by A. E. Fisher
When he pulled away, I found myself gasping for air as his eyes glared into mine, alight with fire and fight. “Don’t think I won’t bite,” he growled. And then his hand untangled from my hair and he stepped away before turning and walking back into the compound.
My hands reached up to feel my hot, swollen lips, my mouth feeling lonely at its emptiness as my eyes were drawn down toward the cigarette abandoned on the concrete.
I lifted my boot, slamming it on the floor and squashing the burning tip with my foot. “Shit.”
Chapter Nine
Wolf
“Shit,” I hissed, leaning back into my office chair. I looked down at my hands, my fingers tightening around each other, feeling the need to go for another cigarette despite just having had one. My tongue swirled in my mouth, still holding the lingering spicy taste of Anna. I wanted to think more about it, perhaps go out and find her to torment myself like the masochist I was beginning to think I was becoming, but instead, my eyes rested heavy on my hands.
I looked down at the faded ink. They were what had traveled with me to the States, and the news I just received made them feel heavy on my skin.
“Don’t think too much about it, boss,” Lamb said, his body leaning up against the door. He held in his hand his sleek black phone, this time acting as an ominous sign. I couldn’t take Lamb’s advice as my mind stayed hitched on the information Lamb had just given me.
Ties to the Bratva. My back almost ached, as if the tattoo I had long since covered up had only just been done. I could feel all the snaking lines of the crucifix that had armored my back once a long time ago, back when it had defined me. Now my club crest covered it, but at times like these, it felt as if it was still there, hidden beneath the skin... waiting.
It was as if I could smell the musty prison walls again, along with the harsh liquor and the gun powder. The warm air filtering through the club did nothing to dissipate the growing chill in my bones.
I thought back to the words I had said to Anna. They were the same words Roscoe had said to me when I was prospecting in the club. But fuck, this was one fight I thought I’d won a long time ago, but hearing those words again just dredged up the past, immediately putting me on edge.
Lamb’s eyes traced my reaction, but he said nothing. Lamb had never been the reassuring type. He was a cold bastard mostly, too cunning for his own good, and a cruel, toying fucker twelve months of the year, but he was a loyal idiot, and no matter how the years had gone by for us, he hadn’t changed.
Loyalty is what protects the club, because if brothers have our backs, then we've got our brothers’ backs, and that's what keeps us alive. Lamb had been the first one I’d said that to when he’d been a stupid fuck all those years ago, and after him, it had stuck.
He was dressed in his club cut, jeans, and boots, and although he was slenderer than the rest of the brothers, he still had deadly fighting skills and fit in just as well as the rest of them.
Lamb ran a hand through his blond hair before he straightened from the door. He didn’t move away from it, though, as he rarely did. Corners were his favorite places to stand, always able to keep an eye on anything that caught his attention. It was for the same reason I had a favorite stool in the bar, except Lamb’s preferred place was standing behind it. The position allowed him control over the entire room.
I looked into his eyes, their depths almost endless with cunning intelligence that he often kept hidden around the other brothers.
“Do we know what he wants yet?” I asked, shifting my focus out of the past and back into the room.
“No,” Lamb said, scowling at the floor. There was little Lamb didn’t know, and even less that he couldn’t find out. It must have been grating on his nerves. “Knowing he has ties to the Russian mafia makes it less likely that he’s after drugs, or guns, or anything materialistic.”
“How are we supposed to know anything about this fucking key if we can’t even figure out what he’s after?” I snapped, forcing myself to stay in my seat so I didn’t break anything. I already had to throw out my bookshelf after I put a hole through it. It had taken me fucking forever to put that thing up when I got it, and being forced to throw it out only put me in a more pissed off mood. “What the fuck could a small-town MC like ours have for a man like him?”
Lamb was quiet, in thought for a long while, until he suddenly said, “What makes an MC unique?” He turned his head toward me. His pale brown eyes waited expectantly for my answer. I figured he already had an answer in mind, and yet he still wanted to hear my answer. I had to admit, this part of his personality was a bitch, always acting like he was testing me like some damn kid.
I took a moment to think it over, but only a single obvious answer came to mind. “The members?” I thought back to the clubroom packed full of Black Angels, their noise smothered by the soundproofed walls. You’d never find another bunch quite like them.
Lamb didn’t tell me if I was right or not; instead, he just watched me expectantly.
“But that would mean he’s after one of the members. More so, he believes one of them can lead them to what he wants,” I continued, wracking my brain. “But one of the brothers would have told us if they knew something. I trust each and every one of them. They wouldn’t hide shit knowing the force it's bringing down on the club. They know how much I hate doing anything blindly.”
“Which is why we should work under the assumption that they’re as unaware of it as we are,” Lamb finally joined back in. “If the brothers begin to suspect someone of holding back, it could turn into a paranoid riot in there during lockdown. Being in close quarters would just aggravate them. We don’t want to start a shit fest if we’re not sure.”
“But, surely, they would know if they had information that important,” I argued. As much as I hated the thought of one of the brothers holding back on me, I hated the idea that they would have had to lie to my face when I had asked them if they knew anything.
