Combust (Savage Disciples MC Book 5)

by Drew Elyse

  Brusque, but it was an approval. I’d take it. He was also polite, in his own way. He didn’t reach for the hot sauce until after I’d used it. I’d call that chivalrous. My guess was women didn’t open their own doors around this guy either.

  I was thinking I might like him.

  “I’m Avery,” I broke the silence between us.

  “Know who you are, Cherry Pie,” he answered, punctuating the truth of his statement with that name. “Don’t get all up in the business as much as the other brothers—I’m old and shit, so that’s my due. Still know important names, though. Oh, and I was at the shit head’s party last night.”

  That was a little awkward. Actually, anyone seeing the dance I did for Daz last night was a little awkward. It hadn’t been just any performance. It felt private, intimate, even if it was anything but.

  “Name’s Doc,” he tacked on while I silently agonized.

  I gave him a smile and focused back on my eggs.

  “Don’t you go gettin’ weird on me because I know that about you. Spent half my life in med school and rising through the ranks at a hospital just to take off one day to live the life I got now. Even if you weren’t fuckin’ great at what you do, I wouldn’t be judging. Life takes us where it takes us. Ain’t no one can pass judgement on someone else when they haven’t lived their life.”

  It was official, I liked this guy.

  “I like you, Doc.”

  “Pretty girl likin’ me, seems a damn fine way to start the day.”

  I smiled bigger at that before asking, “Is Daz your son?”

  He guffawed—really, that laugh was like nothing I’d ever heard. “God, I’d feel a pretty deep sense of guilt for unleashing that boy on the world.”

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed too.

  “Nah, the boy’s not my kid. Lived next door to his folks when he was growing up. Couple of grade-A assholes, those two.”

  “His parents?”

  Doc nodded. “Not abusive. Nothing I could lay his father out or drag the cops in for. Just assholes. Got blessed with two healthy boys, and they couldn’t find it in them to give a shit about either of them. The kid saw me working on my bike when he was barely taller than the wheels and made no bones about his interest. I did my best to give him a little of what he wasn’t getting from those fucks. Got close with Joel, his brother, too. Big brother wanted to take off with his girl who’d had it even rougher than the two of them as soon as he hit eighteen, but didn’t want to take his brother into somethin’ uncertain. I took Daz in for the last bit so he’d get his diploma. Then he joined the club with me.”

  “That was really great of you to do. Most people wouldn’t have bothered,” I told him.

  “Can see you’re speakin’ from experience on that one,” he replied, but offered me an expression that managed to assure he wasn’t going to force me to talk about anything I didn’t want to. “Way I see it, standin’ by when shit like that is pulled is just as bad as being the asshole who does it. I got questionable morals by some standards, but those boys were just kids. They didn’t get to pick what dicks made them.”

  “Sounds like you’re a good guy, Doc, questionable morals or not.”

  We were both quiet for a minute until a rough voice asked, “I smell bacon?”

  Looking over my shoulder, I caught sight of Daz coming into the kitchen. He hadn’t put a shirt on, and had only zipped the jeans he’d pulled on, not bothering with the button. His hair was a mess—probably at least in part my doing—and he was rubbing a hand through it. He looked good—good enough I was forgetting that feeling telling me I’d made a mistake.

  “Fix yourself a plate,” Doc told him. “Or you can get lost. Your girl here’s a good date.”

  “Harsh. Just wait 'til you're drooling in your Jell-O and we all gotta put your ass in a home. We’ll see who’s laughing then,” Daz muttered as he went right for the food and filled up a plate.

  “I’d like to see you try. We both know I could gut you six different ways before you even knew what happened.”

  It was a joke. I knew it was a joke. Still, there was a sinister undertone there that told me Doc was capable of precisely that. Even though I felt not the slightest bit unsafe with him, it still caused a chill to shoot down my spine.

