Tracking Luxe (Renegade Souls MC Romance Saga Book 3)

by V. Theia

  “Not sayin’ you haven’t. But your head’s been planted up your ass for weeks. We’ve all noticed it, man. Look, I ain’t got nothin’ to say about you hookin’ up with whoever. If you’re bringin’ this to me it means you want to involve the club.”

  Grinder took a long-measured breath. He wasn’t angry at Rider, even if he felt like he was getting a spanking in a roundabout kinda way. It was easier to ask for forgiveness than it was permission.

  But this was the club. The place that meant a lot to him.

  And Rider was half right.

  “It gave me an idea, if she wants me to get as close to the mob as I can so I can break a safe, I might be able to get something on them as to what the fuck they’re even doing here and why they got a hard-on for our territory.”

  “Hm.” Was Rider’s reply. His face pensive in that way he got sometimes and again Grinder was glad it was Rider who had the president seat to make the decisions regarding the club. “Risky.” Rider added long minutes later. “Right now, the Russian’s ain’t steppin’ on our toes and I like it that way, G. We poke their nest, you get caught, it ain’t gonna be pretty and the last thing I want now with my kid on the way is a war.”

  Grinder jutted his chin, eyes pensive. Leaning both hands on the table top, he met the eyes of his boss.

  The beginning of rock and hard place stirring in Grinder’s chest. Fuck. He couldn’t tell Luxe no with this, not when he had so much to make up for and this was what she’d asked of him.

  But to go against a club order he couldn’t do that either, not lightly anyway, he wanted to avoid that.

  Fucks sake.

  He sighed loud enough to suck in the ceiling.

  “I can see where your head's at, bro. We take it to the table and vote, if it goes your way we plan it backwards and forwards so those dipshits don’t even figure what’s happenin’, you with me on this?”

  Rider was making sure Grinder knew the boss had spoken. “If we vote no, you tell your chick it’s a no go and to grab her little paintings some other way.” Something dark entered Rider’s voice and Grinder had to bite the inside of his cheek, something unequivocally protective slithered into his bloodstream wanting to keep Luxe’s name out of every male voice, even his prez’s.

  And that was just irrational.

  He’d brought this to Rider for the level-headed motherfucker he was. Rider could deliberate an idea inside out and know how best to deal with it that would bring the Souls out on top. He had the Prez patch for a reason.

  Only, the problem he was bringing to the table was Luxe and he didn’t like it one bit his brothers would discuss her.

  He went silent for a minute.

  “Okay. But I’m punching Snake if his mouth opens and says anything about jewelry heists.”

  They left church with Rider laughing.

  The table fell silent once Grinder got done explaining the dilemma.

  Every patched in brother wearing the same worn-down leather cut as him with their designated patch on the front looked towards Grinder. His Adam’s apple worked as he caught Preacher’s eyes. He could almost hear what his closest friend was thinking; you out of your fucking mind, man?

  Not a second later.

  “The fuck you thinking about, G? Messing with the mob without provocation is asking for a pair of concrete boots. Jesus motherfucking Christ. I didn’t think you were that stupid.” Announced Preacher in his pissed off timber, the green of his eyes darkening as he tapped one of his silver skull rings to the table.

  “I don’t know, Preach, I kinda like the idea of G going all Ocean’s Eleven.” Smirked Snake from down the other end of the table. Oh, you fucknut, Grinder glared with his own twitched grin. “He’d be that one always feeding his face.” Brothers laughed.

  Tension straightened his spine. “They’re holding gatherings every night this week for select criminally minded folk to indulge in vodka and pussy, we were invited naturally, to grease the hands of the locals no doubt and to kiss Rider’s ass., They’re hoping we agree to a business deal.“

  “You get all the fun, Prez.” Offered Pretty-boy.

  “The idea is to send a representative, keep Grigori busy and to make the Souls presence felt in the open, while I do my thing with Luxe.”

  “I just bet you will.” The rusty accusation came from Lawless and Grinder tried really fucking hard not to let the guy bait him.

