Iron & Bone (Lock & Key #3)

by Cat Porter

  “No, I’m not into that ombré look. Anyway, Nina, when you’re pregnant, you can’t go dying your hair with the usual crap, you know.”

  Nina had insisted on taking me to the beauty salon in Meager, and I’d let her because I really wanted some kind of makeover. I was gaining the inevitable baby weight, and now that Boner and I were together, I wanted to be the best I could be—and maybe surprise him in good ways, too.

  He had this wicked smile that blew holes through my heart. Actually, Boner had two sorts of smiles—sweet wicked and bad wicked. Either one would do a dangerous number on my insides, like it had earlier at his house when I’d ripped his towel off him.

  I’d gone over to see him to apologize for having made him uncomfortable by talking about his past. I had also planned on finally telling him about Catch’s threat, but amazing sex had gotten in the way of that conversation. It was stupid to keep it from him, plus it was eating me up inside. Catch would always be a part of my life, and I had to trust Boner to handle him wisely or there was no moving forward in this new relationship of ours.

  “This is the salon where Alicia comes, right?” Nina asked.

  “She only comes here. Grace, too. I got a mani-pedi here with Grace and Tania not too long ago. Very nice. It was called Danielle’s Beauty Shop, before. They just changed the name.”

  “When Boner gets back from his little trip out of town, he’s gonna be thrilled,” Nina said as we walked through the door of the new Danielle’s Day Spa.

  Sy, the prospect, leaned against his bike, drinking a soda, right outside the door.

  “Why did Sy have to come with us today? What’s going on at the club? Boner didn’t say.”

  “This gun got stolen from the club meeting room. It belonged to someone called Dig, Butler said. They’d kept it in a locked display case and everything.”

  My stomach hardened. “It got stolen?”

  That was Dig’s gun, the one he’d used when he rescued me.

  “Yep, it’s gone.” Nina shrugged. “They were really upset about it.”

  You have no idea.

  “The men might have a lead,” she continued. “That’s probably why they took off today.”

  “Welcome, ladies,” said the receptionist at the front desk, interrupting the flow of ice through my system.

  “We have an appointment for highlights and a cut and style for my friend. Also, a bikini wax for both of us,” said Nina.

  “Okay.” She scanned her appointment book. “Right on time. Follow me.” The woman gestured toward the interior of the salon. “Waxing first. Sorry about the temporary rooms. Our renovation is taking longer than we expected.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  Nina leaned into me. “Remember, take it all off. All of it. Make him speechless. Works every time. Speechless is real good.”

  Nina left me in the curtained off room.

  The waxing technician washed her hands and then turned and smiled at me. “Hi, I’m Trina. Why don’t you get undressed and lie down and let me see what we have. Are we taking it all off today?”

  “I’m not sure. My boyfriend likes my landing strip. A lot.”

  “My boyfriend” sounded so lame coming out of my mouth. He was something more.

  I got undressed, got on the therapy table, and she inspected me. My toes curled.

  “Why don’t we give him a really pretty strip?” asked Trina.

  “I’d like that.”

  Trina carefully performed her torturous craft, and I held my breath and grimaced as she did so.

  “What do you think?” she said as she patted baby powder over me.

  A delicate and very thin strip of short blondish-red curls remained between my legs. The rest of me was perfectly clean and bare. “I love it. I really do.”

  “Good.” Trina smiled as she cleaned up her tools.

  Another waxing session was going on in the adjoining temporary room, separated from mine only by curtains.

  “I’ll let you get dressed, so you can come back out and head to your haircut.”

  “Great. Thanks, Trina.”

  “You’re welcome. I hope he likes it!” She left the room.

  I slowly pushed up from the table and reached for my yoga pants. The thin fabric felt cool and smooth against my skin. No underwear necessary until the irritation eased. I slid my flip-flops on.

  “That is some hickey! And bite marks right up your thighs. Tell me you came like a freight train? Please! Who was this animal?”

  My head turned toward the shrill female voice rising from behind the curtain to the next therapy room.

