Demon's Greed: An MC Romance (Savage Kings MC Book 17)

by Carter Steele

  “I don’t know, I mean, born to a single mom, she had me in her teens, not exactly a stable life. I know, you can psychoanalyze me so much right now, can’t you?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind,” I said, though in the back of my head I knew that I had several dots I was connecting. “Please, feel free to share whatever you feel comfortable sharing.”

  “I mean, that’s it. No father. Mom was pretty lax, so long as I treated her with respect. So I did. I pushed boundaries. Long as I made my mother happy and didn’t piss her off, I could get away with just about anything. So… I mean, OK, that’s pretty much it.”

  Well, that’s definitely not it, but this certainly makes sense. You’re used to a world in which you can push boundaries and not face consequences for it, perhaps even more so than the rest of the Savage Kings.

  “And how is your relationship with your mother now?”

  “Fine,” he said. “She lives about an hour north. Doesn’t like the city.”

  “And does she know about your engagement with this… club of yours?”

  “Oh, yeah, she thinks it’s great. She thinks it can be like a family to keep me in line.”

  And probably a group of guys that could also act as de facto father figures for him. Interesting.

  “You know, I know you hate the Savage Kings, and OK, fine, I know we can be polarizing,” he said, his smile fading for perhaps the first time that I could remember. “But besides the drinking and the playing the field part, I’m not a bad guy, you know. None of us are.”

  “Hmmm,” I said.

  I had a tough act to balance of both pushing to end the scourge that was the Savage Kings and showing that Zane could open up without fear of judgment from me. Frankly, the challenge was part of the reason I so welcomed having him on as a client.

  “So, whatever you’re planning on trying to do with us, get it out of your head. We do a favor to this town.”

  “I will do my best to empathize and keep that in mind,” I said, having to speak slowly so that I did not come across as overly condescending. It was the hardest part of the session.

  Actually, getting Zane to say anything more for the next hour was the hardest part. He went back to the laughing, smiling, and joking guy who used an extreme extroverted exterior as a shield against discussing real feelings and fears. I had to admit, he had a couple of lines that were funny, but for the most part, I was just mildly annoyed.

  But it was the first session. Even my most compliant clients didn’t reveal everything about themselves. It was impossible—ninety-nine percent of the time, that had less to do with a fear of revealing something as it did with just not realizing how important something was.

  “Well, that brings an end to our hour,” I said. “Zane Williams, your next appointment here is at eight a.m. next Friday. And please do your best to be on time so that we can start and end within schedule. I do not want to have to get the sheriff involved.”

  “Sheriff, schmeriff, you got nothing to worry about,” he said. “You know, if you’d like, our club throws a party every Friday night at our clubhouse. You should come. A pretty, educated lady like yourself?”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. Thankfully, I didn’t think Zane took it as condescending.

  “As, let’s say, polite as that offer is, I do not mingle with my clients outside of this office,” I said.

  “I see,” he said with a smirk as he stood. “Then I guess I’ll just have to be your best patient ever so I graduate to being a former patient.”

  For some reason, that statement produced a very visceral reaction in me. It wasn’t one I expected, but there was something scandalously exciting about him finishing and then something else happening.

  But as I so often told my clients, we were not our thoughts, and that this thought arose did not mean I was about to break every code of ethic I had. It just meant I’d had a glimpse of a thought, and so long as I didn’t let it derail my professionalism and my actions, it didn’t mean anything.

  “I will see you next week, Zane,” I said as I stood and opened the door. “Enjoy your party.”

  “Oh, you know I will. I’ll think about you at it.”

  His swagger is something else.

  I tried to ignore the fact that that thought came about more from a place of admiration than judgment.

  3

  Zane

  Flirting with Renee was fun.

  But you know what was more fun?

  Taking a nap.

  Even more fun than that?

  Taking a nap until about two in the afternoon.

  I figured just before I fell asleep that once I woke up, I’d be able to go about my Friday like normal. I would scour the list of girls coming, cross-check them against my own black book of women I’d slept with, check Facebook to decide which of the ones I hadn’t slept with I’d want to go for, and then hone in on her and make her mine. It was a pretty effective process, actually, considering that I already had a reputation for being fun and a great lay in bed.

  That was the idea when I got home shortly after nine, though. The reality, upon waking up, was much, much different.

  I couldn’t get Renee out of my head.

  She was a challenge.

  She was something I hadn’t felt in some time.

  Uncertainty in the pursuit of a woman.

  Sex was great no matter what, don’t get me wrong. Burying deep inside of a girl or her throat was far better than just going home and jerking off. But when I knew that it was practically guaranteed, when I knew that it would take an absolutely embarrassing performance for me not to get laid, it was a little bit hard for me to pretend that there was real excitement involved in the chase. Not since I first started to chase after girls had I had real difficulty pursuing some.

  Sure, there’d be the occasional girl who would say she would hold out. And she would. But there was never any doubt what the endgame was.

  Until now.

