by Joanna Wylde
Like hell.
She’d be back in my bed, and damned soon, too.
“Just got word, boss,” said Dopey, sitting down next to me at the picnic table. He held a beer in one hand and a disposable cell in the other. “The brothers down south said they got eyes on Rebel. Want to know if we’re done with him.”
“We’ll see how he settles in,” I replied. “They can keep an eye on him, make sure he understands that going out bad isn’t a temporary state of being. He’s dead to the MC world.”
“Oh, I think he figured that out,” Dopey said, offering me a feral smile. “I thought you showed restraint, all things considered. None of the damage was permanent.”
I shrugged. “Doing more could’ve caused trouble for Mandy. Wasn’t necessary, which is a fuckin’ pity. I’d have loved to slit his throat.”
“Your girl seems to be doing all right for herself,” Dopey said, nodding toward a gaggle of women clustered near the food tables. Mandy might’ve been nervous about sticking around, but she’d managed to find a place for herself. She had an energy, a sense of busy-ness that I’d noticed before. I’d figured it was related to her work as a waitress. Now I saw there was more to it. She didn’t like sitting around or waiting for someone else to do the work. She’d volunteered to help with the food as soon as I officially introduced her to the old ladies, and not in a showy way. I’d caught several approving looks shared between Pepper and Jen, Dopey’s old lady.
They liked her.
Rebel’s club liked her, too. I’d been telling the truth when I’d said that it wasn’t about her—it really wasn’t. But if they’d only been tolerating her for his sake, they wouldn’t be so friendly toward her now that he was gone. Mandy might’ve joined the biker community by hooking up with Rebel, but more than one man here would be looking to pin her down when I cut her loose. I saw the way their eyes followed her, and I didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one damned bit.
Mandy turned to find me staring at her. I raised my beer, and she started across the courtyard.
“Hey, there!” she said when she reached the table. I swung one leg over the bench and caught her hand, pulling her down to sit in front of me.
“You havin’ fun?” I asked. She twisted her head to smile at me.
“Yeah, I really am. You know, I always had a good time with the bikers. It was only—”
She stopped talking abruptly, her face going red.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s stupid,” she replied, shaking her head.
“Tell me.”
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
“Promise I won’t make promises I can’t keep,” I told her. She shoved me playfully, then took a deep breath, glancing quickly at Dopey. The man was pretending not to listen. Poorly.
“Go away,” I told him.
“Jen’s gonna be pissy that I didn’t get the good gossip,” he muttered, and I made a whipping noise, pretending to crack one at him. He laughed and flipped me off, heading toward the keg. Mandy waited until he was out of earshot before speaking again.
“Okay, I was always sort of freaked out whenever the Reapers were around. Especially you,” she admitted. It didn’t really surprise me—we had that effect on a lot of people. Still, it took guts to admit it. “The way you were always watching me. And you kept trying to get me to…well, you know.”
“Fuck me,” I said. “I was tryin’ to get you to fuck me. And see? I was right—it was fantastic. And we aren’t scaring you today, are we?”
“Um, I mean you’re still a bunch of big, intimidating guys,” she said. “But you’ve been good to me. You know, aside from the whole renting me for five hundred bucks thing.”
“Hey, it worked for me,” I replied, wrapping my arms around her waist. “In the end, I got to fuck you. Mission accomplished.”
Mandy tugged at my hands, pretending to be pissed, but she wasn’t trying very hard. Then I kissed her neck and she relaxed back into me, dropping her head against my shoulder.
“You’re a horrible man and I shouldn’t be letting you do this,” she muttered. “But you’re really good at it.”
I slid my hand up and under her tank top, finding her tit and giving it a squeeze. Mandy squeaked and smacked at me again, this time for real, and I started laughing.
“You can’t stand being nice for even a minute, can you?” she asked, twisting her head back around. “People can see us.”
“Baby, wearin’ those shorts with your legs wide open, it’s not your boobs they’re lookin’ at.”
