by Lana Grayson
Lyn answered for Shannon. Hatred soured her voice. “The Coup. Shannon’s...owner is one of Priest’s crew.”
“Sorry.” Shannon shrugged. I didn’t believe her. “I’m guessing it isn’t good news.”
She forced the paper into my hand and demanded her paycheck before she sashayed from the room. Lyn stared at my trembling hands as the envelope fell away.
“Rose, what the hell is going on?” Lyn asked.
23 and 3rd
Theater off of Washington Street
Thursday, 11 AM
The prez will be handled tonight
I crumbled the paper. The blood iced in my body and pooled at my feet.
“Rose, talk to me!” Lyn ripped the note from my fingers. “Who the fuck wrote this? What does it mean?”
Nothing.
Because I wasn’t letting it happen.
“Ex is going to kill Thorne,” I said. “And we have to stop it.”
Lyn’s stare might have set the note on fire. “What the fuck do you know? What happened when they grabbed you?”
“If you want to stay alive, don’t ask me that.”
“Does Thorne—”
“And if you want everyone else to stay alive, forget you read this.” I ripped the paper from her hands.
Lyn swallowed. She flipped on a secondary monitor on her desk. Security footage from the club blinked. She enlarged the image of the parking lot and the four bikers poised outside.
“The Coup is here,” she said.
“Call Thorne. He thinks we’re just giving Luke his bike back.”
“So does Luke.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Luke arranged this meeting.”
“Then Luke lied.”
Lyn’s eyes flashed lethal, and I braced for the strike of a pissed off rattlesnake. “Knight would never lie to me.”
“How do you know?”
“You have your secrets…” Lyn glanced to the paper. “If I call Thorne and tell him what’s happening, they’ll kill Luke.”
“But...”
“Let’s just say I don’t want the liability on Sorceress.”
I knew better than to ask any more. “Then I have to go warn him.”
“You walk out there, that note in your hand, and run over to Thorne, Ex will shoot you on sight.”
“Then you do it.”
“They’d kill me too, for their own reasons.”
“I am not going to let him walk into a trap.”
Lyn’s frown tempered into a quiet smirk. “Well, he did say not to leave unless you were in a thong.” She checked her watch and dialed out on the club line. “Shannon, you’re not leaving. Grab Sophia and Angel. You three go entertain the guys from the Coup. Tell them it’s on the house while I get the VIP room set up for the meeting. Tell Marie to distract Anathema.”
Lyn slammed the phone on the cradle and grabbed my hand. She led me from the room but didn’t head into the club. We hid in a dressing room backstage. The door locked.
Like I needed any more trouble.
“Strip,” Lyn said. “You go warn Thorne.”
“Strip?”
“You have a better idea? The lights are dim, my other girls will be dancing, and...” She grabbed a brush and yanked the scrunchie from my hair. My curls tumbled down, and she pulled most of the dark mass over my face. “Trust me, they’re not looking at your pretty eyes. Take off your clothes.”
Like it was that easy to do.
She ripped through a closet full of costumes. I flushed as I twisted the shirt over my neck and fumbled over the button on my jeans. Lyn glanced up as I stood, goose bumped, in my white bra, panties, and socks.
“Christ, you are a virgin.” She tossed me a plaid school-girl skirt. “Leave the panties, drop the bra.”
“Are you sure?”
“My other girls are in g-strings. Play the fucking part.”
I hated the pink curse on my cheeks. A sheer blouse fit over my shoulders, but Lyn batted my hands away before I buttoned it. She shoved me into a pair of black heels.
“Don’t say anything to anyone. Head right to Thorne, dance, and warn him. Then get the hell out of there before this place turns into the OK Corral.”
I glanced at the walking bundle of sex in the mirror. The skirt was too short, the heels too high, and the shirt way too revealing. Lyn pulled it down off my shoulders, and the swell of my breasts peeked into the air.
“Christ, I hope Brew and Keep don’t kill me for this,” Lyn said.
