by Kati Wilde
He blinks, which tells me he’s forgotten about the money, too, then shakes his head. “It’s only nineteen thousand. Because I put a grand in that toy drive box.”
Shit. I almost choke laughing, because of course he did. Stone’s road name fits him well—as the Hellfire Riders’ enforcer, he’s cold and hard as stone. But he’s a toasted marshmallow when it comes to three things: kids, dogs, and any girl in trouble.
“But I’ll tell you what,” he adds, as generous as a slick salesman on late night TV. “We’ll split the donation. That way Old Timer will only tax you on ninety-five hundred instead of your ten K.”
Old Timer, the Riders’ treasurer. We don’t report our fight money to Uncle Sam—all that money flowing under the table is part of the reason the underground fighting is illegal—but we still pay taxes on it. Thirty percent of our prize money goes into the club’s coffers to help cover expenses like travel and entry fees. The tax doesn’t bother me any more than Stone’s donation does. The club gives me back a hell of a lot more than I can count in dollar bills.
That doesn’t mean I won’t grumble about both. “So I claim half the donation and go home with ninety-five hundred. Then I let Old Timer take another twenty-eight fifty on top of that? That means we both come out with sixty-six fifty. But if I just have him tax my ten K, I come out with an even seven thousand. And you’ll have…sixty-three hundred.”
He’s mumbling something and poking at the calculator app on his phone. I know my numbers are right but his “God damn it, you heartless bastard” when he arrives at the same answer has me grinning again.
“You should still split it with me,” he says. “It’s for Baby Jesus and shit.”
I’ll split it. But I’m sure as hell not going to tell Stone that until we’re handing in our reports to Old Timer.
Instead I flip open the console between our seats. “How about this? Here’s my own toy drive box. How about you drop a few K in there?”
“You ain’t that pretty.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Yeah, you are.” He gingerly pokes at his black eye and works his swollen jaw from side to side, as if testing how much it’ll hurt. His resulting groan is as pathetic as what he says next. “This fucked-up mug is going to scare away any woman worth having tonight. You’ll have to reel one in for me.”
We both know I won’t have to reel one in. I don’t have to go fishing at all. I just have to sit there. But I’m not interested in catching anyone and he’s usually not interested in catching what I toss back. He’s not really interested now but I’ll still give him shit for it.
“That’s fucking pitiful,” I tell him.
He grins, then grimaces when the scab on his busted lip splits. With another pathetic groan, he grabs a napkin and holds it to his bleeding mouth. “I’ll take pitiful if sweet, sweet pussy comes with it.”
“You didn’t say pussy. You said a woman worth having. Are you telling me a woman who falls for a bait and switch is worth having?”
“I’m not looking for brains, brother.” A hand over his heart, he gravely says, “Throw beauty and brains at me, and I’d be a goner. So reeling in the dim ones is an exercise in self-preservation.”
Fuck. He’s joking—but it’s not a joke. Ten years ago, I met beauty and brains when I stopped to help her change a tire.
Five minutes later, she flashed me her tits and I was a goner.
There’s no self-preservation after you’re gone. No wall you can build around your heart. The only thing you can do is accept that you’re fucked. You can’t protect yourself anymore.
So you protect her, instead.
You protect her by doing nothing but watch her. And all the while, you’re wishing for more but knowing you can’t have it. You’re pretending you don’t think of her as anything other than your friend’s little sister. You’re telling yourself it’s for the best when she starts dating again, because staying away from her is how she stays safe, and if she’s happy then you should be real fucking happy for her, too.
Except you’re already fucked. So you can’t protect yourself and your armor is gone, and the thought of her with someone else is a blade that slides right in.
Maybe you walk while you’re thinking of it. Maybe you talk. Maybe you laugh. Maybe you do your goddamn job and search for goddamn shadows every weekend, but there’s not really anything left. Because you’re a fucking goner.
And every day you don’t have her, you might as well be dead.
2
Gunner
Stone’s grumbling again as the highway turns into main street. “This rig is a goddamn embarrassment. You know who comes to a bike rally in a cage? Prospects who’ve been told to drive the clubs’ vans. Or assholes who drew the short straw.”
