Rough and Ready

by Cathleen Ross

  “I’m going to call an ambulance,” she said.

  “No, you’re not. He’s been stealing from the brothers. He hurt you,” Glass said.

  “Hugo. Help me,” she pleaded.

  “It’s the brothers’ business, Alice.” He looked from Glass to Mad Dog, his gaze settling on the prostrate man. “This is a lesson to you all,” he roared, his gaze meeting theirs one by one. “No one hurts Alice.”

  He wasn’t going to finish it. The gorgeous warrior was back. He was hers.

  Glass and the brothers gathered around him, their disappointment acute, but Alice also saw respect. Her father glared at her, his dark eyes glittering with anger, but she glared right back at him, her father’s daughter, knowing despite his fury, he loved her.

  Hugo untangled her hands from around the back of his neck, pushed her gently down to the ground, and put his arm around her shoulders. He was soaked with sweat, but she gripped him anyway, thrilled she’d gotten through to him.

  “Why the hell did you let her in here?” he asked the brothers, his voice hoarse with distress.

  “Daddy gave me a key,” she said.

  “Give it to me, Alice,” her father demanded.

  She handed it over.

  Mad Dog turned on his side and coughed up blood.

  Hugo shielded her eyes by drawing her to him. “Come away. I don’t want you seeing this.”

  Now wasn’t the time to do her I’m-a-nurse-I-see-this-sort-of-thing-all-the-time talk. Not when he clearly enjoyed protecting her.

  Hugo strode across the room with his arm around her to the lounge area.

  Hound, the Sergeant at Arms, handed Hugo his knife. “Good fight until Mad Dog bit you and we were interrupted.” He tilted his head in her direction, but she narrowed her eyes and glared at him.

  “Thanks. Next time match me to someone who can fight. Even stakes so I don’t have to pull my punches,” Hugo said, pulling his T-shirt back over his head.

  Her mouth dropped open in shock. Hugo enjoyed this deadly arena. “Not happening,” she said to Hound. “There won’t be a next time.”

  “Don’t be a spoilsport, Alice,” Hound said. “He’s too good to waste. We’ve got enough room to put on fights here. Think of the money we could make off him, the betting and the alcohol sales. You’re always complaining we’re not legit.” Out of all of the brothers, Hound was reasonable, at least to her. One of the few she liked.

  “Hugo is looking after me, so I don’t end up like Momma,” she said.

  He nodded, clearly entertained by the argument over him.

  The Enforcer handed Hugo his pistol holder. “You gonna put up with that? Being told what to do by this fancy piece of pussy?”

  Alice couldn’t stand Cain, the Enforcer. The man was too violent, stank like beer, and took more drugs than he could handle. Her hackles raised. “Butt out, Cain. You’re nothing but a druggie. One day there’s going to be nothing of you left.”

  The Enforcer bristled, and his eyes narrowed. “If your father wasn’t the president, I’d smack you in the mouth.”

  Hugo pulled her behind him. “You don’t touch her. In the future, you don’t want a woman spoiling the fight, don’t let her in the club.”

  There wasn’t going to be a next time if she had her way.

  Glass stood nearby watching, his black eyes glinting. He folded his arms. She knew she’d won this time. Just. It didn’t give her any pleasure. She didn’t want to score points off her father. He was way more cunning than she’d ever be, and now he would suspect they were having sex because she was so protective of Hugo. Hugo didn’t belong to the club, so he wasn’t under Daddy’s rule. That didn’t mean there wouldn’t be consequences.

  But he could be useful to the club, too.

  He had weapons experience. He could fight. He could kill. Now the brothers had a taste of the warrior, they’d want him.

  And he’d be lost to her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You going to take long to stitch this?” Hugo sat on the kitchen stool in Alice’s apartment, wearing only black boxer shorts, while she cleaned the bite on his pectoral muscle. It oozed blood and stung like hell, but he enjoyed the attention. Her hands touching his chest went straight to his cock. She had that magic in her.

