by Warren, Rie
Man, did I get choked up when I watched her walking down the long aisle toward me on her dad’s arm. Her beauty stunned me silent. The importance of the day plowed through me.
Unbelievable . . .
Hunter patted me on the shoulder. “I know how you feel.”
Everyone stood, turning toward Sin like flowers to the sun as she streamed down the aisle.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
The closer she got the harder my heart knocked.
My pulse pounded as her dress whispered across the marble floor.
When Sin and her father reached me, Leland clasped my hand. “I entrust her to you, man to man. Mind you, we both know Sinclair can take care of herself.”
I returned his hard handshake. “I’ve never been more honored, sir.”
He nodded, stepping away with a kiss to Sin’s cheek.
The priest stood ready, but I needed to see my woman’s face before he began.
I touched the bottom of her gauzy veil. “Can I lift this, precious? I want to look into your eyes when I say my vows.”
“Yes, Cole.” She nodded.
With shaking fingers, I drew the veil up over her face. Tears had already gathered in her spring green eyes, tracing down her cheeks as she smiled at me.
“Oh, goddamn, Sin.” I thumbed away each teardrop, and kissed her softly. “I can’t believe you’re mine,” I whispered.
She touched my face, kissing me back. “Technically not yet.”
“Probably better do this thing, huh?”
When we faced the priest together, we linked our hands.
The vows we said were stamped on my heart: love, cherish, honor. Always. Sin spoke with a tremble in her voice, and I barely made it through the promises I made to her. Heart, soul, body. Forever.
I stared at her the whole time, knowing I’d take this memory to my grave.
The rings exchanged, the priest intoned, “I pronounce you husband and wife!”
The magic words.
I swept Sin off her feet, into my arms. I’d never let her go. The kiss we shared was definitely scandalous, X-rated. Nothing appropriate for a house of worship. And everyone thundered to their feet, clapping, stomping, cheering, whistling.
Pride.
Love.
Peace.
Lust.
That was always what I felt with Sin, never more so than in that moment.
We strolled down the aisle, her on my arm, a fucking huge grin on my face. Flower petals floated over us and we raced outside.
As the church bells peeled, we stood on the top step—people streaming outside behind us—kissing until we broke apart, laughing.
The mayhem never stopped.
After the fancy reception downtown, we journeyed to Retribution, a pack of motorcycles at our backs.
As soon as Sin and I opened the door, Billy Idol’s White Wedding began blaring over the speakers.
“I give you Mrs. Sinclair Chatham-Sawyer!” I shouted, picking up my wife in my arms and carrying her over the threshold.
The bellows that greeted us were nothing short of manic.
The drinks ran freely. The dancing went on and on.
I did the garter toss.
Bo caught it, his mouth gaping wide while Doc Ronnie shook out her long red hair and sauntered up to him. “Don’t look so scared, babe.”
“Scared?” Bo hooked an arm around her waist. “I’d be fucking delighted to marry you. Make you my woman officially, V.”
Aaaaand another round of screaming whistles and loud shouts almost brought the roof down.
We only stayed an hour. We had a honeymoon to get to and lots of fucking to do. Luckily we’d planned the wedding just right, and I had a nice long winter break from the Academy.
Outside, my Harley had been decked out in black and white streamers. Sin and I helmeted up, and she straddled behind me. Her gown hiked up to her thighs, the train bustled up the back.
I couldn’t wait to find out what she wore underneath.
We roared away, headed to the airport and destination decadence for one week.
She was all mine.
We bought a banging house in Mt. Pleasant, a house in which I banged Sin a lot. Didn’t really like her purchasing it outright—that was the macho gene in me. I decided I’d take care of most of the bills to offset my male-must-be-the-provider tendencies.
Her money didn’t matter to me. Taking care of her did.
Sin made me feel more excited, more alive in ways I’d never known I was missing.
She changed my entire life, but not who I’d always been inside. I was a member of Retribution MC. I still did the tat gig on the side at Inksanity. I was one last step away from becoming true blue.
I was a better man because of Sin. For Sin.
