Ivy glanced at her cell and read the text. The coast was clear; Jewel confirmed Jag was busy working at the shop. Now Ivy just needed to sneak into church without anyone seeing her and break into his room without getting caught.

Simple enough. Though, going undetected might or might not happen at this time of the day. Normally by eleven, most of the brothers were up and out doing their thing... which was usually working. For Dawg, it meant getting things prepared for a busy evening and night at Heaven’s Angel’s Gentlemen’s Club. For Hawk, it meant stocking the bar and checking on supplies and other stuff for The Iron Horse Roadhouse. For Crow, it meant beginning his day at In the Shadows Ink since customers started rolling in right before lunchtime.

Ivy opened the back door and stepped into the dim interior of the clubhouse.

As for the prospects...

The clack of pool balls hitting each other came from her left. Her head spun in that direction and she saw three prospects standing around the pool table with a sweet butt.

What the fuck?

If anyone should be working, it would be them. Her eyes fell on one of the newer sweet butts who went by the name Tequila. Her nickname was rightly earned from her clothes “falling” off every time she drank the liquor. Not that she ever wore much to begin with, so it never took very long for her to lose her clothes.

Today she was a fashion plate wearing a red stretchy tube top, her dangling belly ring showing, short cut-off shorts that were low enough to hint at a hip tattoo, and... cowboy boots. It made more sense she was wearing her Daisy Dukes today since the weather had turned hot, but Ivy had seen her wearing something similar when it was certainly inappropriate. Like when there was frost on the ground.

She was hanging off Rooster, a prospect who had been around for a while now and was close to getting patched in if the rumor was true. If Rooster was sticking his dick in her, then he better sanitize it with some Tequila, the actual alcohol, so he didn’t catch the clap. Or crabs.

All eyes swung to Ivy, and she sighed at this little snag. She needed to take control of the situation and make it so they believed she had the right to be there in the middle of the day and not them.

Slamming her hands on her hips, she scowled at them and projected her voice laced with annoyance. “What are you fuckers doing here in the middle of the day? Weren’t you given something to do?”

Their faces went from carefree and happy to slightly worried.

“Hawk know you all are in here playing?” She tipped her head to the pool table and then to Tequila. Her meaning was clear.

Dead silence greeted her.

“Just takin’ a break,” Weasel finally said, picking up a nearby beer bottle and tipping it to his lips.

“Yeah? Someone tell you that you could take a break? You want a break go get a union job. You want to be patched in, your ass better be breaking a sweat.”

Squirrel’s eyes narrowed, and he straightened. “Since when do club bitches tell us what to do?”

Oh. No. He. Didn’t.

Ivy stepped closer to the table, but still kept enough distance where she could keep an eye on all of them. “I may be a club ‘bitch’ but I have more power in this club than you, prospect. Remember that. My granddaddy—”

He cut her off. “Same ol’ shit we always hear. My granddaddy this. My granddaddy that,” Squirrel sneered. “Women hold no power here.”

As Ivy took a step closer, her hands balled into fists, but instead of her knocking some sense into Squirrel, she was knocked to the side by a large moving object. She only got a glimpse of the prospects’ eyes widening and their faces becoming pale before she caught her balance.

For a bulky man, Diesel moved surprisingly fast. One second Squirrel was on his feet, the next he was on the ground in a ball, blood gushing from between his fingers which he held to his face.

“Get up, club bitch,” Diesel barked.

Rooster and Weasel backed away quickly, leaving Tequila where she stood, raking her gaze down Diesel’s massive body with excitement.

“Damn, Diesel,” Tequila said, giving him “fuck me” eyes.

Without even turning his head, he shoved his finger in her face and grumbled, “Shut the fuck up.”

She did.

Diesel’s narrowed gaze landed on Rooster. “What’re you assholes supposed to be doin’?”

“P-Preparin’ for tonight’s p-party.”

“What were you doin’?”

“P-playin’ p-pool.”

“Hawk give you a list?”

“Yeah,” Rooster grumbled, avoiding direct eye contact with the larger, very pissed off man.

He pointed a finger at Weasel. “You’ve been pushin’ my limits for a while. You wanna be a member of this club?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure don’t look like it. Get gone.”

Weasel only hesitated a moment before Diesel took a threatening step towards him. The recruit caught some sense and jogged toward the side door of the clubhouse that led to the courtyard and disappeared.

He swung his attention and his finger toward Rooster. “How ‘bout you?”

