by Franca Storm
She gasped when she laid eyes on my Harley.
A Heritage Softail Classic.
“That’s the same as my dad’s bike.”
Yeah, I’d seen his for the first time last week.
“You want a bike like this?”
She shook her head and her eyes lit up as she told me, “I want a Switchback.”
“Yeah? Going Harley then?”
A giggle escaped her and it did things to me that I wasn’t comfortable with. “Harley,” she confirmed.
“We’ve got one in the bike shop back in Ridgefield. We’ve been fixing it up after some guy brought it to us in a bad state. Fucking idiot didn’t know shit about taking care of a bike.”
“Really?” she asked, all excited.
“Yeah.” I snatched my helmet off the handlebar and handed it to her. “Here.”
“Thanks,” she said, putting it on like a pro. No awkwardness. She adjusted the straps real easy. Girl knew what she was doing. Then again, she was the daughter of a MC President.
Speaking of that, I’d been wondering about something for a while now. “How come you don’t have your own bike yet?”
“My dad doesn’t want me riding. He thinks that it’ll lead to… uh … biker boyfriends.”
Well, this was fucking awkward.
“Right,” I gritted out. I swung my leg over my bike and settled myself. I patted the saddle and told her, “Get on.”
I held my hand out to her, but she didn’t take it. She didn’t need any help and got on easy.
I turned back to the front and she caught me off guard as she wrapped her arms around me.
Too low.
Way too low. Jesus Christ.
I knew she was messing with me. She knew the right way to do it.
“Hayley!” I warned.
“What’s the matter, Damien? You hate me, right? This shouldn’t be a problem then, should it?”
Mouthy brat.
“Your hand’s on my cock, woman.”
“Oh, is it? My bad,” she said in a teasing voice. She moved her offending hand a bit higher, but squeezed my waist tight.
Figuring she was messing with me again, I was all ready to give her shit, until I felt her rest her head against my back.
She was hugging me, hugging me tight.
And the worst part was, I liked it. Hell, I liked it too much.
For once in my life, I didn’t know what to do. I really hadn’t expected it.
The way I’d talked to her up at the clubhouse, I’d figured she’d be pissed beyond belief. And she’d seemed that way in the diner. But, clearly, that had just been some sort of act.
She did that a lot. Acting. She’d done it the first time we’d met, acting all tough, experienced and slutty. Until I’d had her in my arms. Then it’d all slipped away and I’d seen passion, fire and an intense vulnerability to her.
“Why do you do that?” I asked her over my shoulder.
“Do what?” she asked, her hot breath on my neck, driving me wild.
“Pretend. Put on an act.”
“It’s what they expect of me.”
“Expect of you?”
“The whole biker princess thing?”
That was really fucking tragic. Being someone she wasn’t for everyone. “Hayley—”
“Are we going, or not?” she snapped suddenly.
Sore subject. I got it.
“Come on!” she pressed when I didn’t move fast enough.
Fuck me.
I gunned the bike.
***
“Hold up.”
I threw my arm out in front of Hayley before she walked through the door I’d just unlocked and crossed the threshold into my motel room.
Her tits brushed my arm and she made a little yelp and jerked back.
I smiled to myself as I pulled out my phone and disabled the security protocol. I saw her eyes widen as the red light of the tripwire barring the way into the room tapped out.
I walked in and eyed the camera I’d jerry-rigged to the ceiling. “I’m home. Stand down.”
The light went out, the camera switching off.
I turned to where Hayley was still waiting by the door. “Come on in, lovely.”
She came in, shutting the door behind her as her eyes darted everywhere. “Oh my God,” she breathed in awe.
It wasn’t the motel room itself. Nah, that wasn’t anything to write home about.
It was the reason for the security measures I’d taken. I knew the motel was protected by the Lone Outlaws, it being one of their properties, but I didn’t trust anyone with my own security but myself. Especially when it came to my stuff, specifically the equipment laid out around the room that I’d brought with me.
She walked around the second twin bed where several of my cases were laid out. One was open and she carefully reached out and pulled out a device I’d brought along specifically for this security overhaul job. To the untrained eye it looked like nothing more than a metal stake, not dissimilar to the hardcore pegs you’d use to pin down a large, multi-person tent. A little larger and possessing greater depth. Plus, the head was twice the size and imbedded with a reader.
“What does this do?” she asked.
I strode over to her, as she studied the device intently. I ran my fingers down the length of it to the pointed end. “This part is buried in the ground, about six feet from the edge of the road you’re looking to surveil and protect.” I brushed my index finger over a tiny touch pad just underneath the head and it shifted, jerking to a forty-five-degree angle. She let out a yelp of surprise, her grip loosening. Reacting quickly, I tightened my hold, my fingers clamping down around hers. Her eyes shot to mine. “Jumpy, ain’t you?”
She tried to cover it up with indifference, rolling her eyes, as she dismissed it with a simple, “Shut up.”
