Ride or Die #1: A Devil's Highwaymen MC Novel

by Claire C. Riley

  “I’ve got this,” I said to him, my teeth gritted.

  A slow grin rose on his face and he nodded. “All right, I feel you,” he said, and walked away.

  I looked back at Laney, unsure what the hell to do to calm her down now that I was alone with her. “Can I umm, get you anything? A coffee? Tissues? Are you hungry?” I asked. I could actually cook—damn good at it too. Not that I’d let any of the brothers know, since they’d be getting me to cook for them all the time. But I’d cook for her if it made her smile.

  She stopped crying and looked up to me, and she almost swallowed me whole with those big beautiful eyes of hers.

  “Do you have beer?” she asked. “I could really use a beer right now.”

  Beer.

  I could definitely do beer.

  Neither of us were old enough to be drinking, but that had never stopped me before, so I figured why the hell not.

  “Sure, come on,” I said, leading her toward the bar.

  I went behind it and pulled out two bottles from the small fridge, popping the lids off and handing her one. She took it from me and drank some, her bottom lip glistening as she pulled the bottle away from her mouth. I took a mouthful of my own beer and looked away from her nervously, watching Butch pacing up and down while he tried to get ahold of Hardy, or Gauge, or fucking anyone who knew what to do with a teenage girl.

  I looked back to her, noticing she was staring at me. Her tears had dried up, but their tracks were still blatant down her face. She took another sip of her beer, seeming calmer, thankfully.

  “Are you old enough to even drink that?” I asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to get more information out of her. The truth was, I had been infatuated with her since the first time I saw her, yet in reality, I knew barely anything about the girl.

  “Are you?” she snapped, her eyes narrowed.

  I tightened the towel around my waist and rolled my shoulders before downing half my beer in one go. “That shit don’t matter for me,” I replied. “But you, you’re Gauge’s kid, I don’t want to catch shit for giving you that.” I nodded toward her bottle.

  She shook her head and raised her bottle to her lips. Fucking perfect lips they were as well. Pink and fat—no doubt soft too. Fucking perfect for…

  She downed half of her beer, just like I had, and I twitched beneath my towel because it was damn hot watching a woman down beer like that. Especially when she dragged the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe away the excess beer. Fuck that was hot.

  “I’m Laney. Not just Gauge’s kid,” she said. “And I’m a big fucking girl who can take care of herself, but if you’re afraid of big bad Gauge…”

  My eyes widened and I snorted out a laugh, more than happy when she let out a sigh and then retorted with her own laugh.

  “I’m not afraid of shit,” I replied.

  “Everyone’s afraid of something,” she said with a shake of her head.

  I quirked an eyebrow. She was right; everyone was afraid of something, but then most people hadn’t lived the life I had.

  Laney sighed. “Whatever, look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t take my shit out on you. Gauge just makes me so fucking mad.” She screwed up her hands and scowled again, but she looked cute when she was angry, not scary, so I couldn’t help but smile again.

  “Gauge?” I asked and she nodded. “I think dads are meant to make us mad,” I joked, but the joke fell bitterly between us.

  I swallowed and started to sweat, not sure what to say then, and Skinny was still staring at us, waiting to see if I was going to make a move on her and practically salivating down himself as he stared at her ass perched on the edge of the stool.

  “Name’s Jesse,” I said. “That was my brother Butch that you just almost killed with the door.”

  “Sorry about that too,” she said, her cheeks turning pink and making me think how pink they’d be after she came. “He was just collateral damage.”

  I shrugged and laughed. “If he wasn’t so hungover, he would have had quicker reflexes, so we’ll just blame him for the near-death experience and call it quits,” I replied, enjoying the shy smile that crept up her face.

  “Near-death experiences seem to follow me around,” she said, turning suddenly wistful and looking away.

  She was beautiful even when she was sad. Maybe more so. Because when her expression cleared of all the other conflicting emotions, it left her skin smooth for me to see the truth of who she was underneath it all. And what I saw in her was so close to my own feelings that it startled me.

  “You sound like me now,” I said, and she watched me intently, her gaze almost seeing into my soul.

  “You’re always here,” she suddenly said, her mask slipping back into place just as quickly as it had fallen.

  I shrugged again. “It’s where I live.”

  A small frown came across her forehead and I wanted to reach out and smooth it out with the pad of my thumb, but thought better of it.

  “You live here? I thought this was just like a meet place or something, and that everyone lived somewhere else,” she asked bluntly.

  I chugged some more beer, not really wanting to get into it, yet with her I felt like the truth was the only good enough answer to give. And if I was going to be truthful with anyone, I wanted it to be her.

  “Butch and I, we’re brothers and we came to live here when we were little kids. Hardy’s our dad and we uhh, well, neither of us get along with good ole’ dad. Never have, and I doubt we ever will.” The images swirled just below the surface, but I refused to give too much thought to them.

  “Why? Where’s your mom?” She knew as soon as she’d asked the question what the answer should be, though I wasn’t sure how because I wasn’t exactly an emotional guy. “Shit, I’m sorry! You don’t have to answer that.” Her cheeks flushed pink and she looked away, embarrassed.

