Spades: Motorcycle Club Romance (Savage Saints MC Book 5)

by Hazel Parker

  “Really?” I said.

  My father was right about one thing. It was in poor taste. He’d just come so close to saying he was sorry, to admitting that he needed to stop his offering of suitable men, and now he was saying that he was going to put me back in the setting where I was forced to meet such men?

  This was terrible. Did my father have no taste? No etiquette? No respect for what I wanted?

  “Go to hell,” I said. “If you cared, you’d let me make my own choice.”

  My father, to his credit, didn’t lash back out at me or give me a stern warning about how I had better be there, lest I pay the consequences. Instead, he simply nodded, headed to my door, and shut it behind him.

  I knew I had to go to that party anyway. Part of what my father had said was right. I didn’t want to just date anyone; I wanted to date my type of man, but that still meant having respect for the Sokolov name. There were plenty of men in the Savage Saints whom I had no attraction to, even had repulsion to; I wasn’t going after them just for the sake of making my family’s patriarch happy.

  Part of having respect for the name, though, meant being in attendance at parties like this, especially if the mayor of Las Vegas was going to be there. As much as I hated it and as much as I wanted to spend Saturday night curled up in my room, watching bad TV, I knew there was going to be no way I could get around this.

  At this moment, feeling weak, defeated, and disappointed, I pulled my phone out. I hadn’t texted Richard since the fight on Friday, which meant that the last few messages I had sent him were in the lead up to what would have been some great sex. I wasn’t thinking about the sex, though—I was thinking about how much I had fallen for him then and how much he had fallen for me. There was no need to “play the game” or “follow the rules of dating.”

  But when I started to put my thumbs on the keypad to type out what I wanted to say, I found myself dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to say. And for that matter, Richard hadn’t reached out, either. Maybe that said something.

  Or maybe I was just allowing my disappointment and my emotions of the moment to color how I felt.

  Either way, just like the previous six days, I wound up doing nothing but moping and feeling sad.

  Chapter 15: Richard

  Life can really suck sometimes.

  I sat in the meeting room of the Savage Saints about fifteen minutes before everyone else would pile in, smoking my first cigar in what felt like ages. I’d actually even tried to smoke a cigarette in the moments before, but it had tasted so nasty that I switched over to something I knew. It felt fucked up, given that cigars were meant to celebrate, not mourn, but goddamnit, I just needed some sort of indulgence right now.

  I’d gotten past the alcohol medication stage. That was how I spent Friday and Saturday night, leading to one of the worst hangovers of my life Sunday. Ironically, on the two nights I could have raged super hard, Tuesday and Wednesday, I found myself a disinterested observer of the party, sitting at a stool at the bar and quietly sipping drinks while the rest of the club members and bunnies for the Saints raged hard. Dom, twice each night, had introduced me to a girl who had tits the size of watermelons and cleavage that left nothing to the imagination—in one case, the girl had her breasts actually spilling out of her top—but what good did it do after I’d had Natasha?

  I was a fucking bum right now, and I knew it. I was a little embarrassed I was letting someone I’d only known for a short period of time affect me so hard, but I’d put such time and effort into believing Natasha could work that I never took the time to go slow and think that maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea. Maybe pursuing someone who had a helicopter czar of a parent wasn’t the best idea, huh?

  I was just thankful that the other officers had the good sense to keep the shit talking to a minimum. Dom, naturally, fed me some jokes about becoming asexual on Tuesday night, but when Wednesday came and I didn’t bother to go for his choice of woman, he just put a hand on my shoulder and told me things would be alright.

  “Yeah, alright,” I said out loud to myself as I took a puff of my cigar, recalling the memory.

  I heard the door open from the main room, but I didn’t turn immediately. I figured whoever was coming in would understand that I was still in my “woe is me” phase, something I planned on pulling out of by the end of this week’s worth of performances at The Red Door.

