She wiggles and almost gets away from me as she lunges to get at the men. They get up the stairs and she is still fighting me. I take her to the laundry room that’s off the kitchen and put her in there and close her up.
She is a bit on the mean side where strangers are concerned. I thought Angel was being a bit overdramatic about that.
They guys come back down and I go to the door with them. “That’s it then, guys?”
“Yeah, it’s all ready for you,” the guy says.
I hand him a couple of twenties. “Give one to your buddy.”
“Will do,” he says and they leave just as I see Angel pulling in on her bike.
She climbs off and comes to me her arms open as she gets to me. “I need a hug, Benny.”
Wrapping her in my arms, I hug her tight. “Why the needed hug, Babydoll?”
She takes in a deep breath. “I handed my house keys over to my landlady after I left work. It was the last part of my independence and I feel a little shaky.”
I lift her up and carry her inside. “No reason to feel shaky. This is your home, Baby.”
Her head rests against my chest as her hand moves over it. “This feels like a dream. My whole house and yard could fit in the living room alone.”
“Now you get to see how the other half lives, Pumpkin. Speaking of that. I’m going to need to go to New York sometime to deal with some business. I’ll hire a private jet to take us out there. I won’t make you stay with my family in their place. We’ll get a room at the Four Seasons. It’ll be cool. I’ll take you sight-seeing and make you an appointment at a fancy salon to get your hair and nails done.”
She looks at me with drooping eyes. “You don’t like my hair?”
“Of course, I love your hair. It’s not that. It’s just that I want to pamper you. Show you the finest things I can.” I kiss her cheek and she smiles a little.
“Oh. And I’ll get to meet your family?” She looks so hopeful.
“You do. But I’d not get my hopes up about them. They’re snobby. Not at all down to Earth like you are.” I place her on her feet in the kitchen and pour us a couple of glasses of wine.
She takes hers and I take her hand, leading her to the outside patio so we can watch the sunset together. Then I hear Cuddles barking and Angel looks oddly at me. “Where’s the dog?”
I turn back and go let her out of the laundry room with a chuckle. “Hey there, killer. I had to put her in there so she wouldn’t kill the delivery men. I thought you were kidding about her being aggressive to strangers.”
She shakes her head. “No, I was telling the truth. That’s why her liking you surprised me so much. So when will this trip to the fancy town of New York occur?”
“When do you want to go?” I ask as I take her hand again and lead her outside.
“Whenever, I guess. Maybe if you send me to a fancy salon and buy me some clothes your family will deem appropriate, you can transform me into the right girl for you,” she says as I sit down and pull her down to sit on my lap.
I can’t tell her that no amount of transformation will help. My family wants paperwork. Like a well-bred animal, the paper is what it’s all about.
“I’m not about transforming you into someone you don’t want to be. But if it would make you feel better if you dressed to fit in, I suppose I can help you make that transformation. I’ll make sure you feel very comfortable before I take you to them.” I pull her braid over her shoulder and play with it.
She leans in and kisses me. “This is nice. The view is amazing. Your lap feels like home already.” She laughs, and it makes my heart jump.
“Your ass in my lap feels like home.” I kiss her and she places her glass on the table and wraps her arms around me, deepening our kiss.
My cock springs to life as our tongues twirl around together. When our lips part we both are breathing heavily. She whispers, “That was our first kiss in our place, Benny.”
“And after dinner, I’m going to devour you for the first time on our brand new bed in our bedroom, Angel.” I tickle her ribs a little, sending her into a fit of laughter.
“Stop!” she screams.
I stop and gaze at her with the sunset’s oranges and pinks filling the sky behind her. “You’re beautiful, my Angel.”
She strokes my beard. “You’re pretty too.” Her smile is bright and her eyes tell me she’s happy.
Happier than I think she knew she could be. And I have barely begun to show her all I can bring to her life.
“I bought steaks and lobsters for dinner. Would you care to accompany me to the kitchen and help me prepare our first dinner in our first home together?”
