Two steps forward. One step back. Last night she’d confided in him, accepted his comfort and protection. He’d held her as she slept in his arms, soothing her when he thought she might be distressed. He’d thought that would be the end of any talk about leaving Conundrum, and then she’d pulled out that damned piece of paper. Totally ruined his morning. And all before he’d had his first cup of coffee, which was rapidly cooling as they spoke.
“I can’t keep you safe in a crowded bar.”
“I know how to keep myself safe.” Her eyes gleamed as she pushed her chair away from the table. The skin on the back of Jagger’s neck prickled in warning, but by the time he was live to the danger, she was sitting on the table in front of him, a feast of curves to sate even the hungriest appetite.
She lifted one long, beautiful leg and rested her bare foot on the arm of his chair, spreading herself for his viewing pleasure, teasing him with a hint of what lay beneath the denim covering the curve of her sex. He licked his lips, remembering her taste, sultry and sweet, the exquisite softness of her pussy, the ripples of her climax around his cock.
Incapable of rational thought, operating solely on instinct, he reached out and she slapped his hand away.
Denied, Jagger rumbled a warning.
“You can send some guards.” She reached behind her to push his coffee cup away and her thin cotton tank top stretched taut over her breasts. A noise erupted from his throat, part growl, part groan, all desire.
Arianne gave him a cheeky smile. “Hungry?”
He licked his lips, contemplating which part of her he wanted to taste first. “Not for food.”
“Maybe you could come, too.” She trailed a finger along his jaw, and Jagger clasped it and drew it into his mouth. She tasted of sex and honey, and his cock throbbed beneath his fly.
“You want me to come?”
Her eyes flashed and a slow, sensual smile spread across her face. She lifted her other leg and placed her foot on his seat between his thighs, her toes only a whisper away from the bulge in his crotch. Her words came out in a sensual purr. “Yes, baby. I want you to come.”
How unseemly would it be for an MC president to fuck his woman over the kitchen table while the brothers were talking outside? He drummed his thumb on the arm of his chair, considering. What if he just threw her over his shoulder and carried her upstairs? Probably better for appearances. Not that he was ashamed of his cock, but anything under Arianne’s clothes was for his eyes alone.
“Upstairs. Now.”
“Party. Later.” She wiggled her toes, easing them closer to his throbbing erection. Christ. If she didn’t stop, he would have her naked and over that table before she could say “saucy temptress.”
“I’ll set something up.”
She slid her toes closer and bit her lip, her eyes darkening to forest green. “Something’s already up, it seems.”
He gripped the armrest of the chair so hard, his knuckles turned white. “The Sinners own three bars and a strip joint in town. You choose one, I’ll close it down. You can have it all to yourselves.”
“It won’t be fun without any guys.” She tilted her head to the side and gave him a beseeching look. “Dawn’s friends are mostly single.”
The chair seemed to vibrate under his body as he fought for calm. Not here. Not in the kitchen. Not with lust raging through his veins. “You want guys,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. “I’ll get you guys. Safe guys. You tell me how many you want. I can send all the Sinners, although some will come with old ladies attached, and if that’s not enough, I can call up the support clubs.”
“Bikers? Dawn’s friends are pretty straitlaced compared to her.”
Losing the battle for self-control, Jagger reached up and cupped Arianne’s chin in his palm, then pulled her down for a kiss, savoring the sweetness of her mouth. “I’ll make sure the brothers know. They’ll behave like perfect gentlemen.”
“Yeah, right. What about drinks?” She ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, and his cock strained in his jeans as he invited her in, tangling his tongue with hers, tasting her sweetness.
“Since we can’t go where we want to go,” she murmured against his lips, “drinks should be free.”
Ravenous, he pulled her off the table and onto his lap, nuzzling the soft skin of her throat. Her scent of sex and wildflowers made him crazed, and willing to do almost anything to get her back upstairs.
“You’re pushing it, but if you ask real nice, I might consider a discount.”
