Still Standing

by Kristen Ashley

  But I stopped scooting (but not being terrified) when he leaned across me, resting his weight into his hand at my opposite hip.

  “Did you…did you…?” I swallowed, shoved more of my hair out of my face and forged ahead, “Did you kidnap me?”

  “No, Clara, I’m checking up on you.”

  Yes.

  Definitely a lunatic.

  “You tased someone, bound them and took them to an unknown location to check up on them?” I asked.

  He grinned a grin that I was pretty certain could be sketched and printed next to the entry for “psychopath” in dictionaries.

  Through it, he answered, “I couldn’t be assured you’d accept a written invitation to dine with me.”

  This wasn’t good.

  His eyes traveled my body and it didn’t take a clairvoyant to note he liked what he saw.

  This was worse.

  His attention came back to my face. “You’re looking well, Clara.”

  I’d gone semi-biker babe that day, and now I was regretting it.

  I was wearing my own cashmere turtleneck sweater, but I’d paired it with tight, faded jeans I’d bought while out with the girls and spike-heeled boots I’d also bought out with the girls.

  The jeans had some fraying and rips in them, and I was pretty certain strippers wore my boots when they were off-duty and some of them when they were on.

  The boots were hot, and I knew this because, the second I walked out wearing them last weekend before Buck took me and the kids to the Valley Inn, Gear had said, “Shit, Clara, those boots are fuckin’ hot.”

  Buck, on the other hand, had taken one look at them, his eyes running up the rest of me, and then he’d laid another big wet one on me right in front of his kids.

  Clearly, Bosnian lunatics also liked off-duty stripper boots.

  “Uh…thanks,” I muttered.

  He moved so his hip was resting against my hip, and I tensed.

  “I’ve been worried about you,” he told me.

  “I’m good,” I assured him quickly. “Really good. Life’s good. I’ve got a job. A car. A man. It’s all great.”

  He shook his head and his eyes went funny. “You miss your friend.”

  My heart skipped and I stared.

  “My friend?” I whispered.

  “Tia,” he whispered back in a scary way.

  Oh God.

  What did he know about Tia?

  “Tia?” I asked, and he nodded. “What do you…?” I swallowed again. “What do you know about Tia?”

  “I know what West Hardy won’t tell you because he knows you’ll leave him if he does.”

  My heart skipped again before it slid up my throat.

  “What won’t Buck tell me?” I forced out.

  “That, many weeks ago, Tia Esposito’s car was sold to a used car salesman. She took some cash and a trade. Smart move, but too late. Ten miles from the dealership, her new car was found abandoned on the side of a road, door open, her bags in the trunk, her purse in the front, no sign of her except the blood.”

  Oh God.

  The blood?

  Oh God!

  That could not be good.

  There was no way that could be good.

  I closed my eyes, put my hands over my face and dropped my head.

  “No,” I whispered to my hands, tears stinging my eyes.

  “Yes,” he whispered back.

  I dropped my hands and looked at him as one tear slid down my face.

  His gaze followed it, lighting as it did like he enjoyed seeing me cry. He mumbled something in Bosnian and his hand came up, finger crooked, and he traced the tear with his knuckle with creepy reverence.

  I pulled my head away, and his hand dropped.

  “It was a lot of blood, Clara, too much,” he went on.

  I felt my lips quiver as my throat blocked and he watched my lips with eyes alight.

  I forced down a swallow and asked, “Buck knows this?”

  “Everyone does, pretty-pretty, everyone but you. Tucker and Sylvie Creed are working this job for Aces. They went to the scene themselves, and I know for certain they reported everything to Hardy four weeks ago.”

  Four weeks?

  Four weeks?

  “Where was this?” I asked.

  “Nevada.”

  On her way to Seattle.

  On her way to safety.

  My idea.

  “Have they found her?”

  He shook his head. “No, pretty-pretty.”

  It was also creepy, him calling me that.

