Skull Kings MC: the collection

by Sage L. Morgan

  “No, no, no, the recipe calls for two cups of flour! How on earth did you get four?” Heather screeched. “Shayna!”

  Shayna tipped her ear toward us as she stirred chili on the stove. “Yeah, what?”

  “Come here, this gal has no idea what she’s doing.”

  I winced as Shayna wiped her hands on her apron and joined us at the kitchen island. where Heather and I mixed batter for various desserts. She’d put me in charge of the lemon bars, claiming that there was no way I could mess them up. Her lips were pursed as she regarded my mixing bowl. A jolt of terror shot through my body.

  Just then, we heard the screen door bang open and shut. “Beer delivery!”

  Hearing Liam’s voice calmed me down just a little. “I’ll go help him,” I said quickly, ducking into the living room.

  Liam’s eyes narrowed in concern when he saw my hangdog expression. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head and pressed my finger to my lips. Once outside, I broke down. “I fucked up Shayna’s lemon bars, that’s what’s wrong.”

  Liam’s expression deadened as he registered what I’d just said. Then, he released a high guffaw. “What? How do you mess up lemon bars?”

  “Shut up. Where’s the beer?”

  The air inside grew thick and sweet with the smells of baking as we ferried cases of beer from Shayna’s van to the house. I thought I detected a single note of lemon, suggesting that Shayna had somehow salvaged my bars and determined them suitable to be baked. I didn’t believe in God or anything, but I definitely prayed hard that day.

  Just as we iced the last beer, a shriek of outrage tore through the house. Shayna popped into the kitchen doorway, gripping her cell phone.

  “Noah’s running late,” she said. “He says it’s because I fired his only bartender.”

  Bonnie. The three of us shared a wry smile.

  “Well, we’ll have to tell him,” Liam said.

  “After the party,” I added.

  Shayna threw her hands into the air, exasperated. “Well, I don’t know what to tell ya, kids. He says he might be an hour late, maybe two. You guys can only dust the house for so long. Go find something to do until I call you.”

  “Our pleasure,” Liam said, pulling me to his side.

  * * *

  We took Liam’s bike to the edge of town and bypassed the access road for the clubhouse, somehow. The trees grew thin around us as we got closer to the interstate. Then, we were on the interstate itself. The air opened up around us, and I saw the town’s namesake for the first time. The canyons stretched out to our left, washed in the gold afternoon sun.

  Liam zipped into a dirt road, as if he’d known it was there, and climbed his bike up a hill. Not long afterward, we were at the top of it, looking out into the red and gold valley. A white, grainy line in the distance was the only sign of civilization. Canyon City.

  I got off the bike and took a few steps forward, marveling at the sight.

  “Nobody can see us up here,” Liam said. He came up from behind and wrapped his arms around me, pulling my back to his chest. His breaths vibrated through my body, and I heard his next words inside my own head. “But we can see the whole world, can’t we?”

  I covered his hands with mine. I felt him kiss the back of my neck.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” he asked.

  I kept my eyes trained on the distance. “I wanted to handle it on my own.”

  Liam’s heart drummed steadily against my back. “I can respect that,” he finally said. “But you know you’re not alone, anymore, right?” He grabbed my shoulders and turned me around to face him. His eyes searched mine. “You’re my girl. You’re my girlfriend, and it may be a while before the club acknowledges it, but—” He swallowed. “You’re my old lady.”

  I kissed him, meaning for it to be just a peck. But it turned into another, and another, and then a deep, long, passionate kiss. Liam’s hands fell from my shoulders to my waist. I weaved my fingers in his hair, which always smelled of wind and smoke. When we finally broke apart, I could see years of ache and pain swimming in his eyes.

  “You’re not alone, either,” I whispered.

  Liam pushed his mouth against mine, and suddenly I craved him. I pulled my dress up and guided his hand between my legs. A few seconds later, I was bent over the seat of his bike, bare ass in the air, receiving blow after blow of his perfect cock.

