Rowing his hips fore and aft magically, he gave me every inch of what God graced him with. In no hurry, nor trying to prove a point, he took his time, making sure I was satisfied with his every move.
Our bodies fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. Denying our relationship was meant to be was impossible. I quickly came to realize that someone was making love to me for the first time in my life. Lost in that realization, I followed Price’s lead without question.
We kissed the entire while, leaving me breathless for most of our love-making session. When his cock swelled, warning of what was imminent, I held him in my arms and relaxed, allowing him to release himself deep within my confines.
A few full-length strokes followed, bringing me to another mind-bending climax.
He collapsed at my side in a heap.
I stared at the ceiling for some time before I spoke, wondering how I could be so lucky to have saddled the wild stallion that had yet to be ridden. I had no intention of attempting to tame him, but I did hope to ride him until he was a broken-down pile of bones.
“That was incredible,” I said.
He kissed me. “You’re incredible.”
I brushed his hair away from his face. “Where did you come from?”
“Been here all my life,” he said.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“The right place at the right time,” he said. “That’s all I can figure.”
“I’m not even going to try and figure this one out,” I said. “It’s like a cheesy 1980’s horror flick. Fucking, killing, and falling in love.”
His eyes narrowed a little. “Who’s falling in love?”
I’d already said it, so I decided to own it. “I think I am.”
He smiled. It was the first time I’d seen him do so without stifling it. “Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”
24
Price
Laying on the bar naked, I realized I had spent my adult years with a heart silently yearning for love while my mind denied the existence of my heart’s desire. Contrary to the belief of many bikers, loving and being loved didn’t make me weak. If anything, it made me stronger. I now had something to fight for. A reason to come home. A cause beyond the manufactured needs and necessities of the club.
The motorcycle club exposed me to meaningless sex, gun running, prostitution, murder, extortion, drugs, and eventually, Gray. The club would always remain my family. While Gray stared mindlessly at the ceiling, I prayed that she would always remain my love.
Losing another would certainly be the death of me.
She turned her head to the side and met my gaze. “What’s the most important thing in Brisco’s life?”
I sat up. “What?”
“Brisco,” she said. “What object does he care about the most?”
I didn’t need to think long. “His cats. Why?”
“Because,” she said with a smile. “That prick took the two most important things in my life from me. You, and my freedom. I want to take the most important things in his life from him. If I’m going to be hanging around your little biker family, I need to get along with everyone. I think if I take something from him, I’ll feel better about him having taken something from me. I’ll be able to forgive him when it’s all over.”
I didn’t have a problem killing a man if I felt it was necessary. Killing an innocent cat was a different story.
“You want to kill them?” I asked.
Her face contorted. “Seriously?” She sat up. “Do you think I’d kill a cat?”
“Well, fuck. I don’t know. You said you wanted to ‘take them’ from him.”
She laughed. “Take might mean kill in biker language, but in bartender language, it means take.”
“Just making sure.”
“You said you picked my lock, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I had to. I didn’t have a key.”
“If you can pick my lock, you can pick Brisco’s. I want to steal his cats. Hold them ransom, for a reward.”
I laughed my ass off. “I fucking love it.”
“Will you help me?”
“Help you?” I jumped off the bar. “Hell yeah.”
She mussed her hair. “What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed,” I said excitedly. “Now’s the time to do it. Brisco and Carp took Brisco’s truck to Phoenix to pick up a vintage Harley frame. They won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”
She leaped over the edge of the bar. “Really?”
“This’ll work out great,” I said. “I can’t wait to see his reaction.”
Brisco was a whore. He didn’t have an ounce of compassion in his heart for a woman when it came to breaking hearts. He said whatever was required of him to lure a woman into bed. After sex, the truth was revealed.
His cats were a different story. He coddled them, cuddled them, and loved them deeply. Beyond the club, they were his only family. Taking the cats from him would equate to taking Gray from me.
It was only fitting.
Thirty minutes later, we were at Brisco’s place with a sack of stale 7-Eleven chicken tenders. I pushed the key into the lock and paused.
“The ridges on this key are all the same. They’re cut to maximum height. There are only about six types of lock sets used for houses, so all you have to do is find the right key, insert it in the lock, and…” I bumped the heel of my palm against the key. “Bump it.”
The lock cylinder turned to the side.
“That’s amazing,” she said.
I flipped on the light and stepped inside. “They’re kind of wild-looking, but they’re not mean.”
She followed me inside and looked around. “No alarm?”
“Brisco’s convinced he doesn’t need one,” I said. “That’s part of what makes this so perfect.”
She shook the sack of chicken. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Ten thousand bucks’ worth of leopard fur came flying around the corner. Upon seeing Gray, the two high-speed felines attempted to stop.
“Ohmygod,” Gray blurted as they slid past her on the hardwood floor. “They’re adorable.” She looked at me. “What are they?”
“Bengals.”
“What’s a Bengal?”
“Hybrid,” I said. “They’re a crossbreed of a leopard and a domestic cat.”
