by Sophia Gray
I drained my beer. “Yeah, well. This broad wants a fair amount of money herself. Maybe I should just be done with both of them. Find someone else. Always more fish in the sea, right?”
“Always.” Bob laughed. “Would be great to find one that didn’t smell like fish down there.”
“Like you ever go down on your wife.” Stained-Shirt laughed.
I refrained from recoiling. Bob with the missing tooth had a wife?
“I do if I want her to give me head,” he grumbled. “And trust me, my wife gives good head. Worth it even if I have to hold my breath.”
I joined in the laughter, but I needed more specifics than just some town one hundred miles north. Seemed to me that they were fleeing.
The drugs. Had to be because of the drugs. Trenton wasn’t the romantic type. He wouldn’t pick up Sage and ride into the sunset. While it didn’t seem like Victoria approved of her daughter dating him, she hadn’t disallowed it either. They didn’t need to run away to be together.
So, they’d left because of the drugs.
If I thought time had been important before, it was even more important now. Who knew if Trenton and Sage would still be alive when we did find them? Because it was when we found them, not if we found them.
I turned to Paul. “Do you think you might remember—”
The activity in the bar racketed up a notch, suddenly so much louder that I had to stop and glance around. What was going on? A fistfight?
There were so many people crowding around the bar, trying to get the bartenders’ attention to get more beer or liquor that I had to stand to see.
And what did I see?
Victoria.
In the back.
With two shady-as-hell-looking guys.
And it looked like she might be the one to be lifting up fists.
Chapter 6
Grant
That she showed up here had my blood boiling. I had sent her a few texts earlier, and she knew I was here, and she had agreed to not come. She understood that I wanted to keep her safe. That this was dirty work. That I could handle it.
She’d lied. And she obviously couldn’t handle it.
I tossed some money onto the counter, said a quick goodbye to the guys, and had to fight my way toward her. The crowd wasn’t forgiving, and I knocked into more than a few shoulders, but finally I pushed through the group and made my way to the back.
Two tall men accosted her, and from the shouts, loud talking, music, and cheers, I couldn’t hear what they were saying to her, but she looked both angry and frightened.
I pushed through the middle of them to reach her and threw an arm across her shoulders. “What’s going on here?” I asked conversationally, but there was a slight edgy undercurrent to my tone. That plus my glower had the guy on the right retreating half a step.
The guy on the right had a moustache and he wasn’t as easily intimidated. “We don’t want her here.”
“Why not?” I asked smoothly.
“She’s bothering us.”
I refrained from glancing down at her. “How—”
“You can’t refuse me service without a good reason,” Victoria demanded.
“Actually, yes, we can.”
Victoria jerked forward, and I had to restrain her. I actually had to hold her back. I wasn’t sure what she had been about to do, and who knew if she even knew. From experience, I’d learned adrenaline could make you do crazy things. I’d been in a few fistfights myself before. Hadn’t always won, and two against one weren’t great odds, but I would take them both on if I had to.
“You want her to leave,” I said smoothly, “she’ll leave. Right?”
She pushed herself away from me. “Really?”
“Come on.” I waved to the guys and followed her as she whipped around and marched out the back exit.
She paced up and down the sidewalk. Her car wasn’t in sight.
“What were you thinking?” I fumed.
“I was thinking …” She glanced up and down the street. “Let’s not talk out here.”
“How did you get here?”
“Took a cab,” she muttered. She rubbed her arms. She was trembling. Her nerves had to be shot.
My eyebrows rose. “A cab? Why didn’t you drive yourself?”
“I…My hands were shaking too much.” She essentially hugged herself. “I’ll call one and go back to my place. I won’t—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going back to mine.”
“I will not!”
“What happened back there?” I asked quietly. “It didn’t look good.”
She hesitated.
“I will take care of you. I promise you we’ll find them. It’s gonna take time.”
“Time is the one thing we don’t have!” She stepped toward me, arm raised, her fingers in a fist. But she lowered her arm without hitting me. “Fine.”
I walked her over to my bike. “Willing to ride?”
I hadn’t wanted her first ride to be under this kind of a circumstance, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter.
“Guess so,” she mumbled.
I only had one helmet, so I gave it to her. Once she put it on, I mounted my bike. After a moment, she climbed on behind me.
“Hold on tight,” I warned her.
