He turns around, and his hip rests against the dresser. His arms cross and the inner hussy of mine glues her eyes to the muscles bulging from the movement. She has no shame.
My gaze travels up and the wicked smirk plastered on his face has me wanting to bitch slap her. I hate making a man’s ego any worse than it probably is.
“Stanton!” a female voice hollers up the staircase.
Her voice rips me out of my trance and I pull my phone out of my back pocket pretending to text someone as she blows through his open door as if she lives here.
She moves past me and stops right in front of Stanton, pops her hip out to the side and plants her palm right on it. I have to throw my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Stanton’s face is a mix of ‘you-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me’ and humor. I’m not sure what emotion is closer to the surface.
“Stanton, I thought you were leaving for the day,” she whines.
“Why does it matter, Anne?” he asks, annoyance coating his words.
I slide down the wall and leave one leg bent at the knee. I start picking at the worn denim trying to tell my head to explain to my heart that this conversation doesn’t matter to me. I don’t know Stanton like that. We are basically strangers. Yeah, so what if he comes into the diner four or five times a week for four or five months now? And we chit chat for hours? He’s still a stranger. And I should never have agreed to hang out with him today. Never.
“I thought we could hang out,” she replies in that same whiney tone. I wonder if that’s her real voice, or if she just sounds like that with Stanton.
“You thought wrong,” he states flatly.
“I thought there could be something between us.” She tries to sound seductive but it just sounds trashy. I’ve never heard a girl try so hard over a man. Wowzers.
I pull my pocket knife out of my pocket and flick it out to cut the loose threads off my worn jeans. Just as I go to get rid of the first thread, I hear a gasp.
I look up and Anne is looking at me with wide eyes.
“What?” I ask while standing back up. I brush the not-really-there lint off my jeans and then look up again. “Well, if you’d like, Stanton, I can wait outside while you and Miss Thang sort this out. Then you can take me home.” I yawn to push my stance further. “I’m tired anyway, ya know.” I shrug and start to head for the door.
“Stop, Schuyler.” His deep voice coats my skin and I soak up the feelings it brings forth inside of me.
Want.
Want for someone to desire me. As much as I hate to be vulnerable, that’s what I am. I want someone to put their foot down and fight for me. I’ve been alone so long, and the only people who have fought for me, only did it because I refused them. They didn’t love me, they didn’t want me, they just didn’t like that I didn’t want them.
“Nah. It’s cool, Stanton. Really. It seems like, Anne, is it? Yeah, Anne has a really important conversation to have with ya,” I say, as I try and shake off the weird feeling I’ve met her before. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck are prickling with the thoughts.
“It’s not like you weren’t trying to eavesdrop anyway. If I didn’t catch you sitting there like a freak with your knife, you would have stayed in here listening to the whole thing,” she snubs. Again, I try not to giggle.
“Yeah, you’re probably right there, sweet cheeks.” I snicker.
“Really, Stanton, why do you insist on bringing in strays?” she whines at him.
On that note, I’m outta here. Even if I have to walk myself.
I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I’m not a stray. I might be a loner, but I’m not a stray. I chose this life of loneliness. It fucking sucks, but I chose it.
As I walk out the door, I hear Stanton tell Anne she was out of line and never to talk to him again, or else he’ll throw her out on her curb monkey ass. I don’t hold back my giggle. It’s funny, because the term curb monkey is so degrading. In the motorcycle world, it means a girl who hangs out in the clubhouse in hopes of catching one of the patch members. They sit outside on the curb when the members go for a ride, and if a member wants a passenger, they pick one of the girls on the curb. Their hopes and wishes are to make one of the members fall in love .So they open their legs and put out to all the patches in hopes one will claim one of them as their old lady.
Some women are just plain desperate. I stop and giggle again while shaking my head. I left my home to get away from this life, but here I am, smack dab in the middle again, visiting the hell I once lived. Yeah, no fucking thank you.
“What’s so funny it has you stopping to laugh?” Stanton asks when he catches up to me.
“Oh, nothing. Just ironic. You wouldn’t understand,” I say.
“Try me,” he replies as his warm eyes study mine.
“Nahh. That’s not something I talk about anymore. Ready to take me home?” I ask as I start to head outside again.
“No. We are gonna take a ride and hang out for a while,” he replied brazenly.
“What? No. I want to go home now,” I tell him, feeling a little annoyed.
“I thought you didn’t let curb monkeys get to you like that,” he pops off at the mouth.
“I don’t,” I say stubbornly.
“Then why do you want to go home all of a sudden when before she walked into my room you were looking at me with fuck me eyes?” he asks with a tilt to his head and a wicked gleam in his eyes.
I’m sure my face is about ten shades of red right about now. This man is an ass.
“Maybe because it's personal for me. And I shouldn’t have even agreed to this in the first place. And maybe I’m tired. And I had a long night. And I don’t want to deal with curb monkey bullshit this early in the day. However you wanna look at it, Stanton.” I babble on and on. Now I’m angry I just ramble like that. Ugh. Men are stupid.
“Well, you didn’t deny my comment about the fuck me eyes.” He laughs as he walks to his bike.
