by Zoey Parker
When he was done, he took a step back, swiping up his jeans from the floor he stuffed his legs into them, leaving me sitting naked on the counter. It was a lot to take in.
“All because Tanner gave me the wrong package one night almost two years ago?”
He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”
“That is so fucking stupid!” I yelled. “I mean, what the fuck!” I hopped off the counter and started to pace around the kitchen. “Of all the fucking stupid shit. Seriously? That asshole is that pissed that Tanner cut him off his supply? His coke is that fucking important to him? If I drop the internship, that won’t fucking matter, will it? Because his fucking male pride has been bruised? Two years later he’s coming at me for a fucking mix up in the packages?”
If he was surprised to hear me yelling and cursing, he didn’t look it and he made no move to stop me either.
“I tried, Michael. I tried so fucking hard not to end up in the same life as my mom, and look at me. Right where she was. I may not have a husband who wants to beat me death, but I have plenty of other men who want to.”
“No one’s going to get to you.”
“No, because you joined your biker club again—you’re in a gang again.”
“It’s not a gang.” His forceful clarification didn’t work to soothe my worry or angst.
“It’s all happening again. To protect me, you’re giving up your life. I won’t do it. I will not let you do this. Not a second time. I couldn’t live with myself a second time.” I wasn’t sure when the tears started to fall, but they were falling fast.
His arms wrapped around me, pulling me to his chest. Sloppy sobs ripped through me. I couldn’t let him do it, not again. Not for my stupidity. I had to deal with it on my own. I would have to figure out a way to do it on my own.
“Shhh.” His hand ran over my hair. He rocked me gently but I continued to cry.
“I can’t let you do this.” I sobbed into his bare chest, well aware my tears were slipping down his chest.
“You aren’t letting me do anything.” He pushed me away, wiping the tears from my face. “It’s my call. Just like it was back then. Even knowing what would happen, I’d still have made the same decision. No one lays a hand on my girl.”
“You left the club—”
“Let me finish. I said yes on the condition that when this is all over, Mick steps down. He can keep his leathers and his membership, but he won’t be holding anymore chairs.”
“Why would he agree to that?” I sniffled.
“Because if he didn’t, the entire club would hear of the fucked up shit he’s been doing, and they would cut him out of the club permanently. He’s a fucked up guy, does stupid shit, but he really does love that club. And so do I, Lauren. I only left because I couldn’t go along with him on that shit.”
“He tried to have you killed!” I reminded him.
“Yeah. I remember that.” He gave me a half smile. “I’ll handle all of that shit. You just need to keep it together and do exactly as I say when I say it. Got it? Things are getting hotter now. The Fallen know I’m involved, know I suspect them, and they aren’t going to let this just go. Leonard is paying them a shit load of money to see this through.”
I let out a ragged breath. “They want me to let go of the internship, and then they were going to kill me anyway?”
“Yeah. One in particular.”
“Colton?” I wouldn’t believe that. He may have been their VP but he wouldn’t go along with that idea. He may be a controlling son of a bitch, but he wouldn’t hurt a woman. Never. But then again, money spoke pretty loudly.
“No.”
“You said you talked with Colton.”
“I did. He didn’t know what’s going on, and I think that’s the case for most of the club. He’s VP; he would know if the club had taken a job to kill some bystander. I’m not sure Mick’s right about it being the whole club. I think it’s one guy. One guy who took the money from Leonard for the kill. The others, they think they’re just being muscle to get you out of the way of the internship. That’s why they got Mick to handle it, better to outsource trouble, I guess. Keep their hands clean, but get the results they want from Leonard.”
“Why did my life get so damn complicated?”
“Shit just happens, babe.” He kissed my cheek. “I don’t want you to worry about this. Putting my kutte back on isn’t the worst idea. As long as Mick steps down and I can get Johnny to finally step up, the club will straighten back out.
“Who’s the guy? The guy who has the job of killing me?”
He eyed me carefully, as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me or not. “Dean Jensen.”
My brow furrowed and I bit my bottom lip. The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“How well do you know Asya’s boyfriend?” he asked.
“Asya…” It hit me then. “Dean Jensen. I saw his name on a check he left her. He needed her to take his rent check into the office for him. Why would he say yes, how could he say yes? It must be a trick. He must have taken on the job so no one else would do it. Dean’s a great guy. Nice. Totally in love with Asya. He’d never hurt me.”
“Did you know he was in the Chicago’s Fallen?”
“What? No. He never wore any leather coat or vest or anything. I mean, I knew he had a bike, would take Asya out for long rides in the summer, but so what? Lots of guys have motorcycles.”
