by Nicole Fox
HE’S GOING TO GET ME PREGNANT OR DIE TRYING.
He’s part of a past I want to escape.
But Grizzly found me.
And this time, he won’t be happy with just taking my body.
He wants to put a baby in me, too.
He carried me away from the worst night of my life.
I can’t scrub the images from my mind’s eye.
The blood…
The fire…
The bodies.
I’ve done my best to forget about it.
To move on.
But now he’s back, and all the horrible memories have come with him.
My body remembers what it’s like to have that bike roaring between my legs.
To have the thick, muscled body of my man in front of me.
To bend down and feel his touch exploring my thighs, my hips, my skin.
But no. No.
I can’t go back to that life.
I won’t.
At least, that’s what I tell Grizzly.
Not like he gives a damn.
He’s found me again, and this time, he won’t be letting me go.
I’m his, he tells me.
I’m his woman.
His ride or die.
And, if he has his way, I’ll soon be pregnant with his child.
Prologue Grizzly
The clubhouse was totally destroyed. The entire front was torn up with bullet holes, the windows blasted and blown out from the gunfire that had happened the night before. There wasn’t a surface in the place that hadn’t been affected in some way. Not a person that hadn’t been hurt—physically, mentally, or emotionally.
More than half of us had been killed. The rest of us weren’t doing too well.
I walked around, looking at all the bodies that were still on the floor that we needed to get up and situated properly, because, fuck. Flung all over the floor, covered in holes and shit, wasn’t what our friends deserved. I looked for her.
I’d carried her in my arms the night before, away from the body of her boyfriend—our friend. He was covered in holes and had been bleeding out. His body wasn’t there this morning. A few bodies weren’t there; I could only imagine that family had come by already, or something. My head was too foggy to think about any of that for two long.
Duchess. Where are you?
Truth be told, I’d always felt something for her. Always wanted to protect her. Skinner life—MC life in general—wasn’t easy. It was thrilling. Rewarding. But hardly, if ever, easy. This was definitely something that wouldn’t be easy on any of us.
I caught one of my brothers by the arm as he walked on by. He looked shell shocked. I patted him on the shoulder to reassure him. This had shaken us, but I was gonna make damn sure that it didn’t break us.
“Hey. Hey. You good, man?”
He nodded listlessly.
“Yeah. Yeah, man. Man, I’m good.”
“Good ...you seen Duchess? I carried her off to the back yesterday and let her rest in one of the rooms, but I was making sure people were okay. I got caught up in some shit ...drove by her house when I saw she wasn’t here, but she wasn’t there, either. Didn’t answer or nothing.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I haven’t seen her, man. Maybe she left out when Rodent’s brother came by or whatever.”
I was never able to get a hold of Rodent’s brother to find out, however, and I was never able to find out where Duchess had run off to. I figured she cut out of town; she and Rodent had been together for a long time. I considered searching for her or going after her—but Duchess did as Duchess wanted, and I had the boys to look after.
I never stopped thinking about her, though. Never stopped wanting her. Maybe the persistence of my want for her would pay off one day.
Chapter One Grizzly
Five Years Later
There’s a giggle in my ear and a cute little moan in the other. What were their names? Trixie and Tanya? Maddie and Moxie? I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t care enough to try and dig the information out of my brain. They were hot, sexy little things, and they felt good with their cute, padded asses on each of my legs where they sat. I had a hand on each of their hips, and their hands wandered, too, over my chest, over my arms, and sometimes straying a little further down, getting a little feel of the meat between my legs.
If it wasn’t Lacy and Lauren—maybe that’s what their names were?—it’d be another pair. Maybe it’d be sisters or best friends or strangers. Didn’t really matter. I could have my pick of any woman in this town, especially the club girls. They loved me, and I loved, well—I loved what they gave me, which was usually a nice feel of tit and a wild night of no-strings, no-worries, and no-responsibilities.
That’s where my attention should have been tonight. On the girls. On the hand on my cock. On the way that I’d fuck them when I got them back home, or maybe when I took them both to the bathroom to have one suck my dick while the other did nasty, wicked things to her friend that she’d only do for me just because I wanted it out of them and because I was the president of the Butchers. My word was law as much as my dick was. We were only in town riding through on a whim; the tail we picked up tonight wouldn’t be heard from again, except if we rolled back through.
But my eyes were trained on the bartender, not on the pretty girls in my lap. I saw her flitting back and forth, her attention on the drinks that she was making, occasionally turning to say something to one of my boys or another patron in this rat-hole of a bar. She was new; we’d been here a couple times, and I’d never seen her working, but I would recognize her anywhere.
Duchess.
