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Savage Redemption
“My life was all about revenge until I met her.”
I want them destroyed.
The Anarchists killed my father, haunt me and my brother, and seek to destroy my club, the Savage Kings.
For years, I have stopped at nothing to annihilate them.
But for years, I also never forgot her.
She was everything to me.
She brought joy to my life.
And I had to leave her without explanation.
But a chance encounter has brought her back to me.
And now, everything has changed.
My life is now all about having her—and nothing can stop me.
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Promised Lust
Carter Steele
Contents
1. Zane
2. Renee
3. Zane
4. Renee
5. Zane
6. Renee
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1
Zane
When the gunfire began, I was doing something that I hadn’t done at a club party in quite some time.
Nothing.
I didn’t really know how to do “nothing” for the most part at said parties. I was too much of an extrovert, too flirtatious, and too bouncy to really be tied down into not doing anything. If I was doing nothing, it was only so I could have my drink or because I was waiting for a girl or a friend to come back from the bathroom.
But at this party? With the therapy session that I’d had this morning?
My head was spinning a bit too much for me to do anything. I just sat on the couch, a drink in my hand, seeing the party go on but not really watching it. A few of the girls I’d already hooked up with came over and tried to persuade me into spending time with them, but I didn’t really have much of a desire. I was thinking too much about, well, her.
And then fucking Owen launched his one-man terrorist attack against us.
We made short work of him and scared him off, but the sight of the car with its shattered glass left me mortified. The last thing this town needed, after everything we’d been through with the Anarchists, was a civilian murder.
But then, wouldn’t you know it, none other than Renee was in that car.
“Renee?” I said. “What are you doing here?”
To Renee’s credit, at least to me, she didn’t look that flustered. Certainly, stress marked her face, and by no means did she look like she’d had experience in it. But it wasn’t like she was hysterical and needed medical attention.
“I guess it’s my turn to start talking.”
“Well then let me take you inside,” I said. “It’s not safe out here.”
“Inside where?”
“The clubhouse?”
But that answer was met with vigorous disapproval. Smiling at her to try to put her at ease only solidified her position that she would not move.
“I’m not going in there,” she said. “Not in front of all of the club members.”
“No one’s going to care—”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, and the fact that she said this with much more certainty than anything she’d said in our sessions told me I wasn’t going to win this battle. “Let’s… let’s go somewhere quiet.”
In just about any other situation, with just about any other woman, I probably would have made a joke. At the very least, I would have assumed that the woman was hinting at something far more erotic, and I would have played it up a little bit.
Fortunately, not even this twenty-one year old was stupid enough to make a move like that here.
And frankly, I didn’t even want to. I was surprised to realize how much I cared about her well-being, so much so that I wasn’t even thinking about sex in the moment. But here I was, doing just that.
“Alright,” I said.
I did put a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up in my eyes, for a brief moment, I thought she might have interpreted it as permission for her to also act equally boldly. But, alas, she just got out of the car, brushing my shoulder aside, and checked herself for bruises and cuts.
“I can drive us if you want,” I offered.
“No, I’ll drive,” I said. “Let’s… let’s just go to Porter Ridge Brewing. Seems far away enough.”
And, left unsaid, not so private that something unexpected could happen. I mean, we could use the bathrooms, but I’m not going to let Renee come to that. If I’m going to be with her, it’s going to be for something much more legit than just that.
“You sure?” I asked. “I mean, I don’t mind taking over. Your windshield is kind of jacked. Not the greatest of appearances!”
“I don’t want to ride on a motorcycle right now, but thanks,” Renee said.
I knew if I pushed my lucky any further, she was just going to disappear on me, and this great opportunity to actually learn why she had come to the party—well, I knew why already, but hearing it from her would be wonderful—was something that I wasn’t about to pass up. So I just nodded, went over to the passenger’s side of the car, and got inside. Renee drove off without a word, ignoring the brush of cold air that came through the opening in the car window. Visibility wasn’t great, either, but it was Romara, not Los Angeles at five in the afternoon.
We arrived at Porter Ridge Brewing less than ten minutes later without having said a word. Several danced on the tip of my tongue, begging to be spoken, but I needed Renee to be in a comfortable place. Look at me, thinking like a therapist here. Funny how the tables have turned. As soon as we walked in, I grabbed us a table, giving her an excuse to head to the bar and grab us a couple of drinks. I watched her demeanor from my vantage point, noticing how she was closing her eyes and taking several deep breaths. Treat her tenderly. Be nice.
