Jax: Black Angels MC, #3

by Fisher, A. E.

  Ronnie

  As the clock nailed to the wall above me struck midnight, I found myself staring into the bottom of the whiskey glass thinking about Max. Our week had passed much the same as the first day when I had gotten into the pen with her. She let me step in, but if I took any step closer to her, she backed as far away as she could. By that point, Jax put a stop to it.

  He told me he didn’t want to push it. That she’d adjust. I supposed I was feeling a little impatient. After being trapped in the dark for so long, I was just desperate to get to that light at the end of the tunnel. Both for mine and Max’s sake.

  But I’d seen how long it’d taken others to get used to their horses again, and for the horses to get used to their riders. Traumatizing events might not mean the feelings were lost, but it didn’t mean everything could just go back to normal.

  I sighed, putting the whiskey glass into the washer beneath the bar and returned to my unpleasant reality as a bartender.

  Men sat around the long, wraparound bar, their breaths already stinking of booze and cigarettes before they had even walked through the door, only to light another and pop open a cheap cold one. Some wore leather jackets, their emblems saying they belonged to a club akin to the one that I had seen Jax wearing. He never wore it while working with Max, but I hadn’t had the courage to ask him why.

  Anything beyond Max’s recovery was off-limits, after all.

  Rules, rules, rules.

  “Another, darlin’” a dark, cracked voice bellowed to me from down the way. Brown hair whipped me in the face as my pony tail swung me round, looking to see where the voice came from.

  An overweight gentleman, who had a beer belly so big it was sticking out from underneath the white wife beater he wore, was signaling me with two fingers so wide they could pass for sausages, the gross, discount kind found in a clearance section at the grocery.

  The man didn’t acknowledge me as his fat appendages wrapped around the new, cold beer I placed amongst his other empty ones before I quickly looked away at the sound of his teeth on the edge of the beer’s cap.

  Its hiss and pop before it landed on the bar top gave me the all clear before I could look in his direction again without cringing. I hated when people did that. The fact he had any teeth left was a miracle.

  Not that I had any right to complain about anything. Not when this was the only job going in this tiny town.

  I lived rural all my life, so I expected that towns like this were always in need of a helping hand. Which was true—just not from a person who was living in a motel, paycheck to paycheck with the local MC club’s name stuck to her shoe. Gossip in this town was like gum from the pavement,annoying and impossible to scrape off.

  Fortunately, there was a sleezy bar owner who only had enough time to look up from counting his money to stare at my tits when I asked about the job. He didn’t ask about my circumstances. Hell, he didn’t even care for my application. As I soon learned the only paper he cared about was the green kind he could sit in his office and count all day.

  When he had me on the next available shift, not caring about my cluelessness behind a bar, register, or anything that involved more than a saddle and reins, I was satisfied.

  I worked the night shifts the last three nights and although I had my odd stumble, I was getting my bearings.

  “So, where you from, sweetie?” another man asked, this one more limber and lankier compared to the other men in the bar. He looked like he didn’t eat more than two sugar cubes a day and from the red marks around his arm, I could see his hunger wasn’t for food but for something else. Something he obviously had recently if the glazed look in his eyes was any indication.

  I quickly reminded myself that it was this place or the strip joint on the other side of town, and with my body being how it was, I gave the man a gentle smile and, while trying not to breathe through my nose, said, “What can I get ya?”

  “A beer,” he said, not at all bothered that I ignored his question. He instead began perusing the skin up and down my body, which thankfully my long shirt and jeans covered up.

  Using his few discolored teeth, he popped open the lid, all without taking his eyes off my chest. I held back my cringe as his eyes glanced, for just a second, to my face, and then went back to my boobs.

  I sighed, shaking my head. The only reason I was here was for the money. Otherwise I’d have been out of this place before the other boot could drop.

  “You that Angel’s girl?” he popped, surprising me.

  “Angel?”

