by Violet Blaze
His heart–if he even has one–is coated in ice.
Glacier
Copyright © Caitlin Stunich 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Road, Springfield, OR 97478.
www.sarianroyal.com
ISBN-10: 19386231398 (eBook)
ISBN-13: 978-1-938623-39-4 (eBook)
Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.
there's a little bit of weirdness in all of us.
learn to embrace it.
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Welcome to "Glacier", a stand-alone romance about dark things, hard choices, and broken people. This book can be read start to finish for a complete story and stands entirely on its own, but if you'd like more backstory on Glacier and Serenity, or want to read more about the other characters in this story, please check out the completed "Bad Boys MC Trilogy" which starts with book one, "Raw and Dirty", and introduces you to the epic love story of Glacier's club's president and his wife.
If you're looking for a "typical MC book", you won't find it here. Glacier is a decadently dark and beautiful badass, and his love interest, Serenity, is a strong female character that wants her own damn bike. If you like alpha females matched to your alpha males, this is the right book for you. In this story, women don't have to stay on the back of their man's ride. ;)
As you're reading, Tweet, Snapchat and Instagram your favorite passages to me @CMStunich (my main Twitter account under my pen name!) #glacier. This book-and the man within its pages-hold a very special place in my heart. I can't wait to hear what you think!
~Love, your kick ass new BFF, Violet Blaze
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One month earlier …
The night my mother gets shot is the night I lose my virginity. Willingly. To the monster I'm in love with.
I storm across the polished hardwood floors of the Alpha Wolves Clubhouse, dashing tears from my eyes and trying to stop my breath from coming in panting gasps. Growing up in the life is hard, but I've never had to go through something like this before, this frantic waiting and pacing and wondering.
My fingers rake through the long blonde strands of my hair as I hit one end of my mother's bar and turn back, boots loud and clomping, droplets of icy rainwater sliding from my skin to the floor. The absolute worst part of it all is that I'm trapped here like a bird in a cage.
Mom got shot; Mom got shot; Mom got shot.
My palms slide over my face as the tears run hot and easy. I'm not even embarrassed to be caught crying in the bar by a group of men in leather vests, glancing up as they walk in and hardly give me a second glance. I'm a fixture in this place, just Jack's little girl. Not a woman. Not even a person. Still a kid.
I dash my arm over my eyes and smooth my red midriff top into place, hating that there's nowhere around here to grab a moment of privacy. It's much easier to be alone than it is to be ignored.
Walking as quickly as I can, I head back into the hallway toward the front door, pausing when the president of the club walks in, face drawn, eyes flicking over to mine for a brief second before he passes by, hair dark and expression darker.
I have no idea what exactly happened tonight, but the chance of getting one of these assholes to tell me anything is slim to none.
I swing around the newel post at the bottom of the curving staircase and pound my way up, leather boots loud against the wood as I head off in search of an empty bedroom. There're a good dozen of them between the second and third floors, with beds and attached bathrooms for members that need a place to stay when they're visiting from out of town—or for local guys to fuck the groupie girls. I might be seventeen, but even I know how it works around here.
The first door I come to is unlocked and I shove it open, slipping inside and slamming my back against the wood to close it, my eyes sliding shut as I breathe in deep and smell freshly laundered blankets, mothballs, and … blood.
My eyes flash open and my breath explodes from my lungs in a rush.
There's somebody in here. And just not just anybody, but him.
“I …” I start, tears pouring from my eyes unbidden as I stare at the heavily tattooed and pierced blonde man sitting perched on the edge of the bed. He glances over at me, blood staining his shirt, his leather vest, the perfect white-gold color of his hair. A row of silver earrings winks back at me from the curve of his ear as my hands start to tremble and I wonder why, why the hell of all people I could bump into, it had to be him.
“Serenity,” Glacier says with zero inflection in his voice, watching me with a blank expression, a crossbow sitting on the floor by his boots. “If you're looking for Jack, he's not here.”
“I know,” I manage to say, despite the violent trembling in my lips and the salty tears on my cheeks. I should turn around and leave—now—because my dad's already warned me several times about this man.
“He's dangerous, Serenity. Cold. There's something seriously wrong with him.”
Only … I don't care because when I look at the man everyone calls Glacier, I don't see that at all. I see a hot fire buried beneath ice, a heart frozen and covered with snow, a bright vibrant spirit that's so sharp and clear that everyone else just looks right through it and pretends it isn't there.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask as he continues to look at me with white-blue eyes, running a tattooed hand over his stoic face. The man is … gorgeous beyond gorgeous, with full lips and long lashes, big eyes and a straight nose. He'd be pretty, almost too pretty, if it weren't for the tattoos that curl up and around his neck, his shoulders, down his arms and fingers. Other than his face, I'm not sure that there is a spot on Saint Nordin that isn't covered in ink.
“Decompressing,” he says with a dangerous lilt to his voice, like a warning to me to get the fuck out of there. I sweep red-streaked blonde hair over my shoulder and ignore that. What will happen if I do? I want to know.
