by Mackenzy Fox
I imagine Sienna on the back of my sled and I momentarily stop breathing. Like the time she had my cut on that night, I keep thinkin’ about that too. It hits me that I might ask her to come, and if I do, that’s gonna send an even bigger message to the boys. One I’m not sure Sienna will appreciate. They’ll think I intend to claim her, which is ridiculous. I’ve only known her a week, she’s made it clear she ain’t sticking around once Max’s house sells and she doesn’t want to be ‘someone’s property’. I hope Max’s house drags on forever and a day. Maybe I do want her around, shit, maybe havin’ a woman in my life ain’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be. It seems pretty sweet so far, but then again, these things always are three days in.
“You hear about Gunner’s new venture?” I ask Hutch, time for a little payback of my own.
Everyone groans. I’ve been dying to bring this up in front of everyone. But Gunner’s not ashamed, oh no, he’ll do anything for a buck, pretty little pussy boy.
“I fuckin’ have, and I’ve got my reservations, I mean, Sizzle magazine?” Hutch looks at Gunner with obvious distaste. “Only thing makin’ me think it’s a good idea is the coin.”
“And all the chicks that are gonna be queuing up for a slice of this,” he grabs his junk under the table. “I’m gonna be up to my elbows in pussy, read it and weep, bitches.”
I shake my head. “We don’t need visuals, thanks very much,” I bark out, “we’ve all seen enough profanity at the workshop. Speaking of which, how about you keep your paws to yourself from now on and not grope the office staff.”
“Ooh, here we go, touchy subject when it comes to a certain little blonde, anyway, she liked it, didn’t see her shrugging me off.”
“That’s because she’s too polite.”
“Probably gonna buy Sizzle magazine for those nights when she’s all alone,” he winks while I try not to lean over the table and choke him with one hand.
“Watch it.” I point at him.
He laughs out loud.
“You got it bad, bro?” Brock cocks an eye at me.
I huff out loud again. “What are we in high school?”
“He can’t answer the question,” Gunner cajoles, “which means yes, he doesn’t want any of us sniffing around, that’s for damn sure.”
“That’s because I need her to fuckin’ sort my shit out at the office.” It’s such a lie, while I do appreciate that part as well, I much prefer her mouth moaning my name when I pump her hard, the office shit is just an added bonus. Thinking about what I did to her in the kitchen just makes me want to go over there right now, order everybody out, and do her on my desk this time. Jesus. Maybe Brock is right… maybe I do have it bad.
“If you ladies are all done talking about your rags and what you’re having for afternoon tea, I’ve just about had enough of today, we’re adjourned here unless anyone’s got anything actually important or intelligent to say, which is highly doubtful.”
‘No, boss’ rings out from all of us unanimously.
“Good. Steel, go relieve Colt of his duties with Lil if he’s gonna help at the Crow tonight. Gunner, make sure one of the girls gets them rooms clean for the boys, and Rubble, for pity’s sakes will you pick your chin up off the ground and grow a set, you got married and this is what chicks eventually want… babies. You gotta learn to deal with it and quit nagging.”
Once again, Hutch brings us all to heel. He’s a good man, a father figure to most of us, somebody we respect. He’s done everything for this club and for us as individuals, he gave me a chance when nobody else would, he took Gunner in after all the shit that went down with him and Summer as kids, that crap was bad; enough to make a grown man cry, don’t get me wrong, Hutch is a badass too if you get on the wrong side of him, but he’s not someone you wanna disappoint. Not ever.
Hutch slams the gavel on the wooden table and we disperse out of the room. First thing I gotta do is go find Colt but Hutch calls me back just as I get up. He waits until the others have left and the door closes again.
“Tell Sienna I expect her there tomorrow night, no excuses.”
“You think that’s a good idea?”
I know it’s not, it’s too early for all of that, she’ll take one look at us party animals and run a mile.
