by Eve R. Hart
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
CHAPTER ONE Loch
CHAPTER TWO Reagan
CHAPTER THREE Loch
CHAPTER FOUR Reagan
CHAPTER FIVE Loch
CHAPTER SIX Reagan
CHAPTER SEVEN Loch
CHAPTER EIGHT Reagan
CHAPTER NINE Loch
CHAPTER TEN Reagan
CHAPTER ELEVEN Loch
CHAPTER TWELVE Reagan
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Loch
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Reagan
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Loch
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Reagan
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Loch
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Reagan
CHAPTER NINETEEN Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY Reagan
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Regan
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Reagan
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Reagan
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Reagan
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Loch
CHAPTER THIRTY Reagan
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Loch
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Reagan
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Loch
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About The Author
Find Her
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
CHAPTER ONE Loch
CHAPTER TWO Reagan
CHAPTER THREE Loch
CHAPTER FOUR Reagan
CHAPTER FIVE Loch
CHAPTER SIX Reagan
CHAPTER SEVEN Loch
CHAPTER EIGHT Reagan
CHAPTER NINE Loch
CHAPTER TEN Reagan
CHAPTER ELEVEN Loch
CHAPTER TWELVE Reagan
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Loch
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Reagan
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Loch
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Reagan
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Loch
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Reagan
CHAPTER NINETEEN Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY Reagan
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Regan
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Reagan
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Reagan
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Loch
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Reagan
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Loch
CHAPTER THIRTY Reagan
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Loch
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Reagan
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Loch
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About The Author
Find Her
Loch
A Steel Paragons MC Novel
By Eve R. Hart
Copyright © 2017 Eve R. Hart
All right reserved.
The scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof my not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writers imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is purely coincidental.
Warning: This book is intended for readers 18 years and older. This book contains violence, harsh language, and explicit sex scenes.
Trigger warning: This book contains a graphic depiction of sexual assault.
Cover image credit Shutterstock.com/andreasgradin
For Jon— My rock. My love. And the heart of every word I write.
Prologue
Reagan
How did I get here?
That was the very question that I kept asking myself over and over as I drove across the fucking country, again. But this time I was driving like a bat outta Hell. Stopping only long enough to refuel, eat, and take a cat nap in my car. All the while, hoping no one took a long enough look at my face.
So what was it that led me here?
I wished I had all the answers. But then again, it wouldn’t have changed anything. It wasn’t like I could go back and redo the past. I wasn’t sure what kind of shit I had done in a past life, or what God I must have angered, but life was just never easy. Not that I would ever complain, but come on, a little break at some point would have been fucking nice.
Maybe I should go back to the beginning, all the crappy things that paved the road to this point.
My life had always been a blur of random towns and faces. My mom never liked to stay in one place for very long. It seemed that she would get restless or the random man that she had dug her claws in would get tired of her. Then we were off again.
New town, new man.
Let me just say, school and friends were always a struggle for me. The longest I had stayed in one place was three months. And even then, I was the weird kid that nobody wanted to befriend. I never felt wanted anywhere. Not by my mother, not by her many boyfriends. Unless I was a little too wanted by them, that was. Luckily for me, that line was never crossed with all those nameless faces. Still, it made for many long days of hiding out in my room.
I learned quickly to recognize that look from men. The first time I remembered my hair standing on end was when I was six. Mom had been with some guy for two weeks. I couldn’t even remember his name, just that he had dark hair, a thick mustache and he smelled like stale beer. I was sitting on the couch watching cartoons in my pajamas. He flopped down beside me, beer bottle in his hand, and narrowed his eyes at me. I cut my eyes over at him to see him licking his lips before smirking. I felt everything throughout my body freeze. When he made a weird, deep sound in the back of his throat, I jumped off the couch and ran to my room. And that was where I learned to stay.
The only time I ever felt at home was when my mom would drop me off at my grandmother’s house. It was usually for only a week or two, and then mom would come drag me away again. Nan, as I called my grandma, was always lively and full of fire. She would say that age was just a number and there was no reason anyone should let that slow them down. My grandpa passed away before I was even around. After he was gone, Nan made sure to keep her social calendar full at all times. I often wondered if it was her way of escaping the reality that he was no longer there. However, when I was in town, she would stop everything and make the world about me.
