by KB Winters
“Oh, fuck! Yes!” I rode his cock like I was headed towards the finish line, which in a way I guess I was. He was hard and thick inside of me, hips rising up to meet mine with every thrust. It was wicked and delicious, and I bit down on his shoulder to avoid waking up the rest of the house. “Wheeler.”
“You ride so good.” He held my hips with a firm grip and pounded into me like the answers to all of life’s questions could be found in there. “Fuck!” His teeth clenched hard, but he couldn’t get the leverage he needed so I took over.
“I’m in charge,” I growled and put my hands to his chest, pressing him down into the plush mattress as I began to ride him, harder and faster, so hard that he sank as deep as he could get. Deep enough to make me tremble mid-stride. “Oh fuck yes!”
“AB,” he growled again, hands snaking down to my ass in a firm grip, guiding our speed. “Fuck!”
I leaned forward and sank my teeth into the that little tendon between his shoulder and his neck, using his chest to take more of him, to change the angle at which we came together. It felt so good, so damn right that I couldn’t stop the pleasure as it barreled down on me. On him. It shot out of every pore and I couldn’t stop the long, tortured cry. “Oh my God!”
Wheeler grabbed my face, tight enough to sting, his grip firm. “Just me, Wheeler. Not God.” He flashed a sultry smile and fused our lips together, kissing me deeply as he buried his cock deeper and deeper, around my orgasm.
“Fuck, you feel so goddamn good.” He surged up and shuddered before flipping me onto my back.
“Feel better?”
He nodded. “A hell of a lot better. Thanks, Doc.”
I froze at that casually tossed out ‘Doc’ because I knew what he was doing, and I knew why, but it still pissed me off. There was no point going over it all. Again. I got dressed and left without a word. We both got what we wanted and after a quick shower, I’d have a hot cup of coffee warming my bones from that instant chill.
The kitchen was thankfully empty since even Martha hadn’t come back from the servant’s quarters after breakfast. Even though I heard them all talking downstairs, I stayed up in my own room with my thoughts. They had a lot of MC business to discuss and it had nothing to do with me at all. I was here to look after Maisie, that was it.
Alone with my thoughts and a second mug of coffee, I sat at the table and sent a prayer to anyone who might be able to control any part of this life, to keep Peaches safe. Maisie needed her and that baby she carried, to give her a full and happy life after all the loss she’d already suffered. I would keep that suffering to a minimum as much as I could, while I was here.
A knock on the back door pulled me from my thoughts with the force of a hurricane. My heart thudded as my flight-or-fight instincts kicked in, I scanned the kitchen in search of a weapon. A proper weapon. My eyes landed on the knives first. They were practical but required close combat. Then my gaze landed on a shotgun leaning up against the wall behind the door. I wrapped my hand around the handle and tucked it under my arm, slowly pulling the door open with my free hand.
A woman stood on the porch with shoulder-length pink hair, a small baby bump and a smile on her face. “You must be Dr. Annabelle Keyes. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I blinked, wondering who in the hell this woman was and if I needed to shoot her or invite her in. “Uhm, do I know you?”
She laughed. “Sorry I’m Vivi.” She held out a hand, which I accepted while her words sank in. Vivi. “Peaches has a way of painting a picture and you are every bit the pretty country doctor she described.”
I wanted to spend some time on the whole ‘country doctor’ thing but we didn’t have time. “Peaches isn’t—”
“Here? I know. That’s why I’m here. When she didn’t check in I knew something was up, and I’m here to get my girl back.”
Instantly I liked her. She seemed brash and outgoing, strong and capable. And Peaches had confirmed that she was a certified badass. “Come on in.”
Chapter Nineteen
Wheeler
I woke up hours after Annabelle left my room feeling good. Hell, I felt better than good, well-rested, energized and ready to crack some skulls to get Peaches back if that was what it took. I didn’t know what prompted Annabelle to say yes, but I was goddamn glad she had because being buried inside her was intoxicating. Watching her and gripping her hips while she rode my cock, back arched so her tits were just a tongue flick away, and the fucking sounds she made. I got hard just thinking about it again.
