ANARCHY (Iron Kings MC, #4)

by Franca Storm

  Ten minutes. That was all I’d needed to get to that point, to make it back to the clubhouse and drop her off.

  Instead, she’d freaked out when a squirrel had darted out across the road, fucked with my driving, and almost driven us into a ditch.

  As it was, the rear right tire was stuck in the edge of the mud-slicked bank.

  “What can I do?” she asked, clearly anxious to redeem herself.

  I scrubbed my hand over my face, got my agitation in check, then threw open the door of the truck we’d borrowed from the Outlaws to transport our equipment. I tossed her the keys, calling over the roar of the torrential downpour that was quickly soaking me to the bone, “Get in the driver’s seat. Crack the window so you can hear me. When I yell, step on the gas. Easy, though. Got it?”

  She nodded, already starting to climb across the truck to the driver’s seat.

  I slammed the door shut, then rounded the truck and stalked up to the tire in question.

  Shit. It was lodged in deep.

  I got a good grip on the bumper, shifted my weight, then pushed hard, starting to rock the car back and forth. “Now!” I called out. “Give it some gas!”

  The engine revved to life.

  In the next second, she hit the gas.

  Way too hard.

  The wheel spun wildly, mud spraying everywhere, splashing all over me.

  “Fuck!” I yelled. “Easy! Easy!”

  It stopped altogether and the next thing I knew, she was bolting out of the truck and jogging to me.

  The thing with the squirrel and the gas was just the moldy cherry on top of the messed-up sundae that had been her behavior all day.

  She’d even miscoded something, which was majorly unlike her from everything I’d seen of her job performance in the weeks we’d been working together. She’d been hesitant, uneasy and untrusting in her own abilities every step of the way, which had delayed things big time.

  Then there was the way she was dressed. That shit didn’t normally register much with me. But it’d basically slapped me in the face with how shocking the change was compared to her usual getup. Her whole free and rebellious thing was gone. Her vibrant blue hair was pulled into a bun and hidden by a gray trucker hat. She had on the baggiest pants I’d ever seen. A sweatshirt that looked like it was a couple of sizes too big for her completed the weird visual. It seemed she’d done everything possible to hide her curvy, compact body. In all my time screwing around with whatever had come along, I’d never laid eyes on a woman with a sexier, more perfect body than hers. And I hadn’t even explored all of it. That one time in the bar, she hadn’t been fully naked. Still, any time my mind slipped to the memory of that night I’d had her up against that bathroom wall, it sent an instant jolt of desire sparking to life within me like a livewire.

  I had a real good idea where all this shit with her today was rooted.

  In the bull Python had spouted off to her the other day after our training. All that untrue crap about the way she usually dressed and the way he expected her to be around the clubhouse.

  Seeing her like this… bothered me.

  Her not being herself.

  All closed off.

  Unsure.

  It was… upsetting.

  Jesus. What was wrong with me? It was pissing down, the truck was stuck in a shitload of mud, I was wearing a lot of it now. Why did I care?

  Hayley’s eyes widened when she took in the sight of me caked in mud. “Oops.”

  “Oops?” I barked. “That’s all you’ve got to say?” I caught the curl of her lip and she quickly looked down, struggling not to laugh. “You think this shit’s funny?”

  “Of course not,” she said, barely able to get the words out with a straight face. Her smile widened and she slapped her hand to her mouth.

  A muffled giggle escaped her.

  Giggles.

  And, just like that, my agitation melted away.

  She actually had me smiling.

  When she pulled her hand away and started full-on laughing, falling into hysterics, everything shifted in me. My perspective on the whole situation changed. No longer was it a frustrating, unwanted problem I was trying to solve. Me standing caked in mud, trying to push the truck out was now hilarious, an unexpected exploit with the cutest, gentlest woman I’d ever come across for company.

  I ran my hands through my drenched hair, pushing it out of my eyes. Then I bent down to get another look at the tire, hoping it had moved at least a bit.

  “Where do you want me?”

  I stilled. What?

  For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I’d randomly started daydreaming, slipping into one of the too many dirty fantasies I’d had about her over the weeks.

  “Anarchy?”

  I blinked hard, jolting as her harsher tone brought me back fully.

  She was right in front of me then, eyeing me worriedly. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, good. Uh… what is it?”

  She frowned. I wasn’t surprised, I was acting like a fool. “I was asking where you wanted me?”

  On your knees, your hair wrapped around my fist, my cock pumping in and out of your sweet mouth as you take it like a good girl.

  “Just get back in the car,” I told her, a bit too harshly. I winced. Get a grip, asshole! “Please,” I added quickly, before the start of the upset infecting her beautiful face worsened. “I need you in the driver’s seat. Put the heat on too. You’re drenched.” And, as much as she was trying to hide it, her shivering hadn’t escaped my notice.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not just going to sit back while you deal with this in the pouring rain, mud all over you.”

  There was that fire. The first time I’d seen any sign of it today. I smiled inwardly.

  She slapped her hands to her hips, giving me a no-nonsense glare. “Let me help.”

  “Fine.”

