I took a deep breath and swallowed.
“Put her on,” I said.
“I don’t think she wants to talk to you right now,” Z.Z. answered in a firm, defensive tone.
“Put her on,” I repeated.
“I really don’t think you—” Z.Z. started.
“Just put her on, Z.Z.,” I interrupted.
“Whatever,” he snapped back.
A moment later, another softer voice got on the phone.
“Hello,” she said, greeting me sweetly.
“Hey, baby,” I replied. “Sorry I didn’t make it home last night. I had to take care of some business.”
“It’s okay. I understand,” she assured me, yawning. Despite what she said, however, I knew she was lying. I could hear it in her voice. It wasn’t okay—and if she knew what really went on to delay me, there was no way she would understand.
“I’m on my way home now though,” I said. “And I should be there in about a half-hour. I’ll see you then.”
“See you then,” she echoed.
I hung up my phone, put it in my pocket, and started my bike. As I shifted into gear, I forced my mind to shift gears as well, and I tried my damnedest to put thoughts of my fantasy night with Lexi behind me and focus on the “real life” that was already waiting for me at home.
Chapter 13
~ Lexi ~
Great!
Of course!
Just my luck!
The rollercoaster ride continued.
I’d just had the greatest sex of my life with a sexy bad boy, and now I found out he might also be a “bad guy,” or maybe even a “good guy” or “good fella.”
Butcher was in a gang. He said they were involved in drugs and seedy business, and that they tried to do “good.” But that didn’t change the bottom line. The bottom line was: Butcher was in a gang.
Gangs meant outlaws, criminals, trouble, and danger. They meant breaking the law, risking your life, and endangering others around you. Gangs were not a good thing, even if they did good, and I questioned what kind of good they could do anyway.
I asked Butcher what the name of his gang was, and I felt a little queasy when he answered.
“The Wolves,” he’d said. My stomach churned. I’m a journalist, and as such, I’m more familiar than most with recent headlines. I recognized the gang name from several recent news stories that appeared both in print and on television. I couldn’t remember all the details, but the details I remembered weren’t pretty, and it terrified me to think of Butcher—and by extension, me—involved in such a lifestyle.
As soon as Butcher left my apartment, I ran and locked the door after him, then grabbed my laptop and ran back to my bedroom. I set my computer down on the bed, pressed the “power” button, and threw on a clean pair of panties and T-shirt while it booted.
About a minute later, my laptop was up and running, and within seconds I was on my bed and online. I typed the words “Wolves,” “L.A.,” “motorcycle,” and “gang” into the search bar and had thousands of hits returned in a fraction of a second.
After sorting through the results and disregarding the ones that had to do with animals, I found a several relevant taglines from very reputable sources, and I scanned them in quick succession.
Great!
Of course!
Just my luck!
“Terry Cramer, 23, plead guilty to the murder of Jake Keller,” one news source reported. “Cramer is a known member of the Wolves, one of L.A.’s more covert biker gangs, and the crime has been…”
Another site ran a story approximately three weeks later. It stated that that same guy—Terry Cramer—had been killed in prison.
My pulse was racing. How was any of this good?
I read on.
A crime-blotter rag read: “Suspected Wolves gang member, Sam Hammond, was attacked by unknown assailants and anonymously dropped off at a hospital in San Marino. Anyone with information on this unsolved crime is advised to contact local authorities immediately.”
Shit. Two months later, multiple stories mentioned a Wolves member named Carl Struthers and said he was “suspiciously linked” to the murders of a L.A. man involved with another gang and a San Francisco police officer. Shit.
What the fuck?!?!
I slammed my laptop shut, jumped up off of my bed, and ran to the bathroom, where I hunched over the sink and splashed cold water on my face. I rubbed my fingers over my eyes, massaged my nose, and did circles on my cheeks, splashing my face repeatedly and intermittingly.
I turned off the faucet and looked in the mirror. My face looked red, like it was on fire. Not even the cold water could douse it. My blood was boiling. I had so many questions and was afraid of learning the answers.
“What did you get yourself into this time?” I asked aloud, talking to my reflection in the mirror. I shook my head and thought, for a moment, about hopping into the shower. But then something hit me, and I swiftly returned to my computer.
I’d read about Terry Cramer, Sam Hammond, and Carl Struthers—and then I stopped reading. But what if I stopped reading too soon? What if there were stories on other Wolves? What if there were stories on… John Crane?
My computer started up right away from its idle state, and my browser was already open. I scrolled back up to the top and added “John Crane” to my existing search terms and carefully examined the limited results. Fortunately, the most disturbing thing I found was a story about a wolf attacking a crane being cared for at a private game reserve in the mountains. There was nothing on the Crane-Wolf I knew. I sighed in relief for the first time in hours.
But then, naturally, my mind began to wander again. I was surprised to learn that Butcher was in a gang—and I was also surprised to learn that he worked as a butcher. I wondered what else I’d be surprised to learn about him. What else didn’t I know? What else could I find?
