THE MAN WITH ALL THE HONEY: Sweet & Dirty BBW Romance #3

by Cathryn Cade

  The stranger snickered, a high-pitched sound even more unpleasant than his voice. "Right. I'm gonna let the doggy go 'cause he's nice. That ain't the way this works, bitch."

  "Wh—what do you want?" she asked, pressing back against the door behind her. Blackie barked again, then growled.

  "I want Vanko's boys," he told her. "I know they're here, 'cause me and my brothers been watchin' the place. You give 'em up, and you don't get hurt, how's that?"

  He wanted the boys?

  "What are you, some kind of pedophile?" she blurted.

  "The hell? I ain't no sicko, you stupid bitch. Now stop your yammerin' and c'mon. You're gonna let me in his house. And just in case you got any ideas about runnin', I can't miss your fat ass with this."

  He stepped out of the shadows, a wiry figure in dark leathers, brandishing something large, black and shiny. A pistol.

  "You—you'd just shoot me?"

  He laughed again, that high-pitched near whinny that turned her knees to jelly. There was something very, very wrong with this man. Somehow, she had to prevent him getting inside Stick's house.

  "Want me to start with an arm, or a leg?" he asked her, a note of glee saying he was enjoying her terror.

  "No! No, I'll go."

  Sidling away from him as far as she could, Sara sidestepped down the two back steps, and started across the grass to the hedge. She ducked through and looked at the all too short expanse of Stick's paved driveway between her and his house, and the boys. The only thing protecting them was the keypad, to which she had the code, but this horrible man did not.

  Somehow she had to keep him out of there. She clenched her fists, hating the helplessness that weighted her footsteps, like a bad dream where she tried to run, but couldn't move her feet.

  But then, her heart leapt as the objects in her grasp penetrated her fear.

  She held her cell phone, and a sharp cutting tool, although it had a very short blade, and she wasn't sure she could reach him with it before he shot her, anyway. But at least she had something.

  Sliding her left arm in front of her body as she walked, she pressed her phone screen with her thumb, flicking it to turn the phone on. Then she dared a glance down at it, and stabbed the first contact button she spotted on the recent calls list.

  Unfortunately, her lighted phone shone like a small beacon, reflecting off her light tee before she could hide it.

  Behind her, a hard shape prodded painfully into her back—the barrel of the pistol. A hard hand grasped her arm in a painful grip and forced her hand upward.

  "Get off the fuckin' phone!" he grated, and twisted her arm painfully.

  Sara let out a yelp of pain and her phone fell to the pavement, ricocheting away, lighted screen up.

  "Sara?" bellowed a deep voice, though far away as if at the end of a long, long tunnel. "Sara! Talk to me."

  "Stick!" she shrieked. "Help! He’s after the boys!"

  "No, you don't, bitch!" Her assailant stomped his foot down on the phone, crunching it against the ground under his foot.

  "No!" Her heart pounding so hard she was shaking, terror liquid in her veins, Sara dug in her sandaled feet, struggling to hold back as her attacker pull her toward him. But although shorter than she, he was strong, and her sandals skidded on the pavement.

  She fell into him—the leather tool in her hand.

  In sheer desperation, she reared back, raised the tool and hit him, raking the curving blade across his face like a claw. It connected sickeningly with soft flesh, cartilage and bone. Hot liquid sprayed over her hand.

  Her assailant screamed, reeling back away from her. He gave her a shove that sent her falling back. The pavement came up to meet her, her head and shoulder connecting with a hard, resounding thud.

  Sara lay there, stunned, her head reverberating from striking the ground. Far above her, a star winked in the clear navy sky.

  "Bitch!" the attacker swore, sucking in sobbing breaths. He straightened, a black shape against the twilight sky.

  "Gonna cut you for that. Gonna take that knife of yours and use it on you, see how you like that. Then I'm gonna take his boys too. See how the fuckin' mighty pres of the Flyers likes it when he's the one on the outside lookin' in, and I'm the one holdin' all the cards."

  The boys. Sara forced herself to move. She planted her hands on bare pavement, and tried to push herself up. The night spun around her in dizzy circles, her head throbbing where she'd hit the back on the ground when he threw her off of him. Her hands were empty.