  “A very hungry animal!” said another female.

  A burst of loud laughter.

  “His mouth was just awesome.”

  “Lucky!”

  “And he was an old guy, too. I know it sounds crazy, but he had this freaking gleam in his eyes from the get-go. I’m telling you, the man knew how to appreciate the female body.”

  More giggles.

  I rolled my eyes as I glanced at the mirror and smoothed my hair back.

  “He laid me out on this huge wooden table. He’s the president, after all. He can do whatever he wants, you know?”

  “Yeah, and he did you!”

  “Oh my gosh, he was sucking on me. I mean, really sucking on me. Mindy was giving him head.”

  At the sound of that name, my ears pricked up like a jungle animal’s listening for prey.

  “I keep telling you, Stace, you gotta try a threesome,” the girl continued. “It’s so freaking hot. With me and Mindy, there’s this trust and it’s just fun. You should come with me next time there’s a party. You need to get out more anyway.”

  “Yeah, I need to get a life. Maybe a party at the One-Eyed Jacks would be just the ticket.”

  Spikes of ice raced over my skin. This was Mindy’s new dancer friend whom Nina had mentioned when she’d told me about the doings at the Full Moon Howl earlier in the car.

  They had fucked Jump in the club meeting room?

  “You guys are wild. I don’t know if I could do that, Shell.”

  “Never know until you try it. That’s it. Next time, I’m bringing you with us.”

  “I’m not a dancer like you and Mindy. My body—”

  “Oh, they just want good pussy that can give as good as it gets. Wear something super hot, and they’ll be all over you in no time, like bees to honey. You’re having a dry spell, Stace, and this is how to end it.”

  The curtain on the other side of my room flew open.

  “Hey, how’d it go?” Nina’s lips curled into a grin. “Let me see.”

  I touched my fingers to my lips, my head tilting toward the next curtain. The women’s voices rose again, and Nina’s face clouded.

  “There are lots of hot guys at that club, Stace. A few of them are taken, but for the most part, that’s not an issue. Mindy was sleeping with this other older one. Now, he’s hot! You should see this guy—long, long dark hair, big green eyes. Too thin for me, but he had some hot tats on his arms.”

  My pulse ratcheted up a couple of hundred notches. Nina held my gaze, her eyebrows springing up her forehead.

  “At this other party we’d gone to at the club, me and Mindy were gonna do him together, but he didn’t want to. Weird, huh?”

  Something snapped inside me. They were talking about my man, his body, like he was a piece of fucking meat. He was meat to them. Some sort of prize to be seized and devoured, then the carcass tossed away.

  My man. My beautiful, sweet, savage—

  “Anyway, she said he was just okay, so I guess I didn’t miss much. Whatever.”

  Nina charged across the small room. She ripped open the curtain to the other room.

  “Hey, orgasm queen, that’s my friend’s old man you’re talking about,” Nina spit out.

  The color drained from both Stacey’s and Shelley Anne’s faces.

  “Uh…oh,” managed Shelley Anne from her lying down position where she was having her leg
s waxed. She quickly sat up. “Sorry, sorry! It was meant as a compliment. I didn’t mean nothing by it. Just that—”

  “Just that, what?” I asked.

  “He’s really good-looking and you’re a super lucky lady.” She smiled, as if she’d just gotten caught eating the last cookie in the jar and was denying it with crumbs all over her face.

  “She is super lucky, and so am I,” said Nina. “My old man is a member of the Jacks, too. And I’m gonna make sure that you and your little friends don’t come around the club anymore. That kind of kiss-and-tell bullshit is a serious no-no where I come from.”

  Stacey’s gaze bounced from Nina to me and back to Nina again.

  Shelley Anne raised her hands in the air. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That wasn’t cool.”

  “You want to have girl talk about great sex you had? Terrific,” I said. “But you don’t talk about the club or its members or what goes on behind closed doors. Ever.”

