I tried not to gasp but didn’t succeed.
Buck didn’t hear me.
He was focused on his story, therefore, he kept sharing it.
“Even though they spouted a lot of shit about it bein’ a big ‘fuck you’ to the establishment, it was about money. I get it. Times were lean. But that shit was whacked. Drugs and guns? Fuck. That wasn’t the man my father taught me to be. That wasn’t the Club my father was in. That wasn’t the Club my grandfather and his brothers built, for it to end up with that kind of legacy.”
“What kind of man did your father teach you to be, growing up in an MC?” I asked quietly.
Buck’s focus shifted to me and it was piercing.
“The kinda man who’s loyal to his brothers, who’s willin’ to fight for his way of life. And yeah, that life isn’t what some think is normal. It’s a big step out of suburbia and soccer moms and desk jobs and wearin’ suits. But the people in it are good. Solid. Dependable.”
This was definitely my experience, so I nodded again.
Buck kept going.
“And Dad taught me to be a man who’s willin’ to put his ass out there to defend his MC. I can’t tell you everything Dad did was what’s considered legal. I can tell you he wasn’t playin’ any part in putting drugs and guns on the streets, and he didn’t crawl up the asses of shitheels that ruin lives. His MC did their business with people who made their own choices, and his MC played their own games by their own rules, and they didn’t make deals for the sole fuckin’ purpose of linin’ their pockets with cake.”
“But you didn’t get out of Aces.”
“No, I fuckin’ did not. This is my Club. My father’s Club. My grandfather’s Club. And these are my brothers. You earn your patch, babe, you don’t disagree, take it off and walk away. You suck it up and fight for the MC. That’s the kind of man my father taught me to be. And I got kids, kids I didn’t want goin’ off the rails and fuckin’ up their lives, growin’ up with that shit around them. Growin’ up with a dad who made that shit easier to find on the streets.”
“So you changed things,” I whispered.
“No, Toots, I didn’t,” he replied, and I felt my stomach twist.
“You didn’t?”
“Fuck no.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I didn’t. We did. My brothers did. We all did. I was a part of that, and it was my idea. But they only did it eventually.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s what you gotta know. I was a part of all that shit. I didn’t keep myself clean. I voted my vote, got voted down, then went the way of the vote. I did what the MC decided.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he whispered back.
“But—”
He cut me off. “That Club up in Denver my sister’s old man is in? Chaos?”
I nodded.
“Years ago, they went the same way. A bad way. Then they got a president who went balls to the wall to get them clean. It sucks, but even as it does, it doesn’t make it any less true, money makes the world go ’round. I learned from what my sister told me about Chaos. We needed to cover the money. That was what Chaos did. They had a garage and sold pot. Got deeper into shit. Same time they did that, this brother, the one who wanted them clean, started an auto supply store, built that up, built up the garage’s reputation, and boom. Brothers worked at something good and clean, could pay their mortgages, raise their families, live good lives. So I talked the men around. We opened the store. Built the contracting. And we covered the money.”
“You?” I asked.
“Yeah, like I said, it was my idea. Brought it to the men. Ink, Cruise, Gash, Riot, Chap, Lynch, Slate worked it with me. So, when I made my play to get the gavel, I got the vote. We started the shop. Store doin’ business, jobs piling up, money coming in, men having their place in all that, less time on their hands, responsibility to the others to keep things tight, we got our shit together. For Chaos, it got ugly. For us, I can’t say it was easy. Those ties, they bind, and I’m not sure you ever get loose. You gotta keep your rep up. You gotta make certain no one thinks they can fuck with you. That’s just the way of any MC. But when you start dealing with garbage, you got more to worry about. You sink in that, you never really get rid of the smell. It’s always threatening.”
The troubles in the Club.
This was what Minnie was talking about.
“So you don’t run protection for drug and gun runs,” I said softly.
“Nope, Aces took that hit. Unanimous decision in the Club. Unpopular out of it.”
“So it’s okay now?” I asked uncertainly.
“No, babe.” He shook his head. “It’s not. We still got heat and pressure to re-enter the game. And some think what we did was pussy. So there are constant turf wars, dickheads like Esposito leanin’ on us. It’s not okay. Every meet we have, we gotta vote about how to deal with some shit someone is shoveling. Sometimes it’s a pain, members of another MC talkin’ smack to an Ace out at some bar, thinkin’ they can rile us with disrespect just because they’re bored, stupid or both. Dumb shit we don’t bother with because it isn’t worth the effort. Other times, it’s a pain in the ass because it’s a situation that requires handling. Carefully. But bottom line is, the shop and the jobs have to produce. Each month’s split has to be worth it. Because not a single brother has forgotten what used to be. They remember it as easy money. Some of them forget, not only was it dirty, it was also a lot of other things.”
“Buck,” I whispered, not believing all he was telling me, not believing he hadn’t shared this with me, not believing he could deal with all my problems, his kids’ problems and all of this swirling around him.
Constantly.
“The good life comes with money, babe, it’s just the way it is.”
