by Lynn Burke
My eyes stung. Fucking stung.
Klingon’s words decided to ring in my ears, and I twisted toward her.
“Touch my beard, Pia.”
Her breath caught, and she peered up at me, silent.
“Please,” I said. “You caught me off guard—but I want you to. Try. Please.”
She slowly sat, her attention not leaving my face.
I tensed as her hand lifted, but focused on her eyes, the desire pouring from them. My breath caught at the first, gentle brush.
Don’t. Fucking. Move.
Stone cold, unmoving, I endured her fingers on my beard, my gut clenching even though my dick stirred to life again.
Pia’s hand dropped to her lap, her eyes shining with tears—but smiling. Goddamn, did she smile. “Thank you,” she whispered again, and I found myself falling even harder, something I didn’t think possible.
Sudden fear snaked in like a goddamn thief, and I moved away, intent on my leathers and bike. “Want to ride?”
“Definitely.”
Fifteen minutes later, we shot up Route 1, but I didn’t shy away from the brush of her thighs—fucking craved the motion with an ache almost as painful as the truth I could never be what she needed.
Chapter Sixteen
Pia
My ass was worn out. Exhausted. Sunburned from nose to toes by the time Ryker dropped me off at my apartment Sunday night. He didn’t take me up on the offer to stay, but I didn’t push.
Waking up face to face—but not touching—had still satisfied in some way. He hadn’t asked me to touch him again, and I made sure to hold myself in check, but the hope inside me couldn’t be defeated.
We’d gone out for a real dinner twice. We’d made love face to face again—I couldn’t call what we’d done fucking. The emotional connection we had went beyond anything I’d experienced, hell, beyond anything I’d hoped for, and I found contentment in that even though I hadn’t yet tasted his lips.
Yet.
He spent the week up north at his home, his club, while I toiled away still trying to find my missing girl and find Dasia a new home. The high of the weekend diminished with each passing day as dreariness crept in with the constant clouds and drizzle.
At least the heat wave ended. I had a sweater wrapped around me beneath the umbrella while running into Dunks Tuesday morning. Jesse handed me my coffee—and two donuts in a bag because I deserved them, damnit.
Ryker liked my thighs, anyway.
Jesse hadn’t heard a peep about Sophia, and when he’d asked, I assured him Dasia was doing better.
Griffey watched her enough to creep her out, but he kept his hands to himself and hadn’t tried any funny stuff. I told her I was still searching for a new home for her.
Tuesday night over the phone, Ryker’s rumbling voice and commands had my fingers buried inside my pussy—and I came hard, his name on my lips, my life a bit brighter again.
Wednesday night it poured, and I watched him on video chat jerk himself off, his curses and grunts making me as wet as the stoop of my apartment.
“I want to watch you, little lamb,” he said when he finished. “Put your fingers inside that sweet pussy—let me see.”
His groaned words sent another rush of wetness to drip from my core, and I held my cell down there—not even ashamed or embarrassed by the wet noises my fingers made sliding in and out of my needy channel.
“Come for me, Pia,” he growled. “Soak your fingers.”
I did.
“Be a filthy little lamb and lick them clean. Tell me how sweet you taste.”
Heat flooded my face on that command, but I did what he wanted, missing him and his loving so damn much I wanted to cry.
I hoped for another weekend together, but he called Thursday and said the club had things going on.
I resigned myself to a quiet weekend at home, something I hadn’t had for a while—and did not enjoy.
Books, wine, ice cream—silence of the good kind from the Dasia and Griffey asshole front—I should have been in heaven.
My thoughts on heaven had changed, or rather, Ryker had changed them for me. I missed his nearness, the scent of his soap, his voice, his scowl, even.
He promised the following weekend—and I hung my hat and hopes on that invitation.
Chapter Seventeen
Ryker
Friday morning, I grabbed my mail from the previous couple of days while slugging down my first cup of coffee. The cool morning air filled my lungs, waking me more than the damn caffeine. Birds tweeted their happiness at the rising sun, but I scowled.