I cleared my search bar and strummed my fingers over my laptop keys, as I tried to figure out what terms to enter. A name like “John Crane” wasn’t as common of a name as “John Smith,” but it was still pretty common. So if I wanted to find anything on a particular John Crane, I’d need to also search for something more specific—but whatever specific thing I added to the search couldn’t be so esoteric that it was ultimately exclusive.
I added “Broken Brother” to the search—and lo and behold, several hits were returned. But alas, they were all related to my articles. There were links that led directly to my articles, as they appeared on the L.A. Crier’s website, as well as links to folks who’d mentioned my articles in blogs or on social networks.
A spark went off in my head… social networks!
I opened another tab in my browser and clicked on my Facebook bookmark. I looked for people named “John Crane,” “Butcher Crane,” “John the Butcher,” etc., etc., etc.—I entered every possible name I could think of, but got no meaningful results.
After Facebook, I checked Twitter, Instagram, and a few other sites, including Tinder—but again, nothing.
I went back to my general web search and ran dozens of searches. All told, I was probably at my computer for about four hours. And in those four hours, the only things I found on John “The Butcher” Crane were my articles and the posts that stemmed from them.
Butcher had said he didn’t want his name out there in the public. And, but for the places I’d put it, it wasn’t. In light of that, I guess I could kinda see how he’d be mad at me for writing about him.
My legs were getting stiff from sitting on my bed, bent over my laptop, for so many hours, and my eyes were starting to glaze over from the glare from the screen. Even as a journalist, I don’t usually spend so much time, uninterrupted, in front of the computer.
I powered down my laptop and carried it back to its charging station in the living room. Just as I was plugging it in, I heard my phone ding and vibrate against the kitchen counter. I’d received a text message… and I had a fairly good idea who it was from.
Chap
ter 14
~ Lexi ~
It’s Butcher, the text message said. Hope everything’s cool. Wanna meet up for dinner after work tomorrow?
It took me all of thirty seconds to get to my phone after I heard it ding and vibrate. But once I got to it and read the message, I lingered on it for much, much longer. I didn’t know how to respond to Butcher. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I actually did want to meet up with him for dinner or not.
The bottom line was still the same: Butcher was in a gang. And everything I’d just found out about that gang was highly disturbing, even if it didn’t involve Butcher directly. Could I really willingly date a gang member? Didn’t that go against some rule or standard I was supposed to live by? Wasn’t it something my mama probably warned me about, or something that was implied by her other warnings?
How would dating a gang member affect my credibility as a reporter? Would people still take me seriously? Would I ever get the “big” stories? Would my boss still have faith in me?
Could I walk down the streets alone at night, or would I always need to be accompanied and/or carry protection?
Could I really willingly date a gang member?
I stared at my phone. It had been forty-eight minutes—FORTY-EIGHT MINUTES—since I received Butcher’s text, and I still hadn’t replied yet.
I knew the answers to the questions that flooded my head, and my better instincts told me how I should respond to Butcher’s message. But despite those better instincts, I couldn’t type what I needed to say.
I kept thinking about how sexy Butcher was, how skillfully he played guitar, and how mind-bogglingly wonderful it felt to have his tongue and his cock inside me. I was insanely attracted to him, and the chemistry between us was undeniable and incredibly strong. He’d awoken something in me, remember? Could I really put whatever it was back to sleep and ignore my intense feelings?
Didn’t I owe it to myself to see how this played out? And didn’t I owe it to Butcher to at least give him a chance to explain himself?
My thumbs twiddled above my cell phone. I pressed “Reply” and reconsidered my options one last time. I’d made up my mind and was ready to type my message.
But no sooner than my right thumb headed for the “I” key, my virtual keypad disappeared, and I got a notification for an incoming call—from Butcher.
“Hey,” I said. I’d let it ring three times before answering.
“Hey,” Butcher replied. His voice sounded quiet and a little muffled. “Did you get my text?”
“Yeah. I was just about to text you back,” I answered.
“What were you gonna say?” Butcher asked.
“I was gonna say,” I responded, “that I’ll meet you for dinner tomorrow after work.”
“Excellent,” Butcher said. Even though his voice was still quiet and muffled, he sounded happy, and I could almost hear him smiling through the phone.
“But,” I added, speaking briskly, “I’m only meeting you so that we can talk. It isn’t an official date or anything. I need to know more about you and this ‘gang’ thing before we can take things between us any further.”
Butcher didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he cleared his throat and answered. “Okay,” he said. “That’s completely understandable. We’ll meet tomorrow for dinner, just to talk.”
Butcher and I went on to set an exact time and location for our dinner “meeting” the next day. We decided to meet around six at a Mediterranean restaurant called Olive. It was located just a few miles away from where I worked, and I’d actually been meaning to try it.
After we ironed out all the details, it was Butcher who ended the phone call. He said he had to get going because he had something he had to take care of, and I told him that I did, too. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth or not, but I knew, for sure, that I wasn’t.
As soon as I hung up the phone with Butcher, I felt overwhelmed by a sense of longing and anticipating. I’d agreed to meet him for dinner, but that dinner wasn’t going to happen for more than twenty-four hours, and I wondered how in the hell I would bide the time.