I grumble, calling him an “asshole” under my breath, as I walk after him.
He hands me the helmet. As I go to take it from him, my hand brushes his, my chest hurts from the powerful warmth of his touch. I look up into his face and his eyes are glued to the spot where our hands meet.
“Vice!” a guy shouts and I pull the helmet from his grasp.
Seems like there is always someone saving us from getting in too deep.
Stanton mumbles something under his breath about fuckers keeping him from what he wants.
“Vice, I’m glad I caught you. There is a guy in the guest wing who wants to speak with you,” the kid says while turning to point at, what I’m assuming is, the guest wing.
“Too bad. I’m leaving. Tell him to come back tomorrow and I’ll chat with him,” he tells the prospect. I know he’s not a patch member because his cut says ‘Prospect of the Fallen Angels’ on the back.
My dad would never have put his club name on a prospect cut. I’m reeling a bit. Could this club really be any different than his? I’ve seen so many different things already.
“Alright, Vice. I’ll let him know. Have a good night, well, morning,” he laughs and walks away.
“I intend to,” he says while looking at me. I swallow as I put the helmet on.
I’m not sure what exactly I’m feeling. My insides are screaming so many different things, I don’t know what to think.
I’m scared to get back into this motorcycle life. I’m scared to get attached to a motorcycle club member, because I know they don’t stay faithful. I know it. I’ve seen it. Was nearly forced to accept it. I’m scared my father will find me. I’m scared as shit he will hurt Stanton, or threaten him.
I’m scared when Stanton finds out about my family that he will want nothing to do with me. With all the other things I’m scared of, for some reason that one hurts the most.
I feel safe with Stanton. And I know that’s crazy. We hardly know each other. But one thing my aunt and uncle taught me was my gut is always right. T
rust it. Go with it.
So, I am.
I snap my helmet strap and place my hand on his shoulder, stepping up on the back pegs of his bike. Once I throw my other leg over, my whole body sighs in happiness to be wrapped around this man again. I wouldn’t ever ride in a cage again if I got to ride with him everywhere.
His hand comes back to rest on my knee.
“Ready, sweetheart?” he asks.
“More than ready,” I reply with a smile.
Because it’s true. I’m excited to take this journey. I wrap my hands around his middle, and bask in the warmth he provides.
Right before he takes off, I flip the visor down to shield my eyes from the wind.
As we circle around the clubhouse, a man is walking out to his bike. I’ve seen that bike before. I turn my head and look at the guy and when his eyes come up and run over my body, my breath is robbed from me. My arms involuntarily grip Stanton harder.
He can’t be here. He just can’t.
Chapter 5
I pull into the circle drive of my home. This is my home away from home. Fallen Angels clubhouse is where I sleep most days. When Schuyler agreed to hang out with me, I didn’t want to do it there. I’m not ashamed of my brotherhood; the exact opposite really. But I know it’s a lot to put onto one person at a time. The girls coming and going, the booze that never stops flowing, the people always partying. The one thing our house doesn’t have is drugs. Our Prez is a huge anti-drug advocate. It has something to do with him watching his dad do it for years, or something. I’m not too sure. All I know is if he ever catches someone trying to bring that shit into our house, I feel sorry for them. Well, maybe I wouldn’t.
I kick the kick stand down, and hold my hand out for Schuyler, to help her off my bike. When she doesn’t grab my hand, I look back.
“You okay, Schuyler?” I ask, but she says nothing.
I flip up her visor and her face is sheet white.
“Schuy? What’s the matter? I need you to talk to me,” I tell her as I remove her helmet.
She peers at me and just stares. Her eyes searching mine. For what? I don’t know. The answer to a million-dollar question? The cure for childhood cancer? I have no idea. All I know, something is wrong. And a foreign instinct of mine reared its ugly head and demanded I fix the problem.
“Do you know who I am?” she asks with a tinge of anger to her tone.
“Uh, yeah, you’re Schuyler Guiler. I’ve known that for months. You told me your name when I first started coming into the diner about five months or so ago,” I answer, baffled.
Her whole body relaxes and I stand there a bit confused.
“Oh, right.” She shakes her head as if she is shaking away a bad memory.
I hold my hand out again for her to dismount the bike and this time she does.
Once she’s off, she looks up at me again with those big brown eyes and long lashes.
“You probably think I’m crazy now, don’t you?” she asks, her voice light as a feather.
“Actually, no, I’m just confused,” I reply honestly.
I place my hand at her lower back and escort her up my walkway.
She laughs bitterly.
“Do you have secrets, Vice?” she asks me.
Hearing her call me Vice has my dick hard. She uses it in a way I can’t explain. She’s not calling me by my rank; she’s using it as a name.
“Of course I do. Who doesn’t?” I reply like that’s common knowledge.
We walk into my front door and I kick my shoes off, she follows my lead and does the same. Her feet are in mismatched socks. I smirk to myself. I can’t wait to find out all the quarks that make her, her. I will, with time.
She looks around my house, and for some reason I stand there waiting for her opinion of it. I usually don’t give a damn what people think, because it’s mine. However, her opinion matters the world to me.
