Love, Loyalty & Mayhem: A Motorcycle Club Romance Anthology

by Ryan Michele

  A cop was one thing.

  The sheriff of the entire county? No. Fucking. Way.

  Dad would freak, and not even Mom would be able to calm him down.

  Blowing out a long exhale that sounded sad even to my own ears, I closed my books and stood. Pulling out a five-dollar bill, I dropped it on the counter to pay for my coffee and tip Tabby. I might hate her, but I still figured she deserved a tip.

  “Where are you going?” my aunt asked. The amusement was gone now, and I could tell she was worried about me.

  I made sure my hair was down over the right side of my face, not wanting Sheriff Davis to see how monstrous I looked with my scar when I left. “I just remembered I have to pick something up for Mom,” I lied, grabbing my books. “See you later, Aunt Quinn.”

  “Lexa, honey, be careful.”

  I didn’t comment as I practically sprinted to my car and tossed my books into the back seat. I stabbed at the push start, only to realize my foot wasn’t on the brake when the thing didn’t purr to life. Cursing myself, I stomped on the pedal and pushed the starter again.

  But when my car came to life, I didn’t move to shift it into gear immediately. Instead, I just sat there, my heart beating me to death.

  And silently breaking.

  3

  Ben

  My radio was silent as I drove through the night-darkened town, my gaze on the car two vehicles ahead of my work SUV.

  Lexa had rushed out of Aggie’s earlier, and I’d barely had enough thought to drop a few bills on the table to cover my meal before I was running after her. By the time I got behind the wheel, she’d pulled out of the parking lot, and I’d been following her ever since.

  There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to where she was going, though. She drove through town, then toward the outer limits of the city. Lucky for me, I had jurisdiction over the entire county, and it wouldn’t be suspicious if I went all the way to the county line.

  Which seemed to be exactly where my beauty was going.

  The two cars between us eventually turned off, and I was no longer keeping my distance. The way her silhouette kept shifting, I knew she was watching her mirrors. Did she know it was me?

  Fuck, I was following her around like some lost puppy in search of attention.

  Yet, I didn’t give a damn.

  I wanted her attention.

  I wanted to know what color her eyes were. What she looked like when she smiled.

  What she sounded like when I made her come.

  Two miles from the county line, she took a quick right, and I didn’t even question it as I followed her down the back road that led to nowhere. She drove for miles and miles, and I was starting to get pissed.

  She didn’t even know it was me behind her, and yet she was leading me into the woods?

  Unable to take it a minute longer, I turned on my lights and sounded the siren. She hit the brakes, stopping right in the middle of the road. Not that there was anywhere to pull over. This road was narrow as hell and overgrown with vegetation. There was no way anyone would be coming up here without a reason.

  I turned off my siren and the lights as I jerked open my door and stomped up beside her, using the headlights of my cruiser to see where I was going.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I growled, glad she had her window rolled down. “Anyone could have been behind you, ready to do God knows what to you, and you don’t even seem to fucking care.”

  Her hands tightened around the wheel, her gaze straight ahead. “Why were you following me?”

  “Maybe I wanted to make sure you were okay,” I told her, my anger slowly starting to fade from the boil it was currently in. “You took off out of Aggie’s like something was wrong. My job is to serve and protect the citizens of Trinity County. You appear to be a citizen. Hence, doing my job.”

  A soft laugh escaped her, but her mouth didn’t even have a ghost of a smile on it. “Hence,” she muttered, shaking her dark head. “Who says ‘hence’?”

  I leaned down, putting my hands on her door to steady myself as I got close enough to smell her perfume. It was a subtle scent, something floral and sweet. Or maybe it was her shampoo. Whatever it was, I liked it, and I breathed in deeper so I could smell it again.

  “What are you doing out here, Lexa?”

  Her shoulders tensed at my use of her name, her fingers tightening even more around the steering wheel. “Honestly?”

  “No, lie to me,” I grumbled.

  Another soft laugh, followed by a tired sigh. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just felt you behind me and kept driving. Maybe… Maybe I wanted to see how far you would go before you got bored.”

  “You felt me?” I repeated, suddenly so hard it stunned me. I couldn’t remember my cock ever being this stiff.

  “Yeah,” she answered, her voice soft, unsure. “I don’t know why I came down this road. I haven’t been here since I was a kid. My brother got pissed at me and ran away, and I knew I had to find him before our parents found out. He came up here, for some reason.”

  I opened her door, offering her my hand to help her out. “Let’s talk out here,” I suggested, waiting with bated breath for her to touch me.

  She turned her head slightly, and I caught my first sight of her eyes. Blue. The clearest blue I’d ever seen. They were the same color as the glaciers I’d seen in Alaska. Pure. She looked down at my hand for a long moment before turning her gaze back to the windshield. “Only if you turn off your headlights,” she said after another pause.

  “But then I can’t see you, beautiful.” And I wanted to see her. I would have been happy standing there looking at her all damn night if she would let me.

  “Then, no. I’m not getting out. Lose the lights, or I’m leaving.”