  Daz, still looking no more awake and ready to face the world, plopped down in a chair and started in on his food. We all ate that way, sitting around the table like it wasn’t at all weird that they'd both seen me strip before Daz took me away early so we could have crazy sex all night.

  Then, the jackass opened his mouth.

  “I wasn’t sure if you'd be gone before I woke up.”

  Yes, that was what he said. It was off-handed, not a suggestion that I should have been. Still, it was not a conversation we needed to be having in front of anyone.

  Or at all.

  “How the fuck you haven’t had that dick of yours chopped off by a woman, I’ll never fuckin’ understand,” Doc grunted into his breakfast.

  “Women love my dick.”

  “It’s all right,” I decided to put in.

  Doc’s booming laugh shot through the room again before he reached over to Daz’s plate, snatched a piece of bacon right off the side, and placed it on mine. Ignoring the two pieces already sitting there, I grabbed my prize and bit into it with a smile on my face.

  Daz glared at Doc before looking to me with eyes way too hot for sitting down to any meal. “We both know that’s bullshit, sugar.”

  “Are you going to keep calling me sugar? Isn’t Cherry Pie enough?” I asked, trying to divert from that train of thought. It really, maybe, possibly, was bullshit.

  “I didn’t come up with Cherry Pie, sugar,” Daz replied. “I just stuck with the theme.”

  “Maybe they just call me Cherry Pie because of my hair.” They didn’t—not exclusively anyway.

  “Maybe they do. But they don’t know how sweet you are,” he nearly purred. His “sweet” had not one thing to do with my personality.

  Rolling my eyes, because that was cheesy at best, I told him, “Your lines need some work.”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  Doc snorted.

  “Traitor,” I grouched.

  “Sorry, pretty girl,” he said with a smile behind that gray beard that was anything but apologetic. “He’s got ya there.”

  In reality, Daz had used not one line to get me there. Well, he’d actually used a bunch, but none of them worked. Nearly everything he’d ever said to me was the exact reason it had taken him so long to get us to the night before. It was what he had going for him when he shut his mouth—okay, maybe his mouth was open often enough, but he’d stopped speaking—that did the trick. That was probably bad, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t after some guy who would make my life complicated. I’d been down that road and learned the lesson. Men, in general, weren’t worth the headache. Some might break the mold, but they weren’t common. They also tended to be the types who weren’t partial to their women getting nearly naked in front of other men. So, whatever. If Daz could scratch the itch now and then, that was fine by me.

  If that happened to come with the opportunity for more breakfasts with Doc, then that was all the better.

  “That there’s a good woman,” Doc announced later that morning after Avery left.

  We were kicked back on the porch, the old man on my case as usual. Same way he’d been since I was a curious little shit trying to figure out what was with the weird guy next door with the badass bike.

  Before she’d left, Avery had made the fucking thrilling statement—in private—that she’d let me have her again.

  I didn’t frequently dip back in for seconds, but some things were sweet enough to make it worth it. Fact was, getting Avery in bed was like living out every promise her body made on that stage. If the men who frequented the shop—or even the fuckers coming in for the first time—knew just how that performance could transfer over to the bedroom, we’d never have an empty
seat.

  Still, I felt a bit proprietary over that knowledge. She wasn’t mine. That wasn’t what either of us was about. And she could feed Doc all the bullshit she wanted, I fucking rocked her world.

  Not that she didn’t return the favor—repeatedly.

  “Yeah,” I muttered back to Doc.

  “A smart man recognizes one of those when she’s in front of him,” the asshole kept at it.

  “Is this the part where you play my mom, try to get me to settle down and pop out some fuckin’ kids?” I shot back.

  He uncapped a beer and threw the top at me. “Never said shit about you bein’ a smart man. That brother of yours got the brains. Found himself a beautiful woman who thinks the sun shines out his ass, put a ring on her finger, and knocked her up. Now he’s got that in his life 'til the end. Meanwhile, you’ll be chasing easy pussy ’til you’re too old to get it.”