Despite his bellyaching, Stone isn’t embarrassed. Whether we ride in on motorcycles or in a clown car, no one with half a brain will fuck with us. Sure, sometimes these rallies are populated by fuckers with less than half a brain, but even they know to steer clear after getting a look at our kuttes. And if they aren’t smart enough to do that…well, usually that’s when shit gets really fun.
So I only point out, “You are an asshole,” and he nods.
“True.”
He’s an asshole, but the short straw belongs to me, because I’ve got to find parking for this beast. Chrome shining under the streetlights, motorcycles line the main drag of this small Arizona town as far as I can see. About a half mile down the road, there’s a stretch of desert packed full of more hogs and RVs. Space is at a premium this weekend.
Considering our last-minute planning, I would call it a miracle that we got a motel room, but it’s not. The Hellfire Riders have pull where we need it.
But no amount of pull reserves a parking space. The motel lot looks like a Harley-Davidson dealership during a Memorial Day sale. Three blocks from the main road I finally find a spot off a side street, in front of a run-down bungalow with a rusted chain link fence surrounding a yard full of yellow rocks.
His leather kutte in hand, Stone bails from the rental and slams the door. I grab my own vest and slide my ass out of plush seats. The Escalade is a nice ride, for a cage. Better than the work truck I’ve got sitting at home. But I’m not sorry to leave it.
The nighttime air’s got a bite. It’s cold and clear, and even three blocks over, the noise from main street breaks up the midnight quiet.
The chirp of the Escalade’s alarm sets off a dog barking inside the bungalow. Stone shrugs his kutte on over his button-down flannel and gives the vehicle a considering look.
“Are we leaving that shit in there overnight?”
By ‘shit’ he means the two HK416 assault rifles and the four handguns tucked behind the front seats, courtesy of the Bedlam Butchers. We couldn’t fly into Phoenix with any weapons and we sure as hell wouldn’t go unarmed to a meetup with Shaggy. So the Butchers hooked us up by securing a stash at a public locker that we could collect on our way to the rally. Tomorrow we’ll be locking them up again on our return trip to the airport.
“Might as well leave them,” I decide. “They won’t be any more secure in the motel room and we’ll just be hauling it all back out in the morning.” Our fight money is in the room, but the cash fits into a safe. The weapons won’t. “You want to carry now?”
He shakes his head. “Not worth the trouble.”
The trouble would be trying to enter any Cactus Gulch establishment with a weapon. Most places pat you down before allowing you in, because the rally organizers and the bar owners like everyone to play nice. Playing nice won’t happen—as sure as shit, there’ll be fights going down outside of the ring—but if no one gets shot or stabbed, everyone involved can call it a win.
As the Hellfire Riders’ enforcer and sergeant at arms, respectively, Stone and I don’t go many places without a few weapons strapped on. But walking into a bar unarmed doesn’t worry me. If shit goes down, I’ve got my fists. And if I don’t feel like bruising my knuckles, there’s alw
ays plenty of things close at hand—tables, chairs, beer bottles. The prez wouldn’t have appointed us to our positions if we couldn’t take care of problems without reaching for a gun.
I feel like bruising my knuckles tonight. Stone got in a good fight today, but me, I might as well have gone up against a tube of ground beef. Now Shaggy didn’t show, we still don’t know where the fuck all these guys are disappearing to, whether Crash and Handlebar are even alive, and Anna’s out with one of the biggest pricks in all of Pine Valley.
My gut’s twisted up, thinking about how that might be going. What time is it? Just past midnight, but an hour earlier in Oregon. About the time a dinner and a movie would be over. About the time Miller might be making a move on her, kissing her luscious mouth, sliding his hands into her dark hair.
I know the sweet, hot taste of her. Ten years ago, I took a kiss in exchange for helping change her tire, and I know her hair feels like thick silk between my fingers. I know how she moans and lifts up on her toes. I know the soft press of her body against mine. That knowledge has haunted me for a decade. Maybe Miller knows it now, too.
Jesus fucking Christ, I need to pound some bastard’s face in.
