by S. E. Jakes
“Right. Noah’s such a fan of mine.”
“He’s the one who told me I’d overreacted, and that I needed to come back here and make it right,” I explained.
Ryker sighed.
“He’s not malicious, Ryk. He just can’t control himself. I understand that better than anyone. I can’t judge him.”
“Fine. Don’t judge him. But I’m judging that motherfucking Casey, because he knows better than to entertain any thoughts of you making a deal with him. He knows better than to ask someone who’s mine to even think about that.”
“I’m not the goddamned crackerjack prize for you and Casey to fight over.”
“You’re a prize, all right. My prize.”
“I didn’t think fucking you meant that I was owned by Havoc.”
“By me,” he emphasized.
“Whatever, Ryker. The real world doesn’t work like that.”
“My world does, Sean.”
And I was in his world, according to him. And I was hard from the second he used the words owned and mine, so yeah . . . “This is so fucking crazy.”
“Yes, it is.”
We were talking about two different things, though. But I guessed any way I looked at it, this was insane.
Owned by Ryker. Like I was his . . . something, no, someone special to him. And hell, I really liked that feeling. “I’m not exactly the damsel-in-distress type, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I notice everything about you, Sean.”
There was such a promise, a sweetness to that, despite the fact that it was growled.
I sighed. At least I’d gotten Noah off the hook for the moment. “I have to make a call about recovering the car.”
“Sean . . .”
“That’s what I promised Casey. All I promised in return for them not killing or otherwise maiming Noah. And dammit, Ryker, I’m only as good as my word.”
He considered that and nodded. “Make the call.”
He handed me his phone.
“I have a phone.”
“I insist.”
Pick your battles, I told myself. I dialed Noah’s number, and he answered on the first ring, just as Ryker leaned in and hit the speaker button. “Noah, it’s Rush. Where are you?”
“Getting ready to grab the car. Waiting for it to get dark,” Noah said. “You with Ryker?”
“Yeah, he’s here.” I avoided looking at Ryker, asking casually, “And you can do this?”
“Yes, Rush,” he assured me with all the sarcasm he could muster.
“Can you do it without getting in trouble or hurt?”
There was a long pause. “Oh. Well, when you put it like that, probably not. Is that part of the deal?” Noah asked, and Ryker threw his hands up in the air. “Rush, I’ll be fine. Where am I meeting you?”
I glanced at Ryker, who told Noah, “There’s an abandoned garage three miles out from the Hangmen’s clubhouse. Pull in there. We’ll be waiting.”
“See you when I see you,” Noah said, then hung up.
Ryker looked like he wanted to strangle Noah through the phone. “You two are fucking impossible. I’ll take care of it.”
“Do you even know how to steal a car?”
Ryker narrowed his eyes. “I was doing that before you were born, son.”
“You were, like, eleven when I was born.” I paused. “I see your point.”
Eleven-year-old Ryker. His eyes told me he’d been born an old soul. No one who tried to protect people as much as he did hadn’t had a ton of bad shit happen to him. Which is why I gave him the kind of slack he gave to me.
But I never talked about anyone being mine. I felt like he was going to piss in a circle around me.
“Not a bad idea if it’d keep you in line,” Ryker called over his shoulder as he walked out of the cabin to his truck.
I cursed under my breath and followed him out.
e drove to the garage, with several Havoc members following us, including Tug and Sweet. I fiddled with the radio as Ryker drove his truck, his bike in the back.
Finally, he switched off the radio and I was left with dead silence. Which I didn’t like. “Look, I know you said Havoc doesn’t deal with cars.”
“Getting Eddie off our docks is beneficial for everyone,” was all Ryker said.
My gut was already tight, because I didn’t want Ryker to get hurt because of me. This shit was getting real, and having the Havoc presence let me know that this wasn’t being taken lightly. Nowhere near lightly. Ryker was armed. They all were.
“I won’t get hurt,” he said.
Shit. That talking-out-loud thing. Again.
