Grabbing her around the waist, he directed her over top of him, pushing her down harder on him.
“Jagger,” she breathed out his name in time with the way he thrust into her body. “I’m so close.” She twined her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you so much. I love you.” It felt like a lifetime since the two of them had exchanged those words. It tore something apart in both of them.
He opened his mouth to tell her that he loved her, and he’d missed her too, but an inaudible scream left his body as he felt his warmth spill into her, triggering her release. As they rode out the waves that washed through their bodies, Jagger realized this was what had been missing. This closeness, this need to be everything she needed him to be.
Only a few more days—and then he knew that he could have her for life.
*
Bianca woke up as she heard the front door close. Reaching over, she felt the warmth of the bed where Jagger had been lying. She was sick of this, and now she was stone cold sober. If she didn’t do something to change their relationship, then they weren’t going to have one. If that meant confronting him and getting other people involved, then so be it. Having him in her life meant that much to her. Grabbing up her cell phone, she pressed a couple of buttons as she got out of bed and started getting dressed.
“Hey, Christy,” she answered in way of greeting when the other woman picked up on the second ring. “Your brother is pissin’ me off, and it stops now. I need backup. Would you be able to help me with that?” She took time to explain what she needed.
A few minutes later, she was dressed and watching the clock to make sure she’d waited enough time for him to leave. Impatiently she glanced up at the clock and figured she’d waited long enough before going and getting in her own car.
It was time to figure out what in the hell was wrong with her relationship, and if that meant getting a little sneaky and a little dirty, then so be it.
Chapter Six
‡
“Tonight should be the last night.” Jagger breathed a sigh of relief as he sat in the office of Walker’s Wheels. “B is startin’ to get very suspicious of where I’m goin’, and I’m sick of arguing with her. At some point, she may decide I’m not worth arguing for, and then all of this will be for nothing.”
“I’ll happily put someone else on rotation whenever you want me to.” Liam, the owner of Walker’s Wheels and the Heaven Hill MC president, laughed as he looked at the computer. “Although I highly doubt B is gonna get rid of you. That girl may chop your balls off, but I don’t think she’s gettin’ rid of you.”
“When she finds out I’ve been doing this for her, maybe she’ll cut me some slack, but right now, she’s truly about ready to cut my balls off.”
“You never mess with your lady, but you’re young, you’ll figure that out.” Liam cursed as he motioned for the computer to hurry up. It was lagging big time and had been for a while. “Steele was supposed to put more memory in this fucker so it would load quicker, and it feels like it loads slower. How the fuck does that work?”
Shaking his head, Jagger situated himself in the chair so his feet rested firmly on the floor. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You know that you can ask me anything you want to. I’m not gonna bite.” Liam started clicking away on the computer.
“How did you do it with Denise?”
A small smile played on Liam’s face. It tilted the corners of his lips up and softened his whole expression. It turned him from a man who took leadership to a whole other level to a man in love with his wife. “On the back porch, with her own cut and my property patch.” He grinned.
“Nice.” Jagger ran his hand over his head. “I don’t know how I’m gonna do it.”
“Well, my brother, you better figure it out, ’cause with the commission on this one, I think you got enough.”
Liam turned the computer screen so Jagger could see what he was seeing. He whistled between his teeth. “I think so too; where the hell is that?”
“Over on Clay Street. Don’t ask me how someone who lives on Clay got the bank to give them a loan for a motherfucking Hummer, but if you want it, then I’ll go with you, just in case.”
“I appreciate that, and I do think I want your help.”
They left the office, walking over to the tow truck they used to do repos. Repos weren’t a huge part of their business, most of their legit money was made with the day-to-day operations of the shop, but when they needed quick cash and wanted to go about it in a legal way, bank repos were the way to go. Jagger walked around the side of the tow truck, checking the chains, making note that the work wasn’t as hard as it had been a few weeks ago when he had started. He’d definitely need to work out with the chains more often; they kept him from getting too soft.
“Everything look good?” Liam asked as he had a seat in the passenger side.
“Looks good,” Jagger confirmed as he hopped in the driver’s seat and they left the shop, heading towards Clay Street. The part of town they were going to had a lot of working-class people in it, but it also had its fair share of not-so-savory people, and they were both glad that this was the last call for a while.
*
“How are we supposed to know where he’s going?” Bianca asked Christine, the woman she wanted to one day call sister-in-law, as she picked her up at the clubhouse.
“Easy peasy. I asked Steele a couple of questions, ya know, pretending that his brain was turning me on, and he let me know that the tracker app they used for you is on most of the bikes and all equipment at the shop. I swiped the master password and turned it on to Jagger’s frequency. I am in so much trouble when he finds out.” She threw a saucy grin at B that said she wouldn’t mind to be in the kind of trouble she had coming to her. “Jagger’s bike is at the shop, but a tow truck just left.”