Her hand travels over my shoulder and up my neck, sending sparks all through me. “I would. The sun’s just about out of the sky.”
I turn her in my arms and she lays her head back on me as we watch the sun leave the sky on our first night home. Our first real home.
I feel like she and I have been together forever. She and I seem to have an instant history. It’s odd but a great odd.
She climbs off my lap and holds out her hand to me. I take it and run my arm around her. “So I need you to throw the lobsters into the boiling water. That shit freaks me out,” I tell her.
“You bought live ones? Oh, Benny, I can’t kill them either.”
Cuddles, runs along behind us, coming inside like she owns the place. I laugh. “Maybe Cuddles could toss them into the boiling water. I’m sure the killer in her wouldn’t even flinch.”
And now it looks like we’re going to need an aquarium for our new pet lobsters!
Chapter 8
ANGEL
“Come on, they’re all leaving in the morning,” Benny calls out to me from the bedroom as I’m braiding my hair in the bathroom mirror. “This will be our last night out.”
I like his friends but hanging out in a noisy bar just isn’t my idea of fun. But for Benny, I’ll do it for tonight, anyway. Once they all leave and it’s down to just he and I then we can start to settle into our own routine. And bars have no place in it.
As I walk out, he holds up a little box. “Look what I found when I was in town this afternoon while you were working.”
“What did you find?” I ask as he comes toward me, taking the lid off the box.
I see a set of earrings. In the shape of motorcycles. Very trendy and not my style at all. But he bought them so I’ll wear them. He pulls one out of the box and puts it on me.
He kisses my neck just behind my ear. “They’re cute on you. I knew they would be.” He puts the other one on and kisses the other side and now I think he’s ready for us to leave.
“Thank you, Benny. I’d never have bought these for myself.” It’s not a lie.
He laughs and pulls me along with him. “I know they’re a little whimsical for you. But the old woman who was selling them said she’d made the trip all the way from Kansas to sell her handcrafted jewelry at the rally so I had to buy something.”
I kiss his cheek as we head down the stairs. “Sweet to your very core, aren’t you?”
He shakes his head. “I hope you still love me after you see me in New York.”
“How bad could you be?” I ask, knowing I had a real attitude when we first met and he managed to tame this tiger. He has to use that charisma on others as well.
“I can be ruthless when I have to and chances are with my family, I’ll have to.” He puts my helmet on and holds my hand so I can get on the back of his bike, behind him.
“You sound a little scary, Benny.” I hold tight to him.
“Baby, you don’t even know.” He starts up the bike and off we go to the large biker bar his friends are at.
The scene is pure chaos as we pull up to the jam-packed bar. Music is so loud you can hear it before you even enter the parking lot. He pulls to a stop in the line where his fellow bikers are parked.
“Wow, this is nuts,” I say as he leads me inside.
“You never go to these things do yo
u?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Not my thing.”
“We don’t have to stay a real long time. Only until two or so.”
Mentally, I grimace. Staying until two in the morning sounds like torture. Once we get inside and the first members of his gang sees him, they hand him a bottle of Jack Daniels and Benny takes a swig then hands it to me.
I shake my head and Benny nods his and holds the bottle to my lips. “It’ll loosen you up.”
It’ll have me puking before the night’s over is what it’ll do. But I take the drink and cross my fingers I won’t make a fool out of myself.
Drinking the hard stuff has never agreed with me. So when Ashley comes up to me and hands me a beer, I take it. Grateful to have something to sip on that’s a lot weaker than the liquor.
She shouts into my ear because the music is so loud she has to, “I like your earrings.” She moves her long blonde hair back behind her ear to show me she has a matching set. “Rod and Blaze got swindled by the same old woman today.”
I laugh and know I’m going to miss this woman when they leave to go back to their normal lives. Whatever that is.
It occurs to me that it’s been two weeks and I haven’t gotten to know anything about any of his friends. I really am antisocial.
