STONE KINGS MOTORCYCLE CLUB: The Complete Collection

by Daphne Loveling

  I grinned. “You know See doesn’t need weapons to convince people to do her bidding.”

  “I didn’t think you were the kind of guy who took orders from anybody, Cal Greenlee.”

  “I’d take orders from you, Doll, if they were the right kind.”

  Her liquid blue eyes stared up at me, so dark they looked almost violet. As my gaze locked on hers, I felt rather than saw her breathing speed up just a tiny bit, her lips parting in a sharp inhale. My cock hardened in response. Shit, I needed to change the subject. The more she mocked and teased me, the more I found myself wanting to push her against a wall and shove my cock inside her.

  I often thought I sensed this almost electric buzz whenever I was around Andi. Usually, the flirting was a decent enough escape valve to keep it at bay, but tonight there was an undercurrent of sexual tension surrounding us that seemed to be growing by the second. Then again, usually my sister was around when I saw Andi, which meant that usually, whatever our flirting was hiding stayed mostly under the surface. Now, standing in this pulsing crowd with Andi not two feet away from me, it felt almost like we were alone. It felt dangerous. Like something could happen in a heartbeat that we wouldn’t be able to take back.

  I shifted from one leg to the other, resisting the urge to reach down and adjust my throbbing cock. “So, uh… Are you still tending bar here full-time?” I asked, just to push the conversation in another direction. Any other direction.

  “Less and less,” she replied, a flicker of something like disappointment crossing her features. She took a careful step back. “We’re getting more gigs to play around the area, and we just landed a standing gig in Denver on Saturday nights starting in a few weeks. So this is the last Saturday we’ll play here at Hammie’s.” She glanced around us. “I think that’s why the crowd is so big tonight.”

  “That’s great,” I nodded. As torturous as this conversation had gotten, I was suddenly kind of glad I was there to see Andi’s band. She was right that I’d never bothered to go see them before. I was just sort of assuming it wasn’t my kind of music, since I was pretty much a classic rock kind of guy. But I was happy to hear that Andi was having success with her music, and it felt sort of good to come out to support her. After all, above and beyond the fact that Andi was hot as hell and had the best rack I’d ever seen, she was also pretty awesome. She had always been a loyal friend to See, sticking up for her and protecting her like a sister. Plus, she was sexy as fuck without being overly girly, with a tough girl attitude that drove me crazy in a good way. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was gonna enjoy an hour or so of watching her up there on stage in tight clothing. I knew she was off limits, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look and enjoy — and file away the mental video for some later date when I needed something to fantasize about while I jacked off. Hey, there was no law saying you couldn’t, right? After all, if Andi wasn’t my sister’s best friend, I would have happily hit that a long time ago.

  And right at this very moment, with my cock uncomfortably straining against my zipper, I was regretting that she was my sister’s best friend quite a damn bit.

  “Well,” Andi said, tilting her head toward the stage. “I’d better get back. This is the warm-up band’s last song, so we’ll be going on in a few minutes.”

  I nodded. “Good luck up there. Or am I supposed to tell you to break a leg?”

  She laughed. “I’m pretty sure that’s just for actors.” She gave me a dazzling smile. “Thanks, though, in all seriousness.” Her clear blue eyes flicked away from me for a second, then back. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight. It was nice of you.”

  “No worries. Good luck,” I repeated.

  “You already said that,” she teased me, biting her lower lip softly with her teeth. “But thanks again.”

  Then I watched Andi Wagner’s sweet ass sashay away from me in those tight leather pants, and allowed myself the luxury of fantasizing about peeling them off her as I waited for the bartender to grab me a beer.

  By the time I’d made my way back to our table, the warm-up band had finished their set, and we only had a few more minutes to wait until The Nopes came on. Levi, Trig, and I shot the shit while the women talked among themselves, and eventually, the house lights went back down.

