Burning to Ride

by Michele De Winton

Her chin jutted out and she finally straightened. “You can’t drag me back here like that. I’m not your bitch. Not here, not anywhere. You asked me to leave. I left. End of story.”

  “I’d never want you to be my bitch,” he said quietly.

  She stopped and looked at him properly. He saw the calculation in her eye, despite the gloom of the place and the fact she was surrounded by men in bike leather. “No one will stop me from leaving?”

  He shook his head. “If you still want to go when you’ve heard everything I have to say, no one will stop you. I won’t let them.”

  She nodded. “Five minutes.”

  “Five minutes.” He took her elbow and led her to a stool at the far end of the bar. It was quieter, but not much.

  Briony gave him a nod but Hade floundered a moment, wondering where to start. Lee beat him to it and straightened her shoulders. “Finally work out that I didn’t have anything to do with the drugs?”

  He nodded.

  “I tried to tell you.”

  “And I didn’t let you.”

  “Going to say ‘sorry’?”

  He smiled. “Sorry.”

  She looked at him properly for the first time and he thought he saw a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “And I’m sorry I brought the girls back to your place. I didn’t know they had gear with them. I know you hate it.”

  “I do hate it. More than anything.”

  “I get it. Your brother died. And I should’ve known better than to think they’d come to the party clean. Drugs have gotten me in enough trouble to last me the rest of my life.”

  There was a pause where the energy between them started to shift. Her jaw softened. Her face lost its haunted look. “And I get that you’re loyal to your gang in a way that I don’t understand.” She opened her mouth to say something else and he put up a hand.

  “Thanks,” he said and meant it. “Trust is a hard thing to re-learn.” Her faced softened further and he knew instinctively that he’d said the right thing. Finally.

  “You going to add anything to that apology? You know I was trying to make money, not steal it?” she said, a spark finally reappearing in her eye. The glint of sharp laughter he knew and relished.

  “Worked it out eventually. Figure you made the school total up to seven grand with your cover charge.”

  “Seven thousand, two hundred and twenty-two.”

  He shook his head. This was the part of her he was crazy about. The hard-nosed, smart woman who pulled no punches in her quest to help, even when she was completely vulnerable.

  “That it?” She stood to go but hesitated long enough for him to grab her arm. “That’s not the half of it. I’ve been an idiot,” he managed.

  “Oh, really?”

  “I was trying to do everything all at once. Leave a legacy for my brother. Be Mr. Fix It for Rocco. Clean up the shitty drugs so kids like Kenny didn’t get fucked up all the time. Be the guy in charge. No distractions, no disappointments.”

  “And?”

  “Didn’t work.”

  She didn’t say anything, and Hade’s heart released some of its black, viscous casing. If she didn’t leave straightaway, maybe they stood a chance.

  “Turns out the only thing I give a crap about is cleaning out the shitty drugs. The rest was just other people’s stuff.”

  There was a pause and he took her hand, hoping that this was going to be enough. “You were a big part of me working that out. But you were wrong about me not knowing what family means. And I’d like to prove it to you.”

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I already met your gang.”

  “Yep,” he said. “But there’s more to me than that.”

  “What happened to Hell’s Boys are all the family you need blah, blah, blah,” she said, pulling her hand out of his.

  “They are my family. But not all of it. My pop’s dead, my brother’s dead, and I don’t have anyone else. When shit got real, Hell’s Boys were there for me. And then I met you. Despite my own fucked-up sense of what I was supposed to be doing, you showed me that I can follow my own lead.”

  “Good for you.” She took a long staggering breath. “So, if that’s it, I’ll take my apology and chug down it with a shot of bourbon.”

  “I haven’t finished,” he said and he wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the hope flare up again in her eyes. “I’m falling in love with you. Have fallen. Hard. Harder than Rocco’s crusty leather jacket.” He was aware that he was fumbling this, but he didn’t know how else to say it so he stammered on. “I mean, I’m in love with you.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Say that again.”

