by Wilde, Kati
It’s why she never fucked any Rider before the night of our first bet. It’s why she never even flirted with or teased one. It’s why she didn’t invite any local men into her bed. She’d have too much shit thrown at her.
It’s why I believed I’d never have one night with her, let alone thirty. Why I waited two years to win the bet that allowed me in.
I didn’t see that her mind was changing, or that she started believing her place in the club was solid enough she could finally fuck anyone she wanted. Instead I saw that her place should have been solid enough from the day she patched in. I saw that she’s stronger, quicker, meaner than some of the brothers. More loyal, too.
I never saw the hurt.
In the past month, I’ve gotten better at looking. Although I’m seeing anger now, it’s not sitting right. She was pissed from the moment she saw me outside. She arrived pissed. But Lily doesn’t hang on to her temper very long. She hangs on to her hurt.
And she believes I’m not interested in fucking her anymore.
Not interested. In fucking Lily Burns.
She’s either making shit up or she brained herself while riding today, because I’ve never heard her say anything so goddamn stupid.
But she’s not stupid. So if she’s not just throwing shit out and hoping it’ll stick, then she truly believes I don’t want her.
One thing for damn sure—she’s never going to make that mistake again. By the time these six nights are over, she’ll know exactly how much I want her. She’ll know I never intend to let her go.
She’s standing between two stools, waiting for the bartender when I come up on her left side. The glance she spares me is dark and gray, like polished flint. Her light blond hair hangs down her back in a thick braid that I love to wrap around my fist when I’m pulling her close. Her helmet matted and flattened the rest. Road dust outlines the shape of the sunglasses she wore earlier in the day, leaving paler circles around her eyes. Her full lips are windburned, and thin into a tight line when she glances at me again and sees that I’m still looking.
Of course I’m still looking. She’s fucking stunning.
She turns away again when the bartender slides two bottles across the counter.
“Water and a Bud for the lady.”
“Thanks, Pete.”
The old man looks to me. “What’ll it be?”
“Whatever you have within reach.” I watch Lily screw off the bottle cap and chug the water. She’s still chugging when Pete digs his fingers into a nearby bowl and flips a lemon wedge in my direction before leaving us alone again. “Long ride?”
Still drinking, she raises her middle finger to my face.
The message is clear, but I wait anyway. I like to hear her say it.
But she goes one better than a Fuck off. Wiping her mouth, she tells me, “You don’t get to say a fucking word to me until tomorrow night.”
“All right.” I lean in so close I can smell the dust in her hair. She doesn’t back away. She never backs away. “But tomorrow I’ll say that I don’t know what I love more—sucking on your nipples or your juicy clit—but I love the way you squirm and moan when I do. I’ll say that I love the way your tits look when they’re dripping with my cum. I’ll say that I love how your cunt clenches around my cock, and how you beg me to fuck you deep and hard. I’ll say how much I love eating your pussy after you’ve come with me inside you, when you’re so soft and warm and wet. And I’ll tell you that I’ll never lose interest in any of it.”
I have her until the end—breath caught, lips parted, eyes locked on mine, and something like hope sparking through the flint gray. Then her gaze shutters and she shakes her head.
“Back the fuck off, Jack,” she says.
For now, I will. But I don’t even move a step before a drunken bray of laughter comes from her right.
“Oh, shit. You in the doghouse, Blowback?” Burnout half stands, half slumps against the bar, his eyes running over Lily’s rigid posture, sizing up the tension between us. “What’d’ya do? Leave the toilet seat up? The ladies are so pissy about that kind of thing.”
Her jaw locks. This is exactly the shit she was trying to avoid when she wasn’t fucking anyone local. We’re all Riders, but when she’s taking dick they treat her as something different, as if that difference matters more than the colors she’s wearing. Sometimes she gives back twice as hard. This time she’s biting her tongue.
