so I guess you could say we just went from one club to another.”
“Now I feel like a jerk, thanks.”
His deep burst of laughter startled me, but when my eyes set on him, I couldn’t look away. Holden was a good-looking man, look up sexy as hell cowboy in the dictionary, and his brooding picture complete with ass hugging denim and big ol’ Stetson would be there. But hot damn when he smiled, it made me melt. “You’re welcome.”
“It wasn’t that funny.”
“Funny is funny,” he said with a shrug and put his toothbrush into the deep blue holder on the sink. His gaze turned predatory, and I had a feeling our conversation was coming to an end. “So, do we have this all settled now? You’ll let me know where you are?”
“Nope.” I couldn’t give up control of my life like that to anyone. Ever.
“And here I thought you were gonna do things the easy way for once.” Before I could ask him what the hell he was going on about, Holden grabbed me by the waist and picked me up, setting me down on the edge of the bathroom vanity.
“I wasn’t even born the easy way,” I told him, recounting one of Daddy’s favorite stories. “Made my mama get all the way dilated before turning around and trying to go back, so they had to cut me out.” I flashed a smile, but Holden didn’t share it.
“Aspen?”
“Yeah,” I answered, breathless from his proximity.
“Don’t be nervous. This ain’t gonna hurt a bit.” His lips curled into a seductive grin as he leaned in and nipped my ear. His hips parted my legs, and Holden fitted himself between them like he belonged there. Then one long, blunt finger slid between my pussy lips, making me gasp.
“Who’s nervous?” I was turned on as hell. Breathless. Ready to burst. But not nervous.
“Good point. Now,” he leaned back and looked at me, letting his gaze travel the length of my body and back up again, like a caress. “Let’s talk about your safety.”
“Now? Are you…ah!” That same finger slid all the way inside and my body wrapped around it greedily.
“Yeah, now is as good a time as any, wouldn’t you say?” Damn that teasing smile that had my pussy clamping down on his finger. “So turned on, so fucking wet already. Good.” He was teasing me. Torturing me to get me to do his bidding. Dammit. “You’ll tell me where you are?”
I shook my head, prepped my lips to say now when another finger joined the first. “Oh, God!”
“Not God, just Holden.” Amusement rang in his voice, so close to my ear that his warm breath was as effective as the two fingers sliding in and out of me in a lazy rhythm that made me crazy. “You’ll let me know where you are so that I can keep you safe.”
“Holden.” I couldn’t focus on his words, not when his deep rumbling voice was like another hand gliding over my skin and not when his thumb started slow, inconsistent circles on my clit.
“You’ll let me keep you safe,” he said and thrust into me again, tapping his fingers to hit the spot that sent fireworks shooting off behind my eyelids. “Because you owe me.” When my eyes slammed open, Holden wore a big-ass, satisfied smile.
“Really? I’d say you’re the one who owes me.”
“Yeah, you would say that.” How the hell the man could talk when his fingers were buried so deep inside me, I couldn’t say. All I could do was feel the way his fingers thrust in and out, the way his thumb grew more and more eager around my clit. And good God, the way his gaze ate me up like I was sweet tea on a sweltering Texas day. “Say yes, Aspen.”
“No.” I frowned up at him when his hands stilled. “Why’d you stop?”
“I’m not hearing what I want to hear.”
Goddamn pussy tease is what he is. “Holden.”
“Aspen.” He sighed and vigorously tapped that spot again. “I just want to keep you safe. I’m not telling you where to go or what to do, but knowing where you are will help us all keep you safe.”
I didn’t like the idea that I needed to be kept safe. But I knew for a fact that my body would explode in three…two... “Fiiine.” I grabbed his wrist and swirled my hips in fast, greedy circles. He dipped down and sucked my pussy when the juices started flowing, and for a few seconds, I forgot who the fuck I was.
***
“Jalapenos on pizza, Aspen? And here I thought you were cool.” Peaches shook her head at the slice that sat beside a salad on my plate.
“What can I say? I prefer my pizza with a bit of spice.” And this small Texas town had damn good pizza and fresh jalapenos. “Besides, someone who eats broccoli on pizza has no room to talk.”
Maisie snickered from her spot beside Peaches in the booth we shared. “Can I go play games, Peaches?”
“Sure.” She dug out a few quarters and stood to let Maisie out of the booth. She knelt in front of her before handing her the change. “Stay where I can see you.”
Maisie pouted, but she gave an obedient nod before throwing her arms around Peaches with a wide smile. “I will. Thank you!”
Peaches shook her head as she slid back inside the booth. “That girl has more energy in her thumb than I can muster up in a week.” She turned her gaze back to me. “And broccoli and sausage is the perfect pizza, objectively speaking.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Peaches.” There was something about this woman that I liked. She was brash and loud and didn’t let other people’s opinions and expectations bother her, which I kind of respected. The fact that she was nice and somehow seemed to wrangle half a dozen bikers was impressive as hell. “So how did you get into computer stuff?”
