by Megan Crane
She told herself she should be furious. That she should fight to get out of his hold even though she doubted she could dislodge him until and unless he felt like letting go. That she should try out one of the self-defense moves she’d learned in that class she’d taken in college. She could kick back and try to reach his kneecap, though he was so much taller than her she’d probably just hurt herself against his shin.
Every second she didn’t fight back was a black mark on her soul, she was sure of it—but she discovered something else, too. The longer she failed to struggle, the less she wanted to struggle at all. Because the truth was, it felt good to let someone else carry the weight of things for a change. Chaser had told her no one would hurt her. She believed him. Or she wanted to believe him.
And either way, the longer she acted as if she did, the more she felt as if she always had. As if his hand over her mouth was a gift. As if he really would keep her safe when no one else ever had.
As if that was what he was doing.
“—still not seeing why I got to lower myself to talking to cockroaches,” Digger was saying, sounding cranky. Or what passed for “cranky” in a big, mean-looking old man who could probably kill people with his hands. A whole lot of people.
“Who says you do?” Chaser shrugged. “I don’t see you reaching out on this. It’s her uncle. She can call home, invite the family out for a visit. No promises. But if they jump on this—”
“They’ll jump on it,” T’Roscoe said from the side, finally moving that intense blue stare from Lara. “What else do they have? Pissing on their dusty territory and skimming shit money from bad strip clubs. That’s no life.”
“That’s my impression, too, Dig.” Chaser sounded different. It took Lara a moment to realize that it was because he didn’t sound as definite as usual—as if he was asking his president’s permission, or waiting for the older man’s agreement. It threw her.
You like him in control, a little voice inside her whispered. You like it way too much.
But there was no time to kick her own ass for that little bit of craziness, because Digger’s hard gaze was settling on her again.
“You hear that, girlie?” he asked, his voice raspy. It was innocuous, really, and yet something cold trickled down her spine. “You’re gonna call your uncle and invite him to Louisiana for a visit.”
Chaser moved, lifting his hand from her mouth and slanting a look at her she couldn’t read.
“You look confused,” he said, and she didn’t know what was wrong with her—on a deep, physical level—that his voice made her pussy swell and run hot. Even here. Even now, with all that was going on around them.
“I’m not confused,” she said. In need of way more therapy, sure. Confused? Not really. “But you should probably know that my uncle wouldn’t cross a street for me, much less travel across state lines.”
“Is your uncle a dumbass?” Digger asked from the couch.
“He’s not a Rhodes scholar,” Lara replied—then caught herself when she saw the warning gleam in Chaser’s dark eyes. “I mean no, he’s not dumb.”
Chaser allowed another inch of space between them and nodded at her pocket. “Go on. Call him. He’ll figure it out.”
“That’s if he answers the phone in the first place,” she muttered, but she wasn’t a complete idiot herself, despite all the evidence to the contrary. She was already fishing her phone out and scrolling through her contacts. She found her uncle’s number where she’d left it, filed under darth vader.
She glanced up at Chaser and saw the way his mouth tightened. Lara told herself that was amusement, because it made her feel better to imagine him biting back laughter when nothing was really all that funny. She also felt better when she didn’t interrogate herself as to why that might be, here and now when amusement should have been the very least of her concerns, so she went with that, too.
Chaser outlined what they wanted her to do. It was simple enough. Invite her uncle to come visit her here, as Digger had said. No names, very vague, in case anyone—meaning law enforcement—was listening.
Lara blinked. “Is that a concern? I mean, a specific one?”
“Some low-level clubs stick around because they sell information,” T’Roscoe said from his place at the desk. “No one’s saying your uncle’s club is that kind of operation. But there’s no need to feed anyone anything if it is.”
“Well, if there’s a way to sell someone out, my uncle will be first in line to do it,” Lara said, her voice matter-of-fact. It wasn’t an admission. It was the truth. “No one ever told him there’s supposed to be honor among thieves.” It occurred to her that wasn’t a smart comment to make in her present company. “Uh, I mean—”
“Let’s hurry this up, babe,” Chaser said, cutting her off. And saving her from herself yet again, she couldn’t help but notice. “We all have shit to do.”
Which meant there was nothing to do but hit the button to start the last call she’d ever planned to make.
It rang once. Then again.
Lara tried to imagine where her uncle would be, assuming he was still doing the same tired shit he’d always done when she’d lived there, which she figured was a safe bet. It was still early out in California, where it was always hot and blue and summer, and nothing ever changed. That meant Uncle Ray was probably on his way to the local strip club and the garage behind it where the brothers hung out in a warehouse that was distinguishable from this one only by its more obvious poverty. The bikes in front were less exquisitely maintained. The decor had run to grimy old photographs and centerfold pinups instead of the DKMC’s preferred banners and flat-screen televisions.
It rang some more. And Lara was pretty sure that Uncle Ray was about as interested in receiving a call from her as she was in making it in the first place, something she probably ought to be more clear about to the men watching her—
Which meant she was equal parts shocked and filled with a heavy sort of dread when her uncle picked up.
