Blade (Archer's Creek Book 3)

by Gemma Weir

  I try so hard not to look back at him, and I almost succeed, until I reach the two women who are staring open-mouthed between me and Cam. Closing my eyes, I fight the need to look back, but I fail and twist to look over my shoulder. Blinking slowly, my stomach flutters when I find him staring back at me, lust and something else I can’t identify obvious in his gaze.

  “Holy shit,” my sister says with a giggle.

  Her words break the intense moment and I look away from him, shaking my head to clear the thoughts of his touch from my mind. “I need a drink,” I rasp as I climb the steps to the restaurant with Dove and Grits following behind me.

  Neither says a word until the hostess has shown us to a table and a waitress has taken our drinks orders. The moment the three of us are alone my sister bursts into a fit of giggles. I scowl at her, pulling my cell from my purse to check my email and pointedly ignore her.

  I look up from my cell and find both Dove and Grits are staring at me. “What?” I demand.

  Grits smiles and shrugs. “Nothing. I just didn’t know you and Blade were a thing.”

  “We’re not a thing,” I say, slamming my cell down onto the table.

  “They slept together last week,” my sister says to Grits excitedly.

  “Sissy,” I cry.

  “Well, hell, I thought you and Park were fucking,” Grits says, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

  “Oh my god!” I shout.“Why doesn’t anyone believe that Park and I are just friends?” I take the drink from the outstretched hands of the waitress who has just arrived at our table. “Thank you,” I mutter as I bring the glass to my lips and take a long swig of the cold cocktail.

  “Probably because you went from ice queen bitch to warm apple sweetie pie the moment Park turned up.” Grits says with an arch of her eyebrow and a head tilt so full of attitude I feel like I should take a step back.

  “Warm apple sweetie pie,” I say amused. “Wow, that’s just the sweetest insult I think I’ve ever heard.”

  Grits barks out a laugh. “So you’re really not fucking Park?”

  “Ewww no, he’s my friend,” I say my lips twisting into a grimace.

  “But you are fucking Blade?” she asks.

  Sighing loudly, I take another gulp of my drink and then nod.

  “Well fuck, honey,” Grits says, raising her glass to me.

  Groaning, I lift my glass and then take yet another huge gulp. Thirty minutes later Cam strolls into the restaurant and over to our table. “Here are your keys, Duchess. Your taillight is all fixed.”

  Snatching the keys from his outstretched hands, I mutter, “Thanks,” and then shove them into my purse. Both Grits and Dove are smirking at me in amusement, but I ignore them and focus on spearing the salmon and salad from my plate.

  A large hand wraps around my wrist and I turn to find Cam bent down so his face is level with mine. He guides the fork in my hand up to his waiting mouth and I watch mesmerized as he chews and swallows, never releasing his grip on me.

  When he finally straightens and lets go of me, my body is tingling and hyper aware of him. “See you tonight, Duchess,” he rasps and then turns and walks away.

  “Holy fucking Christ,” Grits says, at the same time as Dove says. “Wow.”

  Still a little dazed by his touch, my movements are slow and when I finally twist my head to face the women, I’m not surprised to find them both a little bedazzled and staring at me. I know they both expect me to explain, but honestly, I have no idea what to say, so instead I focus my attention into eating my lunch and ignoring their questioning looks. After a minute I can still feel their eyes on me. “What?” I say, trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably.

  Both women turn to look at each other and then back to me. Dove speaks first. “Nikki, I think I might have got pregnant just off the sexual tension that was coming off you guys.”

  Grits laughs. “She’s right, honey. I was waiting for you to start ripping each other’s clothes off.”

  “He’s an asshole,” I seethe, stabbing my fork into a slice of cucumber.

  Both women smile at me knowingly and then carry on eating. I’m grateful for the reprieve. I barely know how to deal with Cam myself, there was no way I could explain him to them.

  Restless and agitated, when the waitress arrives at our table I ordered a pitcher of margaritas and over several drinks Grits and I start to get to know each other. “So how long have you and Anders been together?” I ask.

