Lessons In Corruption (The Fallen Men Series Book 1)

by Giana Darling

  The Saturday night party heralding the start of Spring Break had long ago dissolved from a spirited family type BBQ into something much darker and more debased.

  Bikers lounged across available surfaces making out (or worse) with the biker groupies. More loitered in little groups blazing their grade A marijuana and more still had retired for the night, passed out on couches or were shut away in the rooms they reserved at the back of the building. Most of the bikers with kids had left a long time ago and only the truly hardcore remained.

  I was, weirdly, one of them.

  King sat on a stool at the bar with me perched on one of his thighs, one arm hooked around my waist to keep me balanced while the other palmed a Blue Buck beer. I’d never seen him drink so much in one night but if he was drunk, I couldn’t tell. He spoke with Zeus, Nova, Mute and Bat easily, his smile wide and easy. Every once in a while, his thumb would brush back and forth over the exposed skin of my belly, I would shiver and he’d duck down to press a soft bite to the junction of my neck and shoulder.

  We’d had a good night, but not exactly an easy one.

  I’d been nervous just putting on my ‘biker babe’ clothes that afternoon. The white cropped Harley Davidson tee revealed a large expanse of my flat, pale gold belly, especially with the low riding (and I meant low) pair of faded blue jeans I wore. On pain of biker babe wrath, I’d promised the girls that I would finish off the look with dramatic makeup, big hair and wicked looking spiked heel, leather, ankle boots.

  When I went teetering down the stairs from my bedroom, both King and Mute, who had been murmuring together, stopped talking to stare at me. I fidgeted, hoping I didn’t look ridiculous because I didn’t feel ridiculous. I felt sexy and cool, like a woman you’d think twice about crossing and thrice about fucking. It was a great feeling after a lifetime of feeling like a pretty pawn to be shown off by my mother and William. Today, I felt like a freaking Queen.

  King seemed to think so too because he practically rushed me at the bottom of the stairs, told Mute to fuck off for a bit, and then kissed me. Mute had fucked off for a bit and King had taken me on the stairs. It had given me rug burn at the base of my back but I didn’t care. The resulting sex glow suited my new look.

  It also made me a lot less nervous to be formally introduced to The Fallen as King’s old lady.

  Apparently, my nerves were misplaced anyway. There was nothing formal or intimidating about the BBQ Zeus was hosting at the Clubhouse. Men, women and children milled about the asphalt, enjoying the spring sunshine and the jovial company. The smell of charred meat billowed out of the smoker and over the two grills they had going in the back of the clubhouse. There were two picnic tables laden with the salads, sides and desserts the various old ladies and teenage daughters had made, and six coolers filled with various local beers as well as three kegs. One of the prospects, a pimply kid the club had named ‘Pigeon’ for reasons unknown, was manning the bar inside for anyone (mostly the women) who wanted a cocktail. Two more ‘hangarounds’ were at the bikers’ beck and call to run various chores throughout the night, but it seemed that everyone else had decided to take the night off from the drama and the intrigue of the new dealers in town and just enjoy themselves.

  Enjoying themselves, I learned, was something bikers did very well.

  The kids ran themselves silly through sprinkles set up on the grass and the older children took turns caring for them and hanging with the adults so the parents could take a load off and focus on socializing and boozing.

  I was having so much fun that I forgot to be uptight, even when Skell started mauling a much younger woman right in front of me, or when some of the brothers started passing around a joint. King left me, for the most part, with my new group of biker babes, but when I caught eyes with him nearly every time I looked for him, he gave me his boyish grin and it made my heart swell so big it actually hurt. The music was great, the booze was bountiful and the food was to die for—greasy and fattening and yum.

  “Look at that tramp,” Lila said, cutting off everyone’s conversation about where to shop in Entrance and Vancouver.

  Needless to say, I was finding out that the babes and I did not shop at the same stores. I was happy with my style but also eager to incorporate more leather and lace into my closet because the women around me looked awesome in it, I thought King would die a special death to see me in it, and I’d always secretly wished I was cool enough to pull it off. The girls were in the middle of reassuring me that I was, when Lila interrupted with her angry comment.

