Steel: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 4)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Of course, I should have invited them to an orgy at the clubhouse, because if they thought spanking was kinky, they’d have had their eyes opened for real.

  Inwardly, I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. Hope fluttered inside me, and that was a dangerous ass thing, but hell, I’d been in danger ever since that bitch had done what she had to me. Why shouldn’t I up things a notch and reclaim the man who should have always been mine in the process?

  When he helped me out of the truck, I muttered, “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you riding in a cage before.”

  He snickered, then made me squeal when, in a smooth move, he bent down and scooped me up into his arms so he was carrying me.

  Call me a sucker, and I’d allow it—just this once—but it made my heart melt. Ugh, it did more than that! It was totally An Officer and a Gentleman moment. Where Richard Gere had swooped in and swept Debra Winger out of her shitty job at a factory and taken her to another life… I wasn’t a romantic, not really, but who the hell didn’t love that film when they were in possession of a pair of ovaries?

  I sighed inwardly as he carried me to the door. I didn’t worry about his back or his shoulder because I’d lost a lot of weight in the hospital, and to be honest, I was looking forward to getting my curves back.

  Even if it was handy when it came time to being hauled around by a strong, handsome man who I just happened to fucking love.

  The door opened on a squeal, and I smiled when I saw Indy bouncing around, more effusive than I’d seen her since she was a kid. Behind her, the place had been completely renovated, but even as I noticed that, I also saw that the small, self-contained ‘apartment’ was full of people.

  I didn’t even have it in me to moan, because I was tired and ready for bed again, but the sight of all the people I loved?

  Jesus.

  It hit me square in the feels.

  My heart in my throat, I grinned, wide and happy, for the first time feeling like maybe this was reality.

  I’d gone from being so alone, inhabiting a tiny apartment in Manhattan, barely connecting with anyone from my old life, to suddenly being here.

  With everyone who mattered.

  With men I loved like brothers, a woman who was my sister, and in the arms of a guy who should be my Old Man by now but wasn’t.

  I guessed now that I was here, I could admit I was happy to be on the compound, and that the idea of being tucked away in an apartment in West Orange had been another reason for my misery.

  I was tired of being lonely. I loved Mrs. Biggins, but she wasn’t a replacement for all the people I’d left behind when Steel had broken my heart.

  I’d missed them all, and I missed Storm, too, who was in fucking Ohio of all places, even though he should be here, welcoming me back. I didn’t doubt there’d be a strong reason. Still, I figured I couldn’t sulk when all my fam, apart from him and Keira, was cramped into my new place, just for me, just to welcome me home.

  I felt like my face was gonna crack with how happy I was.

  Seriously, I felt so ecstatic that it was such a stark contrast to how miserable I’d been on the ride over.

  Amazing what this place, the people, and the thought of a spanking would do for a girl.

  I wasn’t sure in which order those had cheered me up, but hey, I didn’t care. I’d take it.

  And all the while, Steel carried me.

  He took me through the bunkhouse, letting me greet people in his arms, as he showed me around the new layout which, if I remembered from before, had been on two levels, a low level, granted, but in my current state, that was too much.

  The kitchen and dining room led into a small living room that had an L-seater couch long enough for me to lie on in front of a wide TV. Then at the back, there was a bedroom and a large bathroom, which was actually one of those washrooms where the shower head was in the center of the ceiling and everything just got wet through.

  Impractical for real life, but for me, now? Very helpful, especially since I could sit on a chair and get washed up. There was even one of those—the white and silver seats that would let me have some independence—in the bathroom.

  The hard thing about being a doctor was knowing exactly what I had to go through to heal. I’d told people the rules of aftercare a thousand times, and still, it had hit me hard when I’d broken the rules myself. But I was back on the bandwagon, making sure I was following every protocol, because I didn’t want to be stuck on my ass, in bed, for much longer.

  I wanted nothing more than to finish up my education and finally be out on the open road as a practicing physician. I couldn’t do that if I kept pushing myself, and now that I was here? Home? I didn’t have the random things to worry about that I ordinarily would.

  When you lived on the compound, it was a free meal ticket. Well, sort of. In my position, it would be. I didn’t have to worry about rent or bills, food or anything like that.

  If I’d come home, without being injured, I’d have to pull my weight, and that was only fair, but now? I could get the R and R I needed with no anxiety over covering rent and things like that.

  Pride would have stopped me from asking the MC for help if I’d been staying in West Orange, but they weren’t letting me be prideful. Which, all told, was pretty smart.

  They knew me, and they were taking away my objections.

  When I’d been shown around, Steel took me over to the sofa, and he slid me down onto it. Out of nowhere, Mrs. Biggins sprang up, fangs bared, her mottled tortoise shell fur on edge, and I laughed because she always reacted like that to Steel, and he always muttered under his breath, “Fucking pussy.”

  It was like their thing, and I loved it, even if its origins were actually kind of sad.

  Mrs. Biggins had learned as a kitten that Steel always hurt me, so she was defending me, and that was just one of the reasons I loved her miserable self.