  “Be patient. This bite is bad. It’s jagged like a dog’s. You need a jab of antibiotics. A bite wound is highly susceptible to infection.”

  “Will it protect me from rabies?”

  She didn’t laugh. Instead she frowned, her normally sparkling blue eyes dull, before returning to stitching each puncture wound with meticulous care. “What were you thinking getting into a fight like that? You could have been killed.”

  “Mad Dog insulted you.”

  “The brothers’ opinions don’t interest me. I care about you. I’ve learned to live my life without the biker community. I cut them off when I went to college, and I refuse to be dragged back in and matched up like some breeding cow to one of them.”

  “He called you a whore, Alice. I’m not having it. No one gets to make what we have together dirty.” Because it is damned special to me.

  She looked him square in the face. “Hugo, you can’t appear to be so invested in me.”

  “I am ‘invested.’” He used her word cautiously. It wasn’t like he’d ever told a woman that he cared. He expected to see joy in her eyes, instead of haunting pain and fear.

  “Then hide it. Daddy will think we’re sleeping together.” She took her scissors from her first aid box and snipped the stitch before starting on the next one.

  “Glass knows we’re having sex. Mad Dog saw us go into the Voodoo Club. Announced it to everyone.”

  She froze, the needle in the air, and her face drained of color. “What? Hell and damnation. I knew that low-down piece of garbage was spying on us. You’re going to have to leave here tonight.”

  “Don’t be childish, Alice. I’m not running from ‘Daddy.’”

  “I don’t want you hurt because of me.” Clearly concerned, she pressed her hand to his cheek, her thumb stroking his jaw, and it sent a ripple to his heart. She’d never asked him for anything long-term, but he knew from her warm, gentle touch that he affected her.

  He took in a long breath of her shampoo. Caramel. Good enough to eat. “Alice,” he sighed. “Don’t worry. Not for me.” I’m not worthy of her concern.

  He was here based on a lie, and it was going to cleave her heart when she worked it out. He fucking didn’t know what he was going to do about it. He didn’t want a relationship based on a lie, but he couldn’t tell her. And since when did he do relationships anyway?

  “Don’t go all noble on me, Hugo. You don’t understand. Daddy is a bad man. You can’t mess with what he considers his property.” She pierced the next jagged piece of skin, drawing it together.

  “You mean you?”

  “Yes. In a biker club, women are property.” She tied off the stitch and snipped it.

  “I’m trained to kill, sweetheart. He won’t want to mess with me.” He liked it when she played nursey with him. What they shared, the sex they had at the Voodoo Club, the adventure, the fun. He couldn’t let it go. Not now. Not yet. But he had to.

  Just her touch, her vulnerability, her gentleness: it drew him to her like a moth to a light and made him desperate to fuck her. No, not fuck her. Make love to her, with meaning, looking into her eyes, so he didn’t miss a thing.

  “But that’s just it. I don’t want anything to happen to Daddy, either. With Momma in a coma, I’m all alone.”

  He bent and nuzzled her face. “No, you’re not. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not afraid of your father.”

  “Then you should be. You’re a single guy against a force of men who use terror to control. The first boyfriend I had at school got beaten for kissing me.” She straightened, her hand trembled, and she took a deep breath. “The brothers held me, made me watch while they terrorized a sixteen-year-old boy. My father made it clear that I could only date me
n from the club. I didn’t date again.”

  “Until the jerk.” He wouldn’t tell her that the jerk got warned off, too. He didn’t want her going back to the jerk.

  She closed up the last piece of torn skin and cut the thread. “Yeah, well, you know how that worked out.”

  “I still have things to do here. I’m going to go that extra mile for you.”

  She took off her gloves, ran her hand through his hair, and he tilted his head from side to side, reveling in her touch. She placed her lips on his, so gently it was like a whisper. “Don’t fall for me, Hugo. I come with complicated baggage that not even a man like you can unravel.”

  “What if you fall for me?” he asked huskily.

  “I enjoy every minute with you as if it’s my last.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “I’m a biker president’s daughter. There’s no happy ending for me. I’ve accepted that.” She put some cream on her fingers and dabbed it over the bite, finishing the treatment off with a patch. The smell of antiseptic hit his nostrils.