  Her knife—she had to find the knife.

  But it was too late. He loomed over her, a skinny man in leathers, scraggly hair and a thin face just visible in the twilight. A dark slash bisected his face across the wreck of his nose. The lower half of his face appeared in the dusk to be gone—although she realized belatedly it was blood obscuring his fairer skin. Her stomach clenched, as she shuddered in bone-deep revulsion.

  "Where's the knife?" he hissed. He held up a very large pistol, trained on her, shaking in his grasp, as if he barely held back from pulling the trigger.

  "I ... I dropped it," she mumbled.

  "Then crawl until you find it," he roared. "Crawl, bitch!"

  He bent and reached down to grasp a handful of her hair and yanked painfully, jerking her up toward him by her hair. "I said find it!"

  A low, spine-chilling rumble of sound cut through the night. Sara's attacker froze, and the growl escalated into a vicious snarl.

  "Fuck!" The man let go of her and lifted his gun. "Fuckin' dog—gonna end him first."

  "No!" Sara shrieked. She kicked at him, striking his lower legs with the bottoms of her feet. He reeled, the gun wavering.

  From out of the darkness a low, long shape vaulted, striking the biker full on, throwing him away from Sara, and down to the ground. Blackie!

  A loud boom blasted, deafening Sara. She screamed, clapping her hands over her ears.

  The German Shepherd snarled again, and she heard scrabbling, thumping. For a horrific moment Sara thought he'd shot Blackie. She had to do something. Get the gun.

  But then the man screamed, this time in terror. "No! No, get him off me!"

  As if summoned, the outdoor lights on Stick's porch came on, flooding the drive with light. Sara clambered slowly to her feet, swaying as she did so, and holding out her hands for balance.

  Carefully, because she was really dizzy, she made her way to his back porch, and up the steps. She stared blankly at the keypad, and the lighted kitchen beyond. Oh, no, no, no.

  She couldn't remember the code.

  Through the thumping of a bass drum in her head, and the ringing in her ears, she managed to hang onto the porch railing enough to turn, wavering on the top step.

  On the far edge of Stick's drive, Blackie stood over the prone stranger. His big head was close to the man's throat, and each time the man twitched, the dog growled, the chilling sound of a predator ready to strike, ready to maim. The man was babbling under his breath, a strange mixture of pleading and threats.

  His face was a dark mass of blood. She remembered the way it had felt, the blade cutting into his flesh, his warm blood on her skin. She looked down at her hands, both now smeared with it, at the railing, streaked with it. At her once pale tee, now sprayed with it.

  Her stomach lurched violently, and she bent and vomited over the railing. The contents of her stomach splattered on the pavement below, thankfully too far to splash on her. She heaved again and again, until her stomach was empty, her mouth bitter.

  She hung there a moment, shuddering, her head pounding from the force of her wretching, tears running down her face. Then she wiped her face on the hem of her shirt, and forced herself to turn and face what still had to be done.

  The stranger's big, black pistol lay in the middle of the drive between Sara, Blackie and his prisoner.

  She had to get that gun. If the man somehow got away from Blackie, she would need it to protect them all. She made her way down the steps and over to the p
istol. But as she bent, she realized with distant alarm she wasn't going to be able to straighten again—too dizzy from the blow to her head.

  She dropped to her knees, which stung on the gritty pavement. She picked up the gun, holding it on her thigh, because it was too heavy to hold upright for long. She really wished she could rinse her mouth.

  Mostly, she wished Stick were here, because then none of this would have happened, and she would be safe. The boys would be safe.

  She had to get into the house. How was she going to get in without even a phone to call for help?

  A deep rumble rolled through the still evening. Motorcycles, big ones, coming closer.

  "Good dog," Sara managed, her voice thin and quavering. "Good boy, Blackie. We're gonna be okay."

  She hoped and prayed to God. Please, please let this be some of the Devil’s Flyers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The Harleys rolled into Stick's drive in a wave of sound and headlights, followed by deep voices and footsteps as a wave of men in cuts and jeans surrounded her.

  "Hey, hon," said a deep voice over her head. "You Sara?"

