“It’s not like that,” Deuce muttered, feeling strangely embarrassed. “Got nothin’ to do with her age. Never has. Been likin’ her since she was just a kid, and now her bein’ a woman, my cock likes her, too. But it’s never been ’bout her age. Straight up, it’s always been just ’bout her.”
His boys were staring at him as if he had grown a second head.
“Damn, Prez,” Jase muttered. “Just…damn.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Aside from Cox, Ripper, and Mick—who hadn’t returned—I met Blue, ZZ, Chip, Bucket, Worm, Freebird, Hawk, Marsh, Danny D., Danny L., Tramp, Dimebag, Tap, Dirty, and Jase. And those were just the names I remembered.
Out of everyone I met, I liked Cox, ZZ, and Freebird the most. ZZ was an eighteen-year-old novitiate who, like me, had been born into the life. He also reminded me of Frankie with his chocolate brown eyes and shoulder-length brown hair that he kept in a ponytail midskull. He was tall and lean with an overall innocence that I knew would soon be wiped right out of him.
Figuring out how Freebird got his name wasn’t hard. Long gray-and-black hair hung greasy and stringy halfway down his back. He was balding on top, but he hid it well using Bret Michaels’ bandana-balding solution. His gray beard was braided in one long braid that reached his chest, and he still wore bell-bottom jeans that had been patched over so many times I wasn’t sure if any of the original denim remained. His arms were covered in tattoos: peace signs, yin and yang, and words like freedom, peace, and the open road. Kinda hypocritical for a biker belonging to the Hell’s Horsemen MC, but whatever, he told dirty jokes and made me laugh.
The clubhouse whores weren’t half as bad as the ones constantly camped out at the Demons NYC MC, half of which were actual whores. That’s not saying these girls didn’t have their problems. The biggest being they desperately wanted to become an old lady and early on had made the mistake of sleeping with half the club. Now they were stuck. No biker was going to put a woman on the back of his bike who’s slept with half his brothers.
My least favorite was a bleached blonde named Miranda. She was twenty-five, a high school dropout, and a mom of two, fathers unknown. When I asked her where her kids were, what she did with them while she was here—which apparently was all the time—she told me her mother had custody. This disgusted me. I had no love for deadbeat moms.
I asked Deuce if he’d been with her, and he gave me a cocked eyebrow, lazy-eyed look.
Then he said, “Babe,” in such a way that made me feel like I just asked the most ridiculous question ever asked.
I stormed off, and he burst out laughing. Next thing I knew, he was tossing me up over his shoulder and taking me back to bed.
As for the rest of the regulars, they varied in ages and sizes, same as the bikers they catered to. Some were young; others were middle-aged. Some were thin and shapeless; others were plump with a little too many curves in all the wrong places. Most were average women who wore too much makeup and not enough clothing. All of them were pathetic.
All except Dorothy, a petite redhead with lots of adorable freckles. She was twenty-four and married with a seven-year-old daughter. Her husband was a scumbag truck driver who was gone three weeks out of every month. She would wake up in the morning, drive her daughter to school, and then come straight to the club. Aside from participating in her exclusive relationship with Jase—who wasn’t exclusive to her and was married, to boot—she was paid to clean the club, make breakfast and lunch for the brothers, and do their laundry before she left for the day. Jase was there every day she was; they would spend an hour or two in his room, and then he would leave and she’d get back to work. Around three, she’d leave to pick up her daughter and wouldn’t return until the next morning. Every now and then, she would drop her daughter off at her sister’s on a Friday or Saturday, so she and Jase could spend the night together. All this I knew because she had made lunch for Kami and me, and we spent the afternoon talking.