  “Those asshole bikers. What they’ve done to you,” he growled.

  She looked into his eyes. “But I’ve had this time with you. It’s precious. The things you do to me, the things you show me. I never got sex until you. I thought it was something men enjoyed. I thought there was something wrong with me.”

  He put his arms around her waist and drew her in so that they were touching. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I’m happy you want me.”

  “I can’t afford to,” she said, and her voice wavered.

  This fragile, emotional bond. He didn’t want it to break. “I’m going to resolve who hurt your mother. If there’s a threat to you, I’m going to close it down. I want to check in with the cops and see if there is any street footage I can view.”

  “You’d help Momma? You haven’t even met her.”

  His hands moved to her hips, and he pulled her in tightly so they were hip to hip. She was just right in his arms. Gorgeous. His need to please her intensified, to assuage his guilt over the real reason he was here. “I can view surveillance tapes if they have them. I can hunt that bastard down. That’s what I’m trained to do.”

  She tilted her head. “You’re very specialized, and to think I thought earlier you were some sort of itinerant.”

  “You called me that. Remember? The truth is I come from a military family with long, established roots. I have great contacts where I grew up in Baton Rouge. Men I’ve served with who have joined the police force. They’ll help introduce me to the right police here.”

  Relief spread across her face like sunshine after clouds. “The cops wouldn’t do anything for me. They knew who I was. Looked at me like I was scum. One of them said he wished the car had cleaned up the lot of us.”

  “I’m going to fix this, Alice.” He stared into her eyes, self-reproach churning in his gut. He had to make this right. Any way he could, because when she found out he was a spy, she’d never forgive him.

  “I’ll talk to Daddy tomorrow. I have to know there isn’t going to be a reprisal for us having sex. If he knows you’re helping solve who hurt Momma, it might tip the balance.”

  He’d faced the jaws of evil in Syria. Glass and his pathetic band of jokers were tiddlywinks to him, but he didn’t say that. All that mattered was making her happy. But it wasn’t all about her. For the first time, he enjoyed being wanted, even though it wasn’t going to last.

  She broke from his hold, walked over to the kitchen fridge, took out an ampule of penicillin, extracted fluid with a syringe, and returned.

  “Hold out your arm.”

  He did as she asked. She gave him a shot, and his cock stirred as she fussed over him. He had no idea why the touch of her hands and the small pricks of pain turned him on. It just did.

  She took a canister of disinfectant wipes and cleaned his chest and torso in soft, gentle sweeps so that there was no dirt left. “I can’t bear to think of Mad Dog’s blood or sweat on you.”

  “Want me to shower?”

  Her lips turned up in a grin, and she took in a deep breath. “No. The bits of you that smell like you are great.”

  “Good.” She got him. She just did.

  She stopped and frowned as if something else had come to mind. “Were you going to kill Mad Dog?”

  “I enjoy a fair fight, and I admit I was still trigger happy when my feet hit U.S. soil, but I know not to cross the line.” He looked into her eyes, desperate to see whether she believed him. He’d be damned if he enjoyed terrorizing a man when he was down. There was no way he was turning into a bully like his father.

  “You say that, but the look in your eyes when you were fighting. I jumped on your back, just in case.”

  He reached up and stroked her face. “I like it that you look out for me, but you don’t need to worry. I’m home now. I have to live by the law if I plan to stay.”

  “You want to stay? You didn’t care when I first met you.” She screwed up her face as if thinking about it. “That’s why I thought you were some sort of nomad.”

  “I do have goals, sweetheart, but I need to see if I can live back here. I’m not a settler. Not easily. I told you that.”

  “Yeah, you did,” she said softly, her mouth turning down.

  Fuck. He was hurting her, and he didn’t want to. He couldn’t talk about the reason Baton Rouge no longer seemed like home because of his wife-beating father. Politically savvy. So respectable. Established. It made him sick. He hadn’t been back in ten years.

