Pranked

by Sienna Valentine

  “At least I have some,” I shot back, regarding his beer. “Real men drink liquor, Reid. Not Coors.” I curled my lip in disgust, then glanced over at Wyatt, who’d thus far been silent. It was cruel of me to pick on him, but his stupid ass was the original reason I’d called this meeting, so I had no qualms about venting some of my annoyance in his direction. “And whatever the hell this is,” I added, turning his bottle around and staring at its label in shock. “Pabst?”

  “Fuck you,” Wyatt muttered, pulling his beer out of range, his attention momentarily drawn away from the TV screen and the MMA fight playing across it. “I like PBR just fine.”

  Of course he did. Because he was still a goddamn infant. And as such, he had no business getting thrown in a holding cell because of a stupid turf battle that could’ve been a whole hell of a lot worse. A battle that had started because Wyatt was doing his level best to go down the same hellish road our father had so many years ago.

  The Bright Falls Beasts were a black mark on all our records. They were the local chapter of an MC dear old Dad had founded back in the day, one that left a legacy of bloodshed and terror. A legacy that had been assigned to the three of us by proxy. We were his sons, and as such, we carried the sins of our father. None of us more than me—I was the eldest. I was the one he’d groomed to take over someday. Out of the three of us, I’d been the most involved.

  I’d done things I knew I could never fully outrun. I knew my hands would never be completely clean. And sometimes, it felt like I should’ve been more forthcoming with Reid and Wyatt about that. Especially now, when Wyatt’s dumb ass was so close to ruining the more noble reputation we’d all been working so hard to build over the past few years.

  Sure, we were still the Brody Bunch, still the bad boys, still the ones mothers raised their kids to stay away from. But slowly, we were throwing off the mantle of “public nuisances” and well on our way to earning our keep in this town. I used to get pulled over all the damn time for what we called “driving while Brody,” but in the past six months, I could count on one hand the amount of times I’d been hassled by some cop with a grudge. I’d kept my head down. Took legitimate jobs. Stayed far, far away from anything to do with the Beasts and their crumbling empire.

  At one point, during the height of Dad’s reign, they had stretched all the way from Arizona to Montana, and as far west as Washington and Oregon. They were the most feared gang north of the Rio Grande, rivaled only by the cartels down in Mexico. They lived up to their name, lived up to their patches that marked them as one-percenters. Comes from that time the American Motorcyclist Association commented on the public’s perception of motorcycle clubs, stating that ninety-nine percent of members were decent, law-abiding citizens. Which left one percent as outlaws. In my youth, that distinction appealed to me. What young man didn’t want to be seen as dangerous, as powerful, as the heir to a kingdom? It was a status that came with all kinds of benefits, including, but not limited to, a steady supply of wanting, willing pussy.

  But that shit all takes a backseat when your dad goes off the deep end and starts shooting at the Feds. It’s around that time, when you’ve just turned eighteen—when you’re looking at the faces of your younger brothers and knowing nobody’s gonna take them in—when you’re thinking how Mom’s been dead for years, and maybe if she wasn’t, the Beasts wouldn’t have ended up quite so bad—that you start worrying about bigger problems. Like how the fuck you’re gonna keep your family intact after you watch your father get hauled to prison on live TV. Or killed.

  Neither Reid nor Wyatt had any idea the kind of deal I made to keep their asses out of the fire. To get custody of them both so neither one of them had to live through the horrors of foster care. I tried my best to shield them from that sacrifice, thinking it was the noble thing to do. But on days like today, I wondered if I’d done them some kind of a disservice. Reid was an ungrateful bastard, and Wyatt treated our old man’s legacy like it was something to be proud of. Like the mighty had fallen, but would someday rise again.

  It gave me goddamn chills.

  “Come on, you said you wouldn’t harp on this shit,” Wyatt whined when I brought it up to stop Reid’s persistent, snide remarks.

  It worked. Reid glanced at me, then at Wyatt. The expression on his face told me he’d forgotten all about me showing up late to the party. “Why? What did you do now?”

  Wyatt sulked. So I filled Reid in.