  Actually, everything about him was creepy, and I didn’t need creepy when I found out bad news about my best friend.

  No.

  I didn’t need creepy ever.

  “Why didn’t Buck tell me?” I asked him a question, the answer to which he couldn’t possibly know.

  But he answered anyway.

  He pressed up closer and leaned in, and when he did, I shrank back against the headboard.

  “You. You need men for reasons. This was your reason for needing Hardy. He knows this. You…” he lifted a hand, I shrank back farther, and he dropped it, “a man will want to keep you. He does. So he won’t tell you.”

  “I’m not with Buck for Tia,” I whispered.

  He leaned closer, and I couldn’t shrink back because I had nowhere to go.

  “We all use each other, Clara. Now that I’ve told you what you need to know, I will tell you what I need you to know. Then you are free to leave. My men have brought your car. It’s outside. Or you’re free to stay. This will be your choice. But what I need you to know is that I’m happy for you to use me any way you like, and in return, I will use you any way I like. I’ll take care of you. I’ll buy you nice things. You’ll be treasured. Now, I’ll leave you to think about that. You can stay or you can come back. I will wait for you.”

  Then he leaned super close, my body went solid, he shoved his face in my neck and I heard him sniff as his nose traveled up my jugular.

  “Pretty,” he whispered.

  I shivered as he lifted his head, gave me his psychopath-defining grin, got up and walked out of the room.

  I stared at the door and didn’t move.

  It took a while for me to look around the room.

  It was nice. Heavy furniture, dark wood, silk drapes.

  Expensive. Almost ostentatious.

  Dark.

  Suffocating.

  I spotted my purse on the foot of the bed lying there next to my keyring.

  I twisted, scurried down the bed, snatched them up and ran the heck out of there.

  24

  You Live in the Sunshine

  I was in such a state, it took me a long time to figure out where I was when I left Babić’s house.

  This meant I got even more lost.

  By the time I found my way to something familiar, I wasn’t in a state, I was a mess.

  I’d been kidnapped.

  Tia’s car had been found, filled with lots of blood.

  Buck knew, and he didn’t tell me.

  I drove through Ace in the Hole’s big parking lot, around back to the loading area by the warehouse where I normally parked.

  As luck would have it, or maybe not, Buck was coming out of my office and spotted me.

  I knew this because I saw him walking out the door as I parked, his gait swift and determined.

  I set the parking brake, killed the ignition, and got out on jellied legs.

  “Fuck, babe, where have you been?” he called as he approached. “You go to a Safeway in Tucson to buy—?”

  He stopped talking when he got close enough to get a good look at my face. Then he started jogging as I moved out of the door and slammed it, my eyes locked to him.

  I turned my body his way as he rounded the trunk, and then he was there, his hand at my jaw, the other one digging into my hip, his neck bent. I could feel the heat from his body and his eyes were sharp on my face.

  “Talk,” he clipped.

/>   “Imran Babić kidnapped me outside Safeway,” I whispered.

  His hand tensed at my jaw and his eyes fired.

  The snake was stirring.

  “He told me about Tia.” I was still whispering.

  At that, he closed his eyes, his lips thinned, and then he tipped his head back, face to the sky.

  He knew.

  He knew.

  He’d known all this time.

  Weeks.

  And Buck knew that my best friend in the world, the sister of my soul, was either in danger…

  Or worse.

  “Buck,” I whispered, my hands coming up, fisting in his T-shirt, and his head dipped down, his eyes coming to mine. “Blood,” I whimpered then I pressed my face between my hands in his shirt. “They found lots of blood,” I sobbed into his chest.

  His hand at my jaw slid to the back of my neck, and his hand at my hip slid around, pulling me close.

  I threw my head back and screamed, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “This, baby, this is why I didn’t tell you.” He squeezed my neck and his face got close to mine. “She wasn’t found. Just her car. I knew if you knew, it would mess with your head.”