  Raucous applause greeted Andi and her bandmates as they walked out on stage. A few people called their names and whistled, some holding up their hands to wave. The band was obviously a big local favorite. Andi stepped up to the mic, a bass guitar strapped around her. She looked back and nodded at the drummer, who raised his sticks and launched them into a song I recognized after a moment as a grunge-inspired cover of a Prince tune. It was pretty good, actually — their sound was not like anything I could remember hearing before, which kind of impressed me. Andi swayed in time with the music as she sang, her voice a sultry alto that rose above the other instruments. I looked around at the crowd as they danced and moved along with the beat, clearly loving the sound.

  When the song ended, the reaction was almost deafening. As Andi launched the band into the next one, the energy level cranked up palpably, the room starting to feel electric. The song was one I didn’t recognize. When I leaned over to See to ask her about it, she told me it was an original, written by Andi a couple of years ago. It was a little quieter than the first tune — not a ballad, but the lyrics were raw and emotional. As she sang, Andi’s voice became almost haunting. The instruments receded, leaving a sparser, more bare sound that let her soulful delivery shine through.

  I wasn’t really in the habit of paying a lot of attention to music except for songs that were good for driving or fucking, but before I knew it I was practically hanging on every word that Andi sang. It was a song about loss, about pain, and about not letting emotions that well up inside you take control. It was about fighting. About survival. My stomach started to clench as I listened, feeling the anguish she was letting flow through her through the lyrics. It felt almost like I was staring straight into her soul as she sang, and what I saw there was at once beautiful and uncomfortable. I vaguely remembered Seton saying once that Andi had been through some rough shit in her life, and hearing her now, I could believe it. No one sang like that without knowing some real pain. It was impossible to fake something like that.

  I looked around at how other people were reacting, and saw that Andi had the entire crowd in the palm of her fucking hand. All eyes, all heads were turned to her with a similar expression of mesmerized longing, like a bunch of sunflowers turned toward the sun. I realized that she was the reason people were here. Not the band. Her. She had a talent that was practically radiating from her, the spotlights shining off her blond hair almost like a halo.

  As I scanned the crowd, for some reason a guy standing alone off to one side happened to catch my attention. He was about twenty feet away from our table, leaning against a cement pillar, hidden behind a slightly taller guy. He looked to be about 5’10”, kind of ferrety, with a long, thin nose and shaggy brown hair. I don’t know why I noticed him, except there was something about his expression as he watched Andi sing that was different from the others in the crowd. The guy was watching her so intently it was as though he was practically recording her every move in his mind, but his face was as neutral as if he was staring at a blank piece of paper. Even so, his eyes never left her, even when someone would jostle him or try to get by.

  Something in me — maybe long instinct from my time as a Stone King — told me to keep an eye on him. After a few minutes and three or four more songs, I saw him sink back behind the pillar and into the crowd. I set my drink down on the table and slid off the stool, making my way through the crowd. By the time I pushed my way through the people to where he had been standing, he was nowhere to be seen. I followed the most likely path for him to have taken past the bar toward the bathrooms, and then checked the front entrance for good measure, but he was gone. Frowning, I told myself he was probably just some frustrated basement-dweller with a harmless crush on Andi. But all
the same, I tucked the memory of his face away for future reference, just in case.

  2

  Andi

  ANDI

  It was one of the best performances we’d ever done.

  Something about the energy of the crowd — my hometown crowd, with my people — just felt so right, and the band was on fire. Every number we played had gone off without a hitch. It had been the perfect show to finish up our final show at Hammie’s before we moved on to a regular Saturday night gig at the Oasis in Denver.

  As we packed up our shit after the last song, my band members were practically buzzing with energy. “Jesus, we were fuckin’ on!” Kai, our drummer, enthused. “Your vocals on “Burn the House” were smokin’, Andi!”

