Primal Need (Primal Howlers MC Book 2)

by Piper Davenport

  “What?” I repeated.

  “Aero’ll make sure you get home safely, but that’s the last shred of generosity I’m willing to give you.”

  “Wait, what’s going on?” I demanded. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “Like hell you don’t.”

  This came from Aero and I glanced at him, then focused back on Sundance. “I really don’t.”

  “Jesus, you women are fuckin’ shifty as hell,” Sundance seethed. “I should have picked up on the timing of it all.”

  “The timing of what?” I snapped.

  “Get the fuck out,” Sundance growled, and pushed me, albeit gently, out of his office, slamming the door once Aero joined me in the hall.

  I held my purse to my chest and swallowed, willing my tears to stay put until I could get out of there.

  “I can find my own way home,” I said, my voice thick with unshed tears.

  “Can’t let you do that, Wyatt,” Aero said, and nodded toward the great room.

  “Do we have to walk that way?”

  “Walk o’ shame, sweetheart,” he spat out. “You deserve nothin’ less.”

  I faced him and gave him my own glare. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I do not deserve to be spoken to that way. And certainly not by someone who makes dubious choices, like doing the bidding of degenerate criminals. Now, I’m going to call a car.”

  Instead of backing down like most people did when I used my ‘serious’ tone, he scowled. “Listen up real close, bitch. You don’t get a say in shit, so if you don’t want me to show you just how degenerate I can get, I’d suggest you turn your ass around and head to the fuckin’ car.”

  I shivered. “Show me the back door.”

  “Oh, I’d love to explore the back door,” he retorted, and I shuddered at his sexual innuendo, “but we’re gonna go ahead and walk out the front.”

  I had nowhere else to go, so I squared my shoulders and turned around. With my head held high, I walked through the great room and back out the front door, keeping my eyes straight and trying not to notice the glares from a few of the bikers milling around.

  I was so focused on not breaking down, I didn’t notice Raquel walking in, and nearly ran into her.

  “Wyatt?” she asked, and I glanced at her.

  “Hi. Sorry.”

  “You okay?”

  “She’s leavin’,” Aero provided.

  She frowned. “Why?”

  I couldn’t stop a rogue tear from sliding down my cheek as I stared at one of the porch logs. “I need to go.”

  Before she could say anything else, I stalked down the porch steps and waited for Aero to unlock the car doors so I could climb in.

  He drove me home in silence, although, I noticed he waited until I was safely inside my building before driving away.

  I forced a smile as I passed Gio, then rushed into my condo, locking myself in before I slid down the door to my butt and burst into tears.

  * * *

  Sundance

  I took a couple hits off the joint I’d just rolled then made my way to the great room right as Raquel walked in and headed my way instead of Orion’s.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “Baby,” Orion warned as he reached us.

  She pulled away from his touch. “Don’t you ‘baby’ me, Smoky. What’s wrong with Wyatt? She was crying.”

  She’d given Orion his additional nickname when he’d run into the burning warehouse to save her and ended up smelling like a chimney. She thought it was cute. I thought it was stark reminder of everything we almost lost.

  “That bitch’s name needs to be stricken from your mouth,” I snapped, trying to ignore the pain in my chest. If I’d actually seen Wyatt crying, it would have fuckin’ messed with my head.

  Orion frowned. “Pops, watch your tone.”

  “Oh my god,” Raquel breathed out. “What happened?”

  “Jesus Christ, you fuckin’ women are a pain in the ass.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” she snapped.

  She was little, but she was fierce, something I admired about her.

  Most of the time.

  But not tonight.

  “Deal with this shit,” I ordered Orion, then turned to walk away, but a small but firm hand grabbed my arm.

  “Um, nope, you don’t get to get all grunty on me,” Raquel countered.

  Orion groaned. “Razzle—”

  “Both of you, in the back. Now!” she screeched.

  I faced her, leaning down to meet her eye-to-eye. “You are seriously messin’ with my high, Raquel, and I’m not in the mood, so I’m gonna fuckin’ walk away now before I say something I might regret.”

  She leaned back like I’d hit her, and it broke my heart, but I forced myself not to care as I walked away.

  I needed to smoke away the memory of Wyatt and everything she’d meant to me.

  Wyatt

  THREE WEEKS LATER, I slipped into work thirty minutes late, which was totally unlike me, but it was apparently what happened when one didn’t sleep the night before. Or the twenty nights before that.

  I had never been so sad in all my life. No, that wasn’t true. I’d been this sad when my mom died, but the fact my heart was shattered by a man I’d known for less than a year, pissed me off to no end. The problem was, I couldn’t seem to talk myself out of it.

  “Don’t be mad,” Ripley begged, closing my door just as I’d sat behind my desk.

  “Which means I’m probably going to be,” I said with a sigh, dropping my purse in my bottom right drawer.

  She sat in the chair across from me and slid a jump drive toward me. “I did some digging.”

  “On what?”

  “Who.”

  “Oh my god, who did you do some digging on?”

  She grimaced. “Thorne Graves. I mean, Sundance.”

  “What?” I snapped. “Why?”

  “Because he’s an asshole and I wanted to find something on him to bring him to heel.”

