by Lilly Atlas
Striker held the medical supplies tucked under one tattooed arm, and was tapping his fingers against it as he paced in front of the door. He jerked it open and ushered her out before relieving her of the keys and locking the door behind them. Jester led the group down the concrete driveway toward the bikes that sat at the end, near the dark and deserted road.
“I’ll follow you in my car,” she said.
“No, we’ll take my bike. It’s faster, and then there is no risk of your car being seen anywhere it shouldn’t be.”
As he spoke he strapped her first aid kit quickly to the back of the bike, and pulled her purse from her shoulder, stowing it in his saddlebag. Lila hesitated at his declaration. What the hell was she getting herself into?
Striker didn’t give her any time to try and answer her own question. With a grin, he thrust a glossy black helmet her way. “Ever ridden before?’
“No, never.” She didn’t bother to tell him they called them donor cycles at the hospital. She was able to remain calm at the idea of walking into an unknown medical emergency, she did it all the time, but her heart rate kicked up at the idea of riding on a motorcycle.
“Just hold on tight and relax, try to lean with me if you can, though the holding on tight is the key. I’m gonna be going pretty fast.” He winked as he secured his own helmet.
Lila nodded and shoved the helmet down over her hair. She reached for the clasp only to have her hands brushed away. Striker was so close to her that Lila smelled him with each breath, leather, cigar smoke, and…man. It was an intoxicating combination, and she wished she could lean in, press her nose to his neck, and inhale him.
The strap was too long and he had to adjust it to fit her face. “Thank you for this, Lila,” he said, as he worked to shorten the strap. “I’m sure this isn’t how you wanted to spend your night, but I trust you and your skill more than anyone.” Once the length was correct, Striker worked fast to secure the helmet snugly under her chin.
She was touched by his heartfelt words. When their eyes met, Lila was spellbound by the flare of desire she encountered. He leaned in and kissed her, hard and quick, ending it before it began.
The swiftness of it did nothing to detract from the heat that blasted through her. Thankfully Jester wasn’t paying attention to them. She didn’t even have time to react before Striker turned away, and threw his jean-covered leg over the bike. “Climb on behind me and wrap your arms around my waist.”
Lila did as he commanded. Her front pressed flush against his back, and his firm body was cradled between her thighs as she slid her arms around his middle. She rested her cheek against the cool leather covering the muscular plain of his upper back. An unsteady breath escaped her lungs as Striker gunned the engine then shot down the street, Jester hot on his tail. They sped through a few neighborhoods, and onto the local highway where Striker rested one hand on her thigh despite their speed.
There wasn’t anything for Lila to do but cling to Striker and stare into the night. She relaxed after the first few minutes, when Striker’s mastery of the bike became more than apparent. Plastered against the sexy body of an enticing bad boy, with the endless stars and vastness of the pitch-black desert speeding by, Lila felt free and uninhibited. It would have been remarkable if not for the unknown crisis awaiting her.
The longer they rode, the more the reality of the situation set in. She was almost certainly about to assist in something illegal, and possibly dangerous, with a man who embodied everything she was taught to avoid. All he had to do was ask her for help, and she put her career, her license, and possibly even her life on the line with barely any resistance. There was no way this could lead to anything but trouble.
Chapter Five
Striker sped down the highway, the night’s events replaying in his mind. What was supposed to have been routine club business, collecting protection money from a local bar owner, turned into a gutter brawl when a number of Grimm Brothers showed up.
Tension had always run high between the No Prisoners and the Grimm Brothers, yet they’d managed to coexist in relative peace for years. In the past three months though, there was a shift in the dynamic. The Grimms were making some bold moves on Crystal Rock, and an escalation to violence wasn’t a surprise. Christ, he hoped it wasn’t a mistake bringing Lila in on this, but his options were limited.