I was a husband, and about to become so much more than that . . .
****
I settled my uniform cap over my head and calmed my shit. I couldn’t stop the grin spreading across my face, though, as I made my way onto the outdoor stage, in line with the other cadets. I didn’t have a job yet, but I hoped like hell Chief Tilden could find a place for me on the Mt. Pleasant PD force.
I stood in the front row as one of the top graduates in my class. The navy blue uniform was snug on my muscled build, the holster at my waist heavy with the service-issued Glock.
February in Charleston, the day wasn’t too cold but it sure was bright. Blindingly so.
As I scanned the sea of people in the seats below, everyone was there. It seemed like my crew took up half the audience. Sin sat with her folks in the first row. Her grandparents had also shown. They’d brought my mom, too.
This was so different from when I’d graduated from college, nearly alone, pretty much lost, digging myself out of a steep black hole.
“You look like you need a hankie, Probie!” Brodie shouted from two rows back.
I crushed the urge to flip him off.
From the seat behind him, Tail smacked the back of his head. “He’s the man now, fuckwit.”
Oh, Jesus. I hoped the ceremony started soon, before my guys started breaking the folding chairs over each other’s heads.
Tuck sat beside Tail. Detective Ashe Kingston beside Brodie. Handsome, Kinkaid, Sadie—they were all present. Boomer smirked at me. Hunter was there with JB and Hunter’s son Jack. JB looked more and more pregnant every day. Bo and Doc Ronnie were present. Ronnie had finally nailed down the ongoing Iron Coffins trial with Saul Kosnik on the receiving end of a death sentence.
Even Cat and Nick Loveland turned up.
It was the craziest fucking thing ever. And actually I did need a handkerchief. The MC—the extended version—sat in the audience. Retribution had multiplied. They were all there with their old ladies and growing families.
I tried to harden my face, but when I returned to look at Sin . . . shit.
Front and center, she glowed more than ever. She wore a deep green dress that hugged every sexy curve, and a short jacket in soft white zipped to her neck. Her hair shined, but her smile was even brighter as she hugged her hands to her chest.
I still couldn’t believe she was with me. She was my wife.
Dipping my head in her direction, I winked.
Finally, the ceremony began with trumpets sounding off. Our names were called one by one. When my turn came, I strode across the stage, my smile huge.
“FUCK YEAH, COLE!” Kinkaid yelled.
Then it was like he’d triggered fireworks. All the guys shouted and whistled. The women stood and clapped.
“THAT’S OUR BOY!” Brodie rose up on his chair, raising a fist to the air.
Sin got to her feet, her claps joining the others, and soon the entire crowd was giving a standing O.
“I love you,” I mouthed to Sin.
She blew me a kiss back.
I returned to the line formation, only half listening to the rest of the ceremony, my eyes on Sin the entire time. I wanted her in my arms. STAT.
A
t the end, the honor guard fired off, straight into the air with rounds of shots that left clouds of gun smoke hanging in the atmosphere.
Bo belted out, “Jesus. Trying to give me flashbacks or fucking what?”
Walker appeared out of nowhere, his long black braid hanging down his back. “I still got some C4 left from Jacksonville. Really set your nuts on edge.”
They bro-hugged, then Walker turned to me with an oddly regal bow.
I was stunned he’d showed.
Finding Hunter in the crowd, I narrowed my gaze on him.
He shrugged, trying to appear innocent. Totally failing.
And this was my family—crazy and mixed up as it was.
I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Released from my rigid posture after shaking hands with my fellow graduates, I walked down the steps of the stage. I kissed my mom on the cheek. She recognized me enough now so it wasn’t unusual, although she still didn’t return my hugs all that often.
Regina pulled me to her, whispering, “Ah am so proud of you, Cole.”
Leland was next, formidable as ever, but no longer quite as scary.
We shook hands before slapping each other’s backs.
“Proud of you, son. You done good, for yourself and Sinclair.”
I chugged down the emotion in my throat, nodding at him.
Sin.
Fucking A.
My heart almost spun out of control every time I looked at her.