“It’s defiantly Dean, Lauren. And I think Asya knows it, too.”
***
Michael scrambled eggs on the stove while I stood at the back door staring out the window at the birds building a nest in a tree a few doors down. I could feel his eyes on me now and then, but he didn’t speak. Didn’t ask me if I was okay. I wasn’t, and he knew it.
Asya was my roommate and only friend for several years. Did she know her boyfriend was out to kill me? The thought had been laughable. I didn’t believe Michael at first. Why would Dean go through all of that? Get a rival club to harass me, only for him to kill me himself? Michael tried to explain that if he succeeded, having the harassment coming from somewhere else would take the heat off of him. Besides, why would anyone suspect my roommate's boyfriend?
Even if Dean were involved, I didn’t think Asya would go along with it. Until my phone rang that morning, waking us both up from a fitful sleep. I had left my phone on the dresser, completely out of reach, so by the time I got to it, the call had gone to voicemail. It was Asya. Not wondering if I was okay, or where I was—because it had been a few days since she’d seen me—but to ask if I’d come by the apartment that afternoon. Alone. She needed some girl time she said.
Michael asked me if she’d ever done that before, and I could only shake my head. Asya and I led pretty separate lives outside our apartment. We were close friends for roommates, but rarely did we go out together. Mostly because of my schedule and because she worked into the early morning hours.
“Breakfast is ready.”
The plates sliding onto the table echoed in my mind. Everything seemed louder that morning. It was Sunday. I should have been studying. Instead I would be spending the day with Michael working on not getting myself killed.
“Thanks.” I turned from the door and took the seat he held out for me. He’d made me toast, too. Butter and jelly—the man remembered so much about me from so long ago. So many things had taken our lives in jagged turns; the fact that we were sitting at the same breakfast table still astounded me.
“Lauren.” His fork lay still on his plate. “It’s going to be all right. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I won’t let it. And now that we’ll have the protection of the club, I at least have somewhere safe to stash you while I go meet Asya at your apartment.”
I dropped my fork. “No. I don’t want you going back into the club, and I don’t want you to handle Asya. I will take care of this. It’s my own stupidity that got me in this mess, I’ll get myself out. I can’t keep
depending on you to be my savior and my bodyguard.”
He reached over and held my hand, keeping silent until I looked up at him. His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed. “You can always depend on me to take care of you.” He squeezed my hand when I tried to pull it away. “That doesn’t make you weak. The girl who worked for Tanner, who clawed her way to the top of her class—that girl isn’t weak. But that girl is definitely out of her element when it comes to bad guys. That is my department.” He gave me a tepid smile.
“I’ll go to my apartment this afternoon. Maybe Asya wants to warn me.” I knew how silly I sounded as the words flew from my mouth, but I needed that little bit of hope.
“Then she can give me the warning.” He looked at my plate. “Eat your eggs before they get cold.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“Well, it’s this or bar food at the club, I suggest you eat this.”
“About you going back into the club—”
“Lauren. The decision’s been made. I told you once Mick steps down and we get someone else up on his seat, it will be fine. All that illegal shit will stop.”
“Colton told me I wasn’t old woman material.”
He laughed, nearly spitting out the water he just sipped. “Old lady, Lauren. Not old woman.”
I had to laugh at my own mistake. “That’s what I meant. I knew that.”
“He was right, you aren’t. I mean, not the typical old lady anyway. You’re just as fierce, but you have much softer edges. That’s not going to change. You aren’t joining the club, I am. You’ll be at my side every step of the way, but you aren’t going to have to deal with club shit. Not like most of those guys’ girls need to. You’ll keep going to school. You’ll get your fancy job and build all the skyscrapers you want. None of that changes.”
“You won’t care if I make more money than you?” I teased. I had no idea how much money he made, and nothing so far indicated he was struggling. Not like me, anyway.
“Babe, if you want to bring home the bacon, I’ll just keep tinkering away in my garage.” He laughed.
“You’ll get to keep your garage if you join the club again?”
“I don’t see why not. A few members are already working for me; I’m far enough away to not be competition for the club’s garage. Besides, just because I’m putting my leathers back on, doesn’t mean I’m moving into the clubhouse. I’m staying right here, with you.”
I stared at him open mouthed.
“Once this shit is all done, you’re moving in. And not into the guest room, into my room, in my bed.” He didn’t seem to want to argue the point because he stuffed the last of his eggs into his mouth and carried his plate to the sink.
“What about Asya?” I asked from the table.