It used to be, I’d tell him to shut his fucking mouth. And that’s how I gutted her for five years—by shielding her instead of having her back. By making her work harder to prove herself, to prove she didn’t need a man defending her. So this past month I’ve kept my mouth closed when the shit is thrown, watching how she handles herself. Figuring out where I went wrong.
And where I went wrong was thinking it was about her. It’s not. It’s about the assholes shitting on her. Burnout thinks he’s real funny. The truth is, he’s got a rock for a brain.
But the brother’s not so stupid that he doesn’t recognize the danger when I zero in on him. Though he looped me into his joke, he’s usually too uneasy to say more than a few words in my direction.
There’s good reason a lot of the brothers are uneasy around me. I lean in, try to look friendly. Lily told me once that I only have two expressions: I don’t give a shit and Don’t fuck with me. Judging by the way Burnout pulls back, my friendly face looks just like the Don’t fuck with me one.
His eyes dart back and forth, as if he’s looking for an escape, but as soon as I start talking his gaze snaps back to mine, as if watching to make sure I don’t come closer. “The first time the boss sent me out on business, it meant getting past two fuckers guarding the house where they’d stashed the shit they’d stolen from us. If they make a noise, wake up the rest of their crew, I’m fucked, so I pull a knife from my boot and hit the first one in the throat. When the other fucker looks to see why his buddy’s choking, I rip out his tongue before stuffing it back in his mouth.”
Burnout’s not laughing anymore. And although I don’t move, he draws back a little more, his lips flapping shut and sucking in over his teeth, like an old man testing the seat of his dentures.
I can’t smell his fear over the booze, but I know it’s there, as sour and yellow as the lemon on the bar. “I do all that without breaking a fucking sweat, then stop for a steak on my way home and eat it bloody. Yet when shit’s going down between Zoomie and me, you assume that she’s the one with the problem?”
“No, man.” Face pasty, he swallows hard. “I’m thinking you’re probably the one who fucked something up.”
“That’d be good thinking.” I raise my fist. He flinches before quickly tapping my knuckles with his.
I glance at Lily. She’s staring at me. There’s not a hint of unease on her face. No anger now, either. Just a slight frown, like she isn’t sure what to make of what I just laid on Burnout.
She’ll work it out. I tip my head toward the tables. “You sitting with Gunner and Stone?”
A short nod, then she grabs her beer and heads in that direction. I scoop up my lemon before following. She takes a swig from her bottle and gives me a sidelong glance.
“Was any of that true?”
Only some. “Who rips out a tongue when snapping a neck will do the job?”
The sight of her grin is like a firm hand around my dick. Needing her, needing to do something with my mouth other than telling her again how much I love her pussy, I sink my teeth into the lemon wedge and suck out the juice. She gives me another sideways look, this one bemused. “Did you give up drinking?”
I can’t imagine that day coming. “I asked for something within reach. If he’d used his left hand I’d have gotten his shotgun.”
She grins again. “Pete just doesn’t give a shit.”
And doesn’t take any. “No.”
“He’ll probably charge you five bucks for that lemon.”
“Then it’s fortunate that I don’t give a shit, either.”
Because that’s what she likes about me. A few days ago she’d have finished that sentence.
Not angry now. But she’s still hurting. Or just wondering when I’ll hurt her again, so she’s not lowering her defenses.
Tomorrow I’ll start tearing them down. But right now the headlights I’m seeing through the Barracks’ open front doors tell me I’ve got business coming in. Maybe for the best. Knowing she’s hurt, knowing she’s wary, my chest is tight as hell and ripping out a few tongues sounds pretty fucking good.
Lily’s step slows as she spots the bikes outside. Her gaze flattens and her arms tense. Instantly ready for a fight, and never afraid to throw down.
Just one more reason I’ll never lose interest.
“Go to the boss,” I tell her and she nods. “Tell him there’s six Hangmen, including Croc and his veep. Creek’s with them. So is Valentine. Tumble’s their new enforcer. He’ll likely stay at the door with Hunter.”
Who’s just muscle, not a ranking brother. I don’t expect them to flex the muscle. This’ll just be the message.