At twenty-five, Jase was a fairly gorgeous man in the Marine Reserve with a high-and-tight haircut and a kick-ass body. The club whores flocked to him like flies to shit, and Dorothy—pretty, but in a girl-next-door sort of way—knew this and simply accepted it. She was prime old-lady material. She was a good woman who obviously loved him, put up with his shit, and had no problem with having to put up with more. Only, she would never be his old lady because Jase already had one.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about Jase, knowing what I knew. From what I saw, he treated her well enough. I watched him slip money in her wallet when she wasn’t looking, and most important, he didn’t carouse in front of her, but still…
He was married to a girl he knocked up in high school (information also gleaned from Dorothy), and while I could understand that he was unhappy with his situation, he should have rectified it before he involved himself in someone else’s life.
But this was typical. And I was used to it. I was also used to keeping my opinions to myself.
“Earth to Eva,” Dorothy said in a singsong voice while waving her tiny hand in front of my face.
I jerked my head up, and she started laughing.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I was lost inside my head.”
“She’s always lost inside her head,” Kami announced.
I cut my eyes at her. “Speaking of head…where are Cox and Ripper?”
It was lunchtime, and I hadn’t seen either of them since they dragged Kami off again last night.
“Sleeping me off,” she stated proudly. Both Dorothy and I burst out laughing.
“Speaking of which,” she continued, popping her last bite of ham sandwich into her mouth. “I should go wake them up.” She slipped off the barstool and sauntered through the kitchen, looking graceful and beautiful despite her lack of sleep and vigorous exercise.
“Hey, Deuce,” she purred.
I spun around. Deuce was standing in the doorway, arms above his head, his hands grasping the top of the door frame, causing his muscles to bulge and his black T-shirt to ride up, revealing a fabulous abdomen. He was also covered in grease. Head to toe.
Kami was looking up at him like he was a hot fudge sundae.
“Go easy on my boys, woman; they got shit to do today.”
He moved aside to let her pass and slipped onto the stool she had just vacated.
“You’re gonna kill me, babe.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “What?”
“That fuckin’ dress, babe. Killin’ me.”
I glanced down at my strapless sundress. It was dark green, virtually shapeless, soft cotton that hung just slightly above mid-thigh. It was simple, comfortable, and very me. And not at all sexy, not compared to the clothing women like Kami wore.
“Um…seriously? It’s like a big green bag.”
He narrowed his eyes. “No, babe, it’s not.”
Jase chose that moment to barrel into the kitchen. He crossed the room and literally swept Dorothy off her feet into a passionate embrace, like the ones you see in movies.
“Missed you, baby,” he groaned into her mouth.
She giggled. “You saw me yesterday.”
With her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck, he strode back through the kitchen.
“Eva!” Dorothy yelled. “Are you going to be here for the barbeque?”
“Twenty-four hours,” Jase growled. “Babe, it’s been twenty-four horrible fuckin’ hours, and you’re talkin’ ’bout barbeques. This is me time, and you need to focus. You gotta let me get you your own place; you gotta leave that man, so I can see you whenever the fuck I want, and you’ll be fuckin’ focused. On me. You gotta let me take care of—”
The doors closed behind them, leaving Deuce and me alone.
“Speakin’ of the barbeque, how long you stayin’, babe?”
My gaze slid back to Deuce. I couldn’t tell by his expression if he wanted me to stay or not.
“Babe?”
“Um…”
Laughing, he reached out and pulled me into his lap. His hands wrapped around my middle, and he buried his face in my neck.
“How long you got?” he murmured.
“All summer,” I whispered.
“Then you’re stayin’ at my cabin.”
Oh God. He wanted me to stay all summer. At his cabin.
“The clubhouse is fine with me,” I whispered, reeling from this new development.
“No, babe. I know you’re used to it, but I don’t want you seein’ all the fucked-up shit the boys are always doin’.”
“It doesn’t bother me.”
He snorted. “Me fuckin’ Miranda bothers you.”
“Not if it’s in the past tense.” I narrowed my eyes. “It is in the past tense, right?”
He snorted. “You’re here; it’s in the past tense.”
Huh. I wasn’t sure I liked that answer.
