**
Silver handed Liam ‘Viking’ Callahan a cup of coffee, noticing that Viking had finished sweeping up the bits of plaster. He’d said to leave the mess from the pipe repair, that Silver would handle it, but Viking obviously hadn’t listened. Then again, when did he ever?
“Thanks,” Viking said, his massive hand making the cup look like a piece in a child’s play kitchen. “I can use this.”
“No kidding.” Silver sighed and stretched out his shoulders a bit, feeling the muscles knot and release. He’d been to a brutal karate practice session the night before and had had his ass kicked by a kid of twenty-one who was also the size of a goddamn tank, and he knew he’d be feeling it for the next three days at least. “Makes two of us, man.”
Viking nodded at the papers scattered around the kitchen table. “Plans for the tattoo parlour expansion?”
“Yeah, Cole gave them to me yesterday just to satisfy my curiosity, seeing as it’s less than a month from completion. Looks like it’ll be quite a bit bigger, huh?”
“Yep. That’s about the only good thing to come out of it being burned to the ground and in light of everything else, that isn’t much.”
“No shit. After what happened to Scars, Keira and Zoe, I’d say that an extra three hundred square feet ain’t much of a trade-off at all.”
“They’re back the day after tomorrow,” Viking said. “Cole and Rebel are planning a party over at Satan’s. Low-key and early because of Keira’s bedtime, but it’ll be damn nice to have everyone together again.”
“No argument here. I’m feeling the need to get eyes on all three of them, just to make sure they’re really all whole and OK.”
“Amen, brother.”
Viking went to wash his hands, and Silver sipped his coffee and looked around his second property, trying to see if anything else might need doing while he was there. Nobody had lived in the cute little house since Zoe and Keira had moved with Scars to California almost seven months before for his treatment, and since they’d be living with him in his mountain home anyway, Silver wanted to get it back on the market in the next few weeks. He was happy the pipe had burst while the place was empty, that was for sure… shrieking new clients at nine p.m. were never good news, and he was just lucky that he’d dropped by last night to pick up the mail and do a quick wellness check. Otherwise, the water would have done serious damage to the floors if it had been gushing for hours.
His cell rang then and he glanced at the number flashing up. Kansas.
Silver swiped ‘accept’ and said, “Hey man. How was the interview?”
“Pretty damn good,” Kansas answered. “We’ve got a new accountant. She’s a bit shy, I think, but she’ll find her feet.”
“Excellent. I’m fucking thrilled that I don’t have to go to night school to get an accounting degree to cope with the payroll.”
“Right? Who has time to get educated and shit?”
“Not me.”
“Me neither.”
“So what’s her name? The angel accountant who saved my ass?”
“Funny you should call her an angel,” Kansas said, clearly amused about something.
“Why’s that?”
“Because her last name is Angeles.”
“Angeles means angel?”
“Means ‘of the angels’.”
“You and your damn three languages, Kansas. Who’d have thunk that a farm boy would end up fluent in Spanish and French and then barely use either one?”
“My French ain’t no great shakes anymore, sadly. My Spanish is still so-so. I do OK in Mexican restaurants.”
Silver laughed. “So what’s Ms. Of The Angels’ first name, then?”
“Jolene, but she goes by Jo.”
“Jo?” Silver had a vivid flashback to the woman who had had him sent to jail for six years, despite the fact that he’d been an innocent man, felt the usual crunch of rage and fear in his stomach as the horror of those years washed over him again. “Damn it. Couldn’t she have been called Janet or Lisa or something?”
“I know, man. Sorry. But they’re not the same person so give this Jo a chance, alright?”
“Of course I will,” Silver said, a bit offended. “I’m no asshole. Not right off the bat, at least.”
“We’re damn lucky to have her,” Kansas said. “Seriously. She’s way above and beyond what we were hoping for when Wolf started looking for freelancers. We really thought we’d get some kid fresh out of community college and with zero prospects from reputable accounting firms, so they’d be kind of desperate and work with anyone. She’s educated, she’s experienced, she’s smart as hell. And she’s starting at eight tomorrow morning.”
“What, right away?”
“Yep.”
“So she’s unemployed right now?” Silver took a sip of coffee. “I mean… I kind of expected that she’d start in a few weeks, after she’d given notice at her current job.”
“Yeah, no. She seems to be coming out of a bad situation. She didn’t say very much and I can’t tell you anything, but she’s just moved here from Minnesota and is looking for a new start and the sooner, the better – the timing is incredible, really. She’s a lifesaver for us, and it really sounds like she needed this at this exact moment.”
“Everyone needs a bit of luck and I guess some things just work themselves out in the end, huh? Right place, right time kind of thing.”
“Damn right, man. Anyway, Wolf is with her right now over at The Garage, showing her her office space above the work floor, introducing her around to the boys a bit, going over a few documents with her. He’s told Jo about your job as club Treasurer and how involved Scars and Zoe will be, but she’ll have lots of questions, I’m sure.”
“No problem.” Silver stretched again, winced a bit more, resolved to hit the sack early that night to rest up his weary old bones. “I’ll drop by first thing tomorrow morning and introduce myself to Jo.”