  “Yeah. Black Angels. The MC that runs this town,” he explained. “Everyone’s already talking about the little birdy with the horse running up into their territory. So, you’re either fucking one of them or have a pair of steel balls on you to go anywhere near their joint.”

  I gave the man a calm stare, wondering if I had been wrong with the drugs assumption considering the clarity he was displaying.

  He was right about the whole town speaking about me, though. Whether it was the local supermarket, the diner, or even some of the public restrooms, people had been stopping me left, right, and center, grilling me about who I was and what I was doing, or plain staring at me. Some of them thought I was deaf to boot, whispering two feet from where I stood as if I couldn’t hear them gossiping about me.

  “I’m not Jax’s girl,” I replied, then walked out the back of the bar and into the storeroom to fill the cooler before he could fish for any more about me. This town cherished gossip so much, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to sell my secrets for his next hit.

  Reaching the store cupboard, I collapsed onto the first box I saw, because running from the man and his questions wasn’t the only reason I wanted to get away.

  My leg hurt like a bitch. It had been a long time since it felt this bad and I had no way of undoing the damage I was doing to it while working. Max’s recovery process, the bar work, and my shit car that forced me to walk more than I drove it seemed to be pushing me beyond my physical limits. A year ago, I would have been doing this amount of work at a minimum, now I was barely coping.

  With Max depending on me, I pushed down the pain behind my perfected facade, and by the time I walked back into the bar, business mode was on and—

  Oh shit!

  Business mode was certainly not on. Not when I spotted skulls bearing wide black wings spanning over the length of leather-clad shoulders gathering in a booth at the back.

  I didn’t know how many long, awkward seconds I stood in the doorway, my eyes popping out of my head in their direction as I fought not to go and escape back into the storeroom. All I heard was Jax’s mean, harsh voice repeating in my head that I was to stay the hell out of his way and out of his life.

  And I’m sure that included the bar he frequented—not that I had known that.

  But it was too late, and when that one familiar head turned gracefully my way and recognized my face, I knew just what kind of shit was about to hit the fan. His face turned from relaxed to pissed in 2.5 seconds, and he was in front of me in only one.

  “What the fuck are you doing back there?” Jax growled, his dark black hair swinging in front of his face as he practically flung his body into the bar.

  “Serving beer?” I replied, feigning ignorance since it seemed like the best option.

  Apparently not.

  “Ronnie,” Jax growled, not liking my reply. Not that he would have liked any of the other replies I could have given him. “Get out here.”

  “I can’t,” I retorted, finding myself moving deeper behind the bar. “I’m working.”

  Someone chose that time to call for a beer, and I was thankful for the escape. It didn’t last long as Jax followed me step for step as I passed the man his beer.

  “I told you I didn’t want to see you around here. Why on earth are you working here?”

  “I didn’t know this was your bar, all right?” I shrugged, finding my annoyance creeping its way forward. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have take
n the job. Besides, this is the only place I can work nights so I’m not interfering with Max’s training.”

  I saw Jax’s eyes narrow, and before I could say anything else, his head turned like a freaking owl as he looked out to the parking lot.

  “Do not tell me you’ve been driving that piece of shit car late at night from this place.” He posed it as a question, but I could tell he already knew the answer.

  “All right.” I shrugged, avoiding the eyes glaring into the side of my head. “I won’t tell you.”

  “Goddammit, Ronnie!” Jax’s voice filled the entire bar and I wasn’t the only one who’s spine snapped up straight. All his friends’ heads turn at the sound of his voice and watched in confusion as Jax launched his feet up over the bar and landed with a bang on my side.

  His face, closer to me than I had seen it in years, was almost more startling than the harsh grip that clamped around my upper arm and jerked me forward.

  “Hey!” I screeched, desperate to pull loose from his grip, but his hand held tight, and I didn’t have the strength in my legs to stop myself from being helplessly dragged along behind him.

