Freedom.
I started walking into the room again, noticing how quiet it was without everyone here. Most people had gone off to The Pit in town since for the first time in weeks we were all back together and we wanted to show the Burning Eights a good time, and so the clubhouse was eerily quiet, barring Dom and Butch laughing.
“Hey,” I called out.
Butch stood up quickly, dropping his beer on to Dom’s lap and spilling beer all over the other man who cursed loudly, and I burst out laughing.
“What the fuck, man?” Butch barked out. “What the fuck are you creeping around like that for?”
Dom stood up, his whole crotch soaked in beer and I laughed again and threw my t-shirt to him to mop it up since I hadn’t bothered to put it back on yet. He snatched it from the air and swiped at the beer giving me a grumbled thanks. Brother was moodier than Butch and didn’t talk much. Most women liked to try to get him to open up, but none succeeded. Didn’t stop it being funny to watch em’ try though.
“Creeping around?” I chuckled.
“Didn’t realise anyone was still here,” Butch growled out, his eyebrows pulled down harshly. “Thought you would have gone with everyone else to The Pit.”
I rubbed my greasy hands down my jeans and headed to the bar with a smirk. “Nah, trying to fix the AC on the roof,” I explained, “trying to anyway.”
“No good?” Butch asked and I shook my head.
“Whole systems fucked. Needs replacin’. Things older than Pops,” I laughed, and Butch cracked a smile. “Going to price up a new system. I’ll get the costs to you as soon as I can. Gonna be a couple of days before it’s up and running again though.”
“Shit,” Butch replied, dragging a hand through his beard.
I raised in eyebrow in question and grabbed a bottle of beer before popping it open and taking a swig. Butch looked over at Dom who was still scowling at having his cock and balls beer soaked. I smirked at him.
“Women will thank you for it later, brother,” I said, nodding towards his crotch. “Little something extra for all their hard work, am I right?” I laughed.
Butch laughed and Dom glared at the other man before dropping the t-shirt on to the sofa and storming away. I watched him go with an amused smile on my face.
“What’s his deal?” I asked.
Butch shrugged, his gaze on the space where Dom had just been. “Don’t worry about it. Just get the AC back on. The Burning Eights are sticking around for the week. Hardy wants them to go on the next run with us, split everything down the middle since it’s a big job for the Reverend and the Eights lost a big load last week.” Butch didn’t sound or look happy about the decision, but it was Hardy’s choice, not his, in the end.
“Better get this shit working real soon then,” I said, pulling on my cut. “I’ll go straight into town and see if I can pick up the new system straight away.”
“You need anyone with you?” he asked, moving around the sofa.
I shook my head. “I got it handled. Gonna need to take a cage though.”
“Least that’ll have air con,” Butch chuckled and I laughed back.
I swallowed the rest of my beer and headed for the door, turning back briefly to watch Butch head off into the direction Dom had gone. They’d been best friends since I’d joined, kinda like Fighter and I, though in the past couple of months there’d been a lot of tension between the two men. No one knew why, and no one wanted to ask, and since it wasn’t affecting the clubs runnings, Hardy didn’t give a shit either.
I climbed into one of the clubs trucks and started the engine before heading into town to the hardware store. It was a small family run business, but it was where I always went. It kept a lot of things in stock, and I’d known Alfie, the owner, since I was a kid.
I drove down the main road through the centre of town, my arm hanging lazily from the window. Loved my Fat Boy, and normally hated being caged up in a truck or car, but there was something to be said for the cool air currently blowing through my hair after working up on the sun-drenched roof. I slowed down and pulled off my shades as I passed a woman wearing chucks, tight blue denim cut-off shorts and a faded black cut-off t-shirt. She was stunning: hair held back by a yellow bandana, though a few loose blonde hairs were hanging on her shoulders. A tattoo trailed lazily down her spine, and as I passed I looked out of my window to get a better look at it, wondering what it was.
Damn, but she was gorgeous and my dick got hard at just the sight of her ass sashaying as she walked. Looked like an angel or some shit, the way the sun bounced off her blond hair and porcelain skin.
A car in front of me sounded its horn and I slammed on my brakes, coming to a stop, millimetres before hitting a little car on the junction. I waved a hand at them.
“Sorry!” I called out of the window, turning my attention to the road instead of the fine piece of ass I’d just passed.
I started driving again, ignoring the death glare from the old guy in the car I’d just nearly rammed into, and pulled up outside the hardware store and climbed out. I looked back to where I’d just seen the woman but I couldn’t see her anymore. Probably ran a mile when she saw a man like me staring at her. I chuckled at the thought. Yeah, that woman was the Yin to my Yang, White and pure where I was black as they come, my soul dipping down into hell for a taste of the bad stuff.
I pushed open the door to the Hardware store and tried to shake off all thoughts of her for now.
“Hey,” Alfie, the owner of the store called as I made my way to the counter. He was a cool guy. Eighty years old and still going strong. He had two sons of his own, but neither of them knew how to look after themselves, never mind a business. So Alfie was still working. He’d been good friends with my grandfather and so I held a soft spot for the guy.