  Renee Falcone was no guarantee. She was, in fact, probably not a likely lay. And as a result, goddamn, she was going to haunt my mind and my dreams until I found a way to procure her. Maybe I really would have to make a point of being a good patient.

  But for at least the next six days, that wouldn’t matter. And for tonight, that really wouldn’t matter. I had to go remind the club what it meant to be a single motorcyclist in an MC club, and what all the perks were that came from such a status.

  When I walked into the party—always preferring to make a fashionably late entrance, wearing just my cut, no undershirt, tight jeans, and sunglasses—I saw a sight that just outright disgusted me.

  All of the older officers had women!

  Even William had a girl. I mean, for fuck’s sake, was I the only one that was going to uphold the image of an MC man as a bad boy who took every woman in sight? Was I the only club member that had the balls to actually spread my seed far and wide?

  Or had everyone else become soft because the Anarchists had vanished?

  It was all in jest, of course. If the boys thought that loving one woman was better than making love to one new woman a night, then that was their right. They were wrong, but it was in their right.

  “And look who showed up.”

  I turned around in surprise to see none other than Landon King, the man who had most recently gotten hitched, standing there before me. Alone?

  “Brother,” I said, clasping his hand and pulling him in for a hug. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be back in Florida or something?”

  “I was, but I came back today. Vacation’s great, but at some point, figured I had to come back.”

  “I see. And so you came back without Caroline? Do you mean to tell me LZ is going to be a thing again? Back on the prowl with me?”

  Landon laughed… sympathetically.

  “That’s not how relationships work, and it’s definitely not how Caroline and I work. I’m happy with her, man. And besides, you know LZ was mostly me setting you up, not vice versa.
”

  “Man, don’t be so self-defeating,” I said with a pat on the back, though in reality, there was complete truth to what he said. “Tell you what. For old time’s sake, you want to help me score tonight and then you can go back and make sweet love to your girlfriend?”

  “Like you need my help,” Landon said.

  No, but it’s a lot more fun when I don’t feel like the only one here who’s having fun. Granted, the club members and the prospects are, but someone needs to set the tone. We can’t all be adults here. Some of us have to be able to have fun.

  “Oh, come on!” I said, practically begging Landon to tag along. “Just, come with me as I chat up… her.”

  I didn’t even remember the girl’s name I was pointing at. She had red hair, large breasts, a flat stomach, and wide hips. I definitely had not slept with her, but I definitely would have by the end of the night.

  “Hey!” Landon shouted.

  The girl turned our way. She smiled.

  “There you go,” Landon said, patting me on the shoulder.

  I smiled at her, left my brother behind to go to his lady, and walked up to my lady for the night.

  “Well, hello, beautiful,” I said.

  My style was a little more direct, but I think that’s what the girls loved. They didn’t want some mysterious, aloof, coy guy that they’d have to figure out; they really wanted someone completely unashamed, playful, and charming about sex. I never hid my intentions, and I never misled someone into thinking there would be something more than there was.

  In fact, right now, I could think of only one person that I would be open to sleeping with more than once, and that was…

  Well, it wasn’t the girl in front of me right now.

  “Hi, handsome,” she said.

  She gave me her name—Belle, or Brittney, or something, I forgot it as soon as I heard—and I gave her mine. My name was the kind of thing that passed over the lips of every eligible prospect within a fifty mile radius. That may have been a slight exaggeration, but it probably wasn’t to say that there were not that many degrees of separation.

  What could I say, I had my fun.

  And fun was what I had Belle—that’s what I called her in my head—set up for within less than thirty minutes. Compared to someone like Renee or even some of the other girls, she was a much easier haul. She didn’t need to be convinced to have fun, nor did she need to be charmed or seduced. All I had to do was say “want to get on my bike?” and the deal was sealed.

  “Which bike are you referring to?” was the followup that convinced me I didn’t even need to say anything else. I just grabbed Belle’s hand, walked her to my bike, and drove her to my place.

  When we got to my place, we got right down to business. I was not a gentle or romantic lay. I was an aggressive lover, and the fact that I had Belle’s clothes off and naked in my hallway—not even in my bedroom, but my fucking hallway—said it all.

  She loved it. She ate it up. She hurried to get me naked too, and within a minute, we were two naked bodies groping at each other, pressed up against my hallway wall.

  “Fuck me, Zane,” she said, turning around.

  I didn’t need her to tell me to do that. I put a condom on, slid inside her…

  And, with her face away from me, had the image of Renee Falcone pop to mind. What the hell?

  That had never happened before. It had never, ever happened before, in fact. I wasn’t exactly someone who took the time to know my girls that well—frankly, there were just too many of them—but I never confused someone for someone else or saw someone else’s face.

  Until, apparently, now. Yeah, it was incredibly unnerving and incredibly awkward.

  I still plowed the hell out of Belle. I had her screaming my name so loudly that I heard the neighbors banging on the walls. For a short period of time, it worked; I didn’t think too much about Renee, and her face didn’t appear.