Amid the pile of junk and bills was a card with my name and address perfectly printed on the front—handwriting I recognized.
Fucking Martínez.
I tossed aside the mail and set my coffee down before ripping the envelope open. Not bothering to read the fancy script, I scanned to the bottom of the card, affirming what I’d guessed.
Martínez didn’t give two shits about my mom—he’d told me in Dunks he’d heard she wasn’t doing well and hadn’t inquired over her health or the stage four lung cancer she’d been diagnosed with a couple months earlier. No, the fucker sent that card to let me know he had eyes and ears about. We hadn’t published an obituary, and Jenny only let those who’d been close with mom know she’d passed.
And the fact he’d sent the card to my home in Topsfield rather than Mom’s condo where I’d been staying? He wanted me to know he was watching, that nothing escaped his notice.
I tossed the card aside and scrubbed a hand down over my scruffy scalp.
A quick call through to Klingon eased the anxiety twisting my gut a bit, but sure as fuck didn’t ease my mind.
The Vipers headed up to Maine that night for the weekend. Warden’s old lady, Shaun, had purchased twenty acres of wilderness earlier in the summer, and the contractors she’d hired to set up a dozen rough-pine bunk houses had finally finished the job.
Over twenty bikes rumbled up 95, Scully following with a truck and trailer full of food, sleeping bags, grills, and other shit the old ladies had decided we need for our two night stay. We’d never made a full-on road trip, and the comradery made me want to smile. We’d been too busy packing up and readying to leave, that my brothers and their new lovers weren’t all over each other, making me uncomfortable.
Longing for Pia had me scratching my chest on more than one occasion, and even though we’d had some hot as fuck phone sex—another first for my old ass—I hadn’t invited her to come along.
She was too good for the likes of me, a cold hearted bastard who liked to bloody his hands alongside his Viper brothers, and she sure as fuck wouldn’t fit in.
Two of said brothers got into a drunken fight Friday night not an hour after we set up camp in Maine. One lost a tooth, another ended up with a crooked nose. I’d let them have at it, even though as Sergeant at Arms, I shouldn’t have. The fuckers had been toeing the line for months—nothing better than a bare knuckle brawl to settle the score of whatever bullshit rode them.
The fuckers even hugged afterward and clanked bottles of JD together before ambling off to get even more shit-faced than they already were.
I sat by the bonfire alongside Vigil, his brother Ricky, our VP, and Devil on my other side. The two of them bullshitted about pussy and getting their fucking fill, but I couldn’t get my mind off Pia.
Soft, warm, little lamb, who listened so well when told to keep her hands put.
The fire crackled, sending a red ember onto my jeans. I flicked it off and swigged on my beer, leaning back in my folding chair to check out the vast expanse of stars overhead as the marijuana smoke from Vigil’s joint drifted past me.
A radio played over near one of the bunk houses, and voices raised here and there—some laughing, some singing. Three of the old ladies and a couple of whores Vigil allowed to come along for the weekend danced beyond the fire, beer bottles in hand, cut off shorts and crop tops not even twitching my dick.
“Where the fuck you at, Ryker?
”
I lifted my head back toward the stars, ignoring Vigil and his high as fuck ass.
“That woman?” he pushed.
“Yeah,” I admitted, swigging on my beer again.
“Devil said you took care of that prick touching the kid she’s in charge of.”
I hadn’t told Vigil about the mess and what I’d done to hopefully clean it up. Hadn’t involved the club, so I’d kept the shit to myself. The less who knew, the better. Devil must have been the one to blab, the loose-tongued fuck.
“I did,” I told Vigil, turning toward him, ready to take whatever shit he tossed my way.
He peered at me while sucking on his joint, one side of his face hid in darkness, the other pale eye and bushy brow lit by the flickering flames beside us. “Shit like that comes up again, you tell me,” he said while fighting to hold the smoke in his lungs. “Let your brothers have your back.”
I nodded, knowing that’s exactly what he’d have wanted.
