She very much did not want him to go. It felt like the sluttiness would be in the letting him leave. “If you stop calling me princess, I want you to stay. Why do you keep calling me that?”
He grinned and grabbed one of her feet, pulling off her boot and tossing it behind him with a flourish. “You’re like a princess—little and pretty and pampered. All fancy. Like Sleeping Beauty. But I’ll try not to call you that anymore.”
“Sleeping Beauty is a weak little twit. She’s a damsel. And don’t try to stop—do or do not. There is no try.”
He froze just as he was about to send her other boot over his shoulder. “Holy shit. Did you just quote fucking Yoda to me?” He tossed the boot.
He looked both excited and impressed. She just smiled.
“If you’re a Star Wars fan, I might have to marry you.” He yanked her jeans and underwear off her legs.
“I am. I was Leia for every Halloween from seven to fourteen.”
His smile went wide at that. “You mean Princess Leia?” He pulled her socks off, both at the same time.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Call me princess—as long as you’re thinking of Leia when you do it. But I’m not going to marry you.”
Finally, now that she was completely naked and he’d already fucked her silly, he started on his own clothes, reaching down to unlace his boots—they were basic black Docs, and she liked that they weren’t cowboy or engineer boots—and then toe them and his socks off. “Why not? I’m a catch.”
She shrugged and made a show of examining him with a critical eye. “You’re not exactly Prince Charming.” She liked this banter a lot. It had made her forget all about being embarrassed.
He hung his vest over the arm of one of the wing-back chairs in the room. “Yeah, but you don’t want Prince Charming. Sleeping Beauty wanted Prince Charming. You want Han Solo.” He pulled his shirt over his head.
“Are you seriously making your case for your potential as my husband? Because if we’re talking seriously, then let’s talk seriously.” She couldn’t get it out with a straight face, but he didn’t see her smirk—he’d halted in the act of taking his shirt off. He was standing there, his arms over his head, wrapped up in his shirt, like he’d been freeze-framed. It was a pretty great picture, actually—his cut chest and abs, those hip muscles, his flat, almost-outie belly button, that great ink, just locked in place for her to look her fill.
After a few seconds, he shook off the fugue and got his shirt off. His grin was gone—she’d really thrown him. “I’m just playing, prin—Riley.”
“I know, dork. So was I. And you can call me princess.” She lay back on the pillows and coiled a lock of hair around her fingers, working her best come hither. “Now, will you hurry up and get naked? I want more.”
He dropped his jeans, and then his boxers, and lay next to her. The feel of his muscular body all along hers made her stomach flutter and her heart race.
He leaned over her, his hand on her waist. “You are fucking hot, princess. Hey—were you Slave Leia for Halloween?”
“I was a kid. I was Cinnamon Bun Leia.”
“Bummer.”
“Wait. You’re perving on an image of tween me in a gold bikini right now, aren’t you?
“Am not. I’m perving on this you in a gold bikini. It’s a really good image.”
She laughed and traced his crooked grin with her finger. “How do you know so much about Sleeping Beauty, anyway? You guys having Disney marathons at the clubhouse?”
“Nah. Got a little sister. She liked all the princesses when she was little.”
“Sounds like you’re a good brother.”
He shrugged. “I tried. Now shut up.” He kissed her.
CHAPTER TEN
The Keep was crowded, and the Horde were on edge. Every actor was in town now, or had been. Tanner and Riley had been in Signal Bend nearly a week. Doug and Peter, playing Show and Bart, had been in since Sunday afternoon. Lindy, the girl playing Daisy, had come and gone, and Show was in a quiet bad temper, the wound of his grief rubbed raw again. And earlier in the day, the actors playing the rest of the Horde had arrived in a pack. They were leaving in a pack Saturday afternoon.
Peter Gruen had turned out to be a decent guy, and Bart hadn’t minded having him hanging around with him for a few days. He was kind of a hound with the girls, but he was basically harmless. Not that bright, though. Bart’s earlier excitement about meeting famous people had been completely exploded by this week, when they were everywhere. They were just regular people, good and bad, just prettier and richer.