Maybe Stone’s face. I love the asshole like a true brother—and a hell of a lot more than I love my own brothers—but when he starts chuckling as we’re walking along, the sound is like ragged fingernails scraping over my brain. His sister is out with a pompous dickbag. And he’s laughing?
I glance over. His scarred face is lit up by his phone and he’s wearing a shit-eating grin.
Like there’s something to be happy about. “What the fuck you laughing at?”
“I’ll send it to you.”
A picture. There’s only one kind of photo he sends to me.
Anna’s.
I’ve got my phone out even before it vibrates in my hand. Sweet Christ, and there she is. Looking straight into the lens, her golden brown eyes narrowed and her mouth firmed, like she’s annoyed as hell and making sure her brother knows it.
I spend a long second studying her eyes before letting my gaze drift over her sharply angled cheekbones, sliding down to her pointed chin. Small and delicate, she’s got a sweet face, like a pixie’s. But, Jesus. There’s nothing sweet about her aside from her taste.
She made herself up for her date. Working at the Wolf Den, she usually doesn’t do much more than put her long brown hair up in a ponytail. But now her eyes are dark and smoky, with gold glittering over her lids. Her glossy hair is loose. Her plush lips look like red velvet.
That’s a mouth that could drive a man insane, wondering when he’ll have a chance to kiss it. That mouth can stiffen a man’s cock the second he looks at it.
Or at a picture of it.
Fuck.
With my dick an iron bar lodged against my zipper, I tear my gaze from her face. I don’t know what to make of the rest of the photo. Anna’s selfies are rarely just selfies. In this one, her middle finger is self-explanatory. But she’s lying on a red rug I recognize from her living room with Stone’s boxer, Daisy, in the photo beside her. A message is spelled out in dog biscuits over the top of her head. The same message she adds to every picture. Sometimes it’s hard to find. Not this time.
Anna was here.
“She’s pissed.” Stone sounds amused by that fact. “Miller asked me for advice about where to take her. So I told him she loves the Rock’n Bowl.”
That’s a punch to the throat. She does love the Rock’n Bowl. She loves the noise and the neon under the black lights and the cheesiness of it all. If a guy wanted to make sure she had a good time on a first date, there’s no better place to do it.
And Stone gave that advantage to Miller. It feels like a fucking betrayal. It shouldn’t, but fuck me—it does.
Not betraying me. Betraying her.
It’s all I can do not to swing my fist at him. I can’t have Anna. But, goddammit. She deserves better than this. “You told him that? He’s a fucking tool.”
“Exactly.” His expression is as smug as fuck. “And he’s the sorest loser you ever saw. He has been since high school.”
Ah. The rage boiling through my blood cools. Anna’s just a small thing, and she doesn’t take the bowling part of the game seriously, but she’s got a magic touch with the ball. What she doesn’t have is much patience for assholes.
Her brother is an exception.
“I bet her that Miller would fake an injury halfway through the game—as soon as she started winning.” He’s grinning again, talking and texting at the same time. “Guess who told her he sprained his wrist while working out yesterday, and it just happened to start acting up on their date?”
Good. “Why bring Daisy into it?”
“That was the bet. If I was right, she has to give Daisy a bath before I get back.”
I shake my head. I’ve seen Stone try to get the boxer into a tub before. The house he and Anna share was a muddy wreck by the end. “Because babysitting your dog every weekend we’re gone isn’t punishment enough?”
He blinks hard and sniffs, as if his feelings are wounded. “Daisy’s not a punishment. She’s a gift.”
“A gift who rolls in shit every chance she gets.”
“And that’s why she needs a bath. See? I’m a mastermind.” But his expression turns serious as he pockets his phone again. “Anyway, Anna needs the distraction.”
“From what?”
“From Red.”
My gut twists right up again. Red Erickson isn’t just a Hellfire Rider. He’s also the father of Anna’s best friend, Jenny, and thanks to the cancer eating up his chest, he’s got—I don’t know, maybe another few weeks left. Maybe. This past month, he’s been heading downhill fast and I don’t think he’ll wait for the cancer to take him. He’ll go out his own way.