“He’s doing repos?” Bianca questioned, surprised. That was the only thing that made sense; they made no money when it came to an actual towing business, and they only had the one tow truck. It wouldn’t be feasible financially for them to do anything besides repos, and usually the one doing the driving was the one getting personally paid. “They only do that when they need quick money. I wonder what he needs quick money for.”
“Your guess is as good as mine, but there’s only one way that we’re going to find out if that’s what he’s really doing or not.”
Christine was right. Bianca could only hope she wasn’t going to get in trouble with Jagger too, or anyone else for that matter. What the hell had he done to cause him to need quick cash? She knew that they talked about a house, about moving from their apartment, but it wasn’t something they were planning on doing in the next year, even. It made her stomach uneasy, and it made her question just how well they had been communicating lately.
Chapter Seven
‡
Driving cautiously wasn’t in Bianca’s nature, but she was worried as she pulled off of Porter Pike and onto Louisville Road that she would run into the Walker’s Wheels tow truck. The tracking device they were using was showing they were very close to each other. But neither she nor Christine could be sure how reliable this GPS was. It wasn’t something they had been able to ask before Christine had stolen the device.
“If he sees us, he’ll probably kill you first and then tell Steele on me,” Christine mumbled as she messed with the GPS, trying to get a more accurate read, unfortunately she wasn’t as gifted technologically as her boyfriend.
“Shit.”
Bianca ducked her head as best she could. The tow truck was two cars in front of her at the stoplight at the intersection next to the Kentucky Street police station and the railroad tracks. It was dark and growing darker by the minute, and she hoped that would help keep them under cover.
“This has bad idea written all over it. Why did I agree to help you with this?” Christine asked as she ran her hands over her arms. She had an uneasy feeling; one she hadn’t had in a very long time.
“Because you’re
sick of me bitching about how your brother never pays any attention to me, and you know that he’s good for me and I’m good for him. Sometimes, I just get ideas that really need to be knocked out of my head,” B huffed out on a breath. This was obviously one of those ideas she should have been talked out of.
As they crossed into a rougher part of town, next to the university, she thought about turning back. She knew now that Jagger was doing repos, and it had nothing to do with him stepping out on her. “Do you think we should turn back?”
“I think they’re heading to Clay Street, and this Mustang might be more than a little conspicuous there. You know what he’s doing, now you need to find out why, and that’s something you can do in the comfort of your own apartment.”
Bianca heard what Christine was saying and decided that she was right. Instead of turning when the tow truck did, she accelerated and continued on straight to make a loop that would take her all the way around Bowling Green and back to where she’d started in the first place.
*
“Thank God they didn’t turn in,” Jagger breathed as he and Liam made their way towards the house where they would be picking up the car. Regardless of what Christine and Bianca thought, they were about as incognito as a woman with hot pink hair. The longer they had trailed behind the tow truck, the wetter his palms had gotten and the faster his heart had beat. There was one thing he’d never want to do and, that was put B or his sister in any kind of harm’s way, and them following the truck into this neighborhood would be going into the belly of the beast.
He knew when this was all over he was going to have to have a serious talk with the both of them.
“I know,” Liam agreed. The vehicle they were about to repo belonged to one of the more well-known drug dealers in the area. The police must have really been on his ass if he couldn’t make a couple of car payments, and he would think nothing of using a couple of women, who had no idea what they’d gotten themselves into, for leverage. “This might get ugly, and I didn’t want to have to be worried about the two of them.”
The part of town they were in was working-lower class. Just like any other neighborhood, there were homes that were well maintained and others that looked like they were falling in at the studs. A few of the houses had children’s toys and playsets in the front yard. A yearning took hold in Jagger’s chest, and he had to physically rub it away. He hoped that one day he and B would have children. He knew they would, but first he had to get through this, and then he had to convince her that he had been doing this for the good of their relationship.
Pushing further into the neighborhood, they passed a couple of homes where they knew families lived; one in particular caught Jagger’s eye. “Why didn’t Cash tell us that the gutter fell off their place?” Cash was a college kid who did odd jobs at the shop, and they had all taken him under their wing.
“Too proud. I’ll send somebody out here to fix it tomorrow.” Liam grabbed his phone and fired off a text. “It will be done.”
As they got closer to the residence they needed to be for this night, Jagger turned off the headlights on the tow truck and hoped like hell they were going to be able to get out of this situation with the hair on their heads and the skin on their back still intact. This neighborhood didn’t take to outsiders well, and even though they wore patches on their backs, that sometimes made for an even bigger target.
Chapter Eight
‡
“You got it?” Liam whispered to Jagger as they pulled the Hummer up on the back of the tow truck. He considered them lucky that they’d gotten this far without being detected, but he didn’t want to hang around anymore than he had to.
“Yup, just gotta secure it,” Jagger told him as he went about hooking up the vehicle so that it wouldn’t come off the back. He was hooking up the very last part when the door to the house opened and a man came out.
