I march past Jake, being sure to clip his shoulder on the way. I grab my phone and headphones out of the gym bag Cliff’s holding on to and turn on the only few songs I let myself listen to before fights. Hard, heavy guitars fill my ears and blasts over the rest of the makeshift arena. I can barely hear myself think, and tonight, that’s a good thing.
The first fight goes off quickly. It’s a quick KO for the Wilderkinds. The guy up there is one of my trainees. I’ve been working with him for a year now, teaching him the basics. He’s a little guy, but he gets the job done. It’s such a fast change for the second fight that they don’t even bother to wipe up the blood splatters covering the floor of the square, poorly built ring. As the next two get to their starting points, my music fades, and I hear the ping from a message. It’s an unknown number, but I expect that—probably someone wishing me luck or some dick from the Filthy Bastards trying to get to me.
I’m partially right. It is a Filthy Bastards member, but it’s not one of the boys sending me dick pics or taunting messages about my mom. It’s a girl named Kitty Kat. I’m familiar with her. She’s the number one girl over there—the second’s lady. It’s only a few words long, but it manages to send chills up my spine: Meet me at the dressing rooms. Now.
What the hell could Cobra’s girl want from me unless this had to do with Sunny? I scan the room quickly, allowing myself to do the one thing I had promised I wouldn’t. There’s no sign of Sunny even in the group of FBMC girls. I would be able to pick her out easily with that golden hair of hers, but she’s missing. If Kitty Kat wants to talk to me about her, I have a damn impossible choice to make.
I spin my head towards the dressing area I just came from. I can see Kitty waiting there, phone in hand. She leans casually against the door to the men’s room as she waits for me. I know I should say no or at least ignore the damn message. But I can’t stay away. I’m like a fucking moth to the light. There’s no way in hell I’m going to avoid her.
“I’ve gotta run to the bathroom!” I shout over the noise of the crowd. “I’ll be back for the third match!”
“You’re not gonna miss much, Bear. This guy is gonna get the shit kicked out of him.” I look up to the two men duking it out before me. Our guy can barely stand on his feet. I didn’t have much time if I was the fifth one to go. With my head ducked down, I sprint off towards Kitty Kat with some prayers that no one is watching me go off with another damn FBMC girl.
I don’t acknowledge her when I pass her by. I open the door to the makeshift locker room and dressing area so she can pass through without me. She lowers her long, tan neck to avoid smacking into my arm and then finds a seat on one of the metal folding chairs. She crosses her arms and her legs and looks off towards the tiled walls. “That was quick.”
“What the fuck do you want?” I spit back. I’ve got no time for sassy-mouthed bitches tonight—especially if being with them alone for even a minute could get me in a helluva lot of trouble.
“Oh, I just wanted to check in on you, Bear. See how you were doing. I don’t think I introduced myself the last time we were around one another. You were too busy with… uh, what’s her name?” She smiles wickedly, white teeth glaring like fangs.
“If this is about Sunny, I’m not interested.” I go to walk back towards the door, but she stands up and forces the chair to drag on the cement floor with a horrible squeal.
“It’s not about Sunny. It’s about me.” She smooths out the folds of her skin tight navy blue dress, the kind of dress you have to peel someone out of if you wanna get anywhere with them. “You see, with the Filthy Bastards, we have this thing that if one girl goes for another girl’s man, we get to make a little trade.”
She stops dead in front of me, a hand resting on my bare chest. Her slim, long body rests slightly against mine so that I can feel her thigh resting right underneath my junk and her tits brush against my stomach and abs.
“What the hell does that mean?” I ask.
“It means that Sunny is with my man now, so I get a taste of what she found so fascinating with you.”
“‘With your man?’” I repeat as I try to ignore her hand sliding down the line to the waistband of my shorts. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Sunny’s been claimed by Cobra. He is—was—my man. And if she thinks she can go in and pull rank, she’s forgetting that I can do the same to her. So, I’m here to offer you some services.” She stands on her tippy toes and pulls her face towards mine. Her pearly teeth bite down on her puckered red bottom lip while her palm of her hand locks onto my cock.
Startled, I try to bat her away, pushing my face away from her. “What the fuck!” I growl. “Get the hell away from me. I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last fucking bitch on the planet.”
“You touched Sunny,” she coos. “I’m much, much more experienced than her.” She nibbles on my ear, and I can practically taste her breath on me. But with the information she’s given me, I can’t even focus on how she’s massaging my dick or that her mouth is nearing me. All I can see is Sunny, my Sunny, with her arms draped around Cobra’s thick, tattooed neck, and her thin legs wrapped around his waist and hips.
A fucking fire flames up in me—a fire I thought I had lost months ago. I grab Kitty Kat by the shoulders and spin her off and around me so that she falls on her ass on the concrete floor.
The funny thing is that she doesn’t look wounded or upset as I reject her. In fact, she looks completely delighted. She stands and reaches for the door. The crowd sounds have died down with the ending of a round.
