It brought him back to the time that he had first seen her.
Raine’s little sister.
Reno had nicknamed Raine the “golden snatch.” He had not been able to stand her; he could not get past the upheaval that she caused by showing up at the MC. Because of her, his brothers Diego and Crow had gone at each other like two junkyard dogs. Uncle Prosper had gone dewy-eyed every time he laid eyes on the long-lost bitch. Reno had been disgusted with the whole thing.
Until he wasn’t.
Until the day that Prosper had ordered Reno to play fucking chauffeur to Raine. His orders were to accompany Miss Golden Snatch to pick up her little sister from her twenty-eight days in rehab. Reno had been more than a little pissed. He had seriously not been looking forward to it. Not a short trip either, six hours there and six more back. He had just wanted to get it over with. So much so that he’d made Raine practically beg him to stop the car just so she could take a piss.
Then, when they finally got there, Reno had waited with his arms folded in front of that rehab building. He had stood like stone, covered in attitude, meaning to intimidate Raine into hurrying the hell up.
Yep, Reno had seen his share of skanky, dull-eyed blow-bags. He was sure as shit not looking forward to accompanying one all the way back home.
When Reno saw Claire coming down the stairs toward him, he knew she was not that.
No, siree. Claire was not even close to that.
As a matter of fact, she was so far from that that Reno felt certain that Raine Winston’s little sister had just spent her twenty-eight in the wrong place.
The sight of Claire, even at a distance, had pulled Reno in like quicksand. Seeing her up close had made his balls ache: sky blue eyes, long hair as dark as night, clear smooth skin that glistened like warm copper, high cheek bones, full lips. A smoking-hot body made for lying under a man.
Seeing her for the first time had made his dick twitch, no question. But really, it was her reaction to him that had caught his interest. Claire had burst through the doors of that drab building like a jewel-box ballerina whose lid had just been opened. Reno watched her happily bouncing her way down those long front steps.
Yep. She had bounced all right, until her gaze had crashed and burned into his.
Then Claire had stopped dead, narrowed her baby blues and hid behind her big sister. She had tried to hide from him. Reno couldn’t believe it. Not letting that even come close to stopping him, Reno had moved in to get a better look.
Jesus.
Those Winston sisters sure had it in the looks department.
Raine was a whole truckload of beautiful. Even when Reno was hating on her, he could not deny that.
But her little sister.
Damn adorable.
Claire’s freckles had sealed the deal for Reno. Dancing like little stars across the bridge of her nose. None of that spackle shit that some women wore on their faces to cover them up.
Claire was a natural beauty.
Reno had wanted to be up in that the minute he saw her.
Then, a few short hours later, he had almost gotten her killed.
Christ.
That day had been a disaster of epic proportions.
Crow liked to refer to it as the “nap” incident.
Asshole.
But Reno couldn’t deny that those forty winks had almost cost three women their lives. And those three women had manned up in ways that some men would not have had the balls to do. The girls had held their shit together long enough for Reno to get them all home safe and sound.
Then crazy Ellie and shit-for-brains Rieldo had kidnapped and tried to kill Raine and Claire.
The two fools had tried to off the Winston sisters.
Yeah, Reno grinned in spite of himself, good luck with that.
When Prosper called him into the meet to tell him about Claire being taken, Reno had lost his shit. Lost it. Reining it in to let Prosper handle it took everything that Reno had. But then again, Reno had spent a lot of time reining it in on Claire’s behalf.
Really, too much damn time.
He knew that she had been working her twelve-step bullshit. It turned out that she had been trying to stay away not only from substances, but from the bad men who brought her to that point.
Reno didn’t think he was a bad man. He had known worse. But he knew, sure as shit knew, that he wasn’t a good one either.
Reno knew exactly what Claire saw when she looked at him. She saw what most good citizens saw—a whole lot of badass. He hadn’t wanted to scare her off. So he had waited and watched. Reno did what he could do not to punch his fist bloody into every roadblock that she threw in his way.
Night and day for what had seemed like forever, Reno had done his best to be where Claire was. And that hadn’t been easy because where Claire was, her girl posse followed.
Jesus, he had never seen three closer women in his life. They were a three-girl army when it came to protecting each other. And evidently, they had decided that Claire needed protection. From him.
And that would have been enough for Reno to stay away. He wasn’t some desperate stalker. That was just creepy. Reno never had been and never would be that guy.
No, what kept Reno in the game was Claire.
It was in the way that she looked at him when she thought that he didn’t see. In the way her eyes danced over every dude in the room, anxiously seeking him out, and breathing the smallest sigh of relief when she saw him. In the way she lowered her face when she was close to him, but then looked up at him from behind those thick long lashes of hers. In the way she colored that adorable shade of pink, all over, when he winked at her.
Those were the things that had kept Reno in it.
Jesus, it had taken him almost a whole year to get her to the point where she could have a conversation with him without turning herself inside out. Then, when he was finally in, when he had all that beauty in his bed, when they had finally gotten to a place where they could start working on that forever kind of shit, she had left him.
And that had been it for him.
