by Jessie Cooke
“Please...will you just call him and tell him I’m here? Or if he’s busy...you can call Bruf.” The guy squinted one eye at her like he was trying to figure out if she was legit or not. Finally, with an annoyed sigh, he lowered the gun to his side and pulled out his phone. He sent a text and the butterflies in her stomach took flight while she waited. She told the doctor she’d call him by noon. It was already ten a.m. Time was running out.
A good five or ten minutes passed before the biker’s phone beeped. He looked down at it and raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. “Did he say I can go in?” she asked.
“Nope.” She waited and when he didn’t say anything else she said:
“So, what did he...” She stopped abruptly as Bruf pushed through the side door. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. He was wearing a black t-shirt and the colors of the tattoos on his arms really stood out against it. He had on sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes...but his posture said that he wasn’t happy she was there. She started toward him, but the other biker put out an arm to stop her. Bruf motioned to him and he let her pass. She glared at him as she did. When she got about a foot away from Bruf, she stopped. She could smell his spicy, sexy scent already and she knew if she went any closer, she’d be in the danger zone.
“What are you doing here, Sabrina?”
“I needed to see you.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t take much of your time. See, I got this offer...”
“I don’t have time for this. I have to get back inside.”
Sabrina felt like someone was squeezing her heart. She’d let herself imagine him begging her not to go and telling her he was wrong...they could find a way to be together. She was so stupid. “Can you at least hear me out?”
“I’ve got about thirty seconds and I need to get back inside, so hurry.” He folded his arms. She wished that she could see his eyes. He had expressive eyes and at least she wouldn’t have to guess what he was feeling. She was fighting that feeling in her throat that threatened to well up into tears...sobs, even.
“I got an opportunity to go to Haiti. It will count toward school...and I could get a scholarship...”
She watched him bite his bottom lip as she was talking. Before she was able to work the nerve up to ask him how he felt about that, he interrupted her. “Sounds like a great deal,” he said. “Be safe and we’ll see you when you get back.” He turned his back to her then and reached for the door. With the lump in her throat growing larger she said:
“I’ll be gone for six months.” She watched him grip the handle. For just a second, his shoulders tensed and his knuckles turned white, and she thought he was going to turn back around. She thought wrong. She watched him relax his shoulders and then she heard him say “Take care” before disappearing back inside.
22
“Where is Bruf?” Wolf asked one of the prospects. He’d gone back to the locker rooms to wait for everything to be set up out front and now he could hear them calling for him. Bruf had been there only a few minutes before, and then he’d disappeared.
“He stepped outside for a minute. He didn’t say why, but said he’d be right back...”
“I’m here.”
“Everything okay out there?”
“Yeah, it was Sabrina.” Wolf noticed the change in Bruf’s eyes when he mentioned Sabrina’s name—they softened, or saddened, he wasn’t sure which. Wolf loved his brother Bruf and he was beginning to get really attached to his little sister, but he would never be okay with the two of them being together. Sabrina was innocent, even after what had happened to her. Bruf...well, his brother had a history, and his innocence had been left behind a long time ago.
“What was she doing here?”
“She wanted to tell me that she got an offer to go to Haiti and do some school thing or something.”
“She wanted you to tell her not to go,” Wolf said. Bruf nodded slightly and Wolf said, “Well?”
“I told her to go,” he said. “I think they’re calling for you out there. You still sure you want to do this?”
Wolf picked up on the abrupt change of subject quickly. He hated seeing his brother and good friend torn the way Bruf was, but he was thankful and grateful that he’d chosen to do the right thing by Sabrina. “I’m sure. Did Sabrina leave? Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine. Let’s do this, Boss.”
Wolf nodded, took a deep breath, and motioned at the prospect to open the door. He hadn’t meant for it to go so far as to be a mini-professional fight, but the guys had decided to have fun with it and as they walked out front he could hear Jacob announcing his name in a loud voice. He had volunteered to ref the fight, but Wolf doubted he’d interfere unless Clay got the advantage somehow along the way.