  I brushed past her to the truck and eased back the tonneau cover so I could see into the box to figure out if there was anything I could use to free the tire. It was pissing down and some of my equipment was still in there so I had to be careful, only opening it a bit so everything didn’t get soaked.

  I set eyes on a few things that could work. A shovel, a two-by-four, and a ratchet strap. Pulling them out and setting them down at the rear of the truck, I was more than a little surprised when something hit the side of my jacket with a soft thud.

  I spun to see Hayley bent over, digging away at the mud surrounding the tire, using her bare fucking hands.

  Another ball of mud hit my shin.

  This time, she noticed and stopped and spun. “Sorry!” she cried, eyeing me sheepishly. She held up her hands. “It was an accident, I swear.”

  She looked so worried that I was going to retaliate. Seeing as though it had been an accident, I was ready to just turn back around and get to jerry-rigging a fix for the tire.

  But then she added, “I guess that’s what happens when you screw around with a lady’s feelings so much.”

  That pulled me up short. “What?”

  “You heard me, Brown Eyes.”

  Oh hell, no.

  Growling, I stormed over to her.

  Finding the whole thing highly amusing, she looked up at me, grinning. “Did you just growl at me, enforcer?”

  “Fuck, yeah, I did, princess.”

  She moved back as I got too close for comfort.

  I stepped closer.

  She backed away.

  Over and over, until she was teetering on the edge of the small ditch. Her eyes widened as she saw how slicked it was, basically a mud bath on the side of the road.

  “Okay, I give!” she cried. “My bad. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry, huh?”

  She nodded frantically.

  I stepped back, watching her relief and her dropping her guard, thinking I was backing off and letting it go.

  And that was when I struck, scooping a handful of mud off the
wheel well and slapping it to her stomach, smearing it all over her hoodie.

  She squealed.

  “Now we’re almost even,” I told her, laughing.

  She bolted forward, trying to grab some more ammo, but her precarious position on the edge of the road, just shy of the ditch, made the sudden move a real bad idea. She lost her footing and slipped.

  I reacted quickly, grabbing her arm and pulling her into me to stop her from rolling down into the bank. But her sudden weight against me destabilized my footing too and, as I sought for purchase, all I found was slippery, muddy ground. I lost my balance, crashing down hard, managing to cradle her on top of me to protect her from the winding fall.

  “Fuck,” I choked.

  She pushed her weight off my chest to let me breathe, straddling me, her eyes full of concern. “Oh my God. Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, all good.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, lovely.”

  “Good,” she said, her eyes flashing with mischief.

  The next thing I knew, she was grabbing fistfuls of mud and shoving them under my tee.

  “Hey! Whoa! Too far!”

  I reached under my tee and grabbed at a ball of mud, pushing up the hem of her hoodie and mashing it into her skin. She looked down at herself, horrified.

  The insult of it just seemed to spur her on.

  Oh shit. I’d miscalculated.

  I had to put a stop to the craziness I’d started.

  I pulled my tee over my head and used it to push the mud off my chest. Then I lunged at her and pushed her back. She rolled onto her back and I used the reprieve to scramble to my feet. I’d known Hayley had a fiery side, but she was scrappier than I’d even imagined. She was hurriedly grabbing more mud ammo to hit me with.

  I reacted quickly, grasping her hips. I hauled her up with me, then threw her over my shoulder in a fireman lift as I carried her away from the ditch and far away from the mud ammo. She squealed as I trudged all the way to the front of the truck, the both of us soaked from the continued torrential downpour and now caked in dirt too.

  I put her down on the hood of the truck, my hands either side of her, caging her in, just in case she got any more ideas.

  A devilish smirk crept across her lips, making me tense. What was she up to?

  I got my answer in the next second as her right palm opened and she smashed another ball of mud at me. The chill of it on my bare chest had me hissing.

  Fuck, she was good. I hadn’t seen her pick that up at all.

  She was so hellbent on kicking my ass, on winning. So feisty. So full of fucking life.

  I couldn’t imagine any of the women I’d fooled around with in the past playing around in dirt with me. Hell, I couldn’t imagine them doing anything with me, working with me, meeting me on my level, getting me. But, Hayley? She was covered in dirt and soaked to the bone, yet she was grinning like it was the best thing in the world.

  And the look in her eyes told me she still wanted more.

  And, fuck it, so did I.

  I snatched her wrists and pulled them above her head, trapping them there with one hand. “Bad girl,” I growled, leaning in.

  “Yes,” she breathed in anticipation.

  “Fowler!” a voice boomed fiercely over the roar of the rainstorm.

  I stilled.

  Hayley’s eyes widened.

  Using my last name like that, I knew it could be only one person. The one person who was still very much stuck in his military days, acting like a drill sergeant to us enforcers most of the time nowadays. Mostly, me, though.

  “Wraith,” I grunted over my shoulder as I pushed off Hayley, took her hand and helped her off the hood of the truck.

  I turned fully to see him standing there looking all badass just with that steely, no-nonsense glare of his, despite the fact that he was getting soaked to the bone from the pouring rain. It was like it wasn’t even touching his leather jacket, t-shirt and jeans, like he didn’t even feel it. He swept a hand through his thick, black hair, dispelling a load of water, and shot me a look.

