by Reid, Ruby
Alex drew her close and kissed her softly on the lips. She sighed and leaned into him. Maybe it was the two years without a man, but she found herself wanting him again, but dredging up memories of Stephen had killed any real desire in her. Maybe I can be creative about the way I wake him up in the morning, she thought to herself.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Just tired. You’re taking it out of me, you know.”
“I can stop,” he said, grinning.
“I didn’t say all of that,” she said. “But I have to get a lot of work done tomorrow. I should probably call it a night.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “I have some errands to run tomorrow.”
“Here? In town?”
“Yeah. Mostly making calls and maybe heading out to get some clothes. I probably need to call that damned U-Haul and figure out what to tell them.”
Amanda almost told him to have his things shipped to her house, but that was too sudden. Still, the thought was there and not because she wanted him to live with her after a three day fling, but because she felt it was the right thing to do. After all, even before becoming her lover, he saved her life in a parking lot four nights ago. The least she could do was to let him keep his belongings here for a few days until he figured out what his next move was.
“A busy day for both of us then,” she said and kissed him.
He returned the kiss, and although it was long and heated, they both drew away easily enough. Amanda wrapped her arms around him, pressing her bare chest to his back. She loved the feel of him against her and decided right then and there that yes, she was going to wake him up in a very interesting way in the morning.
CHAPTER THREE
Alex stared at himself in the mirror and could not remember the last time in his life that he had been so conflicted and confused. There was something gnawing at the back of his mind, and it was irritating as hell. He had been awakened at seven o’ clock to Amanda’s kisses starting at his neck, then traveling to his chest and further down until she stopped at his waist where the kisses intensified and became something else altogether.
They’d made fierce love, and as he stood there in the bathroom, he could still see the crazy sexy way the sunlight had spilled through the blinds and played on her body. He was somehow sure that no matter what happened between them, that was an image that would stay with him until the day he died.
Yet, under it all was a thought that had struck him last night as he had tried to fall asleep. It hit him for the first time as Amanda told the story about Stephen’s murder and clung to him like some sort of leech, sucking at him until he had felt nearly lifeless with worry.
He looked at himself in the mirror, willing the thought to go away. It couldn’t be true; there was just no way.
Tulsa, he thought. No fucking way. This world is too damned big for such a coincidence to occur, right?
He hoped it was just a very big coincidence – one that was nearly astronomical in rarity. He’d have to make some calls today to make sure because if this wasn’t a coincidence, there was no way he could keep seeing Amanda.
A knock on the bathroom door made him jump. He rolled his eyes at his spooked reflection. “Yeah?” he asked.
“Sorry,” Amanda’s voice said from the other side of the door. “You’ve been in there for almost half an hour. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m good,” he said. “Finishing up.”
Did he sound worried? Scared, maybe? He didn’t know. His stomach was in knots, and his heart felt like a mound of sludge in his chest.
This is stupid, he thought. It has to be a coincidence.
With that thought in his head, he ran a hand through his long hair and let out a sigh. He left the bathroom and could smell breakfast cooking and coffee percolating. The afterglow of amazing sex and the smell of a great meal were enticing. He could stay here with her for a while. Hell, if he was being honest with himself, he could see himself trying to settle down with her. He had, after all, basically abandoned his place within the Unknowns to be with her.
With this terrible thought clawing at the back of his head, he was beginning to understand just how dangerous that might be.
Tulsa, he thought again as he helped Amanda with the eggs. It has to be a coincidence. Doesn’t it?
He had no idea, and he was going to be a nervous wreck until he found out for sure.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jameson Cane woke up with a miserable headache. Karla, his wife of nine years, lay next to him, completely naked and snoring. Jameson eyes her for a moment, toying with the idea of climbing on top of her and jarring her awake with some good, old fashioned morning sex. Her relatively new boob job was enticing as hell, but his mind was elsewhere, and as he continued to wake up more and more by the second, sex became the furthest thing on his mind.
What in the hell had Alex been thinking? On the heels of that question, there was another one: how was he supposed to punish the kid for his abandonment?
Jameson was furiously trying to think of a way to talk to the kid one-on-one without anyone else in the Unknowns finding out. Maybe he could talk some things out with Alex and convince him to come back. He was a beast and a valuable asset to the club. Trying to find a worthy replacement was going to be a nightmare.
Of course Slim would have to know, but Slim was reliable and one cool customer. Jameson trusted Slim almost as much as he had trusted Alex. But shit. What did his trust mean anymore? He was apparently a bad judge of whom to trust.
