Duke

by Candace Blevins

  “Gen, this is Blake. I take it from all the bikes in your driveway, he’s going to get to meet a good portion of the club?”

  “A half-dozen of them, yeah.” Gen looked to the large man with a smile. “Fair warning, Blake — some of the guys are big football fans. I hope you don’t mind?”

  His grin told her his ego was huge and he’d eat it up. “Don’t mind a bit. I’ve never had a chance to sit down and talk to a real life biker gang before.”

  “Club,” Gen corrected, “they’re a motorcycle club, not a gang. Everyone’s in the kitchen, come on back.”

  * * * *

  Gen wasn’t alone with Duke until nearly two in the morning. Once the MC guys left, Gen and Duke went on a double date, bar hopping with Bethany and Blake.

  On the way home, a police officer pulled Duke over, and he got off the bike to talk to the officer, but told Gen to stay put.

  Gen sat still, knowing Duke was right. She was pretty drunk, and if the officer wanted to be an ass he could arrest her for public drunkenness.

  She turned to see the officer making Duke do the breathalyzer, and crossed her arms and looked down as they both stepped to her.

  “Can I see some ID, ma’am?”

  Gen looked to Duke, who pulled her license from his pocket and handed it to the officer.

  He walked back to his car, and when he returned, he told them, “It looks like you’re both a person of interest in the missing person investigation of Detective Mike McPherson.”

  He was looking at Gen when he spoke, but she kept her mouth shut. She’d answered questions a half dozen times, to multiple investigators, and this was just a traffic cop.

  “Officer,” said Duke, “we haven’t been able to help the investigators with the case. Gen took out a restraining order on him after he stalked and threatened her, and frankly I’m not surprised he chose to run instead of sticking around to face charges. Are we free to go? It’s late and I’d like to get my girlfriend home.”

  The officer looked to Gen and said, “Can you step away from the vehicle, ma’am?”

  Gen leaned forward, braced, and swung her leg off, working hard to keep her balance and not look as drunk as she knew herself to be.

  “Did your boyfriend take care of your ex for you? Make sure he wouldn’t bother you again?”

  She shook her head. “Duke wouldn’t have done that. I had an attorney, and was making sure I built a case against both him and the Chattanooga Police Department. With him gone, my case is substantially weaker. My privacy was violated, and I’ll never get a chance to see him pay for it.”

  “You been drinking?”

  “Heavily, officer, but I’m not driving, and Duke’s taking care of me.”

  * * * *

  By the time they drove away, Duke was holding his wolf on a tight leash to keep from knocking the damned cop out with an uppercut to the asshole’s probably glass jaw.

  He didn’t mind the ticket so much — he’d been going eighty on the interstate, after all. But the officer had kept them on the side of the road, harassing them, for nearly an hour. It was clear he’d been trying to tick Duke off enough he’d have an excuse to arrest one or both of them, and he’d very nearly decided to arrest Gen for public drunkenness.

  However, Gen had sobered up enough to name drop a few high priced attorneys she kept on retainer, and the cop had quickly realized she’d get any charges thrown out with no problems.

  Gen was wearing black leather pants, motorcycle boots, a pale yellow silk blouse, and a black leather jacket, but his Beautiful Genesis still managed to pull off high-class, even when dressed as a biker bitch, and three sheets to the wind.

  Duke lived in fear she’d one day wake up and decide the hassle of life with him was more than she was interested in dealing with, and tonight he’d seen her frustration and helplessness when confronted with a police officer dead set on being as big of a pain in the ass as he could get away with.

  Sure, Duke could — and would — complain to the traffic cop’s superiors later, but at the time, anything he’d done would’ve only given the dickweed an excuse for an arrest. Duke also wondered, though, if perhaps someone had put the rookie cop up to questioning Gen about McPherson when she was drunk.

  Officially, the top brass had decided McPherson must’ve left to avoid charges. Unofficially, many of his friends on the force were convinced Duke had something to do with his disappearance, and weren’t going to let it go.

  Brain had hacked the cellphone company logs so McPherson didn’t show up at the house on Signal Mountain — the signal had appeared to drop out at McPherson’s house that morning, and had never shown up again. The traffic cams showed him driving through Red Bank on his way towards Signal Mountain that morning, but the last image they had of him was about a mile from the base of the mountain.

  The house it’d happened in had sold, Jiminy had successfully made both McPherson and his car disappear, and there was nothing to tie Duke, Gen, or anyone else to his disappearance. Jiminy assured Duke that Mike McPherson had been trained and conditioned as a sex slave and then sold at auction, deep in South America where he’d never escape, and never have a chance to tell his story. His vocal chords had been surgically fixed so they’d no longer work, and the tendons responsible for thumb control had been severed. He’d been given size C breast implants, and he now wore removable dentures so he could give better blowjobs with no teeth.

  Jiminy also assured Duke that McPherson wasn’t likely to survive more than a year or two, as most sex slaves purchased by this particular man were destined for a hard, short life. Duke’s conscience would’ve been happier just killing the man outright, but Gen needed to be told her ex-boyfriend was alive, somewhere, so Duke lived with it.