Shit. When she stood in the doorway wearing nothing but a few scraps of clothing, he’d nearly forgotten his reason for being there. Striker had to hold himself back from slamming the door in Jester’s face, and pressing Lila up against the nearest wall so he could rip what little she was wearing right off her luscious body. Without clothes the woman was even sexier than he’d fantasized, and he had a vivid imagination, particularly when it came to naked women.
Now, she was draped against him like a second skin, and the heat pouring off her seared into him. Striker made out each of her breasts as they rested against his back, as well as the heat of her sex in the junction of her thighs where it burned into his ass. He wanted nothing more than to pull off the side of the road, drag her onto his lap, and make her scream his name into the quiet night.
Instead, they rushed toward an abandoned warehouse where he was about to ask her to sew up a hole in his prospect’s side, most likely without the proper equipment, and definitely without alerting anyone. He curled one hand around her thigh to anchor her even closer, and knew he’d have to be satisfied with that for now.
After a few more miles, Striker slowed, removed his hand from Lila’s leg and veered off at an exit. Three turns later, they rolled into the parking lot of the warehouse. Both he and Lila jumped off the bike as soon as it stopped, and once he had the first aid kit unstrapped, he propelled her toward the building. He watched Lila glance over her shoulder at Jester who had also dismounted but stayed where he was, turning to survey the area.
“He’s on watch,” Striker said.
She nodded as they approached the dinged and rusty metal door. Striker halted her with a hand on her shoulder before he turned and pinned her with a hard look. “Not a fucking word of this gets breathed to anyone, for any reason. If that’s a problem, you don’t take one fucking step through that door.”
“Your lecture would have been more effective before I got on the bike. I get it. This never happened.” Lila crossed her arms and shook off his hand.
Lila appeared calm and in control. Only the drumming of her fingers against her side under her crossed arms gave away her nerves. Her hair was flattened from the helmet and her pupils were dilated, but if he wasn’t mistaken there was a gleam of excitement in her gaze. Well, well, the little doctor might turn out to be even more fun than he’d anticipated.
“Okay. Some business went bad tonight, and one of our prospects was stabbed in the side. That’s all you get.”
“A stab wound? Jesus, Striker! He could have damage to an organ or a major artery. He’ll have to go to a hospital if that’s the case.”
“Let’s hope nothing major was affected. We can’t have this on anyone’s radar.”
Striker ushered her through the door and toward a couch where the prospect was lying. Rock, another brother, held a towel firmly against the right side of his flank. His muscles bulged with the force of the pressure he exerted on the prospect’s wound.
“Okay, I get why you want to avoid the hospital. You boys keep your fingers crossed that this is a superficial injury. There’s nothing in my kit to numb him up, so I’d get some liquor down him fast if I were you,” she instructed, her tone all business as she looked at the men gathered around.
“One step ahead of you, Stitch,” Gumby said as he held up a bottle of amber brown liquid. “Prospect here is well into a bottle of Jack, and probably wouldn’t even realize if you stabbed him a second time.”
“I doubt that, but I appreciate the effort.” She winked at the prospect who did, in fact, have the glazed look of someone who’d enjoyed more than their share of alcohol. “They call you anything besides prospect?”
Striker loved how she made the effort to connect with the prospect. Her relaxed attitude would help keep him calm, and no doubt make her job easier.
“Kwenny,” he slurred. His face was devoid of color and perspiration shone across his brow.
She raised a questioning eyebrow at Striker.
He laughed. “His name is Kenny.”
“Ah. Well, hopefully taking a knife to the gut will push you from prospect status to full member.” Lila smiled at Kenny, and Striker couldn’t help but admire her grace under pressure.
“How long ago did this happen?” she asked the room.
“About an hour ago,” Striker answered.
“It’s great that you have pressure on the wound now. Do you know how long it bled before you were able to plug it up?”
Striker looked to Gumby. He’d been with the prospect the entire time. Striker left to fetch Lila seconds after it happened.
