Dark: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Emerald Saints MC)

by Sophia Gray

  “I mean, I can spare it, honey, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said, grinning at her. When I smiled, the side of my face hurt from the stitches. The anesthetic was beginning to wear off and I was starting to feel grumpier than before.

  “No, that’s not it,” Anna said quickly. “I don’t want to take anyone’s money. I’m doing this for myself. I don’t want to date a criminal,” she said. “I mean, I can’t. I can’t risk anything that would get me in trouble. I can’t do that anymore, that part of my life is over.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “There’s a lot in those words, honey,” I said, feeling slightly offended. “And I never said I was a criminal. And what do you mean by ‘that part of my life is over?”

  Anna shook her head. “Forget I said anything,” she said quickly.

  I grinned. I’d heard all of that before. I saw millions of my girls standing in front of me, telling me they didn’t want to date me. It was easy to say that, but harder to stick to it. Especially when money and my hard cock were calling out to them. They always changed their minds. Every single fucking time. It was the easiest thing in the world, getting women to change their minds. Especially when I was involved. I was practically a pro at it; it was like a sport to me. “You’ll change your mind,” I said confidently.

  Anna rolled her eyes, but I saw her body was still angled towards mine. Her breath was coming in hot little bursts and I could practically see her pulse racing from where I sat.

  “Can I take you on a real date? I’d like to change your mind as quickly as I can,” I said with a grin. “And that’s the best way I can think of doing it.”

  Anna shook her head quickly, sending her brunette locks flying over her shoulders. “No,” she said, a little more forcefully than before. “I told you no.”

  I chuckled. She was so adorably innocent that I couldn’t deal. She liked clinging to her high-minded principles now that she’d finished stitching me up, but that hadn’t been the case a few minutes ago. A few minutes ago, she’d been shrieking and crying my name in the throes of a wild orgasm. A few minutes ago, she’d been mine. Completely. But now she was shy again. I laughed deep in my throat. Yes, Anna was an innocent at heart all right. And I knew, soon enough, I could get that to change, as well.

  “Anna, I’m not a criminal.”

  Anna looked away. “I can’t take any chances,” she said softly. “Don’t you get that? I mean, seriously, Donovan. You showed up in a box in the back of my rig. Your friends ditched you. You just grabbed me and—” She clapped a hand over her mouth and blushed red. “I mean, nothing,” she said quickly, dropping her gaze.

  My chuckle turned into full-blown laughter. Anna was so cute when she embarrassed herself. It was by far one of the cutest things I’d seen her do. I watched her situate herself on the bench and put her medical gear away. When she pulled her phone out of her bag, I reached across her lap and snatched it away.

  Anna gaped at me. “What the fuck, Donovan? That’s mine!”

  I shrugged and dialed a number, holding the phone up to my ear. “I have to make a call,” I said pointedly. “You wanna keep it down?”

  Chapter 11

  Anna

  I stared at Donovan in horror. I couldn’t believe he’d just grabbed my phone! He was so infuriating, and now I couldn’t get rid of him. But he grabbed you the same way, and you didn’t mind, I thought bitterly. It was true, I hadn’t minded. Whenever I thought about the course of our interaction over the day, it made my head spin. For one thing, he’d promised not to touch me but then he had, over and over. And what’s more? I’d liked it. Hell, I’d loved it. No one had made my body sing like Donovan had, and I doubted anyone would ever again. He was like a god who had come down to earth just to give me orgasms. It was crazy.

  He caught me watching him and made a point of turning around. The stitches were swollen and oozing blood, but I knew he’d be okay. Head injuries always looked worse than they were because of how much blood flowed to the head. Even a bruise could take a long time to go away. I knew Donovan would have some swelling in the morning, but overall, he’d be fine. He might even have a new scar to add to his arsenal, just another way to get hapless girls like myself in bed with him.

  Stop it, Anna, I ordered myself. You’re not really a girl anymore, are you? You’re thirty-one, for fuck’s sake. Realizing my age made the events of the evening seem even worse. I was thirty-one, and I’d never been fucked like that. I was thirty-one, and it had taken a rogue like Donovan to really show me what anatomy was all about. I shivered when I remembered his rough tongue caressing my skin. Our sex had been explosive, but short. I wanted hours with him, hours naked in bed, hours torturing each other. I closed my eyes and imagined him trailing his tongue down my bare body and seizing between my legs, making me come again and again and again, until I was sobbing for release.

  I couldn’t stand the paradox in my head. A man like Donovan was everything I despised: cocky, arrogant, insufferable. The kind of man who made promises he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, ever keep. The kind of man who could bring me to the edge of the world and back in the bedroom. The kind of man who could do anything I wanted him to, except treat me with respect. I knew I’d been sending him mixed signals. But then he was the one who hadn’t been trustworthy with me, either. He was the one who’d promised to keep his hands off me and then grabbed me and ripped my clothes off. He was the one who couldn’t respect my property. I burned with indignity at the way he’d grabbed my phone.