Don’t push for sex.
Not yet, at least.
Besides, you want more, right?
I ignored that voice in my head and smiled when Renee sat down.
“Cheers to being alive,” she said, holding out her drink.
“Amen to that,” I said. “That’s something worth saying every morning!”
“Well, let’s not act like we’re in a war zone,” she said, even as she recognized that sometimes, Romara could fit that description better than many cities.
“So if I may ask, now that we’re away from the rest of the club,” I said following a quick sip of my beer. “Why did you swing by the club? What led you to there right before Owen attacked?”
A very, very long sigh came from Renee. It was so hard not to say anything, so against my normal character, that I felt like I was almost being dishonest by not saying everything I wanted to.
“Well, if I’m your therapist and I harp on you for the need to be more honest and vulnerable, I guess it would be a little hypocritical if I didn’t do the same for you, huh?”
I smiled and nodded.
“Can’t hurt,” I said, even as I realized it probably quite could, actually.
“Well, here’s what you need to know about me, and I’m just going to spill it all out there.”
She took a quick breath.
“I haven’t been to a good party in a long, long time. I’ve told myself that I’ve just aged out of it, that partying like you boys do just isn’t in my wheelhouse anymore, and maybe that’s true for it being a weekly or even a monthly thing. But to have not gone with it for as long as I have? Sometimes, I wonder if I’ve just gone too long without it,
you know?”
I nodded. I couldn’t imagine going for two weeks without some of the parties we had. Given that she had said monthly, I had to imagine it had easily been more than two months, let alone two weeks.
“And, frankly, I haven’t had a whole lot of romantic or, well, sexual interaction in that time either. A part of me is maybe a little curious to explore that part of me more. It’s crazy, I know, and probably not particularly healthy. But…”
Renee started to laugh, a slight chuckle at first before it jumped up to an outright laugh.
“I can’t believe I just told you this!” she said.
I wonder how often her clients say something like that to her. We really are on separate sides of the chasm this go-around, huh?
“You’re my client, and I’m here telling you all about myself… good Lord. What has this world come to?”
“Don’t forget what you went through tonight,” I said. “Anyone in your spot would probably feel like they need to get a few things off their chest. So I don’t think you saying these things is inherently bad.”
I had a selfish reason for her saying everything, of course. But that didn’t mean that what I was saying was false, either.
“Well, I’ve been through some stressful periods of my life, but never have I opened up like this. Like… yeah.”
She wasn’t saying everything. Most notably, she wasn’t saying anything about me or how she felt about me. She was describing the general situation, but not anything to do with me.
But as I thought about how she probably needed time with her patients to get things revealed, so, too, did I need time to let her start saying how she felt about me. It wouldn’t happen probably even in the next few days, but damn if I didn’t want to see it happen.
All I knew, sitting there in that bar, as our conversation shifted to lighter topics, was that Renee was affecting me unlike anyone else I had known. No other woman would ever cause me to have this patience, and no other woman would make me desire something deeper than just casual sex. A relationship? Maybe not that much. But I certainly cared for her.
And for Owen to have nearly killed her…
The battle for Romara may have ended. But the dust hadn’t fully settled yet. That much, I knew for damn sure.
2
Renee
My mind was reeling, and no amount of therapeutic exercises or meditation was going to calm it down right now.
I tried my best to just accept that I was going to be a little bit of a hot mess for the time being—after all, I didn’t think anyone, the first time they’d had a gun fired at them, wouldn’t think about it some, even soldiers and police officers—but that wasn’t helping the fact that said hot mess was translating into a fucking meeting with one of my clients outside the office.
And not just “one of my clients.” Oh, no, Zane Williams went far above and beyond just being one of my clients. In just one official session with him, he’d already proved himself to be memorable and far more than anything that I had ever encountered or likely would encounter. He was a charmer, but a damn good one at that—and just barely over the age of twenty.
I was sure he only wanted sex. I’d gone with him to Porter Ridge Brewing anticipating that I’d get hit on, but I’d only wanted someone to talk to in the immediate aftermath of what had happened. But, lo and behold, Zane never pushed for it. In fact, he treated me as I had treated my patients—with empath, kindness, and an open ear.
It was like I was sitting on the couch, confessing everything from my past, and he was the one asking how it all made me feel.
I explained why I had gone to that party, but I hadn’t really gotten at the core of the question—why had I gone to that party for Zane? Why had I been stupid enough to scratch an itch that could have just as well been left alone, with nothing good for my profession in it?
