by Simone Elise
He inhaled on the cigarette, his piercing blue eyes on me. I watched him exhale slowly.
“You going to sit down, Layla?”
So, he had noticed my lack of moving. I rocked on my feet. Chicken out and take the recliner or make a stand of not sitting because I won’t be here much longer?
“I don’t bite.” He butted the cigarette out and a smirk appeared on his lips. “Unless you want me to.”
“Don’t flirt with me, Wilson. You’ve made your impression.” And he had made the impression that put him in the category of men I would never go near. I shouldn’t be scared to sit next to him.
“I’m working on making a new one.” He kept staring at me. “Come sit down, Layla.” Was he really going to insist I sit? Yep. I moved toward the recliner. “Next to me,” he added.
So much for the chicken way out. I huffed. It was like he knew he would be tempting me if I sat next to him.
Fine. Just do it.
I walked toward him and sat on what I would say was the most expensive couch ever.
I made sure my bare leg didn’t brush his, but my dress worked its way up as I sat down. And he noticed. I was quick to pull it down. Whose idea was it to wear a skin-tight dress? Oh right. Mine. Fucking idiot.
Well, I hadn’t planned on sitting on a couch.
I expected to be standing or sitting in an armchair. Not sitting next to the devil himself. Whose eyes were running up my legs.
“Why are you always in heels?” he asked, after his eyes had run down my full body. He could at least pretend to have masked his eyes checking me out. But he didn’t even sound ashamed about it.
“That’s a personal question on me. And we aren’t getting to know me.” I wanted to ride that fact home to him. “Next business question.”
He studied me for a bit longer. I felt like his eyes could see through me. Like he could see I was putting up a front and being next to him was so bloody tempting I was nearly forgetting about my rule of judge the actions not the image.
“Unless you don’t have one. In that case, I’m leaving.” I went to get up, but his hand fell on my bare leg.
“Are you recruiting?” he asked a business question. Well, it wasn’t really my business, though. I didn’t know if I should tell him the truth or not.
“I don’t think I should answer that,” I finally decided. That was Cyrus’s place.
“Trying to outman the mother charter of another club?”
I frowned. “Like Cyrus would ever go up against the mother charter of you lot.”
“Your dad loves money and power, two things setting up another mother charter here would give him.”
“So you think his grand plan is to set up a charter that could wipe yours out? What, set up a deadly dozen mother charter here?”
“It makes sense.”
Ridiculous! “That’s it, I’m leaving!” I would not sit here and hear rubbish. Cyrus didn’t want to take them out. Cyrus sure as fuck didn’t want to be a mother charter president. He liked being under the umbrella. Not in charge of the umbrella.
“Layla!”
I was up and going.
“Dad was thinking it, too!” he said to my back.
“Well, I didn’t pick Reaper as stupid but I already knew you were.” God, this house was like a maze. I just followed the hallway.
“I’m guessing by your reaction the answer to the question is a no.” Tyson pushed past me and then blocked my path. “Calm down, I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Well, that’s exactly what you did, Tyson. Insult me. My family. My club. Because the last thing Cyrus wants is a war over bloody money and territory.” I shook my head, feeling more furious than ever. “You know nothing about him, if you think that is the type of man he is.”
“We all know his reputation. Your dad has made a name for himself.”
“Says the man whose father is the Reaper!”
“So we agree our fathers are as ruthless as each other?”
“If you really knew my father, you wouldn’t be standing in my way right now.” I gritted out. Rex was my real father. He was the one with the reputation. My real father would shoot Tyson just for looking at me. So Tyson standing in my way would have got a bullet. Cyrus, however, was more reasonable and only shot when someone touched me.
I wasn’t proud of my father. I refused to visit him in prison. I stopped seeing him when I was ten. The same time Cyrus came into my life and showed me what a real dad was like.
My real dad, the man’s blood that ran through my veins, well, he killed for fun. It was a sport to him. He barely needed a reason. He worked for whoever paid the most. You could be the target one second but increase what he was getting paid and become the client the next.
He didn’t do loyalty. His main clients were bikers and other criminals. He worked for them because his clients didn’t want their name getting around or they just couldn’t handle the blood. And if there was one thing my real dad was good at, it was taking blood.
Rex and Reaper were as feared as each other. The only difference between them was Rex was currently in a forced retirement involving prison bars, while Reaper ruled a mother charter. And his son made my life impossible.
“Move, Tyson.”
“We haven’t finished talking business.”
“If you want to know about recruiting, then talk to Cyrus. I do the books. I make sure people get paid and the money that goes back to the club is clean. That’s it.”
Tyson sighed, looking as frustrated as I felt. “Look at my chest.” Tyson uncrossed his arms.
My eyes dropped to his vest, he had a lot of patches considering he would have only been a member for three years. He never wore the vest at school. The only other night I had seen it was at that party. I looked closer. There was one patch under his mother charter patch: sergeant at arms. He was their enforcer.
“I was just doing my job, Layla. That’s it.”