  There was something dangerous and entitled about him. It wasn’t just the way he’d shown up in the back of my rig; it was the way he swaggered around and acted like the world was his for the taking. And the way he’d been so nonplussed about his friends forgetting about him? I couldn’t believe that. There had to be more to the story. There just had to be. If it had been me, I would have been panicking. Then again, I didn’t really have any friends to think of. I didn’t have anyone who could have let me down, except myself. I wasn’t like Donovan. And his sure, smug attitude? I had no idea what was up with that. I chalked it up to the fact that he was used to getting what he wanted in life. After all, that much was obvious. He was one of those guys who acted like life had been handed to him on a silver platter. Seeing his hard, muscular body, I had no doubts he’d been in some hard places in life. But it was hard to think about his struggles being the same as mine. It was hard to imagine someone who prided himself on being a member of an MC “brotherhood” would have ever been homeless, or hungry, or working as a waitress in a dusty diner in the middle of nowhere. I almost resented him; he was cocky because life had been overwhelmingly easy. That must be it. There was no other answer.

  Part of me wanted to hate him, but the other part of me couldn’t forget how amazing he’d felt inside of me. I’d never been fucked like that. I never imagined sex could be like that, except for in the movies. It wasn’t the kind of thing I ever thought would happen to me. Donovan was cocksure, all right, but that was one area where he deserved to be a little cocky. And his cock had been anything but little. When I shifted on the bench seat, I could feel my sore labia pressing against the crotch of my jeans. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it reminded me he was no longer inside of me, and that was painful.

  Donovan had taken the phone away from his ear and he was casually scrolling through my text messages. I felt my face start to heat up when I realized he’d see the messages from Garrett.

  Garrett. I’d actually forgotten about Garrett. I’d met Garrett a couple of weeks ago online, on a forum for rig drivers. I’d been looking for some help with a mechanical problem—I didn’t want to bother Walt in the nursing home—and I’d made the crucial mistake of revealing my gender. Female truckers aren’t really a thing, and while most of the men had automatically resorted to petty harassment, Garrett had sent me a private message telling me he’d be more than happy to take a look at my rig. I was overjoyed until I realized it was just a ruse to get in my pants. When he’d shown up with a bottle of w
ine and a box of chocolates, I’d kicked him out of my apartment before he’d even had the chance to take off his shoes. But, somehow, he hadn’t gotten the message. Since then he’d been texting me and messaging me on Facebook nonstop. I wanted him to leave me alone, but if I were being honest, a little part of me liked the attention.

  Thinking about Donovan seeing the messages made me flush. He was scrolling through the texts and I felt a hot blush rising over my cheeks. He looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

  “What?” I asked hotly, looking away so he wouldn’t see. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Donovan said. He chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I need to call the club and check in. You good with that, little girly?”

  “Don’t call me little,” I said under my breath. When he’d dialed a number and held the phone up to his ear, I frowned. I didn’t get it. I knew he’d seen the messages between me and Garrett, but he hadn’t said anything. And while I knew how I felt about Garrett, maybe the messages were a little more ambiguous. It made me feel shitty to admit, but I knew I hadn’t been as forceful with him as I could have been. I should have just told him to fuck right off and then blocked his number, but I hadn’t done that yet. Besides, I was still having that problem with my rig.

  Donovan glanced at me while he was on the phone; the volume was turned up so loud that I could hear the other line ringing. I knew he was jealous: his jaw was clenched, his lips set in a thin line, and I could see a muscle twitching on the side of his face. It almost made me grin. I couldn’t believe someone like me, Anna, could make someone like Donovan jealous.

  But he’s already made you jealous, I thought to myself, recalling the scene in the truck stop. Every woman had let their eyes hang all over him like fur on a dog, and I knew I hadn’t reacted well. I’d been so obvious that Donovan had called me on it as soon as the waitress had walked away. Yeah, I’d been jealous. And while Donovan had no right to be jealous now, I’d really had no right to be jealous then. After all, we hadn’t even touched by that time! Well, not sexually at least.

  I heard Donovan’s voice floating over to me from the other side of the cab. He didn’t have his usual fun, jokey tone that he took with me. In fact, he sounded more severe and stern than ever. He didn’t sound playful at all. He almost sounded scary. I thought of him taking the same growling tone with me and another flush passed over my cheeks. Donovan knew how to rile me up like no one else. I didn’t understand the hold he had on me; it was unlike anything else I’d ever experienced. Even with Brad, our relationship had felt equal. I’d been the one pushing him for sex! With Donovan, well, I just couldn’t see that happening.

  Donovan broke my train of thought when he tossed my phone back onto my lap. When I looked up at him, he jerked his head up. “Come on, let’s get going,” he said, yawning and stretching.

  A wave of his body musk washed over me and I tried to hide my arousal. My body was so aware of his presence, it was like I couldn’t possibly sit down without thinking about how close he was to me. I could practically feel the heat and lust coming off of him. It had been half an hour since we’d fucked, and I could tell he was already dying to do it again.

  “Where?” I frowned. “Did you get in touch with your friends?”

  Donovan shrugged. “They’re at the clubhouse,” he said. “Can you drop me off? Or are you afraid of getting arrested?” He grinned at me wickedly. “You know, because we’re all a bunch of criminals.”