Clearly, said itch wasn’t skin deep, or even beneath the surface. It was an itch that had burrowed deep in my soul, one that had hidden its form from my awfully well and would require some heavy reflection and thinking. I knew such reflection wasn’t going to end well for me—no one had a happy memory or belief that they had repressed, at least not to that depth—but I had to do it.
I went largely mute upon this realization, and Zane was nice enough to ride with me in silence back to the clubhouse. He tried to hug me, but I turned away from him. I didn’t want to do anything until I had figured out these thoughts in my head.
Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately for him—I had a feeling that upon the culmination of those thoughts, he would be feeling pretty good about where things were going.
The next morning, on not nearly enough sleep, I did what I almost never did on a Saturday.
I went into the office.
I had no appointments lined up; none of the other therapists in my shared space were in, either. It was just me and whoever occupied the floors below. Sheriff Jones had the police headquarters diagonally across the intersection, which made it possible he could swing by, but it would take more effort than going next door.
Of course, saying it was just me was, while technically accurate, not exactly descriptive of what I intended to do. There were going to be two mes in that room—a discussion with myself to figure out what the hell that itch was.
I went into the therapist’s room, shut the door, and sighed.
“OK, Renee,” I said, finding it weird at first to talk to myself—even though I had encouraged my clients to look themselves in the mirror and say it themselves. “What do you want out of life?”
I took a second to think about it as I stared in the mirror. I saw a woman shaken by what had happened last night, but a woman who was also pretty fine, all things considered. True, the bags under her eyes suggested insufficient sleep, but if that was the worst of it, I think she would be fine.
“I want… a successful practice where I help people—”
I cut myself off. I was just dodging the meat of the question.
“What do you want, when you’re seventy years old and you’re retired—you’ve built this life up to a certain moment. Now you can have anything you want. It’s about forty years from now. What do you have?”
I took a deep breath through the nose and exhaled out the mouth.
“I’d have a family, two kids, a fun husband—not a boring one, no, no, a fun one.”
That wasn’t just because of Zane’s influence. In fact, I felt like part of the reason I was still single was because too many men reminded me of my father.
My father was, by all appearances, a great man. He worked hard and supplied for me and my mother. He kissed my mother and told her he loved her. He did the same for me.
But when it came to doing anything, he was like an immovable rock. Trying to get him to go to a new grocery store, let alone try a new hobby or travel to a foreign country, was beyond pulling teeth. He was not a boring person in that he had an interesting backstory, but he was boring in that he just never did anything.
I swore when I came of age that my man, whoever he wound up being, would not be boring. He would be someone that I could go on adventures with, run through the world with, and share great laughter in.
And right now…
Well, there was one guy who offered the promise of that. I hadn’t anticipated that it would be a twenty-one year old, but I also hadn’t anticipated that said young adult would be mature and wise beyond his years—when he wasn’t flirting or acting like a bro, that was.
And for him last night to have not just gone straight for sex at a time when he probably could have gotten away with it…
“OK, so maybe you like Zane,” I said, words that, said out loud, terrified me because of how true they were. “And if you do like Zane, maybe something would happen. It’s not the first time a therapist and a client have fallen for each other. You’d have to end your sessions, obviously, but if you do that, who’s to say you can’t do anything?”
I shook my head.
“No, but then you�
�d be enabling the Savage Kings to continue to be a menace to this town, and… and…”
But were they, though?
Now I was just thinking stupid questions. Of course they were. The actions of one young man didn’t change the fact that they brought about madness.
But damn, that one man…
“Not like you have to marry him tomorrow, Renee,” I said. “Just take it step by step. Be present, remember? It’s what you tell your clients. Now you have to do it too. Accept the present.”
And step by step is going to be destroy my integrity…
Or, I suddenly realized, it could help me help the Savage Kings issue even more than I could have imagined. Instead of me having to figure out a way to get Zane without getting involved with the Kings, such a… relationship… I can’t believe I just used that word… could get me access to the club that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. No, I didn’t imagine that I could call myself Zane’s girlfriend and then give every single man in there counseling. They had to be willing to have counseling as much as anything else.
But damn if it wasn’t something of a good idea. If nothing else, the slow burn technique could work pretty well.
“Be present. You’ll figure things out. And—”
A knock came at the door. I literally jumped in surprise, fearing that someone had been eavesdropping on me.
“Miss Falcone?”
Sheriff Jones?
Oh God, please don’t tell me you heard all of that.
Promised Lust: An MC Romance (Savage Kings MC Book 18) Page 1