“Liam Walker, don’t even think you’re takin’ my ride.”
Liam cursed, glancing back at Jagger, mouthing for him to continue hooking up the vehicle. “Now, Dice, you and I know that I gotta do what the bank tells me to do.” He’d known the other man since high school, and while he knew that he was sometimes dangerous, he did tend to have a level head on his shoulders most of the time.
“You can drop it right there,” Dice told him, pointing his finger in a downward motion. “I don’t want to have to hurt you or the pretty boy.”
Jagger was tired, really fucking tired, and under no circumstances did he want to mess around. He wanted this car, he wanted it now, and he wanted to go home. Liam was all about being this dude’s friend, and Jagger was all about getting the hell out of Dodge. Reaching behind his cut, he grabbed his gun out of his waistband, pointing it at the other man. “Bro, I’ve got no beef with you, but I’m tellin’ you this right fucking now. We are takin’ your ride, and you’re more than welcome to come to the shop tomorrow and see if it’s still there or if the bank has taken it. I’m in a real bad mood, and you’re about to be on the wrong end of it.”
Liam watched the younger man with wide eyes. It took a lot of Jagger to lose his shit. In fact he’d only seen it a couple of times. Jagger wasn’t ice cold, the way Layne could be, but he was nice to have around when things got messy. He usually had a good head for solving problems and for getting them out of jams, not getting into them.
“Hey, hey.” Dice held up his hands, backing away, his eyes wide. “No reason to pull out the heat. I got a daughter inside, man. I understand you gotta do what you gotta do, but put that shit away.”
“I’m not in the mood. Get your ass back inside.” Jagger palmed the gun and pointed towards the front door. “Your beef ain’t with us, it’s with the bank. Take it up with them.”
*
Within minutes they were back in the tow truck, headed back towards Walker’s Wheels. It was quiet in the cab of the truck, and Jagger rolled his tense neck around on his shoulders. He hadn’t meant for that to happen, but sometimes things escalated, and for him, they had this night.
“You’ve never lost your cool that quick,” Liam commented as they pulled back onto Louisville road. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate you taking care of things when you need to, but I don’t want you flying off the handle just because you have a lot on your mind. Do you need to take some time off?”
“No, it’s been a rough couple of days, and like I told him, I wasn’t in the mood. I just wanna drop this thing off and head to bed. I need to decompress.”
“Is that bed gonna be at the apartment or at the clubhouse?” Liam asked gently. With the way Jagger was speaking, and the fact that Bianca had to follow him to figure out where he was going, things were even worse than he had assumed they were.
They stopped at a red light, and Jagger pushed his head back against the seat. “Probably the clubhouse. I need a little time to figure out what I’m gonna do, and to be honest, the time that B and I spent together earlier today wasn’t the best. We weren’t exactly nice to one another.” It didn’t make him proud to know that they’d used sex to mask their problems, but he knew they were human and sometimes things happened.
Liam nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “Don’t let misunderstandings come between you. It’s easy to do, and in the end, and it’s not worth it. Those misunderstandings build on each other, and then you have no trust. You and Bianca have a kick-ass relationship. Right now you’re going through a rough patch. We all do it; it’s how you come out on the other side that matters.”
Jagger knew that the older man was right, and that was exactly why he was going to stay away from the apartment. He knew Bianca had questions she wanted answers to, and he was too tired to give her any. For this night, they would have to be apart. In the end, he hoped they could learn to appreciate each other and what they had built together more.
Chapter Nine
‡
Jagger woke up the next morning with a huge sense of relief. He knew that he no longer had to keep any secrets from the woman he lov
ed, and even though the secret had been self-imposed, it still felt good not to deal with it any longer. He’d known for weeks exactly what he wanted to buy her with the money he was stockpiling; that was the reason he had been pushing so hard. Sitting up in the bed, he glanced at the clock, realizing it was early afternoon. Checking his phone, he saw that he had a few text messages, but the one he was most interested in was the one from Bianca.
I’m sorry I doubted where you were at night. I followed you last night, and I’m ashamed of myself for it. Please come home, I miss you.
Even reading it, he felt like he could feel her loneliness. He wanted to tell her he would be there soon, but honestly he didn’t know how long it would take him to complete everything he wanted to get done. He’d taken off the next three days at the shop, and he couldn’t wait to spend those days with her. It had been way too long.
First thing was first; he needed a shower, breakfast, and then he needed to head downtown to complete the second part of his plan.
*
“Have you heard from Jagger today?”
Bianca shook her head at Meredith. She was volunteering at the CRISIS house to get her mind off of things. “No, not today. I can’t tell if he’s angry about other things or if he’s upset about the way we left each other yesterday. This isn’t something I have a lot of experience with when it comes to him. Usually he and I are on the same page in everything we do. It’s killing me that he seems to be pulling away from me.” She bit her bottom lip, trying to keep her emotions in check.
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