by Khloe Wren
With a growl that my mind had gone there again, I flipped off the taps and got out. Running a towel over myself as I walked, I headed back to my bedroom to get dressed. When Guns ‘n’ Roses Knocking on Heaven’s Door came on as I pulled a shirt over my head, I stiffened.
“Fuck me.”
The world was clearly against me this morning. I seriously did not need to start my day stuck inside my head like I was. I shut off the song, grabbed my cut and headed for my front door as I put the leather vest on. I’d head down to the gym and see if I could pound my demons back into their cage with a workout. If that didn’t work, I’d have to wait till later today to find someone to fight with in the back room. Fuck, I was glad when Mac had renovated the place last year and he’d left that back room alone. Years ago it had been a full on fight club type thing, with most of the club involved, but now there were only a handful of us that used the space. Still, even with the low numbers, I loved being able to jump in the ring and fight. All the men who went in that back room to fight were like me—we had all demons riding us that needed to be beaten into submission on a regular basis.
I swung my leg over my bike and the moment it came to life beneath me, some of the tension left my body. Maybe I’d start with a nice, long ride, then I’d head into the gym.
Flick
Once I’d parked next to the surprisingly modern looking gym, I blew out a breath as I hopped out of my car. After reading the file on Donovan ‘Taz’ Lee, I wasn’t sure what kind of man I was going to encounter. As a child and teen, he’d been through more trauma than anyone should have to suffer in their entire lifetime. I couldn’t imagine how a thirteen-year-old boy would handle the deaths of his mother and young sister, let alone being shipped from Australia to America to live with an unknown relative right afterward.
The file hadn’t given me many details of his life between coming to the USA and his enlistment in the USMC when he was eighteen. And the information for afterward was only about his military accomplishments. He was one of the best snipers the USMC ever had. I was sure they weren’t happy when he’d decided to retire nearly three years ago.
Unfortunately, the file didn’t include details of missions he’d been on. As unrealistic as it had been, I’d been hopeful it would have at least some basic information, because that could have potentially answered some of my questions about what had happened with my brother’s discharge from the USMC.
As I walked to the front door, I ran my gaze down the line of bikes. Naturally, they were all Harleys. There were half a dozen all parked at the exact same angle, each machine was clean and sparkling in the early morning sun. Since arriving in town three days ago, I’d quietly done a little recon. I knew Taz rode the green Harley sitting at the front of the line-up. But I’d already known he would most likely be here, even before seeing his bike. He seemed to like to start his day with an early morning workout.
I pushed open the door to Acheron Gym and took a step inside. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a biker gym, but this certainly wasn’t it. All fresh paint and cleanliness. The equipment spread out around the space looked new too, aside from a few machines that had a well-worn appearance. What didn’t surprise me was when, in under a minute, I felt the gazes of several of the men on me including the one I came for. Taz was in a loose tank and shorts, and I got to look my fill as he set the weights down he’d been lifting and swaggered toward me. And it was a swagger, no way could you label how he moved as simply walking. I clenched my jaw to make sure it didn’t drop open in awe. Tingles of awareness shot through my system as he got closer to me and it took all the self-control I had to not shiver under his hot gaze.
“Well, hello there, luv. You need help with something?”
For the first time in a very long time, I found myself struck mute as I stared into his baby blues. His words had been drawled with a sexy-as-fuck Australian accent I hadn’t been expecting. I mean, he’d been living in the US since he was a young teen, he had no right to still have such a devastating accent.
“Taz, go back to your workout already and quit tormenting the poor woman.”
A deep voice broke the connection between us and with a shake of my head, I turned to the newcomer. I recognized Jacob ‘Mac’ Miller from the photo I was given of him. He was taller than Taz, and looked a little older. His head was cleanly shaven, while his jaw was not. He was handsome in a rough sort of way, but thankfully he didn’t affect me like Taz had, which was a relief.
I cleared my throat. “Ah, hi. I wanted to inquire about joining?”
Mac gave me a smile before he responded. “Excellent. How about you take a seat for a second while I grab the paperwork?”
“Hey, Mac? I can start showing her around, while you’re doing that.”
Fuck me, but that accent was going to kill me. I swallowed past the lump in my throat as Mac raised a brow at me in question.
Shrugging a shoulder, I responded with a “Fine by me,” even though it wasn’t fine. Holy shit, how the fuck was I going to be able to work with this man when I couldn’t even think straight in his presence?
Mac strolled away toward a door in the back of the large main room and Taz cleared his throat to grab my attention back to him.
“So, what’s your name, luv?”
I cleared my throat. “Flick. You’re Taz, yeah?”
He smirked and nodded. “Yep, that’s me. Flick your real name?”
I shook my head. “Nickname, just like I’m guessing Taz isn’t your real name.”
No way was I making it easy on him to dig information out of me. I needed to play it at least a little cool. The best way to get this partnership to work was to do a little groundwork in front of his club first. A little flirting and fun, then when I told him the real reason I was here and what we needed to do, our cover would already be established and his club would think nothing of us spending time together on a regular basis.
