by Jamie Begley
Jewell rolled her eyes. “You won’t be the first or last woman who Hennessy’s made feel that way. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”
Arin raised her lashes skyward. “He kind of is.”
“If you ever say that to him, I’ll make your wish of dying come true.”
“Are you kidding? I don’t want to see him ever again, much less talk with him.”
“I don’t know how long he’s supposed to stay. I’ll ask Viper. Until we find out, you’re not going to hide in here like a scared kitten. You’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m a sexual dud. A dud. Marcus told me that I’m a firecracker without a fuse. He was—”
“So help me God, if you tell me Marcus was right again, I’ll strangle you.”
“Marcus was right,” she finished, courting death.
“Oh my God!” Jewell sat back down next to her. “Take a chill pill. It’s not the end of the world. Look on the bright side. You got over your shyness around men.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“I wouldn’t feel great if Hennessy left me hanging either.” Jewell stood and took her hands. “Joy, take her downstairs and fix her a drink.”
Arin balked. “What if he’s downstairs?”
Jewell gave her a push toward the door. “Then Joy will bring you back. The rest of us need to get changed. We’ll be down in a few minutes.” Jewell started to turn the doorknob to let them leave.
“You won’t tell anyone else what happened, will you?” Arin pleaded with the women who filled the room, refusing to move until she received their promise.
“I won’t say a single word,” Jewell promised.
“I don’t want to play the game anymore. Will you tell Viper for me?”
“We’ll discuss it when I come downstairs.”
Reaching down to retrieve the bags that Jewell had dropped when she had come in the door, she handed them to her. “Thank you for being so understanding, Jewell.”
“No problem. That’s what friends are for.”
Chapter 4
The blinding light that jerked him awake was the only warning he got before flailing fists had him twisting and trying to get to his feet to defend himself.
“What the fuck!” Hennessy yelled, trying to throw the covers off so he could block the fists that were striking him all over his body.
“You lousy son of a bitch!”
Hennessy was finally able to catch a glimpse of the raging woman and merely because she was screaming into his face.
“Jewell? What—”
Clutching his gut from a vicious blow to his stomach, he unsuccessfully tried to get to his feet again.
“You fucking bastard! It took me years to get her to come here, and you have her fucking wanting to leave!”
“What in the fuck are you talking about?” he shouted back.
“Arin!”
“Who’s Arin?”
Dodging blows from at least ten women who had converged on the bed at his question, he glanced around wildly for an escape route. There wasn’t one. He was getting attacked from all directions.
“She’s the one who gave you a blowjob, and you didn’t finish taking care of business! Fucking a-hole! I leave her alone for two fucking hours, and I come back to find her trying to pack her bags and leave!” She flailed her fists at him harder.
“Stop hitting me! Let me wake the fuck up. I haven’t slept in three days—”
“When I get done with you, you’re not going to wake the fuck up.
“Ember, hand me that lamp. I’m gonna brain the motherfucker. The next time a woman gives him a fucking blowjob, he’ll know how to fucking treat her.”
“I didn’t ask for a fucking blowjob!” he yelled back. “I haven’t slept for three days, my dick is frostbitten, and my fucking ass still hasn’t thawed out.”
“Then why in the fuck did you get in her shower?”
He groggily tried to remember. “I got in her shower?”
“You calling my friend a liar?” Jewell yelled, hitting him harder. “I’m gonna keep going until your ass has thawed out. Then you’ll feel my boot when I shove it up there!”
Hennessy tried to move farther down the bed and slide out from the bottom. However, three women blocked him from scooting, crawling on the bed to block him and hitting his legs.
“Cut it out! I’ve had enough!”
Seeing a large man come to the open door, Hennessy recognized him immediately as the culprit for his hangover. “Moon, get these bloodthirsty bitches off me!”
“Jewell, what’s—”
“He was mean as hell to a friend of mine. She wants to leave because of him! I’ve begged her to come here for years! I wanted to show her a good time and that not all men are the scum of the earth! He made her fucking cry!”
Hennessy rolled away from her pummeling fists. “I don’t even remember what I said to her. I was drunk off my ass. Moon can vouch for that. I didn’t ask or want a blowjob from one of The Last Riders’ bitches.”
“She thought you were a Last Rider! If it was a Last Rider, she wouldn’t want to go home! Arin had a shitty husband who treated her like crap, made her feel worthless, and that no man would ever want her! And what did you do? The first man she actually reached out to, to show him that she was a beautiful, sexy woman, and you told her to move out of your way!”
“How in the hell was I supposed to know that shit? It’s not like I read her fucking her mind.”
“You were the one who got in her shower, and didn’t object until you had your happy ending! All you had to do was be nice for five seconds, say something like … like … thanks, catch you later! Five fucking seconds to make her feel like she wasn’t a fucking dud!”
Stori pressed her fingers into his skin, pinching him. “You should have told her your dick wasn’t up to the challenge.”
“Are we even talking about the same woman? She was a strong, black woman who seemed pretty damn sure of herself when she grabbed my dick.”