Well, fuck her, he had thought. Fuck you, Claire, and your issues.
That’s how Reno had felt about Claire when he left. He had tried to stay away, but he couldn’t.
Because Reno loved Claire.
A lot.
Yeah, it had taken him a while to get there, but when he did, he felt it like a shot to his gut. With that, he had packed his shit up, took the first plane out, and drove through a rainstorm to get home. He had gone to the lake house for her first. Then not finding Claire there, Reno had driven straight to the compound.
He was one hundred percent in for the happily ever after with her.
Whatever it took.
But no more waiting.
He was all done with the waiting game. If he was right about the way Claire felt about him, then she had been just as miserable without him as he was without her. And remembering the way Claire had come to him that first night, Reno knew that he was right about the way that she felt.
Jesus, that sweet thing had been all over him. Unleashed. He hadn’t known that shy little beauty had it in her. When he had moved to take her out of that hospital after the good news of the baby being born, she had practically jumped on the back of his bike. She had hung on tight to him all the way home, her heavy tits pressed hard against his back, her sleek, muscled legs clutched against his leather-covered thighs, and best of all, her arms holding on tight around him.
Claire had started in on him the moment his foot slammed the door shut. Almost frantically, she had pulled off his cut, then his T-shirt. When she moved to unhook his belt, he had stopped her and started to do some undressing of his own.
When he had her down to her tiny silk panties he had pushed her back on his bed and tongued her. All over. Soft little licks that made her whimper. Long gentle pulls that made her nipples harden and swell. When he finally pulled her legs wide apart and slung them over his shoulders, her back was arc
hed so high that she was practically crawling with a need to take it.
Hours of that. Reno had given it to Claire for hours. And Claire had given it right back. Stretched out like a cat full of cream, she had purred and clawed for two straight days.
Best two goddamn days of his whole miserable life. Then those days had turned into more days, and longer nights. First it was all hot, hard, wet sex. They couldn’t get enough of each other. It seemed they couldn’t be around one another without wanting it. They were like two cats in heat, and Reno was all over that.
But he wanted more.
Reno always felt like Claire was holding back. Not physically. Physically she was pretty much game with whatever he wanted to do to her. That had surprised him. But Reno had been gentle and loving with Claire. Maybe that was why. He read her body like a book. He was careful with her and did his best to satisfy her and give her what he thought that she needed.
Thing was, that sometimes it seemed like the more he got to know her body, the less he got to know her. It had occurred to Reno more than once that Claire was hiding behind all that heat. Reno was never the let’s talk kind of guy, but he had found himself wanting to get to know Claire. He wanted to know what she was thinking. Shit, he cared about her hopes and goddamn dreams.
He didn’t want her to be his fuck buddy. He wanted much more than that.
So he worked on that too.
Claire had been a lot of work.
And then came the night when it was all worth it. She had opened up to him like a morning glory.
She had talked and talked and talked. Once those floodgates had opened, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. They had stayed up all night talking. She had told him everything. They talked about the death of her mother and her time at the lake house with Prosper. She had shared what it was like growing up with Jack Winston. With some prodding, Claire even opened up about her days with Jamie and her month in rehab.
The one thing she didn’t talk about was the whole Manny thing. But as a member of the brotherhood, Reno already knew about that. He wasn’t sure if Claire knew that he knew, but that didn’t matter.
Claire came to him with everything else that night. Everything.
When there was no more left to tell, she had fallen asleep cradled in his arms. Reno had held Claire close and thought about everything she had told him. Nothing she had said put him off. As a matter of fact, everything that she had been through just made her seem stronger and more beautiful in his eyes. He fell asleep holding her tight with a goddamn smile on his face.
In the morning when he turned to reach for her, she was gone.
Just. Like. That.
Yeah, it had just about broken his hard heart to wake up and find her not there. He just could not go back to that cat-and-mouse game with her again.
Even thinking about it made him feel sick inside.
Worse than that, it made him feel weak.
And men like Reno were not made to feel weak.
She hadn’t left for long. Claire had shown up at his door later that day. But he had been too drunk and high and pissed off by that time to hear her.
“Sorry. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
“Scared. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
Then the best of all . . . time.
Really? The bitch needed time?
Because he had not given her enough damn time already for her to work through whatever it was that kept her from going there with him?
Done. He had been done.
When Reno had learned the club had some business to settle on the West Coast he had volunteered to do the job. It was all good. Hot dry air. Endless roads of nothing but flat horizon and desert. Spending time with his brothers. Drunken nights, higher days, lots of unfamiliar, uncomplicated pussy.
Guzzling, snorting, and sexing Claire off his mind.
He thought it had worked. He really had. Stupid sonofabitch that he was, he thought it had worked.
But in the end, it had just made Reno miss Claire more.
Looking at her now, the sight of her burned into his chest. She looked about half the size she was when he left. How was that even possible? From where he stood in the shadows, he could see the deep hollows under her big blue eyes. The way her jeans hung on her hips told him she hadn’t been eating much.
And was that a tattoo he saw peeking out under her belly button? What the hell? When he had left her, her body had been smooth and clear.
