by Penny Dee
I looked at the images on the screen with disgust then quickly closed out of social media. Just as I closed my phone, Caleb reappeared with two women. One was a very attractive blonde with a killer figure and eyes so brown they were almost black. The other was a striking brunette who was very, very pregnant. He led them over to where I was sitting in the booth.
“Ladies, this is Cassidy. Chance’s friend.”
The two women looked surprised. Then all three of them shared a weird look as if my presence here meant something.
Caleb laid those baby blues on me. “This is Honey, my wife.” He gestured to the gorgeous brunette.
“Hey,” the very pregnant woman said as she awkwardly slid into the booth across from me.
“And this is Indy. You met her husband the other day in the town square. He’s my less charming brother, Cade.”
Indy raised an eyebrow at him and gave him an unimpressed look before turning those big brown eyes in my direction.
“Hey.” She sat down in the booth next to Honey, who could barely get her huge belly between her and the table.
“I’m heading to chapel. Do you ladies need anything before I go?” Caleb asked.
“I suppose getting these babies out my stomach is asking too much,” Honey said.
“Out of my hands, baby girl.”
“Then no, I’m fine. You go to chapel and I will just sit here and incubate your babies in my gargantuan stomach.”
“That’s my girl,” Caleb said with a cheeky grin. “You know, I’d kiss you goodbye but—” He gestured to the table between them.
“Don’t worry about it. You’d probably just get me pregnant again anyway.”
He threw her a wink before walking away.
“Thankfully, it doesn’t work that way,” Indy added.
“I’m not kidding. That man’s sperm is powerful shit,” Honey said, rubbing her hand over her big belly. “Sometimes I think he only needs to rub up against me and I fall pregnant.”
“When are you due?” I asked.
“Not for a few weeks. But the way my husband drags me everywhere he goes, you’d think I was about to go into labor at any minute. He won’t leave my side, and it’s driving me crazy.”
Caleb sounded like a doting husband.
“He’s just protective of you and his babies,” Indy offered.
“Babies?” I asked.
“Twin boys,” she said, rubbing her belly. “And I have a nineteen-month-old daughter, but she’s out with her aunty Autumn today, being spoiled rotten I imagine.”
“Do you have any names picked out?”
Honey rolled her eyes, slightly exasperated. There had obviously been a heated debate about it.
“Caleb wants to call them Robert and James.”
“Those are good names,” I said, slightly surprised by the traditional choice.
“He only wants those names because of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.” She sighed. “My husband with all the Led Zeppelin tattoos on that deliciously sinful body of his wants to name our first sons after members in a rock band.”
A rush of energy entered the clubhouse as a gorgeous young woman with thick hair the color of chocolate swept across the room and slid into the booth next to me.
“Please tell my brothers that I am not having my birthday party at the clubhouse,” she wailed dramatically. Up close she was gorgeous. She had the same dimples and bright blue eyes as Chance, Cade and Caleb, so I assumed they were the brothers she was talking about. “Indy, you have to have a word with them. They’ll make it this big MC princess thing, and it’s going to be so over the top!”
“I think it’s too late,” Indy said, playing with the crown pendant around her neck. I noticed that Honey had one around her neck too.
“Please don’t say that! I just want something quiet.”
“Yeah, I don’t think quiet is quite what they had in mind,” Honey added, rubbing her belly again.
The beautiful brunette grimaced. “Great. It’s going to be completely over the top, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” Indy and Honey said in unison.
The brunette dropped her head back and let out a dramatic sigh. “Why was I born into an MC? No… Why was I born into the Kings of Mayhem MC? Ugh.” Then, as if seeing me sitting there for the first time, she straightened and looked at me with wide eyes. “Oh, hey there. I’m Chastity.”
She offered me her hand.
“Cassidy,” I said, shaking it.
“Cassidy is a friend of Chance’s,” Indy said with an odd inflection to her voice.
Then the three of them shared a look that again told me my presence here as a friend of Chance’s meant something.
“Okay, that’s the second time in half an hour you guys have done that,” I said. “So spill. Why is it such a thing for Chance to bring me here?”
Honey looked at Indy who looked at Chastity who looked at Honey.
“It’s just my brother doesn’t usually bring girls to the clubhouse,” Chastity said.
“He doesn’t?”
I didn’t know why that made me a bit warm inside.
“I haven’t seen him with anyone since he’s been back from his deployment,” Indy offered.
Oh. Okay. They thought Chance and I were involved.
“We’re not together,” I said. “He’s just helping me out.”
Chastity looked disappointed. But Indy and Honey both looked like they didn’t believe me.
“I wasn’t with Caleb either,” Honey said. “We were just friends. Now he can’t stop knocking me up.”
“And I married my best friend, so …” Indy shrugged.
I liked these women. They were funny and kind and being around them distracted me from the turmoil churning my insides.
“We really are just friends,” I insisted. Even though they didn’t believe me.
“How did you meet him?” Chastity asked, then suddenly snapping her fingers, added, “Now I remember! You played at Ruger’s welcome home party the other night.”