“Me too.” I ignored the tips of my hardening nipples in the air-conditioned chill. “Let’s go.”
Lyn guided me backstage, but she frowned as she peered around the curtain. Shannon distracted two of Ex’s men closest to the stage, but Thorne and the rest of Anathema waited on the opposite end of the club. My brothers loitered in the middle. Patrolling. Watching the dancing. Just waiting to catch me and lose their minds.
“Be quick,” Lyn said.
My stomach eroded before I even stepped foot onto the floor. I didn’t have the curves to strip, and I didn’t have the courage to slip across the club without trembling before making it to Thorne. Lyn pushed me. I grabbed her before she ducked away.
“Where are you going?” I hissed.
She pointed to the bar. “I have to warn Luke.”
“Warn Luke?”
“He might be our only shot at stopping this bloodbath.” Lyn’s voice cut like a knife. She dared me to argue. Crossing the club in a thong was safer than opening my mouth. “Go.”
My almost-nudity shouldn’t have destroyed my confidence, not when singing in front of strangers demanded more talent and skill and risk than just shuffling off my clothes and shaking my hips. But what remained of my pride discarded on the dressing room floor, and my stomach threatened to do a dance of its own.
But my modesty was worth protecting my family.
And I already stripped it for Thorne.
I slipped from behind the curtain and fluffed my hair in front of my face. No one shot me. Or pulled a gun. Or waited to bash my brains in and finish Ex’s job.
At least I’d have a head start before blundering into the light at the end of the strip club.
For the first time in my life, the music didn’t distract me. Not the thick command of the bass or the whining drone of a guitar. The song pulsing over the club played on every radio station every hour of every day and I couldn’t remember a single word.
I had nightmares about times like this—when my guitar strings would snap, the microphones would short out, and the audience’s jeers boo’ed in time to my set. Stage-fright crippled most performers, but I didn’t think it ever killed anyone.
Yet.
The first whistle rattled my bones. The second nearly cost me my composure.
No one ever complimented me like that while singing. Figured. The tiny skirt bounced as I walked, and the blinding white of my panties brightened the room more than the zapping pink light glowing over the bar. I hurried past the three men clustered around Shannon. One touched more than he observed, but Shannon didn’t mind, and it offered me a chance to dart past without too much notice.
I dared to look around the club.
My first mistake.
Luke sat at the bar, separated from the hooting of his men. He knocked back a shot before either recovering his bike or assassinating his former president. The drink in his hand stilled.
My eyes darted to Thorne.
His did too.
I swore and braced to scream, but he broke first, reaching into his vest. It didn’t matter how far he sat from Thorne, or that Keep stood in the direct path of his shot. The Coup didn’t care how many men they needed to kill to take out Thorne.
But he didn’t pull a weapon. Only a glowing iPhone. He lowered his gaze and read the screen.
Frowned.
Searched the faces of his men.
Lyn was a woman of her word, but I had no idea which words she gave Luke. She wanted to w
arn him as badly as I needed to warn Thorne.
And Anathema had no idea how badly her loyalty twisted.
I slipped into the shadows, edging far from my brothers. Keep and Brew faced away from me, distracted by the slow seduction of a girl in a black thong and nothing else. I wanted to shoulder the transparent blouse, but a fully clothed dancer attracted more attention than someone showing off a perky chest. Then again, not many strippers blushed top to bottom pink.
Gold was the first one to catcall as I approached. His smile transformed into a cowl of absolute horror as I shook my head and hissed for him to stay quiet.
His eyes asked a million questions, but his experience in the Marines taught him all he needed to know about a war zone.
He leapt from his seat, adjusted his jeans, and hurried to my brothers’ side, facing them away from Thorne.
Scotch crossed himself and turned away. I wondered if it was possible to bleed shame or if the fairy-pink glow of my blush revealed enough. I dashed to Thorne’s side, grabbed his cut, and dodged a backhand that would have shaken dollar bills loose from any dancer who dared to wrinkle the leather. He stopped his strike in time.
