“I’d rather not.”
“If it comes up and they look at your phone records, there aren’t going to be any personal calls. We should continue as we have, so it’s that way going forward as well. We’ll say our personal calls have always been through other channels.”
“I concur. Your ability to see things from a legal point of view impressed me from the start.”
“Do we continue to be secretive?” He asked. “I’d like to be able to meet you for lunch, to take you out to dinner, and maybe even escort you to those parties you have to schmooze at in order to be seen as one of the powerful elite.”
Okay, so I hadn’t seen that one coming. “You want to wear a suit and tie and accompany me?” I heard the words coming out of my mouth and realized they sounded more surprised than they should, but he’d caught me off guard. I spoke again before he could. “I’m sorry. Few people are able to catch me off guard enough so I speak without thinking. What I should have asked was whether this was something you want to do as my romantic partner, or something you feel we should do for other reasons?”
He’d uncrossed his arms at some point, and he crossed them back. “So you’re saying I need to check my ego and not be so in-your-face with our relationship? Or are you saying you don’t think I can hold my own with the city’s elite?”
“You’re well-spoken when you choose to be. You’re intelligent. I assume your finances are impressive, as that seems to be the case with the established MC brothers I’ve dealt with. If you feel you can hold your own with them, I believe you. My question is whether that’s the best choice for the club or the club’s primary legal representative.”
He lifted his brows. “Are you always going to resort to legal-speak when we argue? This isn’t even a disagreement. We’re still at the conversation stage, and you sound like a lawyer.”
I looked at him a few seconds, analyzing. His body language seemed aggressive, but it was a ruse. The cat was playing with me. Taunting me. “News flash. I am a lawyer, and a damned good one. You don’t want to argue with a lawyer? Don’t date one.”
His grin told me I’d been right. “Noted, counselor. We’ll go slow. I want to take you to dinner once the threat to your life is over. I’d like the opportunity to meet you for lunch when our schedules allow for it. I know you like to run, and I’d like to run with you sometimes. I want to sleep over at your place, and I’ll want you to stay at my place some. I’ll want you to come to RTMC parties. You good with all that, assuming we’ll add more stuff later?”
I hadn’t counted on going to the parties either, but the club is so secretive, I couldn’t see it being a problem. Well, so long as I wasn’t there during a raid. “It looks bad if the attorney is arrested along with the club. If there’s any reason to believe you’re being legally monitored, or that there could be a raid, I don’t need to be there. Otherwise, sure. I’m good with all of that.” Another breath. “But there’s another problem you haven’t considered.”
“Ethics again,” he said. “Knowledge of a crime before it happens. After it happens. All kinds of issues around how you can ask questions in a trial.”
Okay. So he’d considered it.
“I can’t phrase a question so I knowingly set you up to perjure yourself, but that’s really the only issue with what I can know at trial. I need to know everything. I can usually get around the perjury thing. Don’t worry about that. I can know about some crimes before they happen, but under no circumstances can I know about a violent crime before it happens.” I shook my head. “Somehow, you’re going to have to promise me you’ll never lie to me, but also figure out how to not let me know about any violence you’re planning until after it’s happened.”
“So, if you have a good idea of who we might need to hurt, and I say I can’t tell you something because it’s club business.” He leaned forward a little. “You’ll know who we’re going after, but won’t know what we’re going to do.”
“If I know who and have a decent idea of when, then yeah, I’m legally obligated to report it, and I’d rather not be put into that situation.” I hoped he didn’t ask if I’d actually report it, because that answer was complicated. In my years as an attorney I’ve come face-to-face with my own morals — and what I can do and still look myself in the mirror — multiple times. If it was a bad guy who needed to die, I’d still be able to face myself. If it wasn’t, I’d have a dilemma, and it’s possible I’d feel the need to speak up. I’d never throw my clients under the bus, but if there was a way to save someone without doing so, I likely would.
“You already know a lot of our secrets. You know the laundromats are a way for us to funnel some of our cash into taxable, legal income. You know the dancers go next door.”
“Technically, my helping the club figure out how to keep the new DA from arresting ya’ll over the girls could be construed as aiding and abetting in a crime. I’ll do that for misdemeanors, but ya’ll don’t pay me enough to do that for a felony.” I immediately realized how that sounded. “Okay, this is about more than how much the club pays me, it’s about you and me, but the sentiment is the same. Please don’t ask me to help you plan a felony.” Another breath, because nothing is black and white. “Unless it’s, you know, critical. I mean, if you think you’re about to go to prison or something, and truly need my help, maybe ask me in hypotheticals?”
I met his gaze and realized I didn’t have to lay it all out for this man. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him if he wasn’t intelligent. “I trust your common sense about whether to pull me in or not, and how to do it. You’re smart. If you need me, figure out a way to let me help.” Now it was my turn to lean forward, and I pointed my finger for extra impact. “If you know I’ll be pissed at you later for not letting me help, then let me help.”
