by Love, Amy
And starting today, he was going to pledge his life to that man.
The thought simultaneously excited him and made him nauseous. On the one hand, he'd finally have concrete protection from the Black Eagles; on the other, he'd be at the beck and call of someone he strongly suspected was a madman.
It was a fair price to pay—he supposed—to be able to sleep at night.
Drowsily, Liam turned onto his side to take in the sensuous sleeping woman on the pillow next to him. It had to be illegal to look as good as she did the morning after a hot one-nighter. Christ, she looked so scrumptious he was even thinking about frying a few eggs…and maybe some bacon.
Usually, he didn't even take women back to his place. Liam had a bad track record with the opposite sex. Any woman that came into his apartment usually left the next day screaming insults. But, Vicky didn't seem to mind trading inane banter with him. In fact, she seemed to revel in it.
Just like she'd reveled in his tongue exploring the core of the sweetness between her legs.
Damn, he wanted her again already.
Almost as if she sensed what he was thinking, the dark-haired girl beside him opened her eyes slowly, sleepily and stared at him. For a moment, her blank expression had him worried that she had indeed been drunk out of her mind the previous night and didn't remember who he was. But then, she gave him a sultry, half-asleep smile.
“Morning, stranger.”
“Morning yourself.” He chuckled, leaning down to mold his mouth to hers in a lingering kiss. She sighed against his lips, and more than anything he wanted to turn her onto her stomach and fuck her into the headboard; however, as he was a gentleman and she seemed to be only about fifty percent aware of her surroundings, he refrained. “Want some breakfast?”
She gave a low laugh, her gray eyes glowing with mirth. “Oh, wow. I'm sensing that's not usually an offer.”
Christ, she was perceptive; yet, her intuition only made him smile. “Well, no. Not usually, if you must know.”
Stretching leisurely so the sheet fell down below the pert, round globes of her breasts, she gazed up at him. “I like my eggs over easy and my bacon well done.”
Liam hardly heard her. He was too focused on the way her aureoles contrasted with the tanned skin of her bosom.
At his vacant expression, she merely rolled her eyes playfully, sitting up to wrap her arms around him and pull him back down against her, emptying his mind with a single kiss.
It was a while before either of them spoke again, and when they did, it was on the subject of Vicky's incessantly buzzing phone.
While they'd been heatedly going at it, the damn thing must have gone off four or five times, and it was only when they lay sated in each other’s arms once more that Vicky groaned.
“What time is it?”
Liam glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “About ten.”
Almost immediately, Vicky’s face contorted in displeasure. “Shit.” Rising from bed, she padded naked across the room to retrieve her phone from where it was nestled in her purse against the wall. Liam let himself admire the fine lines of her toned behind as she glanced at the caller ID before ignoring the call and casting the phone back onto the floor in disgust. “Fuck. Shit.” She ran her hands through her unkempt locks in an obviously nervous gesture before finally turning to him, her expression apologetic.
“I gotta go.”
He arched a brow. Didn't things like this usually happen the other way around? “Jealous boyfriend?”
She scowled at the jibe a moment before her face softened in good humor. “No, worse. Much worse.”
Hurriedly, she began to move about the room, retrieving her clothing from the night before. As he watched her, his erection burgeoning for an amazing third time in eight hours, Liam continued to try and lighten the mood. “Hey, if it's some work thing, I can have my new boss roll up and take yours out.”
Her smile was amused as she glanced at him over her shoulder, wiggling her phenomenal ass into her black silk Brazilian briefs. “Oh really? And what boss is that?”
Usually, Liam absolutely abhorred dropping names to impress women. He hardly thought it was necessary since most of them were never satisfied no matter what you did. But once, this single time, he was infatuated enough to make an exception.
“Darren Platt, President of the Dark Saints.”
Vicky froze just as she slid into her dress, her eyes immediately going wide.
What the...? For a moment, he merely watched her with bated breath, waiting for her reply.
It seemed like an eternity before she turned to him, her expression unreadable. “You're a Saint?”
The question turned him slightly sheepish. “Well, not quite yet. I prospect today.”
“Don't!” Her response was so vehement, so intense, that he was slightly offended. After all the shit she'd talked the previous night, she couldn't have suddenly turned prude in the light of day? Did she have a problem with the way the MC operated? Was she a bleeding heart die-hard for the longevity of the lawful city of LA?
“You've got beef with the Saints?” It was the only way he could think to pose the question without sounding like a complete dick.
“Ha!” Her exclamation was simultaneously bitter and sarcastic. “Yeah, if only.”
Now she was starting to piss him off. Frowning, Liam crossed his arms over his bare chest as he gazed at her over the rumpled sheets. “They've got a solid name and a strong reputation. Why not go for the best of the best?”
