Jordan’s eyes travelled down to where my cock was standing erect in my jeans. I clenched my jaws to control the desperate need to take her again.
I needed to fucking get out of here before she wrecked my head even more.
“Do you have a busy day?” she asked, twirling a few strands of her raven hair around her fingers.
“I think so. I guess,” I said and pulled my jacket over my shoulders. Jordan was still smiling. Couldn’t she sense how uncomfortable I was? How weird this was for me?
I didn’t want to be weak. I didn’t want to be one of those men who turned into pussies for a woman. Why had I even come here last night? I had ridden my bike all the way to my apartment when I changed my mind and came back here. This was all happening too fast, and I had other business to take care of.
I watched as she swung her legs over the bed and the sheets fell away from her body. She wasn’t self conscious of her nakedness anymore. She stood on the other side of the bed with her huge swinging breasts in front of her and her large brown nipples sticking out. My eyes roamed over her delicious body, the narrowness of her waist, her wide curvy hips and thighs.
She picked up a silk robe from a chair beside her and I watched as she slipped it over her body. She was covering herself up, blocking my view of the pussy I had fucked so hard the previous night. My cock was rock-solid in my jeans and with effort, I turned away from her.
“Coffee first? I’m going to make us some breakfast,” she said, flipping her long hair out of the back of her robe. I was too tongue-tied to say anything.
A big part of me wanted to stay, to have breakfast with her and there was also a part of me that was scared shitless. What was happening? Why was she offering me breakfast? What next? Wedding vows? A mortgage? Saving for a kid’s college fund?
Jordan had already walked out of the bedroom, when I sprung to life and rushed behind her. I found her in the kitchen, pouring coffee grounds into a machine. There were already two mugs sitting pretty on the kitchen counter. I was annoyed that she had simply assumed that I wanted coffee.
I didn’t fucking want coffee. I didn’t want breakfast and I didn’t want to sit here and have a conversation. I was a free independent man!
“I’m not staying,” I blurted and Jordan turned to look at me. The smile dropped from her face and she crossed her brows.
“You don’t want to stay for breakfast?” she asked, and I stood at the door of the kitchen and shook my head.
“Like I said, I have a busy day. I should get going,” I told her. Jordan licked her lips and then slowly nodded her head.
“Of course, yeah, sure,” she said, blinking rapidly. She didn’t want to meet my eyes anymore. She was embarrassed that I had rejected her offer and my body stung with the need to hold her again.
“Take care of yourself. You can call me if something happens,” I said and before I was too weak to leave, I forced myself to turn from her and walk to the door.
Jordan didn’t follow me, and I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. It was actually physically painful to leave, but I needed to do it. I needed to suck it up and just go. Rip it off like a band-aid.
I hurried down the stairs and went to my bike. When I looked up at her window, she wasn’t there.
“Fuck!” I cursed loudly as I jumped on. What had I got myself into?
* * *
I had no other choice but to go back to T Bone. I had stormed out of there in fury the previous night and I wasn’t sure what the reaction was going to be now, but that was the only place to go right now.
When I walked in, I saw that most of my brothers were already there. Lila and Girth were there too but I was refusing to look them in the eye.
“Where did you disappear to last night?” Lewis asked, walking out of the back office. I shrugged my shoulders and walked straight to the counter.
“Coffee!” I barked at Joe behind the counter. Abe came up to me and thumped my back. I was glad that at least they weren’t being aggressive towards me. But they were my brothers in arms. What else did I expect?
“You all right, brother?” he asked and I nodded my head.
Joe placed a huge steaming mug of coffee in front of me which I started drinking from immediately. I didn’t care that it was scathing my tongue.
“Rodeo,” I heard Lila say my name. When I turned to look at her, Girth was standing behind her and she was looking anxious.
“I know you’re upset about all this, and I just want you to know that I am too. We all are,” she said, clasping her hands together.
I nodded my head.
“Yeah, I know,” I replied.
Somehow, after spending the night with Jordan—I suddenly felt calmer now. Talking to her had helped, sleeping with her had helped too but it was difficult for me to accept that. Accepting that would also mean coming to terms with this sudden rush of feelings I was having for her. She was only going to end up slowing me down and I didn’t need that in my life.
“Hey man, just wanted to say that I’m sorry about last night,” Girth spoke up from behind Lila.
I hadn’t seen that coming. Girth was a quiet guy, he didn’t speak till he was spoken to. Him apologizing was the last thing I was expecting.
“Yeah, okay,” I blurted and Girth stepped towards me.
“I should have given it some more thought before I spoke. I didn’t know the guy and I shouldn’t have passed judgements on him,” Girth said.
I looked at his solid face. Lila was standing beside him, looking eager for us to make up. If I was going to make peace with Girth, I was going to start by do it for her.
I stuck my hand out towards him and he shook it.
“Yes! Thank Jesus! I really didn’t want to see you both fighting,” Lila exclaimed and she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight.
“Just tell us what you need, man,” Abe had found his way to our group too.