“Rough night?” I ask, but right now, Saint isn't acting like he usually does, that goofy over the top personality he uses to hide his true self. He's all Glacier in this moment and idle chitchat isn't going to work. He just stares at me and then pulls a pack of gum from his pocket, slowly unwrapping the silver foil with his inked fingers. He pops the piece in his mouth and tucks the trash in the pocket of his cut. Oddly enough, Glacier's the only one of the guys who doesn't smoke. No, he paints his fingernails black to hide the blood and lets the president and his officers lock him away in an abandoned house by the cemetery to do their dirty work.
Nobody on this compound realizes the things I know. If they did, I'd probably be banned from the property.
I realize as I'm standing there that I'm still crying.
Mom got shot; Mom got shot; Mom got shot.
“Do you know what happened to Fauna?” I ask, using my mother's first name to distance myself from my age. What happened to Mommy? just doesn't seem like the best way to talk to a man that everyone on the compound is convinced is a psychopath.
A man that I've been in love with since I was fifteen.
“She was
shot on her way out of the grocery store,” Glacier says, leaning back on the bed with a sigh, tilting his chin up toward the ceiling and closing his eyes. I study his profile, limned in gold from the bedside lamp, my heart thumping painfully, my lungs tight and throat dry. Saint's pierced everywhere that I can see: silver rings on either side of his lip, his right nostril and left brow, up and down both ears. The Omegas—what the men in the club call the women that hang around the property looking for a little slice of danger to take to bed—gossip about where else Glacier might be pierced. But none of them know because unlike all the other single (and sometimes married) men in the club, he doesn't fuck any of them.
Sometimes, I fantasize that's because he fell in love with me that same day I fell for him, but I know that's a bunch of bullshit.
“Who shot her?” I demand, still crying, but standing up and then shivering when Glacier's eyes snap open and flick over to me, running down my body in a cold, appraising sort of way. I can't tell if he even likes what he sees, but it feels good to have him look at me—even for just a moment.
“Maybe you should go downstairs and wait for Jack?” Glacier says, snapping my father's name off the end of his tongue in a sharp, whiplike sound.
“Don't talk down to me like everyone else does,” I say, and then realize that I might be yelling, dashing away more tears as I suck in a deep breath and feel the burning metallic tang of blood on the back of my tongue. This isn't the first time I've ever smelled blood on this man; it won't be the last. “I'm not an idiot. Clearly, something happened tonight. It might be club business, but my mom is about as much my business as things can get.”
“Is that so?” Glacier asks, letting a wicked scary smile slide over his full lips. There's nothing at all humorous or pleased about that expression. It looks like he's seconds away from killing somebody. But he won't hurt me. I know that.
Then why are you shaking twice as hard now, Serenity?
I take a step back and bump into the door, my heart so loud that it feels like it's beating between my ears instead of inside my chest.
The mattress creaks as Glacier rises to his feet and slips his leather vest—called a cut because it's a jacket with the shoulders cut off—down his muscular arms. He tosses it onto the bed along with a gun holster before reaching over his shoulder and grabbing a fistful of his t-shirt, tugging it off in a single motion and slinging it aside.
The sight of all that naked flesh steals my breath away.
Down his back are a pair of inked black wings, like those of a bat … or a demon. When he moves, his painted skin slides over lean muscles, making it look like the tattoos are moving, getting ready to spread open and blot out the sun.
He glances briefly over at me, slowly chewing his gum, flashing me the hardened points of his nipples and the long, smooth stretch of muscles in his chest and belly. I blink several times, unsure where to look, my attention dragged low to the curve of his waistband, the way it sags on his hips and reveals more than I ever thought I'd get to see of the man. He has that crazy deep set of V-shaped muscles that the girls in my school go nuts for, but they're almost hard to see beneath a collage of blue, green, red, and purple ink.
“Don't you have a bedtime?” Glacier asks, voice still smooth and icy. It's easy to see why the other men in the club call him by that nickname. But to me, he's just Saint, the one and only man in this club—in this world—that's ever let me drive his bike. Just once, when I was fifteen, but I've never forgotten that day. It's burned on my brain in a ragged scar, one that I just can't help running my fingers across.
“Fuck you, Saint,” I tell him, not at all intimidated by his muscles or his gun or the crossbow lying on the ground between us. “I'm not a kid anymore.”
He makes a snorting sound that drives me completely up the wall and before I even realize what I'm doing, I'm stepping forward and tearing my red half-shirt over my head, throwing it aside and standing there panting in a black lace bra.
“Do I look like a fucking kid?” I snap, resisting the urge to cross my arms over the swells of my breasts. The dorm room must be at least ten by ten, but in that moment, it feels small and warm and stifling.
