RIDING ROUGH (Hard Leather, #1)

by Franca Storm

  Any morning-after talk was redundant now. It was beyond clear that he’d felt the world shift last night just like I had. There was no coming back from the passionate intensity we’d shared. I’d let him in so completely and I’d felt him let go too and bare himself to me, lay his heart and soul on the line.

  I sat for a few moments basking in the memories of it all and clutching his t-shirt to my chest, before I realized that I needed to get moving. He hadn’t given me a timeframe to work with in his note and I didn’t want him to come back up and see me all sweaty and frazzled. No, I needed to take a shower and get dressed. Plus, I was dying for a coffee. I was never fully awake without one. It was the curse of working in a coffee shop day after day. You caught the addiction, just like the customers.

  I climbed out of bed and stumbled with the first step I took, tripping over something that I was sure hadn’t been there last night.

  “Shit!” I grunted as I stubbed my toe on whatever the hell it was.

  Looking down, I was as surprised as hell to see my duffle sitting there on the floor right beside the bed. It was more than a little strange to see my property juxtaposed against Mason’s. A precursor of what could be, perhaps? Kneeling down, I unzipped it and rifled through the contents. It warmed me to see how thoughtful he’d been, not only that he must’ve had to get up at the crack of dawn to head to my place to gather up my stuff, but also that he’d actually chosen useful things and not just stuffed a bunch of random crap inside. We’d been estranged for so long that I kept forgetting how well he really knew me.

  With his t-shirt still draped over my arm, I grabbed a few other things, like underwear, a pair of jeans and some toiletries and headed into the bathroom to take that much-needed shower.

  A girly smile was still plastered to my face and I just couldn’t shake it for the life of me. I was flying high and nothing could bring me down. After all these years of wanting a man who I’d thought had only ever seen me as a best friend, we were finally together. In my haze of bliss, nothing could touch that.

  ***

  Yet another pair of eyes shot to my t-shirt and bounced off as if they’d never dared to make contact in the first place. The thing was a frigging guy-repellant and a half. I pretended I didn’t notice as I continued on my way through the clubhouse sipping at my second cup of coffee. It was making me uncomfortable witnessing such hard men acting so skittish around me.

  And that wasn’t the only thing that had me ill at ease.

  After my first cup of coffee had kicked in and I’d woken up fully, my euphoric haze had dissipated and bitter reality had seeped back into my consciousness. Evil bitch.

  I didn’t give a crap about how Cole would react anymore. Mason and I had talked that to death now and we’d both agreed we weren’t going to let him rule our lives. We’d gone ahead in spite of him. No, the thoughts that were plaguing me concerned the offer I had to set up a boutique outside Warlow. I needed to talk to him about it. Just because we were together now, didn’t mean all my reasons for wanting to leave would just cease to exist. But now he complicated that and posed such a huge reason for staying. Shit, things were more complicated than ever.

  I was sweating. I needed to get some air.

  Reaching the clubhouse doors heading out to the lot, I went to push them open when a set of large hands came down, stopping me. Startled, I stepped back and turned to face the huge frame of a long-time club member I’d only ever interacted with once or twice before. I hastily recalled his name. Actually, his nickname. Cole and Mason had never mentioned his real name, not that the guy ever seemed to go by that anyway. Tank. The name fit. The guy was about three-feet wide of packed muscle. Anyone who didn’t know him mistook him for a scary, imposing seven-foot-tall giant. But, as he proved in the next second when he flashed me a gentle smile, he was really a sweet guy.

  “Best you stay inside, sweetheart.”

  My survival instincts kicked in automatically. What did that mean? Was I a prisoner here? Any time Cole had brought me here in the past that was exactly what he’d made me. Tricked me into putting me on lock down. “Why?” I asked, my fingers tightening around my mug.

  “Some of the boys are stunting in the lot. Ain’t safe out there right now for spectators.”

  Oh. My skyrocketing heart rate began calming. “Right. Okay, thanks for the heads up.”

