by KB Winters
“These motherfuckers are dead!”
It was an unusual display of emotion for me, but the looks of anger mixed with sympathy the guys kept sending my way said they understood what this place meant to me. I built this from the ground up.
“They destroyed almost everything.”
“Assholes,” Gunnar grunted. He was a man of few words, but over the past year I’d learned a lot about him. Gunnar never used ten words when three would suffice. His gaze landed on mine.
“I don’t give a fuck about the money, Saint. Fixing this place up is a tax write-off and a drop in the can financially. But this, this is about the fucking principle of this shit, right here. They have to answer for what they’ve done, goddammit.”
His anger took over, and I knew it matched what the rest of us were feeling too.
“They violated us,” Holden said, his deep baritone low and slow, dipped in steel. The lone cowboy among us took shit like property even more seriously than the rest of us.
“Fuck that,” I said, anger making me brave or maybe it was reckless. “They disrespected our business, our MC. Now those motherfuckers gotta pay.”
I’d never personally succumbed to bloodlust, not even when I pumped round after round into those desert dwellers who killed my buddies, but I had a healthy respect for the healing power of vengeance.
“Holy shit guys, look who woke up and joined the party!”
Cruz, the funny fucker, slapped me on the back, teasing but it was all good-natured.
“I guess now that he’s got a pretty little chica to protect, his balls have dropped and he’s back in the game.”
Everyone laughed, even me, because it was the only thing I could do that wouldn’t land me behind bars.
That, and clean. We spent hours getting rid of all the broken furniture and pool sticks, the sex toys that had to be trashed and the lights we had to replace. Every fucking thing that I’d worked so hard on, along with Gunnar, to turn The Barn Door into the premier sex club in Texas, and they fucking tore it apart in an hour.
It gutted me to see months of hard work fucked up by some fucking hoodlums with nothing better to do than take shit from hard working people. Now that they’d fucked with the Reckless Bastards, I was fully on board with making sure they regretted it.
“Well, the good news is that the safe is untouched. Doesn’t look like those fuckers were even able to find it.”
Wheeler stood at the top of the staircase with arms folded over his massive chest, blue eyes sparkling with something like mischief.
“The better news is that the Sin Room is untouched too. Not for a lack of trying though, fucking idiots.”
He wore a smug smile because Wheeler had been the one to suggest enhanced security leading to our inner sanctum.
“Thank God for small fucking favors,” Gunnar grunted and swiped a thick hand across his sweaty forehead. “I can’t wait to get my hands on these fuckers. Even one of them, one little fucking neck to break.”
“Soon man.”
Slayer wore his trademark grin but his dark eyes were serious like they so rarely were, and I knew even he meant business.
“Not fuckin’ soon enough,” Gunnar grunted and tossed more debris into the trash.
“I, uh, got somethin’ for you, Boss.” Ford, one of the younger guys on the team, stood at the main entrance to the club looking green and nervous, but I guess I’d look the same if there was a security breach on my watch.
“Come on in, kid.”
Ford walked into the bar, his baby face at odds with the cornfed cowboy look he had going on, hair still Army short. His small beard the only concession he’d made to civilian life so far. He set the laptop on the bar, and I tried not to think of Hazel’s pink pussy flashing at me from that very spot.
The footage began on the exterior of the building with me and Hazel walking out of the club wearing wide smiles and loose legs.
“Guess we know why they were workin’ so late,” Slayer teased, and I flipped him off, my gaze never left the screen.
Fifteen minutes after we drove away, three men pulled in closer.
“Motherfuckers were already on the property.”
That was a serious breach that we would have address.
“They were prepared,” Holden said as we all watched them use crowbars and hammers to break out the windows, effectively bypassing the security alarm on the main entrance.
“Put automatic privacy blinds on the list for the remodel,” Gunnar grunted in my direction, and I added it to my list.
Inside the club, the three men went absolutely fucking nuts, wrecking shit like they had a personal beef with us. But as one of the men drew closer, I recognized that familiar crop of blond hair.
“That’s the guy from the bar, the younger one. Right?”
Gunnar gave a sharp nod. “That’s him. It’s all of ’em.”
“We could just report them,” Holden, the voice of reason inside the Reckless Bastards, said.
“No.” Gunnar’s tone was firm and ice cold. His gaze seared into Holden and then into me, Wheeler, Cruz and finally, Slayer.
“These motherfuckers violated our space. Our land. Our fucking club. That violation must be met with enough force to discourage any other fucking meathead from doing this dumb shit.”
He punched his palm in the universal gesture of a man needing to kick the shit out of another man, face red as he looked at each of us again, daring us to downplay the fatal seriousness in his gaze.
“Fifty grand bonus check to the first Bastard to bring me one of these motherfuckers. Bring ’em to Hardtail. Quietly. Alive.”
Without another word, Gunnar jogged down the stairs to stew in his anger alone, at least that was my guess.
Someone turned on some music and the rest of us got to work. The longer it took to get things right, the longer it would take the club to re-open which would fuck with our revenue. I couldn’t let that happen on my watch, and I was already creating a mental list of tasks that needed to be done and vendors we needed to call. Immediately.