He cocks a brow. “Worried she’ll head for the hills?”
I grunt. “You know what it’s like when they’re new to the club.”
“You want her to stick around?”
I stare down at him, unable to lie but not able to articulate it very well, that’s who I am.
“Thinkin’ about it.”
“She’s good for you, a little too pure, but good, she’d make a good ol’ lady but she’s got a whole lotta spirit, boy.”
“Nothin’ wrong with that, she just needs to learn.”
He nods over to the door. “Right, ask Rubble, he knows all about women with spirit, look where it got him, look where it got me with my ol’ lady.”
The man has got a point. I can’t help a chuckle.
Yeah, that may be true but Hutch and Kirst have made it last and I’ve also never seen Rubble so content. He was fucked up on drugs when I first came to the club, he got clean with help from Hutch and with Lucy. She put up with a whole array of shit anybody else would have walked away from long ago, it says a lot about a person when they see you at your worst and they don’t run away. Whenever something scares Lucy, she just runs right toward it so it doesn’t scare her no more. Gotta respect the shit outta that. She’s a good woman.
“Get gone, I got shit to do.”
I leave, cursing under my breath, I mean I want Sienna to come, but I want her to want it. I want nothing more than to sling my arm around her and make sure everyone knows she’s mine while she’s in town—nobody else can have her. But I don’t want to scare her off; she’s already gone off just on what Lily’s said about sweet butts. I’m at a crossroads. She needs to know what she’ll be getting herself into if things pan out… pan out? What the fuck?
Even my own thoughts shock me. Maybe I’ve been alone too long. But I know that getting my little spitfire here tomorrow might be easier said than done.
16
Steel
I make an unannounced visit to Lily’s salon to relieve Colt of his babysitting duties and also to have a word with my sister since she’s been nagging me all week about being followed around, let it be a lesson to her.
I stride through the front door and she frowns when she sees me.
I raise an eyebrow, walking toward the back, ignoring the interested looks I get from some of the older ladies in the salon chairs having girlie shit done to them. I feel out of place in here so there’s no need to linger.
Definitely not the place for a biker to be seen.
“Hey, Steel,” says one of the girls standing behind a woman with tin foil all through her hair, I think she’s called Jessica, I’m not good with names. I hope I haven’t slept with her.
I nod as I pass and point with two fingers at Lily, indicating toward the back of the salon so we can talk in private. She rounds the counter and follows behind me.
“What gives?” she barks when we’re out of earshot of the customers and staff.
I turn to look down at her. “Nice to see you too.”
“Cut the crap, Steel, why is Colt still hanging around?”
I lean against the bench in the small kitchenette staff room. “He’s helping,” I shrug.
“Helping my ass, I need him gone, he’s scaring the customers. Speaking of which, why are you paying me a visit? You usually only come here to lecture me and tell me off.”
My little sister is so annoying, she might be cute as a button but no man on earth could put up with her and her never-ending array of shit, of that I am sure. She’d drive them around the bend. And she’s pushing it talking to me like that.
“That’s insulting, are you saying I’m scaring them too?”
She puts her hands on her hips like she’s ready to fight me an
d I laugh. It’s hard to take her seriously but she gets her temper from me.
“It’s not funny,” she says in an annoyed whisper, “tattooed bikers are bad for business.”
I raise a brow and cross my arms over my chest. “Everyone in this town knows you are part of the M.C., so why would they care, and anyway, isn’t Gunner going to be doing some piercing here or some shit? How come he’s allowed?”
“It’s just an idea, and he won’t be wearing his cut, and he’s pretty to look at and nice, unlike you, and not everyone in town wants to walk into Angel’s Ink for an ear piercing, this is considered more respectable.”
There she went with all her fancy words.
“I’m sure Gunner knows how to pierce a lot of things,” I mutter.