  I heard one of the men in the bar calling his road name, but Jax was too focused to listen. He marched us all the way to the manager’s office, and without even a second of hesitation, he lifted his foot and busted the door down.

  My small, chubby manager leapt to his feet, almost stumbling as he caught his foot on the rolling chair.

  “Jax!” he gasped, his face paling a little as he met Jax’s glare.

  “Fire her,” he demanded.

  “What?” I screeched. “No, Jackson, you can’t just—”

  “Okay.” The manager cut me off, his jowls wobbling as he nodded his head. He did it with so much vigor he almost dislodged the toupee from the top of his bald head.

  Jax nodded but otherwise didn’t say anything else as he turned on his heels and dragged me back through the broken doorway.

  “Jackson!” I screamed, but he wasn’t listening. His big boots stomping his way back out the hallway drowned out my voice as we passed through the bar and toward the exit. Every head turned in his direction and watched with a mix of eager and concerned eyes as I was dragged against my will out into the darkness.

  “Let me go!” I growled, my leg protesting in pain as Jax continued to haul me across the uneven gravel. “JACKSON!”

  His hand unhinged from my arm so fast I almost flung myself ass-down onto the hard earth, gasping in pain as my leg braced itself to stop me.

  “Get on,” Jax’s voice growled from the dark in front of me. My veil of brown hair shifted as I looked up to see him sitting on what I could only guess was his bike.

  It was black and silver, the ominous mix only looking darker, half masked in shadows, half lit by the faint glow of the bar. Although Jax looked slender besides the other members of his club, he was still a large guy and it was only emphasized with the beast between his legs.

  I was distracted by the sheer intimidation he presented, sitting on the saddle of the bike instead of the saddle of a horse, that I hadn’t heard him speak, and when he growled the same thing again, he got my attention quite quickly.

  “Get on.”

  “Um, no,” immediately came from my mouth and I took a long step backward. “No way in hell am I getting on that thing.”

  “Yeah, you are, Ronnie,” he demanded me but didn’t make any move to drag me there.

  “It’s Veronica.” I was beginning to wonder if he had a hole in his head since that fact kept slipping from it. “And I have a perfectly good truck right there—not to mention I’m still working.”

  “I just covered that. And your truck is a piece of crap,” Jax replied, tugging on his leather jacket as he reached back and lifted a plain black helmet from who knows where. He thrusted it out toward me, locking his brown eyes, almost black in the dark night, and waited, eyes expectant. “I’ll take you home.”

  I thought to my dingy motel room and had a feeling Jax and I had a different definition of “home.”

  “What about my truck?” I gestured out to my poor, old Chevrolet tucked away by the side of the bar, the lighting unflattering on my rust bucket.

  Wait! Is that a new dent? I don’t remember bumping into anything…?

  “What about your truck?” Jax’s mimicked, earning my attention again. My glare hardened.

  I propped my hands on my hips, as I reaffirmed, “I can’t leave it here.”

  “I’ll have one of my brothers bring it back for you.”

  “What’s the point when I might as well drive it back myself?”

  “Because them breaking down in the town they own in the middle of the night will end completely fucking differently than it would if you were driving it.” He shoved the helmet back at me, his long arm only a few inches from my chest. “Now put it on and get on the back of my bike.”

  I stood in there in a bubbling silence as I glowered at him. I had come close to walking back to the motel the other day when my truck had stalled and refused to restart just on the outskirts of the town, but my baby had come through and she had gotten me home safely. There was a high chance the same thing would happen again, but I didn’t want to give up on her just yet. It was my mother’s car and when she passed, it became my first. I had kept her running for as long as I could, fixing her here and there when needed. It was one of the few things I owned that I refused to give up.

  My thoughts broke on Jax’s long sigh as he looked to the car, his arm lowering in defeat. “I’ll make sure they get her back to you, okay? Better yet, I’ll have Hunter drop her into his new garage and get her looked at, so I don’t have to do this shit again, okay?”