Benny goes into Blaze mode around his fellow bikers and it’s always kind of odd to me. The cigarettes get lit up and if a joint is passed around he does partake.
He knows better than to even try to push that on me. I don’t smoke at all. Never have and never will.
Some hard song comes on and it has the whole bar full of people revving up their already loud noise. Benny turns back to me and pulls me into his arms, lifting my feet off the floor as he swings me around a little to the music.
I guess to most this would be amazing fun. But all I can think about is how loud it all is, how crowded the place is, and how the hell we’d get out if a fire broke out in here.
Yeah, I know I’m a weirdo.
Once the song ends, he places my feet on the floor and proceeds to drag me behind him through the crowd and the next thing I know we’re in a ring of his friends again and they’re all yelling in each other’s ears about shit I can’t hear and wouldn’t understand if I could.
I feel like a foreigner in my own home town. It’s kind of awful.
I feel a tug on my arm and find Phoenix and Ashley. Phoenix shouts, “We’re going on a bathroom run, wanna come?”
Anything sounds better than this. I nod and tug at Benny’s hand and shout into his ear when he leans back, “I’m going to the bathroom with Ashley and Phoenix. I’ll be back. Be good.”
He laughs and pulls me in front of him and gives me a quick kiss. “I will.”
As I walk away, he lands a sharp slap on my ass and gives me a wink to which I wink back. He makes my heart melt with just one look. I’m so smitten.
The women’s restroom isn’t much of a reprieve from the loudness but it is a little less deafening than in the main area. I lean against the wall as we wait in the line.
“So you guys are heading out in the morning. I have to admit I’m going to miss you two.” I nod as some woman wearing a ripped up shirt walks past me and seems kind of pissed.
But who wouldn’t if someone ripped their shirt nearly off.
Ashely laughs as she sees my face as I look the woman over as she leaves. “Rough crowd out there.”
I nod. “I’d say so.”
Phoenix pulls out a pack of cigarettes and Ashley waves her off when she offers and so do I. She gets one for herself and lights it up. I try hard not to cough and act like a baby about the smoke.
“We’re going to miss you too, Angel. You’re a real trip. Your humor will be missed,” Phoenix tells me. “But we’ll see you in Vegas for our wedding next week, right?”
“Your wedding?” I ask as I have no idea what she’s talking about.
Ashley looks a little surprised as she asks, “Blaze didn’t tell you?”
“No.” I look at Phoenix. “You and Paco are tying the knot then?”
She nods. “Yeah. Blaze is paying for us to stay there for the whole week. I really can’t imagine why he hasn’t told you. He said he was coming.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Maybe he’s not taking me.” Anger starts to flow through me that he’d not invite me to the thing.
Ashely laughs. “I’m sure he’s taking you, Angel. The guy goes nowhere without you after all.”
“He must’ve forgotten you weren’t there that day we told everyone, and he said he’d be there. That’s most likely it. Just mention it and see what he says about it,” Phoenix suggests.
The urge to bite my nails is awful. Why didn’t he tell me? Is he really planning on going without me?
The line moves and I can see we’re finally next in line to get to use the handful of toilets. I tap my foot and both women look down at it. Ashley looks up at me. “Are you mad?”
“Nope.” I cross my arms in front of me. “Just really have to pee.”
So what if it’s a lie?
After I get into the stall, I try hard to calm back down. I don’t know why I’m letting this go all over me but it is.
Quickly, I take care of the business I came in here for and find the other two washing their hands and I do the same. In the mirror, I see my cheeks are flushed and I really need to try to calm down.
The loud noise and heat with the crowd does little to help as I follow them out and back to Benny. I’m taller than either of them so I can see over their heads as we get closer to where we left our men and I see a tall, heavyset, blonde woman pulling on Benny’s arm.
I suppose trying to get him to dance with her. I stop as he pulls out his pack of cigarettes and lets her take one from the pack then he lights it for her. She blows the smoke off to one side then leans in to say something else to him.