“This place is incredible,” she tells me with a heart stopping smile on her face. Her perfect teeth, dimples on both cheeks, and the stretch of her lips is real. I could stand there looking at her all night.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” I wink. “Follow me into the kitchen,” I say while nodding my head in that direction.
“Would you like a drink?” I ask.
“Just water, please,” she answers around a yawn.
I grab two bottles of water and walk back to her side and lead her through the French doors in my kitchen.
We walk out to my back deck and there is a wicker chaise. I walk over to it, and set the waters down on the matching side table.
“Come here, woman,” I tell her. Her eyes are vacant. Tired. Worn. And, if I’m not mistaken, scared.
She walks over and I grab her hand and pull her to the chaise. She scoots into the side and I lay down next to her. We are both on our backs, my arms under my head looking up at the sun rising over the horizon.
“This is a really pretty view out here.” Her eyes are sad almost.
“It is. The most stunning I’ve ever seen,” I reply while looking at her.
Her attention travel back to me and a deep blush tints her face.
“If I tell you a secret, will you tell me one in return?” she asks with so much hope in her voice.
“Will it help you tell me yours if I tell you mine?” I ask.
She nods her head while pushing a few strands of hair out of her big brown eyes.
“Okay well, I’ll go first then. That way you know I’ll stay true to my word,” I tell her.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“My mom is an addict,” I blurt out.
She lays there watching me. Her eyes searching mine for, something. I wait for the judging look to cross those beautiful eyes I can’t get enough of, but it never comes.
“Say something, please,” I say.
“I’m sorry for your mom, but why do you hold that as a secret? That’s not your fault,” she asks.
“I keep it close because people tend to judge me because of her actions.” I shrug.
“I can’t believe that, Vice. Why would they judge you because of someone else? That’s like judging a train for crashing when a track is broken. No way.”
“I’m not sure, sweetheart. All I know is, I can’t seem to get the fuck away from her. She drags me down with her every single damn time.”
“Oh. I see now. That’s why you keep it a secret,” she says as she rolls over to her side and props her head up on her hand.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, you bail her out. Right?”
“I have to. She’s my fucking mom.”
“No, you don’t. Just like you said, she’s the parent, not you, Vice. You’re the son who takes care of his mom. It shouldn’t be that way. Not until she’s much older and can’t physically do stuff on her own,” she says with such compassion.
“I can’t explain it to you, Schuy. It’s not your mom,” I grumble, feeling like a child caught with my hands in the cookie jar. You can’t explain something like this to someone who just can’t understand.
“Hey,” she says, her voice soft, turning my face back to hers.
She looks at her hand on my chin and her eyes transfix at the connection. It feels so perfect to have her hands on me, even in this innocent way.
“I understand what it’s like to do the bidding for a parent,” she says. “That’s why I’m telling you, it isn’t your job.” She flicks her eyes back up to mine.
This woman is perfect in every single damn way. My eyes search hers. Looking for anything that tells me she doesn’t want my lips on hers.
I reach up and put my knuckles under her chin and pull her toward me. I hear her small intake of breath and something snaps inside of me.
When my lips touch hers, my whole body groans. The soft, exploring kiss turns into a desperate, needing kiss.
She’s sweeter than any candy you can buy. She angles her head back, allowing me to sip her lips deeper. I lick the seam of her lips, and she o
pens on a sigh. My tongue thrusts in, meeting hers. She moans causing my cock to strain against my zipper, begging to be set free from its confinements.
I end the kiss with an unforgiving tug of her lower lip. I lean back a little and my eyes never leave hers as I pull her body against mine. My thumb is still rubbing the small circles on her back as she rests her chin on my chest over my beating heart.
“Wow,” she breathes.
I know exactly what she means.
“You felt it too then?”
“To my toes.”
“I told you my secret, now it’s your turn,” I tell her to get my mind off her mouth. My dick wants release, but I’m not going to push her on that. She’s special. I can feel it. She’s not some curb monkey.
“Ugh. I don’t want to, Vice. I mean I really don’t want to.”
“You don’t have to then. baby. It’s not that big of a deal to me. I mean I want to know all of your secrets. The deepest ones you have, but I want you to be ready for them,” I tell her.
“I know, but this particular one, I’ll never be ready for. Ever. But something happened when we left your clubhouse. And, I think I better tell you now, or else you’ll find out soon enough. And call me crazy, but the feelings I have for you—they are screaming at me to tell you now, not to let you find out by someone else.” She takes a deep breath and then looks back at me with those deep brown eyes. “My name is Schuyler Guiler. But…” she breathes deep again, “that’s my mother’s name. Not my father's.” She says, her eyes pleading with mine to understand.
“Okay?” I drawl out. “And?”
“I took my mother’s maiden name because I didn’t want a damn thing to tie me to my father or his fucked up world, okay? So please keep that in mind.” She continues her plea.
“Alright, Schuy,” I say to soothe the fear on her face.
“My father’s name is Denton Stryker,” she says light as a feather.
My Vice: Fallen Angels MC (Fallen Angels MC Series Book 1) Page 3