In uniform for the first time, I approached her.
Her white-blonde hair loose over her shoulders, she flicked her eyes up and down my body. Her gaze was a match igniting me. The things I wanted to say to her. The things I couldn’t wait to do to her.
The ways I wanted to love her good.
“Cole,” she breathed out.
“You like the duds.” I brushed her bottom lip with my knuckle.
“Can’t wait to get you out of them.”
“That so?” I spun her in my arms, bringing her to me so her so-fucking-hot ass nestled against my cock. “What do you want tonight, precious? A long fuck. A slow wet one? Handcuffs?”
She arched into me.
Cupping her chin, I turned her to me so I could kiss her shiny red lips. “Handcuffs it is.”
“Yes,” she moaned, tilting further back.
“Mmm.” I spread my hands over her belly that had grown a little round and fertile. “How are my babies?”
Sin kissed me long and rough. She kissed me until I felt the raw urge to have her.
Pale green eyes gleaming, she asked, “Which one?”
“You and these little ladies, precious.” I trailed my fingers from her hips over the small swell of her stomach, feeling the tight heat.
“All my beautiful girls.” I bent to kiss Sin again, tangling my tongue with hers.
We never did do things by the book. This time was no different—we found out Sin was pregnant before the wedding. The early scans showed twins. It was too soon to find out the babies’ sex, but there was no doubt in my mind they were girls. And I’d never been prouder.
Sin slipped from my arms when Tail shotgunned his bike to life.
“Party at the Retribution House!” he roared.
The thunder of motorcycle engines already rumbled underfoot as I steered Sin toward the Trans Am she let me drive . . . sometimes.
“You ready for this, precious?” I settled her inside, kissing her with all the need she spiked inside me.
She broke away with a gasp, her hands curled into my shirt. “I’m ready for everything with you, Cole.”
Bad Boys of Retribution MC series is now complete!
And keep reading for the first chapter of Carolina Bad Boys #3: Steele. Available now!
Hunter:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UWHWMO8
Kinkaid:
http://www.amazon.com/Kinkaid-Bad-Boys-Retribution-Book-ebook/dp/B0107FKIP4/
Bo:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZDWEBJQ
Coletrane:
http://www.amazon.com/Coletrane-Bad-Boys-Retribution-Book-ebook/dp/B011ADPC26/
Chapter One
Suck
MAY. MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH Carolina. Bike Week. Destination? Suck, Bang, Blow bar.
I hadn’t been here for five years, about the time my folks died, Cat almost killed herself, and Boomer and I tried to make it all better.
Fuck yeah, I needed this. I loved this. I rode down the strip as multicolored lights flashed from electric billboards for attractions offering cheap thrills. The seabreeze off the shore sent salt across my skin. The road into Myrtle Beach was one big bitching battle of hogs and Harleys and MC hotheads ready to tank back a beer or two or many more before doing the charity thing tomorrow. Rough thugs, bearded dudes, and men with handlebar mustaches to rival the handlebars of their rides.
Nick Love might cruise on a beautifully restored ’46 Chief—hell, he rode my sister, not that I wanted to think about that—but I handled hot metal like it was an extension of my cock. I muscled my Harley with the new angel emblems and polished ape hangers through the forest of black leather, bright bandanas, and honeys slinging their bikini tops off at every stoplight.
I reached into my saddlebag for a brew, cranked it open against my palm, and got ready to glug it while I sat at the last red light between the Suck Bang Blow Roadhouse and me. When the light turned green, I took a sharp left and slipped into a sweet slipstream that landed me in the last ounce of space amid my home away from home. The parking lot was congested with cigarette smoke, motorcycles, the noise of laughter, and RPMs that tore up pavement.
An unlit cigarette dangled from my lips as I throttled down. I eased off my Harley and lifted the black brain bucket from my head. I’d detailed it to say: FUCK IT. I’m late. But fucking off takes a lot of time.