  “Which part?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Not the part about Hell’s Boys’ fucking obsession with leather.”

  There was a rumble of laughter around the room and Hade realized that everyone in the bar was watching them. Listening to his every word. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and threatened to run the fuck away.

  Hade gritted his teeth and forced the words he’d never thought he’d say out in the air again. “I’m in love with you.”

  There it was, the twitch of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

  “Please don’t make me say it again. Third time might turn me into, I dunno, a frog or some shit. Isn’t that how this goes?”

  She laughed, the bright warm sound that he’d missed so much all week. “The princess kisses the fucking frog and he turns into a prince,” she said and took his hand.

  “Well, that’s clearly not going to happen,” he said, taking both her wrists and pulling her gently toward him. “Do you forgive me?”

  “A kid died,” she said. “I didn’t realize at the time. But I get it: you were protecting your family from the big, bad she-wolf.”

  “Can we quit it with the fairy tale crap?” he said. “I’m not exactly the bedtime-story type.”

  “Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” she said and this time the smile creased her mouth properly, opening up her eyes and bringing back the warmth he’d been missing.

  From behind him, Rocco cleared his throat and Hade blinked slowly, perhaps to try and make everyone go away. But when he opened his eyes, he was still in Wilde’s, Lee was in front of him, and almost every member of Hell’s had their gaze locked on him.

  “What?” he growled.

  “Leaders don’t do love. Not like this,” Rocco said simply.

  If it could have, Hade was sure the room would have taken a unified breath.

  “I know,” Hade said, suddenly sure of what had to happen next. “So I’m bowing out.”

  If he’d had a pin to drop, it would have echoed in the silence of the room.

  “You sure about that?”

  Hade kept Lee’s hand in his and turned to the head of Hell’s. “It was Jason’s dream. Not mine. I still want drugs out of the gang, and I’ll do everything I can to make that happen. But following in your footsteps, following the lonely road. It’s not for me.”

  The pause was one of the longest Hade had ever experienced and he saw the faces of all the members of Hell’s as he scanned the room. Was this it? Was he giving all of this up for a woman?

  He pulled his gaze back to her and realized that yes, he was. If Hell’s couldn’t take that, then he’d misjudged what it meant to be part of their family and he didn’t need them anyway. Still. It wasn’t until Rocco raised an eyebrow and slapped him on the shoulder that he released the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

  “All right, then. Don’t think you’re leaving Hell’s though. We need you.” Rocco turned and walked into the crowd and just like that, Hade’s whole future changed.

  When he turned back to Lee her eyes were huge: the pupils black with shock, her nostrils flared. “You just quit.”

  “Not really. I just moved sideways. Isn’t that what people do in the world out there? You know, with real jobs and shit?”

  Her smile turned into a smirk. “I wouldn’t really know. But you sure? If you did that fo
r me, well, wow, but don’t. You’ll only resent me for it.”

  “It wasn’t just for you. It was for me, too.”

  For a moment the two of them looked at each other and the rest of the world fell away.

  “So, am I’m forgiven?” he managed finally.

  “Fucking idiot,” she said, “Falling in love was not part of the plan.”

  The grin on his face felt better than twenty shots of bourbon. “You do feel it, too?” he said.

  “All I feel right now is the need to have that great big cock of yours inside me,” she said then fell into his arms. “Idiot.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said and lowered his head to kiss the crease at the edge of her eye, her nose, her mouth. It quickly turned into a deeper kiss than he’d been planning, and when they came up for air he looked down at her and wondered how he could ever have thought of giving her up. “Let’s go,” he said and she nodded.

  “But for the record,” she said, handing him his jacket, “I’m glad you didn’t give this up completely. Leather suits you. You’ll just have to get me a jacket of my own.”

  “Now that,” Hade said as he handed her a helmet, “sounds like a fucking great idea.”

  BURNED BY BLACKMAIL

  Chapter One

  “Touch them and I’ll deck you.”