  I dropped my face in my hands and groaned, immediately regretting my drunken midnight call to her two weeks ago after a particularly bad day of missing him. “Ripley, you don’t bring a man like Sundance to heel.”

  “Okay, well, I didn’t find anything. At least, nothing he wouldn’t want me to find. He’s careful not to leave much of a digital footprint.”

  I shook my head. “Well, he’s a very smart man.”

  “So, I went looking for information on his club.”

  “Oh my god, woman, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Wait, don’t be mad.” She patted the drive. “I found something interesting.”

  I snatched it off the desk and slid it into the slot in my laptop, pulling up the folder as Ripley stood and made her way to me, taking over the mouse and navigating to what she wanted me to see.

  She pulled up a photo of the Primal Howlers’, Sundance front and center and looking as gorgeous as ever. “This is a photo from the Christmas party the club put on last year. They work with Bikers’ for Kids every year to help raise money for abused children.”

  “They do?”

  “Yeah. A lot of clubs do, apparently.”

  I shook off the warm, fuzzy feeling that information gave me and glared up at her. “Okay, so what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Look who was with them?” She blew the picture up and I frowned.

  In the back, next to Orion, was a very familiar face. “YaYa? I thought she just moved here.”

  “Yeah, me too. Looks like she lied.”

  I frowned, leaning in to look closer at the picture. “Why would she lie?”

  “Don’t know. But I did some checking and found out her real name’s Sonja. She was born and raised here, but managed to put a fake identity together, should someone not dig too deep.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Me neither.” She pointed to the screen. “And wasn’t that guy at Noctu
rn as well?”

  “Yeah. I think Sundance put him on me for ‘protection,’” I said. “I can’t remember his name right now, though.”

  I also couldn’t see his nametag, as his arms were crossed over it. I knew it would come to me… I just had to think about something else.

  “So, I did this thing…”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I asked Isla to look into YaYa.”

  Isla was our go-to investigator. I’d been trying to hire her exclusively for years, but she was a bit of a loner and didn’t want to be tied down, so she ran the show her way and I just had to live with it. The issue was, she could be…well…a hardass. Great when she had to defend herself, but not so great when I needed finesse.

  “Goddammit, Ripley, no. Call her off.”

  “Wy—”

  “Call. Her. Off.” I pushed away from my desk and skirted around her, opening my door and waving my hand. “Now.”

  “Fine.” She sighed. “Forgive me for trying to help you get back the man you love.”

  “I never had him. I also don’t love him, so the point is moot.”

  “Right, you keep telling yourself that,” she retorted, stepping out of my office. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  I closed my door without a response and sat back at my desk.

  * * *

  The next morning, my appointments took me back to Flick’s and I glanced around the parking lot as I pulled into a space at the front of the building. No bikes, so I relaxed and headed inside.

  “Wyatt!” Mercedes called. “Girl, where the heck have you been?”

  I smiled. “Sorry, honey. I’ve been super busy. How are you?”

  “Great. You missed your man again.”

  “Oh, well,” I retorted, trying for breezy and nonchalant, even though my heart raced.

  “Iced coffee to go?”

  “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”

  After managing to engage in small talk for a few minutes while Mercedes made my coffee, I headed back to my car, slamming into a hard body just as I hit unlock on my key fob.

  Coffee went flying, soaking both me and the person I’d just run into.

  “Jesus,” the deep voice hissed.

  I looked up with a squeak and froze.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I snapped, patting my silk blouse with a napkin. Not that it would do any good. It was ruined.

  “I could ask the same of you,” Sundance growled, trying to wipe the coffee off his jacket.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I have a meeting, which I’m going to have to postpone so I don’t walk in looking like a homeless person.”

  “You meetin’ with Sonja?”

  “What?” I asked, exasperated.

  “You pissed your little plan didn’t work?”

  “What plan?” I asked.

  He smirked and I saw red.

  “You know what, Thorne?” I hissed. “You’re an asshole. And I know that you know this, considering you’re incredibly self-aware, so I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave me the hell alone, starting by removing your hands from me.”

  “Not sure what you and Sonja—”

  “What the hell does YaYa, I mean, Sonja, have to do with any of this?”

  “You missin’ your yoga dates with her?”

  She hadn’t been to class in weeks, but how the hell he knew that, I wasn’t sure. “Are you stalking me?”

  “Tell that cunt, Sonja, she’s on notice.”

  “Well, that’s mature,” I snapped. “Did you study vocabulary at low-brow biker university?”

  “Oh, sorry, would bitch be a better word?”

  I let out a frustrated squeak and tried to push him away, without success.

  “Step back,” I demanded, and he did, but not far enough that I could get into my car.

  “Give her the message, Wyatt, and go ahead and take that to heart yourself.”

  “Okay, I’m done. I have no idea what the hell is going on, but I have a feeling it has something to do with Sonja.”

  “You should know, considerin’ you’re tight.”

  “Oh my god!” I screeched like a banshee. “I only met the woman a couple of months ago!”

  “Good story, bro.”

