We stayed talking at Hammie’s for almost three hours, and then Seton paid the bill and drove us back to the clubhouse. When we got inside, the bar was much louder than it had been. About twenty men, all tattooed, were laughing, drinking, and jostling each other. Most wore leather vests with patches that said, “Stone Kings MC.” A handful of women, most of them scantily clad enough to make me blush, hung on the men. Rock music I didn’t recognize played in the background.
Levi was there, standing with his back to me at a high top table with a few other men. “Grey!” Seton called, and a man standing next to him with close-cropped blond hair looked over at us. His face broke into a wide smile that softened his eyes as she ran to him. She flung her arms around his neck and he lifted her up, kissing her deeply as she kissed him back. I turned away, feeling strange at witnessing a moment that felt so intimate and private, and as I did, my eyes met Levi’s. He stared at me for a few seconds, and as his eyes locked on mine I felt a strange sensation of warmth flood through me. The intense green of his eyes seemed to flash despite the dim light, almost as though they were boring inside me. My lips parted in surprise as my breath hitched in my throat. Then, as if nothing had happened, he glanced away, and I started breathing again, shivering slightly. I had never felt anything like it before, and all my nerve endings seemed to tingle, as though he had touched me instead of just looking at me.
“Cherish, come here and meet Grey!” Seton called. I walked up nervously, avoiding Levi’s eyes.
“Hello,” I said to the man holding Seton, raising my voice to be heard above the music. “Thank you for letting me stay overnight.”
Grey nodded without smiling. “You’re welcome. Levi said you were in a bit of a bind tonight.”
My eyes flicked over to Levi, who was looking over at the bar now, seemingly ignoring the conversation.
“I promise I’ll be gone tomorrow,” I replied. Levi glanced at me briefly then, before turning away again.
Seton waved a hand dismissively. “You don’t have to go tomorrow, Cherish.” She looked up at Grey, whose arm had curved around her possessively. “I like having her around. It’s nice to have another girl to talk to.”
Grey didn’t say anything, so I didn’t reply. Seton smiled over at me reassuringly, and I silently thanked her with my eyes. Levi was still pretending to ignore the conversation, but of course, he didn’t need to speak. He had already made it very clear he didn’t want me here. Even though I still had no idea what I was going to do, I wouldn’t stay any longer than tomorrow without his consent. After all, it was only because of Levi’s kindness that I was here in the first place, and I didn’t want to be any more trouble to him than I already had been. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want the trouble of some strange woman hanging around. Without him telling me, I somehow sensed that my presence was a door to his past that he wanted to remain firmly closed.
Tomorrow, I decided, I would be on my way. I didn’t know how, or where, but I’d figure it out after a good night’s sleep.
6
Levi
Grey gave me a goddamn earful about letting Cherish stay at the clubhouse overnight. Especially because I basically refused to give him any details about who she was, where she was from, or how I knew her.
Luckily, I had called Seton to get Cherish set up with a change of clothes and to help her get settled in for the night. I had only done it because I couldn’t figure out what the hell to do with her myself, but it ended up being an even better decision than I’d realized at the time. Seton took Cherish out for some food, and by the time they got back to the clubhouse, they were as thick as thieves. And once Seton was on board, I knew it was okay about Cherish, at least for the night. Greyson Stone could make a grown man piss his pants with just a look, but damn if Seton didn’t have him wrapped around her little finger.
When the two women came back from their dinner, a bunch of the club officers were hanging around a high-top table near the bar, talking details about a meet with the head of the Aztecs cartel that was to happen the next day. I hadn’t noticed the two women come in until I heard Seton’s voice calling out Grey’s name. I looked up to see her running toward him like they hadn’t seen each other in weeks. She wrapped herself around him, and Grey lifted her off the ground with a smile he reserved only for her, kissing her in front of all of us like there was no one else around. On the one hand, it was kind of awkward. I mean, life at the clubhouse was hardly chaste, and I had seen more than one man flip a woman over on the pool table and have at her like there weren’t two dozen other people in the same room. But that was just sex. This was something else entirely, and the intimacy between them felt private in a completely different way. But even as I squirmed a little to see them like that, shit, I was happy for Grey. I couldn’t deny that Seton made him happy, and even though I had had my doubts about her at first, she was actually a pretty great person. They were clearly crazy about each other, and Seton made Grey less of a brooding fuck to be around, which was all good by me.
As I looked away from the Seton and Grey show, I happened to glance at Cherish as she walked shyly toward our table. My eyes widened in surprise. She had on a different pair of jeans now that hugged her ass, and she was wearing a tight little green tank top that showed off a body I could never have imagined under the formless yellow T-shirt she was wearing when I met her. Alarm bells sounded loud inside my head as I sprouted wood like a goddamn teenage boy at the sight of her.
Holy hell. She was freaking gorgeous. I doubted she had any idea of the effect that she would have on a man in those clothes. If she did, I doubt she could have just put them on and stepped out into the open. There was something about the green of her shirt and the way her dark hair framed her face that brought out the creaminess of her skin, and made me want to taste her, devour her, pull down her jeans and her panties and fuck her with my tongue until she came screaming my name.