  Duke also made it a point to never do something to piss Pebbles off, because it was clear her husband would do anything she asked of him.

  “It’s never going to stop, is it?”

  They didn’t talk about Mike anymore, for a variety of reasons, but one of them was Duke was worried someone might have them under surveillance. Duke touched her mouth to remind her, but then carried her upstairs, undressed her, turned some music on, and got in the shower with her.

  “Mike made some really bad decisions, Gen. He was going to keep coming after you, and even if he’d seen actual jail time, it wasn’t likely to be more than a few years. He knew what he was doing when he kidnapped you and Pebbles, and he had to know how Jiminy would react. What happened to him is his fault, not yours. We did what we had to do to keep you safe.”

  She nodded and let him hold her a few minutes before saying, “The cop tonight was just being a jerk, and if I hadn’t been drunk I could’ve handled him better, but I still never want to have to go through that again.”

  Duke leaned back, touched her chin, and leveled with her. “It isn’t likely to be the last time, Beautiful. Riding on the back of my bike puts a target on you with law enforcement. I wish it didn’t, and there are some things we can do to negate the impact they can have on you, but I can’t make it stop.”

  She looked up, her eyes serious, dark. “I lost a sale a few weeks ago — someone who wasn’t comfortable working with a Realtor with known associations with felons. I told them you aren’t a felon and my private life had no bearing on my business, but they didn’t want to hear it.”

  Duke turned the water off and sat on her bench, his wolf even more pissed than him, but he kept his voice soft as he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I’ve made my decisions, and I love you and I’ll live with the consequences of that, but after tonight, it seemed maybe we should have a talk about it.”

  Duke nodded, stood to reach for a towel, and began drying her as he asked, “Is there anything we can do to lessen the impact I have on your business dealings?”

  “Honestly? Some of the people who’ve hired me lately seem to think I have street cred or something, since I’m with you. As far as perception, dating you hurts me with some,
and helps me with others, so I’m going to call it a wash. I’d developed a reputation for being a strong negotiator before I started seeing you, but it seems that having it known I’m dating the bad-ass president of a motorcycle club makes me seem a little more formidable, to some.”

  Duke’s heart felt as if it grew wings, until the next words came out of her mouth. “The thing is, I don’t like the cops looking at me like I’m a bad guy, and they do, now. Between them all being so familiar with who you are, plus the fact I used to date a cop who’s now missing, I’m instantly recognizable to them and they look at me like I’m filthy. I was shopping with Bethany last week and even she noted how one of the mall security guys watched me, and the look of derision on his face.”

  When they were dry, Duke pulled one of his t-shirts over her head, stepped into a pair of shorts, and walked her to the sofa in her bedroom.

  “There’s a lot of things I can fix for you, but I’m not sure what to do about this, Beautiful. I can talk to Aaron Drake, see if he has any ideas, but…” He shrugged, insisting his wolf back off and let him talk to her, let him come up with a plan. The wolf had wanted to eat the cop, tear his throat out and watch the blood flow, and Duke soothed him now, told him this needed human finesse and not a full frontal attack.

  “What could Drake Security do?”

  “I don’t know, maybe nothing, but Aaron’s tight with local law enforcement. It might do more harm than good, bringing you up to them, but it’s the only idea I have at the moment.”

  Gen shook her head. “No, don’t get him involved. I’ve already put the best criminal attorneys on retainer, so they’re only a phone call away should I have problems with law enforcement. I’m going to have a talk with them about last night, not to make them jump into action, but to get advice on whether there was a better way for me to have handled the situation.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Duke walked out of his attorney’s office, got on his bike, and drove straight to the best jewelry store in town.

  He’d had his lawyer draft a prenuptial agreement saying anything Gen owned was hers, and he had no stake in it, before or after the wedding. All income and properties owned by her would remain hers, in perpetuity. Duke’s holdings in RTMC affairs would be legally separate from her, with her having no stake in them at any time. However, his bikes, cars, and other assets he would hold jointly with her once they were married. He’d had his attorney draft it specifically so nothing he did could blow back on her, but also so there would be no doubt he wasn’t asking her to marry him so he could get at her money.

  Bethany and Pebbles met him at the jewelry store. He’d sworn them both to secrecy, but Duke knew he needed help getting the ring exactly right. His woman wore thousand dollar designer shoes — just any old ring wasn’t going to be good enough.

  The three made an odd pair, Bethany in her scrubs, Pebbles in clothes that probably cost as much as a used Harley, and Duke in jeans and his cut. Pebbles had made an appointment for them, though, and had requested they bring some specific rings in from their Atlanta store, so Duke would have a better selection.

  They were ushered into a room in the back, and Duke sat and watched as the woman unlocked a safe in the wall, brought out a lockbox, and then unlocked it to pull out ring after ring, placing them on a piece of black velvet on the table before him.

  Of the nine rings the woman placed in an artful display before him, Duke immediately zeroed in on two.

  He picked both up, considered them one at a time, and then asked Pebbles, “Tell me about these two.”

  “Both are from a designer she likes. One’s all about flashing the biggest diamond possible, while the other’s about a combination of large diamonds and tasteful design. Both are platinum.”