This was true.
Rogan, in his way, did the same thing.
It was also false.
“Depends on what you consider a good life, honey,” I told him, and he stared up at me.
Then he whispered, “Yeah.”
“Can I ask why, you telling me that, you’d think I’d look at you differently?”
“Babe, I was a part a’ that shit. It didn’t last decades, but it did last a few years.”
“Okay, but you aren’t now.”
“Yeah, but I was.”
“And you aren’t now. And you’re keeping the Club clean.”
“That shit bought me my house, Toots. The one you live in. It bought me my bed. The one you sleep in. You gotta know that.”
“Okay, now I know it.”
He stared at me again and kept at it.
“Clara, you’re fuckin’ a man like the man you used to be fuckin’.”
My body grew taut, and I snapped, “I am not.”
“Any day, any meet, the vote might not go my way, and we’re back in that.”
“The vote will always go your way,” I told him.
He shook his head. “No, babe, shit can happen, and that vote can swing.”
“It won’t.”
“Toots, it will. I swung it and it can swing right back.”
“You won’t let it and your boys won’t go there. Not unless you lead them there and you won’t do that.”
“You don’t understand the Club. Or maybe any Club.”
“No, but I know those men and I know you. When I walked into this building two months ago, I knew exactly who you were before I knew who you were. There are men and there are leaders of men. Your father was a leader and he taught you to be one too. I have not met another member of Aces who has what it takes to be a leader. You were able to take over this MC because you have what it takes to take over this MC. And your boys know that even better than me.”
“Toots—” he started, but I kept talking right over him.
“There might be conflict and the only thing that cuts through conflict is someone who isn’t conflicted. You know who you are, and you’ve always known who you were meant
to be. You are not conflicted about your path or where you wanted to lead your Club. And others are drawn to a man with vision. Your members sense that and they’ll follow your vision.”
“Clara—”
I kept right on talking over him.
“Is that why Kristy and you split up? Because she liked the life that stuff could give her, and she knew you intended to cut it off?”
“Partially. Mostly it was that I didn’t used to have to work all that often, she had my attention when she wanted it, and I was around more often to take care of shit at home. And when I had to work, at the store, in the workshop, out on jobs, and I wasn’t home all the time, especially when it came to lookin’ after the kids so she couldn’t go off and do whatever it was she wanted to do, she wasn’t down with that.”
My eyes narrowed as I snapped, “What a bitch!”
“Babe—”
“So she was okay with the Club running drugs?”
“Can’t say I shared all the Club’s business with her, but she was okay drivin’ a Corvette to go meet her girls for lunch and then hitting the mall for a shopping spree. Bitch had so many clothes, I had to keep mine in Gear’s closet. What she was not okay with was me makin’ waves, not in the Club, not to her life. There was a spell, didn’t last long, but it was there, when money didn’t flow as steady as it had before. We had to tighten things up. She wasn’t a fan of that. She liked her life just as it was. Maybe, if some outside force had changed it, she would have learned how to deal. The fact that I had an active hand in changing it did not make her happy.”
“So she’s actually a weak, risk-fearing bitch that’s down with living it up on dirty money but who was not down with standing by her man not only as who he was, but who he wanted to be.”
Buck stared at me yet again.
This time, his lips twitched while he did it.
Then he said, “Somethin’ like that, yeah.”
“How on earth did you hook up with her anyway?” I snapped.
“Babe, she’s got a great ass,” he told me then added, “Or she did.”
I rolled my eyes then rolled them back to him to see he was full-on grinning. “Even so, a bitch is a bitch.”
“Clara, honey, I was nineteen, I just lost my dad, a year later I lost my mom and my sister. I cut my brother out of my life. I was away from my people. She had a great ass, she gave great head, I was young, stupid and my brain was in my dick half the time. And when she’s happy, gettin’ what she wants, she’s not a bitch. It’s only when she doesn’t get her way that she is.”
“Still,” I muttered, and he chuckled.
I looked down at him and felt the warmth from his body, sensed the power of it and realized, belatedly, that he’d been worried about what I would think about him and the life he’d led. And this was likely the reason he didn’t share it with me.
I wasn’t a risk taker. I made my moves cautiously, every step measured and filled with anxiety (until recently).
But I knew then—lying in Buck’s bed in Buck’s room in Buck’s MC’s hangout—that some risks were worth taking.
So I didn’t measure my next step, and I didn’t move cautiously.
I let go and prayed life would take me where I needed to be.
Doing this, I dropped my head and kissed his throat.
Leaving my lips there, I whispered, “Nothing you do, nothing you’ve done and nothing you’ll ever do will make me look at you differently.”
I felt his body turn to stone, but I still slid on top of it, running my lips down to his chest as his hands came up and sifted into my hair.
While this happened, I kept talking.
“I was as low as I could go with no way out, and you taught me to play pool, you gave me a hamburger, you made me laugh, and then you offered me a way out.”
“Baby,” he murmured, doing an ab curl, lifting us both up so I was straddling him and looking down at him.
