by Isabel Wroth
Collette’s eyes sparkled with mischief, reaching into her gorgeous red leather clutch for a little cigarette case that held note paper, and used a pen that matched the case to write down a name and number. “Josephine makes the most divine leather pants. And bratty subs are my favorite kind. It’s no fun if they’re totally perfect. A client is opening a members only sort of club, for friends and family, if you’d like to test the waters out with your man, we could arrange it. And hashtag awesome, if you made sensual massage lotions or oils, in addition to salve that heals up welts and bruises faster than plain arnica…” She plunked a tray of essential oil blends down on the counter in front of her with a grin, “If it goes on the body, I make it.”
TWENTY EIGHT
Collette left with pretty much one of every body product she made, with the promise to return for more once she ran out. She poured her candles and got those set, cleaning up the mess she’d made mixing up Collette’s items, making herself a list of the things she’d need to restock on. Even with her new shipment, she would only have enough to fill Ripley’s order and maybe have a few more jars left over. “Good. Problem. To have,” She muttered, marking everything down and making a call to the leather lady, Josephine, to commission a pair of leathers for Raid. She’d just hung up when she heard the crunch of gravel under tires, “Thanks, bro.” She heard Raid call, followed by the slam of a truck door, and Cruncher almost had an apoplexy, flailing around to get up and go greet him. Her dog was in dude crush with Raid, not that she blamed him, but it wasn’t cool. She was the one who’d rescued his hairy ass from dog jail, and now he was all in love with her boyfriend? Ingrate. “Hey, baby.”
She heard herself make that dreamy sigh when he walked in, smiling at him in welcome and tipped her head back to accept his kiss. He looked and felt a lot less pissed off, which made her wonder what he’d done in the few hours that he’d been gone. He’d changed his clothes, so she was hoping it had been just a trip to the work out room. “Hi.” His smile reached his eyes this time, “Good day?”
“Just got even better.”
She was careful not to hang on him, but she did wrap her arms tight around his waist and stare up at him with what she was sure was a stupid grin on her face. He chuffed a laugh and kissed her again, “Yeah, you ready to go?” She nodded and moved around to gather her stuff, slipping Cruncher the last kale chip in her baggie and let Raid take her satchel. Everything was turned off, the windows closed, yeah. Ready. “We’re going to stop at the compound so you can shower and change, unless you’re starving and need feeding now.” She shook her head, curling her arm around his, leaning her cheek on his bicep. “I’m all sweaty and gross. Shower sounds like heaven.”
They got to the compound and she was slightly surprised to see how busy it was. Guys moving all over with sheaves of paper, on the phone, or leaning over lap tops, henpecking at the keyboards. All of them greeted her warmly, and then went right back to it. Raid took her up the stairs and down the long hallway of dormitory like rooms, to the last one on the right. His name hung on a plaque from a hook, beer bottle caps stuck into the door like they’d been fired from a cannon, when she asked him about it, his ears turned pink. “The guys did that, every time they were thinking about me.” Beer bottle caps as memory markers. So like a bunch of guys, but still touching and sweet. The entire door was covered, barely any space left. “It’s a little musty, no one’s been in here for about seven years. Cleaned everything up, but, it’s about how I left it.”
He showed her into the room that wasn’t much bigger than the one at the house, with a small en suite bathroom, shower stall, toilet, really just basic efficiency style. The bed was made with clean linens, it did in fact smell musty under the layer of pine scented cleaning products, but it wasn’t bad. Neither were the bags of clothes and shoes left on the bed. “Go ahead and shower, I’ve got some actual club business downstairs to handle, come down when you’re ready and we’ll go eat, yeah?”
Whoever had shopped for her had done a really nice job. Comfortable jeans in her size, bamboo tee’s that were super soft and in a range of vibrant colors. Jersey dresses, gypsy skirts, sandals, sneakers, an entire bag full of bras from Soma, all of them lacy and see through. Super sexy. She’d have to ask him how much all this cost, because the singular thing the items all had in common, aside from being perfect, was the absence of tags and receipts. She grabbed a tee, one of the new pairs of jeans, a new bra and slipped into the shower.