“I’ve been saying this since last morning. I just want to find the bald guy from Hell’s Drifters. I want to find him and kill him. I don’t want to think about the consequences of that right now. If you guys want to stay out of it, I totally understand,” I said and drained the burning coffee down my throat. Suddenly, I was regretting the decision to not have breakfast with Jordan. I missed her already.
“I’m in. I want to find the guy,” Girth said, and looking at me, he gave me a nod.
“Me too. The three of us can go do this thing, the others don’t need to get involved,” Abe added and he shook hands with me too. When I looked at Lila again, she was smiling.
“This is what Fred would have wanted,” she said, and leaning her head against Girth’s shoulder, she nodded her head at me.
“We should go to the bar where those fuckers hang out. Maybe we’ll see him there, for starters,” Abe said. I got off my stool to follow Girth and Abe out of the bar, but Lila had caught my arm and she was pulling me back to herself.
“Hey, Rodeo, what’s going on with Jordan and you?” she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper. I looked around to make sure that nobody else was listening in on this conversation.
“What do you mean? I fixed her door,” I said, trying to act casual. Lila had tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips, she was giving me a knowing look.
“Can I guess where you went last night when you stormed out of here?” she asked and crossed her arms over her chest. I ran a hand through my loose hair and shook my head.
“Yeah, whatever, I went to her place. So what?” I grunted and Lila sighed.
“Rodeo, she’s a sweet girl and she’s scared right now. I know you like her. I can see it on your face and the way you look at her. Just don’t fuck with her all right? She’s really vulnerable right now. There are loads of women out there to choose from, just don’t take her along on your rollercoaster if you’re not going to treat her right,” she said. Lila had always tried to knock sense into me, she’d been doing that for years—but she had never spoken about a woman like this bef
ore.
I clenched my jaws and stared at her. She continued to glare at me and I had no other choice but to nod my head in agreement. Lila was right. I shouldn’t have gone to Jordan’s place the previous night. I shouldn’t have fucked her like that if I had no plans of staying in the morning. I had seen the disappointment in her eyes when I refused to even accept her coffee.
“I gotta go,” I said to Lila and gave her a quick peck on the forehead before I rushed out of the bar.
Girth and Abe were waiting for me outside with their bikes.
“Let’s go find this motherfucker,” Abe shouted, revving up his engine. I couldn’t fucking wait.
* * *
We rode out to the bar where the Hell’s Drifters hung out. It was still midday, which meant that most of their MC members might not have been present, but it was still worth staking out.
We parked our bikes behind a wall and stood watching the entrance to the bar from a distance. Abe passed cigarettes around and we smoked a few as we waited.
There wasn’t much activity at the bar at this hour, but I was willing to wait as long as it took, just to get a glimpse of the guy who had killed Fred.
“Was the chick sure about the patch?” Abe asked.
It made me strangely annoyed to hear Jordan being referred to as a ‘chick’. It felt disrespectful somehow, but I couldn’t say anything to Abe about it because that was how we spoke about women all the time. I didn’t want Abe getting any ideas like Lila had.
“Yeah, she described the patch to me. Jordan doesn’t know anything about MCs. She wouldn’t have known about their patch if she hadn’t actually seen it,” I replied, pulling in a drag of nicotine from the cigarette. Abe nodded his head and I looked at Girth, who had his eyes focused on the bar doors in the distance.
For some reason, I felt a sudden connection with him. In a lot of ways, the two of us were in similar positions. If he hadn’t met Lila, if he hadn’t been sent here to fill in for a job at our MC—he would have been a free and independent man, just like I still was.
I was happy for Lila, and I was glad that she had found herself a man who was capable of taking care of her the way she deserved. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel sympathetic for Girth, for being tied down. I wished I could have spoken freely with him and asked him how that was working out for him. He seemed happy, but I was forcing myself to be pessimistic.
“And she said this guy was bald with a thick long beard?” Abe broke through my thoughts again and I nodded my head.
“Yeah, that’s what she said. She got a good look at him because he took off his helmet and stared up at her,” I replied. Abe was scratching his head.
“It’s kinda weird that they haven’t come after her yet,” he added.
I clenched my jaws.
“She’s pretty much been with me this whole time, since I broke into her apartment,” I admitted. Abe’s eyes lit up and there was a grin spreading on his face. Girth had shot me a surprised look too. I refused to meet either of their eyes.
“You tapping that ass?” Abe asked and thumped my back in congratulations.
“She’s scared, I felt responsible for her so I spent the night at her place. It’s no big deal,” I said and Abe laughed.
“Didn’t say it was, brother,” he said, still laughing. Girth on the other hand was eyeing me curiously. He had a knowing look on his face, like he had a pretty good idea of what was going on. I knew Lila wouldn’t have told him about any personal conversations between her and me—it was just the look of a guy who had gone through a similar thing. He was the one sympathizing for me now.
“Whoa hold up. Do you see that motherfucker?” Abe ducked and I followed his line of vision. He was staring at a rider parking his bike outside the bar doors. I waited and watched, hoping that he would take his helmet off.
I could see his beard already, and it looked similar to what Jordan had described.