  He nodded, remaining rigidly by the door until I began backing away. Huh. That was odd.

  Wait, was it? Or, was I just being paranoid, because I’d briefly freaked out and my survival instincts had been activated?

  Speaking of paranoia, where the hell was Mason? Most of the boys had already filtered out of Church a good ten minutes ago, but he’d yet to show his face. Neither had Liam. What was the hold up?

  Something just didn’t seem right.

  10

  ~Mason~

  “Released them? Without me vetting them?” I fumed.

  “What do you take me for, Mason? I vetted them. They were clean. No security risk to the club. Just pawns.”

  I scrubbed my hand over my jaw. “I can’t believe you fucking questioned them without me.”

  “It was too personal to you,” Liam told me. “You nearly killed the kid, for fuck’s sakes!” He gestured angrily at the blood stains circling the two steel chairs in the middle of the dark room, what we termed our Interrogation Room. “That blood there? Mostly your doing! I only landed one or two punches to the other asshole who laid his hands on my girl.”

  His girl? Jesus. He had a long way to go before that rang true. Abi had some real fucking issues and those issues had landed my woman in some serious shit last night. If I hadn’t shown up when I had—I couldn’t even go there. Just thinking about it incensed me and I needed to remain levelheaded.

  “What stopped you?”

  “What?”

  “You rarely lose your shit, but the times you have, I ain’t never known you to pull it back. Didn’t know you could.”

  Neither did I. It was why I was always careful not to lose it.

  “So?” he pressed.

  I didn’t even need to think about it. “Her, man. Luce.”

  His shock was written all over his face. Just like me, he couldn’t reconcile the sheer power she held over me. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Keep hold of that one.”

  “I’m trying.”

  He frowned, asking, “Cole?”

  “Nah. I’ll take that beat down when he gets back. Know the rules.” I took a second, looking around the dank, dark room to gather my thoughts for a second—or was it my nerve?—before I explained, “Luce isn’t a regular type of homemaker Old Lady. She’s got big plans and she’s spent years working towards them. So, if it comes down to it, I’m not gonna put her in a position to have to make a choice.”

  “Wow, you’re a bigger man than me. Maybe that’s what love is, I guess.”

  “I’ve loved her for a fuck of a long time, brother. I have to do right by her.” I shifted my weight. “Unfortunately, sometimes that means doing shit she doesn’t like, for her own good.”

  “Like putting her under lockdown.”

  I nodded.

  “She know yet?”

  “I need to break it to her gently, cuz of all the shit Cole’s pulled on her in the past.”

  “Got ya.”

  That was enough of that. It was time to get back to business. I shifted my weight. “I put feelers out last night about the stash we found. It was way too big, man. No way was it just party favors. It was set to be moved. Through our territory. Somebody’s trying to set us up. I could feel it. So, I hit up all my contacts. A couple of my key guys came back with Nightshade.”

  “So much for her being out,” Liam muttered.

  His easy acceptance surprised me, throwing me for a loop. I cocked an eyebrow.

  “It’s what I was gonna tell you. The intel I got from the frat boys fits with what you’re telling me. A woman matching her description made them a
sweet deal to move that shit through our territory, instructing them to tell anyone they dealt with to use our club name as the source.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. We’re being set up.”

  No club with members having sound minds wanted to get mixed up with hard drugs. It risked serious jail time. Majorly invasive investigation. Ripping the club apart. It wasn’t fucking worth it. That was why I had to make damn sure we weren’t implicated, that I kept our hands clean.

  And I knew just how to do that. “All right, I’ll take care of it.”

  Liam folded his arms. “How?”

  “Simple. We put it back on Nightshade.”

  He looked shocked. “Even with Cole’s personal shit with her? You sure you wanna go down that road?”

  “I should’ve done it the last time she crossed the club, but I let Cole talk me down. Now she’s back, putting the club’s rep in jeopardy and the safety of our members, our families, everybody connected to us.”

  “Plus, she’s gotta be running all this for that fucker, Nik Stone.”