“Value varies from person to person,” Lamb interrupted. “There’s no way of telling what’s valuable to one person compared to what’s valuable to another. It’s likely that whatever he’s after is of a personal value to him.”
“So, in other words, we have no fucking way of finding out what it is.” I sighed, my hand pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to soothe the headache beginning to form behind it.
“My guess is, when the message was delivered, he was expecting the key to know who they are.” Lamb looked in the direction of the club to where the boys were no doubt starting to get drunk, since all the club kids would have been taken up to bed and out of the way by now. “But I don’t think they’ve realized it. And if they haven’t, I can’t imagine they would even if we asked them.”
“This problem just keeps getting fucking worse,” I growled, pushing my chair back and rising from it. I looked to Lamb, who didn’t move from his spot as I passed him. “I’m fucking whacked, and I’ve got a killer headache. So you better tell me now if you’ve got anything else to get off your chest, because if not, I’m grabbing myself a drink and calling it a night.”
When Lamb didn’t say anything else, I took it as my cue to leave. “Set up Church for tomorrow morning. And by morning, I mean not until after ten,” I ordered as I opened the door. I was met with a sudden blast of loud music, laughing, and the sounds of glasses being broken as I stepped out into the hallway and headed for the clubroom.
It was almost one as I moved up to the bar where Baby stood making drinks. The rest of the girls had managed to find themselves a man or two and were draped across them, keeping their boredom at bay as the girls got to play harem. “Beer,” I said, immediately stopping her from whatever she was doing to come down and place a bottle in front of me. She also reached down and tossed me a packet of painkillers from below the counter.
I popped two in my mouth before I handed them back to her, letting her place them under the counter before she went back to doing whatever it was she was trying to do before I
interrupted her. That’s what I liked most about Baby. The girl was low-maintenance, knew how to blow a man just the way they liked, and fuck them however they wanted and didn’t bitch or gossip about it afterward like most of the girls. She was there when she was needed. She also never went looking for scraps, like Georgia often did. Then again, the men liked her enough that her time was nearly always occupied, so she didn’t have to.
Just as the thought crossed my mind, I saw Jax lean over the bar, his hand pulling Baby forward by the valley of her shirt, exposing a trove of her soft brown skin before whispering in her ear. He didn’t need to sweet talk Baby into bed, but that was just Jax’s deal. Not a moment later, the Amazonian woman disappeared up the steps, as did Sweets and Ember when he flagged them down.
When the men started bitching about Jax stealing the women, long after he’d gone, I had enough of this day and figured I’d call it a night. I made my way toward my door, wondering what was waiting for me on the other side when I heard her voice.
She wasn’t in bed.
My need to sleep was overpowered by my curiosity as I heard her howl from the pool room. My feet were moving. I took my beer along with me as I stepped into the room.
I found myself looking at a disaster. Pretty and Pipe both stood in nothing but their underwear as they huddled by the furthest end of the pool table—a.k.a. as far away from Anna as they could get.
Anna was leaning on the pool cue, checking her nails with a saccharine smile on her lips before looking back up at her prey.
Lamb, who I hadn’t noticed come up behind me, lost immediate interest in seeing the boys’ obvious loss at strip pool and went off in search of a quick bed partner to waste his time. I was tempted to tell him that he should go take one off Jax but couldn’t as Anna turned around and noticed me standing in the doorway.
Her chest puffed out in arrogant pride as she smirked at me.
“Prez!” Pretty called. “She cheated!”
I didn’t know what the fuck he was telling me for. It only took one look to see that the bastards had been played.
“I did not,” she scoffed. “You guys are just shit at pool. And the only person good at pool is too grumpy to play.” She pointed over at Mint, who had Georgia draped over his lap. She had a beer in her hand, sucking on it while Mint had his hand under her shirt, playing with her nipples as she gave soft whimpers. He didn’t seem to be bothered to do anything more, and Georgia looked too drunk to care.
I looked to Kay, the ex-president, Roscoe’s widow, who sat in the chair next to Mint, more than pleased to watch the outcome of the game. Bell, her daughter, sat next to her, her eyes pinned to her mobile phone as she attempted to ignore everything in the room. She had recently become more attached to that thing than reality, and he’d noticed she’d been coming to the clubhouse less and less.
“I am pool Queen!” Anna declared, bringing my focus back to her. She lifted her cue and pointed it at the boys, looking slightly unsteady on her feet. “You have one more chance to redeem yourselves.”
They both began to whine, and just as I was thinking about walking away, I instead found myself downing the rest of my beer, setting it on one of the tables, and reaching for a cue. “Can’t call yourself Queen without first playing all the competition.”
Anna raised her eyebrows at me with a scoff. “You call yourself competition?”
“Play me and find out,” I challenged. A sober Anna perhaps might not have taken me up on the challenge so easily, but alcohol only seemed to make her bad traits worse as her competitive nature won.
“Fine,” she relented, lifting her cue and pointing it at the boys and then me. “But since you’re joining the game midway, you have to play it fair to the other two.” She lowered the cue at my shirt and then my jeans. “Off,” she commanded.