Inwardly, I grimaced, remembering my non-kiss with Chance.
The non-kiss I instigated and the one he ended.
“Played?” Honey asked.
“She’s a singer and a guitar player,” Chastity explained. “Had all the boys eating out of her palm the moment she stepped on that stage. She’s really good.”
Chastity was sweet.
“I wish I had been there,” Indy said. “But I pulled a late shift.”
“Indy is an ER doctor,” Chastity clarified.
“And I was having an I’m pregnant and feel as big as a whale moment, so I stayed home with a tub of ice cream and Netflix. Oh, and a husband who refused to leave me for five minutes in case I spontaneously give birth to his sons on the living room floor.”
“Can you really blame him though?” Indy asked. “You did give birth to his daughter in the backseat of my car.”
Honey laughed. “Good point.”
I was about to ask her what happened when a group of men in Kings of Mayhem cuts poured into the room and headed straight for the bar. There were about twenty of them, but Chance wasn’t with them. I looked at the clock on the wall and was surprised to see over an hour had passed.
Just as Chastity started talking to Indy about the party again, my phone buzzed with a message from a number I didn’t recognize.
I opened it and saw it was a link to a video on YouTube. I hit play and immediately my heart went to my throat as I watched a man on the screen begging for his runaway daughter to return. He was a handsome man with sandy blond hair, sparkling green eyes, and a California tan. He spoke with confidence and charm into the camera like a man in politics who was used to speaking to the media and making public appearances. He pleaded for his daughter to make contact and offered a reward for information on her whereabouts.
This is what Craig had found.
The man on the screen was famous. He was well-loved. Looked up to. And I had no doubt his political campaign would be reapin
g the rewards of his devastated father routine.
Anger flared in me, but it was nothing compared to the fear. Because this video meant someone knew who I was, and they knew my phone number.
Was it Craig and Missy fucking with me?
Or worse … Barrett?
I quickly turned off my phone.
Looking up I saw Chance approached the table and my stomach knotted.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
I nodded, thinking about the message and who the fuck had sent it. They were toying with me.
It had to be Barrett. This shit stank like his psychopathy.
I nodded. “Yeah, just feeling a bit freaked out about everything.”
“Bull thinks we should stay here for the night and then head out to the cabin first thing,” he said. “He’s right. We should go at first light.”
I glanced around the clubhouse. It was filling with more bikers and women in tight jeans with intimidating looks on their faces. Lights had gone on and someone had turned up the music. It looked like they were getting ready for something.
As if reading my mind, Chance explained, “Wednesday night is Fight Night. The clubhouse is about to fill up with sweaty bikers ready to bet on two men beating the shit out of each other in a ring. You might want to hang out in my room. It’s going to get messy.”
CHANCE
I took her to my bedroom.
She was quiet. Preoccupied. And she’d gone pale.
But it wasn’t because of what she’d told me back at the motel. Something had happened while I was in chapel.
“You want to tell me what’s on your mind?” I asked, shrugging out of my cut.
She looked down at her phone and hesitated before handing it to me. On the screen was a message with a video link.
Pressing play, I watched a glossy politician talking at a media conference, begging for his daughter to come home. As I watched, I realized a giant part of the puzzle had just landed in my lap.
I looked up at her. “This is you he’s talking about?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“You’re Kerry Silvermane’s missing daughter?”
Kerry Silvermane was an oil tycoon and politician. I didn’t know much about him, but I knew his face.
Again, Cassidy nodded but said nothing.
“Is Cassidy your real name?”
She shook her head. “No. My name is Chelsea. But don’t ever call me that, okay? She doesn’t exist anymore.”
I handed the phone back to her.
“Do you know who sent you the message?” I asked.
“No. But only two people know that number. Missy and my boss at the diner, Molly.”
“You think either of them sent it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s Missy fucking with me. She knows who I am now. She contacted my brother and told him where to find me. Maybe this is her way of getting back at me not telling her who my foster father is.”
She could be right.
Missy sounded like a vindictive bitch.
She’d contacted Barrett and told him where Cassidy was, so it was more than likely she’d given him her phone number too.
Cassidy sat down on the bed, her glorious blonde hair tumbling around her tanned shoulders. She was quiet for a moment as she looked for the words. When she finally spoke, her smoky voice was heavy with sadness.
“Please don’t let him find me.” Her lips shook as she spoke, and I had an irrational desire to kiss them until they stopped shaking. “My brother is a very dangerous man.”
I knelt down in front of her. “I think I can handle him.”
All men fell down the same if you put a bullet through them. Dangerous or not.
“The best thing you could do is let me go. And forget you even met me.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m balls deep in this now, so that’s not an option.”
She exhaled a rough breath, trying to stop her chin from quivering. “I ran away and my brother will stop at nothing to find me.”
“And your father—”
Her eyes shot to mine. “He can’t know where I am either. Chance, you have to believe me.”
“I do.” I wasn’t going to push her. She was clearly traumatized, and if I pushed her for details tonight, she would probably flee. And from what she said, if she fled tonight, she could die.