  “Was the blood hers?” I snapped, and he squeezed my neck harder as he pulled me closer.

  There was my answer, but he confirmed it by whispering, “Yeah.”

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head, my forehead colliding with his chest.

  “Doesn’t mean shit, baby,” he said into the hair at the top of my head. “Not shit. Listen to me. It doesn’t mean shit.”

  I jerked back again to look at him.

  “Blood. Abandoned car. Her purse and bags left behind. What else could that mean?” I cried.

  He gave me a gentle jerk and his face got in mine again.

  “It means we don’t got a dead body. We don’t got a dead body, we got hope. And, fuck me, baby, but you’ve had enough of your hopes shit on and dragged through the mud and fucked over, I wasn’t all fired up to be the one who delivered another fuckin’ blow.”

  My lips parted as I stared into his eyes as what he said washed over me.

  You’ve had enough of your hopes shit on…

  My world was collapsing, again, but here was Buck, tall and strong and capable and mine, here, right here, saying these things to me.

  I wasn’t all fired up to be the one who delivered another fuckin’ blow.

  Washing through me.

  Warm.

  And sweet.

  One could say I wanted to know everything about my best friend, even if it was bad.

  One could also say I got why Buck didn’t share it.

  And he didn’t share, because from birth, I’d sustained blow after blow.

  Thus, he was now the first human being in my life who moved to block me from one.

  “Buck,” I whispered.

  “So I got Tucker and Sylvie on it. And Gash has contacted every MC in every state in the country that we’re allied with and we got their asses on it. I got two men who rode out and stayed out, sniffin’ her trail, which is cold, but they’re still out there, turnin’ over fuckin’ rocks. I even called Scott, and he has the heads-up to feed whatever he may hear to me. And I did all that and I’ll keep doin’ it as long as there’s hope.”

  As long as there’s hope.

  “Tucker and Sylvie?”

  “They’re private detectives. They’re good at what they do. The best in Phoenix.”

  The best in Phoenix.

  Which undoubtedly meant the costliest in Phoenix.

  And they were trying to find Tia, likely not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts (meaning, free).

  Not to mention, every MC the Aces were allied with.

  Aces brothers on the road.

  He’d even called Rayne Scott.

  To give me hope.

  Hope.

  All of that just to keep me in hope.

  Before I even knew my brain had told my hand to move, it moved, sliding up his chest, his neck, into his hair.

  I then pulled his head the inch it had to go, rolling up on my toes at the same time, and my mouth collided with his.

  His lips opened, my tongue slid inside, and I made every effort to communicate with my kiss just exactly how grateful I was that he protected me against the knowledge Imran Babić got off on telling me and that Buck was going all out to give me hope.

  I succeeded wildly in this endeavor and we ended up making out hot and heavy in the dock area of Ace in the Hole Home Improvement and Contracting.

  When our lips detached, his arms had closed tight around me and he let my head move away, but he didn’t release me.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, feeling my lips quivering again.

  “Those words are nice, gorgeous, and I appreciate them, but you got nothin’ to thank me for. You take care of my girl, my house, my business, and you take care of me. Deal was, you take care of me, I take care of you, and that’s all I’m doin’.”

  “I don’t take care of you,” I said quietly.

  “Baby, I got clean towels I didn’t have to clean. I can see the floor in my bedroom. You fall asleep with your hair all over my lap. My daughter finally has someone she can trust. My son can settle in knowin’ his old man is not home by himself when they leave me, but he has someone with him he digs having around. Every person I employ and every brother who swings into Ace comes in with a smile on their face ’cause they got coffee, cupcakes and you to look forward to. And they know what they ordered will be in the warehouse and their paycheck will come on time. You give it to me regular and each time is sweet. And a good life for you revolves around Pop-Tarts. You don’t get it, but that’s takin’ care of me, Toots.”

  “Oh,” I whispered.