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Jo was at the tiny office above the garage floor at seven thirty, nervously pulling at her blouse and hair. The one guy – Jinx, maybe? Or one of the twins? Dux? Drake? Oh, hell, who knows? – had let her in, promising to get her a key cut that day, as well as all the codes for the building alarms. She was early and rattled, already freaked out far more than she’d anticipated, already wondering if she could, actually, pull this whole damn thing off.
She smelled the coffee that the guy (Jinx? Dux? Drake?) had made and almost dove head-first at it, needing the caffeine for sure, but needing something to do with her hands far more. Something more productive than tugging at her horrible blouse and hair, at any rate.
Jo poured the last of the coffee, noted her trembling hands with exasperation, then sat at what was now her desk. She took a deep breath, then another one, and scanned around in her mind for something to think about while she waited for Silver to show up and get her started – and her random, meandering, panicked thoughts snagged on Silver’s name.
She remembered what Zeke had told her about road names, how they always had some element of truth or reality in them, how they were inside jokes for the MC guys, how they were sometimes about something physical or unique about the guy. So what about Silver had led to him being given that road name by his adopted MC family?
Happy to have found something to amuse herself with, to distract her busy mind with, Jo sipped her coffee calmly and contemplated why a man would be christened ‘Silver’. Then – of course, I knew this would happen – just like that, Zeke’s silver eyes appeared in front of her own dark ones. They were glowing down at her as she knelt before him, his hard body pushed up against the wall, her mouth moving up and down his perfect cock, his groans of pleasure echoing in her ears.
And for the first time since Saturday morning, Jo didn’t find thinking about him even slightly painful: no twinge of hurt, no
creeping sense of shame, no pang of remorse. No, this time she embraced and trusted the sweetness of the memory of the man, and she simply and silently thanked him for what he’d given her, despite his cowardly and crappy act the next morning. She started to let the hurt go, just a bit, and held onto the purity of gratitude.
She drank a bit more coffee, decided that Silver Bennett probably had glorious, long silver hair, as shining as moonlight on snow. Hopefully he was a real-life and age-appropriate silver fox, maybe one who’d call her darlin’ and who’d be happy to flash her a hot little grin every once in a while when he dropped another document full of numbers on her desk. She’d enjoy that very much, she decided, even if nothing was ever going to happen with any of The Road Devils, because it was far too risky to mix business and pleasure.
Greatly cheered up at her little musings about a flirty silver fox named Silver, Jo got up and wandered back over to the coffee machine to put on a fresh pot. She’d just pushed ‘start’ on the machine and glanced at the clock on the wall, when she heard the office door open behind her, heard a deep voice greet her by her full name.
Jo turned with a smile and a ‘hello, Silver’ on her lips – and promptly and galloping gallump-ishly fell ass backwards into a chair in utter shock.
Zeke was standing there, as large as life and twice as gorgeous.
And wearing a Road Devils motorcycle club cut.
**
Ten seconds before, Silver had opened the office door and seen the new accountant standing there. He’d taken in the boxy, shapeless clothes, the wavy dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, the flat shoes.
Yep, a real accountant for damn sure.
“Morning, Jolene,” he’d said and she had turned, the movement surprisingly elegant and lovely. He’d seen her golden heart-shaped face, clocked those rosebud lips parted to return his greeting, flashed back to the luscious curves that were hidden under those unflattering clothes.
Time had screeched to a full stop, then reversed full-speed back to three nights before. To that shattering, amazing night before that shattering, awful morning-after.
“Holy fuck,” he said numbly even as she slumped heavily in a chair. “Holy fuck. Ana.”
“Zeke,” she whispered, his name ragged in her throat, that voice as honey-sultry as it was in his dreams. “I don’t – how –”
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded. He shut the door much harder than was strictly necessary, advanced a bit. “I mean… what the actual hell are you doing here?”
“I’m – I work here.”
“Like fuck you do.”
“I do.” An indignant tone was entering her words now. “And you know I do… Silver.”
That stopped him. “Yeah. I do know – Jolene Angeles.”
“I know too, Silver Bennett.” She got to her feet, still looking shaken and pale, but a bit more steady. “So, you’re a fully patched-in member of The Road Devils, a former one-percenter MC. A criminal, liar and all-round general asshole not to be trusted.” Those incredible black depths flashed fire in her face as she crossed her arms over her generous breasts. “Pleased to meet you… for real.”
Their eyes met, held. The memory and emotion in the small room were so huge, they threatened to cause the doors to burst off their hinges, to blow the windows into a million little pieces, to send the furniture spiraling into a maelstrom of sheer destruction.
“How could you?” she asked now, her voice low and furious.
“How could I what, Jolene?” he spat out, his lip curling. “According to you, I’m an all-round general asshole who’s done plenty of shit things, so you need to be specific which shit thing you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about you sneaking out of that cabin without a word, under the cover of darkness.”
“Seriously?” He narrowed his eyes and sneered at her, hating himself for being such a prick, but carrying on doing it anyway. “Of all the things to throw at me, that’s the one that you lead with? The fact that you were just a casual and cheap one-night stand that I picked up in a biker bar, and I treated you exactly like what you were?”