“How nice?” She rocked against him, grinding her pussy into his erection.
“This nice.” He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, forcing her mouth open, then up over the bow before sliding his thumb inside.
Arianne closed her lips around him and sucked hard, stroking him with her tongue.
A low, guttural sound erupted from his throat, and he licked his lips, his gaze riveted on her mouth as she worked his thumb until his cock throbbed in time to her every pull. “Fuck yes. My girl’s got a dirty mouth.”
Arianne pulled away and smiled. “It gets dirtier if the drinks are free.”
* * *
“Riders Bar?” Zane gave Jagger an incredulous look. “You want to close down Riders?”
“We’re not closing it down. Just limiting admission to Arianne and her friends and any of our brothers who want to go.”
“How many girls?” Cade leaned back in his chair in their new executive board meeting room, a dining room in their new and soon-to-be renovated clubhouse. The long polished oak table was large enough to accommodate twelve brothers and the room could hold at least a dozen more chairs if the board needed to bring in guests or advisors as they often did.
“About thirty. But she wanted me to point out that they aren’t all lays.”
Gunner cracked a smile. “They’re all lays if you treat them right.”
Zane tapped his pen on the polished wood table, and Jagger groaned inwardly. Zane would never challenge him in front of the executive board, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t feel free to share his thoughts the minute the room cleared. And apparently he had thoughts. Lots of ’em.
Hoping to deflect Zane’s concerns, Jagger pushed himself out of his chair and paced the room. “We just blew up the Jacks’ ice house, claimed Viper’s daughter, and injured six of his men. The Jacks will be out for blood, and things are going to get ugly. We need to celebrate when we can. Last night was just blowing off steam. We need to do something big, invite a few clubs we want to patch over. Word will get around. Viper’s licking his wounds and we’re boozing it up.”
“I like it,” Cade said. “Especially the part about thirty girls who may or may not all be lays.”
Sparky’s eyebrows furrowed. “I thought you were banging Arianne’s friend.”
“She’s just interested in keeping it casual.”
Gunner clutched his chest. “No. Say it isn’t so. Casual? When everyone knows you’re a one-woman kind of man?”
“Anyone got a gun?” Cade scowled. “Care to shut Gunner the fuck up?”
Sparky leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “So, Jag. You gonna make her your old lady? You two were going at it so hard last night, I couldn’t get any sleep.”
“I’m not looking for an old lady. She’s property of the Sinners, but she belongs exclusively to me.”
He caught Gunner and Sparky sharing a puzzled glance and tipped his head back to stare at the cracked plaster on the ceiling and the dusty chandelier. “Like a sweet butt.”
Everyone nodded. Sweet butts helped the club and the brothers in exchange for protection and a place to stay. Occasionally, a brother would claim a sweet butt for his own, with a view to making her an old lady. In those cases, although the “keep off” rule for old ladies didn’t apply, the brothers respected the claim and stayed away.
Zane leaned over and whispered. “Can I be there when you tell her you’ve given her sweet butt status? You’ll need som
eone to handle the funeral arrangements.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed. “You’re the one who’s fucked.”
Jagger dug his nails into his palm under the table. He was more than aware that he was walking a very fine line between duty and desire. Zane, who knew him best, saw as much. He wondered if the others saw it, too. Making her his old lady would solve the problem, but he simply wasn’t prepared to go down that road. Not after Christel. And not with a woman who was still talking about leaving Conundrum. Declaring an old lady was like announcing a marriage in the civilian world. Both people had to want it. And they had to want it forever.
When no one spoke, he flipped through his agenda, searching for the next order of business, his body shaking with an emotion he couldn’t even begin to understand.
“Here’s how it’s gonna be.” He placed his hands, palm down, on the table. “I’m not interested in another long feud with the Jacks. We’re the dominant club in Montana and we’re gonna stay that way. I don’t care that they think they have dominant status. We need to bring them to heel.”
The chorus of assent from around the table pleased him, and he relaxed back in his chair.