“Yeah?”
He sounded the same, this shitty old man who’d wrecked a whole lot more lives than simply hers. Raspy and on the edge of a cough, like he was still indulging his three-pack-a-day cigarette habit, secure in the belief that he was too damned mean for cancer. You took your life back, she reminded herself sharply, her present circumstances notwithstanding. That’s what matters. He didn’t win.
“Hi, Uncle Ray,” she said.
He laughed. The same vicious laugh that had hung over the whole of her childhood like a thick, black smoke. It reminded her of his fists. Of his face screwed up with rage and disdain as he stood over her, having knocked her to the ground for her attitude. Or her outfit. Or because she happened to be standing in a room he’d just entered.
“Put it on speaker, Lara,” Chaser said quietly. It was another order, another thing that should have gotten under her skin, but once again had the opposite effect. She was sure that somehow, though it made no sense, Ray would have less power—over her and in general—if Chaser could hear him.
She couldn’t hit the speaker button fast enough, and then Ray’s nasty laughter filled the office instead of just her head. It was as if he was there, too, corroding the very air. But it was a lot better to share that corrosion, just as she’d imagined. It made the whole thing feel a lot more bearable.
T’Roscoe and Chaser exchanged a look Lara didn’t attempt to decode. She aimed a tight smile at Digger, but then focused on the floor in front of her. She held her phone out with one hand and waited. And waited some more, because Ray was obviously making a point. As usual.
“I thought you were dead,” Ray said eventually. When he was done cackling like the evil asshole he was.
And on some level Lara was happy that she was standing in this office being forced to make this call, because it gave her something to think about other than how humiliating it was to be spoken to like that by a relative. Her only parental figure, really, since Tammy had never bothered to pretend she gave a crap abou
t her dead brother-in-law’s kids. But there was no time for embarrassment or that sad part of her that still hurt a little that this was her family when there were Devil’s Keepers hemming her in on all sides.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, because she was still herself. Devil’s Keepers glaring at her or no.
“Let me guess.” She heard a familiar sound and she knew he was in that crappy old space of his in the back of the big garage, as much his sticky little throne room as it was any kind of supposed office for the work he didn’t do. “You’re in trouble and you need my help after all these years. After turning up your nose at your own family the way you did. I told you that you’d come crawling back.”
“No need to gloat,” she said, and she didn’t care if the tension around her meant the men in the room didn’t like her tone. She didn’t like Ray, so everyone was going to have to deal with a little misery to make it through this call. “I’m in Louisiana.”
“Why the fuck do you think I care where you are?”
“Lagrange, Louisiana,” she continued, using her best teacher’s voice. Chipper and determined at once, despite the usual rolled eyes and sullen expression. “I’ve made some new friends.”
Uncle Ray, as she’d told Digger, was not a dumb man. He certainly wasn’t a nice one, or anything like a good one, but he couldn’t have maintained his position all this time if he was a complete fool. She could hear the exact moment it occurred to her uncle that it was unlikely she’d called him after all these years for a casual chat about her location and acquaintances.
“It turns out they’re all members of a club like yours,” Lara continued when he didn’t say anything.
“No need to throw any names around,” Chaser reminded her in an undertone. She looked at him, but only briefly. It was like it hurt too much to let herself remember how real he was and what the present felt like when he was in it, or in her, now that she was neck deep in her vile little past with this man who had always hated her. Always. She’d spent years looking for a reason, but there wasn’t one. She’d come to the conclusion that Uncle Ray treated her the way he did because he could. Because there was no one to stop him. And because he felt like it.
Uncle Ray was silent. She knew he was trying to work out what game this was and how it could benefit him. If it could benefit him. And how, even if it did, he could cut her out of it, because he was nothing if not consistent.
“Maybe you should come for a visit,” she said in as hearty a voice as she could manage. She saw T’Roscoe wince slightly. Digger’s eyes narrowed. But Chaser’s gaze was trained on her, and that was the only thing that mattered. “I bet you’d get along with my new friends.”
“This sounds like a situation where you’ve dropped yourself in some trouble and are looking for a hand to help you out of it,” Ray said, his voice a little different. Less sneering, more forceful. It took Lara a moment, but then she understood why. He’d realized people were listening to this conversation. “Got to tell you what you already know. I’m not that hand. Not for you.”
Chaser’s gaze met hers, steady and something like furious. But Lara looked back down at the phone instead of trying to read into it.
There was no reason that should have stung. Sure, her uncle had just announced that the bikers who could have been holding her against her will and with every intention of harming her could go ahead and do what they liked with her—which he knew very well could have meant a death sentence in this world of theirs. He’d made it crystal clear that he’d do nothing to stop them or help her, even if he could. But it wasn’t news that he didn’t give a shit about her, even if Lara had never heard him state it quite so starkly before.
What was shocking wasn’t what he’d said, but the fact that because it did prick a bit at her, she must have still been harboring some illusions about him. After all the thousands of ways he’d showed her she shouldn’t. After all these years and what had happened to Mikey. Lara might have hated herself for that, but it was all too sad.