  “Says the old fucker who still gets it fine,” I muttered.

  “Tell it to you straight,” Doc said as he stared out at the yard. “If I had picked right instead of putting my ring on the finger of a bitch who thought it was okay to still take another man’s cock, I’d be sittin’ here perfectly fuckin’ content to have one woman for whatever time I’ve got left.”

  Doc calling a woman a bitch said a lot. I’d seen him lay out men half his age on more than one occasion for disrespecting women. I also had to bail his cranky ass out of jail more than one of those times. Fact was, his ex-wife was a bitch. As far as he could figure after the fact, she’d been fucking at least one other man the entire time they were married. She just wanted Doc because he was a doctor and made more than the guy she was getting it from on the side. When Doc had enough of losing kids on the table and gave up the life-saving gig, she was gone before he could fucking blink.

  “Your crotchety ass is gonna live forever anyway.”

  “Keep tellin’ yourself that, boy,” Doc said as he downed a beer. Before noon. At sixty-five.

  Evidence was suggesting either of us might be right. He was going to drop any day, or the reaper himself wasn’t going to be able to take the dude down.

  “You’re going to outlive us all. Me, Joel. Hell, you might outlive all the little ones running around here.”

  “Nothing appealing about outliving everyone you love,” Doc put in sagely. Fuckin’ biker guru he was.

  I didn’t say anything else. When Doc dropped knowledge like that, I found it was best to let him have his moment. Instead, I just sipped my drink beside him, letting him know I really heard what he was saying by not running my mouth back.

  With all the man had done for me over the years, I could give him that.

  A week later, I would remember those words from Doc.

  I was at the clubhouse, killing time before church. Stone had called us all in. What the hell it was about was anyone’s guess. Based on past experience, it could have been anything from basic shop talk to someone being fuckin’ kidnapped.

  What it wasn’t was optional. When we got the call, our asses were there, no questions asked.

  Most of the brothers were already assembled, sitting around in the lounge and shooting the shit. We had a room for these meetings, one that was locked at all times unless we were making our way in or out. Next to the doors, Doc was getting his little basket out. No phones in church was a hard and fast rule, and he took it upon himself to enforce it. That meant we all filed in and turned our phones over to him like good little children.

  When Stone turned the corner and unlocked the doors, I did the task I’d taken it upon myself to do before we met each time.

  “Time for church, you fuckin’ heathens!” I hollered through the room.

  A couple brothers gave me looks, shaking their heads at my unnecessary announcement, but some things were tradition and you didn’t fuck with them.

  I was nearly at the door, waiting behind Ham as he typed some shit out on his phone, when mine started buzzing. I didn’t recognize the number, so that was a big fuck no. I didn’t hand out my number much, but that didn’t mean some of the chicks I’d taken to bed couldn’t get their hands on it. As far as I was concerned, there was no good reason on God’s green earth to answer a phone in the twenty-first century when you didn't know who was on the other end.

  Fuck that.

  Clicking “ignore,” I brought my attention back up. Ham was still holding shit up, the big motherfucker blocking the doorway.

  “Do you ever stop fuckin’ texting your woman? Damn. What, has she got your balls in her pocket and gives 'em a squeeze when you don’t respond?”

  “Shut the fuck up, asshole,” Ham shot back.

  “Original. Witty. That’s some high-quality comeback material right there.”

  He didn’t respond. He was too focused on the screen. At that point, I was actually concerned. Some of the brothers opted not to engage when I gave them shit, but not Ham. He was as quick with a jab as I was.

  “Seriously, brother, what gives?”

  His phone buzzed once, and he focused on it for a second before pinching the bridge of his nose, then tossed it in the basket.

  “Fuckin’ Christ,” he muttered. “We need to get through this shit fast. I need some damn booze.”

  Throwing my phone in after his and following him, I pressed, “What the fuck’s that about?”