She hadn’t made it one foot off the bottom stair, before a manly throat was cleared and she turned to see the club president, Top, staring right at her. He looked a whole lot more intimidating without a baby in his arms, and when he crooked his finger at her imperiously, she felt like she was in trouble. “My office, shortie.” She looked over her shoulder for Raid, but in the sea of hustling bikers, he was nowhere to be found. “Let’s go, don’t got all day.” Top barked, and she found herself hustling to follow him, palms sweaty. “If it’s a problem, me being here when you guys are obviously very busy, I totally understand-“
“Get in here, shut the door and sit.”
She came in, shut the door and sat down in the leather chair she was directed to. The office was sort of an old school study, wooden floors, green walls with dark book cases, manly leather chairs, big manly desk with a sleek Apple desktop waiting to be booted up. It smelled like Old Spice and cigarettes, very male, with not a single hint of a woman’s touch seen anywhere. Just as one expected a temple to masculinity to look. Top was leaning back against the side of the desk closest to her, arms crossed, bright eyes narrowed on her while his salt and pepper dusted beard jutted out slightly. “It’s not a problem. At all. You got trouble, my boys are workin to make it go away. How we roll. Need to talk to you about something else, just between us. Can you do that?”
She blinked at him, shifting in her chair while she licked her lips, wondering just what it meant, the ‘boys working to make it go away.’ “Um, yeah. So long as it doesn’t involve Raid. I won’t keep secrets from him.” Warmth permeated Top’s expression, and he pulled his hand down his beard, smiling at her a little crookedly. “Liked the way he talked about you when we went up to see him at the hospital,” Her mouth dropped open and she scoffed incredulously, “He let you visit him? That dick! He refused to let me come up there, all worried I’d see him as some weak, wheelchair bound cripple for the rest of his life. I’m gonna kick his ass! ”
Top chuckled at her offended growl, uncrossing his arms to push his hands down on the desk at either side of his jean clad thighs. The guy was sexy, even for an older man, total silver fox, “Didn’t give him much of a choice in the matter. Heard he was alive, and I took the boys up to see him. Give him back his cut and make sure he had what he needed to get the fuck out of there and home to his family.” She huffed, throwing herself back into the chair with a scowl, wondering if she ought to have not given him a choice either. “You know what he us asked for? What he said he needed?” She came out of her pissy plotting to kick his ass, to look up at Top and arch an imperious brow at the Prez. “Picture of you, so he could look at it when he went under the knife.”
Her throat immediately felt too thick to swallow, her eyes burned and she had to roll her lips together to keep them from wobbling. “Liked you even before I got to meet you, sending him letters back and forth, lighting a fire under his ass to not just lay there and die. To reach out to us, let us know he was alive so we could get him home. Liked the look of the two of you, girly, when you walked in on his arm and I saw him grin, lookin all proud and shit to have you with him. But you tellin me you’d not keep secrets from him, makes me like you even more. He made you his old lady, means you’re part of this club, which means you’re welcome here any time. Except poker night. And Superbowl Sunday. Off fuckin limits.” She put her right hand up and swore not to breach the sanctity of poker night or Superbowl Sunday. His lips quirked and his beard twitched. “It’s a personal matter that for the time being I want kept qui
She nodded, perking up to pay attention, wondering what kind of personal matter he could have that required her assistance. Dry skin? Trouble sleeping? He looked pissed off, embarrassed, so she just waited patiently and didn’t say anything. “Few months back, went in for a cough that would not go away, the butcher was concerned about the state of my lungs, seeing as I been smoking a pack a day since I was eight.” Her brows slid up, eight years old? He’d been smoking, since he was a kid. What? “Got something called a Carcinoid Tumor, the slow moving cancer. Got a biopsy done last week, waiting on the results. Raid tells me you’re like, the green guru, and as I have no intention of letting those quacks hack on me, or doing chemo if it comes to that, I want some other options.”