  Swallowing a curse, I went back to my cruiser and turned off the engine, effectively killing the lights. As I walked back to her, she was already getting out of her car, having turned off her own engine. The moon barely gave off enough light to see how to get back to her.

  Shutting her door, she leaned back against it, looking up at the sky, keeping half her face turned away from me. I stopped beside her, turning to look at the stars, letting my arm brush against hers.

  “So, you’re the sheriff,” she muttered after a few minutes passed.

  “Acting sheriff,” I corrected.

  “Same difference.”

  “It wasn’t my plan when I came back to Creswell Springs,” I admitted. “My grandfather and Sheriff Hogan are best friends. Hogan offered me a job when I got out of the marines. It was the best option open at the time, so I took it.”

  “How long were you in the marines?” She shifted, her arm pressing into mine a little more. As if she didn’t want to touch me but ached to at the same time.

  “Went in right out of high school at eighteen. Got out six months ago at the ripe old age of thirty.” I caught her hand, needing to feel some part of her skin under my fingertips. Just as I thought, she was silky-soft. Tracing my thumb over her palm, I felt her shiver.

  “Thank you for your service,” she whispered.

  I shrugged, having heard those same words of gratitude a plethora of times.

  “Thirty is still pretty young to be a sheriff, even if you are just the acting sheriff,” Lexa commented after a few more minutes of silence. “How did that happen?”

  “Hogan got sick. When it came time to appoint his replacement until the November election, both he and Mayor Jenkins thought I had the experience to get the job done. A few of the older guys bitched and moaned for a few weeks, but in the end, they didn’t want to deal with the bureaucracy that comes with being sheriff.”

  “And everyone wants you to run in November?”

  I shrugged again, and her shoulders seemed to deflate. “What?” I demanded, not liking that she seemed disappointed.

  “I can’t want the sheriff,” she muttered, turning her head so she was looking off into the distance. “My dad will go ballistic.”

>   “You want me?” I grinned, wrapping my arm around her waist and pulling her back against me. Her hips shifted, rubbing over the bulge that rested along my left thigh, the tip already leaking precome.

  “But I can’t,” she moaned, dropping her head back on my chest. “This is impossible.”

  “Why?” I demanded, pressing my lips to the top of her head, my fingers skimming over the skin of her belly under her shirt.

  Her shoulders stiffened, and she glanced at me over her shoulder. “You know who I am, right?”

  “You’re Lexa. The woman I’m about to push up against this car and make mine,” I informed her, lowering my head to kiss her.

  Before I could reach her mouth, she jerked back, breathing hard. “Sheriff Davis—”

  “Ben,” I corrected her.

  “Ben…I’m assuming you know who the Angel’s Halo MC is.” I nodded, following her as she took another step backward.

  I was still on the fence about the local MC. I’d heard rumors about them, knew they weren’t exactly living the letter of the law. But I hadn’t had any trouble out of them. Yet. There were plenty of times I had to go to Hannigans’ to break up fights, but that was usually because some college kid went in to play pool, got drunk off his ass, and ended up in over his head. I hadn’t had to arrest a single MC member so far.

  “My dad is the MC president,” Lexa announced, still backing away from me. “I’m Bash Reid’s daughter.”

  I kept following her. “Don’t care,” I assured her.

  “But my dad will,” she cried, and I thought her chin might have trembled, but it was too dark to tell. “We can’t do this.”

  “Your dad will get over it.” I caught her wrists, pulled her in closer. Her hair fell into her face, putting the right side in complete darkness.

  I started to push it back out of my way, but she shook her head. “Please don’t,” she begged. “I-I want you to kiss me, but—”

  Groaning, I caught her mouth. She tasted of coffee, but there was something sweet underlying it. Something addictive that made me its victim the second my tongue brushed against hers.

  4

  Lexa

  I’d never been kissed by a guy before. Not once in nineteen years has anyone wanted to. They take one look at my scar and revulsion crosses their face, and any urge to want to be kissed goes up in a cloud of smoke.

  That was why I didn’t want Ben to see my scar. I wanted to know how he tasted, what it would feel like to have his tongue play with my own.

  It was more than I ever could have thought. His lips were firm, yet brushed over mine so damn softly, it had my breath catching. His hands gripped my ass through my jeans, pressing me into his hardness. He was so tall that my height didn’t even matter. We fit against each other so perfectly, it was like someone had used a puzzle cutter to create us.

  I kissed him back, hungry for more. My hands fisted in his uniform button-up, clinging to him.

  With a growl that was like an electrical current strait to my core, he lifted me and sat me down on the hood of my car. I spread my legs for him, letting him closer, then locked them around his waist to keep him in place. He laughed at how hard my thighs squeezed him, and he twisted his hips in a way that made me whimper with pleasure.

  “Easy, beautiful,” he murmured against my neck. “I’ll take care of you.”

  “Ben,” I moaned, trying to find some small trace of rational thought, needing to stop this before it went too far. “We can’t. We really, really can’t.”

  “The only thing that’s going to stop me is you saying you’re married. You married, beautiful?”

