Rip's Baby: Hounds of Hades MC

by Nicole Fox

  So, was I a prostitute? No. Of course not. Men just paid for the pleasure of my company, and the chance to have me on their arm for the evening. It wasn't exactly my dream job or anything, but a girl had to get by somehow. Especially when I'd started out from east Texas six months ago with just four dollars to my name, a busted old truck, and a dream to be an actress in LA.

  My name on a movie house marquee: Best Actress Micah Davies. That was I'd wished for over almost the last two decades, ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper.

  But then life happened, as it does.

  First, my pickup broke down here, in this little waypoint in the middle of nowhere, just a few hundred miles from the land of the silver screen. No money, no way forward. Daddy Williams found me at the local diner and offered me a job. I saw dollar signs while we talked, enough money to get me to LA and float me till my big break.

  “Remember how last night you smarted off about that land deal I was going in on?”

  I nodded.

  “With Atchley, your date?” Daddy asked, leaning in so I'd hear him over the raucous crowd, his big voice matching his big belly as it filled my ear. “Said I was making a mistake by agreeing to it?”

  I nodded as I sipped my Cape Cod through the straw, the burning taste of alcohol hitting my throat and warming my tummy. “I remember.”

  “Well, this is what you fucking get,” he replied, sweeping his arm out over the crowd all around us, “for giving me fucking business advice in front of a client.”

  I choked on my drink, getting a nose full of cranberry juice and vodka as it came back up. He kept going before I could respond.

  He leaned in and stuck his big, nicotine stained finger in my face, making me recoil. “You need two hundred dollars to buy your way back into the house for the night, sweet little Micah, and men like these don't exactly carry that kind of cash.”

  Get back in the room for the night? What was he talking about? I had a whole wardrobe there, all my clothes, shoes, and jewelry I'd been collecting for when I moved to LA. He couldn't do that to me! There were thousands and thousands of dollars in designer clothes there, things that were mine by all rights, bought and paid for by my earnings!

  “You can't do that!” I yelled. “You can't just hold my belongings like that!”

  “Who says I can't?” he asked with a grin. “You? Who you gonna call? My buddy Sheriff Watts? He'll be too busy playing cards at the Mansion to do much about it, his eyes taking in as many tits and pussy as they can handle.”

  The Mansion was Daddy's other business that he ran, this one at the front of the sprawling estate I, and all the other girls, lived on. He ran it as a gentleman's club, a place where wealthy men could come in, play cards, have expensive drinks, and get a little action when they wanted to. Because I didn't want to be mistaken for one of those kinds of girls, I steered clear of the big house as much as possible.

  “But, two hundred dollars?” I asked, disbelief in my voice as I shook my head. “You can't expect me to get that from one of these guys!”

  Daddy laughed, his big, over-the-top bellowing laugh, his hands on his belly as it shook up and down like some creepy Santa. “Oh, honey. I don't expect that! I expect you to do some crowd-sourcing. Ain't that what the hip new thing is, now? Getting a whole bunch of people to pay small amounts? I figure you can get at least twenty-five for every blow job, maybe even fifty for a quickie. What man in his right mind wouldn't pay that much to see those beautiful ruby red lips of yours wrapped around his cock?”

  My mouth dropped open like Daddy had just slapped me in the face. “Now, Daddy—”

  “You gotta learn,” he yelled, cutting me off as he leaned in close enough for spittle to land on my face, “to keep your fucking mouth shut!”

  My head snapped back, my dark red barrel curls bouncing around my face.

  I'd never seen him this angry before. Never seen anyone this angry, I didn't think, except for maybe my Sunday preacher when he was talking about the gays and the liberals and the evils of places like Los Angeles.

  “You're my girl,” he said in a lower, more sinister voice, “and I expect a little more respect from you. Hopefully, you spending the night down on your knees in the men's room'll teach you just how good you got it with me as your daddy. Understand me?”

  I nodded mutely, my imagination filled with a room full of disgusting, eager men rubbing the crotches of their tight jeans. Bikers, oil field workers, barbacks, skeezy gamblers. A shudder went through me as I thought of them all, of what they'd do to me, especially with Mike and Daddy gone.

  He nodded back, then glanced towards his bodyguard. “Come on, Mike. Let's leave Ms. Micah here to figure out how she's gonna pay off her debt.”

  Mike, as big as a house and twice as wide, followed after him, not even bothering to glance back at me as he left.

  I swallowed hard, and even considered reaching out for Mike to beg him to stay, but the two men disappeared into the unruly crowd, leaving me completely alone.

  Two-hundred dollars? And no one watching out for me while I tried to earn it? I swallowed again and took another sip of my drink. How was I going to do this? How would I come up with that kind of money?

  Already, I could feel the eyes turning to me now that my protection was gone. Hungry, leering eyes that looked my barely- clothed form up and down like hungry wolves. I didn't even want to consider what these men here were thinking, what they wanted to do to me.