It’s not until she starts yelling that I see her plan in action. “Help me! Get off me! I don’t want you like that, Bear!” It takes a moment for her yells to register with the Filthy Bastard boys sitting in rows before us, but after a few tries, they stand to their feet and look back to see Kitka—hair disheveled and dress barely clinging to her—put on a half-assed attempt to look as if I was holding her back from leaving the room.
“What the fuck is going on here?” one of them cries as they stand to their feet. A group of four or five of them march over towards us before I can even think of some fucking lie to get out of this mess.
“Oh my God! Hank!” Kitty Kat practically wails into his chest, “I was just coming to give this asshole a message, and he was… touching me, trying to make me go with him into the locker room!”
“Fucking hell I was!” I argued. “I don’t want anything to do with this dried out pussy!”
“What did you say about Kitty?” the largest guy shouts back as he stumbles towards me. “You wanna mess with her, you gotta go through me.”
“That’s fine, pal,” I say with my hands up. “I don’t want jack shit with her. Get her the fuck out of my dressing room. I’ve gotta match to win.”
The Filthy Bastard boys look around at one another before taking Kitty Kat by her arm and leading her out the room. From around the corner, I see her smile at me. That chick got exactly what she wanted.
Chapter Nine
Sunny
“Oh man… that fight last night. I am still reeling!” Larissa squeals as she leans back into her dining chair. “Do you think that Enrique is gonna be okay? I heard from Paulo last night that he’s pretty jacked up. They ended up taking him to the hospital.”
“Damn! The hospital? I mean, that Bear guy was pounding fists into his face, but I didn’t think it was that bad until the guy completely KO’d. But then again, they did have to take him out on a stretcher…”
My ears perk hearing Bear’s name. Instinctively, my hands go back to my stomach as I massage around my belly button. I try to casually take another sip of my orange juice and nibble on my toast, but it’s clear to the other girls that I’m listening in on their recap of last night’s fight.
Larissa eyes me as she exclaims, “That Kitka and Bear thing was fucked up though. I mean, it’s one thing to do it to us when you’re part of a club, but it’s another when you go for another club’s girl like tha
t. Like, come on, get your damn hands on the girls you know you can get.”
“What?” I ask, completely forgetting that the girls have iced me out for the last month now. But I have to know more about this. Why in the hell would Kitka be around Bear if she was told to keep my secret? Does Bear know about my condition? My mind races with the possibility of him showing up here at any moment to whisk me away to some Wilderkind hideout.
“You didn’t hear?” Mary turns to me with a grim smile stretched on her gaunt face. “Kitka says she was waiting to use the bathroom, in the wrong spot, when Bear all of a sudden charged at her and then dragged her into the dressing room. He copped a feel, probably more, and she managed to break away screaming.”
My mouth has to be hanging off its hinges. Kitka is smoking hot. I’m not going to deny that one. But, for what I know about Bear, I would think that she isn’t exactly his type—nor is she the kind of girl you can steal away for yourself in the middle of a crowd. My stomach sinks as I wait for more details, but the girls are waiting for me to react, maybe to burst out crying. I am not going to give them that satisfaction—at least not right now.
“So, what happened?” I coax them on. “What does Kitka have to say about it?”
“Well,” Mary says eagerly, “I heard that she managed to get to the door and scream out to some of our guys. They got in Bear’s face, threatening to kill him or something. Do you blame ‘em? I mean, we’re club property, and he’s already gotten a taste of us before.” She stops right there while eyeing Larissa for some guidance. Neither girls want to touch the elephant in the room; that Bear did get a Filthy Bastard girl before, and that girl went quietly off with him without putting up a fight.
Kitka, whether I believe her or not, has gotten us both into a shitstorm of trouble. If Bear were a Filthy Bastards member, he would have been excommunicated that very night for trying to score an opposite club girl twice. Clubs took pride in their ladies. They pick them just with their men in mind and they get the girls that will do just about anything for their boys and the patches they wear. That’s the pledge I took for the Filthy Bastards. It’s why I have my small little brand right on my shoulder. Trying to poach one of us is a death wish—doing it again with another girl is basically writing your own death sentence.
Kitka’s situation brings the attention back around that I did sleep with Bear and that I didn’t refuse or even try to run. And given that I haven’t been really active in club life lately, I know I’m on shaky ground in the loyalty department. Once my pregnancy is out and public knowledge, there’s gonna be questions unless I can convince Cobra to play around.
“Well, anyways. Nothing happened after that except Kitka went home, and Bear knocked the shit out of our guy.”
“Oh yeah?” I sit up a bit straighter. “That bad, huh?”
The girls’ smiles were their answers.
“It was a bloodbath. I mean, I love watching fights, but this was hard for me to stomach. Bear was like a man on a mission.
“Yeah! We thought he was gonna kill him if their president didn’t pull him back and out of the ring. The whole place was going mad. The Wilderkind boys were screaming like savages, and our guys were itching to start shit. We got the fuck out of there before things got crazy. We heard someone may have gotten knifed.”