His eyes were heated, but they closed when I pushed a hand between us and wrapped it around his cock.
“I know the kind of man you are, West Hardy,” I whispered, and his eyes opened. Blazing now, they locked on mine. “Or I know who you are to me.”
I stroked as I spoke and felt him harden in my hand. His hands glided along my skin and he dropped his head so his lips could do the same at my chest.
I kept stroking but slid the tip through the wetness between my legs, and I felt his growl against my skin as he cupped my breasts, the rough pads of his thumbs sliding across my nipples and that felt nice.
I wrapped my other arm around his shoulders and kept whispering, “And that man is my man, West.”
He tipped his head back and looked at me.
“You about to fuck your man, baby?”
“Oh yeah,” I whispered, grinning.
“Do me a favor, Toots.”
“Anything.”
One of his hands left my breast to cup the back of my head, bringing my lips to his.
“Do it hard,” he ordered low, then his mouth opened under mine, and as his tongue thrust between my lips, my hand between us moved away, and I impaled myself on his cock.
I commenced doing the favor he asked for, doing myself a favor in return.
It was after I’d come, and he’d come. I was holding tight with my arms around him. I was still seated on him, and he was still hard and seated deep inside me. His hands were at my hips but back, his fingers pressing into the flesh of my behind. My breaths were heavy against his neck where I’d shoved my face and I could feel his against mine.
And I realized that despair I’d carried in my belly all my life was gone—gone completely—and my world was just as I wanted it to be.
There were issues. There were worries. And some of them were huge.
But life was life.
There always would be.
But my life. My real. My now. My world.
Was solid.
For the first time ever.
Because Buck made it that way.
Because Buck gave that to me.
I was about to tell him that, thank him for it, and lastly, and most importantly, tell him I loved him, when the door opened suddenly, crashing against the wall.
Buck’s head snapped up, and my neck twisted.
And I stared in shocked disbelief mixed with no small amount of embarrassment, despair, and last, anger, at Nails standing in the door.
26
I Like It Like That
“Get the fuck outta here,” Buck growled as I tensed to move away.
He didn’t let me.
The fingers of one of his hands dug into my hip, putting pressure on, keeping me where I was, sitting astride and filled with him.
But his other hand moved out and swept the sheet up to my waist and his torso pressed against mine even as his eyes skewered Nails.
She ignored his order and listed into the room.
“Wanna party, baby?” she slurred.
Oh no.
It was even worse than it seemed, and already, it was bad.
Heart-breakingly bad.
Mortifyingly bad.
Unbelievably bad.
This bad being Buck’s other woman walking in the second before I was going to confess my love for him.
And the thing making it worse, she was hammered.
“I said…get…the fuck…out.” Buck was still growling.
She slipped to the side, her feet crossing over to right herself, and her eyes were hazy, but still, she managed to glue them to Buck.
“She’s too straight, hunnnee,” she mumbled. “You wanna party, I’ll call Nonna. You like it like that. Nonna and me, we’ll give you a pah…” she leaned forward, “tee.”
She stumbled with her lean, her hand flying out and touching the bed.
My eyes narrowed on her hand on the bed.
Oh no.
Hell no.
No to her touching my man’s bed, not with me in it. I had to put up with knowing that stuff, I sure as hell di
dn’t have to put up with seeing it.
I jumped off Buck, taking the sheet with me. Standing at the side of the bed, I wrapped it around me and bent, snatching up my panties.
I felt Buck come out of bed with me and saw his jeans disappear from the floor.
“Woman,” he was still growling, “you turn your ass around and walk out, or I put you out, and you’re shitfaced, but I think you get me when I say, I gotta put you out, that means you…are…out.” He paused before finishing, “Permanently.”
I shimmied the undies up under the sheet, but my attention returned to see Buck buttoning his fly and noticing that Nails had straightened, but her torso was circling.
“You won’t put me out,” she whispered on a drunken, come-on smile.
“You don’t move to the door, you’ll see,” Buck warned low.
“Baby,” her lids hooded, and the word was an insinuation, one that wasn’t lost on me, “we both know you don’t wanna put me out.”
Oh God.
My stomach clutched as I bent and quickly gathered the rest of my clothes.
And Buck moved.
I didn’t watch to see what he did, not this time. I clasped my clothes to my chest and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door.
I was dressed and back in a now-empty room sitting on the side of the bed, my socks up, pulling on a boot when Buck stormed back in from wherever he’d taken Nails.
I glanced up at him, seeing he did whatever he did wearing only his jeans, then I looked back down at my boot and yanked up the zip.
“Babe—”
“No!” I cut him off, shaking my head and pulling on my other boot. “No, we’re not talking about this. This didn’t happen. You enjoy your party. Have fun. Do whatever it is you need to do. I just don’t want to know. I’m going back to your house.”
“She’s trashed and that made her stupid and now she’s no longer a problem,” Buck stated.
“Whatever. I ask no questions, you tell no lies. But part of what I get is not having to discuss this,” I muttered.
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