  He looked around, making sure the brothers were all focused on their own shit before saying low, “Max thought she was pregnant. False alarm, but she was freaking the fuck out. Not that I was much better. Last thing either of us is ready for is to have a damn kid. She decided five minutes ago to take the test instead of waiting until I got home like I told her to.”

  Jesus. No wonder he wasn’t himself. I’d be shitting a brick too if I thought I might have knocked a woman up. Sure, he was with Max in a way I’d never committed to any woman, but that didn’t mean it was time for her to start popping out babies.

  “Shit. Just a false alarm, though?”

  He collapsed his big body into a chair that groaned beneath him. “Yeah. Thank fuck.”

  A couple minutes passed, and everyone was in and seated around the big table waiting for Stone to start, except Doc. The old timer was still standing outside the open door.

  “Doc,” Tank called, but got no response.

  There was the muted sound of Doc’s voice in the distance, but nothing that could be made out from inside the room. Then, there wasn’t quiet at all. There was a crash, and Doc’s voice cursing so loud, it went hoarse.

  Instinct had me on my feet, the rest of the guys all jumping up just as fast. There was a horrifying thirty seconds of assuming the worst. Doc had a heart attack or some shit. That sound was him falling. We were going to fucking lose him.

  But then he was there, standing in the door.

  The relief at seeing him upright and seemingly fine was so profound, I didn’t notice, not for a long moment, what was off. I didn’t see the expression on his face, not until his head swung my way and he rasped out my name.

  Then, I couldn’t unsee it.

  He looked tortured, pale, like he’d taken a blow there was no recovering from.

  Not knowing what was coming, not even beginning to process it, I took a step back, trying to retreat from whatever it was he was about to unleash on me.

  At some level, I knew what it had to be.

  Then, Doc was talking, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t block out all the words.

  Tried to call you.

  Next of kin.

  There was an accident.

  Those fucking words. Those ones hit hard. It was like a blow right to the chest. I wanted to yell, to scream for him to stop. I didn’t want to hear it, because it couldn’t be true.

  Then, there was nothing but the pain—nothing but the excruciating agony when he said the words I couldn’t fucking bear:

  Joel didn’t make it.

  The worst part about sleeping with your boss was the aftermath.

  Well, maybe that wa
sn’t always true. I was sure there were plenty of unfortunate situations out there where the sex was actually the worst part. At least I’d had the good stuff before things started going to hell.

  So, with the understanding that I could have had it worse, I would say the worst part of going to bed with Daz was definitely the aftermath.

  Specifically, it was the fact that I hadn’t been alone with him before it happened.

  Aside from the whole freaking club, there were also five other dancers working the party, and it was kind of hard to miss when the guest of honor and one of your coworkers up and disappeared before the night was over.

  Luckily, the girls who had been there were still keeping their mouths shut about the party as a whole, as they’d been told to. Unluckily, that didn’t stop them from knocking on my dressing room under the guise of actual work issues just to try to convince me to spill all the dirty secrets.

  “Come on,” Candy, the latest to come in, insisted. Yes, there was actually a Candy at Candy Shop. It wasn’t named after her. The universe was just funny that way. “Just tell me if he’s good. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been curious?”

  I swear, you would think I’d slept with a celebrity, or a porn star—not that Daz was all that far removed from the second option. The fascination went so far beyond the ordinary. After days of it, whenever I was at Candy Shop with any of the girls who worked the party, I was tempted to just start spilling.

  Of course, if it got back to Daz that I was telling them he’d all but rocked my world, that would be worse. He wouldn’t care if I talked about his skill. No, he would probably be thrilled I was touting his horn. There was no way I could take how smug the asshole would be.

  “Do you actually have a problem with the schedule?” I forced her back to the excuse she’d used to get me alone.

  “Yeah. Can’t do Thursday. Ma has to get cataract surgery, and I need to be home with her that night.”