by Jenny Penn
Using the remote to flip through the menu options, he began going over the club’s computerized systems. Through any of the tablets provided, a man could access a catalogue that listed not only available women but also provided pictures of them along with their preferences. After picking out a woman or two or three, a man had to decide where to host his private orgy, and there was a catalog for that, showing vacancies and areas available.
Available didn’t mean free.
The club had its own currency, known as buckles. Men earned buckles through competitions and activities that were routinely held. They could also win them through betting, and that was where things got interesting. Brett found himself fascinated by the club’s betting book. Only the most perverted kind of wagers were placed, and one of the biggest ones had Angie’s name attached to it.
Brett went cold as he stared at the sheer quantity of men who had anted up to be the first man to pop that cherry. The only comfort he could take was the fact that the bets were old, and clearly all were losers. That was Angie, more stubborn than a pack full of alphas. Alphas who had absolutely no respect for Brett or his brother.
The heated flush that had scorched across his cheeks flared hotter as Brett caught sight of his own name and the bets being placed against him and Mike. He wasn’t the only one who took note of the cattleman’s lack of confidence in either of them.
“What the hell is this?” Mike demanded to know as he pointed at his name. “Who the fuck is Dean Carver? And why does he think he’s going to be the one who gets to train Angie after we disappoint her. Disappoint?”
“I have never disappointed a woman in my life,” Brett declared indignantly as he straightened up, but GD looked far from impressed.
“You can’t blame them for thinking…”
“Thinking what?” Mike pressed as GD’s explanation faded into silence. “They don’t even fucking know us, so how can they be thinking anything about us?”
“Angie’s popular.” GD shrugged. “So, it stands to reason that these guys would all kind of think you’re idiots for turning her down.”
“Do they know that we’d have to marry her if we didn’t turn her down?” Mike shot back, clearly outraged at the savaging of his reputation.
“She can’t make you marry her,” GD pointed out as if Mike didn’t already know that, but it was Brett who answered for him.
“We gave our word.”
That was all that needed to be said, or maybe not.
“You were eighteen.” GD chuckled. “She was…what? Sixteen?”
“You’re forgetting her dream,” Mike grumped. “The crazy woman actually thinks we’re her destiny.”
“My point is that only a crazy person would consider your vow binding,” GD insisted.
“Who said we were sane?” Brett asked, wondering what planet that person lived on.
“Hey!” Mike shot him a dirty look. “Are you saying I’m crazy?”
“Yeah. Hell, you’re the one who has been keeping me on a leash, so that must make you the crazier one.” That sounded reasonable to Brett, but he didn’t think Mike agreed, given the look his brother shot him.
“Anyway…” Mike pointedly turned the conversation and his glare back on GD. “If we’re going to work here, Angie’s got to go.”
“Uh…yeah, that’s not happening.” GD hesitated to take a deep breath that warned Brett things were worse than they appeared, which was saying something. “She’s our recruiter. And, like I said, she’s popular.”
Brett could see. He could also see notations he didn’t understand. “What does this mean? Jarrod ten in the back? Five hundred buckles? Is that a lot?”
“You don’t really want to know the answer to that, do you?”
“Oh, I think we do.” Actually, he already feared he knew. “What does ten in back mean?”
“Just what you think.” GD confirmed Brett’s darkest suspicions. “Jarrod had ten minutes to make Angie come while riding her ass.”
That was blunt and crude and filled Brett with a sense of outrage he probably didn’t have any right to feel.
“Hey, what about this?” Mike pointed out a bet that wasn’t even a year old.
It read clear as day and needed no interruption. GD had competed in a sixty-nine competition with Angie as his partner. They’d won, or, more specifically, he had. Brett stilled at that revelation, his gaze cutting from Mike to the big man as he felt the burn of a nastily heated emotion flare through him. It was unrecognizable, but he didn’t like it. It made him want to hit something, like GD’s smug face.