If she was going to wear anyone’s ink, it was going to be his.
He never should have left her alone. Alone to get skinny and sleepless and marked with some meaningless shit on her body forever.
He started toward her.
Then he saw Diego throw her his set of keys. She looked down at her hand, said something to him, and then she smiled. But Claire did not just smile, she filled up with goddamn glee. Even from his place in the shadows Reno could see it, the transformation was amazing. Claire was jumping up and down like Diego had just given her the keys that opened the goddamn stairway to heaven. Crow, who smiled maybe twice a year, was grinning like a madman. Pipe had somehow joined the party and he could not keep his eyes off her. When Reno looked back at Claire, she was actually dancing a jig.
Sonofabitch.
Is that all it took for her?
He had just gone through months of self-destructive agony trying to kill the misery of being away from her. He hadn’t had one happy thought since the day he had left.
And not only that. All this time, he had imagined that Claire had been just as unhappy and miserable without him.
Now he could see it was all a lie. It was all bullshit. He had been fooling himself. Maybe she was skinny and tired-looking but who wasn’t? She couldn’t have been nearly as miserable as he had selfishly hoped she had been. Not if all it took for her to laugh and shout out with goddamn glee were the keys to a three-year-old Jeep.
And there it was. Right then and there.
Because he was flawed and fragile in the face of what he felt for her, right then and there, Reno got pissed off at Claire all over again.
CHAPTER 10
Well, look who finally made it the hell home.” Jules looked up from the card game as Reno pulled out a chair, turned it backwards, and plopped down at the table.
Pipe, Riker, and a prospect were already seated and nodded to him.
“Good to see you, Brother.” Jules slid the bottle over toward Reno.
“Yeah, not too sorry to see your ugly ass either.” Reno took a long grateful hit off the whiskey. “Just saw Glory. Your woman is looking pretty goddamn fine. How come you’re in here laying down a hand with these sorry looking boys ’stead of bedding her down, Brother?”
Jules took a long hard look at Reno, then he looked harder.
“You speaking about my woman, Reno?”
Reno rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry man. Long ride.”
Jules nodded.
“She talking to anybody?” Jules tried for the casual.
“Who you talking about?” Reno was looking toward the door.
Jules growled.
Reno looked back at his brother. “Talking? Nope. Woman wasn’t saying a word. When I saw Glory, she was heading toward the rooms with one of the Point brothers. Her hand on his ass was doing all of the talking for her.”
Reno grinned at Jules. The brothers at the table all nodded appreciatively.
“Very fucking funny.” Jules did not look amused.
“Jesus, what do you think? That beauty hasn’t talked to anybody but you, Prosper, and her girls since the day she came here. Barely nods to me, and I saved her life,” Reno said.
“Yeah, well she ain’t so quiet any more. Especially when she’s pissed off at me,” Jules said miserably.
“Yeah, got that.” Reno nodded in commiseration.
He slid the bottle back toward his brother.
“You in?” Pipe was dealing.
“I’m in.” The last thing that Reno felt like doing was playing cards. B
ut, in what he saw as a strategic and conciliatory move, he had parked his bike in a visible location. It shouldn’t be long before Claire saw it and came looking for him. His Irish temper had cooled down enough to want her to seek him out, but not enough for him to go looking for her again.
A little while later, Reno was about three hundred bucks down. He was still alone and getting more pissed off by the minute. He hadn’t had his eyes off the entrance for more than five straight seconds. Nobody worth anything had come through those doors.
“Just go get her, man,” Jules sighed.
“Don’t know what the hell you are talking about, Brother,” Reno snarled. “And really, man? You sitting there holding a losing hand when you could be holding your woman and you think you can give me fucking advice?”
“He’s got a point.” Pipe nodded.
“Can we stop with the soap opera shit and just play the goddamn game?” Riker picked up the cards to deal. All of a sudden, Reno decided he’d had enough. He threw down his hand and folded.
“I’m done here.” Reno took the bottle off the table and headed for the door. “You coming?” He turned around and nodded to Cherry, a regular who just happened to be there.
“You making a big mistake grabbing a bar whore ’stead of doing what you came for. Think this through, Brother.” Jules gave it one more shot.
Reno flashed Jules the finger and headed to the door with Cherry draped eagerly around him. Jules gave a nod to Pipe.
Pipe glanced in Reno’s direction, then turned back to Jules.
“Brother, you have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I look like I’m kidding you?”
Jules had leaned forward. “He’s not the only one. Rebel brought in some West Coast porn girls last night, and shit-for-brains drove ’em over here a couple of hours ago. The girls ain’t shy about what they want, and the boys have been drooling over the chance to get at them all night. All of the old ladies are just about done. They have been shooting daggers at ’em for hours. Bad goddamn mix. Rebel just made it harder for everyone. You’re here and you’re half sober, so that puts you on deck. We gotta contain this now, before it gets damn ugly. No one needs a bitch beat-down tonight. You don’t like it, you take it up with Reb, who should have known better.”
Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) Page 4