He did take his helmet off and now I saw that the man was bald too. He had the Hell’s Drifters patch on his leather cut at the back, just like Jordan had said and now he was walking into the bar.
“Fuck! Do you want to go after him?” Abe hissed.
I saw Girth counting the number of bikes parked outside the bar.
“There are at least twelve of them in there. If we go after them, none of us are coming out of there alive,” Girth mumbled, like he was calculating things in his head.
I clenched my jaws, trying to hold myself back from darting across the road to the bar. Every cell in my body was screaming for me to do something. He was right there. The motherfucker was right there in front of me!
The shooter disappeared into the bar and none of us had made a move.
“We should hold back,” Girth said.
“Yeah, I agree. At least now we’ve identified him. We know for sure that the shooter is from Hell’s Drifters,” Abe said and thumped me on my shoulder again.
I knew they were right. I knew it would be stupid to just walk into the bar and open fire right now. All three of us would get shot and they wouldn’t let us live. Then they would come after the rest of the MC, and Lila and Jordan…I couldn’t let that happen.
“We need to get that guy alone, and we need to do it soon,” I mumbled.
The three of us were walking back to our bikes now. Girth and Abe nodded their heads. I had to force myself to be satisfied with the little progress we had made. At least I had a face matching the description. At least I could follow this guy and keep an eye on his whereabouts.
We were riding back to T Bone together, and again, I found myself thinking about Jordan. I was itching to go back to her, to check on her, to apologize for getting spooked like that in the morning. But this time, I forced myself to have better control. I wasn’t just going to show up at her apartment tonight. I needed a break from her.
12
Jordan
Back in the diner that night, Flora was refusing to meet my eyes and it was making me sick. I could sense that she was avoiding me, even though I desperately wanted to talk to someone. I had been feeling worse since Rodeo left that morning, I needed someone to lend a friendly shoulder to lean on.
I had woken up feeling much better about my life that morning, just knowing that he was a part of it in some way. It had only been a day since I’d known him, but we had been together intimately, he kept me close to him and then spent the night at my place. I had somehow convinced myself that all of those things meant something.
When I woke up and saw him getting dressed, I felt safe. I was glad that he hadn’t snuck out in the middle of the night—a part of me was hopeful that maybe our sudden meeting could turn into something else.
But I had been foolishly hopeful. I had seen the look of annoyance in his eyes when I offered him coffee and breakfast. He couldn’t have bolted out of my apartment fast enough.
I had spent the rest of the day trying to study, trying to focus on my life. I was still too afraid to leave my apartment, I was too scared to even come to work. I had no choice though, no matter what was going on in my life; I still needed to get paid.
At the diner, things seemed normal—other than my rapidly beating heart. I was still suspicious of every person who walked through the doors. The fact that Flora, my only friend in this place, was refusing to associate with me; made matters even worse. I couldn’t stop the shaking of my hands, I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder at every face in the diner.
Nervously, I walked around, trying to get my job done. I took orders, delivered food at the booths and cleared up the tables. As usual, I was getting a lot of stares from the men at the place, as were all the other waitresses but tonight, I couldn’t deal with it. I wanted them all to just stop looking at me and to leave me alone.
Rodeo had said that I could call him if anything happened, but I wasn’t going to. He had made it very clear to me that his responsibility towards me was over now. I blamed myself, maybe I pushed him too hard. Maybe this was all my fault.
I had to try very hard to not just burst into tears as I got through my shift. It was late at night and I was already worried about walking back to my apartment alone later. But I had nobody to turn to, I couldn’t even ask Flora to walk with me anymore. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me.
The bells above the diner door chimed, and I turned to see a man in a leather jacket walk in. I scanned him quickly, to check if he had a patch. He didn’t, but his eyes were fixed on me. For some reason, he had sought me out immediately and I had the chilling feeling that he had come looking for me.
“Table eleven, hun,” Nelly, my manager called out to me from the cash register. She wanted me to go to him and take his order. I gulped, feeling for the notepad in the pocket of my apron. I breathed in and out deeply to calm my nerves. Whoever he was, he couldn’t hurt me here; not in front of everyone—could he?
I walked towards him, forcing a smile on my face. He was watching me too, his eyes scanning my body like he was already undressing me.
“Hiya, what can I get you?” I tried to put on a cheerful voice when I came to a stop next to him. I could see the tattoos peeping out from under the sleeves of his jacket now. He had thick chains around his neck and his boots tapped the linoleum floor.
“A cheeseburger and fries,” he said, without looking at the menu. I wrote it down on my notepad and I was about to turn from him, but he had reached out and grabbed my wrist. I tried to yank my hand away from him, but he pulled me to himself.
I fell on his lap with a gasp, but he was laughing now.
“Where do you think you’re going sweet tits? Give me a kiss before you leave, come on, right here,” he laughed, showing me his rough cheek. I struggled on his lap, but he wasn’t about to let me go.
I looked around me with horror, and Nelly had a bored expression on her face. She was used to this sort of thing. A lot of the waitresses flirted with the customers regularly to get better tips. Nobody was coming to my aid, they all thought this was acceptable somehow.
Marked Skulls MC Series: Books 1-5 Page 22