Bad Boy's Treat: The Possessed MC

by Amy Love

  “I’d never hurt you, Beth,” Gryff said as he settled on the window ledge. When their eyes met, his lips turned into a sly smirk, and he added, “Not unless you want me to, of course.”

  “Gryff,” she warned, her tone less playful than his. “Not now.”

  He nodded, his smile fading. “I know, I’m sorry. I was just… Shit, Beth, I wish I hadn’t pull the shit I did with you, but here we are. And with your dad—”

  “He’s not who you think he is,” Beth argued. She knew in her heart of hearts that it was true. “Please. He’s a good man. Stern, yes. Controlling… Yes, I know that better than anyone does. But he would never do anything like what you’ve accused him of doing. He wants a cushy life as the dean and a big house and a good retirement pension. He doesn’t even drink, let alone do any harder drugs. I know him, Gryff.” She looked to him imploringly, hoping that she was getting through to him. “Please don’t turn him in. Try another theory, because I know all signs may be pointing to him, but there might be another story here. Please. He’s a good man… and he’s the only father I have.”

  Gryff licked his lips and looked away, muscular arms folded across his chest. She studied them appreciatively for a moment, then turned her attention elsewhere.

  “You know,” Gryff started, shaking his head slightly, “he doesn’t deserve a daughter like you.”

  Unable to help herself, Beth let out a deep breath, the tension easing from her body, and smiled.

  Chapter 27

  “So what is it, exactly, that you’re telling us here, Gryff?”

  Honestly, he had no idea. But he had to come up with something. Sitting in front of the usual assholes who held all the strings for the Steel Phoenixes, he was basically there with his dick in his hand after months of investigating—and all because Beth had pleaded with him not to turn her dad in. If he had it his way, Gryff would have thrown Darryl to the wolves in a heartbeat. Not only was the guy sketchy as fuck, but Gryff didn’t appreciate the way he manhandled his daughter. If he did that kind of shit in public, what exactly was going on in the Truman house in private?

  Still, Beth had presented her case for her dad’s innocence, and against his better judgement, Gryff decided to believe her. Maybe his leads were wrong. Maybe he was following the wrong trail of breadcrumbs. Maybe he was falling for her and suddenly her opinion held more weight than all his physical evidence. Whatever the case may be, he’d come before his Phoenix brothers tonight to admit he had probably followed a false lead all this time, and that the dean wasn’t the man they were hunting after all.

  “Was my explanation unclear in any way?” he asked, stretching his legs, then crossing one leg over his knee. It was like facing a tribunal of some kind, all the king shits of the MC sitting behind one long table, Gryff on a chair in front of them. Unlike a tribunal, however, these assholes didn’t have stacks of paper in front of them—just alcohol and a mountain of ashy, finished cigarettes. As he watched good ol’ Micky take a long drag, he was itching to fish the pack out of his pocket and light up himself. But this wasn’t a social visit. He wasn’t here to drink and smoke like the rest of them—Gryff was here to present his findings, or lack thereof, to the men who were finally putting their collective foot down.

  “No, there was nothing wrong with the way you explained yourself,” Hammond, an old Brit with a penchant for dipping into his own coke supply, growled in that cigarette-tainted voice of his. “It’s what you had to say that’s left us… confused.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you want me to say,” Gryff said with a sigh, offering up a little half-shrug to add to his projected nonchalance. His insides were churning, however. “I’ve been following a lot of leads. A lot. The freelance guys are good on their word because they got reputations to uphold, but I just think that the dean is too easy a target. It’s been hard to get here, but now it’s like a cakewalk.”

  “Maybe with good reason,” Micky remarked. Gryff’s eyes darted to him quickly. The old man was always in Gryff’s corner, no matter the trouble he was in, but he could tell by the tone of Mick’s voice that he wasn’t totally confident in Gryff right now. “Maybe you just finally got ‘im, Gryff. Bring him in and let us do the rest.”

  “But I don’t want to spook the real perp by going after someone with as much power and reputation as Dean Darryl Truman,” Gryff argued. That much was true, anyway. If Beth was right and her dad would never do anything like this, the real asshole behind the deaths of his Phoenix brothers might run. “You just gotta give me more time.”

  “Nobody has a problem with giving you time,” Toby Barnes insisted. Head of accounting, bald-headed Toby refused all vices but women. “It’s that you probably have the guy and you aren’t acting on it. That’s where we have a problem.”

  While he didn’t think the bigshots at the Steel Phoenix Motorcycle Club would take his news lightly, he hadn’t expected some kind of inquisition about it. Shaking his head, Gryff scratched at the stubble on his cheek. Beth liked it. She said she liked the way it felt on her thighs when she was tied down and he was teasing the absolute fuck out of her with his tongue. He hadn’t said anything at the time, but he loved the way she twitched and quivered under the roughness of the hairs. Gryff swallowed thickly, somewhat annoyed at how easily his thoughts drifted to Beth—and over nothing, really.