He let the cloud escape his lips. “I know it’s personal for you.”
Another swallow of beer slid down my throat.
“But that makes it personal for all of us. Understand?”
I nodded again.
“When are you going to bring her around?”
I shook my head, eyeing the burning joint in his hand.
“Broody bastard.”
“Takes one to know one,” I tossed out.
“Why didn’t you invite her this weekend? You’re obviously fucking gone on her—glazed eyes and all that shit like you’re dreaming of flowering fields and picket fences.”
I scowled, suddenly not having as much fun as I’d been having. “The fuck I do.”
He snorted a laugh, more a goddamn giggle thanks to the pot. “She’s got you wrapped around her goddamn little finger if you ask me.”
“Not asking you,” I grunted the words. “Besides, she’s too good for all of this.” I swept my hand out, indicating the whole fucking camp. Pot heads. Drunks. Whores sucking off brothers at the camp’s edge. Dozens of hands that had been bloodied by violence. “She doesn’t belong here.”
“Like Warden’s heiress?” Vigil asked with a snort before filling his lungs again. The seconds ticked by while he held the smoke in his lungs. “Or Stone’s successful model—the judge’s daughter who’s dancing over there and living it up?” he asked with a steady exhale of smoke.
“You know what I mean,” I said through grit teeth.
“No, I don’t. Pia is a social worker—hard-working blue collar, same as most of your brothers and their old ladies who work outside the home.”
I cast him a side-eye, my gaze narrowed. “How the fuck you know so much about her?”
“I make it a point to know who is fucking with my brothers.” He offered me the joint, but I shook my head. “Make it a point to watch over every single one of your asses—even if you don’t think you need looking after.”
He sucked down another hit, the glowing ember close to his fingers, and unsure what to say, I didn’t bother opening my fucking mouth.
Giada abandoned the dancing women and slid onto Stone’s lap, their mouths fusing, his hand finding her ass.
I looked away.
“You let her touch you yet?” Vigil asked, flicking what was left of his burned out joint into the fire.
I drank down the last of my beer while recalling her touch on my beard—the only one I’d allowed the rest of that weekend we’d spent in Ogunquit. “Not much more than I let the club whores.”
“Why the fuck not?”
I turned to fully face Vigil—one of my best friends. “I want it. Fucking crave it like a goddamn lunatic,” I spewed the shit from my aching chest.
“So what’s the problem?”
“You know what my fucking problem is,” I said, keeping my voice low even though Devil and Ricky laughed in their own little world of pussy and tit stories on my other side. “You’re one of the few who does.”
“What’s Klingon say?”
He would know I’d go to my childhood friend first. “To take baby steps.”
“So you’re at least trying?”
“Trying.”
Vigil leaned over to grab a bag of chips off the ground beside him. He offered the opened end toward me.
“I’m good.”
“Anything new on that shit show over Stone’s woman?” Vigil asked loudly, definitely intending for the other officers around the fire to hear.
The question caught Devil’s attention who leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Your buddy Martínez is down in South America,” he told me.
“And Klingon says all is quiet in Vegas,” I added, letting the others know what I’d already told Vigil.
“And my sister says our father hasn’t even mentioned the Vipers,” Giada pipped up from across the fire.
“I’m not afraid of that fat fuck,” Vigil said around a mouthful of chips.
“Might want to be if he gets elected to the Senate in a few months,” Ricky muttered.
“Tell them about the card,” Vigil changed the conversation before cramming another handful of chips into his mouth.
“Martínez send me a condolence card.”
“Nice of him,” Ricky grunted while staring into the fire.
“Fucker didn’t give two shits about her,” I tossed at him, my tone sharp as my glare on his face. “Didn’t even ask about her when I’d met him that morning at Dunks.”
“Fucking prick,” Devil said, crossing his arms. “Thought you two grew up together.”
“We did, but he’s a selfish, arrogant cocksucker.” I sat back, gaze scanning around the campfire and the other officers. Even though Giada and Shaun had joined us, Vigil had told me to share the club business. Guess that meant all of it.