Stared at me.
Enraged.
“You get a dance.” I gritted my teeth. “On the couch. Now.”
Thorne’s eyes blazed a fierce gray—the gun-metal darkness cocked, fired, then melted under the pressure of his own stare. I didn’t flinch as his attention shifted down.
The primal heat of his gaze nipped over my neck, slipped over my shoulders, caressed the gentle swell of my exposed breasts, and tickled over my tummy. I knew what he imagined under my skirt.
My skin prickled with goose bumps. The raspberry pink of my nipples betrayed me. They tightened. Hard. Harder than they should have for the air in the room and revealing entirely too much for the warning I intended to give.
My nudity should have frightened me more than Thorne’s approach.
It didn’t.
His very being existed to break me. His size. His stare. His desire. And I had nothing to protect me.
His steel-tipped boots thudded next to my delicate heels. The denim of his jeans clashed against the softness of my legs. My flared skirt hid nothing. His leather belt hardly contained what bulged the layers between us. My breasts, flushed and pale, exposed to him.
But his cut—the dark uniform of strength, brutality, and power—revealed more. The hardness of his muscles. The vulnerable chest where Exorcist would aim his gun. Ragged breathing. Desperate tension.
Feminine and dedicated combated against masculine and violent. Thorne didn’t take his eyes from me. His deliberate steps treaded back, and he collapsed on the leather couch behind Anathema and beyond the sight of The Coup’s distracted members.
“The fuck are you doing?” Thorne’s fury warmed my shivering skin. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Probably.” I crossed my arms. “I had to talk to you.”
“Jesus Christ. Call me.” He stared at the curves I couldn’t hide. “Holy shit.”
“Look, you’re in danger—”
“Dance.”
“Excuse me?”
He studied the club behind me. “Fucking dance.”
Damn it. I closed my eyes and offered a slight wiggle of my hips, the most my bruised pride and churning stomach could offer. Thorne swore.
“You’re in danger,” I said.
“Take off your shirt.”
“No!”
“The Coup is watching every fucking move I make.” He tightened his jaw. “Take off your shirt before they recognize you. Dressed or not, they’ll still disembowel you for stealing Knight’s bike.”
My legs locked up, and my wiggling turned into an unsteady wobble. I gripped the blouse and bit my lip.
“Christ, Rose, you think I haven’t seen a pair of tits before?”
“Not mine—”
“Take it off before I fucking rip it off.”
It wasn’t how I imagined stripping for Thorne. Not that the thought had even crossed my mind before last night, or that I ever imagined performing for any man. Any illusion I had of seduction, any fantasy I created of passionate, animalistic enthusiasm vanished in the trembles that shook the blouse from my shoulders. I seized a suffocating breath.
Thorne released his in a profanity. “Fuck, I’ve never been so glad to be in danger before.”
He made it impossible to feel ashamed of my body, but I still couldn’t will my hips to move. Closing my eyes only made it harder. I needed to see where he looked, and how soon the guns would be pulled.
“Get on my lap.”
“Thorne—”
“Dance or get on my lap.”
The night would only get worse before it got better. Brew whistled behind me, and I almost envied Thorne for the weapons aiming at him. He gathered me into his arms and pulled me into his lap before my brothers realized just how well I blended into the MC.
My legs awkwardly bent, and he grunted, slamming my hips down to meet his. I gripped his shoulders, but that only pushed my breasts higher, offering them for his appraisal. I shifted, and the hardness in his jeans pressed against my panties.
I blushed. Thorne didn’t apologize.
“I’m the only one who can see you,” he said.
“Yeah...thanks.”
“You’re going to make one sexy corpse.”
“I needed to warn you.”
Thorne’s hands moved upwards, resting against my sides. He accidentally gripped as I shifted, instinctually pulling me into place over his hardness. We both flinched. What parts of me hadn’t been frightened into sickness now warmed into inappropriate, undeniable need. His cock flexed under me.