“Here he is, folks! He’s defied death twice in the past few weeks. He is the president of an up-and-coming MC which is moving and shaking and going places. He’s the proprietor of this fine gym. His name is Wolf and you’re about to have the pleasure of seeing him in the wild.”
Wolf smiled and jogged up to the cage. Bruf waited until he climbed inside and then closed the door. Clay was already seated on the other side. Behind him sat Amara and her father. She wasn’t looking at Clay, she was staring at Wolf. He smiled at her, like a predator, and she looked away. She was far from the confident, sexy woman he knew, this week. Getting caught, and Wolf’s telling her exactly what he thought of her, had taken the wind out of her sails a bit. She still held her chin up proudly, but her shoulders had a sag to them that wasn’t there before.
Wolf went to his “corner” of the octagon where Brock waited for him. The Southside Skulls filled the folding chairs on his side and they whistled and hollered when he took his bench. Their girls were passing drinks and the boys were smoking...it was a regular party. Besides Amara and George, the only one that looked unhappy to be there was Clay. He sat on his little bench in the corner, with the sides of his mouth curled down and his eyes set in an almost vicious glare.
“Over here,” Jacob said, with a wave of his arm. “We have a spineless, wife-stealing, backstabbing, murder conspirator that goes by the name of Clay. He used to have a fighter name, but in my opinion, he gave that up when he took up cheating. Real fighters don’t need to cheat, but Clay has proved more than once he’s not a real fighter...so, there’s that. Gentlemen, please meet me in the middle.”
Wolf and Clay both got up and walked to where Jacob stood in the center of the octagon. Jake went as far as to give the little spiel that refs always give before a fight. He emphasized “clean” fight, and “no hitting below the belt” in Clay’s direction. Clay stayed silent but looked more pissed by the second. Jake suddenly grabbed both their hands and pulled them together so that their knuckles tapped. “Let’s do this!” he said. Jake left them both there in the center and walked over to where Brock was in the corner. A buzzer sounded from somewhere and Wolf watched Clay square up.
The two men, one a slightly out of shape, older man, who had spent his life taking punches to the head, and the other in his prime, well-developed and well-maintained, circled around each other, sizing each other up. Wolf had never fought in a cage before, but he’d been in plenty of fights and he was amped up and anxious to get this one started...so he threw the first punch. It landed on Clay’s square chin and Wolf watched his head snap back. Clay had his own tricks up his sleeve, however, because the second he recovered from the punch, he was throwing out his powerful leg. Wolf didn’t see it in time to dodge, so the kick landed squarely in the center of his left thigh. It was hard, and it caused him to stumble backward and nearly go down on his knees.
The Southies were yelling something, but Wolf couldn’t hear much over the rushing of blood in his ears and the noise in his own head. Before he regained his footing, Clay was coming at him with his arms open like he wanted a hug. Wolf threw a punch, but Clay was too close, and it landed awkwardly and softly on the other man’s cheek. Cl
ay threw his open arms around Wolf’s bulky frame and did hug him...he had him in a clinch and he was trying to take him to the ground. Wolf didn’t know anything about wrestling. He wanted to stay on his feet, so he could keep throwing punches at the fucker.
The two of them struggled until Clay had him back against the mesh of the cage. That was when Wolf brought up his leg and landed his knee on Clay’s soft groin area. Clay let go of him and cried out, “You fucker!” He looked at Jacob and said, “Did you see that?” He was squeaking and holding his dick. He looked like he was in pain, and Wolf was enjoying it.
“See what?” Jacob asked.
“Fair fight my ass.”
Jacob didn’t have time to respond before Clay’s head was pulled back by Wolf’s arm and he was taken down to his knees on the mat. Wolf twisted and threw him down and once he was flat on his back, Wolf straddled him and began to throw punches. As they landed on the side of Clay’s head, on his chin, nose, and mouth, Wolf growled and kept saying, “Don’t ever fuck with what’s mine, again...you got that?”