“If you think flashing your chest like that makes you seem all grown-up, then you've got a long way to go, Serenity.” The sound of my name on Glacier's lips almost makes up for the harshness of his insult. Unlike any other guy on the planet, Saint doesn't take advantage of the view, casting barely a glance at my heaving chest, at the sweat running between my breasts.
But he doesn't ask me to leave or put my shirt back on either, perching on the edge of the bed again with a sigh and ruffling his blonde hair with colorful fingers. The word BURY is tattooed in sharp black ink across his knuckles, an ominous warning to stay away from this man.
I know what he does; everyone around here knows.
Saint aka Glacier, he kills people. Tortures them. For the club.
“Why won't you look at me?” I ask as I take a bold step forward, my black mini swishing against my thighs. “Because you're afraid of what will happen if you do?”
Glacier continues to ignore me, leaning over to spit his gum in the trash can by the bed.
That's it.
Before I can stop myself, I'm moving forward and swinging a leg over his lap.
I don't even get the chance to sit, stumbling back as Glacier's hands come up and push me away violently, knocking me to my back on the floor. Anger and shame flash hot and sudden through me as I ignore the fresh ache in my side and push up from the ground.
Those white-blue eyes of his are looking down at me like he could give two shits less, but his hands … are trembling.
I stand up again and put my palm flat against Glacier's warm chest, right over a pair of blackbirds on his left pec, straddling his lap before he can push me back again. My left hand reaches back to cup his head, but he stops me, locking his fingers around my wrist so hard that it hurts.
We stare at each other for a long, aching minute, the air in the room hot and sticky, my breath coming in panting gasps, his chest completely still. Glacier holds his breath so long I worry that he's stopped breathing altogether.
But when I move to climb off his lap, my hips wiggle and I can feel a hardness in his jeans that wasn't there a moment ago.
I blink several times and then draw my left wrist back, adjusting my hand and pushing Glacier's fingers against my bare side. Please, I think as I look into his face, touch me.
He resists for a split second, but then his grip is curling around my waist hard enough to bruise.
I grit my teeth against the pain, and swallow hard, shifting my pelvis and rubbing the warmth between my thighs against Glacier's jeans.
He clenches his jaw and turns away for a brief moment, but he doesn't throw me to the floor again. I want to keep pushing him, see how far I can get, but I'm afraid to scare him off, so I sit still, realizing as I do that I can feel his heart beating beneath the palm of my right hand.
It's so frantic and wild, like the birds inked into his flesh are alive and panicked, desperate to escape. I curl my nails against his skin and he lets out a sharp, low gasp, yanking my body forward so that my breasts are pressed up against his chest.
Glacier smoothes his palm down my side and caresses my hip, his grip still too harsh, probably bruising. I could stop him, but I don't, letting him touch me without making a sound.
When he leans forward and rests his lips against the jumping pulse in my throat, it takes every last ounce of self-control I have to keep still.
“You act like you've got it all figured out,” he whispers, his breath hot against my skin. I want to kiss him so badly, my lips ache, “but you're terrified. Are you scared of me, Serenity?”
“No,” I answer honestly, hoping he can taste the truth in my words. I might be the only person alive who's not scared of Saint Nordin. Of Glacier. But I am scared because the furthest I've ever gotten with a boy was making out, clothes on, hands touching my breasts through a
shirt and bra. I've never straddled anyone, felt their erection pressing up against the thin cotton layer of my panties. And Glacier … he's not a boy, but a man.
That's what scares me.
“Liar,” he says, his tongue sliding hot and wet down the side of my throat as I struggle to stay still, to remember to breathe. My left hand finally manages to curl around one tattooed shoulder, and this time, he doesn't bother to stop me.
My fingers knead strong, hard muscles as Glacier moves his mouth to my collarbone, kissing his way across it and pausing in the center of my chest as I arc my hips forward again. When he stays still, I do it again. And again.
My body starts to gyrate in a natural rhythm, working a hot wetness between my thighs that I hardly know what to do with. I keep hoping Glacier will take charge, but he seems content to sit and wait and watch me, lifting his head up and looking me dead in the face.
“Do you have a condom?” I ask, hating that my cheeks light up with a blush. Fuck that. I grew up watching club members screw groupies in the corners at parties, take their old ladies up against walls in the alleys between compound buildings. I've literally seen everything there is to see and yet …
Glacier hardly moves, grabbing the knob on the nightstand drawer with his hand and giving it a small tug. It slides open a few inches, revealing a sea of foil wrapped squares. Oh. Right. Of course.
My right hand moves up, mirroring my left and curling around Glacier's shoulder. His body is scalding against mine, almost unbearably hot, but I still feel like we're not close enough. I need to get closer.
Glacier continues to watch me, the piercings in his face glittering as he licks his lower lip and I lean in to kiss him, expecting him to meet me halfway. He doesn't. He just sits there until I press our mouths together, nervous as hell and hating him for making me take charge like this.
His other hand wraps around my hip on the opposite side, tugging me even harder against him and slowly, so slowly that it's almost painful, he opens his mouth.