  But as soon as I came, as soon as I slid out, one thought popped to mind that I couldn’t ignore.

  I wish that was Renee.

  “Oh my God, Zane, you’re a keeper!” Belle said, slumping against the ground in a mixture of playing and exhaustion. “You have got to stick around a little longer.”

  “No, I don’t, I’m good,” I said. “You’re a sweetheart, Belle, but I sleep alone.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, that’s the deal. You get a great lay, I get to sleep alone.”

  “The fuck?”

  I ignored her as she called for me. I just went into my room, trying to make sense of it all.

  “I’ll call you an Uber if you want,” I said, but that just caused her to cuss me out some more before she eventually left, slamming the door so hard that it sounded like something fell from the hallway.

  Well, that was certainly not quite the way I had wanted the evening to go. But it was also most certainly not the face I had expected to pop up in the middle of sex.

  I guess there was only one way to push the issue.

  I guess I had to make my moves on Renee.

  Even if it took a little bit of subterfuge. Even if it meant doing things that were a little out of character for the club.

  4

  Renee

  I couldn’t believe that when I woke up Saturday morning, I spent it wondering how Zane’s party had gone.

  Then again, as I liked to tell my patients, “you are not your thoughts.” Zane had been one of the most dynamic and one of the most resistant patients at the same time, and no matter what happened, I knew that he was going to be memorable. If nothing else, it was going to be a particular intellectual challenge to have to treat him for his craziness and try and encourage the removal of the club.

  But as I went about my morning routine of brushing my teeth, making a black coffee, and preparing some oatmeal, I couldn’t help but wonder if the thoughts I was feeling were a little more than just the professional type.

  I wasn’t just thinking of Zane, the patient. I wasn’t just thinking of the academic problem that had an answer buried somewhere in the textbook of my brain. I was thinking of Zane, the person.

  And that was something of a problem.

  For the time being, as I ate my oatmeal and let my coffee wake me up, I just chalked it up to the audacity and personality of Zane. In time, it would pass, especially as I got used to having him in my office. I hope.

  When I finished eating and felt sufficiently alert, I checked my schedule for the day. I didn’t have any appointments, but I liked to spend my Saturdays either holding therapy awareness seminars or contributing to certain causes in the area. Today, there were no therapy presentations, but there was a mental health awareness day the hospital was running.

  It was not lost on me that the reason this event was being run was because of much of the trauma guys like Zane and the Savage Kings had done to the town of Romara. That just further reinforced the urgency of me being there. I had an hour to go before it started and just a ten minute drive, but I already started getting ready, determined to present my best self and most alert self.

  I arrived about twenty minutes before the event started. I introduced myself as a therapist to the host, who, upon realizing what he had at his event, immediately guided me to the center of the lobby, the better so that more people would funnel in to me. I sat there and folded my hands, getting myself in the proper space of mind to communicate.

  And that was when I heard the most dreadful sound of all.

  A motorcycle.

  This can’t be happening. Surely, it’s just someone else.

  But I already knew it wasn’t someone else. I already knew that it was Zane. I already knew that there was literally no other member of the Savage Kings who was coming here. Frankly, even though we lived in a small town, I didn’t even know of anyone else who was coming here. This was going to be my worst nightmare.

  And sure enough, when I heard the motorcycle stop just outside the hospital and I looked out on the entrance, I saw Zane Williams wal
king to the door. Unlike before, when he would see me and deliberately either act like he had insomnia or had the most gregarious personality in the world, he now had a very different look—utter determination.

  I hated that my immediate reaction was one of good feelings for what I saw.

  “Renee Falcone,” Zane said. “We meet again.”

  “Hi, Zane,” I said, swallowing. “If you would like to schedule an appointment beyond our next one on Friday, please contact my—”

  “Please,” he said with a laugh before he sat across me. “You think I’m here to schedule an appointment? Well, at least an appointment for therapy. I’d be happy to schedule a different kind of appointment with you, if you know what I mean!”

  He let out a laugh that probably reached to the third floor of the hospital. I just tried to ride out the laughter, but it was too damn infectious; it was the kind of laugh that caused even the most cold-hearted, the most stoic of people, to smile and feel warmer in their affections toward Zane.

  Woah, the heck are you thinking, Renee?

  “Zane, as nice as it is to see you here,” I said, words I immediately regretted by the way he raised his eyebrows in curiosity. “I have a strict no-interaction policy with my clients outside of the office.”

  “So wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me that if you saw me just at a coffee shop or a bar or anything of that nature, you would refuse to engage me? You’d just ignore me entirely? That seems rather rude, don’t you think?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t,” Zane said, that devilish smirk going over his face—the guilty, playful kind that elicited an emotion unlike the one I hoped to feel. “Do explain to me what you mean.”

  I sighed. Usually I was the one adept at getting others to admit something they didn’t want to, albeit for their own benefit. Zane was just trying to trap me verbally so he could have something of me for himself.