Twisted Steel: An MC Anthology: Second Edition

by Elizabeth Knox

  “Hey, Deacon!” Cherry, the bartender, greeted loudly from her place on the bar. “What are you doing back here?” She stood there in a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt that hung off her small frame, holding a broom. Her bright-red curls, the reason we’d nicknamed her Cherry, stood out from her head in every direction, and she grunted while she ignored me in favor of whatever she was doing.

  For whatever reason, she was alone in the main area of the bar, which was probably the reason she was climbing on top of shit in the first place.

  Who the fuck was I trying to kid? Cherry did whatever she wanted, and I let her because she ran the bar like a well-oiled machine and made it so that neither Pops nor I had to do a single thing.

  I ran a hand over my forehead, trying and failing to stay nonchalant. “What the fuck are you doing on the bar, Cherry?” It was a mistake to go back to the bar, I knew it, but I’d still gone. “Get down from there before you break your neck. I don’t wanna have to bury you.”

  She snorted and continued to reach toward the ceiling with the broom in her hand, waving it toward something I couldn’t quite see. “You wouldn’t bury me. You’d set me on fire like a proper witch, and you know it.” There was a grunt, followed by a girlish scream, and she dropped the broom on the ground. “Fuckin’ right!” I watched her jump down and throw her fist in the air. “I made that spider my bitch.”

  “Do I even want to know?” I stepped behind the bar to grab the amber liquid that would keep me company through the night.

  “A spider.” Cherry shrugged and handed me a glass from the other side of the bar. “I woulda left it but it was a black widow so I had to kill him.” She grabbed a glass for herself and poured a soda into it, while I shook my head at her.

  Cherry didn’t drink. She hated the taste of alcohol. Which made her choice to run my bar even stranger than everything else I knew about her.

  “What are you doing back?” She cocked her hip and stared at me, waiting for an answer to her first question. The one I’d ignored. “Pops went home, and the guys went out back for the fire. I figured we wouldn’t see you for the fun.”

  I thought about lying, but there wasn’t a reason to. I was the president of the MC. I didn’t owe anyone an answer. “Rett’s with my sister. The house is too quiet.”

  She nodded in understanding. “I hate the quiet too. Well.” Cherry motioned to the door. “You won’t get a single bit of silence tonight. Just… try not to kill anyone this week?”

  With a wink, she walked away, no doubt savoring the first victory she’d had over me since we were in high school.

  Ignoring the obvious jab, true though it might be, I threw a piece of ice across the room at her. “Try not to fall into bed with Raptor this week.” Mocking her tone like I’d done our entire lives, I barely held back a laugh when I saw her spine straighten.

  I thought for sure she’d leave, right up until the moment she turned her head and stared at me with dead eyes.

  “Keep it up, Deac.” Her words carried through the room, even though she hadn’t raised her voice, and I knew I’d crossed the line when I saw a brief flash of pain in her eyes. “You know that’s never gonna happen.”

  Fuck.

  I should have kept my mouth shut.

  Cherry had a crush on him, ever since he beat up her prom date for trying to cop a feel. Unfortunately, Raptor never saw her. Something I’d thought he’d grow out of when we got out of the service. He didn’t. And I shouldn’t have used it as ammo in my verbal war against her.

  Before I could say anything else or try to salvage the situation, the door to the bar slammed open.

  Glass shattered as a picture frame fell from the wall, landing behind the door, drawing both mine and Cherry’s attention.

  “Shit,” a woman cried out. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  I watched a pajama-clad woman drop to her knees and start picking up glass with her bare hands. I couldn’t see her face, but dark-brown hair hung almost to the ground while she rushed to pick up her mess.

  When the first shot rang out, I’d barely made it to her side to help her up and clean up the mess myself.

  But when the second shot screamed by and buried itself into the wall next to my head, all hell broke loose.

  2

  Alice

  Never, in my wildest dreams, did I think that I’d end up running into a biker bar in the middle of the night in my pajamas.