  When I looked over, though, I stared in surprise as all four of the officers walked in together. Pork, Mama, Barber, and Dom all stood not behind their seats, but as one against the wall.

  “Is this some sort of intervention,” I cracked. “Christ, do I have to go through therapy now with you assholes?”

  But no one said anything at first. Instead, they waited for me to take a puff of my cigar.

  “What?” I said, smoke billowing up to the ceiling.

  Finally, Mama cleared her throat.

  “Love, I’ve been with you since the beginning,” she said. “I’ve known you since we were two teenagers who couldn’t tell our ass from our mouths. I have never, ever seen you look like this. You’re pitiful and miserable, like a boy who lost his first love at thirteen years old. It ain’t normal, and I’m scared.”

  She came over to me and stood right in front of me. She motioned for me to stand up, and I did so nervously, wondering if I was about to get some sense slapped into me.

  But instead, Mama did something wonderful. She hugged me.

  “If you’re acting this way, this girl must be something special,” she said. “So let me tell you something. Last week, you made the comment about how we were going to fight the Sinners on our own. I thought some more about what you said, especially after Friday’s little brawl you had with Father Russia.”

  I chortled at the nickname, but Mama kept me focused with some gentle pats on the cheek.

  “Hun, that’s no way to go about life,” she said. “You keep saying ‘do it myself, do it myself, do it myself,’ and you know what happens? You wake up alone one day, wondering why you don’t have anyone around you. Let me tell you something about myself.”

  I looked over at the other three officers, who all looked very confused about the direction Mama was going in. I felt sure they had planned this quasi-intervention together, but it seemed like Mama was going on some sort of tangent here. I just shut my mouth and let Mama say whatever she wanted to.

  “Hun, I’m beyond hope,” she said. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to be so goddamn independent that I haven’t talked to my parents in twenty years. Do you think that’s a good feeling? Fuck no! Complete independence is just as bad as complete dependence. You’re just shifting the dependence from someone else to yourself, but you’re not allowing there to be a balance between the two. Why do you think I’m single and haven’t found anyone? It’s because no one will put up with my bullshit, and no one should.”

  She put me back in the seat.

  “I’m not going to tell you to do something fucking stupid like smile and feel better. You mope as long as you want to. But boy, you found someone that sparked a fire in you unlike I’ve ever seen, and I’ve known you for a long-ass time. You better make sure that if you’re going to give this up, you’ve done everything in your power to get her back. You think some daddy is gonna stand in her way? Man the fuck up, remember you have balls, and find a way to make it work.”

  I had to say, if anyone could give a fired-up speech, it was Mama. I sure as hell had not anticipated the raw honesty that came with her confessing everything she did. She was usually way too closed off and way too hard to admit such a thing.

  But…

  It just wasn’t happening. I just wasn’t breaking free of the funk. I know Mama said I needed to let myself mope as long as I needed to, but that was just her being… what, polite? You know Mama doesn’t bullshit.

  “Damnit, Mama, I fucking love your guts,” I said as I put the cigar out. “I just wish I didn’t act like such a bitch right now.”

  “No, uh uh
, don’t you dare say that,” Mama said. “Don’t make me give you another goddamn speech now. I only got so many of those in reserve.”

  We all gave a light chuckle. Mama took her usual seat at the table. The other officers followed, and a brief silence fell as I wondered if they had anything else to say, and they probably wondered if I had anything to say in response.

  “Shit,” I said finally, a word that somehow seemed to summarize so much of the week and also bring some levity to the room. “Maybe you can go get Igor in here, Dom. Get some money and give him an apology.”

  Dom gave a short chuckle, looking like he wanted to say something snarky, but he bit his tongue. The others gave light laughs as if they were walking on eggshells with me. Was I really that much in a funk? Was I really that much of a bitch right now?

  “Alright, enough of this shit,” I said. “Let’s get down to the meeting. We can mourn my happiness after the poker game. Does anyone have any updates?”