“What the hell does that mean?” Brett demanded to know, even though he already knew. Part of him just couldn’t accept it.
“Just what it says.” GD didn’t back down for a second. Instead, the gloat in his tone only thickened. “Angie rewards men who are good with their mouths. After all, she only promised you one kind of virginity.”
“You son of a bitch,” Mike whispered, echoing Brett’s thoughts exactly. “You’ve fucked her.”
“Been a while but”—GD shrugged—“I’ve won more than just five hundred.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Brett was on his feet now, his fingers clenched into fists and ready to swing as he glared down at the big man.
“It mean’s giddy up. The girl likes it from behind.”
That was it.
Without thought, without hesitation, without consideration for just how big the damn man was, Brett launched himself at GD.
* * * *
Chase heaved a deep sigh and wondered what deity he’d pissed off because his day was just growing uglier and uglier. Now not only did he have a pissed-off Patton, a locked-up Lana, and a dead Gwen, he had three beaten and bloodied men littering his office. He figured he might consider himself lucky that there weren’t any more bodies, given the size of the three men who had busted up the men’s den.
GD wasn’t little, and neither were the Mathews twins. The twins, though, were known to be brawlers. Hell, he’d gone several rounds with them himself. GD, on the other hand, normally had a little more sense than to pick a fight, but apparently, his new girlfriend was having a negative effect on him.
Chase hadn’t met the infamous Kitty Anne, but he’d heard about her. He’d also been warned to keep Patton away. GD feared Patton would be a bad influence on his Kitty Anne. Apparently, she lacked impulse control.
And, as if having a second Patton running amuck around town, Wanda was back. Wanda Davis. The name sent a chill down Chase’s spine, an old reflex from childhood. He had right to his fear. Wanda had beaten the crap out of him.
While most men might think it was embarrassing to admit to having his ass handed to him by a girl, those men had not met Wanda. She was big, strong, and just a little shy of sane, but that didn’t make her impulsive. Wanda was that cunning kind of crazy that made her a whole lot more dangerous.
Angie, on the other hand, wasn’t dangerous. She was just weird. She liked to make decision based on her gut feeling. Chase couldn’t deny that Angie’s intuition had served them all well when it came to her recruiting abilities, but that didn’t make her qualified to run the club.
Nobody really was but Lana. Chase admitted he probably should have had her training somebody to take over, but he hadn’t. Now he was stuck with Angie.
The Mathews brothers, on the other hand, he could get rid of. They did have a well-known feud going on with Angie. Now they were supposed to work with the woman? The place would be in shambles before the end of the week.
GD couldn’t leave.
“I need to speak to you.” Chase nodded toward the big man before casting a dirty look at the two brothers drinking his best liquor. “Privately.”
“That would be our cue to get lost.” Mike nodded toward his twin as he shoved out of his seat. “Maybe we ought to go find ourselves some ladies to kiss our boo-boos.”
Brett snorted and rolled his eyes as he shoved out of his seat. If Chase hadn’t had enough on his plate,
he might have wondered about his lack of enthusiastic response. As it was, he noted and then dismissed it as he focused in on Mike’s comments.
“I don’t think so.” Chase felt like an ass for doing what he was about to, but Angie hadn’t given him much choice. He hoped the brothers understood. Actually, he tried to make sure they did. “Angie’s taking over for Lana, and she had one stipulation. I bet you can guess what it is.”
They could. Chase could tell from the way both brothers turned outraged gazes on him as they sputtered.
“But…but…that’s not fair!” Mike spat, sounding desperate.
Brett didn’t. He sounded more confused than anything. “But we’re working here.”
“No pussy for you.” Chase couldn’t make it clearer than that.
“You would chose a woman over your best friends?” Mike demanded to know.
“I chose the running of this club over your carnal urges. Besides, I’m sure you can pick a woman up in town.” Hell, Chase knew it. The two brothers were trouble, the kind that attracted women.