I took the device from her and stowed it back in its place in the case, alongside the few dozen others. “That part will read license plates, transmit them to the club’s command central, where they’ll cross-reference them with known allies and safe persons allowed access. The idea is to keep out unknowns, any potential security threats, and to know who’s in town at any given time. Invasive and intense, yeah, but a necessity, unfortunately. It’s the way of the world we both live in.”
“Wow,” she breathed. “That’s an amazing concept. Inspired.”
“Yeah?”
She grinned at me. “Yeah. You’re some kind of closet genius, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “I do all right.”
“This is better than all right.”
She pulled the strap of her laptop bag off her shoulder, then walked to my bed, the only available surface free of my gear. The room was small with barely any furniture to begin with. I couldn’t help smiling as I watched her. I’d never seen anyone lower themselves so slowly, inch by inch, onto something.
Once she was finally seated, she fiddled with her bag, then started tapping her fingers, brushing them over the covers. Then, she finally stilled, and stared way too intensely at her painted blue nails. She was hella nervous.
“So… uh… did you study mechanics? Do you have a load of technical training?” she blurted out, her sweet voice cutting through the tension rapidly mounting between us with her in here alone with me in such close quarters.
Fuck. I’d never faced repercussions like this from fucking anyone before. Hell, I wasn’t Wrecker. I’d never made the stupid mistake of sticking around or giving them any way to track me down for another go-around or whatever the hell.
I never would’ve touched her if I’d known who she was. No way in hell.
But the fact was that I had.
And being with her had stayed with me.
There was something between us, something I didn’t understand.
I’d never wanted a second go with any woman before. But with her? Hell, yeah. I’d thought about it over and over in the last while. Any time I was near her she got my blood pumping, fired me up, woke my dick up in a goddam
n second. It was like some kind of craving.
So much for all my talk to her about me ruining her for anyone else. She’d got inside my head.
“Damie—I mean, Anarchy,” she pressed.
I scrubbed my hand over my jaw. “Right, yeah. No. No, I’ve never had any official schooling on any of it. I do have my mechanic’s license, but all of this security stuff is just me being a good researcher and having a knack for it. You learn bits and pieces being club security too.”
“Not as much as this. The guys in Outlaws can’t come up with this sort of thing or put anything together like this.”
Her complimenting me really wasn’t helping the situation.
So, I shut it down, telling her, “Yeah, well. It’s why I’m here.”
“Right,” she muttered, that look of wonderment in her eyes for me leaving her finally.
She flipped open her bag and pulled out her laptop, starting it up.
Good. We were getting down to business. Keeping it professional.
“So, you want me to create an algorithm for it, yes?” she asked, as her fingers flew across her laptop keys.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, taking a seat beside her on the bed.
I peered over her shoulder at the screen, watching as she pulled up what looked like a database of some kind.
“Details of all acceptable persons allowed passage through to the clubhouse and those who are considered safe to be allowed in close proximity. There’s also a list of security threats. We’ll need to include them in this to ensure they don’t go unchecked and pass across the borders without our knowledge.”
“You created this?”
She answered distractedly, her focus on the data in front of her, “Yeah, a year back.”
“Very impressive.”
“Not really. Just time consuming. But it’s coming in handy now that my dad is finally ready to put it into practical use.”
“Why did he wait?”
She shrugged. “He’s not big on change. I guess he thought his current security, with basically an entire focus on human security, was working fine. Until Haywire pulled what he did and Outlaws ended up clashing with Iron Kings and Spartan called him out on it.”
“Yeah, that’d do it.”
She chuckled. “I know.”
I leaned back on the bed, watching her work for a bit, the two of us falling into an easy silence. The tension between us had dissipated for the time being at least.
Unfortunately, I’d never been one to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time and I sat up and pushed off the bed, intending to fiddle with some of my gear. My jerky movements jolted her, though, right when she’d been pulling her phone from her pocket.
It clattered to the floor and a cute little curse escaped her.
“Sorry,” I offered, snatching it up.
As I was about to hand it to her, something caught my eye. The background was cycling through photo after photo and it had landed on one that I couldn’t ignore. I had to rise to it. After all, she’d messed with me earlier when I’d had her on the back of my bike. It was only fair.
I turned the screen toward her so she could see what I was, a photo of her passed out on a couch with her mouth hanging open, her clutching a beer bottle like a security blanket.
“What’s this?”
Her eyes widened and she shrieked, “Oh my God! Give it back!”
I grinned at her, pointing to her chin in the photo. “Is that drool?”
She scrambled off the bed and lunged at me.
I dodged her and rounded the other side of the bed.
She bolted after me.
I held the phone out of her reach, then she went for me, wrestling with me to reach it, knocking me back onto the bed.
Her hand closed around mine, her fingers trying to get a hold of the tip of the phone extending from my palm wrapped around it.
It was then that I realized she was straddling my lap and holding my hand, our faces just inches from touching.
Shit.
She stopped moving and just stared at me, her hypnotizing blue eyes burning into mine.
“Anarchy?” she spoke quietly.
“Yeah?”
“Did you mean it?
I swallowed hard. “What’s that?”
“What you said up at the clubhouse that night? Do you really hate me?”