  “Fuck, Aspen,” Liam muttered. He reached around me to pop my breasts out of the top of my dress. He rubbed my nipples as he thrust his hips.

  I raised myself on my toes, giving him room to go deeper. I didn’t know it could feel so good to have a cock inside me, to be cared for. I didn’t know I could get so wet. If I’d never met Liam...

  Liam’s ringtone floated out of his back pocket. He gave an anguished groan and quickened his thrusts, eager to finish. Sweat collected on my ass where his skin met mine, drawn by heat and friction.

  And the phone continued ringing. I screwed my eyes shut and tightened my core. We couldn’t stop yet. It felt too good to stop. I began pushing back at Liam. I slid off of him when he pulled away and rammed back when he thrust forward, letting his cock punch into my tightness. Liam moaned, and I knew that he liked it. We ignored his phone until it stopped ringing.

  We enjoyed a few seconds of solitude, nothing but the open canyon and our cries of pleasure. Then, my phone started vibrating in my purse. I sighed, and Liam slowed. He carefully slid out of me.

  “To be continued?” he said.

  “I guess we have no choice.”

  * * *

  “He’s coming!” Shayna hissed loudly.

  Various Skull Kings rushed around the house, turning off lights. Everyone hurried to find a hiding spot. Most of the good ones were taken. Heather and Farrah ducked behind the couch. Logan, being so skinny, squeezed behind a bookcase. The oldest members just stayed on the couches like lumps of potatoes, grumbling about diabetes and counting the seconds until they could eat.

  Liam held me close in the kitchen doorway. Everyone in the room held their breaths, rendering the air eerily still. We could hear Noah’s heavy boots on the driveway outside as he dismounted his bike, as he walked to the door, and finally—

  “Surprise!”

  Shayna’s voice rose an octave higher than the others. Somebody switched on the light, and Noah emerged out of the entrance hallway on Shayna’s arm, blinking away his confusion.

  “—the fuck—”

  “Happy birthday, Noah,” Logan said.

  Noah turned to Shayna. “I told you I didn’t want no party.” But there was a hint of an actual smile on his face.

  Beers were passed around, and Noah blew out the candles on his cake. The house filled with warm chatter, lewd jokes, and laughter. Liam never left my side, and he wouldn’t stop kissing me. I almost had to remind myself of the girl I’d been before coming here.

  “Hey!” somebody cried from the dessert table.

  Everybody turned to look at Logan. He held a lemon bar in his hand with a bite missing out of it.

  “Who made these? They’re fucking delicious.”

  “Oh, Liam’s old lady made those,” Shayna said nonchalantly. But she caught my eye and winked before resuming her conversation.

  “Did you hear that? It’s finally official.” I said to Liam.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Shayna called me your old lady. Bonnie said that—” I stopped myself.

  Liam’s eyebrows furrowed. “What did she say?”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. “Bonnie said that I would never be an old lady until Shayna decides that I’m good enough.” Of course, she’d been lying about that, too. It had been just another ploy to alienate me from Liam, Shayna, and the rest of the club.

  Liam snorted. “Really? She said that Shayna decides who I get to be with?”

  I winced, feeling foolish. But instead of being angry, Liam pulled me into an embrace. His chin rested on my shoulder, and his whisper
shifted the small hairs by my ear.

  “Like it or not, you’re mine, now, and nobody can take that away from me,” he said.

  I felt like I’d just won a million dollars. I turned my face toward Liam, ready to say something else, but my heart stopped when I saw the smile on his face. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Liam said. “You’re just the best thing that’s ever happened to me is all.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, that’s probably why I’m your old lady.”

  “Probably.”

  At some point, Shayna hooked her arm through mine and pulled me away to join the other old ladies. I remembered nodding in agreement a lot, but all my memories of that night were full of my own sense of hope. Somehow, I knew that my life was finally beginning, and it was all thanks to my new family.

  Biker Chick

  Amazon Gentlemen’s Club was busy for a Tuesday night, and it was my first bartending shift to boot. Between taking orders, flipping through the bartending handbook Noah kept under the counter, and running the register, I barely had time to flirt with the security guard.