Oh wow. Oh. Oh shit. She made herself get over the initial shock, that this larger than life father figure that all the guys talked about with such respect, had such a major health issue and wasn’t sharing it with anyone. Except her. “I have several. I’ve never attempted to treat anyone, but there are oils, cannabis obviously, um, diets to make your body alkaline and give the cancerous cells no environment to flourish in. H2O2 treatments, I can help you with all that, but first thing you have to do is quit the cancer sticks.”
He scowled and grumbled like a little boy, the end of his beard jutting out again. It was what happened when he clenched his jaw, she realized. And it was kind of adorable. Not that she’d ever tell him that, bad ass biker that he was, but still, it so was. He was a burnt marshmallow. She could just tell, having gotten to spend this little bit of time alone with him. All tough and charred on the outside, totally sweet, warm and gooey on the inside. “Butcher said the same damn thing.” He grumbled, glaring at the pack of Marlborough shorts sitting on his desk. “I’m down to a half a pack a day.” He went on, and she rolled her lips together, wondering how best to word telling him that wasn’t good enough. “That’s a fine start, but you have to quit. Totally. I can find you a really good acupuncturist, they do smoking cessation treatments. Or I met this amazeballs hypnotherapist, works in a place down south called Soma Vida, she also takes phone appointments so you wouldn’t have to go in if you didn’t want to.”
“Hypnotherapy…”
He gave her a look like maybe she’d been dipping into some cannabis oil and getting the dosage wrong, all skeptical and shit. It made her laugh, “Yes. Smoking is more addictive than heroin, so whatever tools are at your disposal to quit, and stay clean, use them. Also, juicing, like fruit and veg juicing, not steroids. We can get there later, because it won’t do you any good unless you’ve quit, totally counterproductive.” He sighed and drug his hand down his beard with a petulant scowl, admitting that the doctor had told him that too. “Good.” She leaned forward and snitched a pen, and a neon green post it. “This is the hypnotherapist’s number, she probably has a really good line on an acupuncturist. Soma Vida is a co-working space, and all different kinds of practitioners rent spaces there.”
Mid word, a heavy knock hit the office door and Raid was pushing it open, in the process of asking Top if he’d seen her, then stopped and gave a weird frown to see her sitting at the desk. He looked at Top and this dirty glare started to twist his features, like he was about to throw down with him for interrogating her without him present or something, and she smiled, pouncing before he had the chance. “I’m ready, where are we going?” She swiped Top’s pack of smokes, pulled the lighter out and spit a huge, gross, unladylike gob into the box before putting it back on his desk. Chances were, he wasn’t so hard up for a smoke that he’d light up soggy cigarettes. Top choked on a laugh, didn’t succeed in holding it in, and wound up roaring with hilarity while Raid looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Um, PF Changs. What the fuck was that?”
She just beamed at him and turned to make an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture at Top, fingers pointing to her eyeballs and then at him. Tears were trickling from the corner of his eyes, his laughter making his desk chair rock. “Top wants to quit smoking. Asked me if I had any herby stuff to help, and of course I do.” She looked back to the older man and pinned him with a serious glare, “Remember, you asked for this, and I will ride your ass like a demon. You sign paychecks, so I can’t threaten the others. But I swear to God, I find out you went and bummed smokes off the boys, I’ll pull Ever in as back up, and trust me, you do not want a pair of gingers on a mission, with you as the objective. Especially when one of those gingers is pregnant and in possession of weaponry.” She turned and hooked her arm through Raid’s, started to steer him out of the office, “Why PF Changs?” She idly wondered if Top was going to bust a rib or have a stroke, because she could hear him laughing all the way out into the common room of the compound.
TWENTY NINE
She didn’t like not telling Raid about why Top had really asked her into his office, that he wanted to quit smoking was kind of the truth, just not all of it. He thought it was hilarious, the way she’d threatened Top, could not stop chuckling about it on and off throughout the meal, and she thought she was going to pee herself laughing when Raid ordered desert from their very obviously gay waitress serving them. Tandy was very nice, had been very solicitous and playful, but when Raid ordered… “Been a while since I been here, you guys still have that chocolate boob desert?” She snorted her soda, but Tandy barely blinked, and didn’t miss a beat. “The gluten free chocolate torte? We do.” Raid nodded, wiping his napkin over his lips while pushing his empty plate away. “Sweet. Two of those, with extra areola sauce.”
