Ride or Die 1

by Claire C. Riley

  “You tell him about the note from the Razorbacks?” Casa asked, raising his head to look at me. His eyes were red-rimmed and his skin was pale and sweaty—not to mention that he stunk to high heaven. His skin was almost leaking out last night’s alcohol consumption, yet I had no doubt that he could stand up right then and pick the prettiest girl around and get her on his bike. Man was pussy magnet, that was for sure.

  “Nah, didn’t get into it. He wanted to know where I was and said he would be back around noon. Sounded real pissed that I had you all with me last night.” I looked over to my bike longingly, ready to ride out of there, but also not knowing where to go. I trusted my instincts, and my instincts were telling me not to go to the clubhouse just yet.

  “Why? A brother needs backup for meets, especially ones we’re kept out of,” Dom said, his brow furrowing. He threw his cigarette away and crossed his arms in front of him, his muscles twitching. Man was a fucking beast and he knew it. Never had to get into many fights because most people took one look and went in the opposite direction. Funny, really, considering he was a lover and not a fighter—at least if he could help it. His appearance was his camouflage. At least that’s what Butch had once told me.

  “That’s what I said. He didn’t agree, though,” I replied.

  All three of us sat in contemplative silence for several moments before the clubhouse door opened and Pipes and Max came out. They both seemed in a lot better state than Casa was in, that was for sure. Pipes sat down, a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “We rollin’ out?” Pipes asked.

  “Yeah, let me go find Beefcake and give my regards.” I stood up and headed back inside and Dom caught up to me. I looked across to him. “You my chaperone now?”

  “Just wanna check on Harlow,” he replied.

  “Harlow? She the chick with the huge—”

  “Yeah. She’s a good girl. She’s better than what she thinks,” he replied.

  I stopped and turned to look at him. “You sweet on her? You know she’s just a sweetbutt, right?”

  Dom’s jaw clenched, his eyes going dark. “No one is ever just a something, Jesse. You should know that more than anyone.” His fierce gaze burned into mine, all familiarity gone out the window. I take back what I said about him being a lover and not a fighter.

  However, he might have been older and stronger than me, but that made no difference as I squared up to him, because I was a cocky motherfucker who was done taking shit from anyone a long time ago.

  “First off, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And secondly, that chick is a hangaround. A club whore. A sweetbutt that’s taken more dick in all those little pretty puckered holes of hers than we’ll ever know. Bitch has probably taken it up the ass so much her shit slides right out. But if you want to have a ride, you have at it. I won’t judge you, brother. But remember to cover up before you blow your load, because bitches like that are always looking for a free ride.” I finished my angry speech and stared at him, but he didn’t reply. His eyes had no fire left in them and I wondered why I was pushing him on this. Why it fucking mattered to me who he fucked or staked a claim on.

  I was a walking talking bomb, and I was ready to fucking explode, that’s why. And it didn’t look like I gave a shit who I hurt in the process.

  “That’s what I fucking thought,” I gloated with a sneer. With that I pushed open the door and went inside the clubhouse, leaving Dom outside.

  Harlow, or whatever the fuck her name was, was still sitting at the bar, her head drooping, but she perked right the fuck up when I walked back inside.

  I headed down the hallway and thumped on Beefcake’s office door twice and waited.

  “Gimme a minute,” he called.

  I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the time. It was a little before nine, too early to be waking a brother up, but we needed to get back on the road—though by the sounds coming from in his office, he was already wide awake anyway. A few little yelps sounded out from inside Beefcake’s office, and he gave out a long, throaty growl that made me smirk. A minute went by before the door opened and a barely dressed woman walked out with an obvious limp in her step as she smoothed out her too-short skirt. She gave another one of her little yelps as he slapped her ass and she wandered off.

  “Come on in,” he said, giving me a sly grin, his eyes following her ass down the hallway. “Bitch will be walking with a limp for days after that,” he said rearranging his junk.