She punches me on the shoulder which has no effect. Lily is twenty-two going on forty. She runs this place as her own business and lives in the apartment above. She came straight out of beauty school knowing what she wanted to do and did it, I’m proud of her for that, she works hard but she has a lot of responsibility.
“As long as he’s hanging around in club colors, it affects business, no respectable lady wants to come in and get their bits waxed with tattooed, leather-clad dudes looking over their shoulders. Him wandering in and out is making my life difficult.”
“Ah, there you go, making your life difficult; well, you should have thought about that before going on Tinder lookin’ out for strange.”
She stares at me agog, then lowers her voice even more. “I wasn’t looking for strange!”
“What is it you’re looking for, Lily?”
She bites her lip and looks away. “I don’t know.”
“Well, until you find out, you’ll be staying where I can see you. What if that guy had raped you, Lil, what then? That was his sole objective; do you know he had ties to human trafficking?”
She shudders and tears form in her eyes. I pull her arm out of the open staff room and move into the storeroom next door where I can shut the door.
I don’t know why she’s making me out to be the bad guy, I’m the one protecting her because, clearly, she can’t look after herself.
“That was hurtful,” she says, wiping a tear.
I pull her into an awkward one-armed hug. “You know that if anything really did happen to you, I’d end up in a concrete box, don’t you? Because I’d kill them with my bare hands,” my tone is softer, I hate seeing her upset.
She sniffles into my shoulder. I don’t like making her cry but she has to realize that there’s bad people out there, this ain’t Kansas.
“It could have happened to anybody,” she mumbles into my cut, “I didn’t ask for it.”
“But it didn’t happen to anybody, it happened to you, and you’re goddamned lucky you got out of it alive. He had plans for you, Lil, and they weren’t pretty, you gotta be smarter than that, you hear me?”
She nods and pulls away from me. “You’ve ruined my makeup now.”
I roll my eyes. “What I do for you, for all the girls, is because I know what some assholes out there are like, I do it because I care. You wanna party, you come to Church, you don’t go to the Crow anymore, got me?”
She shakes her head. “Not even if my friends are there?”
“Lily,” I warn.
She huffs. “You won’t let me see anybody at the club though.”
“That’s because you’re better than that.”
She narrows her eyes, her trauma suddenly forgotten.
“That doesn’t say much for you lot then, does it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I balk.
She folds her arms over her chest. “You’re saying Sienna is just a hang-around then?”
“You’re getting a bit lippy,” I warn.
“It’s true though, you don’t want her hanging around the club, do you?”
“Not without me, no.”
“That’s exactly my point!” she says with a humorless laugh. “How am I meant to meet somebody when I can’t go out, and when I do go out, it’s at Church where I can’t even talk to anybody without you having a fit.”
“You can talk to people, long as that’s all that happens.”
I know she used to have this big crush on Gunner—what teenager around here didn’t? I made sure he knew that wasn’t gonna happen in this lifetime or the next, and it seemed to have fizzled out, thank God. He’s slept with more women than I’ve had hot dinners and my baby sister wasn’t going to be another notch on his belt. I love Gunner like a brother but he ain’t for Lily.
“You can’t rule my life, Steel, I’m almost twenty-three.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, and it’s a wild world out there, haven’t you heard the song? There’s a lot of bad everywhere, Lil, even here.”
I stare at her and I know I’m being a dick, but deep down, I love her. I held her in my hands when I was thirteen when she was born. I helped my mom out a lot being single and on her own; our dad died just after Lily was born, he’d been part of the club but wasn’t a good man. It’s not something I like to remember fondly, and I’ve made sure that as I got older, Lily had the best education and didn’t miss out on anything, going to a private boarding school, getting out of Bracken Ridge, but she was a Rebel girl through and through, it was in her veins.
“I’ll do you a deal,” I say, letting her think she has the upper hand. It’s the only way to get some peace.
She brightens momentarily. “Yeah, what?”