She looked down between her legs, and while I couldn’t see the horror on her face, it wasn’t too hard to imagine it. Mandy obviously had no clue how much they were riding up. The strip of cloth between her legs covered about as much as a thong.
She all but spun on the bench, bringing her legs together, and I burst out laughing for real. She glared at me, then flipped me off, which made me laugh louder.
“You’re such an asshole!” she hissed. “And it’s getting late. I need to go home and get ready for work.”
I wanted to tell her to blow it off, but I’d already tried that last night and she’d shot me down. Mandy took her job damned seriously. I wasn’t used to that—women jumped to kiss my ass, no matter where I went. Some of it was looks, I knew this.
More of it was the patch and the title.
The Reapers were badass motherfuckers and I was their president. The job came with many responsibilities, but the pussy was a serious perk.
“Okay, I’ll take you home,” I said, and I caught a flicker of disappointment on Mandy’s face. Someone wasn’t as eager to end our night together as she insisted… She sighed, nodding her head.
“Home,” she repeated. “I’ll go grab my purse and meet you out front. I want to say good-bye to a couple people first.”
“Sure thing,” I said, watching her semi-exposed ass twitch as she hustled back over to the girls. That’s when it hit me.
She’d just given me an order. Holy shit. I sat back, thinking about it. Couldn’t remember the last time someone had tried telling me what to do, and now this little slip of nothing waitress was treating me like a Goddamn cab driver.
Fucking hell.
She was worth more than five hundred bucks, just for that alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Mandy
Here I was again—riding home with Shade, although this time it was bittersweet.
I’d had a good time with him. A great time, actually. So what if the thought of seeing him used to terrify me? That was back when I only knew scary (but sexy) Shade. Now I knew fun (even sexier) Shade, and somehow the two seemed to have settled into a balance that I really liked.
I didn’t want him to drop me off at my trailer and then say good-bye forever.
Even worse, I didn’t want to watch him hooking up with other girls at the Pit and have to pretend it didn’t bother me, because it would. This…this was why it’d been stupid to give in to temptation and spend the night with him. Men were a slippery slope, one that started with the most innocent of glances and ended with me handcuffed in the back of a police car.
So I savored our ride home together but also steeled myself to say good-bye to him. I’d be casual and flippant. Gangster. No big deal. If Wonder Woman could do it, so could I.
Of course, I wasn’t an Amazonian demi-goddess. I was just a waitress…
Shut up, Wonder Woman said. Do you know how many heroic waitresses there are? A few years ago, the waitresses at a Denny’s restaurant in Coeur d’Alene recognized an armed serial killer with a captive child, then stalled him until the police showed up! You telling me those women didn’t have courage?
Wait, what? Whoa… I had absolutely no memory of ever hearing or reading anything about this, so how the hell had my subconscious inserted it into an imaginary conversation with an Amazonian princess?
Holy shit. Was Wonder Woman real?
Jesus Christ, don’t be ridiculous, Wonder Woman snapped. Of
course I’m not real. You’re talking to yourself, nitwit.
God. I was literally going crazy, on top of everything else. I tightened my hold on Shade and watched the road fly by under our wheels, trying very, very hard not to think of anything at all.
Thankfully, I’d managed to pull myself together and was braced to give Shade his casual good-bye when we reached Violetta. I was holding steady right up until we turned down the road and crossed the railroad tracks onto the flat. That’s when Hannah’s trailer came into view.
There was a sheriff’s patrol car parked out front.
My nails dug into Shade’s stomach, hard enough that he realized something was wrong. He passed the house, continuing down the street and then turning the corner to swing back around the grain elevator. There—safely hidden by the massive structure—he killed the big Harley engine.
Abrupt silence filled the air.