Ryker put a hand on my thigh. “Seriously, Sean. I’ll protect you. This will be fine. This is what I do.”
“You’re not pissed that I’m helping Noah, are you?”
Ryker sighed. “I’m pissed you didn’t reach out for help before storming off on your own. But the way I see it, you and Noah and Billy took care of each other. In his own way, Noah’s trying to keep you out of trouble now. If he wasn’t a good guy, you wouldn’t be friends with him. I told you I thought you were being naive about him, but I was wrong. You were being a friend.”
“Thanks,” I managed. I’d thought maybe the only way I’d ever get Ryker to really understand—to back off and to maybe even like Noah a little—would’ve been by telling him a story that really wasn’t mine to tell. But he’d gotten there all on his own. And still, I felt like Ryker needed to know about it. “You know I met Noah first in juvie? We were fifteen. I was doing six months.”
“For?”
“Vandalism for Noah. On my end, fighting.”
He glanced at me for a second, then back at the road, and I saw his hands tighten on the wheel. “Because of that asshole who taped you?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, and Ryker ran a hand along my hair, stopped to rub the back of my neck while we waited at a stoplight. I was conscious of the MC members all around us. Obviously, so was Ryker. “Noah was doing three months. He came in scared as shit and you know, place like that, you come in smelling like fear and you’re dead.”
I hated thinking about this. “The second night, a group of older guys cornered him in the showers . . .”
Ryker’s hand stayed on the back of my neck.
I sucked in a breath and forced the rest out. “I got there too late to stop all of it, but . . .” I didn’t have to close my eyes to picture Noah, naked, bloody, and still defiant. He’d pretend none of it affected him until he actually believed it. “I kicked their asses. Told them I’d kill them if they touched him again. Noah went to the infirmary for two weeks, and I went into the lockdown ward where the violent guys were held.”
“Did anyone hurt you?” Ryker’s voice was tight.
“Actually, news of me beating up three of the biggest guys there spread pretty fast. The guys I met actually taught me more about fighting dirty than I’d ever wanted to know. I mean, my mom and dad were both violent. In a way, it skipped me. I didn’t have that quick-to-rise anger, that inextinguishable fury. I was smart. Strong. I could fight, and I could defend myself. But none of that fed my soul.”
I took a breath that sounded shaky to my own ears. “When I first heard my dad talk about why he robbed banks, I didn’t get it. Not until Al put me behind the wheel of a classic Mustang and told me the police would be there in five minutes. I pulled the wires like we’d practiced—rote by now—and something in me sparked to life with that engine. I got it then. And I also knew there was no turning back.”
I shook my head and continued, “I understand this world, Ryker. Your world. I might not be used to it all the time, but I understand the violence.”
In response, Ryker simply reached over and grabbed my hand. For the rest of the ride, I looked down at the rose on the back of it while his fingers remained threaded tightly in mine.
Ten minutes later, we pulled into the deserted garage, and we both spotted the baby-blue ’76 Chevy Impala convertible drive in from the oppo
site end of the lot, looking really worse for wear.
I opened the door as Ryker managed, “What the fuck?”
Noah climbed out and the door almost fell off. He cursed, propped it up a little with his foot and then slammed it closed. There was smoke wafting up from the hood.
I slid out of the truck and went over to him. “Please tell me that’s what it looked like when you took it from Casey.”
Noah shook his head. “I ran into some trouble.”
“Return it to Casey,” Ryker said from behind us. He was one hundred percent serious. “You never promised mint condition.”
I stared at him like he had three heads. “That was heavily implied.”
“Fuck implications. Get in the car and return it. I’ll follow,” Ryker said. “Better yet, I’ll drive it, and Noah, you take my truck.”
Noah nodded, his eyes wide that Ryker would actual let him do something. And then everything started going to shit too fast for me to really get it straight.
Sweet was calling, “Noah was followed,” and I heard BFFL-Tug say something about Albanians. I heard the cars a few seconds later.