Clay was too overwhelmed by the onslaught of punches to answer. Blood flew out of his nose and splattered across the mat, and Wolf continued his assault. Clay took it for several long minutes before taking advantage of Wolf’s shift in weight and rolling to his side. He was crawling away when Wolf grabbed his leg. That was another mistake because the guy’s other leg kicked back, and it landed squarely on the bridge of Wolf’s nose. Clay’s next punch came right after and Wolf almost dodged it, but it ended up catching him just under his chin. That one fucking hurt...and Wolf used that pain, and the anger he was already feeling, to fight. He started exchanging punches with Clay, one for one. Blood ran from Clay’s face, down his neck, and ultimately made its way to the floor. Wolf knew he was bleeding from somewhere, but he didn’t know exactly where. He had too much adrenaline pumping to feel any pain, but he could feel the hot blood running down the side of his face, and the mat underneath their feet was slippery with blood.
The two men circled each other again and when Wolf saw an opening, he took it. He threw out his right fist and connected, hard, with the center of Clay’s face. Clay reeled back. He looked confused and off-balance...and then suddenly he hit the mat. Wolf was winded, but he was alive with the energy that the anger and all the adrenaline had given him. He felt his muscles coil as he jumped on Clay, straddling him with his knees and beginning to just pound him with his fists, first one side and then the other, like he did with the punching bag during his workouts. Wolf was pressing down on Clay’s arms with his knees and he was sitting on his chest...Clay couldn’t move to defend himself, but Wolf was in the zone...
“Wolf!” He heard his name through the buzz in his head, but he couldn’t stop. Every time he tried to reel himself in, he thought about the asshole’s steroid-shriveled dick buried in his wife. “Wolf! You need to stop, man.” Brock and Jake were there to see Clay get what was coming to him...but they were also there to make sure Wolf didn’t kill him, at least not tonight. Wolf wasn’t stupid enough to kill the man in his own place, in front of witnesses...not usually. “Wolf, man, you’re gonna kill him.” Jacob’s voice finally penetrated through the buzz of noise in Wolf’s head, and he stopped. He looked up at Jake and then back down at Clay. The big retired fighter was covered in blood and probably most of the bones in his face were broken. Wolf climbed off him and waited a few seconds to see if Clay was going to move. He could see a very faint rise and fall of his chest...he was still breathing, for now. He looked at Bruf and Smoke and said:
“Load him up and take him and his ‘fans’ home. Meeks should still be there. They can call an ambulance if he wants to seek medical help. I don’t think I have to worry about any of the conspirators to murder telling the cops what really happened to him...do I, Amara?”
She answered him with a glare. He knew she wouldn’t risk it, though, so he wasn’t worried. “Isn’t Meeks that gang cop?” she asked. “What is he doing in my parents’ home?” Clay moaned. Amara didn’t even glance in his direction. She was finished with him. He had nothing left to offer her and Wolf was sure that she wouldn’t have been upset at all if he had killed him. But she did care that there were cops in her family home, which meant that she knew they would find something to use against old George. Or what she may have known, since she knew him so well, was that he never left anything to chance.
“Yeah,” Wolf said. He was so tired that he could barely hold himself up on his knees. But, he wasn’t going to give in to it until Amara and her father were gone. He’d die before he’d let her see any weakness in him at all. “The head of the gang task force. Last I heard from him, he’d called and invited a friend of his from DEA to join him. I’m afraid they found some suspicious items in the basement.”
“You son of a bitch!”
Wolf smiled at her through the pain in his mouth. He was sure it was a gruesome sight, but that only made it better. “Yes,” he told his soon to be ex-wife. “I am a son of a bitch, and if by some miracle you skate on the charges your father is about to face, thanks to the money and drugs he had hidden in his basement...”
“You put them there! My father is not stupid enough to hide things in our home! You bastard!” George wanted to speak. Wolf could see it...but he had more control than his daughter. He knew they were not only outnumbered, but way out of their league at the moment. He put his hand on her arm and stood up. She was still screaming at Wolf as he said:
“As I was saying, I am an SOB, and you would do well to remember that. I don’t want to lay eyes on you again, Amara...ever. As a matter of fact, if they don’t lock you up too, I want you out of Skulls territory.”
