Reaper Unleashed

by Michelle Woods

  That was why she was trying to find a way to separate herself from the overwhelming passion he invoked before it tore her heart to shreds. Already she could see it happening. Rebel, Hammer and Lock, as well as some of the prospects, were all teasing Reaper that he was pussy whipped. Reaper was a man who didn’t take well to being called any woman’s man. The teasing made him angry and it had caused three fights with men this week.

  Speaking of fights, she sighed again, thinking of what happened down here two nights ago. She’d been down here checking the stock when Reaper followed her and he’d started making love to her. Lock had come down and made a snide comment about watching them fuck. That had ended in Reaper trying to kill him with his bare hands.

  She would never forget the way he had calmly handed her shirt to her, waiting while she put it on, her cheeks glowing with embarrassment. Reaper had turned then and went after Lock like a man possessed. He had him in a chokehold in seconds and she had been screaming at him to let go as she’d pulled on his arm but he’d refused to release the other man. Iron and Bull had heard her screaming and came rushing down the stairs, managing to pull Reaper off Lock.

  Afterwards she had tried to talk to him about it and he’d told her to leave it alone. He wasn’t going to be sharing her and that was all she needed to worry about. Only Sarah knew the way he had reacted had not been only about Lock’s comment about watching them have sex. Reaper was already pissed at him for making snide comments to her whenever Lock was around just her and Reaper. Lock’s comments were blatantly rude and that pissed Reaper off. She was upset that the two men who’d once been best friends seemed to barely tolerate one another because of her.

  She finished checking the whiskey and ran a hand over the back of her neck. She hoped Reaper got back soon from the errand he’d run tonight; she was ready to head home.

  Finally done with the count, she was moving towards the stairs when Buck came down them. She moved back to allow him a wide leeway. She didn’t like him and although she couldn’t prove it, she knew that something was off about him. He had shifty eyes and a cruel streak that he hid well, but not well enough that she didn’t see it. She warily watched him as he moved into the cellar.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t the boss’s pussy.” Buck grinned at her, his eyes filled with a mixture of dark glee and cruelty that made her take another step back. She really should have insisted that Reaper allow her to have a gun. Then she wouldn’t feel cornered right about now. Not that she thought he was stupid enough to do more than taunt her and maybe push her around a bit, but one never knew with men such as this one.

  “Buck,” she said, ignoring his insult.

  “Aw, does it bother you to know that once he’s tired of fucking you that he will allow whoever wants a shot at your little cunt to go for it? You’re a sweetbutt, honey, that’s what you’re for,” he told her, still smirking at her. He stopped at the bottom of the steps and she stepped back. She realized that she should have moved the other way because she’d just backed herself into the wall. Fuck, she really needed to pay more attention tonight.

  “It doesn’t matter because even if that happens I wouldn’t choose you,” she retorted, wiping the smirk off his face.

  “You fucking bitch,” he growled, grabbing her arm painfully enough that she cried out. “If you weren’t such a hot piece of ass that you’ve made Reaper crazy, I would fucking beat you for that. You are a fucking whore just like all the rest of the women he’s fucked and all the women he will fuck in the future are. You think you’re special because he’s possessive right now but I can tell you that you aren’t. He will get tired of you soon and go back to fucking around. That’s when I will teach you to respect me, bitch, because he won’t care what happens to you when he’s done.” He shoved her back into the wall. Her shoulder hit the wall, scraping it, and she cried out again as it stung.

  He stormed into the cellar to get whatever he’d come down here for, laughing as she scrambled up the stairs. Her stomach was in knots and she really was asking Reaper for a gun tonight because that wasn’t going to be happening again.

  She exited the cellar, glancing over her shoulder to be sure he wasn’t following her. She was so focused on what was behind her that she almost ran into Lock at the top of the stairs. He caught her when she would have toppled over and fallen back down the stairs she’d just climbed up.