  Never.

  Not once.

  Yet, that’s exactly what happened.

  All because I wanted to do something crazy and get chicken nuggets in the middle of the night.

  That’s how I ended up with a flat tire, being chased by a crazy person, and seriously contemplating running away from my life while I tried to pick up the shattered glass from my rush to get into the building and away from the weirdo who’d followed me the last ten minutes in the dark. Admittedly, if I’d remembered my cell phone, I wouldn’t have ended up in as much trouble as I was.

  Someone slammed something, but I didn’t look up to see what it was. Honestly, I was too busy trying not to burst into tears at my own stupidity.

  Who needed chicken nuggets at midnight? Apparently me, that’s who. And it was the stupidest decision I’d ever made.

  When I heard someone standing next to me, I looked up to see probably the hottest man in the entire universe staring down at me with a strange expression on his face. Deacon James, in the flesh. At least he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I might not be comfortable, but I’d be safe.

  As quickly as I could, I scrambled up, holding the broken frame in my hands.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled when I held it out to him. “Get down!”

  I dropped the frame and glass again, this time more afraid of the infamous Deacon James than anything else. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the ground, covering my body with his, and the only thing I could do was stare at his fierce expression. I hadn’t seen him in years, not since him and my brother graduated boot camp together.

  “Oomph.” I grunted in pain as something dug into the skin on my back. “Hurts.”

  His arms kept my head from moving around, but he lifted off my body slightly, making it easier to breathe. My ears were ringing too much to hear anything but the steady thumping of my heart beating in my chest. Deacon’s mouth was moving, and I felt rather than heard him barking orders above my head.

  Seconds turned into minutes, but Deacon still didn’t let me up. Unable to do anything else, I wiggled underneath him, trying to move enough to regain feeling in my fingers, but he didn’t budge. His growl, reverberating through my body, was the only thing that stopped me from trying more.

  With wide eyes, I looked up at him to see nothing but a grimace staring back. “Stop fuckin’ moving, Alice.” His body pressed back against mine and his thigh moved between my legs, distracting me from what was happening. All I could think about was how close he was, how easy it would be to lean forward and press my lips against his.

  His eyes flashed, the emotion in them unreadable, and he shifted again, pressing even harder against my body as something exploded above us.

  “Stop. Or I swear to fuckin’ God, I’ll put a bullet in you myself.”

  “Bullet?” I had to be hallucinating. He couldn’t have said bullet. “What bullet?”

  Silence filled the air around us a moment later, and then Deacon wasn’t trapping me against the floor anymore. When he offered a hand, I reached for it and winced when I felt the sharp stings of glass in my back as I moved. I chanced a quick look around and found the room full of men that could eat me for breakfast and still ask for seconds. The redhead I’d seen when I ran in was nowhere to be seen, either. Unsure of what to do, I turned to face Deacon, wondering if I could even say anything. My throat was too dry to even make a sound, let alone concentrate on what was going on.

  “Fuck, Deac.” Riley Stone, one of my brother’s friends from high school groaned from across the
room next to the bar. I shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable with all the eyes on me. More than one whistle filled the air as they took in my haggard appearance, and a flash of heat rose in my chest. “I know you didn’t mean it, but damn. Her back is cut up all to hell. I can see it from here.”

  I didn’t need him to say the words, though, because I could feel the blood starting to seep into my pajama top. Instead of crying out in pain like I wanted to, I bit my lip and clenched my eyes closed.

  “Raptor,” Deacon barked. “Stop staring and get me a towel or something.” He turned me in his arms, and I fought to keep my back away from him.

  “I’m fine,” I bit out with my eyes still clenched shut and my lip trembling. “I just need to borrow a phone.”

  “Don’t let her call anyone,” someone called out from across the room. “We don’t know if she’s gonna call the cops. She’s a liability.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Tag. Of course she’s gonna call the cops. You clearly don’t know who Alice Ortiz is. Who her family is.” Deacon pulled me gently by the arm toward the bar, where Riley stood with a towel held out. “Thanks, Raptor.” He took the towel and led me down the hall before turning back and staring at the men over his shoulder. “Find out who it was and why.”