“Yeah.”

D tilted his head toward Tequila. “You stickin’ your dick in that twat?”

Rooster opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Diesel took another menacing step closer.

Finally, Rooster answered, “No.”

“Dawg’s girls, not sweet butts. Got me?”

Rooster nodded. “Got you.”

“Now get gone.”

Rooster hightailed in the direction Weasel went, almost tripping over his own feet in his rush.

D shook his head and pinned his gaze on the sweet butt who now wore an outraged look. “You lettin’ prospect dick in you?”

“He just said no.”

Diesel’s chin jerked at her back-talking him. “Maybe not Rooster dick, but there’s other prospect dick ‘round here. Don’t be doin’ them or you’re out. Got me?”

Tequila frowned while yanking her tube top up over her very generous, but very fake breasts. “Not enough dick to go around when it comes to the members.”

“Don’t like it then there’re plenty other clubs you can land. Heard the Knights are looking for some fresh pussy.”

At the last of his words, his eyes landed on Ivy.

Oh shit.

Diesel knew.

That meant everyone probably knew.

“Prospects got work to do. Get gone, Tequila.”

The woman, who couldn’t be more than twenty-one or twenty-two, made a face like an angry pout, and pushed past Diesel, heading toward the front of the club and the door to The Iron Horse.

“No.” The one word came out so harshly, Ivy even started and Tequila stopped dead in her tracks. She looked over her shoulder at him. “Stay out of The Iron Horse. Hawk don’t need you hangin’ all over him. He got work to do.”

Her pout turned even darker as she spun on her heel and marched the opposite direction toward the back parking lot.

“Want dick, come back tonight for the party. Don’t want to see you here until then. Got me?”

Tequila waved a dismissing hand over her shoulder and stomped her pointy-toed cowboy boots out the back door, slamming it behind her.

Ivy’s gaze landed back on her angry cousin, but his attention was now focused on the bleeding recruit still on the ground.

“Gimme your cut.”

Squirrel pushed himself up to a seated position with a groan, still holding his smashed nose with one hand. “Can’t just kick me out. Gotta go to the table for a vote.” Blood dripped down his chin and his words came out muffled.

“Fuck it does.”

Ivy finally unfroze her feet and quickly moved to the bar, snagged a handful of napkins and went back over to stand over Squirrel. She held the wad of paper napkins out.

“Don’t be nice to him,” Diesel grumbled. “Insulted you, Doc, an’ the rest of us.”

“Yeah, well, I think he learned his lesson.”

“Not yet,” he said with a grunt.

“D...” Ivy started.

But Diesel gave her a warning look and then his eyes dropped back to Squirrel. “Gimme your cut. Not gonna repeat myself again.”

Squirrel yanked the napkins from Ivy’s fingers and pressed them to his face as he pulled himself up from the floor using the pool table.

He stood, swaying slightly, but he eyeballed Diesel, probably trying to figure out how serious the man was about kicking him out of the club.

Ivy could attest that Diesel didn’t joke around about stuff like that. She stepped up and tugged on Squirrel’s vest. In one way, she wanted to help him so he’d hurry up and leave, in another, she didn’t want Diesel losing his patience, which was thin as it was, and kicking the former recruit’s ass even more.

She did that more for her cousin’s sake than Squirrel’s. The club needed their Sergeant at Arms too much to be able to do without him if he ended up sitting in jail for assault.

Squirrel reluctantly shrugged one shoulder and then the other as Ivy pulled the cut off his arms. She handed the bloodied vest over to Diesel.

D fisted it, then said, “Done here. Get gone.”

Squirrel made his way slowly to the door and walked out without another word.

Once it was just her and Diesel left, he swung his attention to her. “Whadya doin’ here?”

Shit.

What seemed like lie number fifty in the last couple days slipped easily off her tongue. “Dex needs something from his room.”

“Since when you do his biddin’?”

“I needed a break from the shop, so I offered.”

Diesel stared at her for a hard moment, then nodded.

“Pierce won’t be happy with you kicking out a prospect.”

“Don’t give a shit what Pierce thinks. He’s fucked.”

Ivy swallowed hard. “What do you mean?” This was not good. Dissension among the ranks in the club was not good at all.

“Know exactly what I mean. Go get Dex’s shit an’ get gone. Don’t want you alone with the prospects. Or Pierce.”

Ivy glanced over her shoulder toward the closed meeting room door. “He here?”