I set my cue aside as I slid off my cut and then reached for my shirt and pulled it over my head, dropping them both onto the back of a chair. Next came my boots and my socks. Anna watched with a meticulous eye as each piece of clothing came off, her eyes now feasting on the naked skin that was revealed to her. My hands wore the most tattoos, my back only covered by my club patch and the paw print tattoo on the back of my neck. On the other hand, my chest was surprisingly bare, with not a single tattoo in sight.
Ready to play, I picked up my cue. “You just going to stare at me all day, or are we going to play?”
Anna frowned at my jeans. “You haven’t taken your jeans off yet.”
“Rules are that I have to be down to my last pair of clothing.” I gave her a shark-toothed grin. “I am.”
Anna breathed a soft “Oh” as her eyes all but burned through the thick material of my jeans at the revelation that there was nothing else under them. “You know what?” Anna said, the lust in her eyes being replaced by her arrogance. “I’ll let you have this turn. Call it a handicap for having those two on your team.”
I heard Pretty’s exclamation behind me, but I ignored him, looking down at Anna. “You sure?”
“Yup,” she popped, her red lips matching the drunken flush of her cheeks.
“Okay, then,” I said, stepping up with my cue.
“You’re solids,” Anna added as she picked up a cube of chalk and began rubbing it over the tip of her cue. My eyes stayed glued to the action, watching as her long fingers gripped the neck of the cue to keep it still as she was gentle with the chalk, rubbing it softly until the blue powder covered the end. When she put the chalk down, I shifted my stance, relieving the slight pressure in my jeans as I forced myself to look down at the table and assess what I was dealing with.
From the look of things, the boys hadn’t even managed to pocket a single ball, and yet half of Anna’s were missing from the table. Poor boys seemed to have walked right into a trap. I couldn’t blame them, though; this was the first time I’d ever heard of Anna playing, neither of us having ever picked up a cue around each other—mostly because I didn’t want to end up staked with it.
I leaned down over the table, positioning the cue between my fingers as I pointed the tip at the white ball. A solid sat hanging over the edge of the right corner pocket, and with a quick jerk of my arm, the cue surged forward, sending the white ball flying. It hit the solid ball and dropped it into the pocket.
“Lucky shot,” Anna scoffed, bending her ass over and giving everyone a good view of it as she began to unzip her boots.
“Not them,” I interrupted, catching her attention. I held her gaze and made my voice clear as I elaborated, “They come off last.”
Anna’s eyes widened in surprise before narrowing. Her arrogance faded away quickly as she rose to stand, her hands going to the waist of her skirt as she began pushing it down her legs, revealing those thin, black lace panties beneath the hugging black tights. She made sure to take it off slowly, her ass perking in my direction as she slid it down her calves and over her boots.
Once Anna stood straight again, I became aware of the boys giving me curious looks, none of them having once seen me play. I also became aware of Lamb’s return as he situated himself at the doorway with Ember, who he must have stolen from Jax, draped around his waist. He didn’t pay her any attention, his one-track mind now focused on the game in the pool room.
Anna stepped aside as I moved around to her end of the table. I leaned over again, Anna’s eyes watching my every move with newly acquired caution.
I lined up my cue and popped the white ball forward. This time, it hit the ball with enough force that it also knocked into a second ball, both of them subsequently falling into the pockets. I straightened and turned to look at Anna, whose face was now screwed into a scowl as she realized she had been played. “Two more.”
Anna didn’t refuse as her hands clutched the hem of her red shirt and pulled it up over her head before dropping it on the floor next to her skirt. My mouth watered at the sight of her rounded globes bedded in that red lace bra. Knowing it didn’t match her panties only made it better.
For the second
item, I expected her to go for the tights, but instead, her arm bent around her back, and with one hand, the bra popped loose and the cups fell open, revealing two pink nipples softened by the warmth of the room. The bra dropped into the pile on the floor, and I became aware that even more brothers had gathered in the doorway.
Anna placed her hands on her hips, unabashed, as she gestured for him to go on, making her tits wobble. I felt the need to stop them by sucking them into my mouth, but I held off and instead turned back to the game.
I heard Pretty move over to the newly arrived Jax, who was demanding to know what the hell was happening until he caught sight of Anna and listened to the half-naked Pretty give a quick rundown before focusing his surprise on my pool skills. I was shocked to see how surprised everybody was. It occurred to me then that the only time I used to play pool was when I would play with Roscoe, back when we kept the pool table in the basement. The bastard would give me a run for my money, pretending to let me get close to winning before ripping the victory from underneath me in the final moments.
I popped my cue and sank another ball, the action punctuated with a click of Anna’s tongue. She turned, unzipping her boots and putting them to the side before she reached up to the edges of her black tights. She started slow, making sure she had everyone’s attention as her nails pulled them down bit by bit. Her eyes didn’t move from mine as she reached down her calves, soothing her hands over her skin as the first leg came free and then the second. The tights joined the pile, and she put her feet back in her red boots, zipping them up over her bare legs.
She straightened again, her eyes blazing with challenge and fight, and I fucking loved it.
My dick was now straining against my zipper, no doubt leaving it with a tooth print as it demanded attention. Anna’s attention.