So I was correct when I thought he lived up to his father. To be an enforcer you have to get your hands bloody. I took my eyes off the patch and looked him in the eye.
He was so much bigger than me. Stronger. Scarier. These things should have intimidated me. But for some reason, I wasn’t. I wasn’t intimidated. If anything, I felt safe. Which was the only reason I wasn’t pushing past him and leaving.
He was doing his job, which meant he wasn’t being with me because he wanted to. Good. That meant whatever spark we had between us was dead.
“I think I should go. In order for you to do your job. You should be directing those questions at Cyrus. Not me.” That was a level-headed decision. “I’m all numbers. That’s it. If you think you have a threat, take it up with Cyrus.”
“Why did you call him Cyrus and not Dad?”
I didn’t even realize I had done it. Maybe because Rex had been floating in my head tonight. I swallowed. I was not telling him Cyrus was not my real father. “Just to make it clear who we are talking about. Now move, Tyson.” I stepped to the side, which he matched.
“You think our business is over?” He made that sound like the disappointment of his night.
“Yep.”
“Good. You hungry?”
I stared at him. He couldn’t be serious. “Are you bipolar?” Because that would explain his mood toward me.
“If I was, would that make you stay?” He had the nerve to grin at me. He was back to being carefree. Like he didn’t have one worry on his mind. He wasn’t acting like the sergeant at arms now. He was acting like he wanted to spend time with me without being forced to.
Us having tea together wouldn’t fall in the category of work.
“Nope.”
“What can I say to get you to stay?”
“Nothing.”
“I really pissed you off, didn’t I?”
I was glaring at his feet. Yeah he had. It was almost like his life’s mission was to put me in a foul mood.
“Co
me on. Can’t I coax you with some type of meal?”
I dragged my eyes off his feet and looked him in the eye. “Name one reason why I would stay here willingly.”
I was only here because I had to be. Now that was done, so was my visit.
I was expecting him to realize he was facing a no-win situation. There wasn’t a reason for me to stay. He couldn’t use the ‘as friends’ line because we were not friends. He couldn’t use the ‘for business’ line either because we had finished that. So there was no reason to stay.
It looked like he was coming up with that conclusion, too. I went to step around him. But again, he met my step with a more determined look on his face. I didn’t understand his expression. Suddenly his hands landed on my hips.
Oh my God, he was touching me.
Just don’t touch him back.
He dipped his head. He wasn’t going to do what I thought he was going to do, was he? Just as I thought it, his lips were on mine.
Fuck, he did it.
I kept my lips clamped and stiff. I was not kissing him back. I was not encouraging this.
“Come on darling, kiss me back,” he murmured against my lips, his voice dipping into begging. I didn’t kiss him back and then he bit my bottom lip, forcing my lips to part and he took advantage of it.
His hands went to my hips. As much as I didn’t want to, as much as I knew I shouldn’t, I found myself giving in and I was kissing him back. His tongue moved so perfectly in my mouth. He backed me toward a wall. My back hit the wall at the same time as he lifted me up.
“Legs around me, darling.”
I did as told. My legs were wrapping around him. Why was I doing this? His lips on mine sent waves of lust through me. How did he get me so hot with just one touch? He held me up with one hand, and the other pushed up my dress.
My brain screamed to stop him. My heart screamed to get him closer. And my body was screaming to let him strip me and take me in the hallway.
So which one did I listen to?
All three. I pushed him away and then wrapped my arms around his neck, forcing him to keep kissing me. His hand had pushed my dress around my waist.
Fabric was all that was standing in the way of us being skin on skin. I thought I had sworn off him and here I was letting him invade my mouth and his hands explore my body.
He began to walk us out of the hallway. I didn’t know where he was taking me. I was too high on the taste of him and the way his hand was moving up from my waist. I knew where he was heading and I wasn’t stopping him. I should stop him. But I wasn’t going to.
I liked sex. I loved the release. But I usually had sex with men older than me. Not a man the same age as me.
He was a biker so I guess he wasn’t far off my usual type.
I pulled my lips from his just as he walked us up the stairs. “Tyson, I don’t think this is a good idea.” Sex with no strings was what I normally did. But I had seen how he reacted if I was with someone else. Tyson did strings.
“I think’s a perfect idea.” He kissed along my jaw. “You’ve had me hard since I first laid eyes on you.”
“Sex can complicate things.”
“Good.”
“Tyson.” I pulled away from him completely. His ‘good’ made it sound like he wanted things to become complicated between us. “I think now is the time to tell you I don’t do relationships. I do sex. But no strings.”
“I do sex with no strings as well.” He kept walking us, stopping at a door. “But with you I want strings.”
My mouth fell open. “Did you not hear me when I said I don’t do relationships?”
He smirked. “I’m normally the one saying that.” He reached out, cupping my face. “You are perfect, Layla.”
My breath got caught in my throat at that. No one had ever looked at me like the way he was looking at me. Immediately, I panicked.
“I think I should go.” I went to get out of his grasp and off him but he just held me in place.