  “Fuck’s sakes, Wyatt,” he hissed. “Are you trying to put targets on all our backs again?”

  “I didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” Wyatt insisted, and I watched him clench his hands into fists. Wyatt had one hell of a temper. Sometimes it was amusing. Other times, it was destructive in all the worst ways. I sipped my drink—the one Probably Kimber had brought while Reid and I were still trading verbal blows—and shook my head at Wyatt’s shitty explanation. “I was just hangin’ around when shit happened to go south. That’s all.”

  Reid and I exchanged looks. He looked just as exasperated as I did. And who could blame him? Even if Reid wasn’t clued in on every aspect of how the Beasts worked, he’d been involved too. Low-level stuff, but enough to mark him almost as bad as me. But at least his juvenile record was sealed, thank Christ. One of the conditions of the deal I’d made to buy us all our freedom.

  The deal Wyatt was now throwing in my face.

  I didn’t want to be thinking about this. I didn’t want to be talking about this, again, for the umpteenth time. I wanted to be nursing my whiskey and thinking about Hannah, about the way her lips had felt on mine, about how she’d wrapped herself so tight around my cock. I wanted to relive the sexy way she arched her back and moaned with her panties stuffed in her mouth—how damn dirty she was. Was she like that with all the guys? Or was that something she’d done just for me?

  Shit, why did I care? She was just another woman in a long line. Sure, she stood out from the crowd, but at the end of the day, she wasn’t mine. And I wasn’t hers, either.

  We’d had our moment in the sun. Maybe we’d get to have a few more. But that was it. That was always it.

  So then why couldn’t I stop thinking about the arrangement we’d made, and how that meant I’d get to spend some more time with her? Maybe because I hadn’t fulfilled my obligation yet, and because I could see that Hannah’s sisters had arrived, two pretty young things dressed like they’d stepped right off the cover of some historical novel. Wyatt had noticed them, too. While we argued, he stole glances at them during the breaks in conversation, singling out one in particular. The younger looking one. The blonde.

  Huh. Okay, maybe what Wyatt was missing in life was an incentive. Maybe, like Dad, he needed a good woman to keep his nose clean, to turn him into a man instead of the little shit he was well on his way to becoming. Maybe putting him in charge of that girl’s well-being was the answer to all our prayers. I just had to get Reid to go along with it.

  But how? Admittedly, I hadn’t thought this through. When Hannah told me she would fuck me in exchange for a favor, I’d leapt at the chance. I’d never considered that Reid was a selfish bastard who was only interested in what he got out of life. I’d been thinking with my dick, and now I had to come up with some way to entice both Wyatt and Reid into doing what shouldn’t have been so fucking hard to convince them to do.

  I loved my brothers. But sometimes I wanted to shake them until candy came out.

  Fortunately, the next time I paid Reid any mind, I saw he was staring at one of the girls, too. He was doing his best to not be conspicuous, and failing miserably. I watched him and Wyatt for a moment, thinking hard. Now that Reid was eyeing the trap, I just had to find something to bait it with. Something that would put him front and center. Something that would stroke his ego.

  I remembered the way he’d sneered at me when I grabbed that waitress earlier. And then it dawned on me. I knew exactly what would hook Reid into my plan.

  I had to give him the opportunity to one-up me.

 
“So, I see you two have finally noticed we’re not the only ones in the room,” I said the next time Reid glanced back at the bar.

  “Finally?” he said, slinging an arm over the back of his chair. I smirked. I was willing to bet he’d only noticed the one he’d set his sights on. That boy had tunnel vision when it came to whatever he found himself lusting after—cars, medals, trophies. Women.

  “Yeah,” Wyatt said slowly, his ears turning a bright shade of red. Despite his temper, he really was the most sensitive out of all of us. Maybe because of his temper. “Wonder what those clothes are all about. What’s their story?”

  Reid scrunched up his face. “ ‘Their’?” Looked like I was right. I cut in before he could ask any additional stupid questions.

  “Uh, yeah, Reid. There’s three chicks over there. Didn’t you see ‘em?”