  When I curled up on the sofa, Indy pressed the blanket to my knees, and Mrs. Biggins kneaded my lap for a little while, somehow aware that I was hurting, knowing which parts to avoid, all while staying close to me and not leaving my side.

  Someone else who didn’t?

  Steel.

  He got up to use the bathroom once, and when he returned, he came back with juice for me, a container of meds, and some open-faced sandwiches that Giulia had made and were the bomb.com.

  I took the meds with the juice, ate the sandwich, ate half of his too, and then settled with his arm over my shoulder, Indy by my feet, sitting on the L of the sofa as we just shot the shit.

  I didn’t say much, because I didn’t have the energy to get involved. Just doing what I’d done today had taken it out of me, but the others spoke, and it reminded me of old times.

  Made me think of when I was younger and things had been less complicated.

  I wanted those days back again, I wanted Steel always at my side like he’d been before.

  I’d known where things were heading, even if I hadn’t felt sure about it.

  Steel was always unpredictable, but the way he’d looked at me back then was impossible for even naïve me to misunderstand. Until it had seemed like I misunderstood everything.

  I hadn’t misread things, I just knew that something had changed that first night when we’d kissed. I’d always known Momma had said something to him, something that had set him off, but I’d never asked him what.

  Maybe now was the time to ask him, to talk about what had changed things between us.

  Well, maybe not right now.

  With the women slowly drifting away as the hours passed, the guys were talking about club business—something else that hadn’t changed. They’d always talked in front of me, even though they shouldn’t have.

  I knew that was because Indy had popped off to open the tattoo studio, and Giulia had gone back to the clubhouse to make some clubwhores’ lives miserable.

  Man, I was so beyond down for that, it was unreal.

  I couldn’t wait to watch her make them scrub the floor
s and shit. Talk about a popcorn-worthy event.

  So it was just me and the guys—and Mrs. Biggins, of course—and I was content to listen to them speak of someone called Lancaster who was, apparently, being tortured in the Fridge, and to learn that Granger, the cop who’d been a prick to me back in the hospital, was now sporting a cast and his jaw had been wired shut after a ‘mugging’ that had gone wrong.

  If anything, words that should have given me nightmares soothed me to the point of sleep, and when I relaxed into Steel and finally allowed myself to rest, I did so praying that when I woke up, he was there.

  Twenty-Two

  Bear

  Before

  I watched her rub cream into her face, smoothing the different serums and shit into her skin, with a fascination that wasn’t feigned.

  Rene always transfixed me. It was why my various mistakes along the way perplexed me. Why I let myself betray her, I’d never know. Not when just watching her at the end of the night was transfixing.

  “What are you looking at?” she teased, her lips quirking because she knew.

  She always knew.

  A love like this was hard to find. I was lucky that I’d found mine, and even luckier that she forgave me for being a dumb fuck.

  “You’re beautiful,” I told her softly, watching as she twisted around, eyes gleaming as she did so.

  “Thank you,” she replied primly, but there was a flush to her cheeks that didn’t surprise me.

  Twenty-four years, and that blush still got to me.

  Twenty-four years, a kid, one lost kid, and a lifetime of mistakes, and she was still the only person who got me.

  She climbed onto the bed, straddling my hips. I put my hands there, keeping her in place as she carried on smoothing the cream into her skin, and I watched her, now with a perfect view, feeling all the stress of the moment wash away as she went about her nightly routine.

  My Old Lady was like no other. Capable of calm amid an ocean of stress… I wished I had that ability.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, her skin gleaming now she’d finished, before she began to unravel her hair from the strange wrap she wore it in after her evening shower, and started to braid it.

  “I’m thinking that Stone’s a good girl.” And it was a damn shame she was in the hospital tonight… I’d need to set her on the straight and narrow, which wasn’t easy, considering my path was anything but that.

  But the cries for help had to stop. Two more overdoses were two too many, and now she’d lost her college scholarship because her grades had started suffering. It was time for me to meddle, even if, rightly, it wasn’t my place… I was gonna make it my goddamn place. Someone had to take the girl in hand. She had too much potential to just let things go to waste.

  Over my dead body would she be a clubwhore like her momma. I knew Rex felt the same way too…

  Her brows rose at my pensiveness. “You gonna start match-making?”

  My lips curved. “Stop knowing me so well, girl.”

  “After twenty-four years? If I didn’t know you well by now, then there’d be no hope for either of us.”

  “True.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “Thought I knew Steel better.”

  “He’s going through a phase,” she soothed.

  “He’s hurting the girl.” I shook my head. “Never thought I’d see that come to pass.”

  “No. He’s always been ga-ga over her. But before you get your hopes up, Rex isn’t going to fall for her. She’s a sister to him, boo. You know that.” She leaned down, hair now braided, and pressed her lips to mine. “She’s Steel’s, and he’s Rachel’s.”

  My nose crinkled at that. “Rachel and him will eat each other alive.”

  “Ain’t that part of the fun?”

  I grinned as I reached down and grabbed her ass. “That’s part of it, sure. But what about the peace on a night? Just watching your woman smooth cream on her face and feeling like all is right with the world, huh?”