But now, the Keep, the inner sanctum of the Night Horde MC, was packed with Horde and the men playing them in a movie. This room, as a rule, was off limits to all but patched members. The few times anyone else had been behind these closed doors had been controversial.
This meeting was less so, but it was still deeply weird for the Keep to be so full. It wasn’t much of a real meeting, not while the actors were in the room. The actors wanted to see what a meeting was like, and the club had voted to let them watch.
Most of the club had voted. C.J. was still absent—nearly a week, now. Len and Vic had both checked on him a couple of times. Strangely, nobody was talking about it. Bart found that more unsettling than C.J.’s absence. Something was brewing—Bart could feel it, like the way the air pressure changed, got heavy, right before a big storm. He knew everybody else could feel it, too. But everybody was backing away from the topic of C.J., other than Vic and Len delivering a quick update that the old man was still kicking. These were not men who backed away from anything. These men were forthright. So it made Bart nervous.
It was the actors, he was pretty sure. There were too many outsiders around the clubhouse and had been all week. Nobody wanted to air internal strife while external people, especially people whose very intent was to make the Horde’s business public, might be near enough to hear. But it still made him nervous.
As did what was going on with Riley. They’d spent every night together. Every. Night. Six in a row. She was spending more time with him than she was with Lilli—substantially more. And he wasn’t done. He didn’t think she was, either. It was starting to freak him out. The past couple of days, he’d told himself that he was done, that he’d stay away. But he couldn’t. He’d start thinking about how she’d be leaving soon, going back to California, and he’d be texting her before the thought had fully formed in his head.
He really liked this girl. A whole fucking lot—and it wasn’t just the great sex. He liked her. She was funny and sassy, and there was a tiny little geek inside that cheerleader exterior. A couple of days before, they’d played Dead Space 3 in the Hall, and she’d been halfway decent. She knew her way around a gaming controller. He thought maybe that was when he’d become a lost cause.
He knew that she was still all tangled up in her feelings about her weak puke of a dead boyfriend, and he knew that the tabloid shit going down right now was only making her feelings knottier. She was the very definition of rebounding. He knew that—hell, before he’d met her, he’d been banking on it. It was a good thing that she would have to leave and he would have a chance to shake this off. Because he was getting invested. Havoc had seen it before he had, and he had not passed up any opportunity to remind Bart of that fact.
He knew her leaving was a good thing, but it didn’t feel like a good thing. She was staying in town through the weekend, hoping for the Devon bullshit to blow over, but probably not much beyond that. She’d done in Signal Bend what she’d come here to do.
The Devon bullshit was still a problem, though, and the media vultures were still on the hunt for Riley. With the mass influx of Hollywood types into town over the past few days, Bart had been working overtime to mask all the travel activity. Some of the things he was doing were as complex—though certainly not as desperate—as the things he’d done to help Lilli. He was working at the top of his game again, and it made him nervous. He was afraid he’d miss something.
S
o was Riley’s ‘team.’ He’d been in contact with her agent and publicist. Isaac had spoken with Stan. Bart had even had a surreal conversation with Riley’s mother. They were all working toward the same goal—keeping the media out of town—though Isaac’s concern wasn’t as focused on Riley as everybody else’s was. He was protecting the town and the club. Having news crews in town right after the shootout had been bad enough. But having the tabloids sniffing around, looking for scandal? That could be disastrous.
And the Scorpions were due into Signal Bend the next day. The Horde could be up to their eyeballs in trouble again.
With the actors in the room, they’d gone through the motions, mimicking a Horde meeting without conducting any business, but there was one actual item on the agenda. The potential for a media incursion affected them, and the Horde needed their cooperation. So Isaac laid out the issues and concerns succinctly. Then he leaned forward, his expression darkly serious.
“Stan wants it quiet. I—we—want it quiet. I expect you all want it quiet, too.” He turned an eye to Tanner, leaning against the wall, behind Vic. Isaac didn’t address Tanner directly, but Bart knew enough to know that was a warning.