In an instant were in front of her on their hind legs, clawing at the sack like they were starving.
“Can I touch them?” she asked.
“They act nuts, but they’re pretty nice.”
She attempted to pet them, but they were preoccupied with the contents of the bag. After giving them everything we brought, she sat on the floor and held one in her lap. It was purring so loudly that I could hear it from where I stood, ten feet away.
“I had a cat when I was little,” she said, looking up. “It was my best friend. Mister Bunchkins.”
“I had one, too,” I admitted. “From when I was about four until I was nineteen. Kung Fu Kitty. I called him Fu, for short.”
“Kung Fu Kitty. That’s cute.”
“He was a stray. My parents brought him home. He was a kitten when I got him. I guess he was hanging out at the grocery store, eating scraps.”
“Awwe. Mine was a shelter cat. My mom got it for me because I didn’t have any siblings. He ran away. Might have got hit by a car, but in my mind he ran away. I had him for like four or five years. Didn’t have the guts to get another after that. Losing him broke my heart.”
Losing mine broke my heart, too. My aunt’s death that soon followed was the last straw.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
“Oh, we’re taking them with us.” Cradling the purring cat in her arms, she stood. “He might not get them back.”
* * *
Leaning over the edge of my desk, Panzer pointed at the box of donuts. “You mind?”
“I don’t even know why you ask,” I replied. “Have at it, Brother.”
He fished through the box u
ntil he found a Long John. “What’s the deal?”
“What deal?”
He bit the end off the donut. “Well,” he said. “You never eat donuts before the meeting. So, something’s bothering you. That, and you told me to be here an hour early. What’s up?”
“Just need a one-on-one with you and Brisco.”
“What’d we do?”
I licked my fingers “Nothing.”
He took another bite. “Hear about Brisco’s cats?”
Acting disinterested, I nodded.
“See the pic?” he asked.
“Of what?”
He studied the two-inch long piece of pastry that remained. “Ransom note?”
Using what we’d purchased at the CVS, Gray pasted mismatched letters cut from a newspaper onto a sheet of paper. The note was left in the entry hall in an envelope. Her demands left little to the imagination.
50,o00 UsD oR tHE
CAts diE
We’LL bE iN TOucH
“No,” I said flatly. “I haven’t.”
“Brisco texted a picture of it to everyone. Like we’d recognize the method used or something.” He laughed. “Looked like something from the Lindbergh Kidnapping. Bunch of fucked up letters cut out of a newspaper and pasted on a sheet of paper.” He stood and reached for another donut. “Looks like he pissed someone off, for sure. Probably some chick.”
“Sounds like it.”
“Gray told me at lunch she’s thinking about hiring a bartender,” he said.
I nodded. “Cook, too.”
“Be good for her,” he said. “Girl works like a slave. Can’t deny her ambition.”
“She’s dedicated, that’s for sure.”
Brisco poked his big bald head into my office. “Any way I can dip out of the meeting?”
“Nope.”
“God damn, Boss.” He rubbed his head with both hands. “I’m a fucking mess.”
He looked like warmed over death. He deserved every minute of it. I shook my head adamantly, denying his request to leave early. He could wallow in it a little more, as far as I was concerned.
“Mandatory meeting if there ever was one,” I said.
He stepped inside. “What’s the ‘come early’ text about?”
I nodded toward the door. “Close the door, would ya?”
Clearly irritated by my request, he pushed the door closed. “Anything else?”
“Have a seat.”
He stomped to the chair beside Panzer and all but fell into it. He put his head in his hands and gazed at the floor between his boots.
“I don’t give a fuck if you stare at the floor,” I said. “But I need you to pay attention.”
“I’m listening,” he muttered.
“All ears,” Panzer said. “Have at it.”
I tossed my half-eaten donut in the trash and licked my fingers clean. “Gray went shopping one day and told the salesclerk who was helping her that she’d opened a biker bar. The chick asked her if she knew Randall Holderman. Said they’d been—”
“Same Randall Holderman?” Panzer asked.
“Same Randall Holderman,” I replied.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Just making sure.”
“So, this chick explains that she’s been fucking Holderman, and that he didn’t show up for a date. Gray tells her that she’s got a bar that’s filled with bikers every night. She says she’ll ask around about him. So, she does. She asks Brisco if he knows Holderman.”
Brisco raised his head. “Where’s this headed? You ain’t said two words to me in a week, and now you’re telling us old news in private.”
“In the meeting today, I’m telling the men the truth about all of this,” I explained. “I thought it was only fitting that you two know everything before the meeting. I didn’t want to take either of you by surprise.”
Brisco gave me a shitty look. “Why you want to tell everybody the truth? What fucking good is that going to—”
“Gray and I are together,” I said. “We’re in a relationship. She isn’t going anywhere.”
He looked puzzled. “So?”
“So,” I said. “I think it’s important that they know her worth. That she’s a stand-up gal. That she’s not a snitch, and that she can be trusted.”
“What…” Panzer looked at Brisco and then at me. “In the fuck are you talking about?”
