Taking a Dare

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  Except Bishop.

  The burly, long haired biker made his way around tables, kicking at the chairs in his way as he went straight to where Rodriguez was standing. Dare watched as his Hellion brother stood directly in front of the other man.

  Then in a blur of motion, he saw Bish's open palm slap against the scarred cheek, the retort of his move loud in the room.

  "That's for the Hellion cowardice remark." Dare watched as Bishop brought his hand back up again, made a fist and cold-cocked the fucker on his jaw. "And that's for putting our presidents in danger, dig?" There were murmurs of approval throughout the milling crowd and Dare saw a number of grins on biker faces.

  Rodriguez shook his head as if to clear it and it was evident that he was only upright because Pagan held him in that position. As Bishop turned away, a Czar stepped up and copied his movement of bitch slap then a punch which landed on Rodriguez's nose from the amount of blood pouring out.

  Soon, there was almost a line of men awaiting their turn to slap then pound on the other man.

  Dare went to where Bishop was standing next to Silo. "What the fuck was that?"

  Bishop's eyes moved to Dare's and he saw they were filled with contained humor. "Just thought the mo' fo' needed another bitch slap since the first one didn't, you know, like take or some shit." Their eyes went back to where Rodriguez was slumped against Pagan, head sagging and knees shaking. "Seems I'm a fuckin' trend-setter since everybody else is following my lead."

  Christ!

  Bitch slapped?

  In front of the very men you were trying to intimidate?

  Dare couldn't help his chuckle. Bish had it fuckin' going on!

  He saw Trey was being helped up by Leif as the other brothers milled around to ensure all was chilly before finally taking themselves outside.

  Dare glanced at where Gus was standing, pissed as hell at how the man had behaved at Dare's attempt to save him from a bullet. Something the young Hellion hadn't even thought twice before doing. But Gus's attitude afterward, the anger so evidently displayed and the lack of gratitude for saving his old hairy ass made Dare fucking furious!

  It was almost like the fucker would've rather have been killed than to have had Dare's help!

  Dare angrily stomped towards the doors. As soon as he was clear and out onto the fuckin' porch, he heard Gus's voice behind him.

  "You'll never have her, you know," the man bellowed. Only four feet separated them so in Dare's mind, the fuckin' bellow was overkill.

  Fuck!

  He'd had just saved the goddamn mouthy fucker's life from a whacked-out sicko and yet the man's whole focus was about him and Ryley.

  "I'll never approve of her with you! Never!" came the call from behind him causing his shoulders to tense and his footfalls to stutter on the uneven asphalt. "I'll see you in hell before you get my girl."

  Dare stopped in his tracks, his head dropping to his boots as he considered how to respond. But Dare, being the man he was, only thought it through for a moment before he just fuckin' responded.

  He turned his shoulders and eyed the red-faced, so clearly pissed off man behind him. "Yeah? And what the fuck does she have to say about that?"

  Gus growled and Dare saw the other man's hands were fisted tightly as if to take on the world. Dare twisted until he was fully facing the older man, facing the rage that was so evident on Gus's flushed face.

  "I fuckin' love her, man! Have loved her for ten long fuckin' years!" Dare's voice was loud and harsh in the breeze that kicked up the dust of the parking lot. "I know…fuck, everybody knows you hate me and don't want me and Ryley together! But get a clue, dude. " Dare swallowed thickly before he spoke again. "Gus, man. She's my everything. My fuckin' world. And we're gonna be together. Like it or not."

  "Then she'll no longer be a part of my club or family," the other man announced with a hard lift of his chin. "I'll say she's not my daughter."

  "What? You'd disown Ryley because of him?" Leif's voice sounded incredulous as he stepped quickly to where his father stood.

  "You have got to be fucking kidding me," Brand rumbled, planting his hands on his hips and shooting Gus a venomous glare.

  "Gus, to give up your daughter just because…" Trey started on a let's-be-reasonable tone.

  "But Ryley is a fucking princess!" Blaze exclaimed, his head turning to look at his brothers as if to ask for an explanation of what was going down.