  “Hey, what’s the hurry?” he asked, frowning. Sarah was rubbing her arm where Buck had grabbed hold of her because it still hurt and Lock’s eyes seemed to take in the motion.

  “Nothing, I thought I saw a mouse,” Sarah lied, trying to move away from him.

  “Really, a mouse?” he asked, looking at her with a raised brow. “I suppose that mouse left bruises on your arm too.”

  She shook her head. “It was just a misunderstanding. I’m fine,” she told him, not wanting to cause more trouble with Reaper’s club. Although she didn’t trust Buck, she wasn’t trying to make waves with Reaper’s MC.

  “I think you had better tell me about this misunderstanding, Sarah,” Lock said, glaring down at her. Great, he thought she was trouble already and if she told him what Buck had said, she’d make more issues for the club and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

  “Buck thought I was trying to attack him, you know, because I was going to attack the mouse. And so I tried to hit him and he stopped me, that’s all,” she lied, trying not to let her fear show. She knew she was good at holding her emotions in and she did that now.

  “I see. Well, run along and get some ice from Hawk at the bar so that Reaper doesn’t freak out,” Lock told her and she sighed as she escaped.

  She did get some ice from Hawk on her way to the office. She stepped inside, not shutting the door, and sat down on the couch with a heavy sigh. This was such a mess, and she realized she had to warn Reaper about Buck. She had a feeling that he wasn’t at all what they thought he was.

  She leaned back in the chair, her eyes closed, when she heard shouts and crashes from the front of the club. Jumping to her feet, she ran into the bar, startled when she came out of the hallway to find Buck being dragged across the floor by Lock. She watched as he slammed the man into the wall before punching him in the jaw.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Reaper asked, standing in the doorway. “I leave the fucking club for an hour and I come back to this bullshit!”

  Bull was yanking Buck away from Lock while Iron, who had returned with Reaper, grabbed Lock. The whole club seemed to be focused on them instead of Candy, who was on the stage.

  “You mind explaining to me why you two are going at it, Lock?” Reaper commanded, watching Lock wipe blood from his nose. Sometime before she came out of the back Buck must have gotten in a few blows.

  “Well, now, let’s see,” Lock said and he looked at her, his eyes accusing. Sarah wanted to hide when he followed that with, “Might have something to do with him not knowing about those mice your girl wanted to protect herself from.”

  Reaper looked at her, his eyes narrowed. “What the fuck is he talking about, Sarah?”

  “Um…I–I don’t know,” Sarah stuttered out, not knowing what had happened between the two men.

  “She was down in the cellar working and Buck went down to grab another case of beer. Suddenly she is running up the stairs practically knocking me over and she has bruises on her arm. So I ask what happened and she says she almost hit him because she thought he was a mouse. I knew that was bullshit. I went downstairs and asked that fucker about the mouse. His response was ‘what the hell are you talking about?’ and I knew he had just fucking manhandled her. Look at her fucking arm,” Lock demanded, his eyes dark with anger on her behalf.

  “Sarah, baby,” Reaper asked, his eyes boring into her.

  “Yes,” she answered, trying not to look into his eyes.

  “Let me see your arm.” She stepped forward, showing him the one Buck hadn’t grabbed.

  “The other one,” he growled, his eyes narrow
ed now. With a sigh because she knew he was going to go crazy when he saw the marks left on her by the other man, she lifted her arm showing him the bruises.

  “I see. Take him to the cellar.”

  “What, you can’t! She’s not your property and you can’t have it both ways,” Buck said, fighting Bull now as Lock was released.

  “Motherfucker, there are still rules here and one of them is you don’t touch a woman without her permission,” Lock told him.

  “How do you know she didn’t give me permission? Maybe she likes it,” Buck screamed. Reaper grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, screaming in his face.

  “No woman should have bruises if she agreed to allow your hands on her. The only reason you are still alive is that I can’t fucking kill you because you’re right, I haven’t made her my property. Yet,” Reaper said, with a strange finality on the last word that confused Sarah.