Fuck. It shouldn’t feel so good to want the wrong woman as badly as I wanted Annabelle, but dammit I did. And I was unapologetic about it. She was prissy, but she was hot. And freaky. And the way she craved my cock made me feel ten feet tall.
But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about my sexy little doctor. Now was the time to think about getting the Prez’s girl back. I jumped into a hot shower and got dressed, making a beeline for the coffee I didn’t really need but wanted. Desperately. That and I wanted something hot in my hands when I spoke to Gunnar. Part of the reason I’d gotten up early was to have a few words with him before the rest of the guys arrived.
“Good afternoon, ladies.” Maisie sat at the table, munching on a sandwich and some of Martha’s homemade potato chips. Her vegetables remained untouched and a small milk moustache covered her top lip.
“Wheeler, I got chips!” She held up one thin sliced potato and bit into it with the gusto only a little girl could manage in the middle of a crisis.
“Can I have some?”
“Miss Martha made plenty of them, didn’t you?”
Martha stood at the stove pulling more chips from the hot oil with some wide wire thing. “Sure did. I’ll get some on a plate for you, Wheeler.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed one of the oversized mugs Martha kept around for the ranch hands and filled it with coffee before taking the seat across from Maisie. “How’s it going kid?”
“All right.” She sighed as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. “I miss Peaches.”
I didn’t know what, if anything, Gunnar had told her about Peaches’ absence. I didn’t want to step on any landmines while I was already in the doghouse, so I said, “I do too, kid, even though she always gives me shi—a hard time. But don’t tell her I said that.” I pointed an accusing finger her way, and she erupted in a fit of giggles that made it impossible not to smile.
“I won’t. I promise.” She took a monster bite from her sandwich before asking her next question. “When is she coming back?”
“No clue,” I told her honestly. “But I plan to find out, kid. Be good for Martha.”
“I will! Dr. Annabelle says we’re gonna have a tea party when she gets back from the hospital.”
I froze in the doorway and turned, asking my next question as calmly as I could, even as my thoughts churned. “Why did she go to the hospital?” Gunnar had impressed upon her the need to stick close to Hardtail Ranch until Peaches came back safe, so why the hell was she ignoring that?
“There was an accident on the interstate,” Martha explained. “Needed every available hand. Gunnar sent Saint with her,” she added with a twinkle in her eye.
“Thanks.” I grunted like it was Martha’s fault that Gunnar had sent Saint and not me. Still, it was another kick to the nuts. Yet another kick landed on the family jewels when I stepped into Gunnar’s office and found more than half the MC already there.
Cruz leaned against the bookshelf with his arms folded over his chest while Holden stood tall with his shoulders squared, expression deadly serious. Slayer perched on one edge of the desk; legs crossed at the ankle. “I’d ask if I missed anything but it seems like that’s exactly the point.”
Gunnar stood and crossed his arms. “Figured you could use the rest.”
Sleep it off was more like it, but no one bothered to say it, because it was all bullshit anyway. “Right. Anything I should know?”
Gunnar gave a sharp nod, and I didn’t mi
ss the look of relief when I changed the subject. “Managed to get some aerial eyes on Healey’s property, thanks to Vivi, here.”
He nodded to the pregnant woman with the pink hair curled up on the sofa behind the door.
“Looks like someone is in there but we don’t know who or how many, so we’ll wait for Slayer and Cruz to get eyes on the tenants.”
I gave the woman a nod of greeting before getting back down to business. “Did you find anything Peaches might have kept hidden, thinking she was protecting Gunnar?”
I could have prettied up the words but there was no time for that shit and pink hair glared at me. “Not yet. What about you, Master Sargent Haynes? Don’t you have some connections you can tap into to get info on Farnsworth?” Her smug, taunting gaze remained on me, unwavering in the certainty that she’d gotten me.