  “No shit,” agreed our lead guitarist, Ash. “I can’t believe we haven’t done a recording of that song yet.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to do that soon,” Emmy said. “How about we offer that as an exclusive single to our tribe?” Emmy was our keyboardist, and she also tended to be the one who dealt with our social media presence. “Even a demo, maybe. I like the raw feel of when we do it live better than I probably would with an overly-mixed studio version.”

  “Hmm… You might be right about that,” I replied. “But maybe with the little flute lick that Carter put in that one time when we were fucking around. I really like the way it responds to the melody. So unexpected.”

  We continued to talk about next steps as we got everything together and brought it out back to Carter’s van. We loaded everything up and Carter said he’d just take it all back and leave the van in his garage until practice Monday night. The five of us hugged and high-fived, and then Emmy, Kai, Ash, and I headed back into the bar. Carter headed home to his girlfriend and their new baby.

  Back inside Hammie’s, I went immediately to the table where Seton and her group were waiting for me. My stomach did a little flip in spite of myself when I saw that Cal, Seton’s brother, was still there with them. I knew he was only there because Seton had asked him to be, and I figured he’d take off as soon as he could manage it. I was flattered that he’d bothered to stick around for the whole set, and I allowed myself just a moment to fantasize that it had been me that he had come to see.

  “Hey!” Seton cried as I walked up to them. “Congratulations! Oh, my God, you guys were amazing!”

  “Thanks, See!” I grinned as she hugged me. Coming from her, the compliment felt genuine. She had been to a ton of our shows in the past, and I had always made her promise to tell me how she thought things went afterward. Seton was one of the few people in the world I felt I could really trust to tell me the honest truth. Friends like that are pretty damn rare. Or in my personal experience, almost non-existent, except for her.

  The others at the table raised their glasses to congratulate me, too. Our friend Carly had come down from Denver for the weekend, and she told me she was excited to come see me play at our new gig at The Oasis. Seton’s husband Grey wasn’t there, but a couple of the other guys from the Stone Kings had come with their girlfriends. Cherish was there with her tall, brooding man Levi, and Eva, whom I was just getting to know, was there with Trig. All of them seemed to genuinely like the show, even the guys. Which was pretty cool considering it probably wasn’t exactly their kind of music.

  But the one person whose opinion I really wanted to know was the one I was most nervous about asking.

  “So,” I said, turning to Cal casually when the conversation had moved on to something else. “Hope our set wasn’t too boring for you.”

  I found myself using the default teasing tone I used when I was in his presence. It was the tone I always used to mask the fact that I found my best friend’s brother distractingly, scorchingly hot.

  I expected Cal to reply in the same bantering tone that he usually used back with me, but he surprised me this time. Leaning in slightly to be heard over the crowd, he lowered his voice to a husky murmur that unexpectedly sent a shiver down my spine. “It was fucking amazing, Andi. You were amazing.”

  Nothing had prepared me for this moment of sincerity from him. I’d known Cal Greenlee for at least four years, and in all that time we had never had a serious conversation. Every word between the two of us had always been completely superficial, artificially playful. It was just how we were together. For my part, I knew it was a defense mechanism. I didn’t know what it was for him. But it was the only way we had ever communicated the whole time I’d known him. It was stupid, yes. But it was also so predictable that I could almost do it in my sleep — which meant that I was able to think about Cal as an actual person as little as possible.

  But this moment of sincerity, murmured close to my ear in a voice meant only for me, did something completely unexpected to me before I had a chance to put up any defenses against it. The slightest caress of his breath had brushed against my skin as Cal spoke, and all of a sudden, it was as though a four-alarm fire had erupted just beneath my skin. My traitorous nipples hardened underneath the fabric of my bra. A flash of warmth sparked between my legs, followed by the beginnings of a dull ache.

  I risked a quick glance toward him as my skin flushed pink, noticing the distractingly soft, sensual curve to his mouth. Before I could stop myself, my own lips parted at the thought of what it would feel like if he kissed me.