“Yeah, but they’re not already naked,” Mike grumbled.
“We’re not arguing about this.” Chase couldn’t afford to. “Angie made her demand, and it’s not like it’s not fair. She’s not getting any dick.”
“Not in her pussy, at least.” GD smirked from his seat as he taunted the brothers anew. “Her ass, though, that’s up for grabs, and let me tell you the woman knows—”
“Enough!” Chase cut him off, reading the violence flaring in both brothers’ eyes and recognizing it for what it was.
So maybe Angie had a point. Maybe that infamous intuition of hers was right again. Maybe Brett and Mike hadn’t touched her for the same reasons Chase had held out on Patton, because it was the right thing to do. Not that he’d been able to deny her forever. He didn’t think Brett and Mike would be able to resist Angie either.
Maybe there was hope that things would work out after all. It certainly would make his life easier if Brett, Mike, and Angie settled down together and agreed to manage the club. It could be the perfect, long-term solution to Chase’s problems.
One thing was for sure. Lana couldn’t come back.
“Just get gone,” Chase snapped, shoving both brothers toward the door. “And if you want pussy, then I suggest you buy a ring or convince Angie to lift her demand.”
“Fine,” Mike huffed. “But you wouldn’t know where Miss Bossy is?”
“In her office.” Chase jerked opened his door and stood back. “Go argue with her.”
They went grumping off, and he was glad to see them go, slamming the door behind them and turning on the big man still snickering in his seat. GD shook his head and sighed.
“This is not going to end well.”
“What?” Chase lifted a brow. “Brett and Mike attempting to persuade Angie to let them have sex with other women or the conversation you and I are about to have?”
“I would have said the former, but given that tone, I’m guessing it’s the latter,” GD grumbled as his smile faded. “You’re pissed.”
“You got that right.” Actually, pissed didn’t even begin to touch on what he was feeling. “You lied to me.”
“About?”
“Lana.”
Sucking in a deep breath and trying to control his temper, Chase moved around his desk, putting the large, heavy piece of furniture between them before he did something rash. Starting a fight with GD wouldn’t improve his day, even if the thought was tempting.
“I didn’t know she started the fire,” GD denied, sounding as sincere as he ever did. “I swear it.”
“And you couldn’t figure it out either?” He didn’t buy GD’s excuse for a second.
The big man was the best damn investigator in the county. If he hadn’t managed to deduce Lana had set Chase’s barn ablaze, then that was because he didn’t want to know. Not that Chase could really blame him. He didn’t want to know it either.
Until that morning, when Alex had called Chase to tell him that Lana had confessed, his emotions had been simple. He was going to kill the bastard who had dared to threaten his Patton. That bastard turned out to be the man in the mirror because Chase knew he was the one who had driven Lana to lash out.
“Honest, man, I thought it was somebody else.” GD put his hands up and dug his heels in. Chase just wasn’t up for the battle.
“Yeah. Right.” Slumping back down in his seat, he stared down at the desk and heaved a deep sigh. Lana really wasn’t the problem. The problem would be arriving in the morning. “Patton cut Lana a deal. She’s buying Lana out.”
“What?” GD gaped at Chase in horror. “Patton? She’s going to own a fourth of the club?”
Chase nodded slowly. “And she’s got plans.”
“God save us all,” GD whispered. “Angie and Patton are going to be working together.”
“Along with Brett and Mike.”
“And Wanda,” GD breathed out with a heaviness that left, no doubt, about how he felt about their cousin.
Chase couldn’t claim to feel any different. Wanda was a nightmare. A strange kind of nightmare, because she wasn’t mean or vindictive. Instead, she had an iron-clad conviction of what was right and the strength to enforce her beliefs. That made her prone to trouble. Real trouble.
“Yeah, about her, what is she doing here?”
“Hiding.”
GD caught Chase’s gaze, and they shared a look.
“It’s that bad, huh?”
