by Blair Grey
HARLEY: AN MC ROMANCE
The Steel Wings MC – Book #4
By Blair Grey
Copyright © 2019 by Blair Grey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Chapter 1
Harley
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I stopped, putting my hands on my hips and breathing deeply. My chest heaved up and down as I caught my breath, the sweat running down my forehead and back. My shirt stuck to me in several places, the wetness showing under the arms and across the stomach.
I wasn’t sure why I put myself through the torture of running, but it was something I tried to do at least a couple times per week. It felt good to get the heart pumping and the blood flowing through my veins, and since I didn’t have any particular fitness goal in mind, I merely ran until I didn’t feel like running anymore.
At twenty-nine years old, I was a big guy. Built like a quarterback with a lot of meat on my bones, I loved beer and I loved food. I was a huge fan of indulging in both often, and I didn’t have a problem maintaining my physique in the process.
I wasn’t fat by any means. I was big. I had muscle. I was tattooed, and I maintained a don’t-give-a-damn attitude about most things in life. Largely, because I didn’t. I lived my life the way I saw fit. I didn’t get involved in drama or too invested in anything I didn’t want to do.
In my early twenties, I joined a motorcycle club and never looked back.
My life hadn’t been much before the club. I wasn’t doing much with my time, I was miserable, and I really couldn’t say that I had much to live for. I was a deadbeat, and I wasn’t going anywhere in life. It was misery at its finest, that was for damn sure.
I likely wasn’t going to last long that way, but I didn’t care. I had no drive. I didn’t have any sort of sense of belonging to anyone or anything, and I wasn’t doing much to break out of that life, either.
But, when I heard about the Steel Wings, I was interested. And, the more I learned about the club, the more intrigued I became. By the time I’d turned twenty-three, I was a fully patched in member, and my life was dedicated to the service of the club.
The club came first for everything. I lived, breathed, gave my life to the cause, and I was happy to do it, too. Each passing year I was part of the MC, the more dedicated I became to it.
And, I was proud.
But, even being part of such a tight group, my life still wasn’t entirely perfect. I couldn’t find my entire fulfillment with those men, and there were still times in my life when I was lonely. I had needs that couldn’t be met spending most of my time with a group of men, and tonight, I fully intended to find company that would satisfy me in ways the guys did not.
Sure, being part of the club came with its perks. There were plenty of women who would be more than happy to spend the night with me if I so chose. All I had to do was head down to the bar and find someone who wasn’t busy with another member that night.
Sheep, as these women were called, simply because they were more than willing to spend their time and spread their legs for any man in the Steel Wings. They didn’t pick favorites, and they didn’t differentiate among us. If they weren’t spending the night with one, they were more than happy to spend the night with another, free for the taking.
Some of the men in the MC – both the President, Jett, and the Vice President, Blade, had settled down with old ladies of their own. Then, a few other members had also found their partners in life – one of my closer friends, Ryder, in fact, had finally settled down with the woman he’d had his eyes on for years.
Love had been in the air for several members recently, but I wasn’t exactly the sort of guy who was cut out to settle down. I liked the company of a woman, sure, but I didn’t really need one on a daily basis, so I’d never really set out to meet someone with any real meaning behind what we were doing.
Tonight, however, I was in the mood for something more than just the standard hookup that would come with finding an available sheep down at the bar. There just wasn’t any excitement that came with the thought of doing something like that.
I knew the sheep in the club. None of them were members. Hell, they couldn’t be, really, with the rules of the club. There weren’t any female members. That’s the way it had always been, and that’s the way it would always be. But, there were still plenty of women who were dedicated to the MC and the men who were in it.
They were willing to do anything and everything that was asked of them, and the benefit of it all was that they were entirely free for the taking. They came without a cost and with no strings attached, and certainly without the risk of developing feelings.
Oh, they might fall for me or any other member in the club, but they all knew better than to make their feelings known to anyone. If someone in the club happened to reciprocate the feeling, so be it, but that certainly wasn’t the norm for anyone involved.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be. After all, even those who did commit to someone in the club were still expected to be passed from member to member if anyone wanted them. And, we were all okay with it.
But, that sort of life did come with its fair share of setbacks. After all, with so much sex happening among the women without much hesitation behind it, well, that didn’t exactly lead to cleanliness in the sack. I had to be really careful when it came to the women I’d hook up with when I was in the mood for a romp in bed.
I’d made it to almost thirty without catching anything so far, and I intended to maintain that status. I had enough on my plate to deal with – an STD wasn’t something I wanted to add to the mix.
I headed home and showered, my mind wandering from option to option. I didn’t want a sheep, I’d decided that, but I did want a woman. But, I wasn’t in the mood to go out and try to make a connection with someone at the bar. For starters, I knew it was going to be hard to make it around the sheep in the first place, and I didn’t want to try to hook up with some girl I met at a random bar around town.