I rode away. I went slow and took my time. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her. As it was, she clung to me so tight whenever I had to make a turn. She was a quick learner, though, and she moved her body to the correct side when I turned without me having to tell her first. Normally I told new riders what to expect, what to do. Guess she wasn’t the only one to be unnerved about everything. I was definitely on edge. The beers I’d had didn’t help to settle me any. The thought of her getting hurt made me so angry, but I was also pissed at her for endangering herself unnecessarily. What the hell had she been thinking? What the hell had she said or done that had set the guys off in the first place?
What bothered me more—that she had lied to me, or that she had gotten herself in danger? Both bothered me, and honestly, I wasn’t sure which hurt me more.
Me. Hurt. Over a woman. What was happening to me? I was going soft.
Lies. Betrayal. Two things I couldn’t abide. Yet here I was, trying my best to find Trenton even though the drugs at his place showed he had been lying to me, might even have been betraying me.
And now Victoria lied to me. She had promised to leave the bar to me. She promised to trust me.
Obviously, that was another lie. She didn’t trust me. I had trusted her, but now I didn’t want to.
But I still did, and that was just as frustrating at anything else. Because she was a worried mother, trying to find her daughter. Of course, it would be hard for her to trust someone else to find her, especially when she knew about a lead that needed to be double checked.
When we arrived, I killed my bike and waited for Victoria to climb off first. She was still squeezing me tight, and I had to tap her hands and pry them apart for her to let go.
“Ready?” I asked.
“For what?” she murmured as she finally climbed off. She unhooked the helmet, and I stashed it away.
I didn’t bother to answer her, just took her by the elbow and marched her inside. Every ounce of me wanted to read her the riot act, to yell at her, to rage, to punch something, but I refrained.
Barely.
I was pacing right by the door—after I slammed it shut and locked it—but when I turned toward her and saw that she was trembling, my anger just vanished.
Without thinking, I crossed over to her and enveloped her into my arms. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. She smelled like my shampoo. She felt so fragile, so small.
She pulled away slightly and looked up at me. She might seem fragile, but there was strength in her eyes. There was determination, too. She was determined to go to war if she had to.
And she just might.
“I broke into the back entrance,” she said.
I gaped at her. “Broke in?”
“Yeah. It’s not supposed to open from the outside. Exit only.” She took a deep breath. She was still trembling, just not quite as violently as before. My arms were still around her, and maybe I was giving her some peace of mind by holding her, but I couldn’t help thinking maybe she was drawing on some inner strength. “I was hoping…I thought…Maybe I hadn’t been thinking…”
“What had you wanted to do?”
“Snoop around,” she blurted. “If someone working there knew something or was involved, they might have gotten rid of all the evidence already, but I had to try to see.”
“Huh?”
“I was good. I called everyone on your list and my list, too, and then the police called me to give me an update, which was basically to say that there wasn’t an update. I asked if they had gone over to Cowboy’s Lasso, and they had. ‘Nothing there,’ they said, so either they’re lying and never went in the first place—which I doubt because I know they went to another store Sage loved because I went in to buy her something for when she comes home and the saleswoman told me about the police coming to question them—or else the bar employees lied to the police. And if they lied to the police, it had to mean there was a reason for it—like them having to do with Sage’s disappearance!” She was back to shaking again, but this time it wasn’t from fear. It was from anger and rage. She had fire and drive and passion. One hell of a woman.
I rubbed her back. “You’re sure the employees lied to the police?”
“Yes. They claimed Sage and Trenton haven’t been there in a month.”
Okay, now that definitely was a lie.
“We can’t jump to conclusions,” I started.
She trembled some more, staring off into the distance. “I broke in, and I didn’t even get in very far—maybe two steps. Was just looking around when those guys came up to me. One grabbed my arm, but I threatened to kick him in the balls if he touched me. I tried to talk my way out of it, but considering they saw me come in through the door, they knew I was up to no good. I guess they were just doing their job, but—”
“No. They never should’ve touched you or talked to you like that.” I pulled her close again.
“I just wanted to find some clues, some evidence. The trail can’t go cold, Grant. We have to find her.”
“Find them,” I corrected gently.
“Right. Sorry.” Her cheeks flushed. “I tried to claim I was just trying to get a beer, but they didn’t believe me. Called me some names. If you hadn’t come over…” Victoria started trembling all over again.
“Hush,” I whispered. “You’re fine now. You’re here.”
“Yes, I’m fine, but…” A tear streaked down her cheek. “Oh God. Damn it. Damn it all to Hell. I made everything worse, didn’t I? Now they know people are snooping. They might not realize why I was, but you saved me, so now they know both of us, will recognize our faces. Neither of us can go back there. We can’t find out anything about Sage and Trenton. I should’ve listened to you. I should’ve—”
“It’s on me,” I said. “I should’ve gone in with one of the guys. Had him try to do some digging around the back while I worked the customers. I should’ve had my cell on, connected to you, so you could’ve listened in. That way, you wouldn’t have to worry, and—”
“And if God forbid something happened, if you did pick up a lead, I could’ve had proof to give to the police.” A few more tears fell. “We really screwed this up, didn’t we?”