“We’ve just hit them a hard blow. Next I want to launch an assault closer to home. We’re gonna pick off Viper’s senior officers one by one, starting with Leo and Bear. Find them. Bring them in. Alive. Then we’ll have some fun.” A plausible reason for bringing them in. No one needed to know his real motive for getting Leo under his fists. And if Leo didn’t survive the interrogation, the world would be a safer place.
“Damn right, we will.” Zane thumped his fist on the table, and the rest of the executive board murmured their approval.
“Any news on Axle?”
“He’s outta the hospital,” Cade said. “Sherry went to see him. Apparently, he’s even more pissed than before. Sherry thinks he’s gone crazy and he’s obsessed with revenge.”
“Makes sense,” Zane said. “Most animals are more dangerous when they’re wounded. Makes them fearless.”
What the fuck? Jagger slammed a fist on the table. “Sherry went to see him? Even though he’s out of the club on bad terms? And no one saw that as a problem?”
The room went quiet and Jagger contemplated his next move. He’d warned Sherry to stay away from Axle. No one in the club was allowed contact with any member who was kicked out on bad terms and that included house mamas and sweet butts.
“What do you wanna do?” Cade raised his brows. “He treated her like shit, but she had feelings for him. She’s a sweet girl and I’m damn sure she went to see him out of compassion, and not with any intent to betray the club. Jill said—”
Jagger cut him off with a sharp gesture, the burden of leadership lying heavy within his chest. “She knows the rules. She’s out of the club. I want—”
“I didn’t get to finish,” Cade interrupted, his voice uncharacteristically sharp. “Jill said she showed up after her meeting with Axle with a black eye, and her arm in a sling.”
Fuck. He had to kick her out of the club. It was the right thing to do. But if Axle was abusing her, Jagger couldn’t just leave her out on her own. She’d had a rough life before joining the Sinners, which meant she’d put up with a lot more than most women would, and he didn’t want her winding up with Axle because she had no place else to go. “Cade, send Wheels to find her. After I speak to her, she can stay in the safe house until she gets herself sorted.”
More surprised murmurs around the table. Everyone had assumed he was keeping Arianne at the safe house. But the last few nights, he’d had her in his bed at the clubhouse, and he didn’t want her anywhere else.
Changing the topic before he changed his mind, he looked over at Gunner. “Any luck on sniffing out our rat?”
Gunner shook his head. “I went back to the ice house and checked our position from every road. You were right. No way could anyone have known where we were unless they’d been told. And I’m wondering if the same rat called the cops at the vacant lot. Did anyone notice the cops came just as we started winning the fight?”
Jagger had noticed. He’d also noticed that Arianne had been at every location where they’d been ratted out. But he couldn’t believe she was a Black Jack spy.
“Get Tank to help you and maybe another one of the junior patch. I can’t believe someone slipped through our net, but when we find the bastard, we’ll make him wish he’d run when he had the chance.”
After business was done and the brothers had tossed around names of possible support clubs, everyone headed out to Riders. Jagger stayed in his seat, sensing Zane’s impatience, and resigning himself to a lecture about things he didn’t want to hear.
As expected, Zane waited until the room was clear and then launched his attack. Did Jagger realize he had become the subject of numerous discussions that bordered on disrespect? The president should be above gossip. His behavior should be exemplary. He shouldn’t be fucking the daughter of the club’s greatest enemy in the guise of claiming her as a blood price. If she’d been any other woman, the club would have set her to work. She should be cooking and cleaning and washing their clothes. Instead, Arianne had freedoms the sweet butts didn’t have, and she slept in Jagger’s bed.
Steeling himself to keep his temper in check, Jagger fired out question after question, giving Zane no time to consider his answers. Zane was a thinker, intellectualizing everything until the moment had passed to react. He wanted Zane’s honest answers, his true impression.