“Damn…” I murmur as I try to picture Bear all wild and in his element, his brown curls sticking to his sweaty, tanned skin. His hands would be flying in every direction while his muscles in his biceps and chest flexed and retracted. In my mind, he is part animal, part God. And I can’t help but smirk at the thought of me bedding a guy like him… Again.
“Where is Kitka?” I ask as I snap out of my fog. The girls are already putting away their late morning breakfast and getting out their magazines. There was never much for us to do early in the day. Nothing really starts up for us until the sun sets.
Mary flips through the pages of some cheap gossip rag you buy at the checkout line and throws a hand in the air. “I have no clue. Girl said she was coming back home after the whole Bear thing went down, but I haven’t heard her in there all morning, nor did I see her last night. Her lamp light was on all night too.”
“I bet she went to Cobra’s house. Desperate girls gotta run back to her man for support.”
Mary laughs as she replies, “Some girls don’t know when to quit. No one is gonna lock down Cobra for good. Kitka’s been at it for years now, and all she’s got is that he’s been faithful to her and given her some cash from time to time.”
“Time to move on.” Larissa nods. “Some girls…”
I try to hide my reddening face from them as I go off to finish my morning routine. First the dishes and then cleaning the apartment. My mind turns off as I begin to sweep around the table where the two are still lounging. I’m no Cinderella, but today, I’ll gladly do their chores if it gives me time to process what they’ve told me went down last night.
I don’t know Bear well enough to know if the rumor about Kitka is true. After Killer’s convo about Cobra leaving her for me, she sure as hell walked out on us fast. There’s certainly nothing worse than a woman who has been scorned. I’ve been there. I would probably burn down the entire freaking planet if I were told I couldn’t have something that I loved and worked for years towards.
And Bear… well, he’s a motorcycle club member. As much as I want to think that there may be more, especially after he saved me at the bar, in reality, he’s just what he is—leather jacket, standard issue boots, and bloody knuckles. Men like him have urges and needs that I don’t really understand. It is stupid of me to think that I could ever be more than just a girl he lays claim to, even though there is part of me who wants it to be more, who is willing to risk it all to jump off the cliff with him.
But now it’s not only me I have to think about—there’s a third person, even if not present, I’ve got to watch out for. I slam the broom down against the wall and run back to my room. I send a quick message to Cobra letting him know that I’m on my way before changing into my tan pencil skirt and black blouse. As quickly as I can, I do up my hair and fix my makeup and bolt out of the apartment before anyone can ask any questions or Kitka shows her face.
Cobra’s apartment is only a few blocks from where the girls are located. It’s in a row with other MC boys and higher ups. Killer himself is across the street in a tiny Spanish style cottage that looks too quaint and picturesque to be owned by a single guy like him. As I round the corner, I send Cobra another text warning him I am near. It’s a defensive mechanism. I don’t want to scare him, and I certainly don’t want anyone else around while we discuss the business at hand.
Lucky for me, he’s alone when he answers the door wearing only a pair of tight black boxer briefs. The snakes that line his torso, back, and neck, look more real than ever before. They stare at me as I try to politely and confidently ask to come in. It takes me a moment to catch my breath as he lets me pass through and head towards his large, leather-clad living room. The smell of his cheap cologne and musty cigarettes is nearly unbearable,
“I don’t want to waste your time,” I offer, unsure of how intimate I should be. I’m basically putting myself out on a platter for him to take. “But have you talked to Killer… about my…”
“Yes,” he answers quickly as he takes a seat and then gestures towards the space on the loveseat next to him. The couch squeaks as I take my place, looking forward towards the blank wall. Cobra’s long arms drape over the back of the couch, and his fingers find their way towards my back and hair.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” I confess, “but it’s not like Killer’s giving me, I mean us, much of a choice.”
“You should be grateful, Sunny.” He laughs, “He should kill you for getting your slutty self knocked up, or at least force you to get rid of it. That’s what he would do to other girls. You’re lucky he wants to nail you so bad.”
“What?” I ask completely dumbfounded. Killer took me in when I b
egged for a place to go and a position with the club. I was only a teenager then—running away from a life I knew I didn’t want and parents who couldn’t tame me. He is like a savior to me, but it never crossed my mind that he has shown pity on me because there was something more to this. Not once has he given me the idea that it would be a possibility…
Cobra interrupts my thoughts with, “Secondly, you get to jump rank on all the other club skanks and land yourself someone with money and power. I’ve got plans, and Killer’s trying to clip them before I get too big in the club.”
I know exactly what he’s alluding to. Cobra’s been running power plays for a year now. He’s got a following, but there’s not enough for him to challenge Killer for the top spot. Killer runs the club with an iron fist and locks down any kind of dissent. Even us girls know when to keep our mouths shut when around one of his eyes and ears.
Untouchable: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Page 56