There was no sense in beating around the bush any longer. “Brisco thought Gray was a snitch,” I explained. “When she came up missing a few weeks back? She was really missing. Brisco had two of the fellas kidnap her, thinking it was in the club’s best interest. She was in the desert digging her own grave when—”
Panzer shot up from his seat. His eyes were filled with an undeniable intensity. With his hands balled in fists, he peered down at Brisco. “Get up!”
Brisco looked up. The only concern he seemed to have was what remained from his missing cats. He met Panzer’s angry gaze. “Sit down, asshole.”
“Get up,” Panzer said through his teeth. “You big, dumb, chicken-shit motherfucker.”
Brisco’s posture straightened. “Talking to me like that’ll get you got, little man.”
“Settle down, Panzer,” I said. “I wanted to have both of you in here so we could get through this without making a huge deal of it.”
“You can either get up, or I’ll stomp your ass where you sit,” Panzer seethed. “That girl has done nothing but take us in like family. You’re a piece of shit—”
Brisco’s stood, slowly. Assuming they were going to argue, he opened his mouth to speak.
Panzer swung a haymaker with his right hand.
His fist plowed into the lower portion of Brisco’s jaw. The impact resembled a freight train colliding with a car that had been abandoned on the tracks. The sickening sound of bone hitting bone and teeth being knocked together caused me to cringe.
Brisco’s legs folded up like a cheap lunch bag. His body hit the floor with a thud.
“Jesus, Panzer,” I said, clearing the corner of my desk. “You knocked him the fuck out!”
“Good thing,” he said, rubbing his fist. “Because if I hadn’t, Ida kept hitting that prick until he was dead.”
I felt for a pulse. “Well, he’s alive.”
“Damned shame,” Panzer murmured.
I found satisfaction in seeing Brisco unconscious. We’d been friends for as long as I could recall, but his actions regarding Gray were unthinkable. Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to find a way to forgive him for what he’d done. Panzer’s temper wasn’t quite as bad as mine. I hoped he—and the other men—could find a way to easily set aside the mistakes Brisco made.
I looked up. “You can miss the meeting.”
He kicked Brisco’s boot. “This big dumb fuck was going to kill her? Just like that?”
“He thought he was protecting the club.”
He reached for his belt. “I ought to piss on this prick.”
Pissing on a fallen foe was a 1%er tradition, of sorts. Despite his anger, there was no way I was going to let Panzer piss on Brisco. The punishment might have been suitable for the crime, but I couldn’t let it happen.
I shot Panzer a glare and hoped it was convincing. “Don’t you dare.”
“Fucker deserves it,” he said.
“He very well might,” I said. “But it’s not going to happen. This needs to be squashed. Here and now, whenever he gets up.”
Brisco awakened, a little at a time. Once he realized where he was, he sat up and glanced around the room. He rubbed his jaw. “God damn, Panzer.” He looked up. “You coldcocked my ass.”
“Serves you right,” Panzer said, looming over him with clenched fists. “You ever fuck with that gal again, and I’ll—”
“I ain’t,” Brisco said. “She’s solid. We’re good, now.”
Panzer glared. “Oh, you’re solid now?” He cackled a dry laugh. “Now that you threatened to kill her?”
I stepped between them. “You two need to squas
h this.” I looked at each of them. “That’s why I called this meeting. Right now. Squash it. I can’t have the club seeing you two like this.”
With a little help, Brisco stood. He looked at Panzer with glassy eyes. “I was just doing what I thought was best for the club, Brother.” He rubbed his jaw. “Thought she was working for the cops. Think about it. If she was, we’d all be doin’ time in the joint.”
“She’s like a little fucking sister to the club, you dumb fuck,” Panzer snarled. “Next time you’re going to kidnap someone this entire fucking club knows, you should ask around first.”
Brisco glanced at me, started to speak, and then looked at Panzer. “There won’t be a next time.”
Panzer face glowed red. He glared at Brisco with eyes as think as slits.
“Squash it,” I said, nodding at him as I spoke.
He extended his hand. “I ain’t forgiving you,” he said through his teeth. “Because it ain’t forgivable. I’ll squash it, though.”
Brisco reached for his hand. “Appreciate it.”
Panzer shook his hand. “When she finds out what you did, you’re liable to have another fight on your hands.”
Brisco’s eyes narrowed. “Who says she needs to know?”
Panzer glanced at me. “If he’s not telling her, I am.”
“She already knows.” I looked at each of the men. “We good?”
With expressed apprehension, they eventually nodded.
Considering all things, it went fractionally better than I anticipated. One down, one to go.
* * *
Keto raised his hand. “Hold up a minute. Pig Pen’s daughter is basically going to be a ‘hang-around’. How can this be in the club’s best interest?”
I was sure he was reciting what he’d heard Brisco say on the day they were trying to strongarm me into changing my mind about Gray, but I couldn’t be sure. If there was a consensus with the group, I needed to know.
“Maybe you weren’t paying attention when I said they haven’t spoken in ten fucking years,” I barked. “She thinks he’s a bigger piece of shit than we do.”
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