Diesel’s bulky shoulders rose and fell in a heavy shrug. “Probably at the gun shop. Don’t matter. Don’t want you alone with Pierce any more. Not ever. Got me?”

Ivy’s gaze flicked to his. He was dead serious.

“Yeah, I got you,” she said softly.

“I hear you’ve been holed up in that meetin’ room with him... or anywhere...” He shook his head, the tight Mohawk not shifting even the slightest. “Ivy, it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

She nodded and went to move past him, but he grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Serious, Ivy.”

She tugged at her arm, but his grip tightened. “I hear you, Diesel.”

He did a chin lift and released her. She headed toward the stairs, then ran up them when she got there.

She paused at the top until she heard the back door slam. With a sigh of relief, she headed down the hallway to Jag’s room, sliding the small lock pick kit out of her back pocket. She slipped a tension wrench and a pick into the lock, applied slight torque to the wrench, wiggled the pick, felt the pins set and Voila! the door was unlocked.

She never thought she’d need the skill she learned so long ago. Ace had thought it was funny when he taught the then ten-year-old Ivy to pick locks. It was entertaining for him. Little did he know she’d use what he taught her for the reasons she did.

She grinned and turned the knob, letting herself into Jag’s room. She flipped the switch and closed the door behind her, locking herself in. She wouldn’t put it past Diesel to come up and check on her.

She put her tools back in her back pocket and looked around. She’d been in his room only twice before. And both times she had been a bit... intoxicated, so she had never taken the time to inspect it closely.

Though the room was one of the larger ones in the clubhouse, it still was nothing to write home about. There weren’t a lot of secret hiding spots in a ten by twelve room with a tiny bathroom attached.

She stepped over the piles of dirty clothes that had been simply thrown on the floor and stared at his unmade bed. There was an impression still in the pillow where his head normally laid. The top sheet was in a wrinkled ball. The fitted sheet pulled up on one corner, exposing a mattress she did not want to inspect any closer. And none of the linens matched.

Martha Stewart had definitely never been here.

The sweet butts usually stayed behind and cleaned a brother’s room and bathroom for them after getting a good fucking. But it looked like no one had touched Jag’s room in a long while.

Huh.

He said he hadn’t been with anybody since the last time she broke into his room drunk. Maybe he’d been telling the truth.

A warmth stole through her. She sat on his bed, ran a hand over his pillow, then sank her elbows to her knees, dropping her head in her hands.

He hadn’t been with anyone but her since that night.

No Goldie, no Tequila, no Lola. None of them. Not one.

Damn.

She hadn’t been with anyone else either.

But that’s not what she came for. She had a mission, and she needed to stick to it, then clear out before she got caught.

She slipped to the floor onto her knees to peek under the bed, then regretted doing so. The sweet butts may clean the rooms, but they clearly didn’t do a very thorough job. She wrinkled her nose and pushed to her feet. She lifted the mattress slightly. Her eyes widened at the pistol, the blade, and the brass knuckles that were tucked between the mattress and box spring, but she shouldn’t be surprised. She dropped the mattress back down.

Her head twisted as she looked around the room again for any indication of a good hiding spot. A place where he could hide pencils and a large drawing pad. She went to his beat-up dresser and pulled out drawers, feeling around under his boxers, his balled-up socks, his T-shirts, thermals, long-sleeve tees, and Henley’s. She lifted out the blue-grey Henley he wore that emphasized the color of his eyes and held it to her nose.

Her pussy clenched as she inhaled his scent.

Fuck. Her body was such a traitor.

With a sigh, she shoved it back into the drawer and moved on to the next one and then the next. Finally, in the bottom drawer, under a folded pair of jeans, she found the box she was searching for. She pulled it out and lifted the lid.

Graphite and colored pencils, erasers, blenders, anything used to make a drawing like the one she found was stuffed into the box. She brushed a finger over them, imagining him bent over a drawing pad, concentrating on his work, his dark hair falling over his forehead.

Her core clenched again. Harder this time.

Fucking Jag.

After tucking the box back where she found it, she slid the bottom drawer shut, then peeked behind the dresser. Nothing.

Kneeling down once more, she checked underneath it. Nothing.

She groaned in frustration as her gaze swept the room again. Hands on her hips, she blew a chunk of hair out of her face. When it landed over her eye again, she swiped at it and looked up at the annoying red strand.

Then it hit her. The drop ceiling.

She detested them, but they made excellent hiding spots.