  He smiled before he whispered back, “Yeah, oh.”

  I dropped my head, turned it, pressed my cheek to his chest and moved my arms from around his shoulders to lock them around his waist.

  Buck let me hug him for a while before he spoke.

  “Be happy to spend all day standin’ in the sunshine with you pressed up to me, Toots, but a fuckwit kidnapped my woman and I gotta do something about that.”

  Oh dear.

  I tipped my head back to look at him.

  “He didn’t hurt me, just, um…tasered me and tied me up, and he scared me and, um…creeped me out. He called me ‘pretty-pretty,’ and I think he enjoyed it when I got upset about Tia. And then he told me he wanted me to be his girlfriend, but it was my choice. I walked, or kind of ran out of there and no one tried to stop me.”

  After I finished, I wondered what on earth I was thinking, sharing all of that with West Hardy.

  I knew better than that.

  And because I did, I was holding a snake in my arms and I was going to have to learn how to be a charmer pretty danged quick.

  “He tased you?”

  Uh-oh.

  “Um…” I mumbled.

  “Fuckin’ shit,” he muttered, tensing his arms around me.

  “Buck—” I started but stopped when his arms tensed again.

  “Babe, I’ll share ’cause you’ll worry if I don’t. An asshole like Esposito, middle management who thinks he’s bigger than he is and his bullshit is pissin’ off the big man, I can ride in, beat the shit out of and leave unconscious. The Bosnians, no. The Bosnians require planning. I’m not gonna ride in, backed by my boys, and beat the shit outta Babić, not if I don’t want C4 blowin’ up Ace and everything around it, mine and my boys’ garroted bodies lying in the Dive before the explosives are triggered.”

  I sucked in a shocked breath, and he kept talking.

  “So, I plan, and we take care a’ this shit so it won’t blow back. And we will take care of this shit so it won’t blow back. But you, you got a brother at your side whenever I’m not.”

  Not that again.

  “Buck—” I started but stopped when his arms tensed again, this time squeezing the breath out of me.

  “C
lara, babe, do not even think about tryin’ to discuss this shit with me.”

  “Okay,” I wheezed immediately, and he loosened his arms so I kept talking, normally this time. “But before you go, can we make another deal?”

  “Depends on the deal.”

  Figured.

  “I want to know what you know about Tia, and I want to know it when you find out about it. But I don’t want to know the possible results of taking on the Bosnians.”

  “You can’t have the first, you got the last.”

  My brows rose and I asked, “Pardon?”

  “You like your car, you like your job, you like my kids, you like my house and you like sharin’ my bed. I keep you in the know as nothin’ or somethin’ that makes you cry with your face planted in my chest rolls in, babe, you likin’ that shit dims and you walk around under a cloud. Let me deal with the cloud. You need to know, I’ll tell you. Until then, darlin’, my meaning in life is, you live in the sunshine.”

  Oh God.

  It was happening.

  God!

  Let me deal with the cloud.

  I stared up at him, knowing it was happening.

  My meaning in life…

  You live in the sunshine.

  I was falling in love with West Hardy.

  And I knew what this feeling was, and it wasn’t what Rogan led me to believe was real and then walked all over.

  This actually was real.

  This was the real thing.

  This was it.

  This was love.

  I was in love with a biker.

  I was now, truly, officially a biker babe.

  Oh God!

  How did I go from not knowing if I wanted this life to falling in love with the president of an MC?

  He gave me another squeeze.

  “Do we have a deal?” he prompted, clearly not having any clue about the turmoil of my thoughts.

  I couldn’t speak, so I nodded.

  “Good, then lay another one on me, babe, I got shit to do.”

  “Buck.”

  “What?”

  I stared at him, warmth and sweetness rushing through me, and accompanying it was fear.

  I was falling in love with him.

  But right then, after being kidnapped, after finding out things were very not good with Tia, I couldn’t hack it if he wasn’t doing the same with me.