  “You’re right. Totally,” said Shelley Anne. “I’m sorry. Um, listen, I just got a job dancing at the Tingle. I like my job a lot, and I really, really need it. Please, please don’t tell them. I promise, it won’t happen again. I won’t ever come over and party or sleep with any of—”

  Nina let out a dark laugh. “Aw, you promise, huh?”

  Shelley Anne and Mindy doing Jump.

  “You”—I pointed at Stacey—“out. And not a word.”

  Stacey nodded and ran out of the room.

  “Now”—I faced Shelley Anne, who was visibly shrinking inch by inch every second that passed under my glare—“here’s the deal.” I softened my voice. “If you’re helpful to me, I’ll be helpful to you. Tell me what I need to know, and I’ll help you keep your job. If not…”

  She pressed her bare legs together. “Anything, please. Anything. What is it?”

  “You were with Mindy at the clubhouse at the Full Moon Howl party last night?”

  “Right.”

  “And you and Mindy had sex with Jump?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where did you have sex?”

  “It started in his office, but then Mindy had this idea for all of us to get on that big, long table so that he could—”

  “So, it was Mindy’s idea to move your private party into the meeting room?” I asked and glanced at Nina. Her eyes widened at me.

  “Yeah, he unlocked the doors and then locked them behind us. And we…you know.”

  “Were you and Mindy both working him at the same time, or you took turns?”

  “What? I mean, why do you—”

  “Ticktock, ticktock,” said Nina.

  Shelley Anne bit her lip. “Okay, at first, all three of us were going at it together on the table and stuff. You wanna know what exactly we were doing?”

  I made a face as if a bad smell had seeped into the room. “Not really, but I need to, so yeah, keep going.”

  “Then, Mindy decided I should get on all fours on the table, so Jump could fuck me from behind.”

  “Mindy decided?” said Nina.

  “Yeah, and she covered my eyes with a scarf she’d had on. Then she put the bandanna Jump had been wearing on his head, over his eyes. He got pissed at first, but then he liked it.” Shelley Anne shrugged her shoulders. “He laughed.”

  “So, Jump was fucking you blind?”

  “Yeah. You know, I read about that in a book once. It really enhances—”

  “Right. So, what was Mindy doing when you were getting it up the ass?” asked Nina.

  “Oh, no. Later, he did my ass. Then, he was—”

  “Shelley Anne,” I said, letting out a sigh. “What was Mindy doing while you were getting it, doggy style?”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” asked Nina.

  “At first, she was playing with me—you know, with my tits, and—”

  “And then she wasn’t?” I said.

  “Yeah. I figured she was tea-bagging Jump or something.”

  “Oh, the visuals,” murmured Nina.

  “Anyway, she’d blindfolded me, so I’m not sure. I was coming so hard. Seriously, Jump’s awesome, you guys.”

  Nina bit her lip, tamping down her laughter. I shot her a look and focused on Shelley Anne once more.

  “When you were done and you took the scarf off, where was Mindy?” I asked.

  “She was kissing Jump, and then they started doing stuff together.”

  I toed one of my flip-flops. “By the way, did you guys have your handbags with you?”

  “Not me. I hate taking a handbag to parties. I had my money and ID and my phone in my pockets. Mindy had my keys though. She always carries this big Coach bag.”

  “Oh, I like Coach bags,” said Nina, grinning like an overzealous infomercial hostess.

  Shelley Anne’s eyes lit up. “Me, too! I love them. They’re amazing, right?”

  “Did Mindy have her Coach bag with her in the meeting room when you guys were in there with Jump?” I asked.

  “Of course she did. You can’t go leaving your shit around at a biker party, right?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I replied.

  “Truth,” murmured Nina.

  Mindy, Mindy, Mindy.

  “Okay, we’re done here. Remember, Shelley Anne, you don’t say a word about our conversation to anyone, especially not Mindy, or I promise you, you’ll be history. And we will find out if you’ve opened your trap. We always do.”

  The color drained from Shelley Anne’s thin face. “No, I won’t. I promise. I swear.”

  “For future reference,” I said, “Jump’s wife comes here to Danielle’s all the time, and she’s a very respected citizen of this small town of ours. Trust me when I say, you do not want her to find out about you and her old man.”