Her heart began to thump hard in her chest. They were up there. She just knew it. No other place they could be unless he hid them at another location completely.

But they couldn’t be far from his pencils.

She grabbed the rickety wooden chair in the corner of his room and dragged it next to the bed. The chair shook and shimmied when she climbed up and reached her arms up. She could barely touch the ceiling tile above her with the tips of her fingers.

Shit.

She did a little jump, knocking it to the side and... nothing.

Damn it.

She wanted to scream. Instead, she bit her bottom lip, knocked the tile back in place into its metal frame and climbed off the chair. She shifted it farther from his bed. Climbing back on the wiggling chair, she knocked the next tile to the side, hoping the piece of shit chair wouldn’t collapse underneath her.

Suddenly, she was pelted with loose papers, rolled up drawings, and last but not least, a drawing pad bounced off her noggin.

“Ouch!” She rubbed the top of her head and glanced down around her.

Holy shit.

There were more than she expected. They had spilled onto his bed and the floor.

The ones that landed right side up were in black and white, some in color. They seemed endless.

Endless.

She scooted to the floor, watching where she stepped, gathering as many into her arms as she could without crushing or wrinkling them. She piled them on his bed and when she finally collected them all, sat next to the large pile, looking at each one, her jaw hanging, her eyes wide.

Her mind spinning.

Custom bikes, Harleys and more, old muscle cars, new sports cars. All customized. Some of them looked like concept cars.

But all of them, all of them, were as detailed as the one found under the bar.

When did he have time to do these? It must be years of work.

Years.

Once she finished looking through the pile, her gaze landed on the rolled drawings. The ones secured by wide rubber bands. She grabbed the nearest one, slipped off the rubber band and unrolled it.

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

Her own portrait stared back at her. She quickly grabbed the next one, opened it. The next one. The next. There had to be at least twenty.

Twenty fucking pictures of her. Not one other woman. Not one other portrait. Only her.

Again, some black and grey, some in color with her hair a fiery red, her eyes a bright green.

She pressed her fingers to her mouth as she laid them out over the bed, her eyes bouncing from one to the next.

She was naked in almost all of them. But they were tastefully done. The realism and details incredible. She looked flirty, sexy, smoldering in almost every one of them. The way he had her posed, none seemed obscene at all. They were artistic, tasteful.

Then one caught her attention, and she pulled it closer, her fingers trembling. She was sitting, maybe on a bed or something similar, and she peered over her shoulder, like a model would gaze at the artist, smiling softly, her hair like a soft cloud falling around her shoulders.

She wasn’t completely naked in this one. Oh no. She was wearing only his cut. His cut. A vest with the patches clearly stating, “Property of Jag.”

One like the ol’ ladies wore.

Her heart stopped for a second then slammed against the front of her chest.

Most of the drawings were signed and dated. The signature just a squiggle, but the dates clearly marked.

She inspected the date of this one. Over a year ago. A couple months before she dragged him upstairs that first time.

Holy shit.

She swept her hand through the sketches, peering at the dates. A few were recent, in the last few months.

Most were from years ago.

Years.

Like the cars and bikes, he’d been sketching her for years.

She shivered as both a warmth and a coldness ran through her. Warmth because she could sense the intensity of his feelings for her in each one of his sketches. Cold because she had pushed him away, fought him at every turn. Denied both of them, denied what they could be for one another.

Before she could stop it, a tear ran down her cheek and dropped to the rumpled sheet, barely missing one of the drawings.

She swiped at her face so she wouldn’t get them wet. She needed to protect them, put them back in their hiding spot. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to take them with her. Show the world his talent. It shouldn’t be hidden. Not like this. Talent like this shouldn’t be tucked away in a ceiling.

She needed to confront him, but she didn’t know how. How did she explain her breaking into his room and finding years’ and years’ worth of his drawings, something he clearly poured his heart and soul into?

She needed to grab that original sketch she found, the one she had tucked back under the bar yesterday morning after showing it to the girls.

That’s the one she had to confront him with. Tonight. Maybe after the party.

Grabbing her cell phone, she snapped pictures of some of the drawings as she neatly put them back into a pile. Then she photographed every one of her before rolling them back up and securing them again.

She hated putting them back in that black hole in the ceiling. That’s not where they belonged.

He also didn’t belong in this clubhouse, in this club. He could be something way bigger than he was.

By being DAMC, he was holding himself back.

And that hurt her heart.