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

by Claire C. Riley

  “Go on, tell me the truth, Laney: if I fucked someone else, would you hate me then?” I sneered.

  She nodded, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again and I grabbed her and pulled her to me. She clung to me desperately, like I was her lifeline, and I felt like the piece of shit I was for talking to her like that and making her cry.

  “I’m sorry,” I hushed against her head, kissing the top of it. “I’m sorry, I’m an asshole. I don’t know why I did that.”

  My dick was soft, and nothing was going to rouse it again that night so I leaned over and dragged the comforter over us both and she pushed herself in against me. As her sobs died down and her breathing evened out, I thought about heading back to the party, but eventually I decided against it. That night, the only place I wanted to be was in her arms.

  Chapter twenty-five:

  3 months ago

  Jesse

  I woke to my cell vibrating against my thigh, and Laney groaning and trying to roll away from me. Instead I took my cell from my pocket and threw it across the room before grabbing Laney and pulling her backside tight against my dick.

  I was hard and ready for her, and she writhed against me with a sigh.

  I reached between us, sliding my hand over her body and then dragging her panties down her thighs. I unzipped my jeans and pulled my dick out, and I used my thigh to nudge her legs apart before I placed my dick at her entrance and slowly slid myself inside. She sighed and moaned as I sunk balls-deep, pushing back on me and giving a little grunt.

  My cell continued to ring from across the room, and it was important that I answered it because, from the sound of the ringtone, it was the club and you always answered when the club called. But my dick was tucked deep inside of her and my hand was cupping one of her breasts while my hips rolled over and over. She moaned as I sped up, and I rolled her nipple between my fingers as I slid all the way out and then slammed myself back home, making her gasp and cry out, her hand reaching around to claw at my thigh muscles.

  I pushed her onto her front and dragged her up to all fours so I could settle myself behind her, my hands on her hips as she dipped her head low and raised her ass high, and then I was pounding into her over and over until I felt my balls tighten and then release and make us both call out. I laid myself over her back, letting the final throes of my orgasm wash over me while I massaged her breasts and kissed her shoulder.

  My cell rang again and I growled in annoyance. I was more than ready to blow someone’s fucking head off for continuously calling me.

  “You better get that,” Laney said with a little laugh. “I need to go shower. And get some aspirin. And eat. And get some coffee,” she grumbled.

  I pulled out of her and she lay back down.

  “But first I need to sleep some more.” She dragged the covers over her head and I laughed and slid out of bed.

  I found my cell on the floor by the chest of drawers that Butch had gotten us from a yard sale. It was solid oak and looked like brand new. I picked up my cell and opened it and pressed it to my ear.

  “Who is it?” I snapped into the phone. “And what the fuck do you want?”

  “It’s Casa.”

  “Great—anything else you got to tell me or were you just calling to hear the sound of my voice while you jacked off into your hand?”

  “It’s about your brother,” he replied. His voice sounded grim, like he’d just been dragged from sleep himself, and I paused to give myself a moment before saying anything else. He sounded like shit; his tone deep and hesitant, not like his usual; upbeat and fast-paced.

  “What about him?” I asked. I backed up to the bed, suddenly needing to sit down. I didn’t know what Casa was going to say next, but my body was bracing myself for bad news all the same.

  “He’s gone,” he replied.

  “Gone? Gone the fuck where?”

  “Jesse?” Laney said, sitting up behind me and clearly sensing that something wasn’t okay.

  “Casa? Where the fuck is Butch?” I asked, this time the words barely making it out of my mouth. My chest felt tight and heavy, like something was pressing against it, and I put a hand to it, wondering why the fuck it felt so constricted.

  “He’s dead, brother, I’m sorry,” Casa said, his final word a whisper.

  “Fuck you, Casa, that shit ain’t funny. Now what do you want?” I stood up but then immediately sat back down again.

  Laney sat up next to me and I could feel her worried gaze on the side of my face. I stared into the air in front of me, my own gaze unfocused as I let Casa’s words sink in. It couldn’t be true; Butch couldn’t be dead. Not Butch.

  “I’m serious, Jesse, and I’m sorry. Real fucking sorry, brother.”

  “Go fuck yourself!” I snarled out and hung up.

  I continued to stare into the air in front of me, trying to process what kind of fucked-up person would say something like that to his friend. What kind of sick motherfucker would tell someone that their brother was dead? I was struggling to think of reasons for not going to Casa’s house and blowing his brains out right that fucking minute, because that was what he deserved.

  The shit he was spewing, well that shit wasn’t funny.

  Laney put her hands on the side of my face and turned my head so I would look at her. “Jesse?” she whispered out. “What is it?” her eyes were glassy, tears already brimming.

  Her cell was ringing from somewhere in the house, but it sounded distant. She looked away from, her eyes scanning the room until she eventually saw it, and she reached over to pick it up. Panic slammed in my gut and I gripped her wrist tightly and pulled her back to me.

  “Don’t answer it,” I pleaded, my voice harsh and threatening.

  A tear slipped from one of her eyes and she nodded quickly. “Okay, okay. Just come here.” She pulled me back up the bed and I lay down next to her, putting my head onto her stomach.

