I grinned wide.
“But not with you.” He winked at Doris.
“Spit it out, you were telling us why you’re here with Elle.” Doris crossed arms over her chest. “Last we spoke, Elle was pretty sure you weren’t the staying type.” She shot me her stink eye.
“About that, it’s complicated, but we’re working it out.” I folded my own arms across my chest. “The important thing is we love each other.”
“Now that’s the damn truth.” Daddy laughed. “Welcome to the family.” He handed Rebel a beer.
“We’re merging our companies,” I told Daddy.
“Don’t give two damns about that business. Should’ve retired years ago.” He gave Doris a knowing look and I honestly hoped he wouldn’t say more. There were lots of things a daughter shouldn’t know.
Doris and Daddy were too cute through dinner, and for once, I thought Daddy might have a woman who’d stick.
“When are you two tying the knot?” I dug into Doris’s chocolate cake.
“We’re not.” Doris frowned over at Daddy. “The fool man has asked me three times already.”
“Don’t be that way, Dee.” Daddy winked. “I’m working on her.”
“I told you if I want to be married, I’ll do the asking.” Doris snorted. “You are cursed.”
“That’s telling him.” I squeezed Rebel’s knee. “Not everyone can get married first and hope it works out.”
Rebel grinned at me. “I did.”
“Rebel, come play a game of horseshoes with me. Leave these women to clean up.”
Doris harrumphed. “Get out of here.”
The two guys barely made it down the deck steps before Doris turned her stare to me.
“Fine. I’ll tell you everything while we wash dishes. But I didn’t lie, he broke my heart, he just put it back together again.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rebel
I walked away from Elle, sure this was when Jack told me how much he didn’t approve of me marrying Elle. He’d been all smiles around his daughter, but I expected the truth now that we were alone. He’d have to get used to me because I wasn’t letting her get away no matter what her father thought about it.
“Son, you are a miracle worker.” He clasped my shoulder. “I haven’t ever seen my girl so happy. Thank you.”
I whipped my head to him but he was serious. “You don’t care that I’m a biker?”
“Known lots of good men and more than my share of bad ones—being a biker doesn’t make you one or the other. But loving my daughter, putting that smile on her face, that makes you the best kind of man.” He slapped my back. “Besides, Gus vouches for you.”
I stopped. No one had ever accepted me so easily, sure he’d had time to check me out, dig into the Brotherhood, but his approval eased something inside me that I didn’t even know was there. “I love your daughter, and I’m happy you two worked things out.”
“We’re too much alike, hell I raised her to be a carbon copy of me, so no doubt she got my stubborn streak.” He shook his head. “Thank god she did because I’d have made a mess of her life if she’d let me. Hell, I didn’t do a great job on my own.”
There was a no-bullshit honesty about him I liked. Elle had it too, but hers was tempered with diplomacy. Jack had given up diplomacy.
“Tell me about the last couple months, and why this merger is so damn important.” He picked up four horseshoes. “It’s more exercise if we walk end to end, and Doris bitches that I need that exercise.”
“Fine by me, but really Elle should tell you the story.” I didn’t want to piss him off now that he liked me.
“Just the basics.” He threw the first horseshoe.
“Well, I guess it all started because you pissed me off.” I was a no-bullshit kind of guy too. I told him about our business deal, then the marriage deal. “In my club, a woman you want to be with forever joins the club with you as property.”
I threw a horseshoe, waiting for the explosion.
“Know about that shit.” His face didn’t give away any clues as to what he thought about it.
I threw another horseshoe, this one rang on the pole. “Anyway, part of that would involve her business, but I didn’t want her business, just her, so I thought it better to walk away. My brothers had a different idea. The merger gives us an equal stake in each other’s companies and we provide the cash to expand the bail bonds businesses and Elle has the experience to run the whole thing, plus it gets around the business worries I had.”
Jack nodded. “You’ll let her lead the whole thing?”
“She’s the one who was raised in the business, I’ve been doing it a few years, way behind on that curve.” Besides, no one let Elle do anything. “Elle earned that place.”
Jack grinned wide. “Knew I liked you first time we met.”
“I didn’t like you, but you’re growing on me.” I tipped my beer to him.
We continued playing the game and talking. He was a tricky bastard and beat me soundly.