  Forget how I was going to make my money, what I wanted to know was how I was going to get out of here in one piece.

  One man sidled up to me out of the crowd of beer guzzlers and whiskey hounds, a cigarette burning in his hand. His face was scarred and pockmarked, his teeth worse than Austin Powers as he gave me a losing grin, and he smelled like he hadn't showered in weeks.

  Bile rose in my mouth as he got closer, and I immediately began to shake all over. This wasn't what I'd signed up for when I took a job with Daddy. Sure, escort jobs weren't exactly savory, but I still didn't have to sleep with creeps like this!

  “Hey, sexy momma, saw Daddy walk out of here on you. You one of his girls, huh? You looking for a date? I got a twenty, and I'll even lick your pussy before I shove it in.”

  I backed away from him, my eyes frantically searching the bar for anyone I might recognize, anyone who could possibly save me from this man, and the fifty others like him that were now intently watching our exchange. “I'm sorry,” I stammered out, “but I'm not—”

  “Come on now,” he said, stepping in closer. “I saw you with Daddy Williams. I know how his girls is, what kind of work they do on their back. My name's Zeke.” He reached out to me and stroked my arm with one finger, sending a chill of revulsion through my body. “What's yours, sexy momma?”

  I resisted the urge to throw my drink in Zeke's face. I managed to stop myself at the last moment, knowing it would just make matters worse by enraging him. But I knew this guy thought I was just some cheap whore, a piece of meat he could pay so he could have his way with me. He wasn't going to take no for an answer.

  And then I heard him, his roaring voice over the crowd as he slammed his fist into the table. I glanced right, back towards the illegal poker game that had been going in the corner

  “Fuck you,” the man, now standing, roared as another man raked in the pile of chips from the center pot. The spot in front of the angry man, though, was completely empty. “Fuck you, Samuels! You're a fucking cheat. I just know it!”

  He was tall, built like Rocky Balboa, and a total hunk even in his rage. I could tell from just one glance that he'd been in a few fights, and he'd won most of them. Something else about him really got me going, too. Maybe it was how sure he seemed of himself, even after he'd lost, or just the way his hands looked like they were used to hard work.

  “Nah, it was you, Alex!” he yelled as he spun on the man to his right, his fists balled up tight, ready to knock some sense into the world. “You threw it so Samuels could have his go at me
! You tipped him off!”

  Yeah. This guy right here was what I needed. He could play Kevin Costner to my Whitney Houston anytime. I just knew it.

  Chapter Two

  Ford

  I was seeing red again. Just like in the bad old days, when I'd been in the ring. And, just like in those days, I was flat broke because of some poor choices.

  Figured I could take my bankroll down to the tables and pick up the rest of the money I needed to pay off my loan shark, Tambor. Should've stuck to my game, blackjack, but I didn't want to waste the time heading up to Vegas, when there was a perfectly good one down here at the roadhouse.

  Now, the money I was going to use to pay off Tambor was gone, sitting in front of Samuels. Damn, stupid luck.

  I could feel all their eyes on me as I towered over them, the vein in my forehead probably sticking out an inch from my skull.

  But, goddammit, how could I have lost on three of a kind? There was no way. I knew they'd rigged the game somehow, like they'd known what was coming at the river card.

  But now I could see all their eyes on me. And their buddies' eyes, too. My nostrils flared and my eyes went wide as I glared at each one in turn.

  “Ford,” Samuels said as he leaned forward, still raking in his winnings from the pile, “either buy in, or shut the fuck up. We didn't cheat you or nothing. It's just sometimes the cards ain't in your favor, that's all. Lady Luck ain't with you, buddy. She's going steady with me tonight.”

  “Yeah, Ford,” Alex Gomez added in as he lit his cigarette and leaned back in his chair, adjusting his crossed leg beneath the table. “Either put up or get the fuck out. We still got cards to play here. Besides, you can call us cheats all you want. Everyone up here knows we play a clean game every night, and they'll back us up on that.”

  They'd back them up. I knew exactly what that meant. I threw one punch over them cheating me, true or not, and I’d get fifty guys on my ass, all at the same time. Sure, I was good, but that good? Shit, no one was that good. Not even Mike Tyson could take them odds.

  But still, I raised my fist and pulled it back. If I was going to go down and have nothing to show for it when Tambor came knocking for his money, I might as well have a concussion and some bloody fists to show him.

  “I thought I told you not to play cards here anymore, handsome?” a woman's sweet, melodic voice asked from right next to me. Before I could react, I felt her hand on the small of my back, along with her warmth as she pressed into me and touched my raised arm. She smelled sweet and beautiful, her perfume pushing through the smell of stale beer and cigarettes that filled the air.

  “The fuck?” I asked, looking down and seeing the most beautiful light blue, almond-shaped eyes, and the darkest red hair to ever fall around a face like a halo. Damn, she was gorgeous. Beautiful, even. The kind of woman guys wrote poetry about, the kind they launched ships of war over.