  My whole body was tense, through anger and grief and realization. Because Casa wouldn’t have made that shit up. There was just no way he’d do that. I clutched onto her body tighter, feeling the tremors running through her as she tried to conceal that she was crying, and I buried my face against her stomach as she wrapped her arms around me.

  “I’m here, I’ve got you,” she whispered, her fingers stroking my hair. “I’ve got you, Jesse, always.”

  Always, I thought bitterly. I had never believed in always, because always didn’t exist in my world. Always was merely a fleeting moment, or a splash in time. That was the longest that always was in my world.

  Always was just like forever: a vicious lie upon an angel’s lips.

  Because always died just like everything and everyone else.

  Always was never forever.

  I don’t know how long we lay there for, but neither of us wanted to move because we knew that once we did, we’d let the nightmare truly in. At the moment it lingered on the peripheral, scratching against the doors and begging to come in. But we fought it for as long as we could.

  We fucked six times that morning, until my dick was sore and Laney winced with every thrust of my hips. We fucked away the pain that we knew was coming. And we fucked in the hopes that we could keep our world together. We fucked, we didn’t make love. It was raw and rough and dark, and more to do with pain than pleasure, especially toward the end.

  Our bodies were covered in slick sweat, the sheets crumpled underneath us, as I lay back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, my dick flaccid against my thigh. We lay naked, side by side, both of us too scared to speak in case we let the world in, pushing it away with every beat of our hearts and every thrust of our hips.

  But nightmares, just like dreams, eventually seep into the blood.

  And there they find you, no matter how much you hope and pray they won’t.

  The sound of bikes outside, roaring in a chorus of throaty metal and anger, woke me up from my daze. I reached over to Laney and grabbed her hip
s, my dick already hard at the thought of having her again, even as it burned from the constant fucking. The day had seeped into night, and shadows clung to the walls. Laney opened her thighs to me without question and I pushed myself between them, watching as she bit her lip when I entered her, sliding in deep. I didn’t want to hurt her, but fucking her was the only thing keeping me sane at the moment. She knew it and I knew it. So we fucked and we clung to each other, knowing that our world was about to be blown apart.

  A heavy thumping came at the door, my name being called out as I slid in and out of her, and tears trailed out of her eyes. She held my face in her hands and wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me closer to her whispering that it was going to be okay. I leaned over her body, burying my face in the crook of her neck and I thrust fast and deep, needing the release of pleasure before I let the world in. Before I let the pain destroy me.

  I came, suddenly and unexpectedly, and she held me while I squeezed at her ass cheeks and kissed her neck. The thumping downstairs continued, both of our cells illuminating the room.

  “Jesse, you need to go now,” she whispered in my ear sadly. “It’s time.”

  I nodded, hating her in that moment for making me do that. Hating her for making me face the unfaceable. I kissed her, sucking her bottom lip into my mouth as I slid my flaccid dick out of her. She was crying and I wiped her tears away with my thumb,

  “Don’t cry,” I murmured.

  She blinked back her tears. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

  “Jesse!” Dom yelled from outside, his fist hitting the front door again. “Open the door, brother.”

  I nodded, finally accepting it. Destiny, fate, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it. It had caught up to us, finally. “Yeah, baby, Butch’s gone,” I said.

  Something broke inside of me once the words left my mouth. Something I didn’t know I had until it broke away and turned to dust.

  “I’ll get the door,” Laney said, but I shook my head and pressed a kiss to her bruised lips.

  “I’ve got this.” I slid off the bed and pulled on my jeans. When I turned to look back, Laney had wrapped the bedsheet around herself and tears were trailing down her cheeks. I gritted my teeth and vowed to be strong.

  I wouldn’t cry. Not ever. Butch wouldn’t want me to.

  I headed down the stairs, my jeans hanging at my hips, and I opened the front door. Outside Casa, Dom, Gauge, and Rider stood, their faces painting the look of horror that I had dreaded.

  “What happened?” I asked, feeling numb, the anger merely a spark in my gut for the moment.

  “We should come in,” Rider said, and I nodded before walking back inside.

  I faced the window, looking out on the street and remembering Butch unloading the van with mine and Laney’s things in it.

  “Last night, after he left,” Rider started. “He crashed his bike.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “They say he was drunk,” Dom said angrily. “But he knew better than that. Butch wasn’t some dumb fuck.”

  I turned to look at him, the anger burning brighter. “Who’s ‘they?’”

  “The cops,” he replied, darkly.

  I shook my head. “Butch would never ride drunk. The man lived to ride, no fucking way he’d do that. He knew the risks and he wouldn’t take those chances.”

  I was certain of it. One hundred percent fucking certain.

  Dom shrugged and let out a long breath like he was relieved that someone else thought the same thing as him. “That’s what I said to them.”

  “Cops said there was beer all over the road. They’re checking his blood now, but that’s what it’s looking like. Between riding his bike too fast and drinking…I’m sorry, brother,” Rider said. “He was a good man. The best.” He dragged his hands through his silver hair, holding my gaze steady, unsure of what to say to make this okay, and already knowing that there was nothing. He grabbed me and pulled me into a hug, before patting my back and letting me go. “The club won’t be the same without him.”