  "Fucking shit, man" came one call but Dare couldn't tell who'd uttered it.

  "What a dick," was the next.

  "He'd give up his girl because she'd hooked up with another Hellion?" someone else asked.

  "They fucking share a history, see? A history Gus don't like so much," Rio called back.

  Dare allowed the brother's comments in but let them slide away. As far as he was concerned, it was just him and Ryley's father in that dusty, lone parking lot. "This is how you want it, old man? Want to divide the Hellions because Ryley and I love each other?"

  At Gus's nod, Dare calmly slid the Hellion vest off his shoulders and threw it hard at the other man where it was caught with an audible 'oof'. "Then take it. Take my club, take my family. Because Ryley, my Ryley, is my fuckin' life."

  Without a glance at anyone, Dare stormed to his machine and fired it up.

  Then valiantly left the silent parking lot with only a plume of dirt rising up in the air to mark his leaving.

  Trey immediately stalked to Gus and grabbed the vest from his hands. As the older president made to snatch it back, Leif insinuated himself between the two men. "No, Pops!"

  "Dare is not the one dividing Hellions, Gus," Brand stated firmly, coming to stand next to Trey and pointing a finger at the older man. "You are."

  "But he's trying…" Gus blustered.

  "He ain't trying shit," Silo intoned next to Brand. "Our boy is fucking doing!"

  Gus stared at the large, bald Missoulan Hellion scowling deeply. "What the fuck does that mean, for god's sake?"

  "It means, Pop," Leif explained with sadness and regret in every word. "You fucked up. You can't tell them 'no' and expect Ryley and Dare to bow down to your control. Anymore than you can tell me that Ryley's no longer my sister." He sighed deeply when Gus made no response. "That's not how real life works."

  "The punk gave me his cut. Willingly handed it over," Gus averred fiercely as his eyes swung over the men who were coming closer in order to hear better. "You all saw it!"

  "I only saw a brother take off his vest," Bishop drawled, adding his two cents to the conversation. "Big fuckin' diff between removing an item of clothing and turning in a sacred patch, dig?"

  There was a chorus of 'exactlys' and 'hell yeahs' coming from the mixed group of Hellions which now surrounded Gus and Trey.

  Huff came running up to the cluster of men and pushed his way up to where Trey stood. "The Czars said they'd hold Rodriguez and deal with the cops, which I'm taking as our cue to get gone."

  Trey's glance raked over Gus in derision as he turned away. "Asses on bikes, Hellions. We ride."

  Gus, though, continued to stand alone in the parking lot long after the last motorcycle had left, wondering how everything had gotten so motherfucking out of whack.

  *.*.*.*.*

  My man had arrived in the forecourt, a flurry of deep revs which had preceded his deeply yelled roar of, 'Ryley!' when I'd found him waiting outside the clubhouse door. A big bad-ass biker that was waiting for me to climb up on his bike behind him without delay or question.

  But I'd been already been warned of what his attitude might be, prepared by the flurry of phone calls and text messages made by the brothers to the Honeys and together, me and my girls had pieced together what had gone down between my man and my pops.

  Something that had been brewing for more than a while.

  And something that both chapters disagreed with when they'd learned of what my father had demanded…blaming my dad for the schism he was trying to create within the club.

  "Blaze is
saying Trey's pissed that Dare gave Gus his vest!" Lock had yelled as the first one to receive news of how things were going down wherever our men were.

  "Brand's pissed that Trey's pissed about Gus getting all up in Dare's grille when they're out on club business," Reese called out, holding up her cellphone. "Even used an 'eff' word in his text. My man is fucking boiling!"

  "Trey says that Dare took off before anyone else," Dallas mumbled, staring at her phone. "Aw shit! Says Gus didn't join them in the line up before they rode. " She lifted her head and looked around at the group of Honeys that had taken over the bar. The brothers that hadn't been picked to join the run were deep in their drinks at more than a few of the back tables, their voices quiet and movements slow as they seemed to wait for the crews to come back. "What does that mean?"