Isaac and Tanner weren’t going to be best buds. Ever. The actor had been snarky and ill-tempered most of the week. From what Bart could tell, and what Isaac had said, he’d been better around Isaac—which was smart. Isaac’s patience was short and his temper hot, and Tanner was wise to be intimidated. Bart thought that most of his bad mood came from feeling slighted by Riley. Because he kept up on entertainment news, Bart was fully aware that Tanner fucked his co-stars habitually. He’d likely been expecting to have this week to start in with Riley. But as far as Bart knew, Riley and Tanner had barely seen each other all week. They’d had dinner with Lilli and Isaac one night and had been at the clubhouse at the same time once or twice. Bart had caught a couple of looks—aimed at him and at Riley—that indicated Tanner felt cockblocked.
On the one hand, Bart was kind of hoping that resentment would boil over in such a way that he could feed Tanner his fist. On the other hand, though, Tanner was a publicity hound anyway, and he might not see anything but upside to feeding Riley to the wolves. So Bart was keeping a careful watch.
“So,” Isaac continued, “I know most of you are only here for a day or so. But I need you to pay attention. You’re here to shadow one of us, so you stick with us. You wander off, and we have a problem. Nobody in town is gonna take your picture, so you see a camera, you let us know—and I mean right away. We clear?”
The actors were mostly standing in a cluster at the far side of the Keep. There was some rumbling that sounded like a protest might be forthcoming, but then Doug Warness took a step forward. “We’re clear, Isaac. Nobody here is going to make trouble, for you or Riley. That’s not what we’re about.”
Bart liked Warness. He carried himself like somebody who got it. He’d seen him talking with Show a couple of times, and even without hearing, he could tell that Show felt okay about Doug playing him. And that was good, because talking, even for a couple of hours, with the girl who would play his dead daughter had driven him deep into his whiskey.
As a reply to Doug’s assurance, Isaac nodded. “Good. I got one other thing. We’re gonna have some other guests this weekend, starting tomorrow. Members of another MC. They’re rougher around the edges than we are, and I’m gonna ask that you keep out of their way, much as you can. Their President might want to meet a couple of you, but otherwise, low key is better for everybody. Catch me?” Everybody nodded. Isaac relaxed a little and cleared his throat.
“Now, the Horde need to get some actual business done. The ladies have put out a spread, so help yourself.” He leaned back in his chair, and the actors, with Doug in the lead, and Tanner pulling up the rear, filed out of the room.
When the Horde left the room about half an hour later, they were a grim group. The Scorpions arriving tomorrow was a problem. Sam wanted to see some of this movie business for himself. He wouldn’t take Isaac’s assurance on its face, and that had Isaac bent way out of shape. Sam and Isaac had always had a strong, brotherly relationship. Isaac had never balked at helping out the Scorpions. Even now, when they’d gone otherwise legit, they’d still ride a leg of a run for Sam when he asked, no matter what it was. There was no reason for him not to trust Isaac now. But it was abundantly clear that he didn’t. Not enough.
There was another factor somewhere, something that neither Isaac nor Bart, nor any other Horde, had seen. Something was making Sam nervous. And that was very bad news.
Bart, Isaac, Show, and Len had talked repeatedly during the week, trying to solve the problem. Bart had nosed around the Scorps a little online, but he had to be careful. Rick was a substantially better hacker then he was, and he’d see Bart coming a mile away. Even though they were friends, if Rick saw Bart snooping on the Scorpions’ digital turf, he’d serve him and all the Horde right up to Sam. It was his job.
Bart was turning the problem over in his head as he came out of the Keep and into the Hall, so it took him a second to notice that people were clustered oddly, at one side of the room. When that dawned on him, he saw that they were all staring through the window into the weight room. Scanning the crowd for Riley, whom he’d left out here with Lilli, he walked up alongside Havoc.
“What’s going on?”
Havoc shrugged and smirked, but Dom, standing in a bit, turned at Bart’s question. He looked a little worried and a lot jazzed. “Lilli and Riley are in there. Sparring.”