  Nina shook her head. “Damn, if she found out…” The unmentionable hung in the air.

  I glanced at Nina, exhaling heavily. “I know, right?”

  Shelley Anne’s eyes widened, her mouth falling open, her face reddening.

  Nina and I moved to leave the therapy room, but I had one more thing I needed to say to Miss Shelley Anne.

  I turned and faced her once again. “Just so you know, your BFF, Mindy lied to you. You missed out big time.” I winked at her. “My old man is absolutely amazing in the sack. Fucking fantastic.”

  NINA AND I HURTLED toward the club in her RAV4, Sy zooming ahead of us.

  “We’re going to find that bitch!”

  I glanced at her. “We are?”

  “Hell yes, we are! She stole that gun from the clubhouse!”

  “And what the hell is she doing with it? Did she do it to get back at Boner? To sit back and have a laugh while the men scrambled to find it? That’s just nuts!”

  “Obviously, she is fucking nuts,” replied Nina.

  My head sank against the headrest. “Maybe...”

  “Maybe I’ll start off small, just for kicks, so you get that I’m serious about this.”

  I slid back up in my seat. “Holy shit.”

  It was a perfect Catch move, wasn’t it? Audacious, unexpected, an unforgiving sharp cut deep to the bone.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered under my breath.

  It had to be some kind of setup. Catch was taunting me with his threat and fucking with the Jacks, all in one go.

  Had his club sanctioned this?

  Getting Mindy to do his dirty work was certainly a sparkly touch.

  Was this a trap he was setting up for Boner? I mentally kicked my ass for not telling Boner about Catch’s threats to take Becca away from me and do him harm.

  My jaw clenched. I had to do something.

  During my first trimester of pregnancy with Becca, I’d found a club woman giving Catch a blow job in a bathroom at the Flames clubhouse. I’d sputtered and stumbled as I backed away. She was one of the older women they’d had around for many years. I’d seen her get into fights with other women at parties, and it was never pretty. She’d heard me come into th
e room and glared at me, his dick twisting in her mouth. In that moment, I’d been upset and revolted and utterly petrified.

  Krystal, another Flames old lady, had found me in the hallway. Her eyes had flared at me as she grabbed a beer bottle and clocked the woman on my behalf. A bleary-eyed drunk Catch had stood there, his wet cock hanging out of his pants, while all my chained fury and emotion had vibrated in my veins. I had stood there shaking, unable to speak.

  “That’s the way to do it, honey. You got it in you, or don’t you?”

  Krystal had tossed what was left of the bottle on the floor, shaken her head at me, and stridden back to the party, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Her obvious disappointment had burned through me. I had been unworthy of the Old Lady title.

  I’d envied Krystal’s instinct for wild action without a second thought, that instinct to stand up and fight for herself, her sisters, and what she believed was right. Obviously, I’d had the instinct for flight.

  Unworthy is right. Not this time.

  You got it in you, or don’t you?

  I got out my phone and dialed up Penny. “Pen? Hi, I have a couple of more errands I need to run with Nina.” I raised my heels as the lie escaped my lips, Nina glancing over at me. “Could you keep Rae and Becca until tonight? I’m sorry this is last minute.”

  “Sure, Jill. Roy and the boys went to a softball game, so it’s just us girls. We were going to call you to have dinner with us.”

  “I wish I could. Becca okay? Did she eat enough?” Becca had started going through a picky eater phase. At least, I hoped it was only a temporary phase.

  “She did fine. She ate every pea in her bowl, one at a time and by hand, but she ate every last one. I think it’s because she loves the taste of melted butter so much.”

  “That’s so exciting! Oh my gosh. Thanks, honey.”

  “Sure. I took pictures, I’ll show you later.”

  “Okay. Bye.” I clicked off the call.

  I turned to Nina. “Let’s do this.”

  She whooped loudly, smacking her hands on the wheel of her Toyota.

  A few minutes later, we pulled into the club. Alicia’s blue Cherokee was parked in her usual spot.