  Sara turned her head, squinting in the beam of a powerful flashlight. The movement hurt, and she winced. "Yes."

  "This your dog?" asked another voice. "You wanna call him off, sweetheart?"

  "Blackie," she said. "His name is Blackie. He saved me. That ... that guy was waiting for me. He tried to ..."

  A big hand patted her shoulder. "Yeah, we know. You're okay now."

  "Blackie, here boy," called another biker, moving past them. "Yeah, that's a good dog. C'mon boy—whoa! Shit, he just snapped at me."

  Another voice chimed in. "Hell, brother, that's a K9 right there. He ain't gonna give up guarding his prisoner unless you give him the right command."

  "Well, what the fuck is the right command?"

  "I got this. Back up, y'all." A stocky biker moved around the group and faced the dog, flicking a hand to one side. "Blackie, off."

  The dog instantly backed away from his victim and sat on his haunches, eyes on the stocky biker.

  "Good boy. Stay."

  The man on the ground babbled something.

  The stocky biker moved to stand over him. "Shut up, or I'll shut you up, shithead." The flashlight beam played over his face. "Hell, even messed up, I recognize this ugly face. Hootch, take a look."

  Another man moved in and then swore. "Yeah, I know him. Twig, Keys Younger's nephew. Keys run this piece of shit off months ago. Last I heard he was in the Tri."

  There was a short, charged silence.

  "I just stopped by for a visit," Sara's attacker whined. "That bitch sicced her dog on me."

  A meaty thud cut off his voice. "I said, shut up. You didn't 'stop by', you were after her, weren't you?"

  "No. Not me ... he wanted the boys," Sara said. "He was gonna ... hurt me and take the boys. Why would he do that?"

  There was a short silence, charged with such ugly tension that Sara peered in alarm at the men towering over her, and even Blackie growled again.

  "Rattlers," someone said, and spat on the pavement. "Ten to one, this little piss-ant's been denning with those snakes. They wanted leverage to get us to back off."

  "Well, we got him now. And when Stick gets back ... wouldn't give a nickel for this dude's chances. You gonna die, boy.""

  After that, things happened quickly.

  Sara was carried back into Stick's house by the large biker with a bushy ginger beard and craggy face. "I'm T-Bear," he informed her.

  Another biker with silver hair, a dour face and a brace on one leg felt the lump on the back of her head, and then shone a light into her eyes. "Girl, did he hurt you anywhere else? Other than your head?"

  It took her a few seconds to process the question as he and T-Bear both waited, tense and ready.

  "You mean did he r-rape me? No." And she couldn't bring herself to verbalize that he'd threatened to do so—with her leather tool.

  "Thank fuck," T-Bear muttered.

  Silver hair nodded. "That's good. You're shook up and shocky, and I bet your head hurts like a bitch. Let's wrap her up, keep her warm."

  T-Bear brought her a huge man's jacket and wrapped it around her. Its scent was comforting and musky—Stick's.

  The older, thin biker Sara recognized as Velvet's husband Webb came down the stairs and sat heavily beside Sara on the sofa. He was still pale and wan.

  He handed her a plastic tub of disinfectant wipes, and she scrubbed at her hands with one, then another, until they were clean. She wished she could take her bloody shirt off, but not with all these men in the room.

  "Boys slept through the whole damn thing," he told her. "Kids, huh?"

  Hot tears flooded Sara's eyes and she drew a trembling breath. "I'm so sorry. I—I almost got the boys kidnapped. I shouldn't have gone outside. I'm gonna be in so much trouble with Stick."

  "You the one who cut that dude across his face with this?" The stocky, Hispanic biker called, holding up her beveling tool. The blade was stained with dried blood. The other men all looked at it, then back at her.

  Sara nodded.

  The stocky biker gave her a huge smile. "You ain't in trouble. Mamacita, you're a fuckin' hero! You and your righteous dog both."

  "Hear that, mama," said another.

  "You did good, lady. He had a gun, you had a tiny ass knife, but you still took him down."

  Now they were all grinning at her, like a bunch of experienced wolves congratulating a young one on her first kill. Sara smiled back uncertainly.

  Webb patted her arm again. "They're right, hon. You're a civilian, how'd you know one o' them Rattlers would slither clear over here and try for Stick's boys? You saved 'em."