“So what’s my girl’s last name?” We walked back toward the deck
I stopped. “It’s Jackson, she isn’t changing it.”
He frowned at me. “Why?”
“Bikers don’t really do marriage, hell I hardly use my name. No reason for her to take it.” I had no desire for her to wear my father’s name. I sure as hell wasn’t proud of that heritage.
“Hunh.” He started walking again, whistling “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
I collected Elle from the kitchen and we said our goodbyes with a promise to come to dinner next week. We’d have to work out the day since Sunday brunch was out unless they wanted to come to Barden.
“You okay?” I asked as we walked to my bike.
She turned to me, happiness lifted up her face. Damn, I loved seeing her happy.
“I’m real good, making up with Daddy and Doris healed something inside me.” She laid her fisted hand on her chest. “I was so worried about it and it was so easy.”
“He loves you, baby.”
“Yeah, he does. He likes you too.” She leaned up on tiptoes to give me a quick kiss.
And maybe the dinner healed something inside me. Not many people accepted me, let alone trusted me with a treasure like Elle, but her father did. I had no doubt about it.
* * *
I paced in the living room of Elle’s townhouse. She was upstairs doing whatever women did to drive men crazy. “Get your ass down here,” I yelled up the steps. “Dresden will be gone before we get there.”
A moment later, Elle appeared in the red dress. The dress she’d worn the first night I’d seen her and she looked even hotter tonight than she had then. “Fuck, baby, you can’t wear that.”
“Why not?” Her face puckered into a pout.
“I’ll be fucking hard all night, and where’s your gun?” I tried to sound anything but desperate.
She slid up the slinky red material to show me her thigh holster. “Right there, honey.” She gave me a sexy smile and I was lost.
“Good thing we’re taking your truck,” I grumbled.
We made it out of the house and to the club without me losing my mind and fucking her right where she sat, but I really wanted to.
“Let me help you down,” I warned her before I hurried to her side of the truck. I lifted her down, letting her body slide down mine. It was sweet torture.
I placed my arm around her and we walked into the Red Light Club. The dance music irritated me when we walked in the door but Dresden was the designer drug dealer to the dance crowd. Tonight he was supposed to be here, so I’d suffer the music. Elle’s body moved with the beat as she made her way through the crowd. My intel said Dresden liked the corner stool at the bar.
We walked
toward an open pocket at the bar. When I got closer, I noticed a cut. Fucking Charlie sat at the bar, the crowd stayed away from his Bandit cut. This was the last place I expected to see him. “Amigo, you swim in strange waters.” I grasped his arm in a handshake.
“I was about to give up on you.” He whistled. “Damn, Elle, glad I stayed for the show.”
She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Good to see you, Charlie.”
I convinced the two guys next to Charlie to move on, helping Elle up onto her bar stool before I sat next to Charlie. “What can I do for you?”
“Just wanted to say thank you and share a drink.” The bartender set a bottle of whiskey between us.
I leaned over to Elle. “Maybe you can take care of Dresden while I catch up—”
“Oh no.” She grinned at me, knowing I was giving her grief. “Last time I came back to collect you, you passed out on the way home.” She ran her fingers down the deep cut of the dress. “You will be fucking me tonight.”
“Oh, baby, you can count on that.” I grinned at her. Charlie handed me a glass of whiskey which I passed to Elle.
He held up his glass. “To friends.” We clinked glasses before I downed my whiskey. Elle sipped hers while watching our target.
“You made it work between you.” Charlie spoke into my ear because the damn music was loud and entirely too fast.
“Yeah, we made it work.” I remembered telling him she wasn’t my girl. “I’ll be patching her into our club soon.”
“She’ll be hotter with your patch.” Charlie poured another round of whiskey.
“If that’s possible. You good? Everything settle the way it needed to.”
“Better than I expected. Life’s good, and I’m here in Dallas now, overseeing our business here.” He smiled wide. “Lots of time for us to get drunk.”
“Sounds like a plan, but tonight, I’m a working man.” I waggled my brows.
“Working to get that dress off, maybe.” He glanced over at my mark. “Elle could take him. Can’t believe she took Spike down on her own.”