“I can do that. Some of this might be trial and error at first, so have a little patience, but it sounds like you need to know I won’t lie to you, so I won’t, but you have to promise not to get pissed if I just tell you something is club stuff.” He met my gaze again. “And you’re going to have to acknowledge that when I say that, it won’t always mean we’re about to commit a felony. It could just be a stupid club drama thing that we aren’t supposed to talk to our ol’ladies about.”
I hadn’t considered that. This could work. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Yeah. That helps.”
He chuckled. “Not the response I was expecting, but I’ll take it. Glad I could help.”
My gaze snapped back to his face. “You thought I’d be ticked about not being let in on the gossip?”
He shrugged. “In retrospect, when you put it that way, I should’ve known better.”
I had another topic to cover, but I wanted to be sure we were clear on this one. “So, it’s a work in progress, but we’re clear on the goals? Don’t lie to me, and be careful about the legal ramifications when it comes to what I know ahead of time?”
“But not afterward, because attorney-client privilege keeps you from being accused of accessory-after-the fact, right?”
“I still can’t help you after the fact, but it’s okay if I know what you did.”
“I think we’re as clear as we can be.”
“Good. Next topic — if we’re going to be in a living-together arrangement, I’ll need a safeword. I’ve been okay with you going caveman and just taking me whenever it suits you, but I can foresee a time when I won’t be okay with it, or when I’m on a schedule and you’ll make me late. We’ll still need non-safeword times, because I think we both enjoy that.”
He crossed his arms. “No. I don’t think we do. If I’ll make you late, say late. If there’s another reason, state it. I don’t think you want more control than that in the bedroom.”
Was he right? Possibly. “We’ll see how it goes. I’m not certain you can judge entirely by scent. If my body wants it but I don’t have time, for instance, it’s possible you’ll just catch the part about me wanting to.”
“And you’ll say late and I’ll
stop. If we run into other types of scenarios, we’ll figure it out as we go.”
I was handing him a lot of power, but I had to admit he was right. The idea he could grab me and fuck the daylights out of me anytime he wanted was hot. I wasn’t sure how the reality would be, but I was willing to test it on a trial basis.
“Okay. That’s all I have. Do you have anything we need to talk about?”
“We need to figure out how to make you safe.”
“Aaron assures me he’s close, and that at this point it’ll be easier to handle it politically than to do so with force.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Tess
It took ten days for Aaron to give the all clear, and another two weeks before he was comfortable withdrawing his people entirely. However, the final week of that, Scout and I moved into Bobcat’s apartment. Aaron said it was secure enough, so I only needed someone with me when I left the complex — which I did daily, because I had to get back to work.
Four more high-ranking senators and representatives died in those ten days. Two supposedly committed suicide, one was killed in a robbery, and another died in a plane crash. Conspiracy theories were rampant, of course. I wasn’t one hundred percent certain Aaron hadn’t taken them out to protect me, but I didn’t ask. I couldn’t bring myself to.
I spent a lot of time in the clubhouse during those weeks, and perhaps it’s the mongoose in me, or maybe I’m just a sadistic bitch, but watching the brothers use the sweetbutts all willy-nilly set me off every time. Damn, but watching Banshee scream and wail while Frost took her ass, and then Gears walk up and cram his dick in her throat to make her shut the fuck up — it’s a good thing I was never around when Bobcat wasn’t, because I needed him to take me into a side room or back to his apartment and fuck my brains out on a regular basis.
In my defense, I’d helped the club come up with ways to keep their culpability and legal liability to a minimum, so I knew for a fact it was all consensual. We borrowed from the porn industry, and each girl had to go on camera saying she hadn’t been drinking and she was making these statements while of sound mind, and then she had to state that she knew what being a sweetbutt for the club meant, and she had to outline her understanding of it. Whoever was videoing it had a list of questions to ask as well — you know more than one biker will fuck you at a time, you know that at any time you can use the house safeword or tap out the house safeword rhythm and you’ll be allowed to walk out the door. And finally, you’re here because you want to be here, because being a sweetbutt for the RTMC scratches an itch that needs scratching. They are required to agree with and, in some cases, repeat back parts of the question when they agree with them.
Before the battles, the sweetbutts had shown up when they wanted to be fucked, and hadn’t come around if they didn’t. However, now, most of the sweetbutts lived in the apartment complex and the bikers gave them a call if they wanted a fuck. Now, they were quite possibly trading sex for safety. It might get the club into some legal concerns if a girl pushed the issue. I’d talked with the RTMC officers about it, and they were prepared to take the risk. At least for now. I’d also made sure Mad Dog understood that they could ban the girl from coming back to the clubhouse if she walked out, but they couldn’t kick her out of the apartment, nor should they find a reason not to renew the lease when it was up.
A few of the girls still lived elsewhere, thankfully. If I had to argue it in front of a judge, that little tidbit would help.
As far as I knew, plenty of girls had decided not to be sweetbutts anymore over the years, but the vast majority had just stopped coming, or had mouthed off to the wrong person and been told they weren’t welcome back. It’s possible some had safeworded and left because they didn’t want to do whatever was asked of them, but I hadn’t heard about it, if so.