  With my mind on the fact that Dare had left after he and my pop's had gone at it again and in full view of both clubs, I answered automatically. "Every man that went today was given a place, a set spot in which to ride. Usually it's two by two behind the president or the leader for whatever run they're doing. Today it was Trey and Gus that led them."

  "But if Gus didn't join Trey at the front on the return…," Dee murmured worriedly from somewhere behind me.

  "Either he was denied his place or deliberately chose not to be a part," I said slowly as I turned towards her. Our eyes caught and I saw her nod before she joined me behind the bar. I quickly spoke to reassure her. "I can't see Trey denying my dad so it's gotta be the other. That Gus specifically decided not to ride with them."

  Which was absolutely the wrong way for my dad to play Trey and the Hellions. A fact Gus should've known. And would jeopardize his presidency with the Spokane chapter. There were rules he had to follow even if he didn't agree with them. And by not doing so, he was putting his presidency in danger. Men wouldn't follow a man they couldn't respect and was a fact that was even more true for bikers.

  I saw Dee's eyebrows raise before they came together as she reached for her purse. "Got something to do," she advised and immediately left the clubhouse with only a flip of her hand as goodbye.

  Which was only seconds before I heard Dare's motorcycle and then his bellow of my name. A bawl of such that I knew I had no chance of denying or escaping.

  But then, with Dare, I didn't want to.

  Hopping on behind him, the inside of my thighs aligning with the outsides of his, I wrapped my arms around his waist, the thinnest part of his body as we roared away. When he took a hard right out of the parking lot, just beyond the trundling gates of the compound, I knew where we were headed.

  Back to his place.

  "What's doing, cowboy?" I breathed into his ear at one of the many stoplights that seemed to dot Missoula's town center.

  "We are so fuckin' Audi, sugar," he'd announced in a deep growl. "We'll grab the truck in order to carry my shit before fuckin' grabbing your stuff from Lu's…" and the light turned in the middle of my man explaining things to me, cutting off his reply as he twisted his hand to make the Harley thrust out and away from the confines of the stoplight.

  I tucked my head between his shoulder-blades as he accelerated, seemingly determined to get us to his tiny apartment as fast as fucking possible. But the feel of only his t-shirt against my cheek gave me pause. It wasn't the fleece feel of his patch or the rockers—the separate pieces that told of the club and the town where he was based—pressed against my face. Nor was there a trace of denim in what my arms were holding.

  "Where's your cut, Dare?" I asked on a rigid voice when we were halted by the next damn red light. I'd heard he'd taken it off in order to give it to my dad but somehow couldn't believe it to be true. Not until that exact moment.

  "Fuckin' threw it to your old man, Ryley," he quickly replied and I wondered if his lips were as tight as his voice had sounded. "He can fuckin' have it as far as I'm concerned."

  "Baby…" I offered, feeling my heart melt as I recognized what he was giving me. Providing the answer of 'us' in the problematic equation that we hadn't asked for. In some ways, I'd always known that if I'd chosen Dare that it would be without Gus and Leif's support.

  But Dare was a Hellion.

  It defined him and the club who had made him into the man he was. To have the man I was so tightly clinging to be without his cut was like denying nature, the natural way of things, in some way.

  "Dare," I whispered again, my lips at his ear even though he was maneuvering us throughout the traffic of town, sliding in and around the cars beside us. At my softly said word all the teeming arguments of why we couldn't be together fell by the wayside as he did a long stroke of my thigh. And just that one firm caress reminded me of what I'd wanted, had always freakin' wanted when it came to him.

  When it came to Dare.

  At that moment in time, I didn't care where my man drove us.

  Just as long as we were together.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  For Gus, it was a long, lonely journey back to Missoula.

  A ride that had him cursing, so filled with anger and bitterness that he found himself roaring outloud at the betrayal of his men, his club.

  He wasn't the one at fault!

  It wasn't him that had created the break between the Hellion chapters but that fucking low-life, the ramble-rouser who was trying to steal his daughter!

  Why couldn't the other men see that?