I laughed. He was right, she could do it on her own but she didn’t have to, she had me. I’d always be there for her. “She’s tough, but I like keeping an eye on what’s mine.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Elle
Since I couldn’t hear myself think, there was no way to hear what Rebel and Charlie said to each other. Instead I nursed my whiskey and kept an eye on Dresden. If our intel was right, he should head out the back soon. When he left, I’d follow to take him down, and Rebel would bring the truck to the back.
Dresden moved off his bar stool. I tapped Rebel, who gave me a nod before saying something to Charlie. When Dresden began moving through the crowd, I followed behind him. Since he had on a teal shirt, he was easy to spot in the crowd I pushed through. He was headed to the back hall, just like he was supposed to do. I followed, drawing my Taser from between my breasts. While my gun chafed my thighs, I hoped I didn’t have to pull it. This place was too crowded for a gun, too much could go wrong.
Why had I worn this dress? I slipped between two guys, one brushed my tits and the other groped my ass. I considered shocking the shit out of them, but then I’d have to knock Dresden out with my fists, and that wasn’t the plan. Rebel got grouchy when I improvised.
Only Dresden and I were in the hall now, we’d passed the bathrooms and turned the corner to the exit. It was too early in the night for the walls to be lined with couples doing the nasty.
Dresden started to turn but I stuck the round end of my Taser into his back. “Keep walking if you don’t want me to ruin that shirt.”
“Okay, honey.” He oozed sleaze. “We can come to an arrangement. I’m sure I have what you need.”
He stepped through the exit door into the Dallas night. Garbage and the smoggy smell of the city met me. Headlights blinked, that was Rebel.
“Walk to the truck,” I told him, pushing the barrel into his back.
“Gotcha.” He didn’t even resist, sure he could talk his way out of whatever trouble he was in, more likely buy his way out of it with drugs or cash.
Rebel stood beside the truck. “Wait.” He slowed when he saw Rebel. “What is this?”
I sent the electric current through him. He fell to the ground, stunned.
“Couldn’t resist?” Rebel secured his hands before checking him for a weapon. Nada. Then he hauled him into the truck.
“He was so slimy and gross. He needed a shock.” I liked my Taser, maybe a little too much.
I hiked my dress up and climbed into the truck.
“No panties, you are naughty.” Rebel grinned over at me.
“You like me naughty, now let’s turn this garbage over to the cops and go home.” I unstrapped the annoying thigh holster and tugged down the skirt of my dress.
“Baby, I love you.” His serious tone made me look his way. Love shone bright in his eyes.
“I love you too.” I reached out and squeezed his hand. “Now drive. I want you to take me home and strip me bare.”
“Damn, baby, you might break me.”
“Nah, you can handle me, you’re the only one who can.” I loved my tough biker who owned me heart and soul. And he understood me better than anyone, but better, he loved me just the way I was. I never thought I’d find that.
“That’s right, only me.”
* * * * *
Acknowledgments
Thanks so much to the great editors at Carina Press, especially Lauren. And it’s been wonderful working with my agent, Jessica, on this series. There are so many friends I want to acknowledge in helping me get here. My critique partners—you know who you are—have helped me improve my writing and supported me as I learned about publishing. I also can’t say how much I have appreciated my writing groups and the open community of romance writers in general.
Also available from Jade Chandler
and Carina Press
Enough
Release
Deny
About the Author
I live in Kansas City with my children and animals in less than organized chaos. From an early age, bad boys piqued my interest as much as the strong women who could meet them challenge for challenge.
A romance addict, I turned to writing when my own stories refused to stay in my head. A true-believer in happily ever after, romance has always held the number one place on my bookshelf, and now my tablet. I enjoy escaping to new worlds and meeting all kinds of people who live in the imagination of others. Now that I have brought my imaginary world to life, I find I cannot write fast enough to bring those ideas to you.
My floor may not always be vacuumed, but laughter and craziness surrounds our family of four, spurred on by our cat, dog, and school of fish.
If you would like to know more about my upcoming book releases or anything else Jade-related, visit me on my website www.jadechandler.com. Or enjoy my social media ramblings at any of these sites:
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Twitter: Twitter.com/JadeChandlerRom
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Goodreads: Goodreads.com/user/show/37229091-jade-chandler
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Satisfy your desire for more dark, erotic motorcycle-club romance from Jade Chandler with the Jericho Brotherhood series.
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