  "You're gonna have to wise up, though," T-Bear told her sternly. "If you're gonna be a friend of the club. Shit happens, and you gotta be alert, be smart."

  Sara nodded. If she’d paid attention to Blackie’s growling, she wouldn’t have gone outside her house. She would have locked the door and called 911, or Stick. Although Stick was gone, so that would’ve done her no good. She clutched her blanket tighter and sniffled.

  Silver hair limped back in the room with a glass of water and two pills, which he gave Sara. "Drink up, girl. Put you right to sleep."

  "No, I can't go to sleep," she informed him. "Kick and Dash are sick. They need me."

  "We ain't met, though I heard all about you," he told her. "I'm Knife, the club medic. You took a bad fall, blow to the head, not to mention bein' attacked by a little fucker like him has gotta be trauma for a woman. You're gonna feel like shit warmed over tomorrow. Good night's rest will help that."

  "I don't know." She looked to Webb for advice, since he helped care for the boys.

  He nodded. "We got this, hon. I was the first to go down with the bug, now I'm back up. Me and Knife and T-Bear will be here all night, an' Stick'll be home in the mornin."

  "Oh, thank God." Sara took the pills, and let T-Bear help her—which meant basically carry her—upstairs to the guest room, although she insisted on looking in on the twins first. They had indeed slept through the whole thing.

  Tears filled her eyes as she realized how close they'd come to being taken.

  "Aw, now," T-Bear said. He suffered her to lean on him and sob quietly into his shirt, patting her back with his huge hands. "That's all right, mama. Let it out. The boys are fine, you’re fine. You done good."

  When she finally had control of herself, T-Bear brought her a clean tee—again, one of Stick’s—and turned his back while she took hers off and changed into it.

  Sara curled up in the bed, carefully, because Knife was right—her head hurt very badly, and so did her arm where her attacker had yanked on it. She didn't feel like a hero, she felt like a bruised, battered victim ... of the horrible, stinking Twig, and of the earthquake that had become her life.

  She wished Stick was here. He was obnoxious, and no matter what his men said, she was certain he was going to be furious wi
th her, but if he were here, she would feel much better.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Meanwhile, in the Tri-Cities

  Stick stood in the street outside a rundown supper-club on the outer edge of Richland, Washington, the western-most of the Tri-Cities. Although the sky was clear overhead, a storm loomed on the western horizon. Tall thunderheads built over the low hills, lightning flickering from their dark bellies.

  This club had once been a nice place, that was clear from the size and the number of parking spots in the lot. Now in the dusk of a hot, summer day, a few yard lights illuminated the den of the Prairie Rattlers, a collection of one-percenters as derelict as their compound. Stick, who rarely forgot a face, recognized a few as convicted rapists and worse.

  Their current president, Battle Quince, a short, wiry ex-Marine—in that he'd been dishonorably discharged and done time for his extreme abuse of a prostitute in San Diego—stood spraddle-legged on the crumbling cement steps before the building.

  Only there could he face Stick at eye level. The Rattler was flanked by several of his brothers, all armed, two of them with sawed-off shotguns, the others with semi-automatics.

  This did not bother Stick, nor did the snipers he was certain Battle had stationed in the building, ready to take him out on signal.

  For behind Stick, most of them mounted on their bikes, ranged over two hundred Flyers. His brothers had come through with a vengeance, from Seattle, Yakima and Vancouver, as well as Northern California, Oregon, Southern Idaho, and into Montana.

  They filled the street, and surrounded the Rattlers' compound in a phalanx of leather clad warriors, all ready for trouble.

  "You're in Rattler Nation here, Vanko," Battle called now, his face screwed into lines that were no doubt meant to be intimidating. "Ever'one knows a club don't breach another club's territory. Not without an invite."

  Stick chuckled humorlessly. "Oh, you sent me an invite all right, Quince. Heard the boom all the way to Eastern Washington. You messed with two of my brothers, on no provocation. They were bein' quiet, mindin' their own, until you blew up one's apartment and did a drive by on the other. Unfortunately for you, your boys are too bone-deep stupid to do it right. Missed both of 'em."