  Reid whirled, seeming genuinely confused. I shook my head and raised my eyes once again to Hannah, who had taken time out to sit with them at their table by the bar. This time, she surreptitiously caught my gaze and I felt the world slow just a little. It was those damn green eyes of hers, like two pieces of jade set into her lovely face, framed by hair the color of rich, dark coffee. She looked so different from her sisters, dressed in their bonnets and black dresses, every inch of them covered. It was hard to believe that Hannah had come from a background like that. She looked like she’d always lived this life.

  Knowing where she came from made me wonder how she’d wound up in Trick Shots, tending bar. She’d never told me. As far as I knew, she’d never told anyone. Anytime I asked someone about her story, they’d just shrug. Seemed all anyone knew for sure was that she’d shown up a couple of years ago, desperate for work.

  I knew very little about the Amish community just outside Bright Falls’ borders. I wasn’t alone in that—they kept to themselves, save for the odd excursion into the local Wal-Mart or feed store. I knew that years ago, I’d seen some of the younger ones milling about, unattended by their parents. Rumspringa, they called it. Hannah had clarified that much in our deal, at least, letting me know it was a time when the young adults got to explore the outside world to make a decision on whether or not they wanted to commit their lives to the church.

  I didn’t know much more about it than that, other than her sisters weren’t supposed to come. There must’ve been a story behind that too, and suddenly, staring at the three of them, I wanted to know every last detail.

  “I think they might be Amish,” I told Wyatt, feigning more ignorance than I had a right to. “I’ve seen a few buggies on the outskirts of town. They’ve got a village there. Usually I only see men.”

  Wyatt seemed to only be half-listening. He was still checking out the petite blonde, his eyes narrowed as if memorizing every aspect of her. “Wonder what the hell they’re doin’ here.”

  “Yeah, thought they were, like… insular, or some shit. Isolationist,” Reid said. That surprised me. I didn’t think he knew a damn thing about anything that existed outside the sphere of things that directly involved him.

  “They are,” I replied. “Normally. But here they are.” I tipped back my tumbler, knocking back the remainder of my whiskey. “Why don’t we go ask them?”

  Reid snorted at me derisively. “What, just like that? Aren’t they über-religious, or something? They’re not gonna fall for some cheesy pick-up line like ‘What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?’ Do they even speak English?”

  Ah, and there it was—Reid’s competitive streak. The one I’d been banking on. I stood up. “Good question. I think I’m gonna find out.”

  Wyatt turned to me, his brow furrowed, incredulous. “You’re serious? Reid’s right. Girls like that, they’re…” He paused, regarding his chosen again. “…out of our league. Shit, they’re playing a whole different game.”

  Reid’s lip curled. “Speak for yourself.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Wyatt snapped. “But look at ‘em. Except for the tall one, they look like goddamn nuns. We’d be barkin’ up the wrong tree.”

  I chuckled, finger-combing my hair. “Maybe you two losers would be. But not me.” I flashed Reid my most shit-eating grin. “I don’t strike out.”

  I saw Reid tighten his jaw. “That’s because you don’t swing for the stands,” he sneered, “or the curve balls. You take the low, slow pitch every time.”

  I lifted my brows in an infuriating show of mock concern. “What’s wrong, Reid? You afraid of a little competition? Does it piss you off that I could walk over there, right now, and have all three girls eating out of the palm of my hand, just like that?” When I snapped my fingers, I made sure to do it close to Reid’s face. If that didn’t get him, nothing would.

  “Fuck off,” he hissed, standing up so fast he damn near knocked over his chair. “There’s a lot of words I’d use to describe you, Ash, but ‘competition’ isn’t one of them.”

  Bingo. I had my brother exactly where I wanted him. Part of me almost felt bad for playing him this way—but fuck it, Reid was kind of a douche. He deserved to get knocked down a few pegs.

  “Oh, really?” I said as coolly as I could manage. It was hard not to break into a triumphant smile. “Don’t suppose you’d care to bet on it?”

  “On what?” Wyatt asked, turning his attention to us again. “On all three of them?”