They say that idle hands are the Devil’s playthings, so I decided to busy my hands in hopes of busying my mind also. I’d neglected my laundry for a while and hadn’t done any loads in several days, so my first task was to tend to that.
But even as I did that, I thought of Butcher. As I sorted through my dirty clothes, I came across the outfit I’d worn the when I met him at The Boneyard, and I made sure my load consisted of clothes I might wanna wear out with him the next night.
Laundry didn’t distract me, but I figured that maybe some other chores would.
But when I did the dishes, I saw the dirty, tattered sponge I’d thrown on the counter after using it to clean up the Merlot—and when I tossed the sponge in the garbage, I saw the chards of broken glass and the stained copy of the Crier.
Butcher. Butcher. Butcher. Everything I did, everywhere I looked, I was reminded of him. My own body even reminded me of him. Just last night, his hands and mouth were all over me, and he’d been inside my body.
I’d cleaned up after we were together, but I hadn’t fully showered, and I was sure that there were parts of him still on me—maybe a few drops of his cum that I’d missed, maybe some of his saliva, maybe his fingerprints were on my flesh, or maybe the spell he cast upon me hung above my head like a halo.
I decided to take a shower, to wash those parts away. But even in the shower, you guessed it, I thought of Butcher. As I lathered my hair and body, I thought of how sensual it’d be to have him do it for me, and of how invigorating it’d feel to have the hot water flow over both of our bodies as we rode each other against the tile wall.
Clearly, taking a shower didn’t help much. Sure, it got me clean, but it led to dirty thoughts about Butcher. And those dirty thoughts only got dirtier when I stepped out of the shower and went to my room to get dressed. My bed was still unmade and in disarray from the night before, and as I looked at it, I had to quickly look away to stop myself from visualizing the exquisite encounter I’d experienced there.
After I threw on a fresh outfit, I decided to straighten up the bed, which, inevitably, proved to be another bad move. When I picked up the pillow on which Butcher’s head had rested all night, I instinctively drew it to my face and smelled it. It smelled musky and manly, unlike any of my apartment’s usual odors. It smelled of Butcher, and I savored the scent, as I slowly inhaled it.
I set the pillow down and walked to the foot of my bed—to where I’d been when I had Butcher’s cock in my mouth—and I sat down.
I’m screwed, I thought. It wasn’t even evening yet, and I still had to get through the rest of the day and most of tomorrow before I’d get to see Butcher again—and, fuck, that wasn’t going to be easy.
Chapter 15
~ Butcher ~
“You’re crazy, you know,” Hammer said, setting his empty bottle down on the counter.
It was a little after five on Monday evening, and I’d stopped in at Pinky’s on my way to meet Lexi for dinner at Olive. Hammer just happened to be there when I arrived, and we’d been chatting for about twenty minutes when he called me “crazy.”
“I was surprised when I heard you were seeing this girl for a second time,” Hammer went on, sliding his cash forward to order another drink. “And now you’re seeing her for a third time? Do you really think you’re in the position to be dating?”
I narrowed my eyes and stared intently at my friend. I wanted to punch him in the face. He had a lot of nerve giving me unsolicited personal advice—and by God, I hated it that he was right!
“You’re just jealous,” I replied in a matter-of-fact manner after chugging what was left of my beer. “You’re not out there getting pussy anymore, and you don’t want anyone else out there getting it either.”
“You’re full of shit, Butcher,” Hammer fired back. “I’m not jealous, and I’m not trying to stop you—or anyone—from getting puss
y. Do whatever the fuck you want. If you wanna bang every broad in this city, go ahead. I ain’t gonna stop you.”
The bartender had brought Hammer his beer, and he grabbed it and took a drag before he continued.
“But getting pussy—fucking—is one thing,” he went on. “And dating is another. It seems to me that what you’re doing with this Lexi girl is dating, not fucking. You’re seeing her again and again, and you’re getting more than her pussy involved.
“And I’m asking you, Butcher—do you really think you’re in the position to do that right now? Do you really think it’s wise? I mean… have you even told her about your situation?”
“I’ll tell her what she needs to know, when she needs to know it,” I answered, trying not to raise my voice. “And I’m well aware of the difference between dating and fucking. But who are you to tell me what I’m in the position to do, or not do? What gives you the right? That’s my call, not yours. And right now, I don’t know exactly what I want—but I know I wanna see her again, so that’s what I’m gonna do.”
Hammer shook his head from side to side and snorted a caustic laugh under his breath.
“Okay, brother,” he said in resignation. “Just be careful.”
“I will, man,” I said as I stood up to leave. “Thanks.”
I reached out and patted Hammer on the shoulder. Even though we’d just had a heated exchange, I appreciated the fact that he cared enough about me to have it, and I respected him for his dedication and loyalty to me as a biker brother.
“You’re juggling a lot of balls,” Hammer said, putting his hand on my arm as I began to pull it away from his shoulder. “I don’t want to see any of them drop.”
“Me either,” I replied.
Hammer released his hand from my arm, and I nodded at him and then left Pinky’s. But when I left, his words came with me. They haunted me and clung to me and kept replaying in my head.
BUTCHER: Wolves MC (Riding With Wolves Book 3) Page 6