Yes, Zane said, she did contribute to the club by fixing the brothers’ bikes. And okay, she saved Bandit’s ass on the hill, and probably the lives of a couple of brothers by shooting at members of her own club. Maybe she was a better pool player than anyone he’d met, and she’d drunk the prospects under the table at the party even though she was half their weight. Her shooting was good … okay … spectacular, just like her dart game. But the only reason she outraced everyone on her bike was because she didn’t ride American.
And didn’t that say it all.
SIXTEEN
There will be no fraternizing with rival clubs.
Arianne stood on the edge of the tiny dance floor in Riders Bar, watching Dawn’s friends tangle together with a handful of junior patch bikers as they gyrated to Steppenwolf’s heart pumping, “Born to Be Wild.”
Lights twinkled on the faux vines twisted around pillars and hanging from beams on the exposed ceiling in the reclaimed mill house on the West Side of Conundrum. Smoke drifted upward through the semidarkness, giving the bar the look of a primordial swamp. She caught a glimpse of Dawn in the crowd and made her way over to her.
“Looking good.” Dawn smiled when Arianne joined her. “That dress looks even better in this light.” She pointed to the retro disco ball overhead and Arianne winced at the sight of multiple images of herself in the formfitting red dress Dawn had retrieved from the stash of emergency clothes she kept at Dawn’s apartment.
The dress had attracted more than its fair share of attention, but it was clear the bikers were operating on a hands-off-or-die policy with her. No pinches, grabs, or subtle brushes of an arm over her breast in passing. No bad lines or come-ons. In that respect, it was the tamest evening out she’d ever had.
They danced through two more songs, but when the DJ spun a heavy metal ballad, Arianne’s nose wrinkled. “Let’s get a drink.”
“I’d forgotten how hands-on bikers are.” Dawn slung her purse over her shoulder and followed Arianne off the dance floor. “I swear if I have to slap another hand away from my ass or my boobs, I’m gonna scream.”
Arianne pushed her way through the crowd and found them a standing space at the bar. “Not that I’m wanting to be touched, but I also don’t like feeling like an outcast. Everyone stands at least two feet away when they’re talking to me. When some guy stumbled into me on the dance floor, everyone scattered and he screamed and ran out the door. It’s like I have a big sign stamped on my forehead that says ‘Keep Off.’
”
“You do.” Dawn waved down the bartender. “And it’s ’cause your man is Jagger, president of the Sinner’s Tribe MC and expert scowler.”
“He’s not my man,” Arianne grumbled. “If it’s a relationship, it’s the most confusing one I’ve ever had. We’ve never had a date. We don’t hang out like normal couples. When we’re together, we’re either having sex or being shot at, chased, or attacked. No one can figure out where I fit into the club hierarchy, so they say things like, ‘So how’s the little blood price today?’ or ‘Yo, blood price, fix my puncture.’ I don’t even know where I stand with him.”
“He claimed you.” Dawn gave her a nudge. “Possession doesn’t get more primitive than that. Not many people would understand what that means in the biker world, but I do. And you do, too. You just can’t accept it.”
“If I accept it, I’m staying in Conundrum.”
Dawn laughed. “If you didn’t want to accept it, you would have contacted Jeff already and made your trade.”
Arianne cringed inwardly. Should she tell Dawn she’d been in touch with Jeff? Dawn ran hot and cold with Jeff depending on how drugged up he was when he showed up at the bar or her apartment, but how could she not share with her bestie?
“I did.” She waved the bartender over, not daring to look Dawn in the eye. “I texted him the phone number Bunny gave me, and he offered to drop off the passport with Jeft. But I wanted to see him again. I just need to know, whatever decision I make, he’s going to be okay.”
“I hope you decide to stay,” Dawn said softly. “More than anything. For you and for me. You and Jagger are good together. You’re different since you met him. More confident. More determined. Happier.”
“Safe.” Arianne twisted her mother’s ring around her finger. “I feel safe when I’m with him. But that’s a problem. He wants … no, needs … to protect me. And if I stay in Conundrum, I need to be able to protect myself.”
Rough Justice Page 21
