So Hot MC Boxset

by Blair Grey

  As I pulled into his driveway, I spotted him in the garage, a beer in his hand and his bike the center of his attention. He loves that old hog.

  He loved that bike almost as much as he loved me. Getting out of the car had drawn his attention. “There she is.” Putting the beer on his workbench, he came to me with open arms. “My baby has returned home, finally.”

  I’d been staying with my mother’s mother in Kingston, Rhode Island so I could go to college at the University of Rhode Island. For four years, I’d only ventured home a couple of times. Once for my mother’s funeral, and a few months ago to sign papers on the townhouse, my father had put the down payment on.

  Dad’s strong arms wrapped around me, making me feel welcomed. “Dad, you’re looking great.” The man never seemed to age. “How’re things?”

  “Good.” He let me go then took my hand, leading me into the house. “Come on, let’s get you inside. I’ve got a bottle of coconut rum with your name on it, Sarah.”

  He’d often made me drinks of Sprite and coconut rum after I’d turned twenty-one a year ago. It was evident my father still saw a girl when he looked at me, rather than an adult woman. “That’s nice of you, Dad. But I’ve recently developed a taste for Sidecars. Nana and I found the old recipe and we fell in love with the drink.” I headed straight for his bar and turned on the light over it. “Should I make you one too?”

  “That would be nice.” He took a seat at the bar, smiling away at me. “Look at you, my baby girl.” His head shook slowly as he looked me over. “My, my, you have really grown up on your old dad, haven’t ya?”

  Getting a couple of Martini glasses out, I filled a small bowl with sugar, then did the same with lemon juice to coat the rim of the glasses. “Well, I think I’m done growing if that’s what you mean. Nana and I went to her beauty parlor just before I left so I could get a haircut.” I ran my hand through the layers the beautician had cut my long dark hair into. “She said I should get layers to make my thick hair easier to work with. And she was right. I like it. It feels less heavy than it did when I had it all one length.”

  “You look a little like Farrah from that old television show, something angels. It looks good on you, kiddo.”

  One minute he’s telling me how I’ve grown up, the next he’s calling me, kiddo – so Dad.

  Not sure what to say to that, I found a bottle of Cognac and put some into a shaker. “Anyway, I’ve got a little more to put away at the townhouse, then I’ve got to start my job search.” Adding some Cointreau and lemon juice to the shaker, I put in a few cubes of ice then began shaking it all up. “I’m hoping that my degree will get me straight into a management position somewhere around town.”

  “I’m sure it will, sweetie.” He eyed the concoction I poured into the glasses with much suspicion. “Is that really any good?”

  “It’s great. Wait till you taste it. Nana loves finding old recipes to make and this one is out of this world.” I slid a glass to him, then picked mine up. “Really, I promise you, Dad, it’s good.”

  Taking a tiny sip, his brows raised. “Yeah, it’s okay.” He took another sip. “I’ll have to make sure this is on the list of drinks our new place will serve. What did you say it’s called again?”

  “A Sidecar.” I thought for a second that I might’ve missed something he’d told me before about opening a business of some kind. “Did you ever mention this new place you’re opening to me?”

  “No, I have not. It’s MC business, not family business.” Taking his drink, he went to take a more comfortable seat on the leather sofa in front of the fireplace.

  I followed along, taking the place at the opposite end he had. Sipping my drink, I tried to figure out how I could ask about this place and if there would be a position for me in it. “You know, pounding the pavement to find a job is going to be kind of time-consuming.”

  “I bet it will be.” He put the drink down to pick up the remote control then turned on the fireplace. “I’ve missed having you around. I don’t ever turn this thing on until I have someone I can share the fire with.”

  He and Mom used to always end their days in front of the fireplace. “You doing okay without her, Dad?”

  “Not even a little.” He smiled though. “I know your saintly mother is with the angels now and that gives me some comfort. But I do miss her every single day.”

  “Me too.” I hated the fact that I’d been gone to college for a couple of years before she’d died. I hadn’t spent much time at all with her, being so busy with school and living in Rhode Island. The holidays were about the only times I saw my parents back then when they’d come to my grandmother’s to see us.

  The way his eyes narrowed told me he was fighting the anger inside of himself. He’d struggled with the authorities over my mother’s death. She was found dead of a drug overdose at a roadside park not that far from their home. She’d taken her bike out, alone – which wasn’t like her at all. Dad had come home, and Mom was just gone.

  Even with her bike gone too, Dad still didn’t freak out about her not being at home. He’d figured she’d just felt like taking a ride and he’d been busy with his new presidency at his MC – the Iron Cobras.

  But as it began to get dark and he found her cell had been left in the garage, worry had set in. He’d made some calls, then he and his club members set out to find my mother. But they weren’t the ones who found her - the cops were. Dad got a call about midnight that shook his world up in ways he’d never seen coming.

  “To this day, I can’t get over the fact that the fucking cops didn’t believe me when I told them that my wife didn’t do drugs of any kind. Those fuckers just saw her riding a Harley and wearing leather and judged her accordingly. Your mother would never stick a needle into her vein with a syringe full of heroin attached to it and pump that shit into her body.”