  Up popped the redhead from behind the bar next to Riley, with a bottle of vodka held out, and I grabbed it from her with a thankful smile.

  In the silence left in Deacon’s wake, I knew that he didn’t have to finish the order. There was a reason my big brother didn’t want us going to the Twisted Kings’ bar. We might have grown up with the James family, but now they might as well live on a different planet. Deacon James wasn’t just the boy I’d had a crush on my entire life. He was a member of an outlaw MC. Not only that… He was the president, like his father had been before him.

  I didn’t say a word as Deacon led me to a practically empty office. Except for the large desk in the middle and an oversized chair in front of it, there wasn’t anything remotely comfortable about the space. That didn’t stop him from guiding me in and motioning for me to lift my shirt.

  Shaking my head, I held out my hand for the towel, but Deacon didn’t budge.

  “Take off your shirt,” he ordered. “So I can clean you up.”

  I didn’t want to. But I also didn’t want my back to get infected, and I could feel the bite of glass still embedded into my skin. With a sigh, I turned around and lifted it just enough for him to see the damage.

  His sharp intake of breath was the only thing I heard for almost a minute. Then he opened a drawer and slammed it shut again.

  “Always you, Alice. You always were the one who got hurt. More than any of my sisters.”

  “What can I say?” I bit out through the pain when he pulled a piece of glass from my shoulder. “I’m a menace to society.”

  Deacon moved away for a moment, and then he pressed a wet cloth to my back, wiping away the blood as gently as he could. The entire time, my legs shook with a mix of anticipation and adrenaline and pain, all wrapped into one unpredictable combination.

  When I gasped, either in pain or anxiety, he pulled away.

  “Just finish it,” I practically whimpered.

  He was there behind me again without saying a word, too close for comfort, with his tattoos and his ridiculous shirt, and the only thing I could think about was pushing him back against the desk and taking him into my mouth.

  A fantasy that I really, really wanted to make happen. Especially with whatever craziness had just happened.

  “You’re a menace, alright,” he grunted. “Just breathe.” His hand slid down my back almost teasingly, until I felt the sharp sting of glass still cutting into the tender skin that I’d almost forgotten about.

  Breathing was easier said than done, but I tried. The bottle of vodka that the redhead offered sat on Deacon’s desk, unopened, beckoning for me to take a drink. But I couldn’t. Not and drive home when everything was said and done.

  Shit.

  My car was still locked on the side of the road, with a flat tire that I couldn’t change on my own because my spare was flat too.

  “You gonna call Dom for a ride home?” His question surprised me, dragging me from my thoughts, and I looked up to see a flash of something dangerous in his eyes.

  “What?”

  “Your brother,” he prompted. I looked down, away from the intensity in his gaze. “The cop. You gonna call him and have big brother come to the rescue?”

  He was moving his mouth, asking me something, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it. My heart was still racing, the adrenaline pumping through my veins, making it almost painful to even blink. “What?”

  Deacon’s lip raised in a smile, and he lifted my chin until I had no choice but to meet his eyes again.

  “Alice. Pay attention.”

  He was so close.

  Too close.

  Damn, Deacon smelled delicious.

  Almost unconsciously, I bit my lip. His eyes flashed with warning, but that wasn’t all.

  “Don’t.” His voice rolled over me, warm and inviting, even if his words warned me away. “I don’t play games, Alice. Not the kind you’re wanting to play. You’re in shock. You don’t want me. I’m not nice. I’m not a gentleman. I’ll take everything you give and leave nothing for the lucky bastard that comes after me.”

  I stepped away from him, shaking my head slightly to clear away the fog his words brought with them. The door to his office was right there. And on the other side was a room full of men who’d give me a phone to call my brother. To go home. But that’s not what I wanted.