But I’ve got one of my own to deliver.
• • •
Lily
The music goes quiet just as I finish relaying the heads-up to the prez. The strippers stop gyrating and look to the grubby little DJ booth, probably assuming the crappy sound system finally gave out. But they know the score, so when they see Hashtag there, it’s clear the prospect has been told to cut the noise, and the dancers head through the curtain at the back of the stage. The brothers go quiet, too, but they take their cue from the prez and their asses stay in their seats. At the bar, Pete stands within reach of his shotgun and braces his big hands on the counter. He scowls out over us all, but it’s just more of his growly bullshit. The Riders can be rowdy, but we treat the girls and the place with respect. If shit gets broken, we’ll pay for it. Pete knows he won’t get that from every MC. He practically kissed the prez when the Riders ran the Eighty-Eight out of this place.
I’m already standing by Saxon as the Hangmen come in, so I just straighten away from his ear and step to the side.
Croc walks ahead of the other Hangmen. Mid-forties, tough and weathered, he’s a stone cold bastard. Jack never says much about the work he does for the club but when the Hangmen rolled into the area, he took a trip down to Vegas to look at their mother chapter. To see what sort of MC they came from.
And he found that the Hangmen call each other brothers, but it’s all business, not family. You do your job and prove yourself useful, or you find yourself with a bullet in your skull.
I prefer the kind of ship that Saxon’s running. Our prez is a mean motherfucker, but if one of the brothers falls, he’ll see that the club helps pick him up.
Right now, the prez is just sitting easy, watching Croc come. Not even bothering to size the other man up, the way Croc is looking at him. Maybe Croc has heard that the last time Saxon met another MC’s prez at the Barracks, the other man limped away missing three of his fingers.
There’s always a party going down at this strip joint.
And Jack’s missing it. A quick scan of the floor tells me he’s taken off. Maybe heading outside to make sure there aren’t another two dozen Hangmen waiting down the road a bit.
As Jack predicted, Tumble and Hunter take the door, blocking the exit. A classic intimidation tactic. Stone taught it to me when we shook down a meth dealer last summer. You put either your biggest men or your most heavily armed men by the exit. The people inside feel like they can’t get out, can’t expect help—so they feel trapped, controlled. Then it doesn’t matter how many men you send in, because by controlling the door, you give the impression of controlling the whole room.
It’s all a mental thing. But all this shit is mental right now. As Valentine passes Gunner’s table, the sergeant at arms calls out, “Hey, Valentine! You back to get your ass kicked by Zoomie again?”
Usually I hate the “you must be a wimp if a girl kicked your ass” crap but it’s damn effective against dickholes like Valentine. Though he looked cocky as hell walking in, now the little shit’s face reddens. He turns to the side and throws his arms wide, as if inviting Gunner to take him on, but before he can open his mouth Creek claps him on the shoulder and keeps him moving forward.
Croc and his veep seem to ignore the drama behind them. The veep is young, probably too young for the position, but Jack says his dad’s got big connections in Vegas. He’s a petulant fuck who goes by Sherlock. That just makes me hate him more. I’m pretty sure the only time the Hangmen’s veep pulled out a magnifying glass was to fry bugs with it, and that he probably couldn’t detect shit at the end of his nose.
Another dickhole. I bet he and Valentine have become good friends.
Croc glances at me standing by the prez’s side. Saxon’s got a little smile that says, This is all real fucking amusing, so I’m wearing the same smile. I let my gaze slide from Croc’s head to the toes of his boots.
I’ve only seen him on his bike. Turns out, I’m just a bit taller. He’s heavy with muscle and outweighs me by half my body weight, but he notices the height difference at the same time.
Widening my smile, I give him a saucy wink.
Jaw clenching, Croc glances away from me and looks pointedly to the other chairs at Saxon’s table. Obviously waiting for the prez to order the Riders sitting around the table to clear out, so that he can sit. Not gonna happen. The old-timers are sitting at Saxon’s table tonight. The prez would offer his own seat before asking them to give up theirs—especially to some asshole who is showing him disrespect by coming to the Barracks without an invite.