At seventeen, mom threw a couple of bucks at me and told me I was on my own. I remembered standing there, outside of a dingy motel in complete shock. My jaw hung open as I watched her drive away with the car packed full of only her belongings. To say she was a crappy mother would have been an understatement. The owner of the motel took pity on me and gave me a job. He let me stay in a room for a discounted price and took the payment out of my wages. Which didn’t leave me with much after. But it was enough to get by on.
After working there for a year, I bought a bus ticket and headed to Nan’s to get my head straight. She took me in with open arms. A month later, I told her I had to go try and make it on my own. She gave me the keys to her nineteen-ninety-something Toyota Corolla and an envelope full of cash. She told me she expected to see me more often after I got on my feet. She also made sure I knew I always had a home there.
> I drove across the country trying to find a place that “felt right”. Two years went by in a blur of random places, much like my childhood had. Right outside of Seattle I decided to give up and make a go of it. I found a job at Ruben’s Diner working nights. Most of the time it was truckers passing through looking for a bit of comfort food. I’d had my fair share of working in sketchy places. I had no expectations about this place being any different. However, it wasn’t that bad. Most of the truckers were just tired and looking for a bright smile or someone to listen to them for a few minutes. The married ones would talk about how they missed their spouse and kids. They would tell stories and smile wistfully. Sometimes, it would pull at my heartstrings. I wondered if I would ever find someone that got lost in thoughts of me the way those men did.
Don’t get me wrong, I would get a few grabby, dirty customers a week. But luckily for me, Bruce the cook was always there to break a few fingers if need be. With his six foot frame and nearly three hundred pound girth, I never felt I had to worry.
I decided to give community college a try. But my mind was too restless and I failed out halfway through my first semester. I had a trouble making it to class on time and when I was there I couldn’t pay enough attention to grasp anything. It had nothing to do with me being smart enough. Because I was. I simply lacked discipline. I decided that staying in one place long enough to learn people’s names was enough of an achievement for the time.
I found someone looking for a roommate and put down some roots. The place was a two bedroom not far from the diner. It didn’t have much, but at least I didn’t have to scare the roaches away before I crawled into bed. Liz, my roommate, was pretty awesome. Liz and I became fast friends and spent most of our free time together. A year after we were living together, she helped me get a decent job as a head receptionist. It was at the law office she worked at as a secretary. Most everyone there was pleasant, even if they were a little intense at times.
Everything was perfect until Liz met Lance. He smelled like money and lots of expensive cologne. Every time he would leave the apartment, that smell would linger for hours. At first, he was nice and seemed really interested in Liz. But then something changed, and I recognized that look he started giving to me. Needless to say, I limited my time with them and started hiding away in my room when he was around.
We’d been roommates for three years and she had been dating Lance for six months. I came home from work, ready for our girls’ night out for my twenty-third birthday, to a scene that would change everything forever. In just a matter of a few seconds, my stable life began to crumble and I was on the road again.
My legs were moving, carrying me out of the apartment before my brain even had a chance to process what was going on. I had my purse still on my arm, keys in my hand, four-inch heels still holding in my aching feet. I barely made it to my car, shaking as I tried to jab the key in the ignition. I reversed, not even looking at what was behind me. I drove away leaving everything behind. It wasn’t like I had anything that mattered anyway. No childhood mementos. No happy pictures to look back and reminisce about. No money stashed away under my mattress. Everything I owned could eventually be replaced without a second thought. I tossed my cell phone out the window before I turned onto the highway. It may have been me being a bit paranoid, but I didn’t want there be any way for someone to track me.
The destination? The only place I’d ever felt safe and welcomed.
CHAPTER ONE
Loch
The heat blazed all around me as I pulled up to the clubhouse. Flicking the kickstand down, I wiped my brow with the back of my hand. Seemed everyone else was feeling the heat too. Usually, you’d find a few of the guys hanging around the front doors, smoking and talking. Today it was empty. I pulled open the heavy metal door and was gifted with a blast of cold air. I made my way past the bar and headed for Cal’s office, giving a few chin lifts to my brothers as I passed. Seeing that the door was closed, I gave two hefty taps and waited.