  He looked at Bethany. “Which do you like best?”

  “I’d freak if anyone expected me to wear either of them, but Gen will like them both.”

  Pebbles took the one with the largest diamond from him and looked at it through some kind of jeweler’s eyepiece. She swapped rings with him, looked at the second, and said, “Both are flawless. Take a look.”

  Duke didn’t know what he was looking at, but once he looked at them close up, he found he was happier with the more complex design. He worked with metal when he built and modified bikes, and he could see true craftsmanship, though on a much smaller scale. He lifted the one he liked, and the woman smiled at him as she said, “We can size it while you wait, do you know your fiancée’s ring size?”

  “Hold up,” Pebbles said. “He’ll need to look at the matching bands, now. He may not buy everything today, but he’s going to make some more decisions, and you’re going to give him a discount on the engagement ring, as incentive for him to come back to you to buy the wedding bands.”

  Two hours later, Duke walked out with a ring that cost more than a few of his bikes had cost brand new, even though Pebbles had successfully brought the price down by nearly two thousand dollars.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Gen gave a silent war-whoop as she rounded a corner and took out Bash, as she was pretty sure she and Pebbles only needed to get Brain now, in order to win the competition.

  They’d started out as six women against six men, but now it was down to two women and one man. Gen remembered Brain climbing the tree in her back yard, and she looked up, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

  She didn’t see anything, so she held her breath, and listened… and then tried to latch onto Duke’s sense of smell.

  It worked, and she had to triangulate where Brain was most likely to be, based on where she thought Duke was.

  Gen backed around a tree, made her way from hiding place to hiding place for twenty yards, and then stopped to look up again. She heard something on the ground in front of her, looked, and saw Pebbles. Gen’s eyes went up again, and she saw Brain, aiming his paintball gun at Pebbles.

  Gen lifted her gun and shot without bothering to take time for a good aim, and then gave an audible war-whoop when she saw bright pink blossom on his leg.

  Duke and Jiminy had both opted to watch and not participate, so when Pebbles and Gen came out of the woods with huge smiles and no paint on them, they both got hugs from their men, as well as high fives from most of the women present.

  Duke walked them through the clubhouse and into the back so they could change clothes, and by the time they came back out, the kids were once again engaged in paintball battle in the woods. The official tournaments were over, but the kids would have a blast practicing and playing for another couple of hours.

  Gen watched with fascination as Aaron and Sophia Drake’s triplets climbed all over Duke and Brain. The three toddlers were the cutest, most adorable babies Gen had ever seen in her life, and she loved watching how gentle the bad-ass bikers were with them.

  Aaron’s wife was tiny, and Gen couldn’t imagine how the woman had managed to give birth to three babies and still manage to weigh less than a hundred pounds. She looked like a tiny fairy princess, and the first time Sophia had run and practically jumped into Duke’s arms, Gen had been pissed. However, she’d soon learned the two were just good friends, and that Aaron Drake didn’t have a problem with their friendship, so she probably shouldn’t, either.

  She was a little surprised when her brother Frisco showed up with all of his lovers as well as Randall, but she was happy Duke’s brother accepted the invitation. It took a lot for the Pack Alpha to come to an RTMC gathering with only one Pack wolf with him, and that wolf happened to be Isaac’s adopted father, which meant it was still all family.

  Somehow, Duke’s pants got ripped while he was roughhousing with the kids, but he didn’t seem to even notice. He might prefer jeans and tees, but he was always neat and tidy in them, his shirts tucked in and his jeans worn but clean. Gen thought it a good look for him tonight, surrounded by friends and family. He seemed more carefree, happier, and definitely sexy, with his bare, muscled arms contrasting with his black leather vest, a black sleeveless te
e tucked into his pants.

  She didn’t think anything of it when he jumped up on a concrete picnic table with a microphone to talk to the crowd. As club president, he frequently aimed their parties in whatever direction he thought they should go.

  However, when he asked Brain to bring her to him, she protested as she was lifted up and settled beside him.

  “If you’re here,” he said to the assembled crowd, “then you know Gen, and you know I’m crazy about her. The club nicknamed her Duchess, and the title fits. I never quite understood why people in long-term relationships referred to their partner as their other half, but with Gen, I get it. She completes me, she makes me want to be a better man.”

  Gen didn’t know what to say, she could only look at him, embarrassed to be standing on a table, but so caught up in his words, she could only stare.

  He’d been looking at her when he talked before, but he’d been talking to the crowd. Now, he was speaking to her, and the crowd no longer mattered.

  “Genesis, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know you’re mine and I’m yours, but I want to make it official.” He held his hand out, and Gen saw the most beautiful ring she’d ever laid eyes on.

  “Beautiful, will you marry me?”

  Speechless, Gen just stood and stared at him. She didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, and it’s possible her heart didn’t beat.

  “You’re killing me, Beautiful. Please say something.”

  She still couldn’t speak, but she managed to nod her head and push her left ring finger towards the ring. Duke’s smile could’ve lit a football field as he put it on her finger and swept her off her feet as he wrapped her in his arms.