I tapped my Marlboro Red on my wrist before lighting up. I only lit up when I planned on drinking it up. That I intended to do, as well as getting laid every imaginable way as long as I was the one in the driver’s seat. I’d spent far too long on the sidelines, being the responsible one. It was time to shed all that shit, if only for one week.
I blew smoke rings and fucking sailboats with each exhale, ambling through the crowd. I drew deep from the beer in my hand.
“Hey, Steele!”
“Brodie, dude.”
“Where the fuck ya been?”
During my walk toward the ramshackle roadhouse I was offered beer, coke, pussy, crank, joints, and more pussy. Armloads of pussy.
I declined all offers. The pussy would come later. Hell, maybe a spliff too, but I was rarely in the mood for it. And I didn’t touch the street drugs. Bad shit happened to people who got hooked, and I didn’t have that hero-cannot-die complex anymore.
When your younger sister went off the rails because she got addicted to smack, and your folks died in a horrific car wreck . . . When you were the last one standing after all the carnage to identify your parents’ bodies so they could be properly buried, you figured out pretty fucking fast how fragile life was.
You learned where and when to take your risks. A needle full of dope or a sniffer full of coke, both were not odds I’d ever play with.
I took a last drag from my cig and mashed it under foot.
It was so hot the black tar stuck to my boots. The parking lot of the SBB bar was a thousand times busier than the basement at that girl Belinda’s house in high school. For two bucks a pop, she’d let anyone feel her up. The line usually stretched up the stairs and out the front of her house. She’d made a killing off her 38DDs.
Whatever happened to Busty Belinda?
The scorching parking lot may have been hot, but the women were even hotter. Okay, not that grandma-type over there. Her bikini top barely covered her sagging titties beneath the beaten-to-shit, hell-to-leather jacket she wore.
Fuck me. My eyes.
But whatever, her hog was bigger than mine.
Maybe the one in her pants, too.
N
ah.
The parking lot was hundreds of bikes deep from one side to the other in orderly columns that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was a gleaming, glittering, rumbling heaven. The road beyond roared with metal machines matched only by the beer-drinking, pot-smoking, loud-talking crowd I swaggered through until I reached the saloon-style doors that led into Hell on wheels on earth.
It was dark inside Suck, Bang, Fuck. Damp. Dim. The perfect place to commit some secret perversion you’d been dreaming about all year long before you returned to humdrum real-life that included work, worries, and shit-gone-sour.
Concrete and come. Road tar and grease. That was what it smelled like inside the roadhouse. Loud rock tunes blasted from the speakers. Every charter in South Carolina and beyond was represented from Lesbian Leathers to the Asheville hippies to Sand Hill’s Sons O’Bitches.
Pool cues knocked against balls.
The bar was heaving. The crowd cheering.
A leather-clad honey held the dance floor. She worked that shit like she was earning cash instead of ear-bashing “bring it on!” yells.
My balls knocked in my pants at the sight of the woman.
She looked familiar. So did the bottle of beer Tuck pushed into my hand as soon as I drained my first. He was with the Presidents of Retribution MC. I was the VP. Boomer, my brother, the Prez. Tuck was the moneyman. Tuck, as in Friar Tuck, plus his real name was Tucker. He was as round and bald as the Robin Hood money launderer, except for the wicked handlebar mustache he waxed to two precise points. Hey, we might be goons, but we weren’t fucking illiterate. We had a brain cell or two left, and some of us even knew the classics. Like the Costner version of Robin Hood where that Alan Rickman Snape-dude stole the evil show.
Tuck was like a grandfather to Boomer, Cat, and me. He’d held our wrecked family together after our folks died.
He didn’t wear a brown cassock but a Big and Tall Retribution MC cut unzipped over the round belly that matched his round face. The backpatch on his leather was identical to mine: a bony white skull weighing down the scales of justice.
Tuck knocked his bottle against mine. “Good ride up?”
“Yeah. Fucking perfect. Open road between Mt. Pleasant and Georgetown. I just had to avoid those speed traps and the LEOs.” I turned and set my elbows on the bar. “I swear, Tuck, every time I see a cop on a moped, I think it’s Kingston out to bust my chops.”