That would be rough enough for Anna, losing a man who’s like an uncle to her and serving as emotional support for Jenny Erickson. But when it comes to cancer, Anna’s got her own demons.
I should have seen it. We don’t talk much, but I keep an eye on her when she’s working at the bar, and she’s been quieter lately. When she’s not quiet, she’s sharper. Like every word is lodged in her chest and she uses a razor to slice each one out.
But until Stone just opened his mouth, I hadn’t put it together. I should have. She was sick with leukemia as a kid. The first time I met her, she’d just come off a new cancer scare—a lump in her breast. It turned out benign, but the scare rattled her so much she sought reassurance from the stranger who stopped to help change her tire. She flashed her tits at me and asked me to tell her they weren’t perfect, so she wouldn’t feel like she lost something in the surgery.
I couldn’t lie; they were a pair of the prettiest breasts I’d ever seen. But I told her the scars wouldn’t matter. That ‘perfect’ for her meant ‘healthy.’
I meant every damn word. Because right there, seeing her courage and her fear and her determination, I knew I’d never be the same. I didn’t know her name yet but I knew this girl had just fucked me over—and that there was nothing more important than knowing she was healthy. That she was alive.
And that feeling spooked the hell out of me. I tried to run—but I didn’t get far. The girl I met and kissed on the side of a road turned out to be Stone’s sister, and I was staying at his family’s house for a week. At that point, Stone and I been serving together for four years and he was already closer to me than most of my family had ever been. On missions, we all but shared a brain and there was no one else I trusted more at my back.
So I was fucked…but after that sank in, knowing I was fucked didn’t bother me so much. There’s a lot worse things that could have fucked me over. Worse things, like seeing her hurt. Or killed.
Just like my brother’s girl had been. After losing her, David was a dead man walking—and before long, just a dead man.
So maybe I was always meant to be fucked. I can accept that. Maybe meeting Anna was inevitable. I can accept that. But if I’d touched
her, seeing her hurt might have been inevitable, too.
I could never accept that.
Now Anna might be fighting her own sense of inevitability. Ten years ago, she was terrified of getting sick again. Terrified of never seeing the world or doing anything with her life. Maybe watching Red go through this brought that terror back around.
I say, “Is that what this thing with Miller is—a distraction? Because it used to be, she didn’t want to waste her time dating.”
Or as she put it—I’ve got better things to do with my time than sorting out the dickheads from the good guys.
Stone shrugs. “I told her he was a dick. She said she knew.”
“Then why go out?”
“She says it’s because he asked her.”
“Miller has asked her before.” A hundred guys have. For the past six years, I’ve sat at the bar at the Wolf Den and watched every move they’ve made, seen every asshole who’s flirted with her, my fists clenched and wishing I could beat the shit out of them.
Knowing I don’t have the right.
But if I did… Jesus. I look at the picture, at eyes like a starburst of caramel and whiskey, at her dark hair spread out on the rug. I’d give anything to see those long strands spread out on my pillow and tangled by my hands, her red lipstick smeared all over her mouth. Then all over my cock.
At least Miller won’t see it. “Why would she say yes to him now?”
Stone shrugs again.
Jesus fucking Christ. He brought up the topic of Anna needing a distraction from cancer and now he’s shutting it down?
Fuck that. I’m not done with it. Not if Anna is afraid of dying.
And not if she’s dating pricks like Miller because of it. What’s she doing with him? Trying to cram in as much living as she can?
She’s done that before. Not long after I visited Stone that first time, right after Anna had the scare with the lump, she took off. She’d just finished up four years of college, but instead of heading to med school like she’d planned, she started traveling. I didn’t see her in person again for more than four years, but I saw the photos she e-mailed to Stone. Pictures from New Zealand and Bangkok and some white sand beach in the Maldives where she was wearing a bikini that I’ve jacked off to so many times it’s a miracle my dick isn’t broken. She backpacked through Europe and took a picture in front of pretty much every church and bridge ever built. She was in South America while Stone and I were heading back from Iraq, and eighteen months later, she saw the pyramids the same day we flew out to Afghanistan. She sent pictures of it all, and every single photo had the same message scrawled across it.