  I grinned back and walked inside. “Just letting you know that we’re headin’ out. Wanted to thank you for putting us up last night, and for your loyalty to the Highwaymen, of course. I’m sure Hardy will be in touch when the time comes.” I held out my hand and Beefcake took it, pulling me in to a quick hug before he pulled back out.

  He looked at me uncertainly for a second, dragging a hand across his chin.

  “Well, what is it?” I asked, because clearly the man had something to say.

  “I put the feelers out last night, about the Razorbacks,” he replied.

  “Any bites?”

  “A couple—mostly nothin’ though. They’re ghosts, it seems—clean up real well after themselves too. But I did get one lead. Heard that the name—the Razorbacks—it’s code for something. Not sure what, but then I’m shit at anagrams so there’s no surprise there.” He reached over to the table and grabbed the bottle of whisky he had there before taking a swig of it. Man hadn’t even been to sleep yet, but I had no reason to doubt him.

  “All right,” I finally said once he’d quit filling me in. My brain was turning around the different outcomes of it all, and none of them looked good at the moment. One thing was for certain: things were about to go south. Way south. “This stays between you and I,” I said.

  Beefcake nodded. “Not a problem. You gonna need our help?”

  “Probably,” I replied.

  “I’m gonna want compensating for that. Hospitality is one thing, but war is a whole different game.”

  I nodded, already knowing that had been coming. “All right. Keep your cell on, and I’ll be in touch. The Highwaymen have the club’s back when you need us, as long as you have ours, but that goes without saying.”

  Beefcake rubbed a hand across his sweaty head and looked over at me.

  I sneered. “What else?”

  “The Bangers will want a cut in at some point,” he replied, almost regrettably.

  “Thought the Bangers dealt in weapons, not drugs,” I said.

  “Let’s just say we’re expanding.”

  I nodded, but both of us knew that it wasn’t up to me to answer. It was up to Hardy and the club. “I’ll speak to Hardy,” I finally said. “Put in a good word, and then it’ll go to vote. Not much I can do other than that.”

  Beefcake didn’t look totally happy, but he also knew I couldn’t speak for my president or the club. I also knew that it wouldn’t go down well if Hardy said no to cutting in the Bangers, but maybe Dom could help sell it to him. For sure it would work in our favor to have another distributor that side if we’d lost the Reverend.

  The Highwaymen had dealt in the gun trade with the Bangers for several years, and up until that point they’d stayed away from drugs. Really, though, it was the next logical step for the club if they wanted to continue to grow—especially since it looked like a hole had been made. Though Beefcake would have problems with some of the older members who had always stated they didn’t want near the drug trade, that wasn’t my problem.

  “All right, well, I’m heading out. I’ll look into the Intel and I’ll speak to Hardy as soon as I get back. Might be a couple of days before it goes to vote, though. Brothers are scattered all over at the moment, but I’ll get right on it.” I shook his hand and headed out of the office. “Thanks again for the hospitality.”

  I left clubhouse and headed back outside. Everyone was waiting for me, and I climbed on my bike and slipped on my helmet. I looked over at Casa, who still looked sick as a dog, and then I looked over a
t Dom. He was on his bike and behind him sat Harlow, her arms wrapped around his waist and her tits pushed up against his back.

  “You know what you’re doing, brother?” I said, anger and resentment bubbling inside of me for some reason.

  “I do,” he replied, holding my gaze and letting me know that it wasn’t up for discussion.

  I started my bike and pulled out of the grounds of the clubhouse with my brothers following me. I wasn’t sure why Dom bringing Harlow with him bothered me so much. Perhaps because it was like he was moving on with his life, taking the next leap into the unknown. I’d never thought Dom would take a woman, yet there he was with a sweetbutt on the back of his bike and his head up his ass over her. Couldn’t work it out. Sure, she was beautiful, but so were thousands of other women.

  Why her and why the fuck now?