“I really like the way you scratch your nails down my back during sex,” Shade said after a long pause. “But it’s a hell of a lot less sexy when you’re trying to claw out my stomach. Wanna let go so we can talk this out?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, unclenching my fingers through will alone. Then I swung my leg over the bike. “Thanks so much for the ride. I can just walk home from here, no need to—”
Shade’s hand shot out, catching my arm, forcing me to face him.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen yet,” he said. I stared down at the big fingers, wishing I’d been faster. Shade was strong—no way I’d be getting away from him now. “Why are you scared of cops? I understood why things were tense the other day. You didn’t know why he was there and we’d just gone through the shit with Rebel. But you know damned well that Heath Andrews is at your house today ’cause he’s into your sister. You don’t need to be afraid of him. What gives?”
“Does it really matter?” I said, sighing as I looked at him. Really looked at him. God, I could hardly believe I’d slept with this guy. Shade was all badass and sunglasses and hair that’d been swept in the wind. I was just small town white trash with a good push-up bra. “It was just a one-night stand. Why do you care?”
Shade shook his head slowly, running his tongue along his bottom lip.
“Pull your head out of your ass, Mandy. This is not a one-night stand. I bought you a fucking phone and I introduced you to my friends. You came and ate burgers with us. What the fuck kind of one-night stand doesn’t end until five o’clock in the afternoon?”
“But you said…breakfast…”
Shade cocked a brow, and I closed my eyes, realizing I’d been deluding myself. I wasn’t a total moron. Shade didn’t buy girls breakfast, and he sure as shit didn’t hang out with them all day once the sex part was over.
This might not be a relationship, but it wasn’t a typical one-night stand, either.
“I’m on probation,” I blurted out.
“No shit,” Shade said slowly, obviously startled. “What for?”
“Technically, I was an accessory to an attempted robbery, but then I pled down to a misdemeanor in stupidity,” I said, staring at his bike’s air-brushed gas tank. There was a picture of a pinup girl, like on a World War II airplane. It was good. Really good.
“You wanna elaborate on what happened?”
“Here’s the thing,” I said, looking back up at him and biting my lip. “It’s the curse of the McBride women. I told you—we pick bad men. My mom got hitched five times, and not one of them stuck. She married the last one when we lived in Spokane. Hannah was nineteen and I was seventeen. One night he and Mom went out and they never came back, because he’d gotten drunk and crashed the car into the river.”
“I’m really sorry, babe,” Shade said, reaching his hand around the back of my neck, giving it a squeeze. I liked that. Supportive without the expectation that I was going to collapse in a puddle of tears. I’d survived way too much to fall apart behind a grain elevator.
“Thanks,” I replied, pushing the memories away. “Anyway, so that was that. We bummed around for a while and then I met a guy in Missoula and decided he was Mr. Right, so I married him. His name was Trevor. I’m telling you—never trust a guy named Trevor. He had this other friend named Trevor and they were both shady as fuck.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I smiled grimly. “Yeah, you do that. Anyway, Trevor wasn’t the greatest but it wasn’t like my standards were that high. I’d had a few boyfriends, but nothing serious. Nobody ever stuck around. But Trevor did. He latched on to me like a suckerfish. Anyway, I was working full time while he was going to college. Then one day he and his friend Robert and the other Trevor decided to start this business. You know, he was going to make his fortune and all that. In computers. Told me I wasn’t smart enough to understand.”
Shade’s hand tightened against my neck. “Sounds like a real winner.”
“You could say that. What he was really getting into was drugs. All our money kept disappearing, but every time I talked to him about it, he had a good explanation. His laptop was broken, or his student loan hadn’t come through.
“I knew he wasn’t sober, but I had no clue how bad it really was. Then one night we had a fight because he wanted to go to the liquor store. I kept telling him he was drunk already and we should stay home. He wouldn’t, so I insisted on driving him. I figured they wouldn’t sell him anything, but that’s not what he was there for. Somehow, he’d decided it would be a great idea to rob the place. With a butter knife, because my life’s a fucking joke, you know?”
“A butter knife?” Shade asked, raising a brow.
