Date Grim McKinley.
Get him laughing, show him acting skills.
Get involved. Become invaluable, the girl on his arm that he needs.
Attend galas with him and get introduced to the right people.
Get more auditions with people who already want to give me work.
Get more work.
Become stupidly successful and make my parents proud.
It was a short list. A plan in bullet points. But Beth smiled as she put a stroke through the first line. Her pen hesitated over the second. They’d made conversation, she’d gotten him to laugh, and her audition story had been a hit.
Just then her phone pinged with a text.
GOOD TO MEET YOU, AUSTRALIAN BETH. WILL KEEP AN EAR OUT FOR ANY JOBS I CAN SUGGEST YOU FOR. LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU AGAIN.
Beth all but hugged the phone and looked at her list. Yes, she drew a definitive black line through number two. Setting her notebook back on the dresser, she pulled her spare pillow to her chest and snuggled under the covers. The tension in her body dissipated. She was on track. She had this. Grim might not have been the most spectacular kisser, and he might have some stuff going on, but they’d both been a bit drunk—first dates were always like that, right? She’d soon learn how to open him up. He’d texted already. He’d even remembered where she was from, unlike poor Nadia. That was good, wasn’t it?
Yes. She rolled over and tried to turn her brain off. Tomorrow was another day.
Another day with Rusty. Sure, it was with Rusty, but she was going to turn the work to her favor. Their show would get aired, she’d get a writer’s credit even while she was on Grim’s arm at all the right parties, she’d get taken more seriously by Hollywood, and the world would start opening up. Beth Ravens was here for the long haul, and becoming part of ElizaGrim was only going to make that happen more smoothly. WWMWD? Mae West would roll up her sleeves and make sure she got what she wanted. Beth checked the text from Grim again and then tucked it under her pillow to keep his promise safe. The plan was on track, and all she had to do was roll up her own sleeves and stick to it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rusty’s mouth was full of sandwich when Beth came out of her room the next day, her red hair wild. Don’t think about her tossing and turning. Don’t think about what she might have done with Grim. She was probably just mixed up from a new bed. His stomach tightened and a knot started forming at its base.
When she gave out a mighty yawn he forced out a smile. “You slept in. Rough night?”
“Guess I’m still getting used to being in a different bed.”
See? “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” She shuffled along the breakfast bar and sat next to him, checking out the bike magazine he had open in front of him.
“See anything you like?” He pointed at the picture of a sexy-as-hell vintage Triumph, her tank painted a midnight blue that all but shimmered off the page.
She raised an eyebrow. “It’s pretty, sure. But don’t expect me to salivate over it. Not at this time in the morning. And not after I don’t know how many shots of tequila.”
“It’s hardly morning.”
She grabbed his wrist and stared openmouthed at his watch. “I’m so sorry. I never sleep in like this.”
He shrugged. “So, it wasn’t just the bed.” He took a sip of coffee and tried to keep his voice casual. “How did it go?”
She made a face at him and every part of his body hoped that the date had been a complete flop.
She groaned. “It was nice, thank you. But I hate tequila, it tastes like dirt. And every time I drink it I only remember after the shot is halfway to my stomach that it has worms in it, then the shot tries to come halfway back up again and the dirt gets stuck in my throat.”
Her face was adorably messed in a frown and he had to stop himself from smoothing the lines from her skin. But inside he was fist-pumping the air. Nice wasn’t exactly a resounding review for a date. He forced himself to ignore the nice comment and focused on her hangover instead. “Why drink it then?’
“Because that’s what Grim was offering and I didn’t want to be rude. Everyone was drinking shots and, you know, I was there to fit in. We’re going to work, I think. Me and Grim, we’re a good fit. He said he’d have a word with his director about me.”
Damn it. The knot in his stomach hardened to something akin to chrome and Rusty fought hard to keep his face passive. His brother was a self-involved douche and yet she was still hungry for more? Forcing himself to get up, grab a cup, pour her coffee, and then sit back down helped, and when he took another sip of his own drink he let out a long breath. Nothing he could do about that except focus on making himself shine brighter in the long run. Not for her, for himself. “So. I sent the script and those test shots through to the producer last night,” he said.
She took a mouthful of coffee and then all but spat it out.
He got her a dishcloth and she mopped it up, sticking out her tongue as she did. “Too hot.”
Taking a deep breath, she regained her composure. “What did he say? Gah, here’s me rambling on about my night when you’ve been sitting on this all morning.”
Rusty allowed the smile to spread right to the edges of his face. “He loved it. And he loved you.”
Beth grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Really?”
“Fucking really. You were right though. He says I should be in it.”
“Of course I’m right. You have to be in it. So we’re doing this? We’re making a pilot?”
“He was well impressed that you’d already put together a shooting schedule and it turns out he knows Dave, the camera guy.”
“But what did he say? Exactly?”
Rusty put on his best posh voice. “‘Fuck it. I’d usually pitch the series to the networks first but if you’re all set to shoot a pilot and you can, then fuck it. It reads awesome. Do it. And we’ll pitch that. Shows you’re serious.’”