Shit. I needed to get some goddamn control of myself. I shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other and moved a little closer to the table, thankful that its shadow would hide my throbbing erection. I took a long swig of beer from the bottle in front of me and reminded myself that she’d be gone in the morning. All I had to deal with was one night, and then I’d hopefully never see her again.
As much as I tried to make myself ignore her, I couldn’t help but notice that Cherish seemed a little self-conscious as she walked toward us. I couldn’t blame her. Even though her clothes happened to fit her like a goddamn glove, they were hardly what you’d call revealing. But for her, she must have felt like she was practically naked. The community we’d grown up in didn’t allow women to expose skin below the neck, and regarded female nudity as of the Devil. Modesty was taught to women as the most important virtue. She had to be making a supreme effort to get used to wearing clothes that weren’t specifically designed to cover up everything that made her look like a woman. If she knew that the mere sight of her made me want to take her upstairs and fuck her, she’d probably freak out and go try to find a garbage bag to put on or something.
It had been a long damn time since I’d thought about the community I’d grown up in, but now I found myself remembering how constricting life there was for the women, even more so than for the men. Cherish said she had been married, but I knew that didn’t mean much in terms of her sexual experience, or comfort with her own body. Hell, I doubted very strongly that she had ever been actually naked in front of anyone before in her life since the day she was born. Both women and men were required to wear temple garments at all times, which were underwear that covered them from above the elbows to just above the knees. Sex with her husband was most likely done in the dark, a simple affair of him pushing up her nightgown and doing whatever the fuck he wanted while she just sat and took it.
My blood started to boil in my veins as I imagined Isaiah Whitehead pounding out his lust on Cherish, with no interest in her pleasure or even her consent. I knew without knowing what their life had probably been
like. Hell, I’d seen it myself growing up with my own father and his three wives. The youngest one was thirteen when I left. She was a “spiritual marriage,” which meant that he was supposed to wait until she was old enough to be considered an adult to have his way with her, but of course nobody actually did that. I remembered hearing the muffled cries coming from her bedroom the first night he brought her home. The next day, her pale, frightened face as she helped my mother make the breakfast was the first nail in the coffin of my decision to leave the WFZ Ranch.
The expression on my face must have revealed my angry thoughts, because Cherish stopped short when her eyes met mine. “Oh,” she said, taking a step back. I realized she must have thought I was angry at her, and couldn’t decide whether it was better to let her keep thinking that.
“You got a change of clothes,” I said in a neutral voice.
She gave me an uncertain half-smile. “Yes, Seton has been really nice. She brought me a few different things. She says I’m not allowed to give them back.”
That made me smile in spite of myself. “Well, Seton’s no one to be trifled with. If that’s what she says, that’s the way it’s gonna be.”
She looked down at the table and said in a quiet voice, “Thank you for letting me stay the night. I know I’m not really welcome.”
Goddamnit. My belly knotted with a regret I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to hurt Cherish. I just didn’t want her here. It was nothing personal. But there was no doubt that she needed to be gone, tomorrow. An outlaw motorcycle club was no place for someone like her. Especially given the club’s current situation.
“It’s not that,” I said gruffly. “It’s just better if you don’t hang around.”
She nodded and made a brave attempt at a smile. “I understand. I promise not to be in anyone’s way.”
“Oh, please, you’re not in anyone’s way,” Seton cut in. I turned to see her lean into Grey’s enveloping arm. “The men can be a little gruff at times, but don’t let them scare you,” she winked at Cherish. “They’re all just a bunch of pussycats.”
“Seton,” Grey began in a warning tone.
She rolled her eyes playfully. “Yes, I know you’re as tough as they come, Greyson Stone. But honestly, you’d never harm a hair on a woman’s head. So don’t give me that menacing voice. I know better.”
“Jesus,” Grey sighed, kissing her forehead. “What I have to put up with.”
“You know you love it,” Seton teased back. She unwrapped herself from Grey’s embrace and turned to Cherish. “Come on, honey, let’s go upstairs and give these men a chance to finish their shop talk.”
We watched the two of them head up the staircase together, and I tried not to stare at Cherish’s ass.
Grey eyed me speculatively. “You sure you’re not gonna tell me who she is?”
I was silent for a moment. “Just someone from my past.”
Grey didn’t seem satisfied with my answer, but he let it drop, and called out to the other officers to join us at the table. He wanted to give them the final details of our meet up with Lalo, the leader of the Aztecs cartel, which was to happen the following day.
A situation had developed, and it was time to get to the bottom of it. After quite a few years of relative calm and quiet, the Stone Kings had recently suffered two unexplained violent attacks that had happened in our territory. The first one had cost the life of our brother Hammer, who was Grey’s best friend since childhood. The second, a drive-by shooting at a diner a couple of towns over, had injured a couple of our men, and also some of the townspeople. The trouble was, in both instances, we didn’t know who had been behind the attacks.