  “I’m not gonna let that bitch start a war on that asshole’s behalf.”

  Nik Stone was the President of the Strikers MC, a rival motorcycle club to the Steel Titans who we’d had a load of trouble with in the past. They’d crossed us several times and each time we’d beaten them back, come out on top. The animosity between our clubs was rooted in the severed friendship between our Prez and Nik. Prez never spoke about it, but there were rumors that they’d both loved the same woman. She’d chosen Prez. They’d settled down and he’d knocked her up. Then, in a fit of rage and jealousy, Nik had murdered her. Tried to murder Prez too, but failed.

  That was around twenty years back. Now Prez enjoyed the perks of being the head of a MC—sluts throwing themselves at him. But most of them couldn’t handle what he dealt out. I mean, I liked it rough, but what he did was another level altogether. I’d had prospects carry girls out of here several times, cuz of the hard, punishing fucks he delivered.

  “All right, we gotta run it by Prez, Mason. He might wanna take it to Church, put it to vote, cuz of her known connection to Stone.”

  “I doubt it. I’m sure he’s going to want me to stop the bitch ASAP.”

  “Then you’d be dead wrong, Cross,” a deep growl came from behind me, startling the both of us. “Leave Natasha. Leave the whole thing alone.”

  Prez strode into the room, eyes distinctly narrowed in warning. Whenever he fixed that glare of his on you it was made all the more intimidating, due to the odd amber shade of his irises. Like fucking fire. Devil’s eyes, we called them. And, honestly, the guy had done enough to qualify for the title. But as far as I was concerned, he’d been good to me. He’d given me a home, a purpose.

  Although, he seemed more than a little pissed at me now. He ran a hand through his shock of thick black hair then folded his arms of steel across his leather-bound chest as he eyed Liam and me in turn.

  Slade Mitchell was in real good shape for a guy in his mid-forties. He was built like a damn warrior. Then again, he had to be with enemies like Nik Stone gunning for him.

  “You got that shit outta Warlow, Mason. That’s it now. Don’t need you involved no deeper in this situation.”

  “Look, if this is about what happened with that frat guy, I—”

  “It ain’t.”

  “Then—”

  “Natasha’s been taken care of.”

  My body went rigid. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Slade?” Liam questioned.

  So, even the VP was out of the loop. What the fuck was going on?

  “How?” I knew Prez. There was no way he would’ve let outsiders, or any of our contacts take care of business like this that was so personal and so vital to the security of the club. “All our members are here, so who—?” And then it slammed into me. Brutally. I could barely choke out the next words. “Cole? His secretive, personal leave? He went to retrieve her?”

  “He’s the only one who could get close enough. She trusts him,” Prez confirmed, nodding. “He’s bringing her back for interrogation.”

  Scoffing, I said, “Like hell, he is. He won’t let us lay a hand on her.”

  “He’ll get us the intel we need through any means necessary,” Prez said, his confidence unwavering.

  The innuendo was clear and it made me sick to my stomach, given mine and Cole’s history with that bitch. So sick, in fact, that I couldn’t take another second of discussing the fucked up plans that Prez and Cole had devised behind my back. Plans involving security, which I should’ve been brought in on. Plans that I would’ve found an alternative to.

  “Fuck this,” I growled, turning and storming through the door.

  I heard Liam calling out to me, Prez telling him to let me go and to give me time. I barely paid attention. Memories of dark days past were already pulling me down deep, threatening to drown me.

  Memories of the one woman who’d almost torn me and Cole apart for good.

  Natasha Ireland, known in the criminal underground as Nightshade.

  To her enemies, the nickname denoted her ruthlessness, that poisonous edge of hers that I’d witnessed firsthand. But to Cole, it signified her resilience, just like what the plant itself was known for. Fucking dumbass. I’d thought he’d been cured of his lovesick bullshit when it came to that toxic bitch. But, given what I’d just found out, I was betting all of that was in the process of being revived. Not telling me he was headed to her was unforgiveable. I’d figured all the secrecy surrounding his personal leave had involved him being desperate to blow off steam by hitting the cage fighting circuit a couple of cities away. He’d been having a hard time keeping his aggressive and violent tendencies under control since Prez had cracked down on him. I’d obviously been way off with that assumption.