“Not long. I used his T-shirt at first and we’ve been taking turns holding pressure on it the whole time, using that towel.”
“Good work guys. The fact that he’s still conscious is good and leads me to believe he doesn’t have any internal bleeding. Of course there could be a slow bleed that we aren’t aware of, but I won’t be able to tell without imaging.” She stopped talking and looked around the room. “Is there somewhere I can wash my hands?”
Striker pointed toward the back corner of the warehouse. “Use the men’s room. There’s nothing in the women’s.”
She nodded and jogged toward the restroom. As soon as Lila was out of earshot, Striker turned toward his brothers. “I called Pres, and he set up a meet for tomorrow with the Grimm’s president. We have to shut this shit down.”
Gumby nodded. “This must be drug related. They hate that they can’t use our territory to meet with the cartel.”
“Tough shit. This ain’t their turf, bottom line. Jesus, fastest way to get the cops breathing down our necks would be to run drugs through Crystal Rock.” That and the fastest way to rack up hefty prison sentences.
“For real, we may have half the department in our pocket, but no amount of money would be enough to keep them from investigating international drug trafficking.”
The No Prisoners weren’t saints by any means, and they had their hands in numerous less-than-legal activities, but they had always steered away from drugs, because of the attention trafficking attracted. It also invariably led to club members using, and could self-destruct a club faster than a whore could undress.
The slap of Lila’s feet as she jogged back toward them echoed through the empty space and conversation halted. She slipped her hands into some gloves and rejoined them near the couch.
Lila turned her assessing gaze to the bald, stout man taking a turn holding pressure on Kenny’s wound. “What’s your name?”
“Rock.”
“Thanks. Rock, you can move that towel now, but stay close, I may need you to wipe some blood away.”
Striker observed Lila as she assessed the wound, not exactly sure what she was looking for, but she muttered to herself a few times, and smiled before addressing the group. “Looks like he was extremely lucky. The wound is more of a slash then a true stab. It’s deep enough to require a lot of stitching, but doesn’t appear to have pierced any organs or nicked any major blood vessels. I don’t believe there was a life-threatening amount of blood loss, either.
“I’ll close him up, and this will be as clean as possible considering the circumstances, but in no way sterile. My kit has a few antibiotic pills, but not an adequate supply for the long haul. I can’t believe I’m about to suggest this, but I see no other way. Gumby, you come back to the ER on Tuesday when I’m working to have your hand assessed for possible infection. I’ll make sure I’m the only one to look at it, and I’ll write you a script for antibiotics and pain meds. You can give them to Kenny here and we won’t have to worry about his insides rotting from my warehouse surgery. Sound good?”
Striker and the others stared at her. He couldn’t see the looks on their faces, but he imagined their expressions matched the admiration and pride on his. “Shit, Doc, looks like you just might be hiding some outlaw under that white coat.”
Lila smirked at him before her face turned serious. “Let’s get this over with. You three.” She pointed at three men standing around the couch. “Help me hold him down. I don’t care how much alcohol he has in him, this is going to hurt like a son of a bitch.”
The three did as she ordered, and Lila went to work. Striker watched a look of concentration come over her face as she morphed into doctor mode. Rock had been appointed her assistant, and every so often she asked him to hand her something from that insane box she called a first aid kit.
Lila’s steady hands worked at a rapid pace, her experience evident in the even stitching and confident way she issued orders. Kenny howled, and struggled against the three men holding him down as she drove the needle through his raw skin over and over. Toward the end he passed out, most likely from the combination of the booze and the pain.
Striker was impressed by Lila. He had no right to feel this way, but he felt extremely proud of her. From the way she calmly handled the situation, he would have thought this was an everyday occurrence for her. Part of it was—maintaining her cool in the face of a medical emergency—but illegal activities in the dead of night wasn’t. Or at least he didn’t think she was used to it; he really didn’t know her at all.