  The new guy from the Raising Hellfire motorcycle club held up his hands in mock surrender, but Briony Wilde was in no mood to be tested.

  “I mean it. If one of you so much as sneezes in the direction of that new tray of glasses I’ll . . .” She searched for something that wouldn’t be patently ridiculous in the face of her five-foot-nothing verses his six feet of all muscle. “I’ll kneecap you.”

  The guy snorted.

  Kneecap him? Really? Because that’s as high as you can reach? Briony blew a strand of dark curly hair out of her face and arched an eyebrow. The guy backed away from the glasses but didn’t stop smirking. The hair fell back in her eyes and Briony sighed, turning back to restocking the fridge with beer. The view didn’t help her mood. The scratched and scuffed wooden floor under the box of beer was hardly a glorious view. If her sighs could have fixed something, polished the dented bar or maybe repapered the peeling walls, the bar at Wilde’s Hotel would have been a whole lot swankier—swankier, cleaner, less debt-ridden and more able to sway favor with the city liquor-licensing department. Maybe the bank would stop sending threatening letters with words like foreclosure in bold-freaking-type, too, as if it wasn’t obvious enough that they wanted nothing more than to see the place bulldozed. Damn developers and their deep, favor-filled pockets. She hit her head on the bar fridge to try and clear the funk but she couldn’t get the conversation with her neighbor out of her head. Everyone was going. Knight Industries had bought everything on the block and in a couple of months she was going to have the last building standing. But there was no way she was leaving without a hell of a lot more fight.

  Quiet ran through the bar and Briony’s hackles poked sharp fingers through her skin. Quiet was never good.

  “I think she said not to touch them,” came a stranger’s voice from the other end of the bar.

  SMASH!

  Head up, lips bared, Briony clenched her fists. Five-foot-nothing or not, she was not going to let some oaf add to her mounting pile of debt by breaking the last tray of unchipped glasses she had.

  “Get out of here,” she snarled. “And wipe that smirk off your face. You might have a Hell’s patch but that doesn’t make you king of the world.” The new patch didn’t budge.

  “You know who he is, right?” Briony pointed at Rocco, the head of the Raising Hellfire Gang.

  The new guy shrugged. “Sure. He gets to order me around, but no one else does.” He leaned over the bar toward her.

  Briony stood her ground. “When you guys are in my bar everyone takes orders from me.”

  “That right?”

  Briony could smell the beer on the guy’s breath as he leaned even closer. Beer, burger, and the hot swampy breath of anger that was just itching for a fight.

  “Don’t think you heard the lady. Time to leave.” The stranger’s voice again. Briony looked to the right and couldn’t quite make out the face in the gloom of the bar. A tall, broad silhouette stood near the door. Knight in shining bike leather sticking up for you?

  “Bunch of people have told you to go. Move it.” Rocco stepped up and turned Briony’s antagonist toward the door. The head of the Hell’s gang simply nodded at two others and the new patch ducked to avoid an arm around his shoulders that was less than light.

  “The boys’ll tear him a new one for you,” said Rocco, nodding to Briony.

  “Asshole.” Briony’s blood was still pumping hard and she’d hung out with enough bikers to know how to throw a punch when she needed to.

  Rocco shrugged. “Exactly. He’s new. Doesn’t know shit about shit.”

  “Don’t stick up for him.” She glared at Rocco. “He’s already broken a pool cue and pissed me off with his stupid you - know - you - want - it grin. He needs to learn how to behave.”

  A glimmer of a smile pecked at the edge of Rocco’s mouth then quickly flattened. “Done. He won’t mess with you again.”

  Uh-oh. Briony gulped. Turning fifty hadn’t mellowed Rocco any. Sure his hair had started to gray, but the scar across his left eye didn’t hide how sharp his gaze was and his muscles still packed out his leather jacket when he bothered to flex them. He’d replaced his piece for a knife and promised he was out of the deep dark stuff, whatever that meant, but Briony didn’t need anything else on her conscience at the moment. Staying afloat was taking all of her mental capacity as it was.