  Cole and Prez were playing a dangerous game and I didn’t fucking like their stupid-ass plan. I didn’t want that bitch anywhere near the club. Especially if Nik Stone was behind the shit she’d been pulling on us. It meant she was still his girl, just like she’d been back then. And that meant, as soon as Cole brought her across Warlow’s borders, he’d come for her. Into our territory, tearing shit up to get to her, like any real man would for his woman.

  I was club-fucking-security. My job was to protect the club at all costs. So, yeah, preventing a goddamn war was a major part of that. Christ Almighty! What was Prez playing at? Did he want that?

  Fuck this bullshit.

  I needed to clear my head.

  Intending to make my way back up to my room to lay eyes on the one person I actually truly felt like being with, I was more than a little startled when I smacked into an obstacle blocking my path as I turned the corridor corner a little too sharply in my rage-fueled stride. A shrill cry activated my protective instincts and my hands shot out just as my eyes took in the sight before me.

  Shit! Luce!

  I only just managed to grasp her hips before she toppled backwards from my impact.

  Steadying her, I fisted the sides of her t-shirt firmly. “So sorry, Pixie,” I breathed, looking her over rapidly for any sign of injury. “You okay?”

  Her face was flushed a cute pink as she grinned up at me. “I’m always okay when your hands are on me.”

  Like that was it? “Yeah? Is that right?”

  “Mmm hmm,” she said, her eyelashes fluttering flirtatiously. “Way more than just okay, actually.”

  I took her in for the first time since we’d collided. The sight of her in my t-shirt had my cock stirring instantly, pushing against the zipper of my jeans. She had it tied on both sides, just shy of baring her mid-riff, cuz it was so huge on her and would’ve come down far past her knees otherwise. The possessive male in me roared with satisfaction. This was more than your girl wearing your football jersey. It was hard to explain to anybody outside of club life. I guess the best way to describe it was close to a promise ring situation, verging on engagement ring terr
itory. Luce would be on the back of my bike now. Always. She was mine now. I’d made a claim on her and by wearing my t-shirt, she’d accepted that.

  And it meant a hell of a lot to me. Luce was a free spirit, so to allow any sort of possession to be taken of her showed me just how much she truly trusted me. Not only that either, but the fact that there’d been no resistance from her, was a testament to just how deep her feelings ran for me.

  “Thank you,” I said, brushing my fingers over her cheek.

  Knowing eyes looked back at me. Of course she knew what I was getting at without me needing to spell it out. We’d known each other for too long for her not to. “I’m yours.”

  I pulled her to me by her hips and crooned in her ear, “And I’m yours, little darlin’.”

  I needed to reassure her, to confirm to her how I felt about her right now more than ever, given the shit that was going down around us and what I was going to have to do. To protect her. I’d figured last night was a one-off. That I just needed to keep her under the clubhouse roof, locked down, until Abi sobered up and Liam managed to get through to her stupid-ass so she was no longer in the unhinged mindset of dragging herself or Luce into any more treacherous situations.

  I’d managed to achieve that—mostly because she didn’t know about it—but with the whole Nightshade and Nik Stone threat, I needed her safe 24/7. The current protection detail I was running on her wouldn’t be enough, not by a longshot. She had to be locked down at the clubhouse. With Cole apprehending Natasha, it made Luce a target. If Nik wanted to retaliate, Cole’s little sister would be a key individual to go after. The only important person in his life. His only blood family. A bargaining chip for Natasha.

  That fucking idiot. His actions were putting Luce in danger. Well, I wasn’t going to let his mistakes touch my woman. I’d protect her. At all costs. Even if it meant pissing her off in the process.

  That was why I needed to talk to her. ASAP.

  I released her, dropping my hands from her hips, and stepping back.