  I shook my head. “No, of course not. But—”

  “Then we don’t have a problem.”

  My nails bit into his arms, but instead of deterring him, it only seemed to urge him on. His hips thrust against me, and even through his work pants and my jeans, he rubbed over the perfect spot to make me see stars.

  “My dad,” I panted, trying to explain. “He won’t let me keep you.” And that was what made this so hard. Because I wanted to keep Ben.

  Oh God. I’d just met this man. Knew next to nothing about him, but I wanted him for myself. Wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything.

  “Lexa, baby.” He lifted his head, his hands cupping my face.

  I froze, feeling his thumb grazing over my scar before the palm of his hand settled over it. I closed my eyes, waiting for him to notice it. His eyes should have adjusted to the darkness by now; he wouldn’t be able to miss the outline of the scar that went from my temple down to the corner of my mouth. It wasn’t puckered and red like it had been when Fontana first disfigured me, but it still wasn’t pretty. Not even makeup could cover up that grotesque thing.

  And for the first time, I wished I’d given in and let Mom take me to a plastic surgeon.

  “I’m not letting you go,” he breathed, his lips skimming over mine. “Don’t ask me how I know, but you are mine. I won’t let anything fuck with that. Do you hear me?”

  Tears burned my throat, and I finally opened my eyes, knowing I had to do something before this turned dangerous. I wanted to be his more than I wanted to breathe, but I also knew I needed to protect him.

  Bash Reid was a dangerous man.

  I loved my dad dearly, but I wasn’t blind to who or what he was.

  And I couldn’t let him hurt Ben.

  I jerked my head back from his touch, allowing my hair to fall away from my face for the first time. Even in the dimness of the moon overhead, there was no way he could miss that scar now.

  He jerked back, and though that was the reaction I’d been expecting, it still shattered something inside me.

  “You still want me?” I asked with a cold laugh, burying my pain as I hopped down off my car.

  Ben just stood there, frozen, his eyes glued to my scar and nothing else. “What happened?” he choked out.

  “This is what happens to little girls who don’t follow the rules,” I explained. “No outsiders. Ever. Lesson learned.” I pushed past him and opened my car door. “Nice meeting you, Sheriff Davis. See you around.”

  I turned my car around, then drove away, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from lifting to my rearview mirror.

  Ben just stood there, watching me drive away.

  Any secret hope that he wouldn’t care, that my scar wouldn’t matter to him, turned to dust and blew across the road that now separated us.

  5

  Ben

  All I could think about was who could have done that to her. How could they have hurt her like that?

  And then the anger took hold.

  I would find out.

  I would finish off the person who had dared hurt my beauty.

  I didn’t care what I had to do, how many laws I broke to accomplish it, but I would make whoever hurt her pay.

  By the time I got myself under control, she was long gone, but I didn’t follow her immediately. I’d run by her house on my way home to make sure she got home safe, but I didn’t trust myself to follow her yet.

  I was shaking with rage and remnants of a need that had nearly brought me to my knees. Fuck, I still wanted her so bad my balls ached, but I was afraid to touch her.

  All my life, I’d worked hard to control my rage. The marines had helped with that when nothing else could, but seeing her beautiful face marred by that damn scar had stirred something that had been lying dormant for years. I didn’t trust myself not to hurt her unintentionally if my rage suddenly got out of hand.

  I got in my cruiser, my hands clenching around the wheel as I fought the urge to decimate and hurt someone the way Lexa had so obviously been hurt.

  An hour later, I drove by Bash Reid’s house and parked out front. I saw Lexa’s car in the driveway and looked up at the house, wondering which room was hers. But all the upstairs lights were off, and they remained off an hour later when I finally forced myself to drive home.

  I’d talk to Lexa tomorrow, I assured myself. Get the story out o
f her, make her tell me who’d hurt her. I’d find the sonofabitch and take care of him, then I would claim the woman who was already mine.

  If only it were so easy.

  Will Ben be able to convince Lexa she is his Salvation?

  Coming soon.

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  Forever Lo by Winter Travers

  Devil’s Knights MC

  1

  Meg

  “I’m wearing yellow.”

  “Meg.”

  I looked up from my bowl of cereal. “Yes?”

  Lo leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re kidding.”

  I wasn't. Not in the least. “No.”

  “I don’t think I have ever seen you in yellow and suddenly you’re going to wear a yellow dress to your only son’s wedding?” He scoffed and reached for a coffee cup. “You’re going to end up wearing black.”

  I rolled my eyes and slurped back some milk in my bowl. “I can’t do that, Lo.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “If I wear black everyone is going to think I don’t approve of Harlyn and that’s not true. Like I’m attending a funeral.”

  “No, everyone is going to be fine with you wearing black because they know that you only wear black. If you show up to Remy’s wedding wearing a yellow dress, everyone is going to think you’re either having some mid-life crisis or that you have a brain tumor that is messing with your brain.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Really, Lo? Those are the only reasons why people would think I’m wearing yellow? Mid-life crisis or tumor?” I slurped the last of my milk and set the bowl down with a clatter. “You really have no faith in me.”