“If you meet a nice respectable boy in a nice respectable place, then you can bring him to Church, that way, you’re safe and I can keep an eye on you, or more importantly, on him.”
“Steel, I don’t need a babysitter.”
Even she knows I can make her life hell if I want to. I’m already doing a good enough job of that.
“And I’ll get rid of Colt.”
She looks swiftly up at me. “He’ll be gone?”
“Yes, if you stop acting like you have no brain when I know you do have one, then I’ll take him right now, but don’t let me down this time, I have enough shit to do without worrying about you twenty-four-seven.”
She doesn’t need to think about it. “Done.”
That was a bit too quick. I cock a brow again. “You got a date already?”
“No,” she says, “but I wanna hear about Sienna, is she coming to the party tomorrow?”
I don’t want to discuss Sienna with my little sister.
“Don’t know yet, haven’t decided.”
“You and her getting it on?” She jiggles her eyebrows.
I shake my head. “That isn’t something I’m going to discuss with you, Lil, and while we’re on the subject, no more club talk either, I don’t need you filling Sienna’s head with shit.”
She has the good grace to look shocked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I shake my head. “I mean it, don’t go scaring her off and telling her shit about the club or me or whatever it is you did the other day. We’ve got a good thing going, all you chicks do is bitch and moan when you get together, so just give it a rest. Now, don’t you got work to do?”
The women in my life always give me grief. My mind wanders to Sienna and her back-chatting, yeah, that’s something we’ll have to remedy. I smile at the thought. I do like a little bit of ‘spirit’ as Hutch calls it, nothing wrong with the chase.
“You gotta give me something!” she wails, ignoring my warning.
I turn her by the shoulders and march her out the door. “I’ll give you a biker-free salon, now move your ass.”
She shakes her head but I can tell she’s happy again. “Love you, Steel,” she says quietly, nudging me in the ribs with her elbow.
“Right back at ya, kid.”
I find Colt out the back, lugging boxes in. At least he’s not slacking off somewhere like Jaxon and Lee tend to do, he’s cleaned up all of the area behind the salon too and the car park where all the boxes just get dumped and forgotten about. He’s no idea
this is his last day as a shit-kicker. He’ll make a good brother; I’ve never had to do anything that bad to him or reprimand him too much, which is a first.
I nod over to Colt as his eyes meet mine. “Hey, prospect. I got a new job for you,” I say, walking towards him.
He looks up, ready for action, though anything had to be better than hanging around here all day listening to women moan and groan and gossip.
“Sup, Steel?”
“Stefanie needs some extra hands at the Stone Crow tonight, could be a permanent thing, security detail for a while until things calm down with the cops and the whole saga with Lily, the Crows got a target on their backs.”
He looks like he may jump for joy.
“Great,” he says. “I’m on it.”
I side glance at him. “We’ll go by later and I’ll show you around, gonna get Jett from New Orleans chapter to set up some new security, got a few jobs comin’ up, might make a go of turning one of the rooms at Rubble’s into a business. Play your cards right, this could lead to something down the track in your favor.”
I wasn’t gonna hand no prospect anything today, but tomorrow will be a different story.
“Gotcha, boss, sounds good. Appreciate it.”
He seems a little too eager to be out of the salon and I refrain from a smirk at cutting him loose. I can’t blame him one bit.
“Finish up with whatever you’re doing, we’ll meet at the Crow at four.”
He looks like he just won the lottery, which prompts me to ask, “Did my sister drive you insane?”
“No, but she certainly likes to talk.”
“All women do, stay out of that shit if you know what’s good for you.”
He dares not say anything too much in case I knock him out. I grunt, then look at him sharply.
“You do anything with any of those girls working in the salon, including Lily?”
He looks like a deer caught in headlights, suddenly panicked. He’s fairly wide-set, he pumps iron but isn’t tall, he’d challenge me in an arm wrestle but not a fist-fight. And he knows his place, if only all prospects were like him.