  She’d learned while working here when she’d met Topper’s old lady that when a man in the club made a woman ‘Property,’ she was off limits within the club. Reaper saying that word like that made her heart pound with excitement that she tried her best to squash. She didn’t want to be disappointed when he didn’t ask her to be his. She knew from the way Topper treated his old lady that it was like marriage to the men in this club.

  If he asked her to wear his patch, she’d get to keep him and that made her ache. She wanted so badly to have him be hers, to know that she was the only one who could touch him. Reaper threw Buck into Bull, who dragged him down to the cellar. Reaper turned, taking her uninjured arm and pulling her into the office. He slammed the door and released her. His hands ran through his hair in agitation and she watched him warily.

  “Are you hurt anywhere else, Sarah? And don’t lie to me because I will be inspecting every inch of your body when we get home tonight.” His grey eyes were tortured, his black hair stood at odd angles, and he looked mad enough to kill.

  “I’m fine. He just grabbed my arm,” Sarah told him, looking away from the intensity of his gaze.

  “Tell me what the fuck happened. Now.” His voice was seething with anger and she narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I’m not a child, Reaper. You can’t use that tone with me and expect answers!” she gritted back at him, her amber eyes flashing darkly.

  “No, baby, you aren’t a child but you are mine. That means when something happens you tell me, Lock, Bull or Iron and we will handle it. Don’t ever take risks with your safety, Sarah. I will not allow it. Now tell me what the fuck happened in that cellar or I will go and beat it out of Buck. Right now with the way I feel that would be a death sentence for him.”

  Sarah sighed because she knew that he meant it. He would beat the man almost to death to find out what had happened. “He just called me a sweetbutt and offered to take me on after you tired of me. He didn’t like me refusing his kind offer and got a little rough with me, grabbing my arm and shoving me a tiny bit into the wall.”

  Reaper didn’t look any less furious at her explanation, not that she’d expected him to. He was protective of her and Josh ever since that night in his loft when those men had tried to kill them.

  “I’m going to go and handle that. Once I have, I want you to be ready to go home,” he growled. He walked towards the door, but stopped and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into his arms. “Don’t worry about what he said. You’re mine and I won’t let anything happen to you.” He kissed her on the head and she melted into him. She could never seem to resist him when he touched her.

  “I know that, Reaper. I’m not worried about what he said.” She rubbed her face on his chest and he pulled back, kissing her brow, then her nose and lastly her lips. It wasn’t a deep passionate kiss, it was a soft gentle brush of his lips on hers. It was sweet and with one last squeeze he left the room. With a deep sense of longing for him, she went to the desk and worked on filing the invoices while she waited on him.

  Sarah looked at the bags under her eyes in the mirror, poking at the puffiness. Huh, she really needed to get more sleep. Reaper had offered to go get Josh from across the street at Mrs. Black’s while she took a bubble bath to relax. He sometimes surprised her with his thoughtfulness. He could be so sweet to both her and Josh.

  Today had been a rough day. First Buck and then Candy. She sighed as she climbed into the steaming water, sinking in to rest against the back, her heart twisting at the memory.

  Candy had come barging into Reaper’s office about an hour after the Buck incident. She’d stopped short in the doorway. “Oh, I was looking for Reaper.”

  “He’s still dealing with the Buck situation,” Sarah had told her.

  “Yes, why is that? You seem to be causing all sorts of problems here, don’t you,” she said snidely.

  “I didn’t ask Buck to attack me, Candy,” Sarah had snapped back.

  “Yes and yet it seems that you’re always at the center of the trouble around here, doesn’t it. First with Lock and Reaper, then all the fights, and now this situation with Buck. Before you came along, things weren’t falling apart. Seems to me you might be the problem. I’ll be glad when he gets tired of you.” Candy had turned on her heel without waiting on a reply and left the room.

  She didn’t like Candy much but she couldn’t say that Candy didn’t have a point. The trouble with the club did seem to start around the time she showed up. She wanted to say that Candy was just jealous but at least the fight between Reaper and Lock was her fault.