  “Huh?” Tayline asked around the mouth of the beer bottle she was in the middle of draining.

  She was five-foot-nothing and maybe one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, but that woman could seriously drink. Meanwhile, even though I was inches taller than her, I was already delightfully intoxicated after five Hey Y’all hard iced teas.

  “Riley?” Cleo clarified.

  I followed their combined gazes over to a seriously pretty redhead who could have starred in an Herbal Essences commercial. She was striding across the grass in fantastic red cowboy boots, swinging her round hips in a way that had all the men staring at her as she passed.

  “Wow, she’s seriously pretty,” I said.

  “She’s also seriously talented with her mouth and most of The Fallen men know it,” Lila muttered.

  I was surprised by her jealousy because I was fairly sure Lila didn’t have a man to be possessive of.

  “Jesus, Li, when are you going to pony up and tell Nova you want his dick in your mouth?” Maya asked. She was crass as ever but somehow maternal, her eyes soft as they stared at the younger woman.

  Lila ignored her as she sucked at her teeth. “Shit, heads up, Queenie, Riley’s got your man in her sights.”

  My eyes shot instantly back to the hair commercial girl. She had set those swinging hips at King who was across the yard talking to Mute, Lab Rat and an older biker named Smoke who ran a gun range. He was laughing his beautiful laugh and when Riley stopped in front of him he turned to her, still laughing. I watched her absorb his humor-heightened good looks like a lightning strike, watched her shiver through it. Anger sparked over my skin as they began to talk. Every time Riley touched his corded forearm, the wrath and despair in the pit of my belly burned brighter.

  “You need to go up to that bitch and show her what’s what,” Maja urged me.

  “At least go and interrupt their conversation,” Cleo said.

  I chewed on my bottom lip. King had been so distant with me all day and then, there he was flirting with a gorgeous girl. It made all the insecurities I had flare to life so I didn’t feel comfortable approaching him to stake my claim. I didn’t even feel comfortable watching them anymore.

  “Going to the restroom,” I muttered.

  “Cress…” Lila called after me, but I ignored her.

  I was preoccupied with the sight of King and Riley burned into my eyelids so, I was unprepared for the drama of seeing Paula and her posse when entered the clubhouse.

  She was sitting at the bar talking to three other incredibly scantily clad women. Paula herself had her large dark hair done up even higher than I’d seen the other day and she wore a fishnet top with a skimpy bra and itty bitty jean shorts. It was spring now but the days were still cool, so she had to be absolutely freezing.

  The instant she spotted me, a cruel smile slashed across her face.

  “If it isn’t the teacher who seduced her student. We were just discussing you. Tell us, did you have to blackmail King to get him to fuck your boring, bony ass? The girls and I were taking bets and I’m feeling lucky.” Her words splattered across the floor like filth, coating me in dirty shame.

  “I know you’re probably used to blackmailing men for money when they get tired of paying for it, but not all of us are that hard up,” I returned, surprised by the ease in which the venom spilled from my tongue.

  The other women gasped, but Paula’s beautiful eyes just narrowed and she swung from her seat to
stalk towards me as she said, “Oh, sugar, I’m not hard up. The Fallen Men line up to get their chance with me, but I made an exception for King. I went to him because Zeus gave me the honor of taking that sweet boy’s v-card when he was just a boy.”

  Rage and disgust hurtled through me. I didn’t care that King had slept with her, Paula was gorgeous and I knew that even as young as he was before he’d found me, King had racked up an alarming amount of bed partners. No, what I did absolutely care about was the idea of this viperous woman owning anything of King’s, especially something as beautiful as his virginity.

  “Well, you can’t blame him then. He didn’t know better,” I qualified, pleased enough with my comeback and my burgeoning biker babe ‘tude that I took an aggressive step forward to meet her as she came at me. She faltered on her high heels, surprised by the move.

  Point for me.