“RAID!”
Tandy’s lips wobbled in an effort to not let her smile move past professional, but her eyes were dancing. “The raspberry puree. Sure thing. Any extra fruit to go with that?” Once Tandy the very cool waitress left, she glared at her date, trying to make a serious face, but she was just dismally failing. “I cannot believe you.” He snorted and leaned over to kiss her, “You’ll see what I mean in a sec.” And she did see, when Tandy brought the deserts back, they looked like little chocolate boobs. With raspberries for nipples. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the hell happened? Last time these were like, C cups, now it’s like barely an A cup?” She rolled her lips together, mostly mortified, fairly amused, and Tandy was turning red with the effort to keep from cracking up or encouraging him. “Deflation, I suppose. Can I get you anything else?” Raid guffawed at her deadpan quip, shooting her a playful wink. “Naw, thanks.”
The desert was unbelievable, and she was glad he’d ordered them each one, otherwise she’d have been hard pressed to share. By the time she’d finished hers and was in the process of sucking the last bit of the fudge like torte from her spoon, Raid was watching her with a heavy lidded look of lust. “What?” He licked his lips and looked up, swallowing loud enough that she could hear it across the table. “Just enjoying the show. You, suckin that spoon the way you-“ Tandy came back with a drink refill, thankfully interrupting the rest of Raid’s gravelly spoken sentence, “All done?” She took one last swipe of the chocolate off the plate with her finger before letting it go, and once Tandy was gone, Raid slid his plate towards her with a lascivious smile, spoon already full of the torte. “Suck it,”
She shook her head at him, but she wasn’t going to turn down the extra desert. Especially not this one, because it was bad ass. Seriously, the most delicious thing she’d ever had, chocolate wise, “Didn’t you bring me here to talk about something?” He cleared his throat and folded his hands on the table, but he kept getting distracted every time she slipped the spoon into her mouth. “Does this count as foreplay for you?” She finally asked, and a grin bust over his features, making him way sexier than any man really had a right to be. “Little bit, yeah.” Her brows bounced up, and she licked the final bit of chocolate from the spoon and set it down on the plate with a soft clink. “Good to know. Quit stalling.”
“Stalling?”
He tried to look innocent, but there was just no way that was ever going to fly. He couldn’t have pulled off innocent, even if he was two years old. He’d always be way to sexy, way to handsome, way to wicked to ever get there. “Raid, just tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll deal.” The arousal ebbed from his expression, and he sighed, pushing their drinks and empty plates out of the way, reached across the table and curled his hands over hers. Basically telling her to brace, without saying she’d need to. “There was a note. Took a picture of it before the cops pulled it in as evidence. It was a mess, probably because he used his left hand, thinking if he got asked for a handwriting sample, it wouldn’t match and they’d dismiss him as a suspect.”
She nodded, pretty sure there wouldn’t be a whole lot of evidence, and if there was any, Denny could just claim it had gotten there when he’d come over to investigate the bogus domestic call. “What did it say?” He looked like he was trying to decide whether or not he was going to tell her, but in the end he did, and it chilled her to the bone. “Your guardian angel, won’t always be watching over you.”
THIRTY
She’d been thrown off after dinner, but once they got back to the compound, she’d been ravenous for a taste of him. He figured if that got her mind off of soon to be Dickless Denny, who the hell was he to stop her? But despite wearing him out, despite being snuggled up alongside him, safe in his arms, she was still awake. Her fingers were still moving softly around and around, tracing the edges of the wax seal inked into his skin. “You don’t have to be scared, baby. After what he did at our place, we’ve got eyes on him at all times. He won’t get within ten miles of you without us knowing.” He could just make out her features in the light of the full moon that shone down through his window, the flash of her eyes when she tilted her head back to rest on his shoulder. “I’m not scared of Denny. Beat his ass with a baseball bat, remember?”
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