No, I was going to have to find someone to deliberately spend the night with, but I would ideally find someone intelligent, charming, and on the same page as I was. Someone willing to spend the night with me without any sort of strings attached, but someone I knew was clean and capable of holding an intelligent conversation with me along the way.
A friend of mine had told me about a website he used when he was looking for that sort of company for the night, and though I’d merely slipped the piece of paper in my wallet without a second thought at the time, I now decided to take a look at the platform and see what it had to offer.
I pulled out my computer, sitting back without a lot of expectation as the site loaded. I signed up for a profile, not at all minding I had to pay a fee to do it. The sites that were more legitimate often required a profile along with the credit card, and I was fine with that.
Once I was in, I was pleasantly surprised with what I found.
There were pages upon pages of women, all looking clean and happy, charming and beautiful. I could filter through the images based on age and body type, as well as what I was looking for for the night.
I already knew what I wanted. Someone to chat with for a while, someone to fuck when the time came, and someone I could count on leaving me alone when morning came, moving on with our lives as though nothing had happened in the first place.
It would work perfectly, with both of us knowing what was going on from the beginning, and I could get through it without having to worry about seeing the girl again after the fact.
It took me a while to flip through the p
ages. There were a lot of women to choose from, and I wanted to take my time to find just the right girl. Even though I was paying for the services of a woman that night, and I knew it wasn’t going to lead to anything more, I wanted to still make a good choice for the night.
It wasn’t often that I would do something like this, and that meant I was going to make it worth my time. I wasn’t often interested in just having a quick fuck, so tonight, if I was going to put effort into finding someone to have some sort of connection with, I was going to find someone I was also attracted to, as well.
Without anyone jumping off the first or second pages, I began to wonder if I would find anyone I’d want to spend the night with that evening. There were certainly options, but even with the minimal standards I had, I still wanted to make the right decision.
If I was paying for it, I really wanted to make it worth the time and effort I was putting forth.
But, it wasn’t until the third page I found the one. She was a stunning BBW, a woman who was six years younger than myself, but one who caught my eye almost immediately. There was something enchanting about her smile, and the way she gazed into the camera made me believe she was feeling a connection already, as though she felt something as she smiled.
She was the one – there wasn’t any doubt in my mind about that. Her profile was brief, but charming, and she looked like the kind of girl I could get along with. I knew it was meant to be brief, but there was something about that smile that told me it would be worth my time.
This girl might be just another profile among the rest, and I might be just another client in her long list of people to spend time with during the week, but I felt good about the choice.
As I sent the message to set up the time and place to meet, I smiled.
This might be a pretty good idea, after all.
Chapter 2
Paisley
I swirled the drink in my glass, looking down into the light green liquid and trying not to think. It was strange, sitting in this bar drinking a green apple martini. But, the bartender suggested it, and I didn’t have anything else to do.
It wasn’t my idea to be in this hotel, and it wasn’t my idea to be here alone, either. I hated that my mind kept wandering back to Shade, my boyfriend. Or, was he even my boyfriend anymore? I wondered. I wasn’t sure.
Things hadn’t been great between us, to put it mildly, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I wasn’t sure about much of anything anymore. I was more going through the motions and just getting through one day to the next.
I hated to think about what my life had become. I hated to think about how hard it was for me to just walk away from Shade. I hated that I didn’t know where I stood with him and how much that was driving me crazy. It wasn’t as though I wanted to be with him. But at the same time, I did.
We had been dating for a few years now. Hell, it was getting closer to four. We had met in college, and at first, I thought he was the best thing on the planet. He seemed to have everything going for him, and I desperately wanted to be part of his world.
He was smart, charming, easy to get along with, and he could control an entire room with little more than a smile and a nod to the people who were in it. He was a master manipulator, and he made it seem to me like that was the most perfect thing to be.
The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to be with him. I became infatuated, willing to do just about anything just to be with him. Slowly, I started giving up one thing after another. I dropped out of my classes; I stopped making new friends.
I stopped hanging out with the friends that I had made, and whenever I questioned it, Shade managed to convince me I was being selfish or crazy for thinking that there could be anyone else out there who would want to be with me as much as he did.
Of course, at the time, I had been so flattered with the idea of him wanting to be with me, I’d lost sight of myself. I grew insecure in my beauty, thinking that I had to stay skinny if I was going to be attractive.
As I gained the typical weight that came with the first year of college, instead of gaining a newfound confidence as I slipped into adulthood, I found myself getting more and more embarrassed over myself. I hated that I felt that way, but it didn’t seem anyone would be able to help me through it.