  She grabbed a towel, stepping out of the tub when her fingers pruned. She needed to put Josh to bed, but before she finished drying off Reaper appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, his eyes devouring the parts of her he could see.

  “Hey, Josh conked out on the walk over here so I put him to bed,” Reaper said, walking towards her.

  “Oh, I was just coming to give him a hug goodnight and read to him,” Sarah said, a little disappointed that she hadn’t gotten to tell him goodnight.

  “Sorry, baby. Are you feeling better?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her into his chest.

  “Yeah, I am actually.” She smiled at him, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his lips.

  “Good, because I want to give you something,” he whispered against her lips. Sarah pulled back, grinning because she had a pretty good idea about what he wanted to give her. She let her lips curl wickedly.

  “Do you?” she asked, rubbing her hand over his chest.

  “Umm…maybe two things,” he whispered, kissing her neck and scooping her off her feet. Sarah giggled as he carried her into the bedroom and tossed her on the bed.

  “Stay,” he commanded and she laughed, pushing up on her elbows to watch him leave the room. She frowned; what the heck? Where was he going?

  He walked back in a few seconds later. She raised a brow when he handed her a package wrapped in a brown paper. She hesitated and he nodded to it, looking oddly nervous for Reaper.

  “Aren’t you going to open that?” he demanded.

  Sarah waited another moment before ripping open the brown wrapping paper and gasped. The soft leather came tumbling out and Sarah couldn’t breath. She felt tears sting her eyes as she held the cut to her chest in amazement. He was asking her to marry him. He wanted to keep her, to belong to her.

  “Yes, yes, Reaper,” she whispered, and he grinned smugly and tackled her to the bed, kissing her.

  “Good, now you’re mine,” he growled, kissing her long and deep before he took her to heaven.

  Chapter 17

  Sarah had been walking on cloud nine for the past three weeks. After Reaper had given her his patch, she’d known that she was more than just another woman to him. She and Josh mattered. It had changed something else too, and that change made her life easier. The women who worked and hung around the club suddenly treated her respectfully. It was like by patching her he’d told them that they had to be nice to her, and she couldn’t say she didn’t like it. Getting the cold shoulder from them wasn’t fun. Althou
gh it hadn’t affected Candy’s attitude. If anything, hers had gotten worse.

  Sarah walked out into the club. Noticing that Reaper wasn’t at his usual booth, she wondered where he’d gotten off to. Seeing Iron, she asked, “Hey, where’s Reaper?”

  “He should be back in a little bit. Lock and he took a ride,” Iron told her.

  “Wow, it got busy, huh?” she said, indicating the crowded room. Almost every booth was full and Casey and Starla were running their feet off.

  “Yeah, fuck–– go back to the office. I have to go break that up,” Iron said, indicating the two men about to start fighting across the room. Sarah nodded but she went to the bar instead. Casey was waiting on her order to be filled and she was leaning on the counter and looking tired.

  “Casey, sit down, you look exhausted,” Sarah told her, feeling bad for the woman. She remembered nights like this at the diner when she and Sammy were so ragged from running back and forth that they were aching.

  “I can’t. Reaper still hasn’t found a third waitress and it’s swamped tonight. I am beat though,” she said.

  Hawk placed the drinks on the tray and turned away but Sarah swiped it off the bar before she could grab it.

  “What table it this going to? You need a fifteen minute break and so does Starla.”

  “Oh, no, I can’t let you do that, Reaper would kill me,” Casey said, trying to take the tray back. Sarah wasn’t having that; she had also noticed that with the cut came another sort of power. She would use it shamelessly to help the two women out. They needed a break; being a waitress was hard work.

  “Table, now. I’ll handle Reaper,” she growled and sure enough the other woman caved. She pointed to the table with four men off to the left. Nodding, Sarah called over her shoulder, “Take fifteen minutes and not a single minute less, then relieve Starla.”