So I was going to take her at face value. She needed help. So I was going to help her.
Tonight, the best thing I could do was reassure her, keep her safe, and do everything in my power to keep my fucking hands off her.
While Fight Night took off in the clubhouse, we ate a bowl of Red’s chili and watched a Game of Thrones DVD.
Cassidy was one of the few people left on Earth who had never heard of the TV show, and after the first two episodes, she was fascinated. It was a good distraction. She seemed calmer.
“You know, you can sit on the bed with me,” she said, her raspy voice alluring without trying to be.
“No, you have it. I’m fine.” And I was fine, sitting on the incredibly uncomfortable chair well out of arm’s reach of her.
“You’re making me feel like Rose in Titanic,” she said with a cute grin. “We all know Jack would’ve survived if he’d climbed on that damn door with her.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. But when an unfamiliar warmth poured into my chest, my smile faded. I didn’t want that warmth. I had no business with it.
She turned her attention back to Game of Thrones.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, getting comfortable on my bed. “She’s married to the king, but that guy she’s having sex with is her twin brother?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm,” she said, thinking about it. “And where is this set?”
“It’s a fictional world. The seven kingdoms of Westeros.”
She gnawed the inside of her cheek as she thought about it.
“They’re definitely kinky motherfuckers,” she finally decided, reaching for an apple on the food tray next to our empty chili bowls. Peeling off the produce sticker, she rolled onto her stomach while I did everything humanly possible not to notice how peachy her ass looked as she lay across my bed.
“Darlin’, you don’t know the half of it.”
She pointed to the TV. “And the blonde girl—”
“Daenerys Targaryen …”
“I think she’s going to be kick-ass. Although, she does kind of have a fiery look in her eye. Like she could get stabby at any minute.” She bit into the apple. “Have you noticed how much her warlord husband looks like Maverick?”
“Whatever you do, don’t tell Maverick that. He’ll never get his head through the fucking door.”
She smiled and took another bite of the apple. Juice ran down her chin, and it was all I could do not to lick it from her flesh.
“So you want to watch another episode?” I asked when the episode finished.
“I want to watch all of them!”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “There’s eight seasons.”
“Then we’d better start watching,” she said.
She looked up at me from the bed and damn I was in trouble. There was no way I could stay in this room with her tonight.
Hell, there was no way I could stay in this room another minute without doing something stupid like kissing her.
Which was exactly what we both didn’t need.
So while she dove into episode three of Game of Thrones, I stepped out into the hall and called my grandmother to let her know I was taking Cassidy to the cabin for a few days. Maybe a week. Maybe longer. She didn’t ask any questions because Grandma Sybil was no one’s fool; she knew she’d only get the censored version from me.
Instead, she would find things out her way.
I had no doubt.
After speaking to Sybil, I checked in with Bull and let him know things were set for the following morning.
When I walked back into my room, Cassidy was sound asleep on my bed,
on her side with her arms wrapped around my pillow. Her long blonde hair fanned around her face while her legs were parted with the just white satin of her panties visible.
Lust slammed into me, and I felt my blood rush south.
Not that I would touch her.
I was the last thing this goddess needed.
She was already rattled, and I didn’t want to be another threat to her. And the plain and simple truth was I didn’t trust myself not to be; I didn’t know who I was turning into or what he was capable of. All I knew was that I didn’t like him.
But I was still a living, breathing, red-blooded male, and it was impossible not to notice the sleeping beauty in my bed and all the magical things about her. Like the angelic face. The sweet curves of her luscious body. The tiny slip of satin between her firm thighs.
She was temptation.
But I was more than fucking tempted by her.
I was fucking aching to touch her.
And I hated that I was.
I reached down and covered her with the blanket, and it took all my will power not to touch her when she stirred and a small moan slipped from her parted lips. But I was a disciplined soldier and would die fighting the urge to touch her.
Instead, I kissed my fingers and pressed them against her shoulder. “Goodnight, California.”
I slipped quietly from the room, making sure the door was locked behind me.
She would be safe here.
And safer if I wasn’t in the room with her.
CHANCE
I headed out into the clubhouse. Fight Night was in full swing, and it was a full house. Tonight, Hawke and one of our newest club members, Animal, duked it out in the ring while girls in bikinis wandered through the small crowd of bikers, cheering on the fight. Around us, Led Zeppelin’s “Trampled Under Foot” blared from the sophisticated surround sound system.
As I headed for the bar, Tiffani, one of the more popular club girls, stepped in front of me.
“Hey there, baby,” she said, giving me serious fuck-me eyes as she slid a hand up my chest. “You’ve been back for months now and haven’t bought me a drink. What does a girl have to do to get noticed around here?”
She pressed herself against me, and before I had the chance to stop her, she reached down between us and grabbed my cock. The cock that was still pissed at me for not doing anything about the half-naked goddess lying in my bed. The cock that was still hard and giving me a serious case of blue balls because just remembering that glimpse of white satin against the sleepy beauty’s pussy was making me dizzy with lust.