I ignored the advice of my girlfriends, not breaking up with Shade when I should have, long before it got even worse. I refused to listen to them when they told me to appreciate my own beauty. Instead, I believed the lies my boyfriend was telling me – I believed him when he said no one else would ever want me, that no one wanted a girl with some extra weight on her bones.
Even now, I felt torn inside. I wanted Shade to love me. I wanted him to look at me and think I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. I wanted him to admire me more than anyone else in the world. And, there were times when I was sure he did.
But, most of the time, I didn’t feel adequate. I didn’t feel like I was quite right for one reason or another, and I didn’t know if there was any chance of me ever being the girl he said I should be.
And, while I couldn’t even understand it myself, there was something in me that drove me to do better for him. I didn’t care what he wanted from me – I would do it to try to make him happy. If that meant that I ate less, I would do it. But then he would tell me that he thought I was trying to lose weight to impress other men, so I’d stop.
If he wanted me to work more, I’d do it. But, he didn’t want me making too much money, either. He wanted me to need him, and I hated that I did. I wanted to be with him because he was the one I wanted, and he wanted me. But, that wasn’t the case.
It seemed like the longer we were together, the more we ended up hating each other. And the more trapped in this life I felt. I didn’t think there was anything I could do that was right, and I just wanted it all to end.
There were times when I thought about packing my things and getting out of there. I didn’t know where I would go or what I would do to get there, but I wanted to just leave it all behind. I knew it wasn’t possible. Shade knew everyone in every state, it seemed.
He would be after me like his own life depended on it, and I knew if he caught me, it would be the end of me.
As much as I wanted to believe he’d never really hurt me, I knew that was a lie, just like so many other things that came to light when Shade was involved.
We’d been together a couple years before the physical abuse began. But, when it did, it started fast and progressed even faster. Growing up, I’d always told myself I wasn’t ever going to be with someone who put his hands on me. But, by the time it got to that point with Shade, I was too far in to back out easily.
I was more stuck in the relationship than I thought possible, and I didn’t see any way out. Growing up, I always told myself I would only be with a man who treated me like a queen. I didn’t have the time or the energy to dedicate myself to someone who didn’t treat me like I was queen of the world.
But, life proved to be a lot different than what I had expected. For as much as I thought I would spend my life only with those who made me feel like I mattered, I really ended up trapped with a guy who did just the opposite.
I felt stuck in more ways than one. I felt not only trapped because of the fact I had to rely on Shade for most things, but I also felt trapped in the sense I loved him. Well, I thought I might love him, anyway. I wasn’t so sure anymore. There was something about him that still held my heart, even if I wasn’t quite sure what it was.
Perhaps there was still part of me that felt I could save him from himself. I knew the choices he was making was only going to lead to pain and suffering. I knew he was walking a dangerous path that was bound to end poorly. And more than anything, I wanted to protect him from that.
It killed me to think that he was going to end up in trouble. In one way or another, he was going to cross the wrong person at the wrong time. I knew the kind of men he ran with weren’t the kind of men who would overlook something he had don
e to them.
No, I knew he was constantly flirting with danger.
And, I knew something had gone wrong.
I wasn’t sure what it was, really. I just knew he was upset about something, and he all but blamed me for it. The night had started like so many others. I was at the apartment, browsing the internet for some sort of job I could do that wouldn’t upset Shade too much.
He didn’t want me to have a job. He really didn’t want me to have friends. And, any time I acted as though I was interested in finding either, it was Hell to pay all over again.
It was easier for me to just go along with what Shade said and hope for the best as I did so. He had gotten violent with me more than once, and I didn’t want to push him too far. I didn’t want to think about what might happen if I did. I didn’t want to think about where that could end or what it might mean for me.
All I wanted was to be happy, and I wasn’t with Shade. But, I knew things could get better. I knew with time and with the right attitude from both of us, we could make things better between us.
If Shade was just willing to work with me and be there for me, then I knew things were going to be okay.
But, deep down inside, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to happen.
As I sipped on the drink in my hand and looked around the hotel lobby, I didn’t know what to think. I’d been there for three days, and I hadn’t heard from Shade at all, let alone seen him. He had brought me here a few nights before, dragging me through the hall and right up to our room, throwing open the door and throwing me on the bed before locking it behind him.
He’d threatened me that night, telling me he was going to be gone for a few days, but I wasn’t to leave the hotel, no matter what. I was to stay there, and if I were to so much as step foot outside those doors, he was going to kill me himself.
Shade looked scared, but he never once told me what I might have done that made him so upset. He kept telling me that it was all my fault, and he was going to have to fix things now. He kept telling me that I was going to have to really work hard to get back on his good side after this, but he never told me what it was I had done.