Something took me over then and I wasn’t thinking right, like I should’ve been, like I’d sworn to myself I would. I leaned into her and whispered in her ear, “No, lovely. I don’t hate you.”
I planted a soft kiss on the side of her neck and she trembled against me.
Her breathing picked up as my teeth lightly grazed her earlobe.
“You were right,” she spoke in a breathy whisper.
“Yeah? About what?”
“You did… ruin me.”
Fuck me.
Those words out of her mouth were too fucking much to handle.
I couldn’t stop myself.
I fisted my hand in the back of her hair and pulled her mouth to mine.
We both lost our grip on the phone and it clattered to the floor, but the abrasive thud barely registered with either of us.
As soon as our lips met, hard and frantic, it was like that night in that bar all over again.
A fucking whirlwind.
Suffocating heat.
Intense need.
Untamable desperation.
And… right.
Shit. It felt so damn right with her.
She pulled back and shifted on my lap, rising up and sliding her fingers into my hair. “Fuck me, Damien.”
Hearing that name on her lips, the breathy, lust-filled way she said it, messed with my head.
But, as her hand slid down the length of my chest and cupped my cock, my good sense slapped me in the face.
I grasped her arms and eased her back, shaking my head. “Hayley, we can’t be—”
Her eyes narrowed and she pushed off my lap hastily. “Go to hell,” she muttered, as she snatched her phone up off the floor and pocketed it.
“What?” I demanded, getting to my feet and adjusting my uncomfortably hard dick in my jeans.
“You need to grow a pair.”
“What did you just say to me?” I growled.
“You’re a hardass enforcer for Iron Kings. Aren’t you supposed to be fearless? Isn’t that an obvious part of the job description? And here you are…. so damned scared of my dad. A pussy.”
That was it!
I strode over to her and got in her face. “You think that’s what it’s all about, woman? You think I’m scared of Python? I’ll let you in on a little secret, princess, I don’t get scared, all right? I don’t have the fear gene. All the shit I’ve done with the club, plus being on my own since I was a teenager pretty much has you building up a tolerance to it. It has no meaning anymore.”
“Oh my God.”
I ignored the mix of shock and fucking pity bleeding from her at my words and went on, “This is about respect. I love my club. I respect it. I respect Lone Outlaws too, and what we’re doing here with this alliance, the opportunity and peace it’s going to bring both our clubs. You’re the daughter of the club president. What kind of man would I be if I fucked around with you, huh? I wouldn’t be a man who has a clue what respect means, would I? That first time, I didn’t know who you were and that was bad enough. So, I do it again, knowing now exactly who you are, then I’m just a fucking asshole, aren’t I?”
She slammed her hands into my chest, shocking me with her sudden surge of aggression. She had her old man’s temper, that was becoming clear to me. Hell, he didn’t have the road name, Python, for nothing. He’d built up a rep over the years, during his heyday, for losing his temper in such a profound way that he’d been known to choke his enemies to death with his bare hands. He’d calmed down a lot since then, but word was that he still struggled to keep that volatile temper in check.
I saw it now.
I�
�d been wrong. Sort of. There was an act going on with her, but not the one I’d originally thought. Nah, it was way more complicated than that. She had some real fire that only flared up when she was pissed. But there was also this whole other layer of timidness, like some kinda self-esteem issue. She was a real puzzle.
But I’d never met a puzzle I hadn’t been able to solve yet.
I’d never met one I hadn’t needed to solve either. Goddammit. She’d just become even more complicated, something I really hadn’t thought possible.
“Fuck you, Anarchy!” she yelled. She aggressively packed her laptop back into her bag, then stormed to the door, calling over her shoulder, “Nothing but a cop-out.”
Before I could get another word out, she threw open the door and stormed out. She slammed it so hard behind her that the whole room shook with it.
Jesus fucking Christ.
What was I doing?
I’d been adamant about keeping a distance between us, about not crossing a line with her again, yet something had still just fucking happened. Every second I was around her just kept breaking down my defenses and my better intentions bit by bit, until the whole thing crumbled to ash.
No woman had ever had this kind of impact on me. I never got in deep with anybody.
So, how was it possible that this woman was under my skin like this?
What the ever-loving fuck was happening?
5
~Hayley~
I STUDIED THE BLUEPRINTS.
I was almost at the jobsite.
The perfectionist in me hadn’t been able to resist doing another once-over to make absolutely certain that I knew what I was walking into. Most people liked to be prepared, I liked to be over prepared.
There was a lot at stake for me with this job.
Not only was it my chance to prove myself to my dad, to demonstrate that I could take on something like this and do it really well, I also needed to prove that I hadn’t just been given the job because I was the club princess. I had to live up to it. I needed to earn everybody’s respect.
It was also a great start for me, something substantial that I could put on my resume, and to help build my career and name beyond the borders of Taunton and the Lone Outlaws MC. Then I could finally strike out on my own and free myself from the shackles of the MC and all the bullshit that came along with it. But, first, I needed to pay my dues. I was fine doing it and I was ridiculously excited about this job.