Her eyes widened and the little color that was in her face fled completely, and Silver wanted to kick himself until he was dead. Every single goddamn thing that was coming out of his stupid fat mouth was exactly wrong, was exactly the opposite of what he really felt and thought, but he was somehow helpless to stop it. The shock of seeing Ana – no wait, not Ana, she was never Ana… she’s Jolene – standing in front of him was wearing off, and panic about having slept with the new accountant was setting in pretty firmly now.
If she ever tells anyone… if she decides to accuse me of something… shit, I’d have no defense. She could say anything and it could all happen again…
“You –” She swallowed. “You think that I was – cheap?”
No, baby. You were perfect. You were stunning. You were a dark angel fallen to earth, and I was a royal asshole who didn’t deserve to touch your dress, let alone your body.
“Well, let’s see,” he said deliberately, already regretting what he was about to utter, unable to restrain himself from lashing out. “You were sitting alone in a dive bar on the side of a highway, wearing a tight red dress and showing off your shoulders and breasts like the bad girl in a shit fifties movie. You used a fake name, you gave a fake life story. You accepted a drink from a stranger, flirted nice and strong, then showed him your room key.” He cocked his head. “If the shoe fits…”
“I don’t believe this,” she said quietly. “I don’t believe any of this.”
“Ohhh, believe it, baby.”
“OK, well… what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you really going to stand there and act like you were so goddamn honest that night?” She tossed her head, and he wished hard that her hair was loose and wild so he could catch it in his hands and yank her sweet, hot mouth to his, to shut her up and stop her from saying whatever cutting truth she was about to lay on him. “Really, Zeke the chopper builder from Arizona? The guy who knows Nell and The Highwaymen from drinking at The Red between scouting motorcycle parts, nothing whatsoever to do with being a fellow filthy criminal one-percenter? Tell me, did you help Gunner run his guns?”
He flinched as she hit a bull’s eye.
“I didn’t tell you the truth because I wanted to protect myself,” she said. “I didn’t know you, you think I was giving you anything identifying? And by the time I’d decided that you weren’t going to strangle me with my dress and dump me on the side of the road, telling you my real name didn’t seem to matter.”
“You didn’t know me, but you still fucked me,” he snarled. “What kind of woman does that?”
“What kind of man does it?” she countered back immediately, not even reacting to his crudity. “You were there in that bath and bed too, as I recall, and you didn’t seem all that interested in offering much truth from your side as you took me against that wall. Did you think I’d cut your throat or stalk you, so you were defending yourself by lying about every single goddamn thing that came out of your mouth?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Jolene.”
“Ditto, Silver.” A thought suddenly occurred to her as she stared at the club insignia on his cut. “Why weren’t you wearing that the other night? Aren’t you MC boys always supposed to be sporting your colors?”
“It needed a patch job. Not that it’s any of your goddamn business.”
They glared at each other and any warmth between them, any sweet memory, was all gone, just washed away on the crashing waves of anger and rancor. Silver’s shock was over and self-preservation was starting to kick in as his mind whirred, but Jolene looked like she’d just realized something.
“So, wait…” Jo was finally catching up to the full horror of her current reality. “So… if you�
��re Silver, then that means that you’re the club Treasurer and that means –”
“That we’d need to work together pretty much every day,” he finished. “Yeah.”
“No,” she said, panic taking a firm hold. “No way.”
“Yes way.” He shrugged those huge shoulders. “No choice, sweet thing.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, hating the twinge of sharp, hot desire that moved across her stomach, crept up her body and hardened her nipples. “Just don’t.”
“You didn’t mind the other night,” he pointed out, his drawl a cold, cruel taunt.
“This is not the other night,” Jo hissed. “This is my job – my new job. God, I’ve been here for ten minutes and it’s already a total goddamn disaster zone!”
He shrugged again, so indifferent that it was as bad as a slap to the face. “So quit if you don’t like it.”
“Quit?” She was staggered at his suggestion, at his casual and arrogant assumption that she didn’t desperately need this job. “Quit?”
“Yeah.” Oh Lord, his eyes were the coldest, grayest, bleakest winter morning ever. “Just turn and march that cute little ass on out of here this minute. I’ll tell Wolf that you left. He won’t give a shit by this time tomorrow, believe me.”
Jo stared at him, shocked beyond the ability to form words, simply unable to believe that this was the same man who had held her as she’d come hard enough to almost pass out, who had wrapped her legs around his waist to fuck her harder and deeper against a cabin wall, who had stroked her hair and called her beautiful.
This man was a stranger to her, more completely than she’d ever thought possible. His strangeness had nothing to do with not having known his name, or his MC affiliation and background, though. No, it came from the fact that Silver Bennett was a nasty, disgusting, insulting piece of garbage, a man who had probably done things so criminal that Jo didn’t even want to contemplate them. Zeke might have been a coward and a user, but she’d still been able to think of him fondly, be thankful for the gift of one amazing, life-changing night.
The Devil's Silver (The Road Devils MC Book 2) Page 12