  Or maybe I was just a jealous asshole. I had fucked up my life and Laney had left my sorry ass and I was pissed that Dom was finally getting the thing that I’d actually had. Couldn’t blame the man for wanting to be happy. I just wished I could be happy for him too.

  Chapter sixteen:

  1991 / New Year’s Eve

  Jesse

  Laney slowed to a stop and turned back to face me, her tongue darting out to lick her pink lips. “Thought we could use some privacy,” she said, her voice a soft breath.

  I smiled, knowing exactly why she wanted privacy. My girl was trying to seduce me. I must have been the luckiest fucking man in the world, right then, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to drag it out and then make her scream my name afterwards.

  We’d left the party—my party—and gone to get some fresh air outside, our bodies automatically taking us away from the noise and the lights of the clubhouse and to our own secluded area behind the clubhouse where the ground was soft and the trees stood tall and proud against the sky.

  “Yeah?” I said, taking a swig of my beer. “What for?”

  Her cheeks flushed red, and I wondered if the rest of her would be as pink as her cheeks. Damn hoped so.

  “Well, there’s a lot of celebrations tonight,” she said, and I smirked. “Thought we needed some time together.”

  Damn right there were a lot of celebrations that night. That night I had been patched in. Hardy had made it as difficult as fucking possible for me, and strung it out as long as he could, but it had been decided and there wasn’t shit he could do about it. Not only that, but it was New Year’s fucking Eve, and Laney was back from some trip that Gauge had sent her on with her college friends.

  Between the club and her school, I hadn’t seen her for more than a few minutes at a time for almost six months. I’d been determined to get her under me the next time I saw her, but weeks had passed and life had stepped between us. The club had been busy with some bad shit going down, and she’d been busy at school and shit. Thought for a while that she’d had second thoughts, but then she’d turned up at the club with Gauge one day and I’d dragged her into my room and she’d given me the best blowjob I’d ever had.

  I’d wanted to tell Gauge about us. Shit, I’d wanted to tell the whole world who owned her, but she’d begged me not to—not until she was ready. Hated every minute of it, but she swore it was to do with Gauge and their relationship and not me.

  But after tonight, there was no way this shit was staying secret anymore. I wanted in her, and I wanted the world to know who she belonged to. No matter what the fucking consequences.

  She let go of my hand and took a swig of her own beer. “Gauge watches my every move,” she said after a hesitant moment. Thought she was going to chicken out for a minute there. I grinned.

  “Man knows what his brothers are like,” I replied.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what are they like?” she asked, testing the waters. She took another drink, and I could barely speak for a second when a drop of beer slid down off her bottom lip and she licked it away. My blood rushed away from my brain and straight to my dick.

  I cleared my throat. “Horny motherfuckers, all of them.”

  “All of them?” she asked, one eyebrow lifted questioningly, a small smile on her mouth.

  “Every. Last. One,” I replied.

  She stared at me, her pupils dilating as she swallowed. “And what about you?”

  “What about me?” I took a swig of my beer.

  “Are you a horny motherfucker, Jesse?”

  I spat my beer out on the ground in front of us, her words catching me off guard, and she burst out laughing. I wiped at my chin, clearing my beard of the warm beer, and I barked out my own laugh.

  “Damn fuckin’ right I am,” I replied, watching the hunger in her eyes grow, and enjoying it too. “But only for one woman.”

  Laney lifted her chin and stared at me, her gaze burning into mine. “And who would that be?” she breathed out.

  I threw my bottle to one side and reached across to her, my hand gripping her waist tightly and dragging her body to mine.

  “Think it’s pretty fuckin’ obvious who, don’t you?” I said, grinding myself against her.

  Her lips parted to let out a small sigh. She threw her own bottle to one side and I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers, taking her mouth hard and fast. She groaned against my mouth as I wrapped my arms around her, my hands moving up and down her back, desperate to feel her hair trailing through my fingers.