  His commanding voice boomed over the rain. “A word. Now.”

  I gritted my teeth and stepped back from Hayley.

  Before I could get another word out, Wraith pulled out a blanket that he’d been shielding beneath his jacket and handed it over to Hayley, telling her, “Wait in my truck. Wrap up in this.”

  She was so taken aback and embarrassed, that all she could do was nod and hightail it to the Chevy that was now parked a few feet away. Shit. I hadn’t even heard him pulling up. Sure, the overbearing sound of the pouring rain made it difficult to hear the roar of an engine, but I still should’ve had my wits about me.

  Instead, though, I’d lost myself in Hayley.

  I dragged my gaze from her once I saw her hop up into the passenger seat of the truck that he’d brought down here.

  And then I focused my attention on dealing with what was right in front of me.

  “We were just messing around—not the way it probably looked. I was just trying to keep morale up with this stuck truck situation.”

  “That’s a load of fucking bull, kid. You’re gonna need to do better than that.”

  I cursed under my breath and turned away, making my way over to the rear of the truck.

  I heard him following me, his boots squelching in the mud behind me.

  Rolling my eyes, I called over my shoulder, “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “When you texted saying you’d encountered an unexpected delay, I figured it might have something to do with the weather. I thought you could use a hand.”

  “I’m good,” I said, snatching up the two-by-four and the rachet strap and settling myself in front of the tire needing assistance.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  I tensed and looked up to find him leaning against the rear of the truck, his arms folded in that usual intimidating way of his as he studied me even more invasively.

  “Nothing’s going on.”

  “The girl can hardly look a man in the eye. Yet, here she was, giggling beneath you and open to getting it on over the hood of a truck down a public road. That tells me that she trusts you, that she’s been there before with you.”

  Jesus. He was way too perceptive.

  “It was an accident.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah? How’s that exactly? You fell into her pussy, dick first? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  I cringed at his crass wording. I didn’t like him talking about her that way.

  I realized a second later that he’d done it on purpose to get a reaction from me, because his eyes sparked with triumph.

  “I didn’t know who she was, Wraith.”

  “When?”

  “A couple of months back when we first got here. I met her at the tattoo parlor when I got my new ink done. We went for drinks after and… one thing led to another.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, scrubbing his hand over his face in distress. “You screwed around with Python’s baby girl in a bar?”

  “Not out in the open. In the bathroom.”

  “Yeah, that makes it so much better.”

  “Look, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m keeping my distance. She knows the score.”

  “It sure as hell looked like it up on that truck hood,” he said, sarcasm dripping.

  “It was just a slipup.”

  “A slipup? Do you think Python would’ve accepted that as an explanation if it had been him, or one of his boys walking in on what I had?”

  I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t him.”

  “How many of these slipups have there been?”

  “Three, counting that first time at the bar.”

  He shook his head. “It’s only a matter of time then, isn’t it?”

  “No. I’ve got it handled.”

  “You don’t, kid. You clearly can’t keep your hands off her.”

  Fuck. The lie I’d been t
elling myself for so long just fell apart under his scrutiny. It had reality sucker punching me.

  I turned back to what was always simple to me, what always made sense. The only thing. Fixing things. Working with my hands. Solving puzzles.

  I snatched up the two-by-four and positioned it on top of the tire. Using the ratchet strap, I fed it through the opening in the hub cap and wrapped it around the wood. I tightened the strap, then stepped back. “Can you step on the gas, nice and easy?”

  “Where are the keys?”

  Oh, right, of course. Shit. I was off my game. “Hayley’s got them.”

  He nodded, then jogged away.

  In the next few seconds, the truck roared to life.

  I watched as the two-by-four started turning. The second it touched the ground, it lifted the wheel out of the muddied rut, easing the truck forward.

  “Drive forward a couple of feet!” I called out, wanting to make sure the truck was completely out of the woods.

  He eased the truck forward carefully, pulling it away from the mud and back onto solid ground. As he cut the engine, I removed the wood and the ratchet strap and settled them back under the tonneau cover.

  He was back with me a moment later. “Here,” he said, shucking off his zipped up leather jacket that had been protecting him from the torrential downpour. He pulled off his long-sleeve tee, stripping down to just a t-shirt. Shrugging his jacket back on and zipping it up, he then handed me the tee. “Put this on.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking it from him and pulling it on to cover my bare chest.

  “Always carry a spare on you and a goddamn jacket. You never know when the weather is going to turn.”

  It was lecture after lecture with him.

  All Spartan’s fault.

  He’d had Wraith take me under his wing. Apparently, I was the younger version of Wraith and the both of them wanted to calm me down, keep me from the adrenaline-junkie, trouble-seeking side of myself, so that I didn’t have to suffer through similar mistakes that Wraith had. They were looking out for me and also trying to groom me to one day take on the Sergeant-at-Arms role. They knew what an ace asset I was to the club and they also cared about me like family. I appreciated it, but it was suffocating at times. Real intrusive too. And, right now, more than a little aggravating.