But assholes like Croc don’t see it as disrespecting our club. Instead they figure we’re so far below them that they’re the ones being disrespected when we don’t immediately bend over and spread our cheeks.
And Croc’s pissed. But it’s cold, so the anger only shows in the tightness of his jaw, the gleam in his eyes.
Saxon enjoys every second. He lets the silence drag out, takes a drink like he’s got nothing better to do. Finally he sets down his beer and glances over at me. “You hear a word out of him yet, Zoomie?”
“No, boss,” I say. “I guess he’s just here to waste your time.”
“Do I have time to waste?”
“Not tonight, boss. You’re real busy watching the dancers shake their tits.”
“That’s right.” His steady gaze is on Croc’s face, but he’s not smiling with amusement now. Instead he’s wearing the look that gave him his name. The Wolf. “So he’d best stop waiting for an invitation and tell me what the fuck he wants.”
If Croc’s raging inside, he’s got the anger under control. Instead he appears as easy as Saxon did before. Either damn confident or just good at pretending he is.
His voice is deep, with a smoker’s rasp. “Valentine here tells us this property used to be the Eighty-Eight’s.”
The prez nods. “Used to.”
“And what was once the Eighty-Eight’s is ours now. So you see where I’m going.”
“I see. And now I ought to see your asses heading back out the door, because your boy Valentine got it wrong. This here’s the county line.” Saxon draws his finger across the table. “This side’s all the Eighty-Eight’s territory—yours now. And on this side is the Riders’ territory, with the Barracks right here. So it’s real simple. You stay on your side. We’ll stay on ours.”
“Real simple,” Croc says, but it isn’t agreement. “We can make sure it stays that way.”
The prez takes another drink, studying him over the length of the bottle. “Since you’re here now, I guess you’re not real good at staying on your side.”
“No.”
“So what do you propose?”
There’s genuine curiosity in Saxon’s voice. I know he doesn’t have any intention of giving up the Barracks. Just wondering how Croc w
ill move forward.
Croc doesn’t pussyfoot. “We’ll give the Riders a week to clear out.”
The prez’s eyebrows shoot up. “You call that a proposal?”
“It’s one you should take.” The other man’s gaze hardens. “We’re proposing to keep relations amiable. Neither one of us wants to lose any men.”
Because Croc wants the Riders’ members to bolster his ranks. But I’m guessing he’ll sacrifice some on both sides if necessary.
The prez knows it, too. There’s steel in his voice as he says, “I think you’d best turn tail out the door before I forget to be amiable now. You’ve fucked up, coming here.”
“I don’t think so.” When Croc smiles, it’s easy to imagine how he got his name. There’s no humor. It’s just a steel trap. “Next week, you’ll be offering me a seat. Then you’ll be offering to suck my dick.”
Holy fuck. The way every Rider just pulled in a breath I don’t know how there isn’t a windstorm raging through the joint. But although half of the brothers are out of their seats, although my own fists are clenched and I’m ready to take the fucker out, Saxon just grins and holds up his hand.
“Just let him walk out,” he says. “We can be amiable, too.”
No one wants to. But they sit, and when Croc turns to go, I want to smash the smugness off his face. Like he’s thinking that Saxon just backed down.
But the prez didn’t. Did he? He wouldn’t.
So why the fuck is he letting Croc walk away?
I realize exactly what’s happened at the same time Croc’s smooth stride hitches through a single step.
The two Hangmen at the doors are gone. Not waiting outside. Not knocked out on the floor. Just fucking gone.
And Saxon’s making their prez walk through those doors, knowing Croc can’t say shit. Knowing there’s nothing he can do that won’t make him look weak. Two men gone and he can’t ask what the hell we did to them, because whatever happened, it happened right under his nose, and he didn’t see or hear a damn thing. None of his men saw or heard a damn thing.