“What? In there?” Holy hell. Isaac and Show had hung back in the Keep when the other guys left. Bart turned to see if they’d come out yet. They hadn’t. So he pushed through the little crowd. As he passed Dom, he hissed, “You let that happen?”
“What was I supposed to do about it? It’s Lilli! And you should see your little Riley. I’m not getting in the middle of that.”
Setting aside the general wrongness of Lilli the Amazon sparring with Riley the Elf, the weight room was a fucking horrible place to spar—all that metal, all those sharp edges. The floor was covered in dense rubber matting, and there were two tumbling mats laid out in one corner, but still. There was a reason they had a boxing ring.
The big, wide window into that room was right next to the door. As Bart put his hand on the knob, he stopped and let himself take a good look.
Well, look at that. He couldn’t tell from this view if Lilli was taking it easy on her. Bart had sparred with her, so if he watched long enough, he’d probably know. She was tough, faster and quicker than she was strong, but she was no weakling, either. In fact, after Gia was born, she’d gone a little Sarah Connor, and had built up even more muscle than she’d had when she got to town. She might be a chick, and a hot one at that, but she was not somebody to fuck with.
But it looked like Riley was doing okay. At least she was on her feet, and Lilli was as sweaty as she was. Bart’s hand dropped from the knob as he watched Riley block a barrage of hits and then jump when Lilli dropped and swept her leg.
Yeah. Lilli was moving more slowly than she normally did. She was being careful. But Bart was still proud. Not that he had any business being proud. Riley’s television show had stuntwork in it, but Bart had never considered that she might actually do any of her own stunts. The PR stuff said so, but that could have been so much bullshit. He’d have said she was too little. But there she was, clearly having studied some martial arts.
He thought it said something, too, that Lilli was taking it easy. If she had a point to make, if they were sparring so that Lilli could put Riley in her place, she could have flattened her without leaving a mark, and then moved on. But she was engaged. Bart thought maybe Riley was showing Lilli that she wasn’t just a tiny blonde bimbo.
Just as he thought that, Lilli put Riley on the floor. He didn’t even see how. Shit. He opened the door and went in.
Lilli was helping Riley back to her feet. As soon as she was up, Riley bent over and put her hands on her knees
. Bart finally noticed that they were both wearing workout clothes—Lilli in her customary tiny black shorts and bright sports bra, Riley in very low-slung, light blue pants and a little pink belly shirt. No wonder everybody was staring. That was not what she was wearing when he went into the Keep.
He dropped the blinds and turned them shut. “What is going on?”
Lilli spun around and glared at him, and he second-guessed, too late, his tone. “Excuse me?”
“No, Lilli—I just…Riley, are you okay?”
She stood up straight. Her face was flushed and damp, but she was grinning. “Yeah. I’m good. Just working out.” Lilli grinned at that and put her fist up, and Riley bumped.
Whoa.
“Don’t worry, Bart. Your girl can handle herself.”
He didn’t know whether to correct Lilli and say that Riley wasn’t his girl, but he saw Riley’s flushed face darken a little when she said it, so he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t know whether her pink cheeks meant she was embarrassed or pleased or what. Hell, he didn’t know what he thought, either. Except that he liked being around her more than being away from her.
He sensed Isaac come into the room behind him. “You picking on the little girl, Sport?”
Riley’s brow wrinkled at that, and she got her spitfire look in her eyes, but when Bart turned to Isaac, he saw that the boss was just teasing. Riley figured that out, too, and was pulling her tongue in when Bart turned back to her. Had she just stuck her tongue out at Isaac?
There was a whole relationship building up with Riley and Lilli and Isaac, and he’d missed it completely. She’d talked to him about her time with Lilli. Some. Mostly, they talked about other stuff. When they were talking at all. They talked about their families. Riley had talked about her life in L.A, and Bart had talked about moving around all the time when he was a kid. The night before, they’d talked a long time about Devon, and he’d held Riley while she cried.
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