  Grits smile softens. “Over twenty years now. He can be an ornery pain in the ass but he’s the love of my life.”

  Blowing out a wistful sigh, I glance at my sister who is busy texting with Daisy and then back to Grits. “You seem like a strong, independent woman. Doesn’t the whole alpha-male, biker bullshit drive you crazy?”

  Grits looks at me thoughtfully. “Nikki, I get what the club probably looks like to an outsider. Anders is a biker, he’s a leader, and I’m his woman. But despite whatever you think belonging to a biker might entail, our relationship is a partnership. We’ve been together for a long time. We met at the worst time of my entire life and because of that we’ve been through darkness so black I didn’t think we would ever see daylight again. Because of him and his love for me, we came out the other side knowing we’re at our strongest when we’re together. My man worships the ground I walk on and yeah, he’d probably tell you he owns me, that I’m his. But hell, I own his ass too. He’s my lifeline, my absolute fucking world, and neither of us would be whole without the other.”

  As I stare at Grits, I feel a jolt of jealousy at her words. The idea of being owned by any man has always made me think of my father and his control and abuse, but the way Grits talks about her relationship makes my heart ache and my chest go tight. I want to speak, to tell her that what she said was beautiful and that deep down I want the type of relationship she just described, but that I’m too scared to try to find it. But the words stay locked in my throat and instead I look between Grits, and my sister who is now watching me intently.

  Needing to diffuse the tension, I drink the last of my cocktail and look around for the waitress to order another round. Several rounds of cocktails later Grits and I are giggling like teenagers and Dove who has been on soda is rolling her eyes indulgently at us. “So, do you and Blade have plans later?” She asks, wiggling her eyebrows and smirking at me.

  Throwing my head back I laugh dramatically. “If by plans you mean Cam breaking into my house and crawling into my bed in the middle of the night, then no, we don’t have plans. Because I’m not going to be his fucking bootie call.”

  “Ohhhh,” Dove says, elongating the word theatrically.

  Grits laughs and points at me with the hand that’s holding her drink, the pink liquid sloshing to the side as she does. “Ha, he doesn’t need to ride his bike all the way to Chestnut Grove for a bootie call, there’s enough free ass just begging to be fucked at the club for his bed to be full every night of the week if he wanted. If he’s breaking into your house and climbing into your bed, it’s because he wants you.”

  My mouth falls open and in my drunken wisdom, I lean forward and motion for Dove and Grits to lean forward too. I wait until we’re all leaning across the table, our heads practically touching. Then in a loud whisper I tell them everything: about him waking me up with his tongue, about him inviting himself for dinner, and the morning sex that had freaked me out. “But then last night, I cooked for him and I waited for him, but he didn’t come,” I say, unable to keep the sadness out of my voice.

  I sound drunk and pathetic and I am, I’m both, but I can’t help it and now I’ve admitted the words out loud I can’t take them back.

  “I thought it was just a one-night-stand?” my sister says.

  Letting my head roll back on my neck, I sigh dramatically. “It wasn’t supposed to be anything. I don’t want to want him, and I definitely don’t want a biker.” I look to Grits and offer her an apologetic smile. “No offense.”

  She laug
hs. “None taken. But I gotta tell you; he didn’t look like he’d lost interest when his hands were on your ass or when he was licking your fork and eye-fucking you.”

  I sit up straighter in my chair and shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. It should never have happened in the first place and it won’t be happening again. Cam did me a favor not coming over last night. It broke the sex spell I was under, and now I’m finally thinking clearly. He is not what I’m looking for in a man. I want an easygoing, beta man, with a good job and a secure future.”

  Both Dove and Grits laugh out loud and I scowl at them fiercely. “What?”

  Dove waves her hands in front of her face and takes a deep breath to calm herself. “What you just described sounds awful. You’re not fooling anyone with that boring list. That’s what you think is safe, not what you want, and safe won’t make you happy.”