  “We’ll be in and out-----”

  Lawless scoffed. “Now he’s just feeding me lines.”

  Grinder flipped him the middle finger without pausing and continued. “---- and once that’s done and she has her shit, I can take a look around, see if they’ve left anything incriminating on any flash drives. Fuck, even a memo pad will do, they’re all a bit backward from the cold country.”

  “Big risk with no outcome of a pay-out for us, I didn’t know we were running a charity.” Sometimes, Grinder just really wanted to fucking punch Lawless.

  “Why isn’t wonder boy Steele helping this chick out with this?”

  Grinder shot his gaze down to Arson who had asked the innocent question, bones crushed under his skin biting back the retort about Jamie fucking Steele. She doesn’t belong to him, that’s why.

  “It has nothing to do with the Apollo Kingsmen.”

  “It has nothing to do with the Souls, either.” Preacher’s voice tight and accusing.

  “Look. I’m already doing this for her, that’s not up for discussion, okay. What I’m bringing to the table is do we want to use this opportunity to see if I can gather something concrete we can use to kick those motherfuckers back to their mothership?” Irritation sliced through Grinder’s speech. He could hear it and yet there was no stopping the way he sounded like a jealous boyfriend. He loved these knuckle-dragging monkey’s, but their all-knowing scrutiny piercing him with eyeballs from every corner was yawning a hole like acid through his stomach lining.

  Critical eyes stayed on him. Burn. Burn. The hole increasing.

  “Do we get a profit of her steal?” Asked Texas.

  “No.”

  “Our boy is doing it for more than money, Tex. Isn’t that right, G?” simpered Lawless in that way of his that could crawl under a person’s skin like a tape worm and eat away at you until you spilled your guts. Grinder had seen Lawless in action when he’d been terrorizing a poor fucker without putting a hand on them, he’d just never been under Lawless’ microscope before.

  And he didn’t like it one bit. He didn’t want to get into the whys of what he was doing.

  Luckily Rider chose that moment to take the table back. “We vote.”

  “Aye.” Grinder started it off.

  “Aye.” Another said.

  “I hate those Russians and I hate waiting to see what move they make. It’s fucking risky but I vote yes.” Nodded Snake.

  “Aye.”

  Capone looked Grinder in the eye when he said. “No. I don’t want you dead, Hermano.”

  Grinder nodded understanding. He had already considered all the risks.

  The last to vote was his best friend. Preacher sighed hard enough to cause a gust in the room, he rubbed the back of his shaved head and glared hard at Grinder. “You fucking fuck. The shit we do for our women, bro, for fucks sake.”

  She’s not my woman, he wanted to insist and the words got stuck in his throat.

  “Fine. Fuck.” Preacher added his vote. “But we do this smart, we let Lawless do the thinking, at least we know it won’t be with his dick.”

  Everyone laughed and broke the tension, even Grinder smirked while Lawless took center stage and they began to talk about logistics.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “A mistake often begins with a heavy case of lust…” - Luxe

  When a thief met a tracker.

  “How long are you sticking around for this time?” Luxe heard, but hardly paid any attention to the man she’d had a handful of dates with over the last few months, taking long pulls from his beer bottle. She was too busy watc
hing the colossal mountain man striding in through the double doors with a pack of other bikers. He barely fit those shoulders, Dear god. Walking like they owned the place. Leather and denim and absurd masculinity.

  Only the one in the black beanie hat seized her attention.

  He was magnetic. A direct line to her pleasure zone down south.

  Wide in the shoulders, slim down to his tapered waist, denim and leather encased that body perfectly, his arms were fucking herculean, solid muscle, he probably bench-pressed a small planet.

  But it was the way he had thrown his head back belting out a laugh at something someone had said to him that grabbed lust from down deep in her shoes, showcasing brilliant white teeth sheathed in a black beard thick enough to draw fingers through. The bar was too noisy to hear the sound he made, yet she felt it in the pit of her belly. Dios.