“Don’t be dumb,” Lara said sweetly, because she was safely out of reach across at least three states and he couldn’t lay her out for calling him that. It wasn’t power, she was well aware. But it sure felt close enough. “I’m not in any trouble at all. I thought maybe you could use some new friends with a few similar interests. Unless you won the lottery while I was away?”
“Okay,” Chaser murmured, his gaze on Digger then. “I think that’s enough.”
“I’ll see you soon, Uncle Ray,” Lara said into her phone in her best impression of a loving niece, because she knew it would annoy her uncle. And then, finally, she hung up.
She felt dirty, but not, she was well aware, as hideously unclean as she would have felt if she didn’t have Chaser right there beside her. She shoved her phone in her pocket again with fingers that felt too big, too clumsy, because all they wanted was to touch him.
Do not, under any circumstances, touch that man, she ordered herself sternly. He’s no savior. You should know better.
And maybe she did. But her heart was a fool. And where Chaser was concerned, more foolhardy by the moment.
“We’ll see how this plays out,” Digger said from the couch, and Lara thought the edge in his voice was harsh enough to veer over into alarming—but neither Chaser nor T’Roscoe seemed to notice. Or react to it, anyway. Digger jerked his chin at Lara, though his hard gaze was on Chaser. “Keep that contained.”
“She’s contained,” Chaser muttered.
He wrapped his hand around her upper arm again, and this time Lara didn’t even pretend she didn’t like the heat of it. The sensation. The sense of security she felt the moment she was connected to him, as if she could stand a bit better on her own two feet. And she imagined there would be a time and place to sort through her feelings about this evening, but it wasn’t here. It wasn’t now.
It wasn’t tonight, when all she could think about was how nothing in her life had ever been safe. Until him.
And then Chaser made it all a whole lot worse.
“She’s mine,” he said, sounding gruff and sure, throwing it out into the middle of the office like a bomb.
Chapter 9
Lara’s heart exploded inside her chest. She was surprised she didn’t keel over. Because that sounded a whole lot like the sort of claim that led to property patches and the biker club version of forever. She told herself Chaser was only keeping her safe. That he didn’t mean it. That it wasn’t real. She told herself that even if it was real, it wasn’t what she wanted.
Of course that wasn’t what she wanted.
But there was no telling her heart. It beat too hard, too wild. Like it would never, ever stop.
Over against the desk, T’Roscoe’s head tilted to one side as if Chaser’s matter-of-fact statement—two succinct words—was too much for him to take in. Digger, meanwhile, let out a short bark of laughter from the couch as he stretched his legs out in front of him, looking like he was settling in for a rousing set of fireworks.
“What the hell are you talking about, brother?” Digger sounded dangerous and amused in a hard, unpleasant sort of way. The gaze he settled on Lara then was not exactly encouraging. “You collecting sloppy seconds from cockroaches now?”
“She’s staying with me, she’s under my protection, and I know you meant to congratulate me on that shit,” Chaser retorted, somehow looking and sounding bigger as he spoke. As if he was on the verge of taking over the world without moving a muscle. “Is that what you meant, Dig? Or did you bitches want to paint my nails all pretty while you ask me where and how I’m getting my dick wet these days or worse, how I fucking feel about it?”
The other men laughed and the tension in the room eased. Digger even shot Chaser the finger, which Lara knew was practically love poetry between hard-as-nails men like these. Because somehow, Chaser had cleared the air with that little speech—but he hadn’t retracted what he’d said.
She’s mine.
Lara’s heart kept thumping
madly as if it was too wild to stop, so hard and jarring each time she was surprised it wasn’t visible against her tank top, like a character in some Saturday morning cartoon.
Chaser jerked his chin in a dismissive way, as if he and his brothers had managed to have an entire conversation in a couple of terse sentences and a rude gesture. Then he propelled Lara out the office door and toward all of that revelry and madness that waited in the rest of the warehouse, raging on even louder than before.
He didn’t look back at the office, but Lara couldn’t help herself. Which meant she was the only one who saw the cool, considering way both Digger and T’Roscoe watched them go. It didn’t help her heart calm down any. And it didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t know either one of them well enough to figure out what they objected to, or were concerned with, much less why.
But once Chaser tugged her out into the loud, dimly lit common room again, Lara felt a kind of relief wash over her. Through her. Because no one was staring at her in all this commotion. No one was trying to see inside her head or parse her crappy familial relationships. There was no vicious uncle in her ear or too much history in her head.
Out in the big room, there was nothing but the party, going strong all around her. Lara could remember hearing about parties like this while growing up. She’d never understood them. She’d even thought they were gross, if she was honest. But that was before she’d poured all her anxiety and worry and stress into blistering hot sex with a man who could meet her there and take her higher. That was before she’d experienced the siren call of that kind of oblivion. Before she’d lost and found herself in the same slick, hot thrust of his flesh into hers.