  I rolled my eyes and brought my rig to life. The headlights washed over the restaurant and my stomach grumbled. I’d completely forgotten about the cheeseburger dinner Donovan had ordered for us, and suddenly I felt ravenously hungry. My stomach rumbled and I gasped in embarrassment and surprise.

  “Don’t worry, princess,” Donovan said in a smooth tone. “You can get a snack when you drop me off.”

  “Fine,” I snapped. “Let’s go.” I shifted my rig into gear and got back on the highway towards Dos Palmos. The night was still, an endless beast of dark, and I knew it was unlikely I’d get any sleep that night. By the time I got home, showered, and had a snack, the sun would be coming up soon. My little vacation had been off to an explosive start, and I doubted the rest of it would even compare.

  As we approached the clubhouse, I kept shifting my gaze over to Donovan. He had his eyes closed and was leaning his head against the window. His features were twitching and I realized he’d actually managed to fall asleep in the bumpy cab. I envied him. I was so keyed up that I didn’t think I could sleep for hours. When I closed my eyes, instead of seeing highway mile markers, I saw Donovan’s gloriously sculpted body leaning over me and taking me.

  “Yo, wake up,” I said, reaching over and shaking him awake. “We’re almost here. Where do you want me to drop you?”

  Donovan yawned. “It doesn’t matter,” he said lazily, rubbing his mouth with his hand. “Anywhere is fine. If it’s too hard for you to pull in, don’t do it.”

  “I can do it,” I snapped. “I’ve only been rigging for years, after all.”

  “I forgot,” Donovan said with a grin. “The woman truck driver extraordinaire!”

  “You better believe it,” I said drily. I expertly downshifted the truck and stopped right in front of the clubhouse. It wasn’t an intimidating-looking building—it was a garage with a low wooden building attached, but I could see decorative art of grim reapers and skulls and crosses. The Saints was painted on a wooden banner above the building. It looked so innocuous, but I wondered about everything that went down inside. Probably lots of criminal activity, even murder. I jumped as Donovan grabbed my arm and turned me to face him.

  “Thanks for the lift,” Donovan said. He raised his eyebrows at me.

  “No problem,” I said, struggling to keep my voice in a neutral tone. It was harder saying goodbye to him than I’d imagined, and I wondered what he was going to do now that he was free of me. As I was thinking, the deafening roar of motorcycles approached the rig and circled round, pulling into the parking lot. I saw a bunch of gruff, leather-suited men hopping off and walking inside the clubhouse. When they flicked the lights on, I saw the bulbs inside were red.

  “Bye,” Donovan said. He hopped down from the rig and strutted off towards the clubhouse.

  Inside I felt a mix of emotions that really surprised me. Who was this guy, exactly? And why did I have the sudden urge to run after him and wrap my body around his?

  I shifted my rig into gear and pulled away from the clubhouse. When it was almost out of sight, I pressed my hand against the horn and honked loudly. Let’s see how he explains that one to the guys, I thought with a snicker. There’s no way they’re gonna believe he got a ride from a chick.

  Chapter 12

  Donovan

  I snorted when I heard Anna honk the horn of her rig. Thomas and Lucas rushed over to me and clapped me on the back.

  “Man, we are so sorry!” Thomas said. He ran a hand over his bald head. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry. We got held up.”

  I had almost forgotten about how they’d ditched me. “It’s fine,” I said flatly. “I take it something happened?”

  “Yeah, Lucas’s old lady went into labor,” Thomas said with a snort. “She had to pop that kid out before we could leave. He didn’t wanna leave her alone.”

  I held up my hands. “I totally get it,” I said. “I would have done the same.” Turning to Lucas, I pulled him into a bear hug. As always, he smelled like sweat and leather and tobacco. “Congrats, man,” I told him, ruffling his brown hair. “A kid’s a big step!”

  “Don’t you know it,” Lucas said drily.

  We all filed into the meeting room and sat down at the table. Everyone looked at me uneasily, and I felt my stomach start to shift and twist. What exactly had fucking happened while I was gone?

  “We want you back, Don,” Louis said. He was one of the long-term bikers, and I knew he’d always stick by my side. Besides Lucas and Thomas, he was the best friend I had in the club. “We wa
nt you back, but these fuckin’ Dos Palmos coppos tried to replace you. We want to knock those assholes out.”

  I frowned. “What happened?” Leaning forward, I rested my arms on the table. The other guys shifted their gazes around and looked more uncomfortable than ever. It was like they were sitting at the table with a ghost.

  “Nothing to worry about now,” Thomas said quickly. “We gotta oust your replacement, and then you’re back in charge, big boy. That’s all you need to know for now.”

  I nodded slowly. I didn’t like the sound of that, not at all. Dos Palmos cops appointing a new president of The Saints? That didn’t sound like their deal at all, especially not after what had happened. For a moment, I had an inkling of a thought: what if they still wanted me gone? They didn’t know I was back, and if I were to become leader, they’d find out sooner or later. Likely sooner. Looking around the table, I tried to read the faces of my guys. I wanted to trust all of them, but somehow the situation seemed too fishy for that. “I get it, guys,” I said. “Thank you. I love all of you.”