  “They’ll find their balance,” she told me softly, reaching over and cupping my chin, smoothing her greasy fingers over my skin. “They all will.”

  “They will if I set them on the right path.”

  My grumble had her laughing. “You’re not Solomon, boo.”

  “Feels like it, some days anyway.”

  She tapped her thumb against the divot in my chin. “You took care of Lana Jane, didn’t you?”

  I crinkled my nose. “Bet your sweet ass I did.”

  “You did the right thing. Stone will be okay once she’s here with us. We can pick her up tomorrow, get her settled in.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  Rene shrugged, downplaying her generosity like she always did. My woman, the fucking saint. God love her. “My pleasure. She’s a good girl, and with a mother like she had, she needs all the help she can get.”

  “I want her and Steel together.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a good kid too, and she’s the best. She’s what he’ll need. But if he’s gonna fuck it up, I’d like her for Rex. Can you imagine her as the Prez’s Old Lady?” I whistled under my breath. “They’d be ferocious together.”

  “Stop plotting people’s lives for them,” she chided, but her lips came to mine to soften the blow of her reprimand. “I know you like to think of the world as one big giant game of chess, but I can tell you now, our boy ain’t gonna be happy unless Rachel is his queen.

  “As for Steel? Finding out that evil bastard was his father was bound to mess with him. I told you you should have told him when Kevin died. Where did your Grand Master brain go then, huh?”

  I tapped her on the tush. “It’s not sexy to say ‘I told you so.’”

  “Shame I know all your weaknesses then, isn’t it?” she teased, her hand sliding down between us to grab my dick.

  I let her, even as I rasped, “Rene?”

  “Yes, boo?”

  “I love you, you know that?”

  Her eyes softened. “I do.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head. “I forgave you.”

  “Won’t forgive myself.”

  “Good.” She shrugged. “Means you won’t do it again.”

  And I wouldn’t.

  Because it had taken me too fucking long to realize that without my Old Lady riding bitch on my bike, there was no freedom to be found in this life.

  No freedom whatsoever.

  And for the kids who were like my own flesh and blood, I wanted the same for them. Freedom and love.

  Shame none of them were making it easy on me by accepting what anyone with eyes could see.

  Twenty-Three

  Stone

  Today

  He wasn’t there when I woke up.

  That was my first thought.

  The next was misery, then came heartache, and then came anger—at myself. Not him.

  I was a stupid bitch for hoping.

  Then, a couple of things resonated with me.

  One, I wasn’t on the sofa anymore.

  Two, the bed I was in smelled new, the sheets were perfumed with my favorite softener—thank you, Indy—and beside me, where it should have been cold, it was warm.

  Really warm.

  So warm that I knew the person who’d been lying there moments before had only just left the bed.

  When I strained my ears to figure out why, I heard him in the bathroom.

  Sure, it wasn’t the nicest serenade in the world to hear a man pissing, but I’d take it because that meant he was here.

  Even better, it meant he’d slept with me.

  Steel had actually slept with me.

  I wasn’t sure I could stand it. Every part of this tired, thirty-four-year-old body suddenly felt like it was fifteen again.

  I was almost vibrating when the door squeaked and I heard his footsteps, before I followed his path through the dim lights from the compound behind us pouring through the open blinds.

  When he moved into th
e bed, I happened to see he was naked, and while my eyes widened in surprise, my belly burned in a way that had nothing to do with the surgical scars, and everything to do with the excitement that came from being with the man I loved who was as naked as the day he was born.

  If I’d been whole and healthy, I’d have fist pumped the air, done a fucking rain dance in thanks, but I wasn’t well, and it sucked, but that was the only reason he was here.

  Still, I wasn’t going to rain on my parade. If anything, I was just going to savor these unexpected moments.

  When he settled at my side, cautious about disturbing me, he muttered, “Know you’re awake, baby doll.”

  I bit my lip, loving how that endearment sounded on his lips, an endearment that I’d been hearing more and more regularly. But it was different here. Different now.

  We were in bed together.

  Sharing a fucking bed, with him naked in it!

  Jesus, that was sending a pretty strong message my way, wasn’t it? Talk about ramming it home! There was no misreading this, no thinking that him calling me ‘baby doll’ was just because he pitied me.

  “How do you know I’m awake?” I complained.

  He snorted. “The fact you answered when I asked a question?”

  My lips twitched. “Smarty-pants.”

  “Always was a genius,” he agreed.

  I didn’t tease him about that as he’d had a sore spot about his intelligence since forever. That boggled my mind every time it cropped up, because he was really clever and what he could do with words, making poetry so beautiful it made me melt, was something no dumbass was capable of. But I had no desire to annoy him. Not when he was in my bed.

  Naked.

  Priorities, ya know?

  So I just muttered, “Didn’t expect you to be here when I woke up.”

  “That’s what had your panties in a wad all day?” he rumbled, and I shot him a surprised look, saw that he was glowering at me from his side of the bed.

  I knew the distance between us was because of my situation, but fuck, I’d have given my left tit to roll astride him and to know what that cock felt like sliding into me.