“Hey, old man,” I called, shaking his hand as I got closer. “Looking good, you get a little botox on the forehead maybe?” I joked.
“Smart ass!” he chuckled back. “Think it must be the new diet Mary’s got me on. Something to do with cutting out carbs and anything fried, and no sugar.” He shrugged and I glanced over at the half-eaten bucket of fried chicken he had behind the counter and smirked. “Well you didn’t come here to ask over my good looks now did you, so what can I do you for?”
“The AC unit at the clubhouse is shot, need a new one asap,” I explained.
“You still with that club?” he asked with a tut.
He always asked, despite knowing I was a patched in member. He wasn’t a huge fan of clubs and I understood why; we were known for running drugs and killing anyone who got in our way. Wasn’t a hole heap to like about us when you looked at it that way. But club life wasn’t always about drugs and killing. It was much more than that. Yet despite repeated attempts, Alfie had never got it.
“Got an order coming in an about an hour actually. Ordered a new unit for Officer Forbes, but I can delay him and give you his. It’s a good one too, didn’t waste his money on it.”
I laughed and agreed immediately. Could have been a piece of shit for all I cared, but the fact that it was that little dipshit Forbes’s made me want it regardless.
Alfie looked at his watch. “Like I said, gonna be about an hour if you wanna come back. Course you’ll get it a hell of a lot cheaper than the good officer.” He winked. “I’ll get the paperwork ready and get the boys to load you up as soon as you come back.”
“Boys?” I asked, because his two sons weren’t worth shit. Both of them had gone off to some fancy college and quit after a couple of months and were now sucking the life out of the old man instead of letting him retire.
“Got me some apprentices. Hard working kids too.” He smiled proudly. “Never too shy to put in the hard work for me. Only wish my two could have been the same.”
“Who’s boys are they?” I asked.
“Alex William’s kids from the fire department. They wanted to work there over the summer and earn some extra cash, but they’re not taking anyone on right now so
I said I’d help out. Though, truth be, they’re helping me more than the other way around. Worth their weight in gold,” he said confidentially.
I smiled. “Glad someone’s helping you out, old man. You ever need anything though, you know the clubs got your back.” I shook his hand again, holding on to it for an extra beat and clasping my other hand over the top. “Especially me, ya’ hear me? I’ll be back in an hour.”
I headed out of the door and back to where I’d seen the hot piece of ass that I’d nearly crashed the clubs truck over. Figured she owed me for nearly causing a collision. Had no doubt she wouldn’t mind paying whatever I thought was fair either, I decided darkly.
After walking for fifteen minutes up and down the high street, I gave up looking for her. Maybe she was a figment of my imagination. A delusion my sun-heated brain had made up to help get me through the day. My imagination had great taste.
I headed over to the old skate park to watch some of the little shits do some stunts. It was where I’d spent most of my childhood and where Fighter and I had first met and toked our first joint together. It held both good and bad memories for me. But mostly, it was shaded because it was under the freeway which went overhead, and I clearly needed to get out of the sun for a little while.
I sat down in the shade, and watched the boys trying out tricks that they weren’t ready for, but were eager to do regardless, shaking my head when one gangly-assed kid fell off and cursed loudly as the ground scraped away the skin from his shin leaving a trail of blood down his leg. He hobbled away ignoring the echo of taunts that trailed after him. Poor kid, I thought chuckling to myself. I lit a cigarette and leaned back, closing my eyes against the brightness of the day. Because even under here, you couldn’t get away from the heat.
“Can I borrow your lighter?” a soft and sexy voice said from behind me.
I opened my eyes and turned in my seat, squinting up against the sunlight behind me and trying to focus on the woman stood there. My gaze moved up from her chucks to her slender legs that looked even longer in the short as shit cut-offs she was wearing. To the cut off Led Zeppelin tee she was wearing, and right up until I was standing up so I could look into the face of the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“Borrow?” I replied, feeling my dick grow hard in my jeans as I stared at her ample chest like I was a teenage boy living out my own personal wet dream.
“Your lighter,” she said with a smirk. “Can I borrow it.” She held up her own unlit cigarette. “I’ve been looking for a store to buy one since I got here, but no luck so far.” She smiled again
“Fuck, yeah, sorry,” I replied and reached into my pocket to grab my lighter.
I held out my hand to her and she reached out to take the lighter, her soft fingertips grazing my rough palm, and the weirdest fucking thing happened. Something I would never have expected in a million years. Something you heard crazy love-sick women talking about. Or the sort of cheesy thing you saw happen in movies. But this was no movie. This was real fucking life, and when her hand touched mine, it felt like I was being electrocuted, but in a good way. Because I couldn’t imagine being electrocuted would make my balls draw up and my dick go even harder. But that was sure as hell what happened to me as our skin touched.
She dropped the lighter back into my palm and looked up at me sharply, sucking in a gasp of air. And I knew right there and then, that she’d felt it too.