“Ohmygod ohmygod. We’re making a TV show.”
“That we are. Tomorrow.”
She stopped. Dead still. “What?”
“Dave’s available. Client’s bike is available.”
“Shiiiiiit. Okay. I’ll drink a liter of coffee and be bright and perky in ten minutes, promise.”
He didn’t doubt that. Just didn’t know if he wanted the full force of bright and perky Beth Ravens today, she needed to save that for the cameras tomorrow. Although even then it might be a little too perky for his audience. “You’ll be fine. Eat something. See you downstairs.”
Downstairs, however, the workshop was suddenly full with the roar of ten extra bikes. Hell’s boys’ bikes.
Rusty stepped forward and addressed the group.
“You know I’m always here for you, but we’ve got a shit-ton going on at the moment. If you’re still riding ’em, we can fix ’em next week.” Rusty kept his face neutral, but as soon as Rocco, the head of the Raising Hellfire MC took his helmet off, he could see casual wasn’t going to cut it. The other nine guys climbed off their bikes too and came over to stand beside the head of their crew. They weren’t as big as Rusty, but there were ten of them. And Rusty had lost his appetite for fighting since he got to LA. Rusty held up a hand as Tiny approached from behind his shoulder.
Rocco nodded at Tiny but it was an uneasy truce. The workshop fairly crackled with tension, Rusty could feel it creeping over his skin like low static electricity.
“Little bird told me you might have some past you haven’t told us about.” Rocco was never anything but to the point.
The Reapers. Rusty looked at Beth, just coming down the stairs. But no one knew he called her little bird. And she didn’t know squat about his past. More importantly, why would she tell Rocco? He chose his words carefully. “What is it you think you know?”
“Let’s not fuck around. Were you in the Reapers or not?”
There it was. Rusty exhaled. Grim. It had to be Grim. “My brother?”
Rocco eyed him calmly the
n nodded.
“The fucker.”
“Usually I’d agree with you, but in this instance, I think he might have done you a solid. Why did you not tell me? You had plenty of opportunity.”
“It’s old history.”
“You sure?” Rocco’s face gave nothing away, but Rusty could see the glint in his eye that said he didn’t believe anything was old history.
“We made a deal.”
“What sort of deal?”
“Grim tell you why I was with them in the first place? Did he tell you just how much he sold me up the river?”
“Nope.”
Rusty took a deep breath to stop himself from kicking out at something.
“If there’s really no problem, then there’s no problem. So tell me. What’s your history with the Reapers?” Rocco’s face was still flat, wary, waiting.
“I was in there because of him. Because of his debt. But I earned my way out. I paid off his stupid gambling debt by driving for them, and then I paid my way out. No one got made while I was a driver, no one got caught. Happy days. They made plenty off me. They knew it, I knew it.”
“And?”
“And that’s it. There were a few who didn’t want me to go. Knew they were on to a good thing. But I’d only been supposed to be there for two years to work off Grim’s debt. The rest was a bonus. I was never patched or anything. Mack agreed, in the end. We made a deal.”
“Mack Anthem?”
Rusty nodded. Mack had headed up the Reapers of Menace MC in Illinois. Still did for all he knew. If he hadn’t liked Rusty, things would have been a whole lot different.
“The Reapers never let go when they have something they like. And I figure they probably liked you.”
“They did. But I’m telling you, I got out clean.”
“A deal, huh?”
Rusty nodded. “And anyway, they’re in Illinois. I’ve kept my head down here.”
“Until you make a TV show about your shop.”
Fair call. “True.”
Rocco eyed him up. “Leave it with me. I’ll do some checking out. But for future reference, you should have told me.”
“Lesson learned.”
“Better fucking be.” The older biker walked over to his bike and saddled up. The rest of the Hell’s boys followed suit and soon the garage resonated with the roar of ten motors at once. When they’d left, the room felt both empty and deadly quiet.
“Holy crap.”
Rusty turned to see a very pale Beth standing just behind him. His stomach fell. “If you don’t want to be in the TV show, now is the time to say so.”
Her face creased in an all-over frown. “Why would I pull out?”
“You heard all that?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s my past. It comes with me. Things could get complicated.”
She shrugged. “It’s your past. Like you say. Sounds like you have people looking out for you. I know you don’t think so, but sounds like Grim was just making sure you were all squared away before you got plastered over TV.”
Of course that’s how she would see it. “Whatever.” He turned and stalked to the back of the shop.
“Where are you going?”
“For a ride. Need to test out this bike for tomorrow.”
“Well then, I’m coming too.”
That stopped him in his tracks. Whatever her preference for his ass-hat brother, the woman had balls, given he knew how nervous she’d been the one and only other time he’d gotten her on a bike. “You sure about that? I’m not going to be going slow this time.”
He watched her face flatten with fear, then saw her put it back together. “I’m going to have to do it tomorrow. Best I practice off-camera.”
He gave her a beat to see if she’d change her mind. And then, nothing, so he shrugged and pulled an extra helmet off a bench for her. “You’ll need a jacket.” Because he needed to feel the wind ripping his anger away from him and he needed to get Grim out of his head.
