So Hot MC Boxset

by Blair Grey

  “What did you think it would do to me when you chained me up so you can get my father to do whatever it is you want him to do for you?” The man had no conscience at all. I had thought him to be thoughtful, but I’d been wrong. He was thoughtless and just like every other man I had ever known in my whole, entire life. “This was always the plan, huh?”

  “Kidnapping you, yes.” He pulled his face up from staring at the floor to look into my eyes. “The sex wasn’t planned. But I’m not unhappy that it happened. I’m actually pretty fucking thrilled about that.”

  Crossing my arms over my tits, I didn’t want him to get even a glimpse of what hid underneath the robe. “Bet you were thrilled about that. You got to fuck your enemy’s daughter. Bravo! Way to go!”

  “Don’t call it that. It was more than that and you know it.” He took a seat on the bed, much too close to me. I thought him to be either brave or really, really stupid. “Britt, I met with your father today to let him know that I had you. I only wanted to use you as leverage to gain some peace between our MCs is all. I’m not going to treat you badly or let anyone else do that either. You should think of this as a vacation. You can chill, watch television, I’ll serve you up some awesome meals.” He looked at the plate of ruined food. “If you promise not to chuck them at me again, I will.”

  “A vacation?” Is he serious right now? “Carl, you took me away from my home. You took me away from the way I make my living. If I can’t pay for my room in my father’s house, I can’t live there. And I can’t pay for that if I don’t go to my job. So, how long do you plan to keep me as your hostage now that you know my father doesn’t consider me valuable enough to give you what you want?”

  He frowned. “Yeah, he’s real winner, your dad.”

  “I’ve never called him something as nice as dad in my whole life. And he’s never called me anything nice either. He told me to call him, Arthur and that’s what I’ve done. And he calls me, worthless, bitch, ingrate, leach, and any other terrible thing he can think of.” Not only was it embarrassing for anyone to find out how useless I was in my father’s eyes, but it was also horrible for Carl to know that. “What you must think of me now most likely has you never wanting to touch me again. Not that I would let you.”

  Sorrow filled his eyes as his hand trailed up my arm. “There was nothing he could say to make me not want to touch you again, Britt. He’s a monster is what he is. You deserved better than the cards you were dealt. He told me that he had your mother killed for not being what she’d said she was or some shit like that. I don’t care why he had it done, that was dead wrong.”

  My lower lip began to quiver and the last thing I wanted to do was to break down crying in front of the man. “Get out, okay. I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I’m not leaving you like this. Baby, I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you the way I have. And I want to make this right. Yes, you can’t leave here for now. But I’m not going to hand you over to him either. He’s already made it perfectly clear that he’ll deal with you when I deliver you to him after he meets what we’ve asked of him.”

  I knew what my father would do to me for getting myself kidnapped. “He will beat the living shit out of me, quite literally. My father doesn’t stop beating someone until they’ve shit themselves. Then, he’ll most likely have someone else slit my throat. That’s what you’ve done to me, Carl. You have written my death warrant. Thanks a lot, by the way, for giving me a righteous fucking before sending me to my grave. If I get a grave, which I most likely won’t. Arthur tends to stick with the old ways and burns those people he’s killed or had killed.”

  I had no idea what I needed to do. Being killed by someone from the Iron Cobras would be a much better death than what my father and his MC brothers would put me through.

  “No one is going to hurt you, baby. I won’t let them.” He stroked my arm so tenderly that I almost believed his lies.

  “I know that you won’t be keeping me, Carl. I know I can’t be some chick you keep on protecting from the Irish Reapers my whole life. They won’t stop, you know. Arthur will not stop until he sees me dead now. Hell, he might even do what you want him to, just to be able to get his hands on me for being so fucking stupid as to let myself get caught by someone from your stupid MC.”

  I fucking hated MCs now. No matter which way I turned, I ended up in their arms. There wasn’t a safe place for me in the entire world. Not with my lousy lack of sense to migrate away from bikers and toward better men.

  Resting his hand on my shoulder, he whispered, “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, baby. I took you. I put you in the danger you’re now in. I take responsibility for my actions. You can trust me. I won’t make you stay with me past the time I told your father I would be keeping you. But I will help you get to wherever you want. And who knows? You might decide that you want to stay with the Iron Cobras.”

  “As if I could.” It seemed that the man was much more delusional than I’d even given him credit for. “Do, you honestly think your current women will just allow me to fall in with them? Do you think that I want to have to fight every single one of them to earn a place here? Well, let me be clear. I. Do. Not.”

  “You are mine, Britt. Mine.” Moving his hand, he cupped my chin, pulling my face to make me look at him. “No one harms a thing that’s mine.”

  I wasn’t his. In no way was I his. “My father is an Irish Reaper, Carl. I can’t live in Baltimore once you set me free. Not even under the care of your club. It won’t just mean death for me if you do that. It will mean death for many of you as well. Anyone around me will become their victims. You really have no idea how bad my father and his MC brothers are, do you?”