Shapely and fine as fuck. These blue-grey eyes like storm clouds and hair red as fire—all natural, too. Back in the day, it was short and uneven, like she cut it herself with sheers, but it gave her an edge that worked for her. Now, her hair was long, thick, and came down just past her breasts, bouncing with thick, well-kept curls. The years looked like they had been good to her ...even if the past hadn’t. I remembered the last time that I had seen her, and I wondered—did she remember? Would she? It’d been five years, now, since our worlds had been rocked. I’d put mine back together. Had she hers?
She looked damn good, but there was a tired look in her eyes, even with the sureness with which she carried herself. Grins given to the boys, a cocky little head tilt here or there. There was something else there, though. Something that made me as drawn to her as I had been all those years ago, and I felt myself wanting to get up and go to her. I had thought that it was pointless trying to find her, and yet there she was after all this time. It was like a miracle had landed right in my—
“ Grizzly .” The one on the left—still couldn’t remember the name—whined mine, pulling some of my attention back as she tipped my head to her, capturing me in a kiss. Her lips tasted like cherries, and when I had sat her on my lap, I had thought that I wanted to taste her. That was before Duchess had put herself back in my vicinity ...
“You’re awfully distracted, Grizzly,” the one on the right chimed in, sliding her hand back over my cock and making it stir in my pants a little. Okay, so it felt good, shoot me. I was only a man, after all. I felt myself pulled into this. Soft women. Pretty women. They smelled like cherries and fruity female drinks and tasted like a little slice of heaven.
I tugged on Cherry Lips and grabbed Handsy’s tit. It was big and soft, but fake. I could work with that, though, and tweaked her nipple through her shirt; she wasn’t wearing a bra.
I grinned against Cherry Lips when I heard a moan, then withdrew my hand.
“Next time, ladies,” I promised, lying a bit through my teeth. Maybe I’d show them a good time, maybe I wouldn’t. I’d let them think I would, though, and I knew I’d leave them both with soaked panties. They’d be pining like kittens in heat for me while I was gone. In the meantime ...
I stood up, shaking out my kutte before walking over to the bar. Duchess was occupied, moving back and forth behin
d the counter; she was cleaning out some glasses, putting them away, and getting a fill for another patron at the bar. I sat myself down.
She had filled out. She’d always had good shape, but damn. Black leather pants clung to her ass and the barely-there tank that she wore hugged her breasts and showed off her cleavage. There was an ample amount, but they were natural—just like the rest of her.
I’d always wanted her. I’d had my eyes on her the first time I saw her, when I was still a runt of a Prospect and she was on the arm of another man. I had never told her how much I liked her. I had never told her that her body lit a fire in me or that her smile made me fucking stupid and giddy, like how those trashy romance movies always talked about. But I knew. I think everyone else knew, too, except Duchess. Seeing her again, I was torn between wanting to fuck her and wanting to hold her.
I did neither.
It’d been so many years, and no one had known where the hell she’d run off to. One day she was stopping by the club to make sure everyone was okay after a huge firefight that left her old man lying cold and dead—next, she was gone. Just like that.
I’d always wondered where she’d gotten off to.
“You have an order in mind, or you just gonna sit there tonight, big boy?”
She spoke. But she hadn’t looked at me yet. She had no idea who I was.
I bit my lip with a little smirk, leaning over the counter. This was the chance of a lifetime. She was here, and so was I. Fate and all that shit, right?
“I was thinking a tall glass of whiskey, if you can manage that, Duchess.”
I used her old name. Her name was Anastasia, you see. Get it? Like that Russian royal, and damn, did men wanna treat her like one back in the day, too.
She gasped when she heard the old nickname. The glasses in her hand fell to the ground with a crashing shatter, and her head whipped around to me, eyes wide.
I’d always loved those eyes.
“Grizzly?”
“You remember me.”
“How could I forget?”
That pleased me. She’d remembered me. But she didn’t look like she was wholly pleased about that, either. Her wide eyes seemed to glaze over before she blinked, shaking her head—disbelieving in my presence.
“Listen, I don’t—”
“Anastasia!”
Duchess flinched at the booming voice, coming from apparently no-damn-where, from what seemed to be the back. A skinny, seedy-looking guy came up. Must have been her boss.
“Jeremy,” she muttered, as the worm of a guy eyed the glasses on the floor, then looked down at her with a sneer.
“What have I told you about those slippery fingers of yours?”
“They’re only supposed to be slippery if I’m showing a customer a good time.”
“Right. Not breaking my fucking glasses. This is coming out of your paycheck.”
Duchess balked.
“I need that money! They’re just glasses. They can’t cost that much—”
Again, Duchess flinched, but this time it was because there was a hand that was raising to her. Well. Not if I had anything to do about it. The bastard had his hand ready, and before he could land a strike across her face, I grabbed his wrist. He winced and cried out in pain as I gripped him there.