  “And,” she added in a low and husky voice, “I thought we agreed you'd stop kicking so many guy's asses. You promised me you'd stop beating people up in these bars a while ago, didn't you?”

  I was speechless. I just looked down into those beautiful eyes of hers and nodded. “Yep,” I agreed like I was in a dream. “Guess I did.”

  I fell into those smirking eyes of hers that seemed to hide something immense and bottomless. “Now come on and buy me a drink before we go home.”

  I broke our gaze and looked back to the guys. They were all looking back and forth at each other, wondering if they were still going to have to fight me. “This ain't over,” I growled to Samuels.

  “Table's always open, Ford,” he said as he idly shuffled the cards, cutting them over and over without even paying attention to what he was doing. “You know that. Come back when you got your bank a bit fatter, and we'll try not to swindle you outta too much of it.”

  The other men chuckled, but I noticed Gomez let go a sigh of relief as the sweet little thing beside me grabbed my arm and pulled me away, back to the bar.

  “Lose it all?” she asked knowingly as she walked beside me to the counter. “Lady Luck's fickle.”

  I just grimaced and shook my head. But when I looked her up and down in her beautiful white dress, at all the leg she was showing, and all the creamy white cleavage spilling out of her top, I couldn't help but agree. “Yep,” I said. “She sure is.”

  I got the bartender's attention. “Another beer, Rick. Another whatever she's having, too.”

  “Thought you were tapped?” she asked with a smirk.

  I was, more or less. After my time at the table, I had less than fifty bucks to my name. I glanced down at her beside me. “I am,” I admitted. “Have enough for a couple drinks, at least. Rather spend it on two drinks right now than anything else in the world.”

  Laughing, she pressed into my side, sending a little thrill through my body.

  I'd never been a slouch when it came to the ladies. Never had a problem picking them up anywhere I went, even if it was to the grocery store or the gas station or a fancy bar. More than six feet of pure muscle, and a handsome enough face I'd managed to keep from getting completely obliterated in the ring, helped with that.

  But still, I'd never seen a woman this beautiful, or this out of place. She was like a rose in a briar patch here, a bouquet of flowers someone placed in the landfill. She was big city eleven, on a scale of one to ten.

  Rick came back with our drinks. I passed her her Cape Cod, and she slid her empty away. Beer in hand, I turned to her and leaned against the bar. I could feel the eyes on us, on her, furtive glances from about half the men. Probably wondering just what in the hell she was doing with some down-on-his-luck guy like me.

  “What's your name?” I asked after I sucked down a mouthful of beer.

  “Micah.”

  “Pretty,” I said. “Ford. Ford Taylor.”

  She looked up at me through her eyelashes as she took a sip off her drink. Right then, that straw was one of the luckiest damn straws to have ever been in that dive. “Tough name for a tough guy,” she replied.

  “Can't be that tough,” I growled. “One pretty girl was enough to put me out of the fight.”

  She smirked. “Well, Ford. I was wondering. You seem like a nice enough guy, and I did do you a favor back there.” She trailed off, took another sip of her drink, then batted those long lashes of hers at me again.

  I laughed. “Lemme guess. You need a lift outta here, don't you? Your boyfriend leave you or something?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Long story, but not my boyfriend. I didn't exactly know where we were going, and my ride's already gone.”

  “Yep, you do look a little overdressed.” I took another hit off my beer, draining off the last half of it. From the way those guys were looking, this woman might get me into another fight by the end of the night, but this time for completely different reasons. I knew if I even tried to take a piss, I was going to come back to a crowd of assholes trying to chat her up. She was just that kind of woman, wearing that kind of dress, while she was in this kind of shithole bar. “Sure,” I said. “I can give you a ride.”

  Now, whether or not the car would make it, that was another story. But I didn't say it. I figured I could keep pushing my luck on this one as far as it would take me.

  She smiled again around her straw as she sucked down another good piece of her drink. “And they say chivalry is dead.”

  “You know,” I said, just before taking another drink of beer, “I don't think I've ever have actually heard anyone say chivalry is dead, just people saying folks do.”

  She laughed. “No, I guess I haven't, either.”

  We put our half-empty drinks back on the bar and I tossed some cash to Rick. He gave me a nod as he gathered it up. Together, we headed out through the boisterous crowd, the lowlifes parting before us like the sea.

  Micah had been right. Lady Luck was fickle as all fucking hell. But, just then, I felt like she was smiling down on me.

  Chapter Three

  Micah


  We sped down the highway in his old, busted up jalopy of a car. Compared to the fancy sports cars I'd been in lately on my “dates,” this thing was a hunk of trash with wheels. But to me, right then, it might as well have a been a chariot.

  “Thank you again,” I said as we whipped through the desert, the stars spread like heaven's blanket up above us, the moon casting its ivory shadow over the landscape. “I still can't believe I got stranded there like that.”

  “What happened with that anyways? What kind of asshole would leave a pretty thing like you high and dry?”