  I took a rare moment to pause and glance at him across the club. Liam wove through the tables, watching patrons and dancers with his stoic poker face. He kept his arms crossed over his wide chest, accentuating the bulge of his biceps and the tattoos inked into his skin. He caught me watching him and flashed a smile that made my stomach flutter. Even after a month, I still couldn’t believe that he was my boyfriend. But our relationship was more than that, now.

  He was my boyfriend, and I was his old lady.

  A thud on the bar jerked me out of my trance. A man pushed his empty tumbler toward me. “Give me another.”

  And I was back into the swing of things. After pulling his beer, I got a flood of orders. Just as I finished pouring a round of shots, I felt an imposing presence behind me.

  “How’s it going?” Noah asked in his deep, neutral tone.

  “G-good. I think,” I said clumsily.

  “You having any trouble keeping up with orders? Buddy’s Sports Bar never gets slammed like this.”

  “It’s different, but I’m managing pretty well.”

  “Good.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief when Noah finally left to attend to his other duties. As Amazon’s owner and my new boss, he was intimidating. As the Skull Kings motorcycle club’s president, he was downright frightening.

  Liam, my own Skull King, sauntered up to the bar. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  My shoulders drooped. There was just something about Noah that unnerved me. “I could really use one, actually.”

  Liam hopped over the bar to my side.

  “Hey!” I said.

  “Relax. I work here.”

  “Shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on the customers?”

  Liam began examining the liquor bottles. “I think Logan can manage for just ten minutes.”

  I searched the club for Logan. He was the newest Skull King and acted like everybody’s annoying little brother. I found him licking a shot off of a dancer’s ass.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure he can.”

  Liam plunked two shot glasses onto the bar and mixed some tequila and ice in a shaker. His movements were quick and graceful, and I was reminded of our nights back at the clubhouse. Whenever we had the place to ourselves, a couple tequila shots never failed to get the both of us wild and hot.

  “What are you thinking about?” Liam asked when he caught me licking my lips.

  I scanned the club to see if Noah was anywhere nearby before I pulled him close by the front of his shirt. “I’m thinking about that day when you bent me over the pool table and fucked me from behind,” I whispered.

  Liam’s eyes went black as his pupils dilated. “Damn.” He passed a chilled shot into my hands.

  I stared into his eyes, imagining him on top of me. My gaze fell to his lips, plushy and soft. They’d been pressed against every inch of my body, yet I still couldn’t get enough. I felt my blood surge, thrumming through the thin veins in my arms.

  “Let’s go find an empty dressing room,” I said.

  Liam grabbed my hand and clamped it to the front of his jeans. I squeezed the hardness I felt down there.

  “What’s wrong with right here?” he whispered.

  A shiver slid up my spine as he moved his hands to the tops of my thighs, pressing into the seam between my legs. His fingers slipped past the hem of my shorts, digging themselves toward my heat. My breath caught in my chest when they plunged past my panties, brushing against my wet slit.

  “This is my first day,” I said. I gripped Liam’s neck and pushed my forehead against his. Panic rose in my chest, excitement not far behind. My heart was beating double-time, spurred by Liam’s deft fingers working their way up my shorts coupled with the thrill of getting caught.

  Liam lifted his free hand, tipping his shot glass in my direction. “That’s what liquid courage is for.”

  I grinned, lifting my own glass to clink against his. We were poised to take our shots. Our mouths floated closer together.

  A shrill scream cut our fun short. The tequila wobbled in my glass and sloshed down my arm as I jerked, startled. Liam’s hand fell away from my body. Suddenly, everyone was out of their seats, looking for the source of the noise, and it quickly became apparent where it had come from. A dancer who I only knew as Diamond emerged from the women’s restroom, white as a ghost.

  “She’s dead!”

  I turned her words over in my mind, letting the meaning behind them catch up to what I’d just heard. Noah shouldered his way through the crowd, and Liam quickly left my side and followed.