  “I didn’t mean . . .” She looked at the door the men had gone through. “They’re only glasses. A lesson is one thing. Don’t . . . you know.”

  “No one’s going to lose a hand over a tray of glasses if that’s what you mean, babe. Sorry is all. I know you look out for us more than you should.”

  Briony let herself smile a little. “Damn right. I should ban all of you and turn this place into a wine bar.”

  “Except that would suck the ever-lovin’ life out of your soul and you know it. This whole place is yours, and you do whatever you need to, but Wilde’s and Hell’s Boys is family. Always has been, always will be. Your pop might have been crap with money, but he knew that.”

  A shiver ran down Briony’s spine as she looked around her bar. What a family she’d inherited. “Well, I better clean up that broken glass.”

  “Leave it for a bit, babes. I’ll get one of the boys to do it. You got bigger fish coming. Dude’s asking to have his wallet lifted coming in here looking like that. Good of him to stick up for you, though. Good and stupid.”

  The stranger. My knight. Briony followed Rocco’s gaze and found the man had moved up the bar and was now talking with two of the Hell’s Boys she counted as friends, Hade and Marnz. In better light she saw the back of a clipped black head of hair atop a set of wide, gray-suit-encased shoulders. Way more city than usually walked through her door. Definitely not a knight in leather. More . . . slick.

  Even taller than Hade or Marnz, Slick’s long legs were set apart, firmly rooted on the filthy floor. For someone who was so obviously in the wrong place, the guy seemed frickin’ sure of himself.

  “Oh no. He’s probably from the city planning department. Or the bank or, crap.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t nothing me. Planning department giving you shit?”

  “I’ll figure it out.” Briony thought about rushing to save Slick from the chat he was having. But Rocco wasn’t finished and put a hand on her arm.

  “I could help, you know. That’s what family does.”

  Briony’s chuckle combined with a snort. Classy. “Nice. You’re going to ride up to the city planners and ask politely that they extend my liquor license so you can have a beer? Or roll into the bank and tell them you’ve got more cash than th
e developer trying to take this place down? How do you think that’s going to go?”

  Rocco looked down at his worn black leather jacket, emblazoned with the Raising Hellfire slash of red flames and shrugged.

  “Eggggactly. I think I’ll deal with it myself, thanks.”

  “Sorry, babes. You know we would have done this place up for you if that last job hadn’t gone bad . . .”

  Briony shook her head. “I don’t want to know about it. If anyone asks, I can say I’ve never even heard of bank robbery.”

  Rocco chuckled. “You’re a good girl. So, who do I have to have a chat with to get the bank bully boys back in their box?”

  “Frank Knight is who.” The blood started ramping up its course around her body at the thought of the developer who was about to rip down half of the area. Briony clenched her fists. “Bet he was a skinny pale weasel with mommy problems, trying to make good because the mean boys at school teased him about his lack of a moustache.” Knight Industries had decided they were going to own this part of town and suddenly the good grace she’d built up with the planners and the bank since her dad died didn’t mean shit. Frank Knight’s cash apparently meant more than her promises, especially when she’d missed a payment on the bar a couple months ago. Her bank manager had told her to sell like everyone else, and hell, the money was tempting enough, but the bar was her home. Hers and the Hell’s Boys. End of story. But the bank suddenly shutting off any chance she had of extending her loan was a shit sandwich she wasn’t sure how to get through.

  She’d googled him, Mr. Knight, hoping for something to use against him, but all she found was a short paragraph and a photo of a man with a broad set of shoulders but sagging skin. He’d clearly seen better days. Guy looked like he needed to retire rather than take over half of L.A. Didn’t mean she needed to feel sorry for him though. “Bastard.”

  Rocco threw back his head and laughed. “Bri, you’re just lucky you did come out a girl. A temper like that woulda made you more enemies than your five-foot-nothing frame could have handled.”

  “Yeah, well, me being a boy would have made my pop happy for sure.”