by Jenny Legend
Contents
Title Page
This was not the way that Layla Long had...
Shameless
Marauders MC
Jenny Legend
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All participants in these fictitious events are consenting, non-related adults over the age of eighteen.
All Romance eBooks Edition
Copyright 2014 Jenny Legend
All rights reserved.
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This was not the way that Layla Long had envisioned spending her eighteenth birthday.
The juvenile detention center of Oasis, Arizona was stifling. Layla could feel long trails of sweat dribbling down her spine and pooling in the small of her back. It soaked through the elastic band of her high-riding thong, sticking it to her flesh as she waited for the correctional officer to return. He’d gone to check on the air conditioning nearly ten minutes ago, and what little patience Layla had was running thin.
This was all her parents’ idea, and it was probably the stupidest one they’d had yet. Just because they’d caught her smoking a little weed and found the fake ID she used to go drinking at the clubs she was too young for didn’t mean that the cops ever would. And besides, she was eighteen today. There wasn’t anything they could do to stop her now.
She fanned herself with her hand and pushed up her sunglasses as they slid down her sweat-slickened face. On top of everything else, she had a wicked hangover. This was quickly turning out to be the worst birthday ever.
She gathered up the length of her hair and lifted it away from her neck, fished a hair tie out of the pocket of her too-tight, hip-hugger jeans, and wrapped it around her golden locks until only the tiniest strands were left against her skin. Layla hated Arizona summers almost as much as she hated Oasis itself. She couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Her thoughts turned to LA. It would be such a dream to live there. She bet Katy Perry didn’t have these problems.
The door at the end of the hall opened and Layla looked over, blowing a sweltering breath from between her pink, pouty lips. Officer Maddock, her painfully obese tour guide, was waddling down the hall toward her, his uniform stained with oceans of malodorous sweat. She wrinkled her nose as she watched him daub a handkerchief against his forehead, collecting the beads threatening to spill into his muddy eyes.
“The system’s shot,” he announced once he’d come close enough for her to smell him. “There’s nothin’ they can do ‘til the techs get here.” He blew out a gust of air that smelled almost as bad as his body did and added: “Let this be another reason that you don’t ever wanna come here. Can you imagine bein’ stuck in your cell in this kinda heat?”
Layla rolled her eyes and turned her face away from the corpulent officer. “I wouldn’t be coming here, anyway. I turned eighteen today.”
“What, you think that county or state’s got it any better than us?” he laughed. “Juvie’s practically a five-star resort compared to them. If you think this is bad, you just go on and get into trouble as an adult and see how that suits you.”
“Is that a dare or a double dare?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, I get it,” Officer Maddock said, dripping globs of sweat from his waddle onto the floor as he nodded. “You think you’re clever. Well, let me educate you—I’ve seen plenty of clever girls pass through here, and I’ve seen heaps more occupyin’ cells a helluva lot smaller than these in the Paradise County prison. You ain’t nothin’ special.”
“That’s not what the boys say,” Layla countered, looking the officer up and down behind her dark shades. “I bet even a fat slob like you wants a piece of this ass. You’ve probably been thinking about it ever since I told you I was eighteen. Maybe even before that.”
Officer Maddock pressed his small, pale lips into a tight line and furrowed his brow. “Then the best thing a girl like you can do is get hitched to some old fart with a lotta inheritance to leave behind, ‘cause at the rate you’re goin’, you ain’t gonna be good for much else.”
Layla splayed her hand across chest and batted her long, inky eyelashes. “Was that a proposal, officer?” she asked in her best innocent voice. Then she smirked and dropped her hand. “Thanks, but no thanks. You’re not my type.”
“Oh, I think I know exactly what your type might be, though,” he answered, mopping up another deluge of sweat with his abused handkerchief, this time from his jowls. “Get your ass off the wall and follow me. I’m gonna show you what happens to those bad boys you soak your panties over.”
Layla rolled her eyes skyward and pushed off the wall, grimacing at the sweaty outline she left behind as she followed Officer Maddock down the hallway to a dark blue door. As he set about unlocking it, she couldn’t help but wonder if this was some kind of vindication for him. He seemed like the chubby, pizza-faced boy who had watched all the jocks sweep his unattainable crushes off their feet in high school. Seeing them end up in a cell probably gave him a stiffy—not that he’d be able to see it to tell for sure.
“Let’s see how sexy these guys are once you see ‘em behind bars,” he intoned ominously, swinging open the door and sweeping a hand toward the cell block on the other side. “After you.”
“Are you kidding?” she answered, cocking out a hip. “You’re sending me to look over a bunch of hot, sweaty boys who are not only hard up for some female attention, but probably shirtless, too? And this is supposed to be a punishment? You might as well have invited a lioness into a meat market.”
Then, ignoring his pitiful attempts at intimidation, Layla strode past Officer Maddock and into the boys ward of the Oasis Juvenile Detention Center.
It was not what she expected.