  No one said a word. Had the club been that fucking dead the last week that no one had any recent updates?

  “Mama? How are the girls? How is that one who wanted the pay raise?”

  “Taken care of, hun,” she said. “Everything’s all good there. She’s happy, we’re happy.”

  “Good.”

  My eyes went from officer to officer.

  “Barber? Dom? Anything from the Sinners?”

  “Nothing that we can see,” Barber said. “Spoke to Mario at the police station, asked if he’d gotten anything. He said no as well.”

  “They have to be up to something,” I growled.

  “Maybe you’re just on edge?” Dom suggested. “Maybe you’re just not thinking about it? Maybe—”

  “I’m fine,” I said, putting a hand up, though no one, myself especially, believed that for half a second. “OK, I think we can say I need to take a step back from being paranoid. Fine. But let’s not pretend there won’t be some fallout from what we did. Got it?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “So you’re telling me we have nothing else to discuss?” I said.

  “Hun, you were the thing to discuss,” Mama said.

  I shrugged.

  “Alright. Dom, go ahead and bring the guest in.”

  “You got it,” Dom said. “I should probably apologize in advance, though. This guest… I requested her to come before I knew we were going to have this moment with you. Maybe not the best, but—”

  “Her?” I said, and I already had a bad feeling that he was about to bring in some porn star or some girl who was ruthlessly desperate to fuck me. It would have been in keeping very well with his personality from the past week to try and get me to fuck my way past my feelings.

  “I mean, we decided this on Tuesday, and I asked her Monday, so… yeah.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “Get the cocktail waitress in here too and have her bring me a double scotch. I’m going to need some heavy booze if you think the solution to my problems is pussy.”

  Dom nodded, looking uncomfortable one of the few times since I had known him, and went out to grab whoever it was he was grabbing. I realized Dom’s discomfort likely had as much to do with him as it did with me—Dom wasn’t great at deep conversations. He liked to charm his way past the tough moments, and I’d always wondered what more there was to the man that went beyond the surface.

  I had no time to think about it, though, because Dom brought in a tall, slender woman who had obviously gotten plastic surgery done on her face and on her chest. I was immediately uninterested. Natural was what was sexy to me.

  “Everyone, this is Libby,” Dom said. “Libby is an adult actress from Los Angeles, and she is also apparently quite the poker player; is that right?”

  “Let’s just say I didn’t come here to blow my chips,” she said with a smirk, deliberately looking my way.

  I looked up to the ceiling, as if in prayer for some sort of salvation for what was bound to be an embarrassing, shitty game of poker. It was of no help that my seat was going to be directly across from Libby’s, meaning that any time I looked anywhere besides my cards or the table, her fuck-me eyes were going to be upon me.

  I wasn’t sure what was more insulting: that Dom thought this was the type of body I’d want to fuck or that Libby was probably not going to give up trying to fuck me until I left the damn building.

  “Alright, Libby,” I said, trying not to be so rude that our guest would leave the room on the spot. “We let the guest pick the game of choice. What do you want to play?”

  “Hmm,” she said, using the opportunity to stare me down, not so subtly eying me up. “How about Texas Hold ‘Em? Simple and lets us go all in more frequently.”

  This girl is just going to make innuendos all night, isn’t she?

  “Very well, no-limit hold ‘em it is,” I said.

  “Oh, no limit, just how I like it.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Even Mama rolled her eyes.

  “So, sweet pea, how long have you been in the industry for?” Mama asked, perhaps with the intent of taking her attention off of me.

  “Oh, just a few years, nothing crazy,” Libby said.

  “What kind of scenes do you do?” Pork asked with a bit more curiosity than most men would have shown at that moment.

  “Honestly? I like ‘em tatted and tall,” she said, looking directly at me as she said this.