  “Look,” he said again, his brain working overtime at how to rationally explain his somewhat irrational thinking. Darryl could very well be the asshole behind all of this, the grand mastermind who wants more than just controlling a university, but Beth had planted a seed of doubt in Gryff’s mind that was starting to blossom. “I don’t know what to say. Darryl Truman seemed like my guy, and now I’m having doubts. I want to be sure. I want to make sure I don’t spook the real perp and have a bunch of our guys end up dead as a consequence.”

  “And why would that happen?”

  “Use your fucking head, Toby,” Gryff snapped. “It’d be a message. That’s what all the killings have been about… Sending the Steel Phoenixes a message, that we’re not at the top of the totem pole anymore, you know?”

  To describe the silence that fell over the group of men as uncomfortable would have been an understatement. Shaking his head, Gryff busied himself with a nonexistent bit of fluff on his pants, not looking up until Micky asked the question he’d been dreading.

  “Aren’t you fucking the dean’s kid?”

  Heat rose to Gryff’s cheeks, his hands threatening to curl into fists. Even though he’d told Beth what kind of world he actually lived in, he didn’t want her to be a part of it. He didn’t want to hear her name come out of any of their dirty mouths.

  “Yeah,” Hammond mused, nodding as a lecherous smile spread across his lips, “what was her name again? Belle?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Gryff said dismissively. “It’s not important.”

  “Clearly it is,” Micky remarked, and when Gryff met his eyes, he saw the familiar hint of betrayal lurking. “If it wasn’t important, if she wasn’t important, you’d give her name up without a second thought.”

  “Come on, Mick—”

  “I think you’re getting swayed, Gryff,” Toby said loudly enough to speak over him. “Swayed by pussy.”

  Gryff scoffed noisily. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Look,” Toby continued, his little speech earning him nods from the rest of the men around the table, “if you think it’s the dean, you better fucking act on it and get his ass in here. You’re dangerously close to losing your place in the club, Gryff. Consider that the next time you try to cover for some uptight bitch.”

  If he wasn’t a man with a better sense of self-control, Gryff would have launched himself across the space between him and Toby and throttled the prick. Instead, the only hint of anger to show was a twitch of his eye, and he was sure it was lost on the darkness of their little interrogation room.

  With a half-hearted wave toward the door from Micky, Gryff was dismissed, and he pushed out
of his chair was such force that its legs scraped across the floor. Jaw clenched, he stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him, in search of the nearest wall for him to take his frustrations out on—followed swiftly by a very, very strong drink.

  Chapter 28

  “So does it feel weird meeting me on campus now?” Beth asked, as she and Gryff strolled side-by-side. She had a two-hour gap between classes that they usually used as a chance to grab lunch together. Once she’d learned he wasn’t an actual student, Beth assumed Gryff would prefer not to come to campus anymore.

  “No,” he told her, their hands clasped as they strolled lazily in the sea of students rushing between classes. “Is it strange that I’m here for you? I thought it’d be easier this way to meet.”

  “It is.” She nodded, then tucked her thick blonde waves over her shoulder. As the end of February approached, the weather had taken a turn for the warm, and she was able to get away with just a spring jacket over her sweater and jeans combo. The dry weeks had also negated the need for her boots, and she was able to stroll around in a cute pair of ballet flats instead. When they’d met up only ten minutes earlier, her usually stern Dom had let slip how cute he thought she looked. The compliment had made things easier between them, but it hadn’t erased all that had happened.

  Beth was still in the midst of processing how she felt about all of Gryff’s lies. One night, while they chatted on the phone, he’d admitted that he would understand if she wanted to run, if her interest in him had waned so much that there was no point in continuing what they had. Of course, her interest hadn’t waned—not in the slightest. In fact, Gryff was suddenly infinitely more interesting to her, with more layers to him than she’d ever imagined before. Still, he’d lied, hid things from her, and she wasn’t just going to let it slide. If her relationship with Gryff had taught her anything, it was not to be a pushover anymore—for anyone. While she was a submissive in the bedroom, Beth was steadily finding her voice outside of it.

  And she liked the way it sounded.

  “Have you…” She gulped and pulled her hand away, slipping it in her pocket instead. “Have you told anyone about my father yet?”

  While she’d spent a long time thinking about everything Gryff had told her that night, they’d done remarkably little talking about it since. No one had come and kidnapped her father in the dead of night, but that hadn’t stopped her from worrying about him.

  Gryff looked away, his gaze roaming the open fields that rolled gently down to the front gates and walls, and Beth noticed the way he clenched his jaw. Unable to stop herself, she murmured his name and placed a gentle hand on his arm, surprise gripping her when he pulled away.

  “They know I suspect him,” he said tightly with a slight shake of his head, “but I’m holding them off… for now.”

  She let loose a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  “But I don’t know how much longer I can do it,” Gryff admitted after a lengthy pause, and once more the cold hand of fear gripped her. Heart hammering in her chest, she looked to him, brow furrowed.

  “Why?”