  “Yeah, I know.” My mother was pretty spiritual. She didn’t even eat things that were bad for her. She’d drink wine and even beer sometimes, but only in moderation and only on special occasions. “Dad, there’s nothing you can do about Mom’s death. Anyone who actually cared about her knew she didn’t commit suicide at that park. Since the cops didn’t think otherwise, so never even opened an investigation, there’s nothing that can be done about this. It’s better left alone. Mom wouldn’t want you still being so upset about it. You know how she was.”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled softly. “Never hold a grudge was her motto. But if I knew who’d done that to her, I wouldn’t hold a grudge. I would hold his neck in my hand until he died, though.”

  “And then you’d be going to prison. Mom wouldn’t want that. We’ve got to let that go, Dad. Come on. So, let’s talk about something else. You should really tell me about this place you’re talking about.” I sipped my drink, hoping I could distract him from thinking about my mother’s death. It’s what my Mom would’ve wanted me to do.

  “You remember Axel Rush, right?”

  Boy, do I!

  Talk about a hottie. Tall, all muscles, dirty blonde hair that hung to his shoulders in waves, a totally badass beard, and those green eyes. God, those eyes! “Sure, I recall that guy.” Twirling a lock of my hair around one finger, I held back a sigh as I thought about his gorgeousness. “What does he have to do with the new business?”

  From what I actually remembered about Axel Rush he’d graduated from high school a couple of years before I did. Then he came to Baltimore from some other town and went right to work for the MC.

  He came in as a prospect since his uncle had been a member from way back at the beginning of the club. Only a couple of years in, they asked him to become a member of the Iron Cobras.

  Mom had taken me up to the private bar my father’s club owned and they did all their business in. The guys were celebrating Axel’s initiation into the MC. I vividly recalled the proud expression he wore. He wore the leather jacket with the club’s patch the entire night, not taking it off even once.

  The very next time I saw him,
a week later, he’d already gotten the tat on his left bicep the other men in the club had. He’d shown it off too, sporting only a leather vest with the club’s patch, his arms were bare. A black cobra with darker black wings on its back faced the opposite direction. A banner over the coiled bottom of the snake read Iron Cobras. It served to make his muscular bicep stand out even more.

  Dad picked up the glass and took another drink. “He wants us to start a strip club in this old building that used to be a nightclub.”

  “Imagine that.” Axel had always been a man-whore, and now it seemed he wanted a club full of sluts for him to pick from every night. “And who would run this strip club? Let me guess – Axel.”

  “So he thinks.” Dad shook his head. “I don’t have the faith in him that he has in himself to actually run the whole place. I mean, there’s gonna be a kitchen and bars, along with our usual MC business and then strippers themselves to manage. I don’t see how he thinks he can do all that since he’s got no experience and no education to help him.”

  Axel didn’t have what it took to run a business, but I sure as hell did. Standing up, I put my glass down then set to work on my father. “Dad, let me run it. I can do it.”

  “A strip club?” He shook his head. “Your mother would kill me if I let you have anything to do with a place like that.”

  I was in for a fight but at least I knew that going in. “I know you don’t want me to interact with your club. And I know why too. You don’t want anything bad to happen to me, the way it happened to Mom.”

  “Good. So, we’re on the same page. It’s great that you’ve grown up and understand things better now.” Getting up, he went to the bar to grab himself a beer from the cooler.

  I followed, not being on the same page at all as him. “No, we’re not. See, I can run that place. I’ve got all this knowledge stored up in my brain to do it too.”

  “But you’d have to work with Axel. I know I can’t keep the guy out of the club if we do open it. He’ll be there in some aspect. And you know how that man has the knack for getting into any chick’s pants that he wants to.” He slammed his fist down on the bar. “And you know I would have to kill him if he ever bothered you that way, right?”

  “Yeah, I know.” Rolling my eyes, I didn’t know why my father thought me to be some clueless little bimbo who would fall for anything Axel tried to dish out. “But I’m not an idiot. I know his rep. Do you actually think I want to be just another notch on Axel Rush’s bedpost?”

  “No.” He took a drink from the longneck bottle before looking at me. “But he’s gonna want to work with you, I know he will.”

  I had faith in myself even if Dad didn’t. “And I can handle that. Hell, I might even be able to teach him some things about running a business while we’re at it. Everyone deserves to get the knowledge they need to succeed in this world.” I’d taken a line out of my father’s book. “Isn’t that what you always say?”

  “To you, it is.” He sighed then came around the bar to take a seat on one of the tall stools. “What if I let you get it up and going, train Axel to take over, then you move on to something more reputable? I don’t want my daughter running a strip club for the rest of her life. I don’t want you involved in the type of business our club is involved in. It’s my job to protect you, sweetie. What kind of a father lets his daughter get into the strip club business?”

  Shrugging, I had no idea what type of father did that. “I think I could accept those terms. I would get valuable experience to take with me when I need to leave that business behind. It’s a win for me and a win for Axel, plus, your MC will make money. Win. Win. Win.”