The drive-by at the diner, a club hangout called Maisie’s, had escalated the situation considerably. True, none of the brothers had been seriously injured in the attack, but a couple of the people in the community had also been hurt, one of whom was still in the hospital. Our club was careful to maintain good relationships with the civilians that lived on our turf, and for the most part, we coexisted peacefully, thanks in part to some of the kids’ charity runs and other events we organized in and around Lupine. For the most part, they left us alone and we left them alone.
An attack on us that wounded the citizens of the area risked eroding the goodwill that we’d worked hard to maintain over the years. Even though the attack had been meant for us, the public didn’t know enough to distinguish between different motorcycle clubs easily. When violence happened involving the club and it touched them, all they knew was that our presence in the community was the reason.
The Stone Kings hadn’t had any serious turf wars in quite a while. A few years ago, Grey had brokered a truce with the Aztecs cartel that allowed them passage through our territory to transport their product — at first drugs, but since pot legalization, mostly weapons now. Our club had a good working relationship with the Aztecs and their leader Lalo, and if I didn’t quite trust him, I trusted that keeping the terms of the truce was in everyone’s mutual best interest.
Recently, another outlaw club, called the Cannibals, had joined Lalo’s cartel. Their leader, Skull, seemed like a shifty-ass motherfucker to me, and Grey and the other officers tended to share my opinion. The meet with Lalo tomorrow was about Skull and the Cannibals, and Grey’s objective was to get some sort of read on Lalo’s relationship to them. It seemed to us that Skull and the Cannibals were the most logical culprits behind the attacks on our club, and if it turned out that it was them, justice would have to be dealt. But if we hit the Cannibals, we essentially were hitting the cartel, as well, potentially destroying a relationship that had worked well for everyone, and starting a war that could blow up in everyone’s faces.
“I think we need to take everyone we can to this meet,” Trigger, the VP, argued as he lit up a smoke. “It could turn ugly, and I don’t want our men caught out there unprotected.” I knew he was thinking about what had happened with Hammer, caught out in the open unawares, with only our brother Jethro to cover him. Jethro had turned out to be a cowardly piece of shit, and left Hammer to be shot and die alone. Even though Jethro had been dealt with, and would never betray anyone again, it still left a lingering taste of anger in all our mouths.
I lifted my chin toward Trig in agreement. “Not a bad idea.” I knew that in a way, bringing most of our men to a meet that was supposed to just be an informal chat between presidents ran a pretty good risk of escalating tensions, but hell, I didn’t give a shit. We still didn’t know who was behind the attacks on us, and until we did, I wasn’t comfortable with a group of our officers going anywhere without a lot of backup.
Grey seemed inclined to disagree, but then thought better of it. “Okay,” he nodded. “But we’re gonna leave a few of the men here at the clubhouse while we’re gone. I’m not gonna leave this place unprotected.”
“You think Lalo knows who’s behind the attacks?” Winger asked.
Grey shook his head. “I don’t think he’s behind it, if that’s what you’re asking. If he does know something, he’s taking a pretty big risk by protecting them. A war with us would cut off his main transport route indefinitely, and he knows it. Seems like a pretty fucking stupid move, unless the people he’s protecting are even more important to him than we are.”
“Goddamnit, this pisses me off,” Trigger roared suddenly, slamming his fist down on the table. “I want to know who’s behind this!”
“We all do, brother,” Grey replied. His face was a careful mask of calm, but behind it, I could see his jaw tensing in anger. “We all do. And when we figure it out, there’ll be payback.”
I shared Trigger’s fury, and I knew that behind it was the frustration that grew out of feeling helpless. The Stone King were men of action. The weeks of not being able to make those responsible pay for their crimes was beginning to take their toll on the club.
As our club president, one of Grey’s strengths was his ability to think tactically, to keep his emotions from clouding his judgment. He had confided to me t
hat he believed whoever was responsible for the anonymous attacks was trying to destabilize the club — to sow discord among the brothers and make us weaker, by keeping us guessing as to who was targeting us and why. If that was the case, Grey’s timetable before it started working was limited. The only thing that kept some of the more warlike brothers like Trigger in check was the knowledge that our president had lost his best friend in the attacks. They may have been impatient at Grey’s slow, deliberate approach, but I don’t think any of us were in doubt that eventually, someone would pay for Hammer’s death.
I hoped their faith in him would hold for long enough for us to figure out who it was.
7
Cherish
Seton followed me up to the apartment, chattering away gaily, and I did my best to pay attention. But frankly, all the excitement and stress of the past twenty-four hours had gotten to me, and I was struggling to stay awake. It was barely nine o’clock, but all I could think about was climbing in between the sheets and closing my eyes.
“Now, when you get up tomorrow morning, feel free to go downstairs into the clubhouse kitchen area,” Seton was saying. “There should be enough groceries in the fridge to make yourself a decent enough breakfast. And there’s always coffee.” Her eyes twinkled. “Don’t be surprised if you get roped into making breakfast for one of the men if they wander in and see you cooking. You can cook, right?”
RIDE (A Stone Kings Motorcycle Club Romance) Page 39