“Need an extra pair of hands?”
I didn’t need to look up to know it was Mitch. The man seemed to be everywhere lately, or maybe I was just more aware of him since he held all my secrets. It was a hell of a thing to trust a man, hell anyone, so much, but Mitch wasn’t all that bad. Though I’d never admit that to him.
“Hey Doc, grab a broom or a trash can and toss what looks like it belongs in the dump. Then you can tell me what you think this dream means about me and an old nurse with big ta-tas.” Cruz could always be counted on for a laugh or two and today the MC needed as many as we could get.
Instead of going straight to Cruz, Mitch made a stop beside me.
“Joplin, how are you?” To most people it sounded like a benign question, but I knew better.
“Good, but now isn’t exactly a good time to talk.”
“I’m not trying to have a session,” he whispered. “Just checking in.” His searching eyes missed nothing and even though I knew it was pointless to hide it, I didn’t want to get into it here. With all the guys around.
“You seem tense.”
“Yeah, well you’d be fucking tense too if someone trashed a year of your life, Doc. I appreciate the concern, but now really isn’t the fucking time for this.”
“Maybe not,” Mitch said, getting in my face for the first time. Mostly he was content to mentally poke at my wounds and scabs, but today he was feeling brave.
“But it’ll be too fucking late if you’re dead because your head isn’t on straight.” His chest heaved and his eyes were dark and angry. Real.
Shit, Mitch was right. I couldn’t afford to put any of my brothers at risk, and I couldn’t afford to not come back. There was so much to say to Hazel, first.
“Fine. Not here.” I turned to Slayer and shrugged. “I’ll be downstairs if you guys need anything.”
“We’re fine, bro. Go get your head on straight so we can kill some shit sacks.”
Cruz clapped me on the back again and shoved us both towards the stairs. As I headed down the stairs, I heard Cruz’s voice. “Cleaning always goes down a little easier with some tequila!” So apparently, the guys drank and partied while they cleaned.
And lucky fuck that I was, I got to talk about my goddamn feelings.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hazel
“Mmm, now that’s an alarm clock I can get down with.”
I woke up stretching my aching muscles and arching my back, but that wasn’t what woke me up, no. What woke me up was soft lips surrounded by raspy whiskers, brushing over my nipples.
“Good morning to me!” Saint’s lips were soft and playful, something I wasn’t used to in bed.
“What am I, chopped liver?” He looked up at me in the space between my tits, his eyes sparkling with heat and mischief.
“What’s wrong with chopped liver? I think it gets a bad reputation when it’s really not all that bad.”
I laughed when Saint nipped at the side of my boob playfully.
“I’m serious.”
A growl came from deep in his throat and hit me right between the thighs. “I’ve missed this body.”
For a second, just a fraction of a second, I thought that sentence would end differently, which scared the shit out of me, and I turned into his embrace and pressed my lips to his, slowly. Sensually.
“My body missed you too, Saint. So. Fucking. Much.”
Our early morning sex wasn’t a soft and gentle affair, but it wasn’t as hot and dirty as it had been the last time at the club. The forest room. Holy shit I would never look at the great outdoors the same again. But that was a thought for a different time because I had a hot as fuck, butt naked man brushing his lips all over my electrified skin.
We came together hot and hard and fast. It was dirty but not filthy, and very satisfying. I was pretty sure I’d be wearing a smile the whole day. There were no toys or tricks, no kink either. Just straight vanilla sex—in a bed. It was so intense that I knew I’d been lying to myself, wholly and completely, about my feelings for Saint.
Which meant I needed distance. A lot of fucking distance.
A solitary shower wasn’t an option, not when Saint joined me just seconds after I got the water switched to the perfect temperature. How in the hell was I supposed to resist a hot naked man, with tattoos and muscles as far as the eye could see? And then when he looked at me so intensely, his eyes dark and sensual, all I felt was cared for. Cherished. Adored.
I wasn’t supposed to be feeling shit like this. Not for Saint—or anyone else for that matter. Those kinds of feelings led to even messier things that I had no business thinking about, so I was happy when we were fully dressed, and Saint was all business.
“I won’t be around today. The club still needs a fuck ton of work.”
If I was a normal girl, I’d probably be thinking how convenient it was that he had a full day of work right after a long night of fucking. But I wasn’t normal. And it didn’t bother me.
Much.
“I could help if you guys need an extra pair of hands.”
“No,” he snapped. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Look, I’m not trying to get clingy or anything crazy like that. This is my job, too, and I kind of need it. So if helping clean the place up helps to get it back open sooner, then I’ll do it.”
“Is that fucking job all you care about?”
The anger in his words took me back a literal fucking step.
“Whoa. Seeing as it’s how I’m able to take care of myself, yeah it is what I care about. I don’t have a big family or any family really, never mind a fucking biker gang to help me out. So excuse me for thinking about myself.”
He was an ass. All the other shit I thought I saw in him must have been sex goggles. Yeah, that was it. The dick was so good it had me seeing shit when there was nothing to see.