  “It’s okay, it doesn’t bother me. My mom died when I was real young and I don’t remember much about her anymore. Hardy took me and my brother in, but since he was here practically every night, working until real late, it just made sense to fix us up with permanent bedrooms here. Everyone in the club raised us, so we have a big-ass family, which has its upsides as well as its downsides,” I chuckled.

  I wanted to ask about her, about what things she enjoyed doing, what things she hated doing. I wanted to know everything from her favorite childhood memory to her favorite band. She was pussy-whipping me without me even getting a scent of her on my fingers. It was fucking ridiculous. No, I was fucking ridiculous, yet there was nothing I could do to stop the patheticness from shining bright like a three-hundred-watt bulb in the black of night.

  I took another drink of my beer and tried to calm myself down before I said or did something stupid. She looked back to me, her gaze watching the bottle at my mouth. She swallowed when I did, and I swear to God I think we shared a fucking Hallmark moment.

  She looked away first, and I cleared my throat and scrambled for something to say to break the awkward silence that had fallen between us again.

  “Why were you so upset?” I asked bluntly, because I needed to break the tension between us because all I could think about right then was her nipples and how painfully hard I felt below my towel.

  “What?” she asked, turning to look back at me.

  “Before—when you got here, you were upset. Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter now.” She looked away, her gaze straying to the sofas where Skinny was sitting, his gaze still trained on Laney, one hand resting on his lower stomach. “Who’s he?” she asked, and I felt my anger spike at the hungry look in her eyes.

  I clenched my teeth and tried not to sound too pissed off. “That’s Skinny.”

  She nodded in response but didn’t say anything. She looked away from him and silence fell between us. I couldn’t think of a damned thing to say to the girl—at least not anything that would keep her attention on me and not on Skinny, the club, or anything that was going to upset her. I sta
red down at my bottle, my gaze straying to hers where she was picking at the label and tearing it off into little pieces. I thought I’d read somewhere that doing that was a sign of sexual frustration, and I looked away, my hard-on hurting even more. The silence continued to grow until it became uncomfortable and I had to speak to break it up before I had a fucking heart attack. Butch was on the phone to someone by then—probably Hardy—and Skinny kept on looking over at us and trying to catch Laney’s eye again.

  “So, what’s it like living with your dad?” I asked, trying to make small talk with her. It wasn’t something I was good at, but I wanted her attention on me and no one else.

  “My dad?” She snorted and took another sip of beer, and once again my gaze went straight to her mouth. “If you can even call him that. All he does is give me money to buy food and school supplies and tell me to keep out of his way and not cause any trouble for him. I’d hardly call that dad material.”

  She didn’t realize how much I agreed with her on that, but that wasn’t the time to get into it with her. All around us, people were starting to wake up, thanks to Laney’s sudden entrance. Women were standing up on unsteady feet, still half-naked, and bikers were pulling them back down to be fucked before the day’s work began.

  Groaning echoed over to us from one of the small black sofas in the center of the room, and Laney turned to look. From our position we could see every fucking thing and Laney’s eyes went wide when she saw Pops ramming into some bitch that Butch and Casa had brought back with them the night before. He was holding onto her waist tightly, and she was rolling her hips against every one of his thrusts and grunting.

  The woman was old enough to be there, but like always, she was still way too young for Pops. She’d barely woken up properly when Pops had flipped her around and held her legs wide open, his gummy grin leering down on her as she grunted and groaned.

  I’d grown up seeing that sort of shit, so I didn’t bother me in the slightest, but it was shit that Laney didn’t need to see. That was for damn sure.

  “Come on,” I said, moving from around the bar. I took her hand automatically, feeling an instant connection as our skin touched. Laney looked away from Pops and the woman he was fucking and looked at our linked hands, and then her gaze rose to meet mine. I swallowed, feeling like I was going to have a fucking heart attack with the way she was looking at me.

  “Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly.

  “No one needs to see old, wrinkly nutsacks first thing in the morning,” I replied, and I felt a wave of something rush through me when she laughed. The sound was like fucking birds singing or some romantic shit like that.

  Fuck me, I was a pussy.

  “He’s really old,” she whispered on a laugh, her fingers squeezing my hand tightly. “How does he even get it up anymore?”

  I laughed back and pulled her down the hallway, not sure where I was heading until we reached my room and I pulled her into it. I shut the door behind us, still laughing. I didn’t want to let go of her hand, but there was no reason to keep holding it anymore so I reluctantly let it go.

  “Yeah, I don’t even know how he still has the energy for all the fucking he does, to be honest,” I replied, feeling my cheeks go hot as I looked around the pigsty that was my room. For the first time ever I felt embarrassed by the mess. Dirty clothes were piled up in the corners and moldy plates and cups were edging out from under my bed. And the smell. Good fucking Lord, how had I never noticed the damn smell before? It smelled like ass. Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t be surprised if she ran screaming from the room.

  “He fucks a lot?” Laney said with surprise. Her face was still flushed pink, but it seemed more from humor than her tears now. And fuck me, I liked it when she said the word fuck—mainly because all I could think about was fucking her right then, and her saying the word made me hopeful that she was thinking the same things as me.