However, I happened to be in the clubhouse one night to see it for myself.
First, Banshee rebuffed Khan. Khan was a loaner guy, up from Mobile, and he’s pretty laid back. Instead of making a big deal about it, he grabbed Crystal and went at her. However, not much longer, she walked away from Squatch and he didn’t let it go.
“What the fuck? You little cunt!” Squatch can pull off menacing better than anyone besides Dementor. Squatch took two steps to her, stopped, and pointed to the back of a sofa. “Pull that short little fuck-me skirt up, bend over the back of the sofa, and spread your damned cheeks.”
Squatch is the club’s Sergeant-at-Arms. The guy responsible for internal discipline. He’s the last biker you want to fuck with. Period. I’d smart off to the president, Mad Dog, long before I got in Squatch’s face with something.
Banshee, however, put her little hands on her hips and stared down the big, bad wolf shifter, “I don’t want to be fucked by you right now. Find someone else.”
Squatch looked to Mad Dog.
“How many licks, do you think?”
“At least thirty. Not more than a hundred, depending on what you use.”
“Oh, she’s getting the belt.”
Mad Dog shrugged. “Thirty to sixty? I’ll leave that up to you.”
Banshee crossed her arms. “No. I don’t want to...” She looked around the room, and I noted her gaze stopped at Frost. I’d been pretty sure she had a thing for Frost, and this made me certain. However, if she was trying to force the issue so he’d claim her, she’d gone about it all wrong. When he just stared back, no offer of help, she finally looked to Mad Dog and said, “I’ve valued my time here. I like some of you more than others, and having to fuck whoever wants me isn’t working for me anymore, so I’ll leave.”
No one moved to stop her when she walked out. She didn’t live in the apartment complex, which would simplify things, I supposed. Also, now I knew for a fact they’d let someone walk out in a huff.
I also knew that, if she changed her mind, she’d have to bend over for that belting before she’d be allowed back in. She’d likely have to go to the dungeon below the spa for another weekend-long initiation train as well.
It wasn’t likely she’d be back though.
I don’t think she’d made it to her vehicle in the parking lot yet when Squatch bent another sweetbutt over the back of the sofa, rolled a condom on, and sank into her.
And then Bobcat dragged me to his apartment, bent me over the bed, and gave me the belting Squatch had wanted to give Banshee.
Could it get any better than this?
Chapter Thirty-Four
Bobcat
I’d taken Tessa to Chattanooga a few times on the weekends. She was close to Angelica, which didn’t surprise me at all. Two bloodthirsty bitches who won’t hesitate to eviscerate their enemies. Tess usually does it with the law, but still.
She also got along well with Gen and the rest of the ol’ladies, and I was relieved. I’m not sure why I’d been worried — Tess is a master at working a crowd. Any crowd.
The first time she’d met Viper, our resident rattlesnake, I’d seen their animals take note of each other. These two are big-time enemies in the wild, but they worked past it and were fine in the clubhouse.
So, now it was time to give her a prop vest, and I was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
We were a month away from the bikers moving back into their homes in the compound outside of town. I’d be moving in with Tessa when that happened though — she loved her house, and I had to admit it was the perfect property for a wolf. Scout had done fine hanging out in the control room during those times Tessa and I were both working, but he’d be so much happier in his yard when no one was home.
But would she accept my vest? Would she officially be an ol’lady? She already was in every way except the vest.
I waited until the weekend my Chattanooga brothers were visiting Birmingham to give it to her. We threw a huge-assed party, of course, and it seemed appropriate.
Our new clubhouse was built, and we had a local band come in for the party. I’d worked it out with the band so they knew what to play i
f she turned it down, and what to play if she asked me to put it on her.
She wore tight-assed jeans, tall black boots, and a tight little black shirt that showed every damned rib, and I couldn’t wait to peel those jeans off her later. I tossed her over my shoulder, made my way up onto the stage, and nodded to the lead singer before I settled my protesting love on her feet beside me. The guitar guy moved behind me, and I scented the leather even inside the box he was holding.
“You’re part of my life now, Tessa. There are so many ways to make it official, and I have a feeling the most important way for me isn’t going to be the most important way for you, so have some patience with me while I get through this.” I glanced at the room, everyone watching us, and looked back to my true love. Tall. Strong. Clear-eyed. The mongoose in woman form, and I loved her for it.
“I know you understand the importance of this because I overheard Angelica and Velvet explaining it to you. So, without any explanation that will just annoy you,” I took the box from the guitarist, turned back to Tessa, flipped the lid onto the stage, and held the box so she could see what was inside. “I’m offering to make you mine in ways I’ve never offered anyone before you.”
Without missing a beat, she lifted it, smelled it as if she were taking it into her very soul, and held towards me, “Please, will you put it on me?”
The entire room erupted in applause while I put it on her, bent her backwards, and kissed her breathless.
But I wasn’t finished yet. As I’d said — she and I likely had different symbols that meant we belonged to each other, and I intended to hit them both. I’d needed to make sure she’d accept the vest first, but since she had, I did something I never, ever intended to do again.
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