  “When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound half-bad.” He finished off the beer then placed the empty bottle on the bar. Getting up, he came to me, picked me up off the floor and twirled me around – the same way he’d done when I was a little girl. “I’ll call a meeting in the morning. If the votes go in your favor, then you’ve got your first job, Sarah Davis!”

  The one thing I knew, was that my father’s wishes as president had never gone ungranted in the two years he’d held the coveted position. I’ve got my first job!

  Chapter Three

  Axel

  The day hadn’t been a complete disappointment. When I stopped by The Glamour Puss strip club, I found a nice piece to take back to my place for the night. She was so eager to get right to it, that we came home a lot earlier than I normally did, especially on a Saturday night.

  “So, you’re a dancer?” My fingers trailed up her arm, then I flicked the thin strap of her bra off her shoulder.

  “No.” She moaned as I reached around to undo the back of her bra. “I’m an accountant.”

  I’d assumed she was a stripper since she was gyrating near the stage when I walked into the place. I thought I might’ve missed her act was all. “So, would you like to be a dancer?”

  “No, I couldn’t ever do that. My father’s a preacher.” She grinned sexily at me as she stepped back, hooking her fingers into each side of her black lace panties. “He would kill me if he knew I’d ever even been inside a place like that.”

  “Speaking of being inside of places you don’t know that well.” I walked over to my dresser to get a condom. “I’d better take care of this before you bare your soul to me.”

  Just as I opened the drawer, my cell rang. Glancing at it as I took it out of the pocket of my jeans, I wasn’t planning on answering the call. But when I saw Carl’s name on the screen, I knew I had to take it. “Give me a sec, baby. This might be important.” Taking my cell, I left her alone in my bedroom so I could talk in private. One never knew what one’s MC president might be calling about. But we all knew not to have conversations within listening distance of anyone outside the club. “Evening, boss.”

  “You need to get over to that place you want to turn into a strip club ASAP.”

  Looking toward the bedroom, I wondered how ASAP it had to be. “How much time do I have? And why do I need to be there? Did you decide to let me run it?”

  “No. I’ve called a meeting for tomorrow morning though. You’ll know how the vote turns out by the afternoon.” The word, no, filled me with disappointment.

  “If I’m not the one who’ll run it, then why do I need to go over there right now?” I didn’t often question Carl’s authority. But I did have a preacher’s daughter waiting for me and she seemed to have lots she wanted to get to.

  “Sarah’s agreed to mentor you, so you can run the business on your own someday.”

  For a brief moment, I was thoroughly pissed that he’d given my dream to his daughter. But then I let the words sink in and realized that someday I would get to run the place. “So, it’s about how fast I can learn then?” Excitement began to creep up in me.

  “Basically. I don’t want my daughter spending a hell of a lot of time there. She’s better than something like that. And I don’t want her getting the idea that a business like that is where she’s meant to stay. But she could use the experience for her resume, and you need to be taught how to run a business. It would be a perfect partnership if you weren’t who you are.”

  “And who am I?” I was pretty sure I knew where he was going with this but felt I should ask anyway.

  “You like women. All women.” He wasn’t wrong. “And you know my rule about my daughter. She is not to date anyone from any MC – ever. And that means no fucking around with you, Axel Rush. You got me?”

  I was pretty damn sure the man would kill me if I put so much as a hand on the girl he cherished. “Boss, I would never step on your toes where your daughter is concerned. And I really appreciate you helping me learn how to do this. I’ll make you proud.”

  “You can start by getting your ass over to the building as soon as you can. Sarah is over the moon about the whole thing and wants to see it already. And you’ve got the only key. That means you get to meet her up there and show her around. You two have lots to talk about. But you have to defer to her. You understand th
at, right?”

  Defer to her?

  “So, you want me to just do as she says to?” I wasn’t cool with that. “But what about my ideas?”

  “You and she will have to learn how to make compromises about things. In this world, compromise is what it’s all about. Might as well learn about that now rather than later.”

  Taking a seat on the couch, I had to really think about this before I just agreed with it. Sarah wasn’t a person I knew hardly at all. She’d been around for the first couple of years that I was in the club, but then she went to college. I only saw her the one time in the last four years when she came back to town for her mother’s funeral. She didn’t talk much at all, which was normal for what had happened to her mom.

  The Sarah I did remember was free-spirited, but her father tried to keep her on a short leash at all times. It was even his idea for her to go live with her grandmother to go to college in another state. He didn’t want her to get involved at all with the MC he’d had been a part of since she was just a little girl.

  So, why is he letting her run a strip club for the Iron Cobras now?

  It started to occur to me that he might want me to babysit Sarah, keep her out of trouble, and out of harm’s way. But I had other things to do besides that. “Look, Carl, I don’t know if this will work or not. See, I can’t take care of Sarah.”

  A slight chuckle told me he thought that to be a little ridiculous. “I assure you that my daughter is capable of taking care of herself. She’s gotten her own townhouse now and that means she needs a job so she can pay the bills that come along with having her own home. I wasn’t cool with her doing this either. But she had some valid points. One of them being that everyone deserves the knowledge they need to succeed in this world. You don’t want to go to school, so you can be taught by her.”

  It was me who could teach her a thing or two. But he wasn’t that wrong. “Did she make good grades in school?”