“Hey, back off buddy. This is bar business—”
“It’s bar business to abuse your staff?”
“I pay her good money not to fuck up, and she done broke glasses before and shit. I gotta pay for that!”
“Yeah, and you’re gonna pay for a whole lot more if you lay your hands on her again. Now apologize.”
The man looked like he wanted to hit me, but thought better of it. Probably good for him; I had a decent hundred-plus on him, and he looked like he’d never touched a weight in his life. No wonder he thought he was high and mighty, trying to beat up on women.
With a sneer, he tore his eyes from me, looking to Duchess.
“Sorry. Won’t come out of your paycheck.”
“And you’re not gonna lay a hand on her.”
“And I’m not gonna lay a hand on you.”
He said it like he didn’t mean it, but I was going to be there all night, and there was no way in hell he was going to do anything I didn’t like in front of me. He couldn’t possibly be that damn dumb. I finally let go of him, then, and he rubbed his wrist with curses under his breath.
“What was that?” I asked, smirking.
“Nothing,” he snapped. “Have a good night. And you.” He pointed to Duchess. “You clean this mess up and get back to work. We’ll talk later.”
I had expected her to thank me or something. Maybe say she could have handled it on her own—it would have been what she’d have done back in the day, the little spitfire.
Instead, when I looked at her, she was pale as a sheet. My brows furrowed and I cocked my head.
“Hey, Duchess—”
“Don’t call me that!”
She’d stooped down to get the glass up from the floor, scooping it into her hand using a towel.
“Don’t you have a—”
“Son of a bitch!”
At first, I thought she was talking to me—which was, for the record, confusing as hell. However, when she stood back up straight, I saw how she cradled her hand and the red that was seeping into the cloth.
“Oh, shit—”
Duchess threw me a scathing look. Without a word, she bolted to the back, toward the bathroom. Even over the chatter, I could hear the slam of the bathroom door.
“Hey, boss!” I was about to follow after Duchess when I was called. I looked over my shoulder, seeing Kid waving at me. Kid was a wiry little shit, with messy brown hair he never combed out right and baby fat still padding his cheeks. He was just on the higher side of seventeen. Hadn’t stopped someone from giving him something to drink, though. His cheeks were red as sunburn. I shook my head; he had a girl under each arm. I guess he was learning early. I nodded to another one of my boys.
“Keep him in line. I have some shit to handle, all right?”
I didn’t wait for an answer, knowing that I didn’t need one. Then I was heading to the bathroom, following after Duchess. She had her hand in the water under the bathroom’s faucet. The water was tinged a little yellow. Gross. I raised a brow at the little bloody pile of glass that had accumulated on the sink, and I walked to her.
“Duchess—”
“I told you not to call me that,” she said again, this time more exasperated. Tired.
“Why? It’s your name. What was that shit out there, anyway? Does he treat you like that every night? I could take care of that for you—”
“Don’t bother,” she said. “He treats everyone like that, and I’m not special. In fact, you probably made things worse for me. I get to keep my tips and my shit if I keep my head down and do my job. All you did was piss him off. At least he’d have been able to let some steam out if you’d just let him smack me.”
I stared at her. I was confused. Confused and a bit angrier than I should have been. I had half a mind to go out there and beat the shit out of her bullshit excuse of a boss. What the hell was this? At least he’d have been able to let some steam out if you’d just let him smack me?
“What the hell happened to you?” I asked, probably sounding harsher than necessary. “Duchess back in the day never would have—”
“Things change, Grizzly,” she said. She turned the faucet off and finally looked at me again. “Duchess back in the day is just that: Duchess back in the day. This is now. People change. I’m not Duchess anymore,=. I’m Ana, and if I want a job tomorrow, I need to go back out there and you need to order your drink and be a normal patron. You got me?”
She went to leave, but I couldn’t just let her do that. I stepped in front of the door before she could get to it, blocking her way.
“Duchess—”
“Ana.”
“Ana, then.” I put my hands on her shoulders, making her look at me. “What hap
pened? All these years? First that thing with Rodent, and then you leave, and now you’re here—”
“I told you,” she said, voice strained. “Things change. People change.”
“Whatever it is, I can help you.”
“What, like the old days?”
I bit my lip. Did I dare even go there? Of course like the old days, when I used to follow her around like a puppy, hoping to find something, anything, I could to do help her. Just like I was doing now.
I tilted her chin up. Without much thought, my finger swiped over her bottom lip. She was so beautiful. Fragile. I don’t remember her being fragile, but it just made me want to protect her more. Take her back. Take her.