  Unfortunately, Paula was a seasoned bitch so she recovered quickly. “So sweet, so fucking naïve. You think that was the only time he dipped his wick in me, Miss Priss? Told you, the men line up to tap this ass. Only reason King didn’t have to was because I liked teaching ‘im the ways of loving a woman.” She leaned right into my face, her boozy breath all over me. “Come to think of it, you and me aren’t so different, are we? We both love to school that boy.”

  “Get out of my face and shut your mouth before I do it for you,” I growled through the hot rage that boiled in my gut and threatened to burn over my tongue like dragon’s breath.

  I was nearly out of control with fury, but some lingering, respectable part of me wanted to give her fair warning before I went crazy on her.

  “Maybe we should trade notes,” she continued, brazenly reaching out to run her hand down my arm. “Between the two of us, we can see he’s getting the best education money can buy. Although, I bet if we asked him, he’d tell you that he prefers my womanly curves to your little girl tits, that he loves how good I take his cock in all my holes.”

  There was an audible snap as my control collapsed under the weight of her insult and my insides fell into the inferno at the pit of my gut. My stomach flamed, my throat throbbed and I could feel the fire licking at my lips, waiting to turn Paula into ash.

  Before, I could understand what I was doing, I’d shoved her against the wall with my forearm across her throat. When she screeched and reached out to scratch me with her fake talons, I maneuvered so that my shoulder pinned one arm and my free hand the other. I leaned into her delicate neck, felt the throb of her pulse against my blazing skin. It made dark notes of laughter coil in my belly, so I indulged in a manic giggle before I leaned into her face like she had done with me.

  “I don’t know you and I haven’t done anything to you, so I’m unsure if you just took an instant dislike to me or if you’re an honest to goodness crazy bitch by nature. Really, I don’t care. What I do care about is you gloating over fact that you slept with my man right in my face. You want to talk about teaching? Because I’m happy to teach you about some respect.”

  She snorted and rasped out, “Full of shit.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, reeling back dramatically before lunging at her face with snapping teeth. My blood was singing with power, my mind giddy with violence. I wanted to push against her throat until she was blue in the face and dare her to go after my King. The very thought of her hands on him turned me into the cruelest sadist. “Would you say that stuff you just did to King’s face? Because if you did, it would be his arm across your throat and he isn’t about violence. I’m his old lady, not you, so if I have to use my fists to remind you of that, I don’t see him caring all that much.”

  “She’s fuckin’ right.”

  King’s voice behind me widened my lens and suddenly I was aware of the huge crowd we’d drawn. A few men were softly chanting fight, fight, fight while the rest were silent but emitted excitement like radio waves.

  Instantly, my arm relaxed against Paula’s thin neck as I felt King literally at my back. Unfortunately, Paula took advantage by shoving me, and then while I was staggering backwards, she jumped on me.

  I fell back like a bowling pin, my head crashing against the floor in a way that had me seeing stars. Paula screamed as she landed an open palm slap against my left cheek.

  The next second, she was pulled off me, screeching and kicking like a banshee. I lifted myself onto my elbows to watch as Mute and Lab Rat dragged her out of the clubhouse. Then I dropped my head back to stare up at King, who was glaring down at me, practically vibrating with anger.

  “I think I just earned a biker babe badge of honor or something,” I told him with a big smile as the adrenaline tangoed with the alcohol coursing through my blood and turned my body into a song. “Do girls get patches too?”

  “No, babe, they don’t,” Hannah said over King’s shoulder where she stood with at least a dozen other people. “But I’ll see about getting one done for you at the shop, okay?”

  “I think that would be good,” I nodded somberly. “We could be like the Pink Ladies but a lot cooler. And our jackets should be black!”

  There was a low murmur of laughter that ended when King let out a growl and ducked down to scoop me in his arms. Happy to be there, I wound my hands around his neck and called over his shoulder to Zeus, who was lingering by the bar and laughing at me, “Make sure that bitch doesn’t get near me again or Imma put her in the ground!”

  This time no one tried to hide their laughter.