  “But—”

  “Ronnie,” Jax groaned, fed up arguing with me. He ran a hand through that long black hair of his, the crease of where his cowboy hat had sat on his head for several hours earlier that day only making the curls that much wilder. Paired with all his leather, the bike and the dark stare of his eyes made my fight fade.

  My leg was aching, and I didn’t think I could continue to stand for even a few more minutes, never mind arguing with him. Jackson had always made me stomp my feet when I was younger, since he always found a way under my skin. My leg couldn’t take that kind of workout today.

  “Fine.” I sighed, reaching out with both my palms to take the shiny black helmet into my hands.

  I had to pull loose my ponytail and my straight hair dropped down between my shoulders, the knotted mess smelling like stale beer and dust from work. The strands clung to the side of my face where a thin sheen of sweat appeared, whether from the scene with Jax or the humidity from the bar. I flattened it down as best I could before fitting the helmet on my head. It hugged my head a little too tight, but I figured it was better than it being too large.

  Jax watched the action without blinking, making sure I had the thing on my head before he faced forward.

  I looked down at the beast at my feet, pocketing my hair tie in my jeans. “Where in the hell do I put my feet?”

  Jax snorted and I shot him a glare. “Sit your ass down first, Ronnie.”

  “Veronica.” I snapped but did as instructed, lifting my leg and swinging it over the bike. I had tried to do it with amazing balance, but I didn’t have such a thing and ended up having to grab Jax’s shoulder to steady myself before dropping my ass hard onto the saddle—or whatever the biking equivalent of a saddle was.

  As soon as I was on, I realized how little room the seat had. Sitting as far back as possible, there was only an inch of room between the crotch of my jeans and Jax’s ass.

  Too busy staring at his ass, I jumped a little when I saw Jax lean and his arms reach back to the side of the bike. Near where my feet were planted either side of the vehicle, he reached in and tugged two little metal pegs from out of each side.

  So that’s where my feet went.

  I propped them up one by one, my leg protesting at the movement on my right side, but not enough that
I wasn’t able to ignore it.

  “Hold on.”

  “To what?” I scoffed. “There ain’t no reins on this thing.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was a scoff or a sigh, but when Jax’s huge hands caught mine, his harsher callouses rubbing along the back of my hands, it made my breath hitch. He tugged me forward, the distance between my crotch and his ass disappearing as I was plastered to his back and my arms were wrapped around his stomach.

  Heat from his back spread over every inch of me, and I could swear to God he felt my shudder at the sensation because his body went still. Very still. He was tense and my boobs pressing against his back, my skin sticking to the back of his leather, didn’t help the situation.

  The tension was only growing higher until all of a sudden, the roar of the engine cut through the night and I almost screamed in surprise. Vibrations rose up from beneath me, and my hands were now clinging to Jax’s stomach, his hard muscles only inches from my hands tensing beneath my touch. If I could get any closer to him I would, because this was so different from riding a horse. Way different.

  “Hold on tight,” Jax yelled over the roaring sound and backed out of the lot.

  That was the only thing I was planning to do.

  Jax turned the handles and with it, we leaned to one side before rolling out of the exit and out onto the road.

  For a few seconds, I hadn’t thought it was that bad. Even when we started to pick up speed and the wind began to tug at my hair, I thought I might enjoy it.

  Until we didn’t stop gaining speed.

  “Jax!” I screamed over the engine’s howl as the open highway flew beneath my feet. I was practically wrapped all around him and my leg was aching hard as I pushed my feet harder into the pegs, keeping me pinned between the metal and Jax as much as I could. “Slow down!”

  He sped up.

  We jolted forward, and I caught a glimpse of the speedometer. I saw the little red dial passing one-hundred and thought it best not to look again.

  “Lean!” Jax yelled, and I didn’t have a chance to argue with him when I saw the huge bend coming up fast in front of us.