“Give me five!” Cal yelled from the other side. He sounded a bit winded and I had no doubt what was going on behind that closed door. I huffed out a laugh.
“I’ll be at the bar,” I called out before making my way back down the hall. I grabbed a beer and planted my ass on a stool in the middle of the bar.
Moments later, one of the club girls came walking down the hall away from Cal’s office. Her lips were swollen and she was slightly moving her jaw from side to side as if she was working out the soreness. Taking a sip of my beer, I decided to give him a few more minutes to get himself together.
There were four chapters of the Steel Paragons Motorcycle Club. We were spread out over three states. One in the middle of South Carolina. Two in Tennessee. And then us. Lost somewhere in North Carolina where the foothills threatened to turn into mountains. We were the head chapter. The club was started years before my time by Cal’s dad. We all took turns running guns in from the coast. Then we would switch off and another chapter would make the runs outward to where they were going. Most of the time we delivered further south. A few times we made runs to the Midwest. We were pretty much the middleman, taking a decent cut to do the dirty work.
The clubhouse was pretty big considering it was in such a small town. The front opened up to the bar and lounge area. We had three pool tables and two large TVs on opposite sides of the back wall. Painted on the wall between the TVs was the Steel Paragons insignia. A bike made to look like a suit of armor with blue flames flying behind it. Couches scattered about the empty area in the middle.
On the opposite side of the wall that made up the back of the bar was a large open kitchen and long cafeteria style tables. Nothing fancy, but we didn’t give a shit about that.
There were two separate halls that held rows of single rooms. Most of which had a bathroom in them. The rooms were big enough for a bed, a desk, and if you were lucky, a small dresser. Wedged between the front of those halls there were the two most important rooms. Church and Cal’s office.
The club girls that lived at the compound also had their own space. Off of the kitchen was a square room that held a smaller lounge area. Along the wall, there were eight rooms. They had a communal bathroom with three showers and all the counter space a girl could ever dream of.
For most of us, the clubhouse was home. While I had my own house, I had a room there that I would often crash in.
“What’s goin’ on, brother?” Diesel said, plopping down on the stool beside me. I looked over at him and shrugged.
His black hair covered one of his eyes. The sides cut short but the top was left long and unruly. With all his piercings and ice blue eyes, he looked more like a rock star than a biker. He had been the clubs enforcer for three years. Although he was barely twenty-seven, he’d been through enough shit in his life to know how to handle his job well.
“Shit’s gettin’ a little stale around here,” his eyes skimming around the room and the club girls. “Thinkin’ of taking a trip to see the boys in Tennessee next weekend. What d’ya say?” I took a long pull of my beer while eyeing him. Truth was, club girls were club girls, didn’t really matter what city or state they were in.
Don’t get me wrong, they all had been useful at many times and in many occasions. But there came a time they became all the same, a few moments of pleasure and release. And when it was over and you went on with your day. Most of the time it didn’t matter which one it was, as long as they were on your dick in some way.
However, a change of scenery sounded nice. Things were calm with the club at the moment. The runs had been going smoothly and we were in a bit of a lull in between deliveries. The bar I ran was doing alright and I had no worries about leaving Chris, my only employee, to handle it for a few days.
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll run it by Cal in a bit.” I finished off my beer and set the bottle down on the counter. That was the moment Cal came walking out of the back scratching his chin under his burly beard.
“He tryin’ to rope you into g
oin’ to Tennessee?” Cal asked shaking his head. “Don’t understand why. Got plenty of pussy here. You think it’s gonna be any different there?”
“I’m gettin’ bored with the same old shit, prez. Maybe it will be same old shit there, but at least it will look a little different,” Diesel said giving a little shrug. Cal threw his head back laughing. It echoed through the room as his big belly shook.
“Fine, boy. Go for a few days. Just wait ‘til Friday. Got a lot at the shop to take care of. Had three cars dropped off this mornin’, and still tryin’ to get Mr. Grady’s Oldsmobile up and runnin’.” Cal’s meaty hand slapped down on the bar top. Diesel gave a nod in response. “Take a few of the boys with you, keep your ass out of trouble.” His tone was joking and I chuckled under my breath.
“Thanks, prez. Oh, Loch, trucks fixed and it’s out back. Keys are in it,” Diesel said, sliding off the stool and walking away.