Screw Up (Hard Rock Roots Book 10)
Page 12
I glanced up and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, sweat beading on my forehead, a stray droplet sticking to my lower lip. I flashed a grin and then leaned over, curling my fingers gently around Laura's pale throat, drawing her head up so I could meet the eyes of her reflection. She bit back a gasp, tucking that red rouged lip of hers beneath white, white teeth. Her eyes were ringed in liner, and they looked huge, open, bare as I kept our gazes locked, ramming into her again and again and again.
An orgasm caught her first; I could see it building in the curl of her spine, the tightness of her fingers as she clawed at the countertop with her perfectly manicured nails.
“Dash!” she screamed, loud enough that I wouldn't be surprised if one of the security guards came traipsing in here. “Oh God, yes.” Her voice broke like a wave cresting on a rock, crashing around me as she squeezed tight, holding my body captive for one, perfect moment. One fucking perfect moment where I didn't have to be anyone or anything except myself. Sex is like a drug, ain't it? And I couldn't seem to stop myself from leaping between highs. “Wow,” Laura said as I pulled away and dropped my used condom in the stainless steel trash can. I fixed my jeans as I watched her turn around and gather herself together, smoothing strands of blonde back into place, adjusting her suit jacket and skirt, pulling up her panties. “That was amazing. Please tell me you'll be coming into the office more often?”
I shrugged and reached into my back pocket for a smoke.
“I'm going on tour this summer with the girls,” I told her and pretended not to notice when her face crumpled. Laura was nice and all, but she had this attention to detail that drove me nuts. Everything with her was so perfect, so put together. I liked angry, messy girls, girls with wild hair, makeup on one eye but not the other, a bedroom floor strewn with books and T-shirts and high heels still in the box. I didn't have to ask myself why or get introspective about it—I knew why I liked chaos. The answer was pretty simple: my father made me this way. That son of a bitch raised me in nothin' but chaos. “I'll see you when I get back?”/p>
I lit my cigarette and watched as Linda's eyes crinkled at the corners. Last time I saw her, she gave me a packet of brochures on the dangers of lung cancer.
“Sure thing, Dash,” she said and then pointed a red-nailed finger at me, “just don't tell your dad we did it again.”
I stood outside the door to my father's office with my hands tucked into my front pockets. There was nothing—and I mean nothing—in this world that made me feel like less of a human being than my dear ol' dad. I was twenty-nine years old, but standin' here like this, I felt like I was thirteen again, fumbling through life with nothing but his drunk cursin' and the weight of his disappointment to keep me company. You'd think a man who'd spent a good portion of his adult life as a criminal, an addict, and an outlaw biker would be a little less … judgmental. Nobody outside his own family would ever believe my pa used to go to church and sing in the damn choir. Fuck. If I'd been told the man was ascended straight from hell, I'd have believed it.
“Don't just stand there, boy,” he said, wrenching open the door before I even got a chance to knock, “come in.” I lifted my head up and took a breath, running my fingers through my hair as I stepped into the cool, air conditioned palace that served as his office. One entire wall was seamless glass, staring down at the city like the eyes of God. I shivered and tucked my hands back in my pockets. “Where've you been? You're late.”
I shrugged again and didn't mention Laura. Knowing my father, he'd probably fire her if he found out we'd slept together—on more than one occasion—but only because she wasn't sleeping with him too. Perverted old asshole. I think he suspected us at last year's Christmas party because he watched her like a hawk when I was around, like she belonged to him or something. Made me sick to my damn stomach. The man was like a bloodhound, able to sniff out even the smallest misdeeds. One time, when I was fourteen, he found a half-smoked joint that I'd hidden in the back of the toilet and beat my ass for not sharing it with him. Crazy motherfucker. I shivered and shook my head to clear it; I wasn't a teenager anymore. Thank Jesus for that.
“You've remodeled recently,” I said, hoping my words came out as the insult they were intended to be. Xavier Buchanan's office was slick and shiny, steel and leather and glass, and it looked more like a room that'd be found in an uptight East Coast corporate shithole—not in a Las Vegas motorcycle club conglomerate funded with blood money.