The vast majority of the inmates were scraggly, dirty, and anemic, to say the least. There were a bunch of Hispanic guys with shitty gang tats emblazoned on their bronze skin—the sigils of Los Santos, La Raza, and Los Zetas were the ones she recognized right off. They were all still wannabes, by the looks of it. They probably thought they could earn their stripes just by sitting in a juvie cell.
Layla walked past them, her eyes shifting over their wanting bodies and avoiding the dark, lustful gazes they offered her in return. A few came close to the little strip of Plexiglas built into their cell doors, their sunken eyes straining to get a better look at her ass as she walked by.
Great, she thought dourly. Another waste of my time. The bad boys she went after looked nothing like this. They must have been the ones too smart to get caught.
Or maybe, she continued, her eyes settling on a mass of corded muscle crammed into the cell directly in front of her. They just weren’t bad enough…
He was so unlike the other inmates; so hard and chiseled that he might have been a Greek statue someone had tucked away into a disused cell for safe keeping. His undershirt was off and his pylon-orange jumpsuit was crumpled down around his hips, exposing every rippling bit of his gleaming flesh to Layla’s hungry eyes—well, above the waist, anyway.
She squinted, trying to fill in the blanks she couldn’t see beneath the ill-fitting jumpsuit rumpled over his legs. Unable to suss out any of the details, she inched closer for a better look.
That was when he looked at her, capturing her breath with a single glint of his brilliant forest green eyes.
Layla froze in the intensity of his gaze, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as he stared at her from under his dark brows. Then his
eyes began to trail downward, slithering over the curves of her body in a way that made her feel dirty and used.
Her heart fluttered in her chest. She wanted more.
“Figures he’d be the one you picked out,” Officer Maddock blurted out behind her. She jumped, spun on him, and he continued: “That’s Jesse King, the president of the Marauders MC.”
Layla opened her mouth to snap at him, then frowned instead.
“The motorcycle club?” she asked, turning her attention back to the cell and jumping again as she found herself at eye-level with him.
Jesse’s face was pressed close to the Plexiglas barrier, eyeing her even more lasciviously than before, although Layla hadn’t known that such a thing was possible. The way his gaze lingered on her tits made her nipples tingle, and as they hardened, she saw his eyes crinkle at the corners. She knew he was grinning, even if his teeth were hidden on the other side of the steel door.
“That’s the one,” Officer Maddock answered. “They’re just a buncha troubled teens, mostly. Or at least they were, until Jesse came around.”
“Why?” Layla asked. “What’s he in for?”
“This time? He got into a fight at the Bottle Cap Saloon. Almost broke the guy clean in half.” He shook his head and his chins jiggled. “We think it was a club rivalry.”
Layla chewed on the skin of her lower lip as she looked deep into Jesse’s eyes. “So he’s dangerous?”
“Oh yeah,” Officer Maddock chuckled. “This ain’t his first rodeo.” Then he leaned close over Layla’s shoulder and whispered: “And if he can do that, think of what he could do to you.”
Oh, I am, Layla thought, though she folded her arms over her stiffening nipples to hide them from Jesse’s view. She’d never say it out loud, but Maddock’s warning gave her pause. If Jesse King would tear a man apart in a crowded room, what would he do to her if she was left alone with him?
As her excitement waned, she tore her eyes away from Jesse’s hypnotic gaze and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.
“All right,” she said to Officer Maddock. “I think I’m ready to go home.”
Over the next few weeks, Layla simply couldn’t get Jesse off her mind.
She dreamed about him often. It seemed like almost every morning she’d wake up wet, her pussy throbbing to the fading image of him buried to the hilt inside of her. She’d slip her fingers beneath the band of her panties and spread her lips, rubbing the delicate nub between them until her thighs spasmed. It was always his name that she’d moan into her pillow.
Her parents thought their shock and awe campaign had gone well, and Layla wasn’t interested in correcting them. In fact, it was one hell of an alibi. As long as she kept pretending to have been scared straight, she could maintain the freedom she so desperately coveted. And Layla was a damn good actress.
She’d managed to earn her car privileges back already, and now, standing out in the driveway with a sponge in hand, she smirked at her reflection in its shiny red body. She could once again go anywhere and do anything she wanted. God bless her gullible parents.
She lifted the garden hose and let the cool water flow onto her chest, sighing in relief as it cascaded into the fleshy valley between her bikini-cradled breasts. It was scorching hot outside and so arid that it almost hurt to breathe. She couldn’t wait for the summer to be over.
But that meant big decisions that Layla wasn’t ready to face yet—like college. She wrinkled her nose at the thought.
As she cleansed the salty trails from her sun-kissed skin, she heard a sound rumbling over the rushing water. She frowned and shielded her eyes with her hand, squinting past the glare of the sun reflecting off the bike headed down the street toward her.
It was a powerful-looking beast, all chrome with hints of well-worn red and black leather on the seat. That was strange. People on this side of town didn’t usually ride motorcycles around.
What was even more strange was that she realized that she recognized the person who was straddling it.
It was Jesse King.
Layla crossed her arms as she watched him approach, hoping to hide her tits from his view as he pulled his bike up into her parents’ driveway.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked him.