I barely notice Ashley and Phoenix looking back at me as I move faster to tell the woman to get away from my man. They part so I can get by them and I yank the skanky chick’s arm as soon as I can reach her.
She looks me up and down with a half-smile on her red lips. “What?”
“He’s taken. Get lost,” I shout in her ear.
She looks back at me just as Benny turns around and his eyes get really big as she says, “Look, Bitch, he ain’t got no ring on his finger so he’s up for grabs.”
I look back to see Ashely and Phoenix with their jaws dropped and make a fist with my right hand and turn back to the dumb ass and smack her so fucking hard her head snaps back.
Her cigarette flies through the air and her ass drops like a rock. Ashley and Phoenix move to either side of me and pull me along as Ashley shouts, “Time to move our party elsewhere, guys.”
The whole pack of Benny’s friends just moves a good ways over, leaving the fat chick lying on the floor. Benny takes my hand and pulls me away until he finds some place a little less loud.
“Why’d you do that, Baby?” he asks as he takes my right hand and looks over my red knuckles.
“A couple of reasons. First, she was touching my man. Second she used the word bitch and I don’t appreciate that.”
He kisses my knuckles and then me. “You’re something else, Rocky. One punch and she was out.”
“Why didn’t you tell her to fuck off instead of giving her a fucking cigarette and a light?” I ask as I narrow my eyes at him.
“She’d been bugging me and wouldn’t let up. I gave it to her thinking she’d go away,” he says, and he looks sincere.
“You give a bitch a cigarette and a light in this place, she’ll think you want her. Do you want her, Blaze?” I stare him down.
“What the fuck? No, Angel. What the fuck’s wrong with you?” He looks genuinely confused.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Phoenix and Paco’s Vegas wedding you’re going to in a week?” I cross my arms in front of me and tap my foot.
His eyebrows go way up. “That? That’s what has you so fired up? Fuck, Baby.
I forgot. With all we’ve been doing, I really just forgot. Why would that make you so mad?”
“Were you planning on taking me with you? Or just leaving and telling me nothing?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not him, Angel. I’m not Gage. I’m not leaving you.”
The fact he knows what’s-his-ass’s name has me puzzled because I never say it. “Who told you his name?”
Suddenly he looks worried. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. Come on, Baby. This is silly…”
I cock my head to one side. “What’s so silly about me being mad that you’ve discussed my private business with someone in this town. Who was it?”
He shakes his head again. “No, now, I made a promise and I’m going to keep it. And you need to stop being crazy.”
I try to walk away but he catches my arm so I turn back and say, “Fine. But when we get home, I’m going to use the belt to get it out of you. I don’t like people talking about my personal shit. Not ever!”
His grip on my arms tightens. “What did you say to me? You’re going to use the belt on me? To get something out of me? Fuck that shit!”
“You’re hurting my arm,” I say as I look at the way he’s holding it so tight.
“And apparently you think you’re going to try to hurt me later. So.” He glares at me and I glare right back.
“Tell me who it was, Blaze.”
“Don’t you fucking call me Blaze! You and I need to go somewhere a little more private, Angel.” He tugs me along with him and takes me outside and around the side of the building where he pushes me up against the wall.
“Stop!” I shout at him.
His hand goes over my mouth, making me be quiet. “Listen to me, young lady, you will never lay a hand on me in anger. Nor I, you. The belt, the whip, and our hands are not to be used in anger. Got me?”
I nod and he moves his hand from my mouth. “Blaze…”
“Why are you calling me that?” He takes me by the shoulders.
“Because that’s who you’re being right now. I don’t think you forgot to tell me about going to Vegas.” I look him in the eyes as he darts them back and forth.
Hot Nights in Sturgis The Complete Series: A Billionaire, Bad Boy, Motorcycle, BDSM, Romance (Billionaire Romance Novels) Page 12