Damn it, Alex, he thought. You’re making this hard as hell.
Jameson slid out of bed and threw on a pair pf pants and a tank top. He quietly walked outside of the motel room and stood on the concrete walkway. There, he lit up a cigarette and watched the early morning Chicago traffic roll by.
As he let out his first huge puff of smoke, the cellphone in his pocket rang. He retrieved the phone, looked to the screen, and frowned. He did not recognize the number, so he was hesitant to answer it. But given this mess with Alex, he figured it would be best to not ignore any calls. Slowly, he pressed the ANSWER button.
“Hello?” he said.
“This is Jameson, right?” a man’s slow and steady voice asked from the other end.
“Who’s asking?”
“Oh, you know who’s asking, you asshole,” the man said. “You think long and hard about who might be calling you in a pissed off state this morning.”
“Cut to the chase,” Jameson said. “The list of people pissed at me is a long one and—”
“It’s Marco,” the man on the other end spat.
Jameson hesitated. He was rather surprised, as the last intel he had received about Marco had been at eight o’ clock last night. He had been in the hospital, having his wounds and broken bones tended to. It seemed that Alex had done an okay job on Marco after all, just not nearly as okay as Jameson had instructed.
“Surprised?” Marco asked.
“Honestly, yeah, I am.”
“Good. Look…that hit man you sicced on me was good, but he didn’t finish the job.”
“I’m aware of that,” Jameson said.
“Was the job to kill me?” Marco asked. “Did you send some softie to try to kill me?”
“No. It was just to beat you senseless. To send you a clear message about your shitty work as of late. And to also let you know that the Unknowns are coming to town, and your subpar work better not get in our way.”
“Well, message received,” Marco said. “But he stopped short. He stopped, leaving me with a broken arm, a broken nose, a cracked tooth, a shit load of bruises, and a nasty disposition.”
“What do you want, Marco?” Jameson asked.
“Your head mounted on my wall.”
“I’d love to see you try it.”
“You’re in my town now, dick head,” Marco said. “That prick you sent to scare me should have done a better job, because before I run your sissy little pack of bikers out of Chicago, I’m go
ing to find you, nad I’m going to kill you. You have my word on that.”
Jameson heard the bluff in the man’s voice. Yes, Marco had done his share of killing in the past, but if there was no money in it, Jameson was pretty sure Marco’s threat was empty. He did know that Marco was one to carry a grudge. Jameson wasn’t quite sure how far the little cockroach would go for revenge.
“Well then,” Jameson said. “Happy hunting.”
He killed the call and pocketed his phone. He stood there for a moment to finish his cigarette. Whether or not Marco had it in him to come gunning for him, the fact remained that this situation was going to get ugly. They might not have such an easy time claiming Chicago after all.
All because of Alex.
“Damn,” he said, snubbing the cigarette out on the rail to the parking lot. He flicked the butt in the parking lot and then went back inside.
He tried to be as quiet as he could, not wanting to wake Karla. But when the door closed behind him, she stirred, rolled over, and opened her eyes.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” he said.
“You look… I don’t know. Tense. Angry.”
“All of the above,” he said.
Still lying down on her side, she reached an arm out to him. “Come here,” she said. “I’ll make it better.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, babe. Not in the mood.”
She frowned playfully at him and then rolled over onto her back. She gave a long and exaggerated stretch, her breasts rising and her legs stretching. Her stomach was flat and toned, almost as if she was a fit woman in her early-twenties. No one would have ever guessed her to be thirty-seven. Sometimes, even Jameson had a hard time believing it.
“Let me make it better,” she said, biting her bottom lip as she looked at him.
Her right hand traveled over her newly enlarged breasts and then slid down between her legs where she slid a finger slowly over her sex.
“You going to make me do this all by myself?” she asked, arching her back.
He stopped where he stood, taking her all in. He had always known that men were suckers for violence and sex. It had taken less than ten seconds for Karla to change his mood, and she hadn’t even touched him.
“No,” he said, unbuttoning his pants. “No, I’m not.”
He went to her, and she did as she had promised; she worked the anger out of him quickly and with a ferocity that she knew he liked in the morning. Jameson never liked to give over control in business and always had to be the one coming out on top. In the bedroom, however, he had never put up a fight when Karla wanted to be in control. He let her work at him, straddling him for most of the duration, leaning against the headboard at an angle and placing her new fake breasts into his face.