Jesse took off his helmet, ruffled his dark, chestnut hair, and then grinned at her from beneath the shadows cast by his shades.
“Just got outta juvie a few days ago,” he said. His voice was gentler than she’d imagined it would be, but still rougher than the guys she was used to. There was a little lilt to his tone, a boyish carelessness that made her feel as though nothing ever really fazed him at all. “I remember you came to visit me.”
“I wasn’t visiting you,” Layla answered, suddenly wishing that she’d worn a shirt. Even though she couldn’t see Jesse’s emerald eyes through the tint of his lenses, she could still feel his gaze settled right on her cleavage.
“No?” Jesse replied. He leaned forward onto his handlebars as he watched her stoop down to wet her sponge in the soapy bucket near her feet. “Then I gotta ask: what was a girl like you doin’ in a place like that?”
She rolled her eyes, squeezed out a bit of excess water and suds, and said: “It was my parents’ idea. They wanted to scare me straight.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Figuratively, or…?”
“Yes,” she answered testily. She wasn’t a big fan of boys just showing up unannounced. She liked to have the control in the relationship, and Jesse barging into her driveway hadn’t earned him any points with her. “I like boys, dumbass.”
Jesse spread his hands wide in a gesture of defenselessness. “Well, sorry, beauty queen. How was I s’posed to know?”
“Oh, come on,” she said, glaring at him over her shoulder. “I mean, look at me.”
Jesse grinned ear-to-ear. “Well, if you insist…”
Layla threw her sponge at him. It slapped into the side of his bike, and he roared with laughter.
“You must think you’re hot shit,” she grumbled, planting her hands on her hips.
Jesse leaned down and picked up her sponge. “Well honey, don’t that make two of us?”
He tossed it back into the bucket and nudged his kickstand into the cement. As he dismounted the bike, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans and began stalking around Layla’s car.
“What’s that, a Shelby?”
“Yes,” she said proudly, retrieving the sponge. “It’s a classic.”
“Uh huh,” he mumbled, taking a peek through her windows at the mess in the backseat. “Wouldn’t stand a chance against my bike, though.”
Layla rolled her eyes skyward. “Right. Because a roll cage hardly beats getting scalped by the pavement when you lay it down. I’ll stick with four wheels, thanks.”
“Hey, I understand,” Jesse said, feigning sympathy. “Lots’a people are scared of bikes.”
“I’m not scared,” she hissed. “I’m smart. And I imagine it’ll be pretty hard for you to be such an elitist when your brains are scattered all over the interstate.”
“That’s what the helmet’s for, princess,” Jesse said with a grin, finally rounding the hood of Layla’s car. He’d snuck up on her during their argument. She wasn’t ready for him to be so close.
The scent of cowhide leather clung to him like cologne, emanating in waves from his studded jacket. It looked so heavy, even on his strong, burly shoulders. She wondered how on earth he could stand to wear it on a hot day like this.
Something about the smell of it intrigued her, though, and as he crossed his arms over his chest, she caught another whiff of its sun-baked fragrance. It curled in her nostrils like the smoke from some kind of exotic incense, and she bit her lip as her toes curled against her cheap, spongy flip-flops. It was a scent she could get used to.
But Officer Maddock’s words lingered in the back of her head: He almost broke the guy in half. And if he can do that, think of what he could do to you.
He
r stomach twisted, and she took a step back from Jesse’s imposing form leaning against the hood of her Shelby.
“Look,” she said slowly. “I appreciate your interest, but…” She trailed off, trying to think of some excuse.
Jesse leaned forward as if interested in what she could come up with, the sunlight glinting off his golden skin as he waited for her to finish.
“…well, you’re in a motorcycle club, right?” she said finally. “What would they think if they saw you hangin’ out in a neighborhood like this with a girl like me?”
“I dunno,” he admitted. Then he smirked. “What kinda girl are you?”
“Not the kind that hangs out with ex- and future cons,” she answered.
Jesse snickered. “You make it sound so dramatic. It was juvie, beauty queen—not the state pen.”
“And you’re telling me that you’ll never end up there?” she asked, picking up the length of hose at her feet. “That you’ll just suddenly stop doing all the things that put you in juvie once you turn eighteen?”
“What I’m sayin’,” Jesse clarified. “Is that I won’t get caught.”
Layla shook her head and strode over to the faucet jutting out of the wall near the garage door. She turned off the flow of water and began winding the garden hose around the rack.
“C’mon,” he called out to her. “You’re not gonna leave me hangin’ on my birthday, are you?”
She looked at him over her shoulder. “I don’t even know you!”
“So get to know me!” he answered. “Think of it as my birthday wish.” He pressed his hands together as if in prayer. “I’ll even say please, if you like.”
Layla stood up and faced him. He was looking at her like a pitiful puppy dog, only according to the correctional officer, he had one hell of a bite. She pursed her lips as she looked him over, trying to decide if Officer Maddock had really been warning her, or if it’d been just another scare tactic on her tour of the facility.
“All right, then,” she said, lifting her chin. “Say it.”