“I’m not letting you go.”
“I can’t have sex with you.” I had made my decision. It was not the right time. If we had sex then he might look at it as something more than just that. “Not when you are looking at it as something more than sex.”
His expression dropped. I knew immediately he was looking at having sex with me as something more than just that. I could get sex from anywhere. I didn’t need strings. I didn’t need complications and I didn’t need him acting like a boyfriend.
“Sorry, Tyson.” I felt bad—no, terrible. He wanted more and I was the one holding back. He broke my trust. And he was looking at me like I was special or something. Like I was a rare diamond, and now that he’d discovered me, he wasn’t letting me go. “Maybe we should try and be friends?” I suggested.
Even though the image he’d showed me had proven to me he wasn’t really friend material, he was, however, boyfriend material. But I didn’t do relationships. I saw what relationships did. They complicated shit.
And Tyson seemed like a jealous and protective person. Two qualities I normally love. But I lived around other bikers. They did touch me. They joked with me. They were family. And if Tyson’s reaction was to cut me off for Cameron making a move on me, well, it showed he couldn’t cope with my lifestyle.
“You have sleepovers with Hannah, right?” he finally asked, confusing me.
“Yeah, of course. Why?” Hannah basically lived at my house.
“Then stay the night. With me.”
“I’m not having sex with you.”
“Don’t want you to. But I do want you to get to know me better.” The corner of his lips twitched up, like he had a plan. “Maybe one day I can change your mind on the whole no sex thing.”
He wouldn’t have to do much to convince me to have sex with him. He just had to break down my one wall and I was his.
I nodded my head. “Okay.”
“Seriously?” He grinned like I had just made his night, no, his week by agreeing.
“Stop looking so happy.” I kissed his cheek. “And put me down.”
“No, I like holding you.” He twisted the doorknob to the bedroom and walked us in.
“So, is this where you drag all the girls to?” I grinned, knowing his reputation.
“Nope.”
I frowned. He was serious. What he did mean by that?
“Stop looking so stunned. Is it really hard to believe I haven’t had a female in here? Well, apart from Naughty and Nice.” He kissed my forehead.
Hannah and Eve had been in here and that was it? Seriously? Then it clicked. “You’ve got a dorm room, don’t you?”
A guilty expression captured his face. He didn’t have to say anything. I knew the answer and I laughed.
“You are such a stereotypical biker,” I said, forcing myself to stop laughing. “Lucky for you, I wasn’t expecting anything different.”
“Would a stereotypical biker have a sleepover with a woman he isn’t planning on fucking?” He arched his eyebrows and he had me there.
My expression softened. “No.”
He lowered me to the bed. “Do you want something to change into? I doubt sleeping in that dress would be comfortable.”
He had a point. His hands left me on the edge of the bed and I nodded my head.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked, while walking into a wardrobe.
I had said I wasn’t going to let him get to know me. So him asking me a question could violate that rule. I sighed. One question wouldn’t kill me. Wasn’t like I was about to tell him my life secret, which was Rex.
“Sure,” I said, when he walked back in holding a t-shirt.
“Why do you always wear heels?”
He had asked that earlier. I sighed. I guess I wasn’t telling him anything that secretive. “I just always have.”
“Why?”
“Well, I started to wear them for pole. And I just got used to wearing them.”
> He looked up, alarmed. “Pole? As in pole dancing?”
I nodded my head.
He swallowed sharply. “You pole dance?”
“My mum teaches it.” I didn’t understand why he was looking so startled. “I’ve done it nearly my whole life.”
His eyes were wide. “Does anyone, you know, um, see it?”
“I used to compete to help build my mum’s business. But that was back home.”
“Have you ever done it for a man?”
Why was he so interested? “It’s great for cardio and strength. I don’t do it for the sex appeal.” Did that answer his question? Nope. It would seem he wanted a yes or no answer. “No.”
He dropped the t-shirt on my lap. “And here I was thinking you couldn’t get any sexier.”
I smiled. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”
“Would you give me a private show?” He stood in front of me, locking my legs between his. “Can I be the first man you show?”
“The only man I am pole dancing in front of is my boyfriend. So no.”
“Well, if my plan works, then that will be me.”
“Nice try, Tyson, but I’m not a club girl hoping you’ll acknowledge me.”
He scoffed. “I wouldn’t be wasting my time if I thought you were a club girl.” His hand cupped my face, my head tilting back to look up at him. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Layla. It hurts to look at you and not touch.”
I swallowed hard. What do you say back to that? He was cupping the side of my face like he was scared he would break me.
“I know you said no sex, but I can still kiss you, right?” He dipped his head, looking like he was seconds away from kissing me regardless of my answer.
My hands ran up his toned arms and I stood up, wrapping my arms around his neck and bringing his head down to mine, and this time I was the one to kiss him.
For a smart girl, I sure as fuck could be stupid. At first the kiss was gentle. But he wasn’t settling for gentle.
“You need to get out of this dress, right?” He pulled away from my lips.