  “Because…” Taking her hand, he tugged her away from the rest of the meandering students, pulling her out toward the open space. Their shoes clomped across the dry, hard grass, the campus greenery yearning for just a few more weeks of snowy moisture. Finally, when they were totally alone—as alone as one could be on such a huge, cluttered campus—Gryff turned her to face him, his expression almost unreadable.

  “What is it?” she asked in a very small voice, too small for the person she was growing into. Beth squared her shoulders, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly before adding, “I can handle it. Whatever you have to say, just say it.”

  “Three of our guys were found dead last night,” he told her, and she covered her mouth with her hand to hide the gasp. “They were making a scheduled drug run to an old client, one we’ve trusted and worked with for years, and they were ambushed. Executed with a bullet to the head.”

  “Oh my god.” Her stomach rolled at the mental image he painted, and she looked away, eyes suddenly teary. “Oh my god.”

  “So you can understand why I’m struggling not to just go where the evidence has been pointing me,” Gryff continued, gripping both of her arms tightly and forcing her to look back at him. “Beth… All roads lead to your dad—”

  “No—”

  “And I want to protect you from him.”

  She licked her lips, unable to believe him. In that moment, she just couldn’t. She knew her father. Gryff had to trust her—the evidence was leading him in the wrong direction. Right then and there, she didn’t care about drug deals and bikers and whatever other sordid details Gryff’s life might entail. All that mattered was that he was pushing a wedge between her and her father, the man who’d raised her without a mother since she was a child, and Beth couldn’t stand for it.

  She owed her father, no matter how much of a hard ass he was with her, more than that.

  “You don’t need to protect me from him,” Beth insisted, words coming out in a shaky but confident tone, “because he wouldn’t do this.”

  Gryff exhaled deeply, reaching out for her again, but she pulled away and he murmured her name imploringly.

  “No,” she said with a shake of her head, slowly backing away. “No. This isn’t him, and I’ll find a way to prove it to you.”

  She turned and fled before she could lose her nerve, feet pounding across the familiar lawns of Blackwoods University. Behind her, Gryff called out to her, but she refused to look. She couldn’t go back—not until she had something concrete to give him.

  Something to prove her father wasn’t the man Gryff thought he was.

  Something to prove to herself that the two most important men in her life were worth all the trouble.

  Chapter 29

  When she was little, Beth used to play all kinds of games in her father’s office at home. House. Dolls. Puzzles. Crosswords. All manner of distraction was brought in there. When she was young and dolls and pretty princess were the name of the game, she’d sprawl out on the floor and dominate more than half of her father’s workspace, and he would let her, of course, because she didn’t understand personal space or the need for quiet to get any serious work done.

  As she got older, Beth migrated to the couch. She did her crosswords and worked on school assignments, sometimes with headphones plugged into a Walkman or laptop in the later years. She and her father worked in harmony at home, and the only time he locked his office door there was when he had a conference call and absolutely needed to privacy. Otherwise, the door was always open. Now that she was an adult, Beth realized he probably welcomed her in there because it was a good way to keep an eye on her. For a man who watched her like a hawk, why would he banish her from the room he spent almost all his time at home in? Beth was always welcome there, and often encouraged to do her studying there.

  His office at the college was another story entirely. From a very young age, Beth knew her father’s work office was off limits. If she was there, on very rare occasions, do not touch anything had been ingrained in her brain. Don’t touch anything. Don’t move anything. Don’t visit. Her father was strict at home, but he was stricter at work. It took her a long time to understand he had a reputation to uphold. To be seen as the guy who lets his daughter play with dolls on the hard, all but untouched, leather couches was a man who was soft—feminine. He’d always tried to be hard as soon as he stepped within campus limits, and while Beth didn’t approve, she had enough respect for him not to say anything.

  Today, after almost two decades of following his rules to a T, Beth was about break one of the most important ones—if only to save her father’s life.

  She’d never been a rule breaker, but over the course of a single weekend, somehow Beth had managed to break them all. Lying. Stealing. Apparently Gryff was starting to rub off on her, even if it was only his supposed reputation that she knew of.

  On F
riday, she’d contacted her father about having dinner together Saturday night. He had a work event, but he had agreed to do a glass of wine with her in his study after. Using that as an excuse to come home without raising suspicion, Beth had gone over and stolen his office key off his ring, then made a copy of it Sunday. By Sunday evening, she had it back where it belonged, citing that she’d left her phone at his place the night before as the reason for her repeat visit. After all, she’d been living in the same dorm for years, and while weekly dinners were still a thing, Saturday night was a social night—for her father, anyway. He’d been surprised that she wanted to spend time together, particularly after the drunk bar night incident a few weeks back.

  Guilt formed a tight knot in her stomach at the idea of deceiving him like that, but it was a necessary evil, unfortunately.

  So, there she was, Monday night and standing in the hall outside of the dean’s office. Well, outside of the reception area of the dean’s office. Her father usually worked late, but Monday nights he had a standing racquetball game with one of the psychology tenured professors that he never missed. Beth knew his receptionist, after years of casual observation, usually popped down the hall to watch TV with the other admin workers at seven o’clock Monday nights and would return by eight to finish up for the night.