  I reached up and pulled out a couple of clips from her hair, my mouth never leaving hers, and her hair came tumbling down around her shoulders. She panted against me, her firm body going weak in my arms as I pulled her tightly against me, pushing her legs apart so I could wedge myself between them and grind against her.

  Her own hands roamed down my body until they found my ass, and she squeezed almost hesitantly, making me laugh. She pulled out of the kiss and looked up at me, her gaze dreamy and far away but with that fire in it that turned me on so much. My mouth quirked as I watched her, turning up into a full smile as the fire in her eyes burned brighter.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she said with a pout.

  I reached around to grab her hands, covering them with my own, and then I squeezed, giving her a good handful of my ass. I watched her mouth tug into a grin.

  “Trust me, I ain’t laughin’, darlin’. Laughin’ is just about the last thing on my mind right now,” I said, letting go of her hands now that she seemed to have the confidence to take what she wanted herself. I placed my hands on her hips and stroked up and down her body, barely able to take my gaze away from her in that dress.

  “So,” she said.

  I cocked my head, wondering what was going to come out of that mouth of hers that time. Woman never failed to surprise me.

  “So,” I retorted.

  “Are we going to do this or what?”

  A slow grin crept up my face, and I wrapped my hand in her hair and dragged her body against mine again. She yelped and her eyes sparked with need. I had wanted us to do it in a bed, or at least inside somewhere for our first time, make it real special and shit for her, but the time was now, and that wasn’t the sort of shit you could plan.

  “Fuck yeah, we are,” I said, slamming my mouth against hers once more. My jeans were too tight, squeezing painfully against my junk, and I ground against her, thin pieces of material the only thing stopping me from being inside of her.

  I needed in now, before I had a fuckin’ heart attack or some shit like that, because her whole body was trembling with need, her nails digging into my ass and her hips moving in sync with mine. And every moan and sigh coming from that dirty mouth of hers was like an electric current going straight to my dick.

  Fuck me if that woman wasn’t going to be the fuckin’ death of me.

  Chapter seventeen:

  1994 / New Year’s Day

  Laney

  How…how could this man have this effect on me?

  That’s all I wanted to know as Jesse ground against my body, every thrust of his hips making his cock
tease my clit and push me one step closer to the orgasm that was building in me.

  This had never happened to me before. Like ever. I’d had an orgasm before, obviously; it wasn’t like I was a virgin—but it had never happened without me taking my clothes off and actually having sex. And definitely never without the man touching me. Yet there I was, on the brink of an orgasm from Jesse, again, and I was still fully dressed.

  What. The. Fuck?

  Seriously.

  My eyelashes fluttered closed as he reached down between us and lifted the hem of my dress so he could shove his hand down the front of my panties—panties which were now soaked.

  “Look at me,” he growled against my throat, his tongue trailing across my skin. I couldn’t even hear him, or think about the fact that someone could walk around the corner at any moment and see us. No, all I could think about was his fingers, which were playing with my clit and bringing me closer and closer to the explosion that was building in me.

  “Laney, I said open your fuckin’ eyes and look at me, woman,” he growled again, nipping at my neck.

  I yelped and my eyes shot open, and with one hand buried in my hair, holding my face captive and tilted up to him, his gaze bored into mine, the depths of his blue eyes everlasting and swallowing me whole as he suddenly plunged a finger inside of me and made me cry out, loudly.

  “There it is,” he mumbled, leaning in and placing kisses against my lips, a second finger sliding in next to the first one and moving rhythmically in and out over and over until I reached my peak and fell over the other side with a throaty moan, my body shattering and going limp in his arms. “I got you, darlin’, I got you,” he said as he pulled me against him, his woody scent washing over me.

  When the stars had vanished and I could catch my breath, I tried to form words—not that I knew what to say to him at that point, but I had to say something, because that was incredible. A thank you seemed ridiculous, but it didn’t matter because Jesse leaned in and covered my mouth with his, his tongue diving in to slide along mine and making me moan.