“Worse part,” I said, rubbing a hand over my scalp, “is he knew to send the card to my house rather than Mom’s condo where I’d been staying. He knew I’d left Southie and wanted me to know he knew it.”
“Sure he wasn’t just reaching out as an old friend?”
“We didn’t put an obituary in the paper,” I told Ricky who peered at me, his pale eyes glinting in the firelight. “And she only had a couple of friends Jenny called after she’d passed. She wasn’t a known woman around Southie, so how would he have known about her death unless he’s been watching me—my family?”
“Fuck,” Warden cursed, shifting Shaun on his lap. “Think Jenny needs someone watching her back?”
“She’s in Vegas. Suppose I could give Klingon a call.” I scratched at my chest. “Vigil?”
He shrugged, his pot-reddened eyes peering at me while he crunched on another mouthful of chips.
“Warden?” I asked, turning once more to the man who would think about my family’s security. His company had been getting paid to watch people’s asses for years.
“Your call, Ryker, but if I had a sister…”
“Call him,” Stone said, his cool gaze catching mine through the fire. As Warden’s number one employee, he’d think that way, too.
“Think the situation warrants that kind of heightened security?” I asked, glancing around again at all my brothers. “She’s so fucking far away, and the one’s he’ll want if he finds out anything—us—are all right here. Our fucking families are all right here.”
“Yeah,” Warden said, “but we’ve got security already in place. Jenny’s on her own.”
“Better to be safe than sorry,” Giada spoke up. “We took precautions and still lost my brother.” Her voice choked up, and Stone tugged her closer. “You don’t want to lose a sibling, Ryker,” she whispered. “Trust me on that.”
I held her intense stare above the flickering flames. She’d been to fucking hell and back—the woman knew pain.
“I’ll call Klingon,” I said.
A few of my brothers nodded.
“Fuck, this shit is a mood killer,” Vigil muttered. “I need another joint. Or a whore.”
“Please,” Shaun sai
d with an eye roll.
“All out of pot so I guess I’ll just have to go get my dick sucked,” Vigil said with a grin, grabbing between his spread legs, the high fucker.
Both Shaun and Giada made gagging noises, same as every time he made that statement in their presence.
“Everything is gonna be okay,” Devil said to me as Vigil wondered away in search of a club whore whose mouth wasn’t already full of Viper dick. “That shit got cleaned up. No fucking way Martínez will find a goddamn thing. I’m getting another beer,” he said while pushing up. “You want one?”
I shook my head, telling myself that everything would be okay. Sure as fuck didn’t feel like it though. He meandered off.
“I’ll take one, you asshole!” Ricky hollered after him.
Stone and Giada went back to sucking face, and I had a sudden hankering for watermelon. My legs grew restless, my gaze flitting across the camp and the ruckus that had heightened around me while we’d been talking business. Rubbing at my forearm, I considered missing Pia was probably what set me on edge.
Or, maybe it was the memory of her touchy-feeling hands.
A shiver rippled over me as I moved my fingertips from my forearm, but I couldn’t decide if it was longing or loathing over the memory—the want—of her touch.
Chapter Eighteen
Pia
I finally got a lead on Sophia while slaving away, stifled to death in my office on Monday morning.
A voice message on my extension at work—the young woman herself.
“Hey,” the low, husky voice I would know anywhere. “Heard you were worrying about me—no need to. I’m making it just fine on my own. Take care, Miss Pia.”
I sobbed. Literally shook in my chair, tears coursing down my cheeks as a weight I hadn’t realized lay over me lifted fully.
Sophia was okay.
I wondered what had taken her so freaking long to call me and let me know, but maybe she hadn’t known how upset I was over her disappearance. She didn’t leave a number, but I could live with that.
She was alive. Sounded better than I’d ever heard her.
Moving onto the Dasia case blew the wind from my sails, though. Mr. Griffey started to creep her out again. Watched her. Brushed against her twice on Sunday—before muttering an apology.