“Sean, you and Noah go to Casey. Now,” Ryker told me, his eyes on the road behind the garage instead of on me.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Whatever I need to,” he promised, and then he handed me a Sig. A good all-around piece. “Go. Drive the shit out of her.”
I got into the driver’s side of the convertible, and Noah slid in next to me. I put the gun between us on the bench seat, and Noah put his hand on it so it’d stay put. We took off the way Ryker and I had come in. Noah, looking behind us, reported that the guys who’d been after him had pulled in.
Havoc was the only thing standing between us and them, preventing them from crossing through the lot to follow us.
I still floored the car, rubbing the dash, apologizing as it throttled and wheezed and clunked its way through the asphalt streets.
“Two blocks to go,” I said finally. We’d both been white-knuckling it, and I let myself relax for a millisecond. Long enough for a car to pull across the road from out of nowhere.
“Back up, Rush,” Noah said, turning his head. I went to do exactly that and nearly hit a car behind us. On either side of us were houses, all with driveways leading into a garage and no egress to the other street behind them. I seriously thought about crashing through an empty garage and coming out the other side, especially when I saw the men with machine guns.
“They want me, Rush,” Noah said quietly.
“They’re not getting you.” I went to grab the gun, was prepared to shoot whoever came close.
But the gun wasn’t there. Noah was holding it. Aimed at me. “Get out, Rush,” he said quietly.
“No.”
“Rush, don’t do this. They’re coming. They’ll let you go. Just get to the Hangmen clubhouse.”
“I won’t leave you behind. Fuck you for asking. And get that thing out of my face. What’re you going to do, shoot me?”
“He might not, but I will.” One of the men from the car was leaning in the window next to me now. I stared up at him. “Get out of the car, Rush. Noah, stay right where you are.”
Noah nodded. I knew this other guy wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me, so I did open the door. Hard enough to knock him down. I got back in and tried to plow the car into the one ahead of us. I succeeded in pushing it out of the way, and hitting my head on the windshield at the same time. I drove further, until Noah forcibly took my hands from the wheel, put his foot over mine on the brake.
That was the last thing I remembered.
I woke up, cotton-mouthed, and tied to a bed frame. The bed wasn’t Ryker’s, so not a good sign right off the bat.
I tried to move and was rewarded with a shooting pain along my temple. “Shit.”
“You took a good hit to the head.” It was Casey, brushing the hair from my forehead. Gently. Placing an ice pack there.
“Why’m tied?”
“You were thrashing.” Casey loosened the bindings, and I groaned again at how sore I was. “I didn’t want to give you anything until I knew what you were allergic to.”
“Who cares,” I groaned. “Give me whatever the fuck you’ve got.” Casey shook his head, handed me some pills and a drink of water. Just lifting my head to take the sip nearly fucking blinded me with pain. I lay back and let him put the ice on my head again. “Those better be magic pills.”
“Do you remember anything?”
“Noah . . . shit.” I tried to sit up but thankfully, Casey stopped me. “Where is he?”
“Eddie has him.”
“What do you mean, has him?” I was getting fuzzy from the magic pills.
“You were surrounded. He pretty much threw you out of the car, from what I could gather, and Eddie didn’t bother to stop and pick you up. Maybe Noah convinced him that you were dead. He fucked up.”
“But I fixed it.” I’d tried, anyway, but all Casey had was me, and no car in sight.
“You fixed things for Noah with me, and that’s only because Eddie forced Noah into his own car. You didn’t fix anything between Noah and Eddie.”
Shit. “Where’s Ryker?”
“I’ll call him,” Casey assured me. And I didn’t entirely trust that.
“Tell him about Noah.”
Before I could do or say anything else, I passed out. When I came to, both Ryker and Casey were staring down at me, and I guess I’d been wrong about not trusting Casey.
“Sean, are you all right?” Ryker was asking.
“M’all right. Just been a rough coupla days. Weeks. Years,” I managed.
There were both still staring at me. “You guys ever . . . you know, together?”
I was making obscene hand gestures without realizing it.
Finally, Casey turned to Ryker. “He’s cute. And deadly. It’s a good combo.”