  She stared slyly while they all rounded a table and sat as a group.

  Feeling like a stalker, it was impossible to tear her gaze away, it was locked on the guy’s face, every expression that crossed his eyes Luxe took note of.

  Who was he?

  “The Souls are in the house.” Muttered Amos through clenched teeth.

  For once in her thieving life, she wasn’t cataloging what she could lift from people. Not that she sunk so low as to pickpocket anymore, she was no artful dodger, she liked bigger and better, things that made more money than a pawnbroker could give her.

  Cars.

  Art.

  Jewelry.

  Money.

  She was a big dreamer when it came to making money, minimal effort for a large pay-out, with less risk was her motto, but it never stopped her mentally robbing people, seeing how easy it would be to swipe their latest smartphone while they chatted, or to slip a set of car keys from a tight jeans pocket.

  She could do it all, but having some ethics left, she never took that step into personal thieving.

  “Hm, what?” tuning back in, she dragged her eyeballs back from the beard, looked across the table to find Jamie’s gaze on her, the bottle to his wet mouth.

  A mouth she’d kissed.

  “Not long at all. Mimi has some crazy idea she wants to go on a singles cruise. I told her those are full of desperado senior citizens who want to fleece her out of her life savings.”

  Jamie’s VP laughed and twitched the ball cap he wore.

  “And what did she say to that?” Asked Jamie, having heard stories about her abuela many times, who for a woman in her sixties had a better social life than Luxe did. At the last count, she was dating three gentlemen friends. Her grandmother was the original player.

  “She told me she has no life savings and she was going on a cruise to get laid.”

  Both men laughed.

  In an alternate reality universe that cool Luxe would laugh, too, and say go, Mimi, get it, sadly Luxe was here and inwardly cringing to know her grandmother had a better sex life than she did, like in what world was that fair? Dios. Mimi was trying to kill Luxe with over-share. Wasn’t it bad enough she had to witness the old guys that came to pick her grandmother up for dates with horny smiles on their craggy faces, probably with a pocket full of Viagra as well.

  Dios.

  Dios.

  “So, you’re rushing back home to stop the old girl from marrying at sea?”

  “She sounds like a nympho-raver.” Amos chimed in. Before she knew what she was doing, Luxe reached across the table and thumped the cap right off his head. “Shut your goddamn mouth when you’re talking about my Mimi,” even if it was sorta-kinda true.

  Amos growled, glaring, looking like he was about to knock her off her chair. The idiota could try. “Cool it.” Jamie told him.

  “Yeah, listen to your master, good dog.”

  Amos had always rubbed her the wrong way. Maybe because he was so loyal to Jamie and wouldn’t spit on anyone if they were on fire. Something about the man just didn’t add up. Besides which, he’d never gone out of his way to be friendly to her, either.

  “Would you two knock it the fuck off, it’s like having kids.” Jamie rose. As tall and big as he was, with the shocking blue eyes and black hair, he just didn’t do it for Luxe, not in the way a lover needed to. It would be so easy if she could fall in love with him since they were friends, they’d been there and It hadn’t worked. “I should go play nice with the locals.” He indicated to the other MC table.

  Thankfully Jamie’s lapdog AKA Amos followed and she watched the exchange with a guy wearing a top-knot who looked to be in charge, they met in the middle, slapped bro-hands and got into a talk.

  She hadn’t realized until her eyes slid across their table that someone was watching her.

  Oh, wow.

  Beard guy staring directly at her.

  Flutters began low in her belly, her boobs ache.

  That sensation was what she’d been missing with Jamie. She’d tried to find it, hoped it would arrive after their failed dates and not a thing. One look from that beard and her body was feeling it all.

  A tidal wave of lust hit Luxe so hard she could barely pull in a breath as the guy in the beanie hat winked over at her.

  Without showing her shock, she arched an eyebrow, daring him to make a move.

  He smirked and maybe he would have until someone at his side caught his attention and their eye-fucking was broken.