“OK,” I said slowly, “then it doesn’t bother me.”
“Babe. Old ladies don’t hang at the club. And they sure as shit don’t sleep here. You know that.”
What?
What!
I twisted around in his lap, so we were face-to-face. “What did you just call me?”
His eyebrows drew together. “Babe?”
“No!” I yelled. “You called me an old lady! I am not an old lady; I’m a Demon! I was born and raised in the life, and I’m not going to be locked up in some cabin in the middle of nowhere waiting for you to hang out with me!”
“You done?” he asked evenly.
“Are you going to let me hang out here?”
“No.”
I scrambled off his lap. “No?” I whispered.
“Yeah, babe. No. You’re goin’ to my place, and I’ll be there with you when I’m not here.”
I gaped at him. “You won’t let me stay here, but you’ll let Kami?”
His expression hardened. “Kami’s a fuckin’ whore,” he said flatly. “Locked in a room with two of my boys right now.”
“Fuck. You,” I spat. “If I wanted to be treated like this, I’d be in a Demon’s bed, not yours!”
In the blink of an eye, Deuce was off the stool, gripping my shoulders.
“First,” he growled, “don’t run your fuckin’ mouth at me. Ever. Second, ain’t no way I’m lettin’ you hang here, so stop fuckin’ askin’. Third, bitch, you throw shit ’bout bein’ in someone else’s bed at me again, and I’m puttin’ you on a plane back to New York, so you can climb right the fuck in someone else’s bed. And you can fuckin’ stay there.”
Staring up at him, watching the lines around his eyes tightening, his nostrils flaring, his lips pressing together in a thin white line, and hearing the raw anger in his voice made my stomach drop. This wasn’t the Deuce I knew glaring down at me; this was Deuce—badass biker, cold-blooded killer—furious with me. Me.
What had I done?
My lip began to tremble, and I bit down on it.
“You feel me, Eva?”
I nodded.
“Say it,” he growled.
Sheesh. My own father, even when mad at me, had never spoken to me like this.
“I feel you,” I whispered.
He shoved me toward the doors. “Go to my fuckin’ room if you’re gonna cry. Last thing I need is weepin’ females in my fuckin’ club.”
My tears spilled over as I pushed blindly through the swinging doors, down the back hallway, past the hall of bedrooms, and to the very end to Deuce’s suite. Digging through my backpack, I pulled out my credit card and called the airline. I was going home.
• • •
Deuce ran his hands through his air. Fuck, she pissed him off.
She had called herself a Demon! What the fuck was Preacher thinking raising her inside the club? The entire fucking circuit knew Eva Fox. Why the fuck had Preacher done that shit?
Christ. He would not rearrange his whole fucking life for some bitch just because he had some fucked-up obsession with her.
“Hey, you.”
He turned and found Miranda pushing through the kitchen doors.
“You want somethin’ to eat, baby? I was gonna make myself a salad.”
“Yeah,” he said roughly. “I want somethin’ to fuckin’ eat.”
Miranda was his bitch. He didn’t share her. He gave her a room at the club, so he had access to her when he wanted it. Since Eva’s arrival, he’d considered sending her to the apartment he paid for.
He was seriously reconsidering that now.
Gripping Miranda’s tiny waist, he swung her up on the counter in front of him and pushed down the straps of her tank top revealing the double-Ds he bought a few years back.
“You done with that little girl?” she purred.
“Shut up,” he muttered and took her mouth in his.
• • •
After booking a flight home for the next afternoon, I dried my eyes and set out to find Kami. I found her in Cox’s bedroom in a seriously compromising position with Cox and Ripper that I was pretty sure would be giving me nightmares for the rest of my life. I told her I would talk to her later and slammed the door. Then I headed toward the front of the warehouse to tell Deuce I was leaving. He wasn’t in the main room or his office, which left the kitchen or the bathrooms. I checked the kitchen first.
Miranda’s back was facing me, but I could see Deuce just fine.