  “But you left the military?” she persisted.

  “I need to switch gears. Find another way to get my rocks off other than war. Find a way to live here before I get shot again or blown up.”

  She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am you listened to me tonight. You seem so calm now, but when you were fighting, it was like someone else was there. Someone lethal.”

  He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement of her words. She had no idea just how lethal he was, and he wanted it to stay that way. Let her memories of their time together be happy ones. He wrapped his hands around her hips and pulled her against him. “How do you feel about having me here?”

  “I like having you in my apartment. I didn’t think I would when you first came.” Her eyes crinkled, and her lips turned up in a smile. “You’re so big. You fill the place up, take out the oxygen, but my life is better with you in it. I have someone to talk to, someone I can trust. I almost feel happy.” She placed her palm on his cheek. “You don’t understand what a gift that is to me.”

  His stomach knotted. Her sweet, blue-eyed belief in him was killing him. How had he earned her trust so fast? Time to change the subject to something he could handle, because the guilt was eating out his heart and churning his gut. “What about the added benefits?” He encased her hand with his and put it over his boxer-clad cock.

  She grinned. “Behave. I want to check the stitches in your throat before we play.”

  “Do your worst.” He shifted on his stool, leaning back against the kitchen cabinetry, savoring the attention. The club fight had relaxed him. He’d never be a gentle guy. Hell, he wanted to fuck her, impale her with his cock, but he had to make sure she was on board every step of the way.

  And tear himself apart over his deceit later.

  She pulled off the dressing at his throat, inspecting it, her warm, sweet breath fanning his face. Up close, every bit of her was so exquisitely made, her wide-set crystal blue eyes and her pouty, ruby-colored lips, which he wanted to kiss. She wasn’t magazine-model perfect, and he didn’t want her to be. She was real. A rush of lust vibrated through him. She wasn’t put off by the rough games he enjoyed. “See that dining table, gorgeous?”

  “Sure? You hungry?”

  “Not for food. I want to rip off your clothes, bend you over it, and fuck you hard.”

  The sparkle came back into her eyes. She picked up some tape and scissors, cutting of
f pieces, and after sticking a fresh plaster on his throat, she put her arms around the back of his neck and leaned in. “What if I pretended I didn’t want you to? What if you made me?”

  “You do my head in. The way you come right back at me now.”

  She raised her neatly plucked eyebrows. “I’m an apt student. Besides, now I know the rules, I’m addicted to the game.”

  “We’re going to play a new game,” he said throatily, eyeing the tape she’d placed on the kitchen bench.

  “Really? And what would that be?”

  He picked up the tape. “I think you know. It’s called capture, tie up, and fuck the nurse.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  A rush of exhilaration and fear zinged up her spine, and she bolted, Hugo hot on her tail. She’d barely reached the front door when he grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her back, her heels scuffing the carpet. When he threw her onto her large lounge, she landed on her stomach with an oomph, the wind temporarily knocked out of her.

  By the time she’d caught her breath, he’d already pinioned her hands behind her back and was tying them with tape. Twisting her face to the side, she glanced up at him, drawing in the predatory hunger that seemed to overtake his thinly disguised civilized veneer.

  He’d changed in a heartbeat. Mean. Tough. Frightening.

  Thrilled, the primitive part of her savored the change, while the educated medical specialist in her reasoned she shouldn’t enjoy this.

  She did, though. She wanted him.

  He flipped her over onto her back so fast she marveled at the strength of him. His large hands fisted her T-shirt, and he ripped it in half, revealing her bare breasts. His gaze focused on them in the hungry way of men, and his tongue snaked along his lips. Her nipples hardened to tight peaks, his conquest welcome. Next went her shoes and jeans, leaving her vulnerable in her G-string.

  “I fought for you tonight, and you’re my prize.” He loomed over her, his voice rough and cruel.

  The coarse edge in his voice caught at her heart. She knew the diamond she had. The thrill of the hunt, the potent conquest, the intoxicating domination made her wet. He was taking this to a new level, and she wanted to explore it all the way.