  “You’ve been watching way too many episodes of Sons Of Anarchy,” Tayline told me as we moved past her and down the hall to the brother’s apartments at the back of the clubhouse.

  I tried to shrug but King was holding me too tightly.

  It took me a moment after we left the group, after I’d banked my anger and my resulting badass biker babe in training pride, to realize that King hadn’t said a word to me.

  Nerves danced in my throat. “King?”

  “Quiet,” he ordered.

  I swallowed thickly and wondered for a moment if I’d acted entirely inappropriately. I knew holding a woman, however bitchy, against a wall was not normally appropriate behavior but I had reason to believe it would be acceptable in the new biker world I inhabited. So, it occurred to me that while I probably hadn’t acted inappropriately, I could have angered King by telling Paula that he was my man and I was his old lady.

  When we reached King’s room (he had one because he was the Prez’s son even though it was biker only), he pried open the door, dropped me on my feet, then slammed a palm against the door to shove it closed.

  Then he was on me.

  I could taste the hot, metallic anger on his tongue as he used it to sear the inside of my mouth with his possessive, plundering kiss.

  He ripped himself away from me after a minute and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I stood mute against the wall, watching as he glared at me, his chest heaving.

  “King?” I asked in the same little girl’s voice I used to apply to William and my father when they were disappointed in me.

  I couldn’t help it even though I hated it. King’s wrath was squeezing the new life out of me, devolving me into the Cressida of old who avoided conflict at all costs.

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me with that shit, Cress?” he demanded.

  “Um, you mean fighting Paula?” I confirmed then winced. “I know it wasn’t my finest moment but—”

  King stepped forward to slam his palm against the wall just beside and above my face so he could lean down into me. “Why the fuck is it that I always hear you tellin’ other people how you feel ‘bout me but you can never tell me that shit to my face, huh?”

  I blinked into his face.

  He continued, “First you tell the girls at Eugene’s that I changed your life just by breathin’ and made you leave your husband and I didn’t even know you yet. Then you get in some bitch’s face ‘cause she’s disrespecting you but more, ‘cause she’s disrespecting me and you shout in her face that I’m your man and you�
�ve never even fuckin’ told me that?”

  “King, honey—” I tried again, reaching out to place my palms flat on his chest to soothe him.

  It didn’t work and I knew it wouldn’t when I felt the hard knock of his staccato pulse against my fingers.

  “Been layin’ it out for you since the first time I called you babe, Cress. I fuckin’ lied to you, skipped classes when you know how much I wanted to be at that school, just so I could have a chance at you. Even when you took that away from me, when you judged me for my brotherhood, when you told me to stay the fuck away from you after I told you I was your student, I kept at you. Wrote you poems that might as well have been penned in my own blood, you cut right at the heart of me. Can see it in your eyes, you’re addicted to me, can feel it in that sweet body of yours that you crave me. Wouldn’t hurt to hear it from those lips that you want me even half as much as I want you.”

  Wow. I closed my eyes as his words sunk in, sobering me in an instant. Had I really been so remiss? It seemed so obvious to me that I was more than just in love with him, that I lived and breathed only when he was near. How could I have failed to mention that?

  It was an easy question to answer actually.

  Because I’d been afraid.

  I swallowed thickly because I still was. “How can I trust you with how I feel when I don’t even know what you want from me? What am I to you, King? A hot cougar, a plaything, a power trip? You’re asking me to risk everything.”

  “I am,” he said immediately, leaning even closer so that I could hear his words in my ear, feel them against my mouth and see them scrawled in his bold, block print across his eyes. “And I’m not asking you to do that because you’re a fuckin’ hot lay. I’m asking you to risk everything to be my partner, to stand by my side and rule The Fallen men of Entrance, to lie, cheat and steal, to breathe my fuckin’ breath, take my kisses and my cock and reign with me. Be the Iron Queen to my Fallen King.”

  “Why?” I croaked as my heart beat hard against the cage of my ribs like some rabid animal fighting to be freed.