  “Just so you’re aware, I have discovered recently that she lied to me when she told me she’d just moved here, and her name was YaYa. Maybe I should have delved deeper into her story, but outside of yoga and a couple of lunches, I didn’t really have much to do with her, so she wasn’t really on my radar as anyone other than who she said she was. And don’t think I didn’t miss your other ‘man’ on me in the club, by the way, which was not what we agreed to. Luckily, Sonja didn’t seem to notice.”

  “And the hug-fest after girls’ night out was what?” he demanded, ignoring my admonishment.

  “For your information, girls hug each other. It’s not my preferred way of interaction, but felt it would be rude to push her away. I don’t know her very well.”

  “Well, you seemed awful friendly for someone who doesn’t know her very well,” he ground out.

  “Not that I have to defend myself to you, but the girls’ night out was me trying to expand my tiny world and get a life. Being with you, by the way, was also me trying to expand my tiny world and get a life.” I gave up trying to clean up. “But it looks like they both backfired, so I’m going to go ahead crawl back into my bubble and forget I ever met either of you.”

  “You’re seriously trying to sell me this shit?”

  “What shit?”

  “Not knowing Sonja had been kicked out of my club and is hell-bent on bringing us down by any means necessary.”

  I gasped. “She is?”

  Before he could respond, I shook my head and tried to move further away from him. “Don’t answer that. I don’t care. I’m late for my appointment, so if you don’t let me go, I’ll scream, and Mercedes will probably call the cops and come running, so let’s just avoid the drama. Sound good?”

  He stepped away, and I climbed into my car and took off, sitting in the parking lot of my client for close to ten minutes as I tried to get my heartbeat under control. Luckily, I always carried a change of clothes in case something like this happened, so I snuck into the building bathroom and straightened up before heading to my meeting.

  * * *

  Sundance

  I watched Wyatt drive away, my gut churning as things started to come into focus. I’d been obsessing over her for the past three weeks, unable to get her out of my head, so much so, I’d turned down every woman who’d thrown themselves at me ever since I’d kicked Wyatt out. I’d taken comfort in my resolve that she was nothing but a conniving bitch and I was better off without her.

  Of course, none of my resolve stopped me from driving twenty minutes out of my way every weekday morning in the hopes I’d catch a glimpse of her at Flick’s, but she hadn’t showed.

  Until this morning.

  And now I was fuckin’ confused because she seemed genuinely surprised by my tiny nugget of information about Sonja. I’d given her that much hoping she’d relay it all to the cunt, but Wyatt didn’t seem to understand anything that was going on. Also, I hadn’t put a ‘man’ on her, outside of Aero, so I had no idea who the fuck was in that club watching her.

  Jesus, I might have played this all wrong.

  And if I did, then I was royally fucked.

  I’d only come back when I realized my coffee order was wrong, but now the coffee was forgotten as I pulled my phone out and called Wrath.

  We’d had two separate vans hit in the last two weeks. They’d been loaded with product we were being forced to move due to our warehouse being damaged by the fire, and now I was not only convinced of Sonja’s involvement, but that she likely had help from an inside source. The times and routes of these deliveries were only known by a handful of people, I’d personally made sure of that.

  As soon as the second van was hit, I knew this wasn’t an is
olated incident.

  We had a mole.

  “Hey, brother,” Wrath said.

  “Hey,” I said. “Need you to do somethin’ for me.”

  “Now?”

  “You buried in pussy?”

  “Well, no,” he hedged.

  “Then, yeah, now.”

  “Okay. What do you need?”

  “Need you to find Ruby and have a conversation with her.”

  “Jesus Christ, why?”

  “Because I’m your president and I’m telling you to,” I snapped.

  He sighed. “Okay, man, I hear you. Tell me what you need.”

  I gave him a rundown, then hung up and climbed on my bike. My ride back to the cabin was done without my usual feeling of freedom. Instead, a lead weight had settled over my heart dragging me down, and I realized it was an anchor of my own making.

  * * *

  I had just grabbed a beer from the fridge when Wrath came looking for me.

  “You get anything from Ruby?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, leaning against the counter. “Which was interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “She was freaked. I’d never seen anyone that scared before. I took Snowcone with me as a buffer and even he didn’t keep her from pissing herself.”

  Snowcone was a little older than Orion and had patched in about five years ago. He was a good kid, funny as hell, and super chill, which is how he’d earned his name. People liked him. I liked him, but most especially, women liked him, so if he couldn’t soothe Ruby, the situation with Sonja was worse than I thought.

  I frowned. “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Did she give you anything?”

  “Nothing useful, no,” Wrath admitted. “I put Scrappy on her, though. He’ll report everything he sees and hears.”

  I dragged my hand over my beard and nodded. “Thanks, brother.”

  Wyatt

  FRIDAY NIGHT, I walked into my condo just as my phone rang. I’d survived the week, including my encounter with Sundance, and had avoided Flick’s in an effort to protect my heart from further damage. Being so close to him had rocked me and I realized I needed to get a grip or I was going to completely lose my mind.

  I checked my screen and saw that it was Justin calling, so I answered. “Hey, Dr. Hill—I mean, Justin. Is Teddy freaking out? I’m leaving in ten minutes.”