BATTLE IS COMING…
GET READY…
Thanks
As always thanks so much to my amazing team: Amy, my editor; Elizabeth, my cover designer; and my reviewers, bloggers, and beta readers! I honestly couldn’t do this without each and every one of you. Thank you so much for everything you do.
Huge thanks also goes to the most important things that make up my stories. Because without these things my books wouldn’t be the same messed-up, crazy, beautiful stories that you love!
So, thank you to hot men, tattoos, Harley Davidson, whiskey, cockiness, and most of all wild love!
Claire / Cee Cee xox
‘Great books are birthed from the dreams of the writer.
But really great books are grown from the readers that believe in them.’
If you find the time to leave a review for ‘SKETCH’, tell a friend about it, or simply dog-ear the pages of the paperback, I would be extremely grateful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claire C. Riley is a USA Today and International bestselling author.
Claire writes in the darker side of fiction, dipping her pen into genres such as post-apocalyptic-romance, dystopian, thrillers and even horror. She also writes under the pen name of Cee Cee Riley, where she writes in the MC romance and post-apocalyptic romance genres.
Claire lives in the United Kingdom with her husband, three daughters and naughty rescue beagle where she can be found whiling away her days taking long walks in the rain and smiling happily… just kidding, she’s normally running around chasing after her kids, naughty beagle puppy, husband and of course her dreams!
Author of:
Odium The Dead Saga Series
Odium Origins Series
Limerence (The Obsession Series)
Out of the Dark
Twisted Magic
Beautiful Victim
Blood Claim
Co – Authored Books with Madeline Sheehan:
Thicker than Blood series
& Shut Up & Kiss me
Under her pen name of Cee Cee Riley
Ride or Die a Devil’s Highwaymen MC series
Devil’s Highwaymen Nomad Series
CONTACT LINKS:
Website:
www.clairecriley.com
Claire C. Riley FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/ClaireCRileyAuthor/
Cee Cee Riley FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/CeeCeeRileyBooks/?ref=br_rs
Amazon:
http://amzn.to/1GDpF3I
Group: Riley’s Rebels:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ClaireCRileyFansGroup/
Newsletter Sign-up:
https://clairecriley.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=eda86431d68098539defc1e7b&id=4e6a3dd390
DO YOU WANT MORE OF THE HIGHWAYMEN?
HAVE YOU READ RIDE OR DIE THE DEVIL’S HIGWAYMEN SERIES YET?
Read on for the first chapter of RIDE OR DIE ONE!
About the book
Ride or Die #1
A Devil’s Highwaymen MC novel
“We would blow up this world and create something beautiful in its ruins”
Jesse & Laney 1985
We were each survivors of our upbringing: lost, unloved and afraid. Yet like moths to a flame, we couldn’t stay apart.
We loved.
We lost.
We fought.
We cried.
And then we shattered each other’s hearts.
Jesse was a hard man; a biker outlaw for the Devil’s Highwaymen MC Club. I was Laney; the daughter of a dead mother and a father that didn’t know or want me.
We were doomed right from the start.
But this was our romance.
And this was our disaster.
And hopefully, this would be our second chance.
Prologue
1973
It was different this time.
I didn’t know how, or why; I just knew it was.
Even at five years old, I knew the difference between high and dead.
Watching her from my hiding place, I stared silently at her slack jaw and pallid skin. Her chest was rising and falling, quickly at first and then slowly. Her mouth was open, the hue of her pale tongue just showing near her yellow teeth. I wanted to reach over and close her lips, but was too afraid to.
I didn’t want to touch her.
I never did—not when she was like this.
She wasn’t my mommy when she was like this. She was a monster.
Gone were her loving arms and soft kisses, and instead she was…someone else.
I glanced at the ticking clock above the fireplace, wishing that I could make time speed up. I didn’t know what time it was; I couldn’t tell the time yet, but Butch had said he would be home by 4 p.m. and he had pointed to where the hands of the clock would be at that time, so I would know. But it seemed so far away now, and I wondered if I should go get help, because this time was different.
I knew it.
I started to crawl out from under the kitchen table. It was a big old wooden thing, with scratches and score marks across the top. Underneath was where Butch had carved both of our names. I almost bumped my head as I was getting out from under it; I was getting bigger now, but I ducked just in time, thankfully. My head still hurt where she’d hit me and I rubbed it tenderly, feeling the large bump below my fingertips.
She would be sorry when she came around—she always was. I was her Jesse, her little gunslinger, and she loved me more than the moon and the stars. She couldn’t help the things she did; she was sick. I understood that.
She was lying on the hard linoleum floor, and I crawled to her, my blue eyes blinking slowly as I took in her face, my body drawing closer to her.
Vomit had dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. It smelled bad, like stale cookies and old carrots. The needle was still poked in her arm, and even though Butch had said never ever to touch them, I couldn’t help myself. I reached over and I pulled it out of her arm, because I didn’t like it still being stuck in her. If I could, I would have taken all of the pain and the poison out of her too, so I could have had my mommy back.
Sketch: The Devil's Highwaymen Nomads #2 Page 15
