Promised Lust: An MC Romance (Savage Kings MC Book 18)

by Carter Steele

  “But I’m a bad boy, I know!”

  The sheriff sighed. I rolled my eyes. I put my hand over my mouth to prevent my budding smile from showing.

  “Renee, you let me know if you need any help with this one.”

  “I will. I’m heading back to my car anyways.”

  The sheriff nodded to me as we both cut across the grass of the park, turning a quarter-mile walk into a very short one.

  “I’ll text you,” Zane said. “I am going to make you a very happy woman on Friday.”

  “Zane…”

  “Call me Zack, if you must.”

  “I’m not calling you Zack, and you’re not calling me Rachel, OK?” I said, putting my hands in my pocket. “Zane, we need to not—”

  “You should know that suppressing your feelings is going to cause more trouble in the long run,” he said. “Look, just give me Friday. If you really think all I’m going to do is try and get your naked ass and then leave you, then maybe it’s you who hasn’t paid much attention during our therapy sessions.”

  Goddamnit, Zane. I know you’re right. I know that I’ll end up going with you.

  Just… maybe allow me to have some shred of personal dignity before I go down this road, huh?

  “I’ll see what happens,” I said.

  “I know what’ll happen, but I’ll let you have these moments,” Zane said, patting me on the back. “See you then!”

  Zane then broke off in a jog for his bike, hopping on and pulling out of the lot so quickly I hadn’t even gotten off of the grass when he finished.

  He was right, though. We knew what would happen.

  The only thing we didn’t know was how far things would go.

  And I was determined to at least hold on to that level of self-respect as a therapist, if not the part about not meeting my clients outside of work.

  5

  Zane

  I had my work cut out for me, but I relished that.

  I usually associated women with easy in my head, but I welcomed the chance to have to work a bit. I welcomed the opportunity to have to win over someone instead of just throwing a few cute phrases in there to make her heart melt. I liked having someone who wasn’t a math problem, but instead someone who was dynamic and difficult.

  It was only a bonus that Renee was actually a good person and someone who would make a great girlfriend. If, wait, that’s what you want? Sure, you want more than sex, but that’s a huge leap!

  Damn, she really is getting into my head. Friday really is going to be interesting.

  First, though, we had to have another therapy session.

  And like the previous one, this one required us going through the motions. I’d already arranged to meet her just outside my apartment and to have her drive—her vehicle was much quieter than my bike, and though I yearned for the opportunity to have her ride my bike, given that it essentially turned any woman into someone interested in me, I had to play by her rules for a bit.

  Just for a bit, though. And part of playing by her rules meant going to this session.

  It was like Monday’s session. Boring and something to get through. I’m sure she thought I was making changes or progress in some fashion, but I didn’t see how. I was still the same gregarious, fun-loving, wild boy that she had first met before. Maybe I was a little kinder and a little more empathic, but this whole thing was only happening because the sheriff had to pick on someone in the club, and the youngest officer seemed like an easy target.

  But as soon as I left Renee’s office—this time making sure to be distant and not at all flirtatious, just to throw her off a little bit and keep her on her toes—I had another realization.

  I needed to find a way to get out of the club party tonight.

  If I just skipped the club party, that was going to raise suspicion everywhere that I’d found a woman outside of the club that I didn’t want to bring, and that would immediately bring everyone back to Renee. If I showed up to the club party, well, that was a non-starter—I wasn’t bringing Renee around, and I wasn’t going to cancel our date so I could bang some floozy.

  I had to find a good excuse. But what would it be?

  I wasn’t going to call in sick like it was high school. We weren’t teenagers who had to fake the sniffles, and besides, even if I was sick, as long as I wasn’t suffering from the Black Plague, the rest of the club would just tell me to come and drink it off.

  We did need a volunteer to be on the lookout for Owen, which I could have done, but that carried some major risk. If I had the job and then I went off with Renee, and then something happened…

  But would it, though?

  One percent of the time, Owen would strike. The other ninety-nine percent of the time, nothing would happen. But that one percent that did happen could result in multiple people dying. And if that happened, and the club found out the truth…

  So why not go out and hunt him? Have someone guarding the clubhouse, and then you can volunteer to hunt him down?

  As soon as the idea sprang to mind, I knew it was the right one. I called Landon, knowing he would be much more receptive to hearing whatever I had to propose.

  “What’s up dude?” he said.

  “Hey bud, so you know how last week, it sort of felt like Owen got away because of me?”

  “Well, uh, I wouldn’t say that, but—”

  “I know you wouldn’t, but just let me have this,” I said. “We should have someone guarding the clubhouse. But I think I’m going to go see if I can find Owen myself.”