She had and that wasn’t even the worst fucking part. No the worst fucking part was the fact that I hadn’t thought of it myself. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself that I might’ve lost the trust of the MC to focus on what mattered and that was using every tool at our disposal to get Peaches back.
“I’ll see what I can find, Vivi,” was all I said, and I got the fuck away from everyone.
The calls I needed to make were private, and I needed some way to fortify my nerves before rising from the dead and reaching out to those still living. Still fighting.
Chapter Twenty
Annabelle
Motor vehicle accidents were the worst kind of emergencies, even worse than gunshots. Bullets tore through flesh and did unspeakable damage to human organs and bones, but the pain and torture an automobile could inflict was unimaginable. Not for me, of course, because I’d spent the past twelve hours inside one operating room or another, patching up a variety of body parts. All thanks to some truck driver who decided to skip his required resting time and fell asleep behind the wheel. That one decision, that one act had changed the lives and futures of more than two dozen people.
It was a life lesson we could all use, me in particular. It was time to stop doing things—and people—who made me feel like shit. Time to stop fooling myself about Wheeler and what I felt for him. Time to stop pretending I didn’t know about all the illegal shit going on at Hardtail Ranch. Every decision I made, or willfully choose not to make had an impact on my life. Positive or negative, nobody knew, but making a choice had to better than letting the choice make itself. Right?
“You all right, Dr. Keyes?” Tish’s voice was always full of maternal concern and today even her face was softened in sympathy.
“I’m good, Tish. Just a really long day. Really long.” Four fatalities out of sixteen injured was too much, but those numbers said nothing of the three who had died en route to the hospital. “You holding up okay?”
“Yeah,” Tish said. “Days like this are always hard, but I go home and hug my kids extra tight and kiss my husband like we’re teenagers again, and it makes it all a little less terrible.”
“Sounds nice,” I told her absently, barely able to keep my eyes open as I sat behind my desk. “I just need to finish the report for that last lung puncture and then I’m headed home. Go get a jump on making out with your hubby.”
She grinned and with a small finger wave, left me to my thoughts, which were, honestly, all over the place.
They swirled so much I dozed off for a few minutes, waking with a start at the slam of a locker down the hall in the employee locker room. It was time to get back to the ranch and hopefully get a few hours of sleep. If I had known what the day had in store for me, I would’ve used those early morning hours a bit more efficiently. But I wasn’t thinking about Wheeler, not today. Not anymore.
Instead, I gathered my things, my jacket, and the bag that contained a change of clothes as well as emergency medical supplies.
The bag knocked over one of many boxes stacked around my office. Most days I would have just left it until my next shift since I didn’t share the space with anyone, but a shiny object drew my attention. It was a tape recorder, which was odd, not just because it was about fifteen years out of date but because it didn’t belong to me. I’d given up the old school recorder in med school, opting for the digital version instead because I could get notes done anywhere I wanted.
The cassette deck wouldn’t open so I pressed each of the buttons, letting the nostalgia wash over me as each button clicked up when the previous was one depressed. On the record button, I hit pay dirt. A long red metal object jutted from the battery section of the recorder. I pulled it until I recognized the object.
A flash drive. “Holy shit a…flash drive,” I whispered the last two words to myself, just in case someone was listening.
Then I remembered my shadow. Saint. I shoved the flash drive into the pocket of my scrubs. I had time to think about what to do first. Obviously, I would tell Gunnar and Vivi what I found, but the question was, should I take a peek before then?
Peaches’ words came back to me, not to mention her current predicament. What if viewing whatever was on the drive was more dangerous than I realized? What if it put me in more danger? Or Peaches? Or Maisie? Suddenly even possessing the damn thing made me nervous. I wondered if I had it in me to put the flash drive back and pretend I’d never seen it.
I could do that, couldn’t I? Maybe it wasn’t from Peaches. Maybe some of my father’s stuff had gotten mixed up with mine. That was plausible. Completely.