“I ain't got time for your bullshit,” Xavier said, lighting up a cigarette in his fancy New York style office as I smiled sharply. I guess you could take the outlaw out of the gang, but you could never take the gang out of the outlaw. The expensive suit and the fancy haircut couldn't disguise the fact that my dad, he was backwoods trash and always would be. His brothers—before he betrayed them, I mean—used to call him Veer because he always gettin' drunk and crashing his bike.
And now look at him—a motherfucking billionaire in a tailored suit playing the part of an entrepreneur. How … quant.
“Then why'd you call me in here?” I asked, my accent thick and dripping with mixed-up, mashed up Old South. I knew it drove him up the wall to hear my mama all the hell over me. I'd moved around so damn much I could affect whatever accent I wanted, but around dear ol' daddy, it was this. Aw, hell, who am I kidding, it was always this.
Served that fucker right for stealing me away from my mother.
“You know I'm nothin' but bullshit,” I drawled, leaning against the wall and crossing my booted feet at the ankles. Dad might've wanted to pretend he hadn't crawled out of a white trash trailer in the middle of nowhere fuckin' Nevada, but I didn't have any need for that particular illusion. My mother was a Southern belle from a good family, and I had roots.
Besides, nobody needed to tell me that I was better than my ol' man. I knew him better than most, and I knew that there was nothing—and I mean nothing—inside that awful black heart o' his. The man was gettin' too big for his expensive tailored britches, and yet nobody around here seemed willing to test his limits.
Except for me.
“You've got duties here and yet I see this shit lyin' across my desk when I come in.”
He tossed a stack of printouts and I watched them fall, fluttering to land on the polished marble floors beneath my feet. This place was cheesier than Caesars Palace with its pretentious poshness, but I supposed it fit in well out here in the desert. Las Vegas was nothin' but a con, a thriving city that survived on the stolen lifeblood of wetter regions. Like my poor pa, taking the club's money to open his business.
I didn't bother to bend down and check out the papers on the floor—I knew what they were about. My band, Pistols and Violets, was all over the news nowadays.
“Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, we'll keep on being on the front page,” I said as I stood up and purposely strode across the paper, leaving the prints of my boots behind. “I don't want anything to do with a business that's built on blood. You are a walkin', talkin' dead man far as I'm concerned. You think I want to inherit your shit?”
“Whether you like it or not, you have inherited it, Son. Buchanan Bikes is a multibillion-dollar beast now. You think you can use my money up and prance around like some choirboy?”
I laughed, letting my head fall back and my eyes close.
A choirboy.
Me.
I dropped my chin back down to look at Veer, the ex-treasurer for the Weeping Bones Motorcycle Club, and I smirked.
“You stole me from my mama, auctioned me off, and then took her family's ransom money and raised me in dirty hotels. And then, when you managed to get your shit together, when we had one good thing in our lives, you went and you fucked it. So, Daddy, yeah, I think I will live on your money and I won't do shit for your business, how does that sound?”
“I oughta tan your hide, boy,” he growled as I lit up a cigarette and watched as he raised his hand to me like he'd done too many times when I was a kid. I held my smoke with one hand an
d snatched his wrist with the other.
“I'm not knee-high to a grasshopper anymore, now am I?” I snarled back at him, shoving his arm away and turning toward the door before things escalated. The fights my pa and I could get into, they weren't pretty.
“They're in town!” he shouted at my back as I pushed my way through the door. “You'd best watch your back, boy.”
Fuck.
If the Weeping Bones were in Las Vegas, then there was only one reason for that.
They were here to kill my old man.
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About the Author
C.M. Stunich is a self-admitted bibliophile with a love for exotic teas and a whole host of characters who live full time inside the strange, swirling vortex of her thoughts. Some folks might call this crazy, but Caitlin Morgan doesn't mind - especially considering she has to write biographies in the third person. Oh, and half the host of characters in her head are searing hot bad boys with dirty mouths and skillful hands (among other things). If being crazy means hanging out with them everyday, C.M. has decided to have herself committed.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Front Matter Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Signup for my Newsletter
Author's Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Author's Note
Stepbrother Inked Cover
Groupie Cover
Biker Rockstar Billionaire CEO Alpha Cover
Biker Rockstar Billionaire CEO Alpha Description
Biker Rockstar Billionaire CEO Alpha Excerpt
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