It lasted a good while, as most good morning sex does. When it was over, Jameson wanted another smoke and silently cursed this hotel for their no smoking policy.
“Better?” Karla asked.
“Yes, actually,” he said, getting out of bed and heading for the bathroom.
“You’re still tense,” she pointed out. “Is it still about Alex?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you know what you’re going to do?” she asked.
He stopped at the bathroom door and looked back out to her. He tried his best not to look too bothered, but he was pretty sure he was doing a miserable job.
“I’m going to have to teach him a lesson, I guess.”
“Poor baby,” she said, and Jameson wasn’t sure if she was talking about him or Alex.
“Yeah,” he said.
“You going to be okay?”
“I don’t know,” he said, turning away from her and stepping into the bathroom. “I really don’t know.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Alex stayed at Amanda’s house until she had gotten squared away behind her computer and started working for the day. They shared a long kiss at her computer desk before he headed out to start his own day off. He walked out to his motorcycle and looked back to Amanda’s house, studying like a man in a dream.
Was he in love with her? No. Was he ready to say that he was in the middle of something that made him want to re-evaluate the rest of his life? Maybe. One thing was certain: looking at her house and trying to imagine coming home to it every day to meet her inside formed an anxious knot of hope in his stomach that made him more than uncomfortable.
On top of that, he knew that if there was a relationship brewing between them, it was not the best idea to kick it off with a fairly big lie, but that’s where he found himself as he finally kicked his bike to life and started down the street towards the busier parts of the city. He was unfamiliar with the city, so he had to follow the signs, eventually coming to a small strip mall that was only modestly busy as noon came around.
Alex parked his bike at the far end of the lot and took his cellphone out of his jacket pocket. He looked at it for a moment with one word swirling around in his head. Tulsa, Tulsa, Tulsa…
Nerves on edge, Alex pulled up the only number he could think of while his heart slammed in his chest, hoping this was all some really messed up coincidence. He just hoped Slim would be awake and not sleeping off a massive drinking binge from the night before. Thinking of Slim, Alex felt the first true pangs of regret for the decision he made to turn tail on the Unknowns.
God, he thought. I wonder how pissed Jameson is.
He found that he didn’t even want to think about that just yet. So before he could change his mind, he sent a call through to Slim. He listened to the phone ring several times on the other end, and then he was surprisingly delighted to hear his friend’s voice.
“Alex,” he said. “Good to hear from you, man.”
“How’s it going?”
“Crazy, man. I’m not going to lie to you… you leaving the way you did is kicking up a massive shit storm.”
“How so?” Alex asked, nearly afraid to hear the answer.
“Jameson wasn’t pleased when he found out that Marco O’Brien hadn’t been beaten to within an inch of his life, and when he found out that you had bailed, you’d think someone had told him that he’d had a son he knew nothing about his whole life and then that son had decided he wanted nothing to do with him.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. It ain’t pretty.”
“You didn’t tell him your suspicions, did you?”
“About the girl, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“No. He asked if I knew any details, but I just told him that you told me that you thought there might be something more for you out there. The sad thing is he bought it right away. He thinks a lot of you. If there was someone in the club that might wonder if there was something waiting for them outside of the club, he knows it would be you, and he respects the hell out of you for that.”
“How are things in Chicago?” Alex asked, purposefully delaying the real reason he had called.
“Marco is already out of the hospital from what we know. He’s going to cause some trouble – which is why Jameson is pissed that you didn’t pulverize the shit out of him – but outside of that, things are going, I guess. Jameson got here early after I had to tell him that you were gone. He’s pissed at you, but he does seem excited about what’s coming. He’s anxious to get started, you know?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Alex said.
“Look man,” Slim said. “You’re a hell of a good friend and all, but if you’re not coming back to the club, I probably shouldn’t be talking to you. You get that, right? Maybe after some time has passed, but—”
“Yeah, I get that,” Alex said. “But before you go, I had a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“You were with the Unknowns for that Tulsa job, right?”
“The bank thing?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, already knowing that this might be a mistake. But he was too far in now, and there was no turning back.
“Yes, I was in the clu
b, but wasn’t involved in the job. That was for those crazy assholes looking for a death wish.”
“But you know how it went down, right?”
“Yeah,” Slim said. He hesitated and then added, “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I’ve only ever heard the bare bones of it. I was wondering if you had ever heard the name Stephen Randall come up in the stories about it.”