I was not going to cry. Nope. Just because he wasn’t the man I thought he was didn’t mean I was going to cry. It was my own fault, putting him on some kind of pedestal; when in reality, he was just another biker who lies, cheats, steals, and can’t resist slutty club ass.
He looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. If he was surprised to see me, or felt any sort of guilt at all, he didn’t show it. For this, I was grateful. My threatening tears were replaced by anger—anger that allowed me to meet him stare for stare.
I was still standing there staring when the gate alarm went off.
ZZ came flying down the hallway past me. “RAID!” he bellowed. Several more brothers followed him, looking panicked. Cox and Ripper were next, shirtless and pulling on jeans as they ran.
I moved out of the way of the stampede and into the kitchen. Miranda had since jumped off Deuce and was pulling up her tank top. Deuce walked by without even looking at me.
Miranda and I caught eyes. “Eva,” she said softly. “I’m gonna tell you this because you’re a sweet girl. Deuce is not a one-woman man. He never will be. You’d do well to find yourself a nice guy who will worship all that beautiful you’ve got goin’ on—not just once in a while, but all the time.”
She was being sincere; she even looked apologetic.
I shrugged. “It’s really not a big deal. I was on summer vacation and wanted to have some fun without my daddy and brother breathing down my neck, you know?”
Lie. Biggest lie I had ever told. But the last thing I wanted was a club whore feeling sorry for me. She bought it and took off down the hallway to hide in her bedroom. I was still standing there staring at nothing when Deuce walked back in.
“ATF’s outside; we got ’bout two minutes before they blow the gate,” he said. “Figured Preacher might have used you before, yeah?”
“Yes,” I said.
He handed me a ring full of keys. “Those are for the doors. Code to the gate is 009673.”
I nodded. “009673,” I repeated.
He stared at me.
“Go,” I said. “Do what you need to do. I’ll stall them.”
• • •
Outside the gate stood white-collar special agents wearing bulletproof vests over their button-downs. Behind them, SWAT was pouring out of several large paddy wagons dressed in military-issued boots and BDUs. They, too, wore bulletproof vests, but unlike the agents, they had Glocks strapped to their thighs and assault rifles slung over their shoulders.
“ATF,” an older, seasoned agent said in greeting. “You mind opening the gate?”
I
smiled. “What’s this about?”
Another agent—young, clean-cut, and good-looking—waved a piece of paper around angrily. “Warrant,” he barked. “Open the fucking gate!”
“Can I see that?” I asked sweetly.
He shoved the piece of paper through the gate, and I scanned it quickly. It was a search and seizure, dated correctly, and signed by a judge. In order and legit.
I handed it back but took my time punching in wrong code after wrong code after wrong code until a good fifteen minutes had passed by, and the agents were getting angry with me.
As soon as the electricity running through the gates was disarmed, they clicked open, and the tarmac flooded with SWAT headed straight for the club.
“Front door’s locked!”
“Side door’s locked!”
I rolled my eyes. Of course, they were locked. I wasn’t stupid.
“Get the ram!”
“Wait!” I yelled. “Don’t break it down! I have the keys!”
The younger, good-looking agent turned to glare at me. “Get over here!” he barked.
I hurried to the door, and the good-looking agent leaned down over me. “Open it,” he hissed.
I tried the first key, and it didn’t work. Truth be told, I didn’t know which one would. Deuce didn’t tell me.
By the third key, I had two agents screaming at me. By the sixth key, the good-looking agent grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me roughly aside.
“Give me the keys,” he growled and snatched them from my shaking hands.
When the doors were open, I was shoved aside as the crowd poured in. Aside from ATF, no one else was in the front of the warehouse. I took shelter in a corner near the bar and watched the room being torn apart. Leather couches were sliced open, televisions were smashed, and cupboard doors were ripped off their hinges. Crashes, the sounds of wood splintering, and plastic cracking came from inside Deuce’s office and the kitchen.
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