She huffed out a laugh and finished chewing before she answered. “Tons of foster homes with internet and no supervision. I picked it up quickly and then got in some trouble that gave me access to a steady stream of jobs.” Peaches blew out a long, stressed breath that sent a few strands of curls flying high above her head. “And those jobs are the source of my current troubles. And yours, possibly.”
I blinked a few times until her words sank in. Her tone and the serious look on her face made me feel like an ass for giving Holden so much shit earlier. “What do you mean?”
Peaches gave me a strange look. Head cocked to the side and hazel eyes mentally calculating, what I had no idea, only that she was sizing me up and not in the female against female kind of way. “I’m trying to decide if I should tell you, Aspen.”
I huffed out a laugh. “I’m still trying to learn how to trust myself, so I can’t help ya there.”
“Fair enough.” She nodded and pushed those wild curls out of her face. “Gunnar doesn’t think I should share this with you until we know for sure you are well and truly done with your ex, so let’s start there. Are you even considering going back to him?” Her tone held no judgment, so I relaxed against the booth; my answer came firmly.
“Hell, no.” I didn’t know whether I could trust Peaches or Gunnar or even Holden, but they were offering help when no one else was, so I decided to go with honesty for once. “Things have been bad for a while, and I was just complacent, I guess. But whatever Ken is into, it’s bad, like dangerous bad, and that combined with everything else means we’re d
one for good.”
Satisfied with that answer, Peaches nodded and held up a finger in the universal sign for ‘wait’ as Maisie ran back to the table for more quarters and a bite of pizza. “Thanks. Love you,” she said and darted off once more.
I envied the look Peaches sent the little girl. It was obvious they loved each other very much and were a real family. But I couldn’t dwell on what I didn’t have, not now. “What don’t I know, besides everything?”
She flashed a sympathetic look and took a sip of the peach tea in her tall red cup.
“Ken isn’t just a run of the mill gambler, losing but not more than he can afford to. He’s got a serious problem.” She pulled a sturdy, black tablet with no brand name on it from her bag and continued. “He’s got six figures worth of debt. Upper six figures,” she clarified just in case I wasn’t getting the gravity of the situation, which I guess I didn’t.
“I knew he gambled, but Ken never brought up money, definitely not that he needed it. He never asked me for any. Ever.” It was probably the reason I’d stayed with him for so long, mistaking his foolishness for something deeper.
“Well, he should have, because he’s in deep and,” she held the word out for several seconds as her index finger swiped across the screen, “it looks like someone bought all but thirty-five grand of his debt.”
She kept talking, using words that sounded like a foreign language to me as she explained the different ledgers she’d somehow managed to get photos of.
“I can’t say for sure who bought the debt, but my money is on Farnsworth.”
I groaned. “Not that name again. Who the hell is Farnsworth?”
Peaches shrugged. “It doesn’t matter who he is because that changes regularly. What matters is what Farnsworth is. The answer is probably a ploy to get close to the ranch and take me out.”
“Take you out? I’m guessing this is the mob version of taking someone out, not the rom-com version?”
Peaches nodded, and I shook my head, willing this all to be one big bad dream that had started the moment Ken came into my life. But all that did was give me a mild headache. And questions. “Why are you here? I mean you obviously have other choices, so why Opey?”
I heard, a little too late, how that question sounded and gave an apologetic shrug that Peaches waved off.
“I’ll try not to be offended by that, Aspen.” Her tone said she wasn’t, and I was glad because I really wanted to know the answer. “I have a job, had a job. A good job that ended with some seriously fucked up people looking for me. And I’m still not completely sure if they’re still looking. But Hardtail Ranch, Gunnar, and Maisie have been a safe haven for me. And then Gunnar stopped being a butthead and…”
Her words trailed off wistfully, sounding every bit like a woman in love. Then her gaze slid to her left hand and the big ass rock on the finger that told the world she was spoken for. It was gorgeous and clear and big.
“Wow. Congratulations, Peaches!” There was a genuine affection between her and Gunnar, but more than that they seemed to respect each other. I hoped they made it, but I wasn’t convinced. “How do you feel about raising Maisie around a biker, uhm… motorcycle club?”
Her full lips pulled into a grin. “Sounds like you and Holden have already had that conversation.” I rolled my eyes in response, not wanting to think about that again. Or him. Peaches continued, “If these guys are good enough to fight fucked up wars for the government, then they’re good enough for me. Even better than that, they helped me when I needed it, and even when I made it impossible, they still helped. Let them do the same for you, Aspen. Whatever issues you and Holden have, he’ll keep you safe.”
“But that’s the thing, Peaches. None of this trouble would’ve even come to your doorstep if I wasn’t on the other side of that door.”
She growled and then smiled before taking another sip of tea. “We don’t know that, not yet. But regardless of your current relationship status with Ken, Farnsworth won’t hesitate to use you against him.”
I sighed and told her what I told Farnsworth right before he started manhandling me. “I don’t mean a damn thing to Ken.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’ll still be a message he’ll get loud and clear. And next time, he might threaten someone you care about so you’ll do or give him what he wants. Which we still have to figure out.”