  I dismiss her words and lift my drink to my lips, only to find it’s empty. With a pouty grunt I lower my glass back to the table and then wave to the waitress for the bill, handing her my credit card when she appears. “You pair have had far too much to drink, so I’ll drive,” my sister offers, and we all climb into the Comet and she drives us back to my house.

  Jock greets us when we open the front door, and after giving him a quick fuss we all make our way to my patio. I grab a bottle of wine, three glasses, and a bag of pretzels and then flop down onto the couch next to Grits. She holds the glasses as I pour, and I hand one to her and one to my sister. “To fresh starts,” I say, raising my glass in a toast. Both women raise their glasses and clink them with mine.

  Dove’s cell rings and she excuses herself and walks into the kitchen to take the call. I wait for the silence between Grits and I to engulf me, but instead she twists to face me on the couch. “You’re not what I was expecting.”

  Surprised at her candid words, I twist to mimic her body language. “What were you expecting?”

  She chuckles. “A stuck-up bitch who would do whatever she could to split up her sister and the guy she didn’t approve of.”

  I sigh. “Honestly, if I thought it would work, I might have tried, but it only took me a minute in their company to realize that they’re head-over-heels in love with each other. As much as I want her to myself, it wouldn’t be fair to either of them for me to separate them just because I wanted to be selfish.”

  “We’re not so bad, if you give us a chance. I know the biker thing freaks you out, but we’re a family; we look after each other like a family is supposed to do. We could be your family too, if you’d let us. We love Dove, she’s become like a daughter to me and Anders, and you’re her sister. It doesn’t have to be either you and Dove, or us and Dove, it could just be us all together.”

  She falls silent when Dove walks back outside, but I’m too stunned to speak anyway. Her offer felt genuine, sincere, and if it was, if she was actually offering to let me be a part of their family then I have no idea what to do with that.

  “Daisy and Anders are on their way to come get us,” Dove says, her cell still in her hand.

  Grits nods and then giggles drunkenly as she finishes off the glass of wine and signals for me to top her up. Laughing conspiratorially, I finish my glass too and then fill them both back upto the top.

  By the time Anders and Daisy arrive, Grits and I are laughing hysterically. Dove answers the door when the bell sounds and by the time the men walk out into the backyard, Grits and I are clinking glasses for the fifth time.

  An amused grin twitches at Anders lips when he spots Grits and I drunkenly leaning up against each other and swigging wine like its soda. “Jesus, woman, would you look at the state of you.”

  “Hey, baby,” Grits purrs at him.

  He laughs loudly. “Come on, let’s get you home before you’re too drunk to stay on the back of my bike.”

  Grits clambers to her feet and then in what I think is an attempt at a sexy walk, she half swaggers, half stumbles across the patio toward him. As soon as she’s close enough to reach, he pulls her into his arms and strokes his palm down the back of her head.

  Anders turns his attention to me. “I’m gonna call Park to come get you. I don’t want to leave you here alone when you’re drunk.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, my words only slightly slurred.

  “You sure, ‘cause you look drunk?” he says.

  I giggle. “Maybe a little bit, but I don’t want to go to the club, I’ll be fine here.”

  “Alright, sweetheart, but I’ll have Dove call you to check on you later. If you don’t answer then I’ll come back over here and carry your butt back to the club with me. You get me?”

  I nod, sudden tears welling in my eyes.

  “Come on then, baby,” he says to Grits and turns to leave.

  “I have class all day tomorrow, but I can do breakfast the day after if you’re free?” Dove says.

  I offer her a double thumbs-up, forgetting that I still have my wine glass in my hand and spill some of it onto the floor in front of me. “Ooops,” I giggle.

  “You want us to stay here with you tonight?” Daisy asks.

  Pouting my lips, I point at him and croon. “Awwww that’s so sweet of you. But I swear, I’m totally fine. I think I might have a nap,” I say, yawning.

  Daisy and Anders exchange an amused glance. My sister crosses the patio, pulls me from the couch and guides me into the house. “Couch or bed?” she asks.

  “Your being riddonculous. I’m not, I’m not that flucking, flocking, err fucking drunk.”