“I’m going to drop you at the clubhouse. Johnny will hang with you this afternoon. Tony will be with me at the apartment. I’m going to meet her, see what she really wants. Hopefully, it’s just her. If it’s not, if Dean’s there, I’ll have Tony as back up. You are to stay where I put you. Do not leave that clubhouse.” His voice deepened as he drew closer to me in the kitchen. I felt his hands on my shoulders and his warm lips press against my neck. “If you don’t, I promise you that little spanking I gave you the other day with my belt will be a warm up to what you’ll have coming to you.”
“You can’t keep threatening me with a spanking.” I sighed, letting his hands massage my shoulder as he stood behind me.
“Babe, I never threaten. I mean it. If you leave that clubhouse today, I’ll tan your ass so raw you won’t be sitting for a month.”
I wanted to argue, to point out that I got along just fine without him for years, but the look I saw in his eyes when I turned made my mouth clamp shut. I held no doubt the man would do exactly as he promised if I were to go against him about the issue.
“Can I ask you a question, a serious question?” I turned in my chair to look up at him.
“Of course.”
“If I told you I never wanted you to do that again. That I wouldn’t stay with you if you spanked me again or raised your hand to me, what would you say?”
He pulled out the chair next to me and sat, facing me, holding my chin in his hand. “I would never raise my hand to you in anger, Lauren. Never. But if you’re asking me if I would agree to not punish you for breaking my rules, then yes. I’d agree to that. I think I showed you the other night there are just as many ways to punish you without spanking you.”
“And if I said that I didn’t want the rules, any punishments at all. What then?”
He let go of my chin, wiped a few strands of my hair back behind my ear and leaned back. “If that’s really what you wanted, I’d do it. I’m not saying it would work out that great––I’ve gotten really used to being the one in charge, and I really hate it when you don’t listen to me––but for you, I’d do anything.” He brought my hands to his lips and kissed them gently. I’d never seen him behave so tenderly, it took me off guard. “Is that what you want? Me to promise never to spank you or punish you again?”
I searched his face for a long moment and realized he could never be anything like my stepfather. Too much love resided in his eyes for me, too much need and care for me. Just me. I knew he’d been with a lot of other women, but none of them mattered, none of them held a spot in his heart like I did.
“No…I don’t think so. I mean…it’s a bit dated, don’t you think? The man in charge, the little woman toting the line?”
“That’s not how it is with us,” he corrected me. “I want you to have everything you want in life, and I sure as hell don’t want you turning into some deadhead follower. You challenge me, you make me want to be better, do better, I don’t want that to stop. Every now and then I may have to drag your ass back in line, but never to be an ass, never to beat my chest and show you how powerful I am. Only when you put that cute ass of yours in danger, or when you break my easy to follow rules.”
I laughed. “You make it sound like an infomercial.”
He grinned. “I mean it, though, if you ever want that to change—”
I put my hand over his lips. “I just want you, Michael. Even when you’re being an overprotective bully I want you. But I’m not sure about this club thing.”
He pulled my hand back to my lap. “This is one area you don’t get to decide what happens. The club is my call. I wouldn’t do it if I thought for once second it would put you in danger. You’ll just have to trust me. Can you do that?”
Was there anyone in the world I trusted more than Michael? Hell no. He had given me everything when we were younger, and when he returned to me he continued to give. I knew there would be no safer place in the world for me other than in his arms. Or over his lap.
“I’ve always trusted you,” I whispered, feeling tears start to build in my eyes. That man made too many emotions rise to the surface. “If I bring my laptop to the club, think I can get some studying done?”
His lips cracked into a wide grin and he kissed me—a quick, hard kiss. “I’ll find you a quiet place to work. No one will bother you.” He looked at the clock on the wall and sighed. “We have to get going. Tony’s meeting me at the clubhouse. But tonight, when we are back here, I want you naked. I want you sprawled out on my bed with not a stitch of clothing on, and I’m going to show you those ropes I was talking about.”
Chapter 23
Michael
Leaving Lauren in the hands of Johnny and a few other guys at the clubhouse, I hopped onto my bike. Mick had my leathers out on his desk when I arrived earlier with her in tow. Johnny appeared happy about the news of my return, but seemed more than a little skeptical about Mick’s promise to step down as president when it was all said and done.
“What’s to stop him from reneging?”
“I’ll walk if he does, and the newer members will walk with me. Like you said, there’s a lot of mistrust between the members and Mick. He reneges on this, that trust will be completely broken. They’ll walk out wit
h me, and maybe even go over to the Fallen.”
“As much as I hate the fucking Fallen, I’m not sure they are all tangled up with this mess. Seems too personal for them, and they don’t get personal—even with their members.”