Shaking her head, her face lined with disapproval, Vicky merely grabbed her purse and straightened to her full height. Her dark hair flowed in a mass of waves down her back. Most women would look like absolute shit the morning after a night of debauchery, but Vicky looked like a goddamn queen.
A pissed-off, righteous, stubborn queen. “You'll regret it. I can promise you that.” With that, she turned on her heel and left the bedroom—and ultimately the apartment. The sound of the door shutting echoed throughout the otherwise empty space.
Groaning at the tension in his muscles, Liam ran his hands through his mussed hair. “Fuck.”
That hadn't gone well at all.
Casting the sheets to the side, he rose from the bed to head towards the bathroom for a shower, even though he was reluctant to wash the sweet smell of the surprisingly stubborn woman he'd slept with from his body.
However, as he was about to leave the room, he noticed a slim leather case on the floor and bent to pick it up.
It was a wallet.
No doubt it was Vicky's. He was going to have to return it to her—and that was going to be awkward as hell. Maybe he could just mail it? Sighing, he flipped through the thing, pausing when he came upon her driver’s license.
Age twenty-three. Thank God for that. Height five-eight, eyes gray, Victoria Platt.
Platt.
Fuck.
Liam almost dropped the wallet. Platt. Vicky was a Platt—as in related to Darren Platt.
It all made sense now. Her apparent disdain for the Saints and the bitterness in her voice when he'd inferred she had a problem with them.
She had the biggest problem—a crazy-ass, murderous, over-protective brother with half the resources of underworld LA at his fingertips.
And now...fuck...
It was his problem, too.
He'd just fucked the most unfuckable woman in the entire city—and if it was ever discovered, he would lose his head.
CHAPTER NINE
“Jesus, I must be crazy.” Later that afternoon, after contemplating his own sanity and the dire situation he found himself in, Liam found himself on his new bike with new plates. He drove through Larchmont, searching for the address on Victoria Platt's license.
He was utterly out of his mind.
The woman was the much-talked-about and extremely forbidden sister of Darren Platt—the one man in LA who was the most likely to kill you as soon as he looked at you. How was he ever going to prospect to the Dark Saints when
he could hardly fathom the idea of looking the man in the eye?
His entire life Liam was forced to be tough. His mother had fled when he'd barely been out of diapers, and his father beat him—often to within an inch of his life. It was only by the grace of his aunt—who had worried about her nephew and come to visit him often—that he'd made it to his tenth birthday.
Then, he merely avoided his old man until he was old enough to fight back.
In school, he'd gotten decent grades; but, he'd refrained from hanging out with any one group of kids so they wouldn’t start asking questions about the numerous bruises and scars that peppered his skin. His teachers had called numerous family meetings, but his father had only shown up to one—completely drunk, and he’d hit on Liam’s poor geography instructor.
Somehow, Liam made it to high school, and one night when his dad had gotten it into his mind that his son deserved a beating, Liam fought back. He'd ruptured the man's appendix, blinded him in one eye, broken several ribs, and taken a decade of frustration, fear, and anger out at his father in about an hour.
Then, he'd left the house and never looked back.
In high school, he'd been teased about his lack of a stable home. He'd only ignored the taunts to graduate with honors and start college under his own steam. It was there that he'd fallen in with the Black Eagles and their ambiguous world of drugs, whoring, and weapons dealing.
And he'd been in deep.
But he'd escaped from that, too.
However, in his entire twenty-seven years, he'd never felt the trepidation that he felt now. He'd be a fool if he wasn't worried about his own ass—as would any man with any sense.
Yet, here he was, still seeking out Victoria Platt like some forlorn, blind idiot.
Unfortunately, he couldn't help it. The entire morning he'd told himself that he'd just roll up to the police station and drop the wallet off. Let them do the dirty work. Then, he remembered how delicious Vicky had looked in her scarlet dress, how she'd matched him drink for drink, and how she effortlessly traded banter with him for hours. The result was that he hadn't been able to convince himself to simply walk away.
The woman was practically hidden from the world by her brother. Although it was obvious that she got out and roamed, the stark fear on her face when she'd realized who must have been calling her in the morning spoke volumes of her situation.
So, like a dumbass, he was seeking her out, again.
Silently, Liam cursed his cock as he rode through the neighborhood at cruising speed. Was any ass worth this much? He was supposed to be prospecting the Saints tonight. What if they were following him right now?
He'd be dead. Six feet under.