  Wearing a grim expression, he stood. “I do know how bad they are. It was the three men who your father just lost who murdered my wife. And it was one of my own MC brothers who took her to them to have her killed in the first place. He did it because she refused to have sex with him. Just because she wanted to stay faithful to me, my own MC brother had her killed by the beasts you’ve lived with.”

  My heart stopped beating as it hit me why he’d really picked me to use as leverage. “This is retaliation for your wife’s murder then. I’d thought you’d already dealt with that. Seems you weren’t done.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong.” He went to pick up the plate. “I’m using you to try to gain peace between our MCs.”

  I had to laugh. “You’ve done just the opposite then, haven’t you? You should’ve done some research into the heart of my father. Then you would’ve found that he doesn’t have one at all. There will never be peace between the Iron Cobras and the Irish Reapers. And I will never be a bargaining chip anyone can use against my father or any other man in his MC. I am less than nothing to them. I am less than nothing to anyone, Carl. I bet you wish you would’ve found that out about me before you fucked my worthless ass.”

  Spinning around to face me, he wore a stern expression. “You are not worthless!” Walking toward the door to leave me, he added, “I can understand why you think of yourself in that light since your father is who he is. But you aren’t like him and you’re not worthless. And I will protect you for as long as you let me. I won’t make you do a damn thing you don’t want to do, except stay right here until I decide otherwise.”

  “Good. Leave.” I didn’t want to look at his handsome face any longer. Each minute I had to only made it harder to stay mad at him.

  “Oh, I’m coming back. I’m going to make you something else to eat. And if I have to tie your hands up and feed it to you myself - you will eat.” And then he was gone. But he’d left the door to the bedroom open.

  I stared after him, not understanding the man at all. Why does he care if I eat or not?

  I had to beg for food when I was a child. Sometimes the women who hung out with the men of the Irish Reapers would find some pity in their black hearts and hand me something to eat. Most of the time I had to dig through the garbage like a stray dog.


  There was something up the man’s sleeve. What, I didn’t yet understand. But the one thing I knew about life was that no one did something for someone without wanting something in return.

  Yes, Carl was using me to get my father to make peace with his MC. No, he would not get what he wanted at all. And where that would leave me was anybody’s guess. Who knew? Maybe the Irish Reapers would just kill us all, me and the Iron Cobras.

  What a shit storm this turned out to be.

  Chapter Seven

  Carl

  Going out to the freezer on the back porch to find something else to cook, I heard the sound of a bike pulling up. The fact that Arthur had said he would be looking for his daughter had me on high alert. But when I saw Lucas’s Harley, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I’m gonna have to up my security with this shit going on.

  Pulling off his helmet, he left it on the seat of his hog then came over to me. “How’s she doing with all this mess, Carl?”

  “Not great.” I opened the freezer and looked inside. “Good, there’re steaks. Care for one?”

  “If you’re cooking, I am eating. Yes, sir.” He smiled as he opened the backdoor for me. “I’ll make a salad if you’d like. I’ve got a bit of a green thumb.”

  Chuckling, I went through the door he held open for me. “Not what that means, Lucas.”

  “You sure?” He laughed as he followed me inside. Looking around the corner, he saw I had left the door to the master bedroom open. “She in there?”

  I nodded as I put the steaks in the microwave to defrost them. “Yep.”

  Going to the fridge, he took out a couple of beers, opening them both then placing one on the counter near where I was gathering seasonings. “Her old man is a piece of work. She must have so much childhood trauma working like poison in her blood.”

  “I think it didn’t end in her childhood. I think it still goes on.” My heart actually ached for Brittany. “She thinks he’s going to kill her for allowing herself to be kidnapped.”

  Lucas raised one brow as he nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I got out of what he said this morning. None of us thought about that, did we?”

  “Not me, that’s for sure. I had no idea any father could be so ruthless, heartless, soulless.” I took out the meat tenderizer, ready to pound the hell out of the steaks. It would help release some of the tension that had built up inside of me. Picking up the bottle of beer, I took a big swig in an attempt to dull the pain my actions had caused the poor girl I’d left in chains in the bedroom.

  “We can’t even let her go now. We’ve got to protect her from her own father.” Lucas shook his head, sadly. “I’m going to talk to her about what we can do for her.”

  “I’ve already told her that I would protect her. This is all my doing after all. I should’ve thought about how those men are. I shouldn’t have given Arthur any human qualities. That was my mistake and I won’t let her pay for that with her life.” The microwave dinged and I went to get the steaks out of it.

  “Sometimes we don’t like to believe that true evil exists in our world. And it ain’t all devils and demons, I can tell you that much. The people God gave breath to can turn into something so sinister and evil that they might resemble humans on the outside, but on the inside, they are nothing but blackness.”

  “Amen, brother.” Taking the tenderizing hammer, I went to work, pounding the steaks into submission.

  Lucas set to work, finding the things he wanted to use to make our salads as I took out my frustration on the red meat. If Arthur had been anywhere near me, I was sure I could’ve pulverized the man at that very moment.

  Brittany’s fear showed in every aspect of her now. I had no idea what kinds of horrors she’d been through, but I knew they were far darker than I could even conjure in my brain. And I’d seen some shit too.