Striker wondered if she would freak out on the way back home once the gravity of the situation kicked in. He’d straight up told her they didn’t want this on any police records, and she went to work as though it wasn’t a big deal.
On a side note, Lila also looked like a walking wet dream, bent over Kenny with her ass-hugging jeans and form fitting sweater, which did nothing to disguise the fact she wasn’t wearing a bra. Fuck, had it only been a few days since he’d gotten laid? Felt like months, based on the way his dick reacted every time she was nearby.
After a few more minutes, Lila pulled off her gloves, and glanced around. “What should I do with these? I’m guessing you don’t want his blood, and I sure don’t want my prints hanging around this place when we leave.”
“Just leave them on the table. Two prospects are on clean up, and will wipe the place down. There won’t be a trace of you or any of this here.”
“Any of what where?” She smirked at him.
“Good girl. Okay, boys I’m going to take the doc home. Get Kenny back to the clubhouse so he can rest, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I’m done.”
Striker walked Lila out of the warehouse and back to his bike.
“All good?” Jester asked from his guard post, his focus on the road leading to the warehouse.
“Yeah, it’s done. Go help them get Kenny into the van. I’m going to take Lila home.”
Jester nodded and left them alone with the bikes.
“Remember, Lila, not a fucking word,” Striker cautioned, purposefully hardening his voice.
She huffed out a breath. “Striker, I know, believe me. I’d be in just as much trouble as any of you if I ran my mouth.”
“No, you wouldn’t, babe. You’re a doctor, well respected in the community. All you’d have to do is bat those gorgeous eyes, and tell them how we forced you out of your house in the middle of the night. You’d have the cops eating out of your palm in seconds.”
She jammed her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Good.” He nodded. He believed her. He stepped in close enough to see her pupils dilate at his nearness. “You okay with all this shit? I gotta say, babe, you surprised me in there.”
Lila shrugged. “I think I surprised myself, but yeah, I’m fine.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and she shivered. He attributed it to the rapidly dropping temperature and the adrenaline dump. Despite the scorching heat of the day, nights in the desert could be bitter cold, and she was only wearing a thin swe
ater.
Striker broke their connection to pull a sweatshirt out of his saddlebag. He tossed it to Lila, and she drew it over her head with muffled thank you. He climbed on the bike and glanced at her just as she grabbed a handful of the sweatshirt fabric and inhaled with her eyes closed. Her eyes drifted open, and he met her gaze as a red blush crept across her gorgeous face.
With a groan, Striker motioned for her to climb on behind him. “I do like knowing I’m leaving my scent on you, babe, but knowing you like it too is going to make for one uncomfortable ride home, if you catch my drift.”
Lila’s eyes widened for just a second, and then she shocked him more than she had all night. “I like it too. I just wish I didn’t have anything between your shirt and my skin.”
And with that bomb, Lila pulled her helmet on, climbed behind him, and wrapped her arms around him. His cock hardened even further, and he shifted in an attempt to keep from strangling it against the bike.
What the hell was she thinking? Did she really tell him she wished his sweatshirt was against her naked skin? Lila couldn’t believe she had flirted with him so blatantly.
Actually she couldn’t believe how she acted the entire night, starting with opening the door to her house in her underwear. None of this seemed real, almost as though she was watching a movie of herself instead of participating in her life.
The potential repercussions of the evening were staggering. She could be suspended from the hospital, or even lose her medical license, and she could be sued for everything she was worth if Kenny died of an infection. She almost laughed at the thought of the school board’s reaction if they were to find out.
At the moment she allowed her attraction to Striker to distract her from the real issue, that she’d conducted an illegal medical procedure in a warehouse, in the dead of night, for an outlaw biker gang.
She needed to watch her mouth. Striker was obviously way out of her league when it came to playing games with the opposite sex. True, she was wildly attracted to him; he was smoking hot, after all. That did not mean she could handle him. Striker was one hundred percent alpha male, dominant and demanding, and he’d probably eat her alive.