“Yup,” I said, knowing it sounded like a bad joke. Unfortunately, it was a felony-level bad joke. “A plastic one. He wasn’t a very good robber.”
“Jesus,” Shade said. “There’s a lot of dumbass criminals out there, but seriously—sounds like Trevor boy was a new level.”
“Yeah, well, who’s stupider—Trevor or me, because I’m the who one fell for his shit. Then I got arrested as his accomplice. I had no damned idea what was going on when the cops pulled up. I thought they were just trying to say hello when they knocked on my window. Anyway, I spent three nights in jail before I found someone to bail me out. Things went downhill from there, obviously. Trev was so fucked up that he could hardly talk, but somehow he managed to tell them that the whole thing was my idea. Apparently I wasn’t just his getaway driver—I was his butter knife supplier.”
Shade gave a choked cough, and I cocked my head at him.
“It’s okay to laugh,” I said, and his lip twitched. Other than that, he managed to hold it in, which I appreciated. “Everyone else did. Then the prosecutor decided to take pity on me and offer a plea bargain. I got a misdemeanor and six months’ probation. I was a good girl for the first three months so they dropped my supervision. I had to petition to move to Violetta, of course, but they were really decent about it.”
“And then you met Rebel.”
“Less than two weeks after I got here. You saw how that ended. Anyway, that’s why I get nervous when I see cops. You never know when one of them is going to arrest you for something you didn’t even know you did…and if I do get caught doing anything, I could go to jail. Have you ever been to jail? It sucks.”
Shade nodded, and I remembered the rumors I’d heard about him. Of course he’d been to jail.
“I’ve been arrested several times. Never convicted,” he told me. “And you’re right—it’s not pleasant. But it’s not the end of the world, either. I’ve got brothers serving hard time inside, so that gives me some perspective. How much longer do you have?”
“Four more weeks.”
“That’s not bad at all,” he said. “You got any special plans for afterward?”
Right. Special plans, because I can afford to do all kinds of crazy stuff as a waitress. You know, in all my free time, when I’m not watching my sister’s kids in our luxurious trailer. I sighed, shaking my head. “You’re really lucky, you know that?”
&n
bsp; Shade sat back on his bike, studying me.
“Yeah, I think I’m a lucky enough guy, but I’m not quite sure what it has to do with the conversation.”
“You get to travel,” I told him, frustrated. “In a few weeks or a month or whatever you’ll leave this place. You’ll go see things and do things, and for some reason you seem to have enough money to live on without taking a shitty job waiting tables.”
Shade snorted. “Mandy, you don’t wanna know how I get my money.”
“Let me guess—it’s bad?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “I’m starting to think I’m genetically incapable of being attracted to a good guy. No offense.”
“None taken,” he replied, offering a slow smile. “I’m not a good man. But I’m not a man who’ll drag you down into the dirt, either. Or let you get caught up in club business. The Reapers have been around for a long time and we’re real good at taking care of our people. I’m not sayin’ I’ll never need a getaway car, but if I do, I sure as shit won’t trick my woman into driving it.”
God, how was he so sexy when he was saying such terrible things? And that knowing, naughty look in his eyes… It wasn’t fair.
“This is crazy,” I said, trying hard not to smile back at him. “I need to get to work and you need to go do whatever it is that you do that may or may not involve getaway cars. I’m sorry that I was weird about Heath’s car. I know he’s just there to see Hannah. He’s probably even a good guy. I overreacted and it was stupid.”
“I’ve asked around about him,” Shade said, his voice serious this time. “And he is a good guy. A real good guy. Good enough that he won’t play ball with us, if it makes you feel better.”
“It actually does,” I admitted, then my purse buzzed. Pulling out my phone, I found a message from Hannah.
Hannah: Are you ever coming home? i saw you drive by. Heath just stopped by to say hi
Me: Yeah will be there soon. Sorry. It felt weird seeing him there and I guess i panicked
Hannah: He’s a good guy.