  “Oh yeah, Pops fucks more bitches than the rest of the brothers here put together, and they fuck a lot,” I replied, laughing. My laughter died on my lips when she didn’t join in. I’d said something wrong, I figured, but I wasn’t sure what. I grabbed the back of my neck, feeling uncomfortable.

  “Why do you do that?” she said, sounding angry again, her face screwed up as she glared at me.

  Made my dick even harder.

  “Do what?”

  “Call women bitches. It’s degrading, and you’re better than that.”

  I was flustered for a moment because that sounded too much like a fucking compliment for my liking. “I uhh, I don’t know, that’s just the way it is,” I replied, and she shook her head, looking even more angry so I tried to explain further, because for some reason, what she thought made me stand up and give a shit. “The women that come here, they come here for one reason and one reason only. They know what they’re getting themselves in for. That’s why they’re just bitches.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what do they come here for then?” she snapped, her eyes on fire. Goddamn, I wanted to drag her down to my bed right then.

  “To fuck,” I said bluntly—probably too bluntly, but I couldn’t help it. Her anger was giving me a raging hard-on and I was horny as hell. “Those women out there come here knowing full well that they’re only here to be filled and fucked and suck anything that’s given to them. They enjoy the party and the lifestyle that we give them. They don’t expect anything else. Some hang around for a few months until they realize that sleeping with half the club ain’t going to make ’em an old lady, because who wants to make some dirty skank their property when she’s been through all their brothers? But some just show up to party, wanting to get with the bad-boy biker. Everyone knows their place and everyone is cool with that. So don’t look down your nose at any of it until you understand the way it works.” I finished my little speech and clamped my mouth shut. I was defensive of our club because it was all I had ever known, and I was sick of civilians coming in and looking down their noses at our way of life.

  She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again just as quickly, looking shocked that I’d spoken to her that way. She seemed to correct herself and took a step toward me.

  “And what’s my place, Jesse?” she asked, and I nearly poked a hole through my towel when she said my name because it was the most seductive thing I’d ever heard in my life.

  “What?” I asked, punch-drunk on her scent as she closed the gap between us.

  “You said everyone knows their place. So what’s my place in all of this?” She took another step toward me, and I swallowed and willed my cock to go down before she saw the effect her words were having on me.

  “You’re Gauge’s kid,” I said, my words feeling thick in my mouth.

  “And you’re Hardy’s kid,” she replied.

  I nodded and we both stayed silent, taking in each other’s expression. Laney broke the moment first and began walking around my room, looking at the posters on my walls as she did. She was wearing a small backpack that had a shit-ton of buttons and patches all over it. My room wasn’t exactly huge, so it didn’t take her long to finish the inspection, and by the look of disgust on her face the verdict clearly wasn’t good.

  She went and sat on my unmade bed, kicking her dirty little ankle boots off and crossing her long brown legs. Who the fuck knew when it had last had the sheets cleaned. Probably fucking never. I decided right then that I’d be getting one of the club bitches to wash my sheets later that day.

  Laney took another sip of her beer and looked at the posters of naked women and bikes spread all over my walls, her eyes falling to the one right above my bed—the one she had drawn on almost two years ago to the day—and she smiled.

  At some point in the last year, Butch had moved out of our room, deciding that he needed his own space, which was fine. It gave me more room for my things—not that I had much. Just my magazines and tapes, records and clothes. But still, it was good in some ways to have more privacy
—especially as I’d grown into more of a man. I’d started getting interested in building bikes in the last six months, and manuals and bike parts filled a large plastic tub in the corner. One day I was going to build myself the most badass beast of a bike.

  I realized that I needed to get dressed, since I was still just wearing a towel and my hard-on was blatantly fucking obvious beneath it now. I grabbed my jeans from the end of my bed, the chain that I had hanging from the belt loop to my wallet jangling noisily. I stepped into the jeans, forgoing underwear, and I started to pull them up. My towel was just about to fall when Laney looked back over at me and I quirked an eyebrow at her and smirked.

  “Ya mind?” I asked, gesturing with a nod of my head as I let the towel fall at my feet.

  “Oh god, sorry,” she said, her cheeks flushing even redder as she quickly looked away.

  A small smile played at the corners of her mouth as she turned to stare at the poster again. I pulled my jeans all the way up and kicked the damp towel into the corner of the room with the rest of the mess. My hard-on for her seemed much less obvious hidden behind some denim instead of a flimsy towel, but it was still pretty fucking obvious and I willed little Jesse to calm the fuck down before Laney noticed and ran screaming from my room, calling me a pervert.

  Laney reached over to the side of the bed and picked up a pen. She knelt up on my pillow, her snatch so close to where I put my face every night that I knew that I’d never wash that fucking pillow ever again. I grabbed my crotch and pulled at my dick, which was pressed up against the zipper, trying to escape from my pants and get into hers.

  She leaned up higher, her T-shirt rising enough so that I got a look at the smooth olive skin on her back that was just begging for me to run my hands down it. She drew a smile underneath the breasts that she’d previously drawn sunglasses on, and then she turned back and smirked at me, giving me a little wink and laughing.