  “Nothing will,” I replied.

  “I hear that.” Rider looked down but didn’t say anything else.

  “Laney upstairs?” Gauge asked and I nodded. “Mind if I go up?”

  I shook my head. “I’d knock first if I were you, but go on up.”

  He nodded and made his way up the stairs. I sat down on the sofa and put my head in my hands, listening to the mumble of voices coming from our bedroom, and then her cry as the reality forced its way in and destroyed the final part of our bubble.

  Casa sat down next to me. “I’m real sorry, Jesse.”

  I listened to Laney crying, and I heard Casa speaking, but his words didn’t make any sense. Nothing made any sense anymore. Butch would never drink and ride. Never. Not unless someone told him to. Not unless someone told him to bring more beer and hurry back.

  And that someone was me.

  Chapter twenty-six:

  3 months ago

  Jesse

  The air was thick and heavy, the Georgian heat hanging heavy in the sky. The past week had felt just like that—like we were waiting for something, but none of us knew what.

  Butch’s death had been signed off as misadventure—riding under the influence. His blood sugar and alcohol levels were too high, and by the skid marks on the road where he’d gone off, not to mention the mangled mess his bike had been in, he’d been speeding. Took a sharp corner and slid off the road.

  It didn’t make sense to anyone, but it did to me.

  I had done this.

  I wasn’t arrogant enough to think it was all my fault—after all, he was a grown man and had made that call himself, but it should have been me on that job. I was supposed to have been checking on the warehouse, not him. Worse still was that I was the one that had put the thought in his head to drink that night. I’d told him to bring more beer, to have one for the road, and I’d told him to speed and get back quickly.

  And I had given him the keys to our bike. I had built her to ride faster than anything I’d ever built before. I knew the bike was dangerously fast.

  The shame I felt made me feel sick and clawed at my skull every time I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone. Laney kept telling me I was strong and brave and she was there for me, but I wondered what she’d think if she knew the truth. If she realized what I coward I was. What a killer I was.

  We stood by the graveside while the priest said some words that were supposed to comfort. I couldn’t speak for anyone else, but I felt nothing from them. I was empty, numb, and barren of anything. Laney was next to me, her hand clinging to mine while mine limply held hers.

  We took turns in walking forward and throwing dirt on the coffin, but when it came to my turn I couldn’t do it, so I stood there, staring at the dirt hole that contained my brother’s body. Hardy hadn’t spoken to me since Butch’s death, and it felt like he knew what I had done and was punishing me for it. But of course there was no way he could have known.

  He came and stood by my side, and we stood silently for a moment as the crowd of bikers and women began to disperse.

  “That should have been you in there,” he said, so quietly I wondered for a moment if I had imagined it. “He was always better than you. You, you were always trouble. Killed your mom and now you’ve killed your brother.”

  I heard the words, but it took a moment to understand what he was saying, to grasp the full atrocity of his accusation. I swallowed and slowly turned to look at him. His eyes were dead. His expression blank. The man was made of stone, his heart and soul nonexistent.

  “What the fuck did you just say to me?” I growled out.

  “I said this, this is all your fault, Jesse.” He waved his arms at the hole in the ground. “You were always worthless, but your mother, she saw something in you and wouldn’t let you go, even when I told her you were no good.”

  “I was a baby—a fucking child,” I said, my body shaking, trembling from head to toe. The ange
r that had been flickering in the pits of my stomach since finding out Butch was dead flared to life and became its own entity.

  “You were poison,” he said, his voice hushed. “Always were and always will be.”

  Laney came to stand next to me, her hand taking mine. “You okay, baby?” she asked, her tone suggesting she was at breaking point and was going to cry at any moment.

  “Yeah,” I replied. I looked over to where Gauge stood, and caught his eye and he nodded and came over to us. He wrapped his arms around Laney’s shoulder and gently guided her away, and I let her go.

  “You’ll kill her too, you know. Everything and everyone you touch turns bad or dies. You should let her go if you really love her. Walk away from her and all of this before it’s too late, because I’d rather die than hand the gavel down to you.” Hardy turned and walked away, done with talking to me.

  It was the most he’d ever said to me in weeks. Maybe even ever. The deepest thing he’d ever said to me in years. I wanted to hate him for saying those things, deep down knowing he was just fucked up and evil. Knowing that I couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with my mom’s death. She was a drug addict—and that was all on her. She didn’t love any of us enough to stop, to stay with us so we could be a family. The call of drugs was more important to her than family.

  Everyone had gone, and I finally had my moment alone with Butch. I walked to his graveside and crouched down, grabbing a handful of the dirt, but instead of throwing it, I held onto it and then I spoke to him. Laying it all out on the line for him to hear. Baring my soul to him.

  “Not sure why it’s you down there and not me, Butch.” My words came out choked, and I cleared my throat and continued. “Because you’re a better man than I’ll ever be. Everyone is thinking it, so it seems sort of twisted that it’s happened this way, you feel me, brother?” I stared at the dirt in my hand, at the small grains of soil and minerals, wondering how long it would take before Butch was a part of the earth too.