  Finally, I’d picked up the last piece of the puzzle I needed to get us all involved in the arrangement I’d made with Hannah. Sure, this was a shitty way to do it, but it was working spectacularly. And with how easily I’d drawn them into my plans, I was sure I could monitor each of them to ensure nobody got hurt. Least of all those poor girls.

  Hey, I never said Reid was the only one who was too damn cocky for his own good.

  “Nah, that’d be way too hard for you two,” I answered. “We’ll go for one each. Whoever gets one of those three girls into bed first, wins.” It sounded absurd the moment I said it, and yet Reid leapt at the opportunity.

  “Wins what?” he asked.

  I shrugged disinterestedly. “Respect. Bragging rights. Shit, if it’s you, Reid, I won’t call you a pussy for a whole year. How’s that sound? If you don’t, though, it’s all I’m gonna call you. Same goes for if you don’t take the bet.”

  Reid scoffed. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

  I looked him dead in his eyes. “I’m dead serious. Pussy.”

  He ran a hand through his hair and glanced back at the bar. I could tell he was thinking on it. And I knew what conclusion he’d eventually come to. He’d take me up on this ridiculous wager—his pride wouldn’t have it any other way. It didn’t matter that it was juvenile and stupid and just plain wrong. All that mattered was that there was something in it for him. And I knew that would be enough.

  “Whatever,” he grumbled at length. “I call dibs on the one with the freckles.”

  “The tall one,” I said quickly—maybe too quickly, in retrospect, but I didn’t want Wyatt getting any ideas, “in normal chick clothes.” I turned to my youngest brother. “What about you, Wyatt? You in?”

  “Deck seems kinda stacked, doesn’t it?” he answered warily, but his gaze was locked on the blue-eyed girl. “I mean, we get the nuns, you get the normal one. The fuck’s up with that?”

  “I have it on good authority she’s a tough nut to crack,” I replied, and that was entirely true. She was; even though I’d already had sex with her, I had the feeling that getting any further with Hannah than that was going to be an enormous challenge. One that I hoped I was up for. But shit, why did I care? Outside of fulfilling my end of the deal, why should it matter if I ended up figuring her out? My interest in her was unnerving me, but I couldn’t let it show. Not now, when I was just getting these two assholes to come around.

  “I’ll tone down my game to give you two a better chance,” I added. “How’s that?”

  “Bullshit,” said Reid. “Bullshit, is what it is.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want in, then?” I
asked him, leering at all three women in a way I knew would drive Reid up the wall. “’Cause if you don’t, a two-for-one special would suit me just fine.”

  Sure enough, he clenched his fists. “I said the one with the freckles.”

  Now things were getting serious. Reid was getting worked up past the point of usefulness; when he growled, it was like someone sucked all the warmth out of the room. I was overplaying my hand, and I knew it. I dropped my gaze and turned to Wyatt, clapping him on the shoulder with a shadow of my former grin.

  “Well, guess that leaves you with blondie,” I told him. Usually he’d gripe about going last, but tonight, maybe he sensed Reid’s top was about to blow, because he just nodded, shrugged, and drained the last of his god-awful “beer.”

  “Now that it’s all settled,” I said, “I’d say all that’s left to do is for us to meet our marks.” For good measure, I threw in one last jab—just to make sure Wyatt and Reid both had plenty of incentive to show me up and give it their all. “You two sure you’re ready for this? I’d hate to throw you to the wolves…”

  Reid chuckled. It was a dark, mirthless sound. “Those aren’t wolves, Ash,” he said. “They’re sheep. Lost little lambs come in from the cold. And I’m going in for the kill.” He pushed away from the table. “Whenever you two ladies wanna join me…”

  And that was that. The beginning of an ill-fated bet. The start of a journey that, had you told me I’d embark on it just a few weeks earlier, I would’ve laughed in your face.

  As I trailed behind my brothers and approached the bar, I caught Hannah’s eye and offered her a slight nod, just enough of a gesture to know that our mission had been accomplished. In return, she smiled and winked. The way it hardened my cock once more inside my jeans, I knew I was in trouble.

  At the time, I had no idea how true that was.

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