This was all too much. It was well above my comfort level and my ability to cope, and already I felt signs of a panic attack coming on. “I can’t.”
Peaches let her hand fall heavily to the table and sighed. “These guys, especially Farnsworth, are scary and what’s going on is some scary shit, I know, believe me. But however tough and capable you think you are, the guys, the Reckless Bastards are that on crack. Army. Navy. Marines. SEALs. Rangers. Whatever gets your panties soaked, these guys are it. They’ve done and seen shit we can only imagine, and they lived to bitch about it.”
“You should do publicity for the Reckless Bastards,” I told her in an attempt to lighten the mood even though nothing about this conversation was light. “I get what you’re saying Peaches, I really do, but I need to wrap my head around all this before I make any decisions.”
Not that I had many choices. I could run on my own and let the chips fall where they may, or I could go back to Vance and put everyone I loved at risk. Neither of those was an ideal option.
Maisie ran back to the table, her little feet smacking hard on the linoleum, harsh breaths sawing out of her little chest.
“Aspen, I gotta message for you!” Her blue gaze bounced between me and Peaches several times until she caught her breath.
“Where did you get chocolate?”
“I won it,” she said, sounding more like a teenager than a little kid. “Don’t you wanna know about the message?”
“From who?” I asked because it seemed like the little girl might explode if she didn’t get the news out.
She shrugged. “Some man said to give you this.” She pulled a piece of folded up blue paper from the back pocket of her jeans and smacked it down on the table.
“He said to say, hang on.” She squeezed her eyes tight as she tried really hard to remember the message. Her eyes popped open excitedly. “See you soon, Princess.”
My stomach sank at those words because I knew exactly who’d been that close to Maisie. Talking to her. Close enough to hurt her. “Um, thank you, Maisie.”
“Are you a real-life princess?”
I laughed at her exuberance over the possibility of a crown. “Nope. But I do have a couple of tiaras.”
“Me, too,” she said, flashing a wide, childlike grin before climbing into the booth and attacking her cold slice of pizza.
“What man, Maisie?” Peaches looked angry and terrified, but she was trying hard to shield Maisie from all of it. I didn’t know how she did it, but I admired her ability to put the little girl first. Always.
“I don’t know. Just some man. He was way tall and wore boots. Like Gunny, but he wasn’t Gunny,” Maisie replied and stuffed another bite into her mouth.
Peaches arched a brow in my direction, and the message was clear. Told ya so.
Yeah, she had. So had Holden. And now it looked like they were both right, and the danger was very real.
Apparently, this was my life now.
Chapter Twenty
Holden
“These assholes, whoever they are, went too fucking far this time.” Gunnar was steaming mad, literally, as he paced the length of the Sin Room, leaving the rest of us to watch him with our breaths held, hands poised to ward off the coming explosion.
“That fucker went after my little sister.”
Not even an hour had passed since Peaches and Aspen had raced from the pizza shop after an almost certain encounter with Farnsworth, whoever the fuck he was.
“We don’t know if it was the same Farnsworth who went after Aspen at her condo.” Maisie’s description hadn’t been too detailed, only that he was really tall and had dark
hair and big black boots. “We should assume it is until we know otherwise.”
Wheeler stood and crossed his arms, staring at me as he spoke. “Are we absolutely sure the new girl didn’t have anything to do with him showing up?” Even though the question pissed me off, I’d gone there immediately after hearing the story. “I mean, what are the odds he just happened to walk by while they were there having lunch?”
“Pretty fucking slim,” Saint tossed out like a goddamn grenade. “But I’d say chances are better that he picked them up on the road to town and followed them. It’s what I’d do.” And just like that, the quiet kid had come to Aspen’s defense with the most logical explanation.
Wheeler nodded and said, “I stand corrected.”
“Peaches is already digging into the security footage of all the surrounding businesses to get a visual confirmation that it was the same asshole.” Gunnar blew out a long breath that would’ve been accompanied by fire if it was at all possible. “We’re pretty sure this somehow is about her.”
It was a well-kept secret on the ranch that Peaches used to be some kind of super-secret hacker for the government until some job went tits up. She’d been running and hiding out on the ranch ever since, under the protection of the Reckless Bastards. “Why would they wait so long?” It just didn’t make any damn sense. “And why Aspen’s loser ex?”
“Maybe they didn’t wait,” Cruz added, his keen blue eyes missing nothing. “I mean we don’t know that the fucker we killed in the bunkhouse wasn’t a part of this. Or his shithead brothers.”
Silence fell around the room as Cruz’s words hit their mark. If he was right, we were too fucking far behind whoever was doing this and no closer to finding out why.
“Fuck!” The word was ripped from Gunnar’s chest, a tortured sound that each of us could understand. “We need more information. Wheeler, I need you to reach out to whoever you can and see what else we can find about this Farnsworth fucker.”
“On it. Plus we need to make sure one of us always has eyes on Aspen. Since you know her, Mah-Dick, I vote you do the heavy lifting on this.”