“Better keep dancing.” Thorne’s voice lowered. “Wouldn’t want someone to get the wrong idea about this rescue.”
Like I had any idea what I was doing. I shimmied against him, slowly. Methodically. His fingers gripped harder against my hips, and I sighed as the warmth trailed along my sides, down my legs, and centered directly between my spread thighs.
“They’re going to hit you tonight,” I whispered. “I don’t know when. We have to leave.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
His fingers dug in. Hard.
“They sent a note,” I said. “Something to taunt me. Luke doesn’t know. This is all Ex. You have to get somewhere safe.”
“They sent you a fucking note?” His voice thickened with a brutal threat tempered only by heavy arousal. “What the hell happened when they grabbed you?”
I shook my head. The dancing came easier with his hands guiding me. My hips rolled over his, forth and back, rocking my body over his waist and grinding a warming part of me over his excitement. I shivered, my mind blanking to all but the roughness of his jeans, the cool air whispering over my breasts, the threat of his gaze venturing beyond where his hands touched.
“Rose,” he said. “You gotta tell me what the hell happened.”
“Nothing happened.” The lie came easier while I rubbed against him.
His hands tightened. We both stilled, but I didn’t know how much longer it could last. The hardness strained in his pants, and my trembling transcended fear and warmed with irresponsible lust. My fingers traced over his cut. The word President tickled my fingertip.
It was the first time the title excited me.
The music pulsed harder. I never thought I’d like R&B so much. The drums, the sexy bass, the noise. I leaned in close as the thumping melody deafened me to everything but my heartbeat.
His wild leather scent made the whisper more my pleasure than his warning. I brushed my chest against his vest.
“Lyn and I have a plan. I can short-circuit the electronics. Make a lot of smoke and maybe scatter everyone. Then you can get my brothers and get somewhere safe.”
“I’m not leaving you,” he said.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Shadows crossed behind us. Keep s
houted to Thorne.
His hand gripped my hair, and he pulled me onto his lips before Keep recognized me.
This wasn’t part of the dance. It wasn’t part of the rescue. Or the warning. Or the plan.
But I seized his kiss as if it were the first, last, and only pleasure I would ever receive.
His lips crushed mine. A bruising, ferocious conquering that stole my breathless apprehension and demanded something greater. Something hot and pounding and harmonizing that bound me to him in flesh and promise.
The music muffled. The club twisted away. The danger evaporated. My every thought, the only pulsing desire in my body, ached for more of his kiss, another brush of his lips, and the lash of his tongue.
He kissed to protect me from my brothers. To help blend me in with the rest of the bare flesh in the club. But his strained breath, the clutching of his hands, the claiming of my desire was all for him.
And I would have given it to him.
Thorne’s grip tightened.
The shot fired into the couch and exploded into charred stuffing before I realized someone aimed for us.
Thorne dove, tossing me to the ground. My battered head smacked the hardwood, but his muscular body protected me, shielding me from the frenzy of bullets blitzing through the club.
He meant to push me through the floor. The air squeezed from my lungs, but we were safe. I twisted to hide from the crackling gunfire. Keep and Brew dropped to the ground, shouting over the firefight. Keep pulled his gun. Brew narrowed his eyes.
“Rose?” His shock raged into horror as he glanced over my body. “What the fu—”
Gold returned shots, and Scotch overturned his table. The dancers screamed and sought cover. My brothers aimed their weapons.
Too late.
A gun cocked over our heads.
Thorne stilled as the barrel of the nine millimeter bumped his temple.
Exorcist grinned down at us, his greasy smile slick with lust as he studied my chest.
“Picked a pretty dancer, Thorne.” Exorcist nudged the gun harder against his head. “Call off your men and I won’t smear her brains on your cut.”
Thorne glanced to his side. Gold, Scotch, and my brothers aimed their weapons at different targets. Keep swore as he recognized me.
“Where the hell are your clothes?” He yelled. His eyes snapped to Ex. “Fucking hell, let her go. She hasn’t done a goddamned thing to you.”