The hands that were beating him stopped, even Stori stopped pinching him. He shivered at the feral glares directed at him.
“You didn’t just say what I thought you said, did you?” Jewell hissed through clenched teeth.
“Moon …” Any other time, Hennessy would be above asking the other man for help, but the coalition of women were getting angrier and angrier every time he tried to explain.
“Brother, you’re on your own.” Moon left, closing the door behind him.
“Jewell, go to my room and get my gun.”
Hennessy finally awoke enough to watch his words at the request from a woman who was behind his shoulder. He had to crane his neck to see her.
Brown eyes fumed at him. “I’m going to show him how another strong, black woman shoots his ass.”
“Jet—”
A blow to the side of his head had him snapping his mouth closed.
Hennessy had to give the sister credit; the punch she landed on him rattled his teeth.
Unable to defend himself without hurting one of the women who wanted to make mincemeat out of him, he raised his hands in the air. “Okay! I’ll go apologize!”
The suggestion was met with even more fury.
Jewell snatched up his jeans and hit him with them. “Don’t you go near Arin,” Jewell coldly warned. “If you want to fix what you did, when morning comes, leave. Viper said you’re supposed to stay for a couple of days; cut your visit short.”
“That won’t be a problem for me.”
Hennessy prepared himself for another onslaught when Jet picked up one of his boots. However, Jewell shook her head.
“You’re so stupid, Hennessy.”
He clenched his jaw at the insult.
“You don’t even realize the best thing walked into your life, and instead of recognizing it, you scared her away. You’re mean, grumpy, and don’t care about anyone but yourself. How many brothers in the Road Kingz have wised up and moved on?”
“Viper doesn’t have to tell me. I’ve been in a motorcycle club long enough to fucking know,” she mocked him. “There isn’t a brother or a woman in The Last Riders who Viper wouldn’t go out of his way to make them feel like they were a part of the club. We’re a family. One that you don’t have, because to do that, you’ll have to sacrifice something you don’t fucking have—a heart. If you had one, you would never have been able to treat Arin the way you did tonight.
“The only fucking way you would have ever been given a chance with a woman of Arin’s caliber is because she gave you one. And when she did, you smashed it with the heel of your boot.
“Get what fucking sleep you need, then hit the fucking road!”
Jewell motioned her crew of women to leave, which they did, all with scornful gazes toward him, except for Jet, who finally threw his boot at him, and that throw showed the woman had the arm of a major league baseball player when his hand burned from catching the flying rubber.
Once the door was closed, Hennessy fell back to the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Damn.”
He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand, trying to remember the woman he’d turned down. Drinking a fifth of Jim Beam, and half of the Hennessy on top of being sleep-deprived had done him no favors.
Closing bloodshot eyes that hurt like a mother, Hennessy groaned, feeling like his skull was being split in two with an axe. He wanted to get dressed, find Core, and leave, but he had to get some sleep first. It wouldn’t be safe for him or other drivers if he got on the road.
Grabbing a pillow, he smashed it down over his eyes with an arm. When he woke in the morning, he would take Jewell’s advice and hit the road. He didn’t need this fucking drama.
Women were headaches, and he didn’t need tonight as proof of that. Dealing with them was a pain in the ass, which was why he refused to allow them to stay in the club unless they were partying with the brothers. You let one stay a couple of nights, they wanted to fucking move in. No, he and Core were fine without them and would continue to be until hell fucking froze over.
They hadn’t even bothered to turn the light off so he could go back to sleep. Next time he needed a place to crash in Kentucky, he would stay at a hotel. Those bitches were going to see the last of him when he and Core rode out.
Chapter 5
“What do you mean you’re not ready to leave?” Hennessy stared his enforcer down as Core refilled his coffee cup.
“My boots haven’t thawed out, and neither have my balls. I’m not leaving until they do.” Core blew on his coffee as he walked to the empty table to take a chair.
“Then light a fire under them—we’re leaving.” After pouring his coffee, Hennessy followed him to the table.
“What’s the hurry?”
“No hurry. Just ready to go.”
Core studied him over the rim of his cup. “Does it have anything to do with the whole club talking about your lack of … stamina?”
“No,” he denied, then wanted to shove his foot in his mouth when he couldn’t help asking, “How’d you find out? You went to bed before I did.”
“Woke up hungry. I enjoyed my dinner while listening to one woman after another complaining to Viper about your”—Core stared pointedly down at the table that hid Hennessy’s lower body—“inability to score a home run.”
“Bitches.” Hennessy took a drink of his coffee, scalding his tongue.
“They were just taking up for one of their own.”
“She isn’t a Last Rider.”
“Haven’t I taught you a damn thing about women? They’re all sisters when it comes to a man stupid enough to hurt one of them.”
“I was taught that lesson last night.”
“Which one gave you the black eye?”
“I think it was Jet.”
Core laughed. “You might have a problem fucking one of The Last Riders’ women. I don’t. When my balls thaw out, I’m going to show that fine piece that this Road Kingz has the stamina of a bull. Of course I’ll also have to prove it to Jewell, Stori, Ember—”
“They really think I’m a one-hit wonder?”