  Even his own son had turned against him, unable to see that Gentry was like a snake in their midst, creating dissension where none had existed before. And to out and out claim Gus couldn't keep Leif from Ryley? What the fuck was that? Of anyone, Gus had counted on the fact that his own son would support his decision.

  But obviously not now. Not at the expense of banning Ryley.

  Leif was still a young man and couldn't see that Gus was only trying to do the right thing, the honorable thing in demanding his daughter cease and desist in running after that boy!

  He was the one that controlled their family! Their fucking club!

  Or he had, at least until he'd forced Ryley on this run. Where she'd reconnected with the one person who'd almost destroyed her so many years ago.

  Gus's shoulders sagged at his thoughts while his machine ate up the miles between Deer Lodge and Missoula.

  No, he'd never understood the connection of Dare and his daughter…and probably never would. The shell of the young girl he and Maggie had taken back home after that first run, of how she'd cried and locked herself in her room had grated at him. They'd been just kids, for god's sake! And he'd never understood how such a short time with someone could cause his girl to fall apart.

  But she had and had done so in such a way that it'd scared him to fucking death.

  As Gus hit the Missoula city limits, he tried to decide where he needed to be. Or, more truthfully, where he wanted to be. The brothers would reconvene at the clubhouse but Gus wasn't sure he'd be welcomed. Especially not after the censure that had been heaped on him, both in word and in body posture, in the parking lot of a no-notice bar by his fellow Hellions. With that in mind, he turned his bike towards the Rosemont hoping to not encounter anyone since he was in no mood to argue with them again.

  Sitting on his large 2010 Dyna-Glide, he carefully turned the big machine's engine off and found that the wind as it skidded over the pockmarked asphalt was the only sound he could hear. He swung his leg over, feeling the twinge of pain in his hip as he did so, and made his way to the dog-legged stairs. But at the landing, the one that had the steps going a different direction, he spied someone at the top.

  Someone that was simply sitting as if waiting.

  "Hey, Gus," he heard the rough feminine voice call out and recognized it instantly.

  "Hiya, Dee," he rumbled but felt his heart take flight knowing she was there. Aware that she'd been waiting for him.

  She should've been at the clubhouse, helping the Honeys as they both fed and watered the men who'd returned. But she wasn't. She was there, waiting for him.

 
; He moved up the second portion of the staircase and saw, from the litter of cigarette butts that she'd been waiting on him awhile. "What brings you here, pretty girl?"

  She raised her deep brown eyes, rimmed in the black pencil she wielded like a fiend, and blinked. "Came to see you, old man."

  Old man? What the fuck? In the past Dee had called him 'stud', or even 'gorgeous guy'. But right then, he knew that she meant the words as she'd said them.

  Old man.

  A man past his prime and no longer in control of his family, his club or his life.

  Gus shoved his key card in the slot so hard the plastic protested. "Since you're here to see me, you wanna come in?"

  He watched as she picked up each and every one of her butts before grabbing the leather bag next to her and standing. She gave him a sharp nod before entering the room first but didn't speak until he'd closed the door.

  "Got anything to drink?" she finally asked as her eyes scoured the wreck of his room. He'd meant to straighten before he'd left but with Ryley showing up that morning, he'd had other things on his mind.

  "Tequila, I think," he mumbled moving to the vanity that surrounded the sink before rinsing glasses and reaching for the ever present bottle of Patron that was his drink of choice. "I'm guessing since you're perched on a chair instead of the bed that this ain't a social visit."

  He saw a small smile cross Dee's face. She was still a beautiful woman in spite of all that she'd been through over the years, and Gus had known Delores Rodriguez Miles for a long damn time.

  "Not really," she murmured, draping her hands over her crossed knees.

  The only sound in the room were the glugs from the bottle he was pouring. Stepping across the space, he handed her a glass before taking a seat on the unmade bed. While he'd seen the cart at the other end of the hall, it seemed the maid hadn't had time yet to make it to his room.

  He reached to clink his glass against hers before adding, "then, out with it, Dee."