If I didn’t examine it, or my own moral compass too closely.
“Dammit.”
“Hey Doc, you all right?”
Saint’s voice pulled me from my thoughts once again, and I flashed an overly bright smile that had his brown eyebrows raising in concern. “I’m fine, Saint, thanks for asking. Days like this take a lot out of me.”
He nodded. “I know what you mean. Want to stop for a drink before heading back to the ranch? There won’t be any peace there anytime soon.”
That sounded wonderful, but everyone in town had heard about the pile up by now, and they would all want details, offer up sympathies or gossip about the trucker, none of which I was in the mood for at the moment.
“Thanks for the offer but curling up in bed sounds even better.”
Saint nodded and fell into step beside me, offering up the kind of mindless small talk that didn’t require too much brainpower until we reached his SUV.
I was grateful because it kept my mind off Wheeler and his constant efforts to keep his walls up around me. And it most certainly kept me from thinking about the tiny stick currently burning a hole in my pocket.
“That wasn’t too painful, was it?” he said as we headed back to the ranch.
“It was a good attempt at blending in with the citizens of Opey,” I told him on a laugh.
“Gee, thanks Doc.”
“Anytime. How’s the wound?”
“Clean and starting to heal, I promise. Hazel loves playing nurse.”
“Too much information,” I told him, making the biker flush pink and stumble over his words.
“I did mean it like that, Dr.—”
“I know, Saint.” I said as we pulled up to the ranch house. “It was my attempt at humor, a poor one it turns out.” Add lacks a sense of humor to my list of attributes that have all the single men vying for my affection. “Thanks for being my bodyguard today.”
“Anytime.” He killed the engine, stepped out of the car and slammed the door behind him, leaving me alone once again with my thoughts. This time they had little to do with Wheeler and more to do with if I really wanted to know what was on that drive.
A knock on the window startled me, and I turned to see Vivi grinning, an amused expression on her face. “I hear if you stare at the house long enough, you’ll be transported inside.”
“I wish,” I told her and stepped from the passenger seat, grabbing my bag as we both made our way up the steps. “Just trying to decompress after a long day. How are you?”
“Fine, fine. Tired and hungry and needing to pee a l
ot sooner than I did with my first kid. Wanna talk about it?”
I frowned. “About the baby pressing on your bladder?”
“No,” she rolled her eyes. “Whatever put the shadow in your eyes?”
I appreciated the offer but I handled my work grief on my own, usually with a long hot bath and a bottle of wine. “No thanks. It’s just a typical day at work, only with more customers.”
“Bullshit, but the offer stands for as long as I’m in town.” It was a nice gesture.
“I see why Peaches loves you so much.”
“I am pretty awesome,” she laughed and put a hand to her belly, a subconscious gesture of every pregnant woman on the planet.
“Did you guys find anything helpful? We got eyes on a property where Farnsworth could be staying but these guys are good at being invisible.”
Which meant I absolutely did not want to see whatever was on the flash drive.
“Come with me.” I grabbed her hand in an overly familiar way that normally would have had me apologizing profusely, but now wasn’t the time. I had to do this while I was too tired to think about it too much.
“Peaches trusts you and I trust her, so I’m going to trust you too, Vivi.” I tugged her upstairs and into my room, closing the door behind us.
Her gaze narrowed. “With what?” The accusation was instantaneous, reminding me once again that I was an outsider, that no matter how Peaches felt, the rest of this crew saw me as an interloper.
“This.” I shoved the red stick into her hand and took a step back, wrapping my arms around my midsection. “I knocked over one of the boxes on my desk and this fell out. It was inside a fake old fashioned tape recorder.”
Vivi grinned. “I bought that for her as a gag gift about fifteen years ago.” Her tone was wistful, and she shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe she still has it.”
“Anyway, I have no idea why it was in my office but I figured you’d know what to do with it, and you can pass the info along to Gunnar if it’s anything worth knowing.” I stepped around her and pulled open the door.