At least that had been the plan. Now, I really wanted to know how his hands would feel running over my bare flesh. I couldn’t hold back the shiver that thought gave me.
“You cold there, Flick?”
I gave him a glare because he knew full well I wasn’t fucking cold. “I’m fine. So, you going to show me around this place or what?”
Chuckling he lifted a muscular shoulder in a half shrug. I barely held in my groan as his inked skin rippled with the movement. “Sure, luv. Follow me for the grand tour.”
CHAPTER 2
Taz
The woman was a fucking knockout. Long, wavy, jet-black hair, steel blue eyes, tanned skin. And she had curves I wanted to get my hands on. She was wearing workout gear, skintight black pants and a loose shirt. Well, it hung loosely on her everywhere but where her lush tits pressed against the fabric, and if I wasn’t mistaken, her nipples were hard. The twin little bumps in the material had my mouth fucking watering.
This was crazy. I’d never done the girlfriend thing, only ever one-night-stands and quick fucks to ease an itch. And since joining the Charon MC, I hadn’t hooked up with a woman who wasn’t a club whore. It was so much easier to go to the clubhouse where the pussy was wet and willing, than try to find a woman that was okay with me screwing her all night, then walking away in the morning. But even I had to admit it was starting to get old. The whores didn’t require any chasing–there was no mystery at all to any of them. I’d gotten over the novelty of being able to walk in a room, snap my fingers, and having a woman on her knees in front of me a second later unzipping my pants, long ago. It didn’t exactly offer any kind of challenge. This chick, though, she’d definitely be a challenge. Despite the fact she clearly liked how I looked, she was holding her chin high and the look in her eyes told me she was no pushover. Hell, she wouldn’t even give me her full name. This could be fun.
I still wasn’t interested in settling down with a woman. Just because my two best mates, Eagle and Mac, had both hooked up with women and knocked them up, didn’t mean I wanted to follow in their footsteps. But t
he anniversary was coming up in a little over two weeks, and I was going to need to stay really busy if I was going to keep myself distracted from focusing on the fact it had been twenty years since I lost my mum and sister. With that in mind, maybe it was worth the risk to see if I could seduce this bombshell. Even if she did turn out to be a woman I wanted around for longer than a night, I was sure I could resist making it something truly permanent.
I started walking around the main room and she stayed beside me, her subtle perfume filling my lungs and making my cock twitch. Dammit. That was something I didn’t need right now. Gym shorts didn’t exactly make it easy to hide a raging hard-on.
“This is the main room, where all the equipment is. This is a mixed gym, there’s no special ladies room, so I hope you don’t mind working out in front of a few blokes?”
She chuckled, the sound not helping my fight to keep my dick from standing at attention. “I’m used to working out with men in the room. It doesn’t bother me.”
“That’s good. There’s always more than a few men in this place. The room in there is where we run classes. There’s actually one on tonight.”
“Do you run the classes?”
I smiled over at her when I heard the hint of hopefulness in her voice.
“Sorry, luv. Tonight’s class is Mac’s baby. He runs a women’s self-defense class once a week. You’re more than welcome to come along. All classes are included with your membership fee.”
Her face was a mask of indifference, like she wasn’t interested, which intrigued me. It wasn’t the normal reaction I got when I told a woman about the class.
“What, you don’t agree women should learn a few moves to protect themselves?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. Every woman should learn at least a few moves. It’s just I know how to take care of myself, so I don’t need to take a class.”
I stopped walking and turned to face her, running my gaze down her body. She didn’t look like a fighter. She was clearly fit and toned, but she didn’t have that roughness about her I’d seen in other female fighters who’d come by the gym. When my gaze returned to her face she had an eyebrow raised and was smirking.
“Like what you see?”
I gave her a wink. “You’ll do.”
That earned me another of her husky chuckles, along with a head shake.
“I was just thinking that you don’t look like a fighter.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up and making it really hard for me to keep eye contact. “Really? And what does a fighter look like, exactly?”
“Not like you, luv.”
She nodded her head and when her lips slowly spread into a smirk I started to worry. What was she up to? I didn’t have to wait long to find out, because a moment later she dropped her bag and, in a flash, kicked a leg out aimed at my knee. I spun to avoid the kick and before she could do anything else, I body slammed her up against the wall to the sound of my brothers wolf whistling us. I wrapped a hand in her hair, holding her head back so she didn’t hurt her face against the drywall.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Me proving I could defend myself. Clearly, not very well.”
I had my body pressed tight against hers, so she couldn’t move her arms or legs to reach to hit or kick me. The only thing she could have done was to head butt me, but the hand I still had wrapped in her hair prevented her from that move, too.
“You gotta have better moves than that to take down a Marine, baby.”
“Taz! What the fuck? Get off her.”