“Does pissing off a serial rapist sound like a good thing?”
No, it certainly didn’t. Chase hesitated, but couldn’t help but ask, “And just how did she accomplish that?”
“She shot him in the balls.”
“Oh, God.” Chase cringed, but wasn’t shocked. That sounded like Wanda.
“He broke free and is on the loose. We don’t know if he’s coming after her or not.” GD shrugged, but it was there in his eyes. The big man did know. “Her daddy’s concerned, so he’s the one who sent her this way to get lost until him and Jonathan catch the bastard.”
If Wanda’s dad was unnerved, then there was reason to be worried. Danny Davis, better known as the Bull Moose, made his nephew, GD, look small by comparison. Hell, Wanda was damn near as tall as her cousin, and she was the short one in her family. She was also the only crazy one, which probably had something to do with being the only girl in a brood of seven siblings.
“He told me to sit on her,” GD grumbled before snorting and rolling his eyes. “I was thinking of trying to distract her with a little side action.”
Chase perked up at that, a terrible thought darting through his head. “Oh, don’t say it.”
“But I’m not sure if I know any men brave enough to take her on.”
“You’re not bringing her to the club.” Chase didn’t have time to deal with that.
“But if I don’t find that rare breed of man, then I know what Wanda will find.” Again GD met Chase’s gaze, and they shared a moment.
“Trouble.”
“Gwen,” GD clarified, reminding Chase of the one last problem he had to deal with.
Gwen.
Dead Gwen. Murdered Gwen. Murdered, blackmailing Gwen. Murdered, blackmailing, Cattleman club member Gwen. Murdered, blackmailing, Cattleman club member, ex-lover of the current sheriff, who also happened to be a Cattleman, Gwen.
Sadly enough, it got worse from there.
Chase shot GD a pleading look and came as close to begging as he ever would. “You can’t leave me.”
Chapter 5
Angie sat behind Lana’s desk feeling completely disoriented. This was the wrong side. She never sat in the big chair. It felt weird. Even stranger was the sense that this was her command post and she had a legion of servants at her beck and call.
Servants!
The notion was just too weird to a woman who didn’t even have employees. Even if she had, Angie would have let them call her by her first name, but here she was Miss Monte
s. As if that wasn’t weird enough, they catered to her. Nobody ever catered to her.
Just the opposite. Angie was a travel agent, a glorified sales person. She was normally the one making the pitch and seeking to convince others, but all of a sudden, she had a whole harem full of women seeking her approval. They needed it to get past the gates that led to the Cattlemen.
The Cattlemen had needs as well.
She was the grease in the well-oiled machinery that made the club run smoothly, and Angie didn’t have a clue as to what the hell she was doing. Lana and Chase might think she should have one, but they were crediting her with paying more attention to what the hell Lana did for a living than she ever actually had to.
It couldn’t be that hard, though, to figure it out. All she had to do was return calls, authorize bills to be paid, pat hands, input data, and sit back and enjoy making Brett’s and Mike’s lives a living hell. That last one was the real reason she’d accept this temporary position. The payback was worth any difficulty she might encounter over the next few days.
Just in case Angie forgot that fact, fate brought them right to her door, and they came storming in, only to stumble to a halt. Almost instantly, Brett’s eyes narrowed on her breasts as Mike wheeled around like some virginal prude who had never seen a naked lady. It was almost laughable, and Angie couldn’t help but smile as she leaned back, making sure Brett got a full look as she stretched and sighed.
“I was wondering when the two of you would arrive.” Angie gestured to the chairs across from her as she rose up and moved toward the small wet bar in the corner. “Please, have a seat. Is there anything I can get you?”
“A taste of that pussy?” Brett asked hopefully as Mike snapped at her.
“Will you please put on some damn clothes?”
“Nope.” Angie shook her head at both of them. “No free tastes for you, and going naked is the only option at the club. At least not for the women, which I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