  A long silence came on the other end of the line. I knew I was playing a very dangerous game, lying to the VP of the club, let alone one of my friends. But if it kept Renee from losing her job in the end…

  Well, this whole thing felt like I was balancing a piece of wood on my head that was on fire while standing on one leg on a medicine ball. To say the whole situation was precarious was laughably understating it, and now lying to Landon was like adding an active chainsaw on top of the piece of wood. But, hey, it could never be said that I wasn’t daring and a little crazy.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea, Zane,” Landon said. “You’re one man.”

  “And so is Owen. I can handle him. I’m not scared.”

  I probably should be, though. Considering what I might be bumping up against.

  “Look, I… just don’t do anything stupid, OK? I know what you’re thinking, that you can make up for last week, though I’m still going to say it wasn’t your fault. Just promise me that you’ll ambush him but not get into a chase of any kind, OK?”

  “Promise.”

  It was the easiest promise I could make yet. I hung up a little bit after, and while I couldn’t entirely shake the guilt of having lied and trying to get away with it, I also felt pretty confident this wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass. And if it did?

  Well, at least I’d have my night with Renee.

  I parked my bike downtown and walked over to Renee’s place, about a fifteen-minute walk. I think she had expected me to drive my motorcycle over, because when I knocked at her apartment door, she stared at me in surprise.

  “I’m just trying to be subtle… Rachel,” I said with a shit-eating grin.

  “Jesus Christ, we are not doing that,” she said, though she said it playfully. “Let’s go. Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere far away.”

  “And that is? I’m driving, remember.”

  “I know,” I said. “Just start driving south. You’ll get to the destination.”

  “OK then,” Renee said.

  It was part of the plan to just let her put her trust in me and to let me take the metaphorical wheel on the drive here. Along the way to our destination—which was not going to be the beach, as Landon had done; that risked being in front of too many people—we kept our chat lighthearted and playful. There would be a time when I would make a bolder move and suggested we go someplace quiet, but that time was not now.

  Twenty minutes later, I
saw the signs.

  “Take this exit here.”

  “To… North Hollywood? You know that North Hollywood is a quiet neighborhood in Los Angeles, right? That it’s also not Hollywood?”

  “You talk like I’ve never been into the city before!” I said, pretending to be offended. “It’s like you don’t even know me, Renee!”

  “Oh, I know, right? For all the times that you’ve been in my office, I still don’t know you.”

  We held a gaze as if one of us was going to continue the playful argument, but we just fell into more easy laughter. Being with Renee had made me forget entirely about all the things that could go wrong; instead, it was much easier to only focus on what was going right so far.

  “Where am I parking?” she asked.

  “Go down Lankershim Boulevard. And when you get past Weddington Street, look for a place to park on the street.”

  “Easy enough,” she said. “Although I still don’t know where we’re going.”

  “Well, think about it,” I explained. “You want someplace quiet. I want to take you someplace that’ll not be in the line of sight of anyone we know or could know. I want to show you that I don’t want to sleep with you tonight—”

  “Wait, what?”

  Renee tried to play off her immediate response as just her joking around, but I knew every time I told her I didn’t want to sleep with her, a part of her wanted to push back, as if to prove that she was worthy of being slept with. Sometimes, this was absolutely a trick of sorts on my part to get the girl in question to sleep with me.

  But this time, it was kind of genuine. I really did want to slow this down, even if I got easily caught up in the moment at times.

  However, just because that was the goal didn’t mean I wasn’t opposed to it happening. And I knew one way that we could maybe make that happen.

  “You know,” I said. “I was going to take you to a coffee shop so we could have some tea or coffee and maybe some brownies. But if you’re looking to feel good…”

  “Hmm,” Renee said, looking at me with a very curious look in her eyes.

  “Why don’t we try something that’ll make your spirits get a little… higher?”

  6

  Renee

  It seemed like Zane’s goal for me changed by the minute.

  Here, he didn’t want to sleep with me tonight. At the park, it had seemed like he wanted to have me right there. In the aftermath of the shooting, he was empathic.

  If this was all some sort of a game that he was playing, I hated to say it, but he was playing it pretty damn well. I found myself falling prey to a very classic trap of sending mixed signals and making the other person want to clarify those signals.

  But there was one thing that he couldn’t have realized from before that I was absolutely gung-ho about.

  I loved using weed as a relaxant.

  Though I loved a good glass of wine like many other people, I was much more into having some drugs to help me sleep, to help me calm down from a stressful day with patients, or to just deal with general life issues. I may not have been able to do it in other states, but California afforded me an opportunity to do just that.

  “You better find one in the next two minutes, or you’re going to see what happens when someone goes through withdrawals!”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “Just play the part, Zane!” I said, chuckling at the sudden “outburst” of mine.

  Zane punched in the search on his phone and guided me to a dispensary about two miles away. I drove us there in record time, and we were in and out of the store in under five minutes, each of us with some brownies of the special kind to help relax us.

  “You know what’s great about these?” I said. “The placebo effect. Even before they actually kick in, I already feel relaxed.”

  “Yeah?” Zane said, putting his hand on my back. I did not resist. It felt good—really good, actually.