Saint got in my face, a dark scowl marring his handsome features. “Look around sweetheart, yes the fuck you do.”
That sounded great in theory. Right now he might mean it, but in real life? No fucking way.
“I don’t need you to pretend like you care, Saint. We both know you only asked me out so you could find out who was robbing the stores in town, which I admire. But you didn’t have to lie about it.”
And that was the part I couldn’t easily forget. The lie, and how easily he’d done it. So effortlessly.
“I think we both know I would have fucked you anyway. In fact, I’m pretty sure I did.”
He took a step forward, looking hurt when I took one away from him. It wasn’t my intention to hurt him, but I needed to protect myself; when he was close, I couldn’t think straight.
“It wasn’t like that.”
His words said it wasn’t, but the guilt swimming in his eyes told me otherwise.
“I don’t want to fight with you Hazel. I can’t, not when I’m not sure if I’ll even make it home tonight.”
I wanted to be cynical and cold and unfeeling. I wanted to tell Saint that I didn’t give a shit about his little biker gang mission, because for all his talk about me, that was all he cared about. But something in his tone gave me pause.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I couldn’t forget that, despite his quiet, nice guy persona, he was a skilled liar. A trained killer and now, a biker with a vendetta. There were more reasons not to trust him, than to trust him.
“Me and Slayer are going out tonight to find these assholes. We can’t let what they did to The Barn Door go unpunished, and with their escalating crimes in town, we can’t afford to let them get bolder. More confident.”
He took a step back and started to pace the length of the room.
“We need to end this shit once and for all, Hazel. And I have to help.”
Instantly, a feeling I’d only ever felt for Jessie and myself bubbled to the surface. Fear. Hard and pulsing and very fucking real fear for Saint pumped through my veins. I didn’t need to close my eyes for the worst-case scenario to play out, because I’d been seeing it in my dreams almost nightly since I met him.
“You can’t.”
His lips twitched in amusement. “So you do care.”
“I never said that, but I’ve been having…dreams. About you.”
Why the fuck was this so hard to say? He was just a man, not even my man.
“Yeah? Well I’ve been having dreams about you too, sweetheart.”
I rolled my eyes and folded my arms across my chest, glaring at him.
“That’s not what I meant. My dreams aren’t…sexual. At all. Your eyes were open and there was b-b-blood on your face and hands…it was…bad.”
I shook my head to knock the images loose, unwilling to see them one more fucking time.
“Shit, Hazel. I’m gonna be fine. I swear.”
I shook my head again, stepping away from his touch.
“You don’t know that. I didn’t know what they were at first, these dreams. I thought it was just my subconscious way of warning me off you from the beginning but now I see.”
“I’ll be fine,” he insisted again, this time with a bit more certainty that did fuck all to sooth my worries. His hands dropped to my shoulders, rubbing soothing circles that made me want to lean into him, which was exactly why I leaned away.
Then again, it wasn’t his job to soothe my worries. Just because I had gone all female and squishy with emotions I couldn’t afford to have right now, didn’t mean that Saint had too.
In order to separate my feelings from him, from this situation, I needed distance.
“You’re right,” I told him and took a few steps back under the guise of finding my shoes.
“You know better than I do what you can and can’t handle.”
It wasn’t my business and it wasn’t my concern.
“It’s okay to be scared, Haze. I’m afraid too, but I have to do this.”
Foolish male pride.
“I’m not telling you not to. Ignore me, that was a moment of bullshit. You do you.”
His smile was almost sad as he leaned in and brushed a gentle kiss across my lips.
“I care about you, too, Hazel, and yeah, it scares the fuck out of me too.”
Without another word, he walked out the front of the bunkhouse, leaving me with only the sound of my racing heart and his heavy footfalls across the wood until he reached dirt.
At least I wasn’t alone in my feelings, but that wouldn’t do shit for me if Saint didn’t come back tonight. Maybe this was a sign that it was time to ditch Opey. It was time to move on before anyone caught a case of feelings—or worse—decided to act on them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Saint
“I can’t believe you brought Hazel here,” Slayer said, disbelief shining in his eyes from only the lighting available in Rusted Roof’s parking lot. “More than that, I can’t fuckin’ believe it worked.”
That was a relative term and I snorted.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say all that. Besides, here is where we found those assholes.”
And that was why we were back for more. It was a simple solution but one that had a good chance of working, which is why I was headed inside on my own. A deep breath rushed out of me, proving to us both that I was more nervous, more anxious than I led on.
“You ready man?”
Slayer’s voice was calm, even and there was no judgment in his voice, though I wouldn’t blame him if there was.
I nodded. “I’m ready.”
“You sure? ‘Cause if not, we can figure out a new plan. We can do this another time.”
I wasn’t sure about anything, then again, I figured that level of certainty was left in the desert. With the big guns.
“I’m determined to see this through, Slayer. I’m as ready as I can be. And if I need you, you’ll come runnin’. Right?”
“As long as there’s not a woman suckin’ my dick, I’ll always come runnin’ man.”
I laughed at his crazy ass words. “As long as you come running, I’m fine with it.”