“Where the fuck am I supposed to go?”
Wolf started to get to his feet. Bruf tried to help him, but Wolf shook off his SA’s hand and struggled until he was standing on his own. He smiled at Amara again once he was standing and said, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Maybe the Southies want you.”
He heard Dax Marshall chuckle from behind him. “No thanks,” Dax said, “we’ve got enough trash of our own down on the Southside.”
Excerpt from Wolf 2
Chapter One
Wolf growled as he grabbed a handful of that thick, blonde hair. “Don’t stop, baby.” He thrust his hips forward, pushing his cock deeper into her mouth, hitting the back of her throat. She could be a porn star with that mouth. He’d fucked her ten times at least...this week...and she had yet to gag once. He was so close...he closed his eyes and suddenly a picture of Amara popped into his head. She was on her knees like this little club girl was now, but as she sucked him, she stared up at him with those deep brown eyes...those eyes that he could never resist, those eyes...fuck. He opened his and suddenly, he was just done. Pissed off, he pushed the girl on her knees back and said, “Sorry, baby, I got things I need to do.” He wasn’t pissed at her, or really even at Amara anymore. He hated her, but he wasn’t angry any longer...not at her. He was angry with himself for not being able to move on. The pretty girl sat back on the carpeted floor on her naked butt, big, pert boobs sticking out and blonde hair in disarray around a gorgeous face. She really should do porn, Wolf thought. Maybe he’d suggest she go see his friends in Boston. They could hook her up.
“But you didn’t finish.”
He was already zipping his jeans and buckling his belt. “I’m good,” he said. “Go on and get dressed now, you can’t stay here.” They were in his little house behind the club. Maybe that was his problem...maybe he needed to stop bringing them there where Amara’s ghost inhabited everything. The girl, whose name was Amber, pushed up off the floor and Wolf watched her get dressed. Her perfect body usually stirred something in him when he looked at her...but not today. Today was his ex-wife’s birthday, and for some reason, although she’d tried to have him killed a few short months before, she was still on his mind. It wasn’t that he wanted her back, it was more like she was in his head just to continue to torture him...and hold him back.
He tried to stop thinking about her and when Amber was finally ready, he walked her out and made sure she was gone before locking his door and heading over to the club. He never used to lock his door before, but the Colombian witch that used to be his wife had left him not only angry and bitter, but slightly paranoid as well.
He went into the back door of the clubhouse, entering through the kitchen. A few of the girls were there, cleaning up breakfast dishes. Wolf’s favorite club girl, and his best friend, Tricia, greeted him first. “Hey, Boss, looking good. How are you doing today?” He gave Tricia a kiss on the cheek while the other girls looked on. He wasn’t one of those guys that did the women right out in the open in the clubhouse, nor did he easily display his affections. But Tricia was different. She was proof that not all soulmates were meant to be love interests. Some people came into your life as stabilizing forces and to prove that there are such things as unconditional love and affection.
“You’re looking good too,” he said. “As always.” He wasn’t lying. For a forty-something-year-old woman, she was still hotter than most of the younger club girls. Wolf still fucked her from time to time...but in all honesty, he tried not to. He truly wanted her to be happy one day, to find a man that would make her his old lady and treat her right. He also knew that if he started to depend on her too much, he’d use her like a crutch and she’d let him. They both needed to move forward with their lives. He wasn’t quite sure how to do that, and Tricia seemed to be stuck in place for quite a few years now herself.
Wolf realized that maybe he wasn’t a very good friend. He honestly didn’t know why she stayed around the clubhouse so much. She liked sex, and she got plenty of it there...but he didn’t doubt she could get plenty of that anywhere. Something kept her coming back; he just never thought to ask her what that was. “The day’s good,” he lied. He could see in Tricia’s eyes that she didn’t believe him. It would be just like her to remember that today was Amara’s birthday...not for Amara, Tricia never liked her, but for Wolf. It was things like that which sometimes made him think about saying Fuck romantic love and just marrying his soulmate...but he knew that at least one of them deserved better than that...and he doubted it was him.