  “Yeah. Work can sometimes be a real bitch having to hear everyone talk about their problems—it’s like as a therapist, you’re almost a sacrificial lamb having to take on the burden of hearing everyone’s problems. And, in some cases, you have to deal with twenty-one year old crazy dudes who want to hit on you.”

  “Geez, I can’t even imagine having to deal with someone like that!”

  “Look in the mirror sometime, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what it’s like.”

  Again, we both laughed, and Zane pulled me in with his arm. I leaned into him, and I couldn’t really say it was unwittingly; the drugs may not have kicked in, but there was a certain part of me that would just say the drugs made me want to curl up on him.

  “By the way,” I said. “Weren’t we supposed to only eat a third of those brownies?”

  “Maybe,” Zane said with a shrug. “Don’t see why it would matter.”

  “Uhh, it matters in that I can’t drive,” I said. “I mean, I could, but I don’t really want to risk it.”

  “See, if you’d let me drive you down, you could be feeling all sorts of tingles from the bike and I could drive you, but no, Miss Anonymity wanted to be away—”

  I shoved him as he laughed at me.

  “Let’s just get a hotel room,” I said.

  The words had barely left my lips before I realized that if Zane had set me up to sleep with me, he had succeeded. And another part of me was starting to feel that tingle so much, I didn’t mind if I did sleep with him. Maybe feeling him on me would do the trick.

  “OK, fine, if you want to do the whole be safe thing,” Zane said with a silly eye roll. “I suppose we can do that.”

  We walked hand in hand to the nearest hotel, which just turned out to be a simple Holiday Inn a couple of blocks from the dispensary. Zane, at the front desk, asked for two beds, ignoring the strange look from both me and the front desk lady. Maybe I had misread his intentions entirely?

  Or maybe this was just some unnecessary continuation of the game, the biggest sign yet that he had me more than I would be willing to admit and his youth kept him from realizing he could just let go and have me. Except Zane is not some kid. He’s in his twenties and he’s been through a lot more.

  We got over to the elevator and started the ride up.

  And then it hit me.

  My entire body felt warm. Everything in my body just seemed to instantly relax. I wanted to curl up into the corner of the elevator and pass out. I couldn’t stop smiling. It just felt so good!

  “Zane,” I said, unable to hide my enormous smile. “I think it’s starting to hit me.”

  “Hmm,” he said.

  I looked at him, but I ended up just giggling.

  “What?” he said, his own chuckles starting to emerge.

  “You,” I said. “You’re just so… so damn cute. And you got your own bed! You weren’t kidding about not wanting to sleep together.”

  “I wasn’t,” Zane said, putting his arm around me as he led me to the hotel room. As soon as he pushed me in, he started to say something, but I just ran straight to the first bed, found the pillows, and curled up on them.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, still laughing so much I was starting to cough. “Oh, this is perfect.”

  A moment later, Zane came up behind me, pressing against me. Through his jeans, I could feel his cock starting to harden, and I pressed up against it. At this point, the marijuana was making me crave him and want him, but it also made me content to just lie there. I was in some sort of weird limbo where all of the paranoia and concerns from earlier had vanished, but they weren’t exactly replaced with a strong lust for sex.

  It was more just like I was happy to have whatever happened.

  “You think this is perfect?” Zane said. “You know why I got two beds, right?”

  “Hmm.”

  “One bed for sleeping, and the other…”

  He turned me over. I looked right at his eyes, and even high, I knew he was going to kiss me.

  And when he did, I did not resist in the slightest. In fact,
tasting the edibles in his mouth, I aggressively went for him. I kissed him harder and more passionately than I had ever kissed anyone before.

  He reached under my shirt. My body grew quite hot from his hand touching my stomach and the rest of the skin of my body. I was so wet, and every moment pressed up on his cock was a moment where I just wanted my pants off so he could get in them. He kissed my neck, and I arched up in response.

  And then his phone rang.

  “Fuck it,” he said.

  But then it rang again.

  “Hey, it’s OK,” I said. “Just answer. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Zane, though, didn’t look so sure. In fact, he looked downright terrified.

  And when he answered the call, I could see why. His words and his facial expression said it all as he hung up.

  “I’m so fucked.”

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  I sacrificed my club for her—and it cost me everything, including her.

  I thought I was being clever by making up a story to get Renee alone—and for most of the night, it worked.

  But then Owen struck.

  In the process, he sent most of the club to the hospital, including many of the club officers.

  And it’s my fault.

  Not only that, but Renee is pulling back, remembering what being with me could mean for her career.

  One stupid lie, and I’ve lost everything.

  But here’s the truth.

  Not giving up matters most in moments of darkness like this.

  Not quitting becomes most important when everyone else has quit on you.

  And not losing her becomes priority number one when you think she’s gone.

  I may have lost my club.

  I may have seemingly lost Renee.

  But in time, I will get both of them back.

  I have no choice.