  I turned to Dom, who pretended to look at his cards with the utmost intent as I glared at him. I couldn’t be that mad at him, I supposed; he was doing what he thought was best for me. It was just too damn bad that what was best for me couldn’t be solved with more sex; if anything, I’d had enough sex to last three or four lifetimes.

  I just want Natasha and her company. Is that too much to ask?

  “Well, good news for you, sugar; we’ve got about fourteen such boys here,” Mama said. “I’m sure you’re one of their types.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  I deliberately closed myself off for the next few hours as we played poker, even when Libby made a show of scratching her chest or leaning back. I had to admit, her body was absolutely killer, and I definitely let my mind imagine what sex would be like with her. I’d had a few good-looking gals in my bed, but there weren’t many that would’ve matched Libby’s body.

  That’s all she was, though. A body.

  Not a personality. Not a person with goals. Not someone who had accomplished so much and had so much ahead of her. She was just… a body with tits and a pussy on it.

  It was crass, but she wasn’t doing herself any favors with her constantly flirting with me.

  At about half an hour past one, I’d decided I’d had enough. Even though we could have kept the game going for another two and a half hours, I was fading, as much from emotional fatigue as from a lack of sleep. I couldn’t even get my dick hard, anyways, so it’s not like staying around was suddenly going to change anything.

  “Alright, let’s wrap this up, last hand of the night.”

  “Oh?” Libby said, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Yep, let’s make it quick.”

  I looked down at the hand that I got dealt. It was 5-8 off suit, a mediocre hand. I tossed it to Pork, who was the dealer, and got up to check on my room to make sure there wasn’t anything that needed to be done. I had my back turned and heard a few other people stand up.

  Then the door behind me shut, and I whirled around immediately.

  “You didn’t think that Dom brought me here to play poker, did you?” Libby said, slightly moving her jeans downward, giving me a seductive glance of her skin under the red lights of the room.

  I said I wasn’t getting hard, but right now? That changed very fast. In the privacy of my room, knowing that this beautiful porn star wanted to fuck me… yeah, it was no small wonder that my dick sprung up at attention.

  “What did he bring you here for?”

  I still wasn’t convinced I was going to go through with this. My dick may have been rock hard, but
I was thirty-nine, not nineteen. I could overrule my physical impulses if I so desired.

  “He brought me here to make sure you had fun tonight,” Libby said, walking closer… and closer… until she pressed up on me. “And for a guy like you, who is just my type? It’s something he didn’t even have to pay me for.”

  She pressed her breasts up on me before she shoved me to the bed. Before I had a chance to get up, she was on my hips, straddling me seductively. Give it to the girl: she knew exactly what the hell she was doing. There was no trying to figure out if she was making me feel good; she knew she was making me feel good.

  “Oh, Richard, I can tell you have a thick, hard cock,” she moaned. “Oh, I wanna feel you bury it deep inside my pussy. Give it to me, Richard. Give me your thick, huge cock.”

  I let out a sigh. She was starting to take her shirt off. If I didn’t stop her now… if I didn’t put the kibosh on it now…

  Her tits fell out, and they were perfect.

  Too perfect.

  I knew from the moment that she walked in that she’d had work done on them, but I had somehow let the thought slip away. But now, seeing them in the flesh—or silicon—I got jolted back to reality.

  “Libby, I can’t,” I said, scooting out from under her.

  “The hell?” she said.

  Her reaction was of someone who had never been turned down for sex. It was easy to see why, too. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she suddenly thought I was gay.

  “I’m… I’m going through some shit right now,” I gruffed. “I’ve got a girl I’m trying to figure things out with, and—”

  “Whatever,” Libby said, throwing her top back on in frustration. “I came here to get some dick. At least show me someone who can do that for me.”

  That was the easy part. I hurried out of my room to see Pork and Dom talking. My unexpected arrival made them look at me askance.

  “Richard, are you—”

  “Who wants her?”

  Dom and Pork looked at each other.

  “Well, I had her Tuesday, so…”