  I steadied myself on the bar, my heart racing. Something about the atmosphere was unsettling, the way the music played to silence, the blank, frightened stares, everything a strip club wasn’t supposed to be.

  Diamond fell to the side as Noah and Liam disappeared into the restroom. An entire verse of the song ticked by before they came back out. Noah’s face was even colder than usual.

  “Aspen,” he said, surprising me. “Call the sheriff.”

  Police tape blocked off the restroom. I was glad for it; earlier, I’d walked past the doorway and caught sight of the dead girl’s foot, a clear stiletto heel still hooked on her toes. Something about the color of her told me that there was no life in that body, no blood circulating under skin, driven by a ticking heart. It left a sour feeling in my stomach.

  Sheriff’s deputies kept crisscrossing the room, taking photos, collecting evidence, and interviewing the staff. The one who’d been talking to Diamond added some finishing statements to his notes and motioned for me next.

  My mouth went dry. It was finally my turn, and I had nothing to say because I’d been too busy with Liam.

  The deputy flipped to a fresh page in his pocket notebook. Hamilton, read the name badge pinned to his uniform.

  “Full name?” he said sternly.

  “Aspen Whitaker,” I said weakly.

  “And where were you when the body was dis—”

  “BLAARGH!”

  The chicken salad and iced tea I’d eaten for lunch came spraying out of my mouth in an acidic, chunky rain, speckling part of Officer Hamilton’s polished shoes and pant legs. Despite my vision going black and shadowy, I was mortified.

  “Oh my god. I am so sorry,” I said as I swayed from light-headedness.

  But rather than angry, Officer Hamilton looked concerned. He dragged over a chair and forced me into it. “Somebody get this young woman some water!” He sank down to his knees. “Are you all right, Miss Whitaker?”

  “I think I might pass out.”

  Officer Hamilton planted his hand on my shoulder, and its heaviness kept my grounded in the present. I blinked away the blackness encroaching into my vision. Officer Hamilton’s face swam before my eyes, slicked blonde hair and ice blue eyes. His encouraging, Ken doll smile.

  “You okay, baby?”

  I started at the sound of Liam’s voice. Of
ficer Hamilton turned around to see Liam standing behind him.

  “I’m fine. Thank you.” I accepted the water bottle he passed to me.

  Officer Hamilton stood up and straightened out his uniform. He gave Liam a curt nod. “Long time no see.”

  “My old lady needs to rest.”

  “I was just taking her statement—”

  “She was busy tending the bar. She has nothing else to say.”

  Officer Hamilton flashed a tight-lipped smile. His eyes lazily rose to the ceiling, cracked from the time a dancer had to shoot a gun to break up a fight. The conspicuous bullet hole was still singed in a ring of black soot.

  “I see.”

  * * *

  The few customers who’d been allowed to stay behind to give statements were finally ushered out, and Liam and I began going around the club, straightening out tables and collecting beer bottles.

  A deputy grabbed my arm and raised her hand to Liam to stop us. “Don’t touch anything.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Just do what she says,” Noah said as he walked by, glowering.

  Liam dropped the chair he’d been holding, letting it fall back on its side the way he’d found it. I froze, unsure of what to do, until the deputy fixed me with her dark gaze. I sighed and dropped my empty beer bottles onto the closest table.

  “What’s happening?” Liam asked Noah as we filed out of the club.

  “They’re shutting us down,” Noah said. “Because the girl OD’d, they want to make sure we’re not running some sort of drug den.”

  “What?” Liam screeched.

  Noah ran a broad hand over his beard. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  The parking lot, washed in red and blue lights, was empty except for the squad cars and the Skull Kings’ Harleys parked near the curb. Officer Hamilton stood on the sidewalk, talking into a radio. Liam spotted him immediately and marched right up to him.

  “What the fuck, Hamilton?”

  “Hey—”

  I rushed up to the two men and grabbed Liam’s wrist. “Don’t.”

  “Stay out of this,” Liam said, jerking out of my grip.

  I winced inwardly, stung by his sharp tone.