  Still facing the door, I turned and caught him staring at my ass, with hunger in his eyes.

  “I don’t play those kinds of games, Deacon. I’m not a little girl. I don’t need my big brother to come to my rescue. Not anymore. And I know exactly what I want.”

  I turned the lock.

  3

  Deacon

  Alice Ortiz. If I said I'd never thought about her while I was overseas, I’d be lying. I thought about a lot of the girls I went to school with while I was over there. But I’d never had Alice. Never tasted her lips or had her body pressed against mine. I never knew her well enough to make a move. Not only that, but she was a friend’s little sister.

  Still, she was standing in front of me, in my world, telling me point blank that she wanted me. Even after I’d told her the truth. I wouldn’t be her gentleman. I wouldn’t be sweet. I wouldn’t be anything but rough. I wasn’t good for her.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I told you. Just… no.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed, and I could have sworn they filled with tears momentarily. Then she brushed her long hair out of her face and stepped forward.

  “Are you telling me that you don’t want me, Deacon? Or are you telling me that you don’t want to be gentle?”

  I watched as she picked up the bottle of Tito’s that Cherry handed her in the bar and almost groaned. Alice expertly tilted the bottle back, ignoring the pour spout it held, and her neck convulsed as she swallowed the crystal clear liquid down.

  She didn’t even need a fuckin’ chaser. Right there, in the middle of my office, I almost came in my pants like a teenage boy.

  Not even an hour had passed since there were bullets flying over her head, and Alice stood in my office, making me harder than I’d been in years.

  “I think it’s that you don’t want to be gentle with me, Deacon. But I have a secret to tell you.”

  My throat turned to fuckin’ ash and I wanted to run away. Guns didn’t scare me. Bullets weren’t a big deal. Blood didn’t even faze me anymore. But Alice Ortiz, standing there with a liquor bottle in one hand and the hem of her shirt held in the other, and I was ready to retreat.

  “I don’t want gentle, Deacon. I never did.” She held out the bottle, impatiently shaking it when I didn’t grab it from her immediately.

  I couldn’t move to take it, even if I wanted to. I was too afraid to move and s
hatter whatever wet dream I’d concocted.

  “Tonight’s already a mess of epic proportions. What’s one more regret for tomorrow?” The way she lifted her shoulder, letting her shirt drape slightly off it, sent my dick into overdrive.

  She walked right by me, making sure that she touched every part of my body that she could with her tiny frame.

  How the fuck did she wreck me and I never even touched her?

  “I don’t play games,” I told her again. My eyes never left the small space at the base of her neck, the tiny little dip that she’d exposed by tilting her head back. “I’ll make you feel every single thing, and I’ll walk away.” I pulled the gun from the small of my back and set it in the top drawer of my desk, making sure that I locked it when the gun was safely away.

  Looking back up to the woman proving to be more dangerous than any weapon, it was clear my warning fell on deaf ears. Alice’s only response was the slight flare in her eyes and the way her tongue darted out and licked her upper lip while she stared at my dick, which throbbed painfully under her attention.

  “Get on your knees.” The order barely left my lips before she was dropping in front of me, her hands grabbing the waist of my jeans.

  In the soft light in my office, I watched as Alice became every man’s fantasy. She expertly unbuttoned and unzipped my pants, dragging them down my thighs until my cock sprang free and almost slapped her in the face.

  While she was distracted, I slipped off my cut and set it on the desk next to me. Then I pulled my shirt over my head, only pausing when I saw her eyes locked on my chest.

  “You’ve got your nipples pierced.” Her hoarse voice broke, and she gasped when she looked down. “Holy shit, Deacon. Your dick is pierced.”

  I laughed up until she grabbed the base of my dick and pulled the tip into her mouth without hesitation.

  “Fuck,” I grunted. “Don’t.” She twisted. “Stop.”

  Alice ignored me, taking everything she wanted and gave me everything in return. She licked just under the head, bringing me onto my toes while she sucked.