  Shit. I needed to get myself together. “Thanks,” I managed to choke out. I took a quick step back and smiled at him teasingly. “I know it’s not your type of music. I hope you weren’t worried your balls would fall off listening to it.”

  I flinched at my stupid reference to his… uh, package. I had meant to be flippant, but now the image of his male anatomy was in my mind. Damn.

  The words I had just spoken hung in the air between us awkwardly for a moment as Cal’s eyes bored into mine, unreadable. Then, ever so slightly, one side of his mouth curled up. “I’m pretty sure my balls are just fine,” he said in the same low voice.

  Jesus. Fuck. Okay. The ache between my legs grew more urgent. I had to get this conversation back on more comfortable ground, stat. “Uh, okay. Great. Good for you.” It seemed that I had literally forgotten most of the words in the English language. I couldn’t figure out how Cal had managed to completely unhinge me so quickly, in the middle of a crowd of a few hundred people.

  He bent back down to my ear. “So, your next gig is in Denver, then?” he asked. His voice was the same low, sensual cadence as before, but at least the subject had changed, and I was thankful for the lifeline.

  “Yeah,” I stammered, clearing my throat. Good God, it was hot in here all of a sudden. “We don’t play live for a few weeks, until our first Saturday at The Oasis in a month. That should give us some time to work on a few new songs and tighten up our show.”

  He nodded. “Maybe I’ll come see you up there sometime,” he said casually.

  I was sure he was just saying it to be nice, but the mere thought that he might actually show up to one of our Denver shows because he wanted to made me feel a little dizzy. “That’d be, uh, great!” I said brightly. My face was flaming red, I was sure, and I resisted the urge to fan myself. “Let me know and I can get you on the list.”

  “Sure.” He lifted his chin. “Well, Doll, I’m gonna hit the road. You take care.”

  He stood up from his chair. I watched him with a mixture of breathless relief and disappointment as he announced to the others he was taking off. Levi said he’d come with him since they were both on their bikes, and kissed Cherish goodbye, telling her to be careful driving home. Cal shot me a final glance and a wink as he turned and headed out of the bar. I flashed him a too-wide smile that I was sure made me look like a maniac.

  When he had completely disappeared, I suppressed a deep sigh of relief and took a long swallow of my club soda. Holy hell. Talk about awkward. What the hell was wrong with me? I cut a quick glance at Seton to see if she’d noticed anything, but she seemed completely normal.

  The rest of us stayed at the bar chatting for about another half
hour, and then said our goodbyes. Seton hugged me and congratulated me again as we split up by our cars, and I headed home, my head buzzing with all sorts of emotions. I was pretty sure I was going to have a hell of a time sleeping tonight.

  A few minutes later, I pulled my trashed blue Kia up to the apartment complex where I lived, and got out of the car. Raising my hands above my head, I gave myself a long stretch and breathed in deeply, then exhaled. What a night. I slammed the door, not bothering to lock it, and headed up the walk toward my building, trying and failing to get Seton’s wild child younger brother out of my traitorous head.

  I had known Cal for almost as long as I’d known Seton, and he had always been sexy as hell but completely irresponsible. If I remembered correctly, Cal was two years younger than I was, which would make him twenty-two now. Not that you’d be able to tell he was that young. Given his height, his muscular frame, and the scruff of perpetual five o’clock shadow on his jaw, he was all man, any trace of boyhood left behind long ago.

  I remembered only too well how Seton had despaired of him ever pulling his shit together for the longest time. And how upset she was when he decided to prospect with the Stone Kings. But ironically, See had eventually been forced to admit that Cal had become a lot more responsible in recent years, precisely because of the club. Seton had told me that in a strange way, being part of a brotherhood of men who needed to know they always had one another’s backs had made Cal a better man. And as a consequence, it had made him a better brother, as well. Cal and Seton’s relationship had never been better than it was right now. I knew she was incredibly happy to have her brother back in her life on a more regular basis. And I was happy for her, because like her, I knew what it was like not to have a lot of family around to rely on.