* * *
Beth pulled the helmet down tight and zipped the borrowed leather jacket as high as it would go. After her long sleep-in and the mess with Rocco, the afternoon had come on quickly and the shadows were stretching long and soft across the pavement outside. It wouldn’t be long before it got colder, especially on the back of a bike.
“You sure you want to do this now?”
She nodded. Rusty was pissed and she needed him to shake it. They had to be focused on their pilot and nothing else if they were going to nail it. And they were going to nail it, it was now part of her game plan.
Her head swum with the revelation that Grim had gotten Rusty to pay off his debt with a biker club. That was big. But she could sense there was something much bigger beneath it.
Rusty revved the engine of a huge chrome monster with black flames on the tank and like it had the first time, the threat of having that noise so close to her body shuddered through her. But she clenched her jaw and climbed on the back behind Rusty. He wheeled it to the entrance slowly enough but when he hit the pavement he took off out onto the road. Unlike the first time she’d been on a bike behind him, this time he headed for the open highway as soon as he could. Finding a turnoff and winding up into the hills quickly he didn’t drop speed, just seemed to go onward and upward forever. Out here he gave the machine her head, and Beth had to grip onto his waist tightly.
By the time he stopped, LA was stretched out below them and lights were starting to twinkle in distant windows. Beth felt dizzy with all the twists and turns they’d taken and lost as to the route they’d taken to get there. But her body sang, blood pumping through her veins hard and fast, more alive than it had been for the longest time.
“That was crazy,” she managed when she’d peeled the helmet off.
He laughed, sharply. “That was nothing.”
Putting a hand on his shoulder, Beth stopped him. “It wasn’t nothing. There’s no such thing as nothing. That was you riding out whatever this beef is that you have with Grim. I get it.”
His face told her that he wanted her to get it more than she knew and all she wanted was to smooth the worry away. “Sometimes I just ride all night. It’s the only thing that can truly clear my head. Just me and the road and a bike eating up the miles. It forces you to stop holding onto the dumb stuff that eats you up. On the road you concentrate or you die. So you have to let go.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“It is.”
“Thank you for introducing me to this.” She swept a hand around to take in the view and the bike. “I never thought I’d say it, but it’s beautiful.”
“Like you.”
Rusty always did that, he said what he meant and it was all the more meaningful knowing he didn’t censor himself. It was a rare quality.
A shiver ran through her and her teeth chattered involuntarily. The leather jacket she wore was thick but the wind had still managed to creep inside the seams and steal a good portion of her body warmth. But she felt the heat of his comment shoot through her. “You’re cold,” he said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“No. Come here. Fastest way to hypothermia is to say you’ll be fine. I should have made you put more on before we left. I was too far up my own ass to think about you.”
He pulled her close to him, their faces still out to the ocean and she leaned back against his wide body as he wrapped himself around her. The shivers subsided but she didn’t make any move away, and he didn’t make any to let go.
“You smell good,” he said.
She melted a little more against him as he nuzzled at her hair. “It’s just the air out here. It’s so fresh. Must be the trees,” she managed.
“Yep, that’s what it is. The trees.” His lips were close to her ear. So close that she could feel the whisper of his breath. The blood was still charging around her but now it wasn’t from the ride. Now the heat pooled between her thighs and threatened to melt her resolve to forget about the night she’d accidently me
t Rusty in the first place.
“Beth—” Rusty started, his deep voice in her ear doing nothing to stop the increase in her body temperature, but just then Rusty’s cell started chirruping from within his leather jacket.
Beth stiffened. “You better get it. It might be important.”
Rusty huffed out a breath and unwrapped his arms from her. She missed them immediately. “Rusty here.”
He might not still be wrapped around her, but she was still close enough to hear that was it Rocco on the other end of the phone.
“Looks like your deal holds.”
Rusty heaved out a giant sigh. “Good.”
“Just be careful. You might have shaken hands with Mack, but that doesn’t mean you’ve done a deal with all the Reapers. Watch yourself. That’s all.” Then he hung up.
Rusty looked down at her. “You heard that?”
She nodded.
“Grim can go fuck himself.”
Beth bit her lip. “I still can’t believe Grim would leave you to pay off his debt.”
“Believe it.”
She chose her next words carefully. “Do you think all of this, this tension between the two of you, is because he feels bad for leaving you behind?”
Rusty’s laugh was hard, without humor. “Grim doesn’t feel bad about shit like that. He’s just pissed because I’m making something of myself and he can’t lord it over me that he’s the successful one.”
“It sounded like he was just looking out for you. Telling Rocco about the Reapers, making sure you didn’t get yourself on TV if it would have put you in danger.”
Rusty stiffened and any closeness they’d had evaporated like the last strands of afternoon light. “Grim doesn’t look out for anyone other than himself. But I’m sure you’ll find that out for yourself soon enough.”
“But you were the one who kept saying you shouldn’t be in the show.”
“I was just being cautious. Anyway, it’s done.” He strode over to the bike. “We should get back. Big day tomorrow and you’ll get too cold if we drive back any later.”
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