“Your dick is being talked about more than the snowstorm that’s supposed to hit tonight.”
“Which is another reason we need to leave,” Hennessy stated before taking a more cautious sip of his coffee.
“Which is another reason to stay. I don’t want to try to beat a storm that has ice warnings out in three states on motorcycles.”
“Fuck.”
“That would have been the better option last night, instead of complaining to me now.”
“I was fucking tired.”
“You had to be dead not to get a rise for the woman I met last night.”
“Moon and I drank a whole bottle of Jim Beam and a half of Hennessy. By the time I went upstairs, I was fucking drunk off my ass.”
“You must have drunk most of it because Moon didn’t look any worse for wear when I saw him trying to snuggle up to Arin last night.”
Hennessy clenched his teeth in aggravation. Moon had seemed sober when the women were beating the fuck out of him while he just stood in the doorway last night.
The wheels in his brain that were no longer affected by tiredness and alcohol began questioning Moon’s amiable behavior, despite him throwing Moon off the porch.
Jewell was right; he was stupid. It had been a careless mistake that, if a recruit or one of his men had made, he would have torn his patch off.
The silence in the kitchen was broken by Jewell and the woman who had been the cause of his disruptive sleep coming through the swinging door. Jewell’s expression warned him to be on his best behavior after she saw that Arin had seen him sitting at the kitchen, proudly lifting her chin as if he was invisible.
Damn … Hennessy mentally whistled as he watched the haughty woman open the refrigerator. He must have been more than drunk last night; he had to have been blitzed out of his fucking mind.
Core, no doubt having the same thought, gave him a derisive tilt of his head at his stupidity.
Damn …
Damn …
Furious, Hennessy’s thoughts raced, trying to figure out a way to do damage control.
A kick under the table had him spilling his coffee over the rim of his cup.
As he stood, both women behind the counter coldly watched his approach.
“I made a mess.” Tearing a paper towel from the roll, he tried to appear cool under their regard.
Cracking an egg, Jewell then plopped it into a bowl. “You’re good at that.”
Directing his smile and eyes at Arin, Hennessy ignored the sarcastic bitch beside her. “Baby girl, my apologies for—”
“Don’t baby girl me. I’m a grown woman.”
“You sure are. I can see that for myself. Like I was saying …”
Dark brown eyes had him turning on his heels to retake his seat.
“I’m guessing she didn’t want to hear your apology,” Core said snidely, picking up his coffee cup then rising to his feet.
Hennessy could only sit and watch as his enforcer showed him how to handle the women.
“You ladies are looking fine this morning.” Bracing his hip on the counter, he gave them a charming grin that had Hennessy wanting to knock his teeth down the garbage disposal. “Jewell, you better call Knox and have me arrested before I try to steal you away.”
Jewell’s lips curled seductively upward. “Anytime you want to steal me away, you can try. You think you could take the place of so many men?”
“Jewell, for you, I would die trying.”
Hennessy tightened his grip on his cup when both women fucking laughed as Core placed his hand over his heart.
Turning his attention to Arin, Core gave her a onceover. “But I sure do hope you’re into sharing because I need the both of you…”
“Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?”
Hennessy couldn’t agree with Arin mor
e. He had planned to tell him the same thing if he could get his enforcer away from the women.
“I refuse to believe you think I’m bullshitting you. Jewell would hurt me if she thought I was lying.”
Arin looked at Jewell, gauging her reaction.
“I would. But truthfully, he does get long-winded when he wants a morning wake-up call.”
Core looked affronted. “Just morning? I can sweet talk you or Arin any time of the day or night.”
Arin rolled her eyes. “You’re good; I’ll give you props. You can save your energy for later, though. Jewell and I have to get breakfast started.”
“Do you need any help?” Core asked.
She tilted her head to the side. “Do you know how to cook?”
“No,” he admitted, grinning.
“You could unload the dishwasher,” Jewell suggested.
Feeling left out, Hennessy remained seated, fuming at how easily Core managed to maneuver himself between the two women. The brother succeeded in brushing his body against Arin’s breasts every time he moved from the dishwasher to the cabinets.
Having had no idea Core was adept with women, Hennessy thinned his lips into an unpleasant smile when Core looked his way.
The fucker did it again—pretending to bump into Arin when she turned to put biscuits in the oven.
The morning got worse when The Last Riders started coming in for breakfast. If watching Core flirt with Arin wasn’t bad enough, Moon making no attempt to hide his interest rubbed more salt in his wounded pride.
“You were in bed when I got home,” Viper commented, sitting down at the table. “How was the ride in from Arizona?”
“Cold.” His attention had been diverted from the seductive beauty he had made a first terrible impression with when The Last Riders’ president held his hand out to be shaken. Then he rose to his feet when Winter moved to take a seat next to Viper, carrying a plate. He pulled the chair out for her, then sat back down once she was seated.
Winter scooted her chair under the table. “Good morning, Hennessy. Aren’t you eating?”