“Not all hope is lost.”
She shook her head. “My hope is dying.”
No. I wouldn’t let that happen to her. “Things will look better in the morning,” I assured her.
“In the morning.” She took a deep breath and shuddered. “Eight more hours. Eight more hours of Sage being gone. Maybe…Maybe she’s…her…”
I shifted so one arm went around her waist and guided her to my bedroom. “Sleep. I can talk to my men and send them back in. We’ll be smart about it. No one will know they’re connected to us—”
“Your bike,” she interrupted.
“Huh?”
“They can make a connection through your bikes.”
Through the club. She was smart, but I had already thought about that. “We do know how to drive cars, too.” I smiled, hoping the joke would ease her mind slightly, but her frown remained firmly in place.
“So one will do the talking and the other the snooping, like we should’ve done all along?”
“Yep. And we’ll have a wire set up so we can both listen in. How does that sound?”
“Good.” She sighed.
I walked her over to the bed and picked her up to lay her down on it. She looked like an angel. She wasn’t supposed to have any exposure to the harshness the world has to offer. She was a successful businesswoman, worked her way to the top, adopted a girl. She was good and kind and loving. This kind of harshness, this kind of darkness, it was bound to change her, for better or for worse.
“You should get some sleep.” I wanted to smile at her, but I couldn’t. Life was too shitty. There wasn’t time for smiles or happiness. Misery and depression. That was about it. Fuck, the world was a messed up place. Most everyone was miserable and depressed, too.
Without a word, I removed her shoes and then her socks. Now also wasn’t the time for anything sexual, but would it help if I undressed her slightly to make her more comfortable? I didn’t want to cross any lines. Honestly, I just wanted to help. Help Victoria. Help Trenton. Help Sage.
Help myself.
Nothing like this had ever happened before. Sure, as leader of a motorcycle club, I had seen some shit in my days, but nothing like this. That those guys had jumped all over Victoria told me we had to be on the right track.
Or maybe not. If Trenton and Sage had gotten out of town and moved one hundred miles away, they were going to be involved with the bar in any fashion. So maybe the bar had some kind of dirty, illegal secret to it that was completely separate from the disappearance of the couple.
All of these questions and my lack of answers were given me a migraine.
“What I really need is a drink,” she muttered wanly.
Good idea.
“I’ll get you one.” I patted her arm and left her room. Maybe she would already be conked out by the time I got back. Or maybe she wanted it as a nightcap. To help settle her down for sleep. Those guys had her really worked up. It might take her some time to be able to fall asleep.
She was half sitting up when I returned with two glasses of whiskey. Her arms were wrapped around her bent knees, her head resting on her arms. She was back to trembling again.
I set the glasses on my nightstand and sat beside her on the bed. “Here. It’s all right,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around her. “Do you want your drink? What do you need?”
“You know what I need,” she said softly.
Her daughter. Of course.
“What do you need that I can get for you right this second?” I clarified.
“Nothing.” But she lifted her head from her arms and rested it against my shoulder.
It was a simple gesture, sweet, but it got me hard as hell. Fuck. This so wasn’t the time. She was hurting. It would be taking advantage of her. I should get up and leave.
But she was the one to kiss my cheek. She was the one to cup my face. She was the one to press her lips to mine, and suddenly she was in my arms, legs spread, straddled over me, humping me through our clothes as our kisses deepened. I felt like I had jumped off a cliff and landed in a pool of liquid pleasure.
I nipped at her lips as I tugged on her shirt. We broke off the kiss only for a second, enough time for me to yank off her top, and then our tongues were back to dueling. Her hands bunched up my shirt, and we had to stop kissing again, this time for her to remove my shirt.
But instead of kissing me more, she pressed her hands firmly against my back until I lay down, and she made quick work of my belt. I lifted my hips, and she pee
led off my jeans. Her eyes widened as my cock sprang free.
Yep. No boxers. I liked to free ball it.
And I liked what she was doing to my balls, cupping them in one hand, her other hand slowly stroking my cock. It felt wrong, though, and I had to ask, “Are you sure you want this?”
With fire in her eyes, she grabbed my hand and brought it to her pussy. Oh fuck. Fuck, was she wet. “You tell me,” she said, her eyes glazed over with lust.