CHAPTER TEN
For a moment, Liam allowed himself to just appreciate the sweet ride that thrummed between his thighs instead of the fiery woman he pursued. She was a beauty—normally a sixty-thousand-dollar-bike, and he'd gotten her for practically free. This was, of course, because she'd been part of how he had proved himself to the Dark Saints. Of all the petty crimes Liam had ever committed in his life, stealing was easiest. He had some sort of Robin-Hood complex that he was loathe to admit to; so, he despised taking from those that couldn’t afford it and reveled in stealing from those who could. In his time with the Black Eagles, he'd done more than his fair share of bullying those who hadn't deserved it.
What had the Saints asked him to do to prove that he could be one of them?
Steal a goddamn bike.
It had been something that he was almost too happy to do. With a slip of the hand, he dismantled some security cameras and hotwired the bike. In no time, he was gone to have some private time with his new baby. She was sleek and powerful and, in her, he could certainly find what kept drawing him back to motorcycle clubs. No matter how dangerous they might be, club members spent most of their time on a bike; and that, in Liam's opinion, was almost worth it all.
Within the next five minutes, he pulled to a stop in front of a historical building in a charming district that was filled with a plethora of people of different ethnicities and creeds. As customers bargained in the small market across from the well-landscaped lot, Liam parked his bike and cut the engine.
He stared at the building for a moment.
She was on the fourth floor in Apartment G.
Was he really going to do this?
Certainly he'd return the wallet, but then what? How the hell would she react when she realized that he knew who she was?
Pocketing his keys, Liam started up the walk to the door, leaving the gleaming black Harley behind him to glint in the afternoon sunlight.
Luckily enough, he didn't have to buzz himself in, and it was easy work to ascend to the fourth floor and find the apartment labeled G. The digs were nice, and he assumed that though he'd heard Darren and his sister had come from nothing, there had to be a bundle of benefits that came from running the most bad ass bike club in the city.
Reaching out, he knocked brusquely on the door.
In the three minutes it took her to answer, he'd almost convinced himself that she wasn't home. Suddenly, the door was yanked open, and Vicky stood before him.
For a moment, he forgot how much trouble both of them were bound to be in and simply took in the sight of her. She'd recently showered, and her hair hung damp and gleaming over her shoulders. Her face was free of makeup and was actually far more attractive in its natural state—which was a bold claim, considering that she'd been drop dead gorgeous in full make-up earlier. Although she was clad in a simple cotton cami and sweat pants, the tiny nip of her waist, her full hips, and the circles of her nipples—visible through the thin material of her top—made his crotch tighten.
When she saw who he was, her eyes widened.
“What the…how—” Without any further spluttering, she took his arm and yanked him inside, closing the door and bolting it behind them. Then, she turned to him, her face flushed in outrage. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Christ, she was gorgeous when she was angry.
“Returning your wallet.” When he finally managed an answer, holding the leather case out to her, she merely stared at him, her lips slightly parted in disbelief. Without a word, she snatched it from him, glancing down at the brand-name emblazoned leather and then back at him. Her mouth set into a hard line. “Where did you get this?”
“It fell out of your purse.” He put his hands up defensively. “I just wanted to get it back to you.”
“Or you're some rival gang member out to ransom me back to Darren.”
The notion forced a bark of nervous laughter from him. “Yeah, I think if that was the case I probably would have fucked you a bit more before, you know, not letting you leave.”
Her mouth dropped open in outrage. “You fucking bastard.”
“Look, Vicky,” he quickly tried to salvage the situation, “I swear to God I didn't know who your brother was until I saw your license. Do you really think I would have set myself up to prospect the day after fucking my clearly-unhinged president's sister?”
“Don't. Just...don't,” she started, holding out a hand as her breath hitched. Turning, she tossed her wallet onto a nearby coffee table before covering her face with her hands. “Oh fuck.” She glanced back at him, her gray eyes unreadable. “Please tell me this has changed your mind about prospecting.”
Now, if there was ever a matter which made him truly doubt his sanity, this was it. The funny thing was that, though he'd contemplated whether or not to go through with his decision all morning, Liam still found himself leaning largely toward going through with his plans.
Certainly, it was an idea that fell partially in the suicidal category. Prospecting meant feigning that he didn't know a woman who gave him an instant hard on. Atop that, he'd be swearing his body and soul to a man he knew to be slightly off his rocker.
His expression must have revealed the thoughts swirling through his head. After looking at him and registering the resignation on his face, Vicky's sumptu
ous mouth dropped open in shock. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Look,” Liam ran his hands through mussed hair intensely, looking away from her, “This isn't just about you. I have needs and goals—goals that the Saints can help me reach.”
“What? Goals like death and disembowelment?” Exhaling in exasperation, the young woman turned from him to saunter into the kitchen where she poured herself a large cup of black coffee, which she proceeded to drink straight. “Do you even,” she finally managed to say, grimacing at the bitter taste of the drink, “know what Darren would do to you if he finds out? He practically tore me a new one this morning for not answering my phone.”