  Shrugging, Luxe chose the next best option and walked over to the bar to buy something to eat. The woman serving smiled and tossed a mass of curls back away from her face. “What can I get you?”

  “Tell her how good the fire wings are, Ruby.” Offered a deep rich baritone voice belonging to none other than the beard himself.

  Recovering quickly from the two punches of heat from his masculine scent and the way his leather vest fit over his wide shoulders, Luxe addressed the bartender. “Just a bitter lemon Martini, please.”

  “Not a fan of spice?” he asked.

  “Vegetarian, not a fan of dead flesh.”

  His laugh was equally arousing. Luxe almost licked his face.

  They exchanged names. I could do with some company. She’d told him flirtatiously.

  It moved quickly after that

  They seduced outrageously.

  Luxe didn’t plan to find a quiet corner booth and crawl all over him.

  She didn’t plan to let him pull her shirt down and suck on a nipple until she thought she might come right there in a busy bar in Colorado.

  Nothing she did in that first hour with Grinder was part of her normal pattern.

  Nor was the way she slid her hand into his jacket, intent on shoving it off his shoulders, until her fingers felt the cool links of a chain in the inside pocket.

  It was instinct, even as his tongue swirled hotly in her mouth.

  She’d never felt this hot before, this needy.

  The beard tasted like nothing before, his tongue made her do things she’d never done in private let alone public before.

  Her head spinning, dry humping his thigh as he palmed between her legs.

  “I want you.” The words came unbidden causing him to growl against her lips.

  A noise so appealing she’d sucked on his lip like he was made of rich chocolate.

  “You’re so fucking sexy.” He growled streaking his mouth along her jaw, biting her earlobe. His hands everywhere turning her into velvet hotness and his willing slave ready to fuck over the table if necessary. “Let me have you. Let me give you the best fuck of your life,” he commanded. “I need to fuck all this heat, Luxe.”

  Oh, god. Making her excuse to use the bathroom, he growled for her to come back to him, and just the way he said it like that sent flashes of pleasure everywhere.

  Come back to him.

  She was outside before she could justify a reason, gulping in fresh air like it was about to be turned off.

  Her body had never felt so alive, so why was she standing on the sidewalk?

  Why was she hurrying towards her car?

  Why was she d
riving ten miles over the speed limit just to get away from all that sensation in her body?

  Only when she came to a stop sign did Luxe unfurl her fist and found that gold chain in her palm.

  Oh, fuck. What had her thieving fingers done?

  The small piece of gold looked at her accusingly and she shoved it in the glove compartment.

  There was no going back now.

  Not when she’d stolen from the beard.

  Present Day

  Luxe had always seen her life in a series of mishaps that narrowly she’d scraped through. For a lot of years, she’d danced on the edge, sometimes balancing perilously close to going to jail, or worse if her mark caught her stealing from them. She’d stolen from some very dangerous people who wouldn’t think twice about ending her life.

  She told herself she liked the rush, the adrenalin her drug. But that wasn’t entirely true.

  She was good, extremely good at taking things that didn’t belong to her and making them hers, it didn’t mean she didn’t have a brain, that she couldn’t do a normal every day job if she wanted to, join the ranks of every other American and the 9-5 society.

  But the rush she once experienced in her earlier days, those random highs she chased from one reckless job to the next, was long gone.

  Monotonous repetitive, it was all the same noise now.

  This one last big job, it could set her up for a good while.

  Whereas once she would take foolish risks and somehow walk away unscathed, these days her planning took much longer, she weighed pros against cons and drew up a strategy long before she even attempted to put her hands on something that didn’t belong to her.

  Maybe she could be called a business woman now.

  She did rather fancy having people working for her instead of doing all the dirty work herself.

  Maybe the kidnapper would help her in more ways than one.

  Especially now as she’d recalled just how she’d stolen from him and the reason she hadn’t returned to the bar that night and finished what they’d started between them. It all made sense now, and she could understand a slither of his anger.