  Ending the beating I’d put on the steaks I began seasoning them. Lucas pulled a bowl out from under the counter. “So, what’s her take on us protecting her?”

  “She doesn’t think we can really do it. She believes in the power of her father’s MC. As would anyone who has been inundated with their warped doctrine.” I reached over to turn on the gas burner on the stove. “Can you hand me that iron skillet behind you, Lucas?”

  He grabbed the heavy-bottomed pan. “Here you go.” Cocking his head to one side, he looked deep in thought. “What do you think about moving her to another state? We could see if one of the other chapters of the Iron Cobras would be willing to take her. Do you think she would even want that?”

  I highly doubted it. And the thing was that I didn’t want to go handing her off to anyone else. “I want to keep her here. Sending her off would only make her feel even worse about herself. She already has some deep self-esteem issues to deal with. I don’t wish to cause her any more mental harassments.”

  “Nor do I. That’s precisely why I’m asking you these things. I’m just not sure how safe we can actually keep her with her father being who he is. Not here anyway.” He went to work, cutting up the vegetables for the salad while I dribbled a bit of extra-virgin olive oil in the hot iron skillet.

  The small cloud of smoke that came up, had me smiling. I loved to cook steaks. I loved everything about doing it too. From the pounding to the preparation, it was an act that satisfied me in a way nothing else did.

  One of the reasons I loved to cook was that I’d learned how to do it from my grandfather. He was a mountain of a man and I had adored him. Whatever he did, I had thought to be absolutely awesome.

  My childhood wasn’t the best nor the worst. But I knew it had been so much better than Brittany’s. I would have to watch how much I talked about my childhood with her, lest she became envious and began to think of me as a spoiled brat.

  I wanted her to not only learn how to trust me but also to like me. And I wasn’t sure how to earn that trust since I’d put her life on the line by using her in my ploy to end the FBI’s intrusion into our business.

  “Sometimes I think I’m an extremely selfish man, Lucas.” I tossed one of the steaks into the hot pan. “I was married with a small child when I joined our MC. Lucas, what man in his right mind gets into the shit I got into when they have a wife and baby? I put them in danger and never thought twice about it. And look at what ended up happening. The worst thing that could’ve happened to my family came to be.”

  Lucas nodded as he tossed the vegetables together with some olive oil. “We were all young and impetuous when we got into this lifestyle. We all liked fast and powerful bikes. We all liked living on the edge. And we all thought of ourselves as invincible. Which we came to find out wasn’t true in the least. And that is why those of us who have grown up have taken over the governing body of our MC. We know a thing or two because we’ve lived through a thing or two.”

  I had to smile. “I think you stole that line from some commercial on television, chap.”

  “Maybe I did. I’ve been known to steal more than a line or two from time to time. But the thing is that we all had our chances to walk away from this life and we all made choices not to do it.” He put the bowl into the fridge to chill. “And you thought you had a solid idea about what you were doing here. You took the man’s daughter because you love your own so much that you couldn’t imagine him doing anything but agreeing to whatever you wanted to get her back to him safe and sound.”

  I had thought that. “But I was wrong.”

  “Yes, you were. But we all were. We all voted on this. You can’t bear this weight all alone. And I think that’s exactly what you’re trying to do. Your council voted yes on this because we not only believed in you, we believed in your idea. We want this rivalry to end. We want some peace in our lives. We want to make money and allow others to do the same. It’s just fair. And in any other business, it wouldn’t be an issue. But we’re not in a business that is without great risks. And we all know that our lives can be put on the line at any time. And she had to have known that too.”

  “
I think she’s lived her entire life knowing that.” Flipping the meat, I took a deep breath. Normally, this was one of those things I took in. The smell of fresh warm meat. The sounds it made as it sizzled. But all I could think about was what I’d done to Brittany and why I had really done it. “She thinks I did this as retaliation for Lisa’s death. I mean, I told her that I hadn’t done it with that in mind at all. But is that really the truth?”

  “Do you mean, did your subconscious tell you to seek out the daughter of the man you consider your greatest enemy just to show him what it feels like to lose someone you love?” He nodded. “Maybe.”

  “But he doesn’t love her. I don’t think that man has the capacity to love anyone. And I never meant to take her away from him completely. I only meant to use his love for her to make things easier for us all.” Even as I said the words, I felt like a total ass. “I used a woman to get what I wanted. Fuck. I don’t like myself very much right now, chap.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up.” He patted me on the back. “You had good intentions. We all do things that we later regret. But you might look at this as a blessing. At least for that young woman. She won’t ever have to go back to that life. And we will make her a new one, the best way we can.”

  I knew he was trying hard to get me to find a silver lining in this shitty cloud I’d made. But the fact was that Brittany wouldn’t be allowed to simply disappear. She would be hunted down by her own kind.

  “Something tells me that if that woman had been born with purely Irish blood running through her veins, then she wouldn’t have been treated the way she’s been all these years.” I truly hated her father for being the way he was.

  “I bet you’re right. They are some serious lineage enthusiasts.” He jerked his head in the direction of the master bedroom. “So, can we let her come join us at the table like civilized people, boss?”

  “And if she tries to run?” I wasn’t sure about her at all. “What then?”