Mac came thundering across the room, I knew I only had a few more seconds to enjoy being pressed up against this lush woman. I leaned in and brushed my lips over her cheekbone, enjoying the fuck out of the way she shuddered beneath me. As Mac wrapped his palm around my shoulder I moved my mouth to her ear to whisper to her.
“Maybe I will make that class tonight, if you’re gonna be there. Wouldn’t mind seeing your moves when we’ve got a mat I can throw you down on.”
I let Mac pull me back and when he spun me to face him, his gaze was pure fury. With reason, generally speaking, manhandling potential customers wasn’t a good move.
“Relax, brother. Little Flick here was trying to catch me off-guard with a move to prove she didn’t need your class. But don’t worry, I think I’ve got her convinced she does, in fact, need it.”
The fury drained from his expression and turned to disbelief when Flick scoffed. “I sure as hell wasn’t expecting you to react by bulldozing me into the damn wall. If you hadn’t done that, I’m sure I could have held my own.”
I smirked at Mac before I winked and turned to focus back on Flick.
“The whole point of self-defense is to be ready for the unexpected. And, luv, that sounded like a challenge. I’d take you out back right now to prove you wrong, but the boys out there get their knickers in a twist whenever a woman tries to go back there.”
Flick frowned and flicked her gaze to the rear door. “Knickers? And what’s out back that’s so macho girls can’t go?”
“Don’t mind Taz, he likes to throw in Aussie words to keep us Yanks on our toes. Knickers are panties and out the back is an old school boxing ring for the ol’ boys. When we renovated this place a few months back, they wanted their own space, so we gave it to them.”
I let Mac finish before I cut back in. “So I guess you’ll have to come tonight if you want to try and show me more of your moves.”
Mac sighed loudly beside me, but I ignored him as Flick lifted that stubborn chin of hers and glared me straight in the eye.
“You’re on.”
My cock jerked at her show of strength. I’d lost the fight to keep from cracking a boner when I’d been pressed up against her very fine body. Now the bastard was throbbing against my gym shorts and I knew if she glanced down she’d see exactly the effect she had on me. I needed to get my ass away from her before she did.
“Excellent. I’ll see you tonight, then.”
With that, I turned and strolled over to the changing rooms, winking at a couple of the boys when they snickered at me as I passed. I didn’t even try to adjust myself, I knew there was no hiding the pole in my fucking shorts. Hopefully a nice, cold shower would help ease things, so I could fucking function for the rest of the day until I saw her again tonight.
Flick
Mac had told me I didn’t have to come to the class if I didn’t want to. Taz would get over it. But I found myself wanting to go. My body had been humming all fucking day after this morning. Having Taz pressed up against my back had been distracting. Especially since I hadn’t missed the fact his rather large dick had been hard, or the way it had throbbed against my ass, where he’d had it pressed. That had been the real reason I hadn’t gotten out of his hold. Damn man distracted me with lust. Bastard.
I put my hair into a braid, then wrapped it around into a knot that I tucked under, so it would be harder to grab onto. When Taz had tugged my hair this morning, arousal had shot straight to my core. My panties had been damp by the time Mac pulled Taz off me, so I didn’t want him to pull that shit again tonight. No way would I be able to keep my wits about me if he did.
Pulling into the parking lot of the gym for the second time today, I turned off my car and jumped out. I was more excited now than I had been this morning. Fuck, I needed to be careful around that man. He could break a girl’s heart without even trying, I was sure.
I was about to push through the door when a large palm slid around my waist and pulled me back. On reflex I slammed my elbow back, but before it could connect, another large hand wrapped around my bicep, holding my arm still.
“Whoa, hellcat. I was going to ask if you were ready for tonight, but clearly you are.”
I growled as I spun out of Taz’s grip. “What the fuck? You make a habit of waiting in the shadows to grab women without their permission?”
Fury heated my blood. Well, fury and lust, but I was refusing to acknowledge the fact that
the way this man could manhandle me turned me on.
“Easy, luv. We just happened to arrive at the same time, and I thought it might be fun to tease you a little before class.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Taz. I hate it. If you’d just arrived, I’d have heard your bike.” I glanced over at the row of bikes and saw his was third from the end–further proof he hadn’t just arrived. But I caught myself before I pointed that out. I wasn’t supposed to know which bike was his. “Which one is yours, anyhow?”
“Green one is my beast. You like bikes?”
I raised a brow at him. “There’s two bikes after yours, I doubt they both pulled up just now. Especially since their riders aren’t out here. And yeah, I like bikes. I like pretty much anything that can go fast.”
For a moment an expression of wariness flashed over his face, but it was gone before I could be sure. Did I say something I shouldn’t have? Something to give away I knew more about him that what I’d learned this morning? I wasn’t ready to sit down and tell him the real reason I was here. I needed to reel him in a little more first, enough that he wouldn’t get mad and kick me to the curb when I told him the truth. At least, that’s what I was telling myself.
“There’s a lot of things that go fast around here, luv. And not all of them have wheels. C’mon, or Mac will start without us.”