“He’s also mine.”
Ryker was getting growly. I changed the subject. “Hey, did you really get the car back?”
Ryker snorted. Casey glared and pointed out the window. From the bed, I could see the car, worse than I’d remembered it. “Right. I had to ram the Albanians.” Casey winced. “I’ll make it up to you. Noah can fix it.”
Casey did his angry crossing arms thing again. “The same Noah who fucked it up in the first place?”
“Yep. Same one. He’s better at that than me,” I explained. “He’s got a lot of patience.”
“Well, I’d have to find him first, yes?” Casey asked.
“Right. I’ll get on that.”
“Sean, it’s taken care of,” Ryker told me. “Last I heard, Sweet and Tug had Noah.”
“If they bring Noah here to fix your car, do you swear you won’t hurt him?” I asked, and Casey rolled his eyes, but he nodded. “Oh, and he’s not gay. Or bi.”
Casey sighed. “Luckily, that’s not a requirement.”
everal hours later, I lay back on Ryker’s bed, staring at the wooden-beamed ceiling as the fan spun lazily overhead. I’d have to face the music on this one, so I was forcing myself to stay put, even though the pain pills were working and adrenaline from the day’s events still raced through me. It was like I was still in the car, my body buzzing from the electricity as if the engine’d brought me to goddamned life.
I was hot. My cock was hard, and I needed to be fucked. Hard. Right now.
Ryker obviously felt the same, judging by the fact that he was stripping as he walked into the room, the familiar heat in his dark eyes. He might be pissed, but whatever was happening between us overrode that.
“You sure you’re okay, babe?” he asked me suddenly.
I was afraid he was pulling back, for all sorts of reasons. “Don’t you fucking feel sorry for me,” I growled.
Ryker’s eyes flashed. Humor and understanding the foremost emotions. “I feel a lot of things, Sean, but sorry isn’t a single goddamned one of them.”
“Okay.”
“O
ne more thing.”
“Yeah?”
Ryker pushed me back on the bed, held my wrists immobile over my head. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“But you get to tell me?”
“Yeah.” Ryker’s eyes flashed again, his cock diamond hard against mine. “Problem with that?”
“Fuck no,” I breathed, because at that moment, I couldn’t think of a single reason to argue, not when I’d be getting exactly what I wanted. What we both wanted, which was more of each other.
“Don’t move your hands then.”
But the second he took his hands off my wrists, I did move my arms, causing him to grip them again. “You like to be held down, Sean? You need that?”
“Yes,” I managed. “Please, Ryk . . .”
He let me go for a second so he could drag his shirt off. I managed to do the same before his body covered mine, pinning me, stretching my arms up over my head again. His mouth took mine, his tongue stroking mine as he held my wrists in place with one hand . . . and took off his belt with the other.
When he pulled his mouth away, I looked at the belt, and my face flushed. He grinned, that I’ve just learned something about you grin, and he said, “Now that I know, I’ll be happy to use this to do more than hold you in place. Your ass will stripe well from this.”
Jesus. I clenched my ass cheeks together at the thought and my cock dripped pre-cum.
“Yeah, definitely.” He smiled. Wickedly. “But tonight, you’re getting a different kind of punishment.”
He wrapped the belt around my wrists. There’d be marks there tomorrow, and the next day, and I liked the thought of that, of being marked by Ryker. Marked as his. And then he opened me with his fingers, made me watch as he did it, one finger, then two, lubed. Gentle.
Too gentle.
“You’re so fucking pissed at me.”
“Yeah,” Ryker agreed as he fingered me, not hard and fast like I wanted, but torturously slowly.
Showing me why he was pissed. Showing me he cared. And that was way more effective than yelling at me.
“Stop, Ryk,” I begged, but he wouldn’t, not now. He just kept up the slow grind, his gaze so intense that I found myself unable to look away. Which was the only way I could think of to apologize. It didn’t matter what I begged for, didn’t matter what words came out of my mouth. Keeping my eyes locked to his said more than I ever could.