  “Couch it is then,” she says, walking me into the living room and making me sit down. “Have a nap and sober up and I’ll call you later,” she says, leaning forward to kiss me on the top of my head.

  Waving goodbye, I curl my legs onto the couch and rest my head on the cushion. Daisy and Dove move toward the front door with Grits and Anders behind them. I yawn, my eyes feeling heavy.

  “Nikki,” Anders calls.

  I force my eyes open and look up at him. “Yeah?”

  “Welcome to the family, sweetheart,” he says. Then he smiles, tips his chin at me and walks away.

  Killing my bike’s engine, I push on the kickstand and throw my leg over the side until my boot touches the firm concrete ground. Walking through the garage I look at the collection of my brothers’ bikes as I pass them, and once again I feel grateful that this is my life. I love this club and the brothers that I know would lay down their life for me, just as I would for them.

  The smile currently covering my face hasn’t slipped since I left Duchess, Dove, and Grits, in the restaurant earlier. For the hundredth time in the last couple hours, I pull the freshly cut key from my pocket and throw it into the air, catching it, and holding it tightly in my grip.

  The moment I’d seen the missing taillight in the Comet, I knew it was my chance to get back the key to my Duchess’s house. Sure, I could break in easily, but I didn’t want to steal into her home like a thief. I want to legally ensconce myself into her life and opening the door with a key, even if it’s one I stole from her, feels like the first step to doing that. Nikki had been frosty when I’d seen her at Daisy’s place this morning. I’d been expecting it, but it still stung. Her walls are well and truly back in place, but I won’t let her keep them up for long. We make sense and I just need to remind her of that.

  After I left the ladies at the restaurant, I’d headed to work for a few hours, checking out security and the guards we have in place for several of the sites we’re covering at the moment. Now it’s dinner time and I’m ready for some food and to head over to Nikki’s place to duke it out with her. As much as the challenge she sent me earlier sounds like fun and the chase certainly turns me on, I’d rather just get to the point where she begs me to fuck her sweet fucking pussy.

  Walking into the clubhouse I offer a two-finger salute to Smoke who is behind the bar pouring whiskey for K.C. He raises the bottle at me but I shake my head and signal toward the kitchen and the pots I know will be full of something del
icious. The smell of rich barbeque meat hits me the moment I open the door and I practically run the last few steps until I reach the food. The club girls constantly performing and begging for cock can get annoying, but I never tire of the fact there’s always food cooked and waiting for us. When Prez suggested we let Ali and Harper move into the clubhouse, I was dubious. Prez is a soft touch when it comes to a pretty face and a sob story and I figured the girls would take advantage, but so far they haven’t. Ali loves sex and she keeps the brothers dicks sucked and their balls empty, but she’s also one hell of a cook, and every day with every meal we’re glad she’s here. Quickly crossing the kitchen, I peer into the warming tray and find it full of sliced brisket, so tender it falls apart as I fork some onto a plate. Dishes full of rich, creamy potato salad, coleslaw and sweet potatoes are set to the side and I heap my plate with food, adding a buttery corn on the cob before I grab some silverware and head back into the bar.

  Scanning the room, I search for some low-key company. I’m not up for having to fend off the club girls this early in the night. I spot Lord sitting alone at the far corner of the room and exhaling a relieved breath I head his way. “Lord,” I say in greeting as I slide into a seat and place my plate on the table.

  “Blade,” he says, offering a polite smile back at me. We both fall silent and I happily dig into my food, grateful that Lord doesn’t expect or want to make small talk. The guy is an oddball. He’s been with the club for years, but I know practically nothing about him. I know he was a military chaplain and that he did several tours abroad before he left both the army and the church and came to us. I have no idea why he left the military or what drove him to find us, but he’s a Sinner and he’s unequivocally loyal to the club. He’s the least likely biker I’ve ever met. He doesn’t drink or smoke, or touch the girls; hell, I wouldn’t be surprised to find he was still a virgin. If he wasn’t covered in tats and he didn’t ride a fucking beautiful vintage 1950’s Harley Bobber, I’d be convinced he had joined the wrong club all those years ago.