A large callused hand grasps the nape of my neck, the familiar smell of leather, weed, and whiskey wafting around me. That smell should be put in a candle, it’d sell a shit load the way it eases the anxiety in one’s chest.

A hard, warm body presses up against my back, and my eyes nearly roll into the back of my head.

“Benji.” The name falls from my tongue like a moan midst ecstasy. He feels so good against my body, my mind nearly loses its reality.

His lips brush against my ear. His hands slowly, lazily, slip down the back of my jeans, and his fingers brush against my sex. Tingles of pleasure surround my wetness, the notion to forget what is right and wrong nearly a breath in the wind with his hands on me.

“I want to bite this ass, trail my tongue down your supple cheeks until I dive my tongue deep inside this hot cunt of yours,” he mutters.

I grit my teeth with temptation. I want to wrap my legs around his neck while he licks every drop of my wetness. My body clenching around his tongue as I release what I’ve been denying myself into his mouth. I want to let him mouth fuck me into another world where it’s just him and I… but that would be selfish of me. A fucking mess.

I could lose him.

I grab him by the wrist and pull his hand out from my bottoms, his finger leaving a trail of wetness behind it.

“You can’t say my name like that, and deny me that tight ass, Harley,” he growls into the back of my ear.

“We can’t do this, you know that.” I clear my throat and shake my head.

There’s no denying that Benji is a catch. Tall, dangerous, and smoldering eyes that make you want to throw the idea of wearing panties into a fire.

But, I’m not capable of having a traditional relationship. I’m not saying that to be that teasing bitch everyone knows. I’m just the kind of girl that doesn’t get to experience the glamorous kind of love. No, my heart comes with a little bloodshed and a shot of insanity on the side. That’s the biker’s way of life, after all, and that alone makes me bad at this thing called love. I can’t promise I won’t break his heart. If I did lose him as my best friend, it’d be the first thing I’d never forgive myself for. Even if I did tease him, you couldn’t blame me. Benjamin Daxton is the sexiest man in this club.

I’m not mentally stable to love Benji.

My eyes water as I think about the first time I realized I’d never be good enough for Benji.

Waking up in an uncomfortable position, I sit up. My vision blurred, my head pounds and my mouth is dry. I notice I am in the backseat of some truck I’ve never seen before. The smell of stale beer and Old Spice deodorant making me want to vomit. The material of the black dress I didn’t know I even owned, makes my skin itch and sweat, and I pull at it impatiently as I try to figure out how I got in that truck. The sound of someone heaving in the front seat has me sitting forward. Looking over the vinyl blue bench seat, I find a young man with tattoos all over his back throwing up in the floorboard. I’ve never seen him before. How did I get here? Did we do anything sexual? God, I hope not.

“Why am I here?” I ask with a shaky voice. Scared of what he’s going to say. My heart flutters with the words about to fall from his dry lips.

He coughs, wiping his face with his forearm. His face is pale and his eyes are hooded like he’s smoked too much.

“I was going to show you a good time, but I got sick, babe.” He shakes his head with embarrassment.

Rage sobers me instantly. My eyes filling with tears as I jerk the door open and slam it shut.

There’s no way I would let this happen. He’s not even cute!

“Hey, let me get your number!” the boy’s who name I don’t even know, suggests. He doesn’t know who I am or he wouldn’t be asking me so bluntly. He has no idea I’m the president’s daughter. It’s refreshing but dangerous.

“HARLEY!” I hear Benji yell from the clubhouse. Looking at the boy in the truck, I furrow my brows. My heart beating a mile a minute.

“You better leave. Now!” If Benji finds him, he’ll kill him. He will drag him out of his truck, and pound his fist in this boy’s face over and over again. Then my dad will take the back tire to his Harley across his face.

I see the passion in Benji’s eyes, I know he wants to be with me. To see me with someone else… it would kill him.

Benji groans as if I just took his dick from him and slammed it in a drawer, grabbing me from the trip down memory lane. A memory I remember often, because it’s permanent tattoo of why I can’t be with him.

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as split personality. It ruins my life in some ways, such as having a real relationship with anyone. So, when Benji looks at me like I’m the only girl in his world… there’s really more. Harley, which is my front personality and then my alter that calls herself Farrah. Farrah has been a part of my life ever since I can remember. She’s the other half of me. When she comes forward, she’s always altering my appearance to something sweet and innocent, though she’s anything but. She’s a slut in a flower dress, and I can’t stand it when she puts me in clothing that reveals so much of my skin. I don’t know anything she does when she comes to the front, I just black out. It’s like swimming through a dark abyss as I wait to come to the front in a different place, in different clothes, confused as fuck.

Benji pulls away from me, and I turn to face him. My face flushed and I place my hands on the dresser behind me in attempt to keep them from grabbing at Benji’s hard body.

“What are you guys talking about today? Are you going on a run? Do you need some help?” I fire a series of questions at him. The club is about to have a meeting and I want to go so bad, I’ve wanted to go since I was a little girl. I’m the Shadow Keepers’ MC princess, and my crown is my helmet. I want to be a part of the club so bad. When I was younger, Benji and I would hide under the wooden table from time to time, but we eventually got bigger, and got caught. My dad made it a habit of checking under the table after that, and I haven’t been back in there since. Benji has been in there since though because my dad patched him in.

He steps in where needed, the club muscle if you will. The size of Benji’s shoulders and arms, it’s a no-brainer to make him the Shadow Keepers’ enforcer.

Benji’s shoulders are wide and built with muscle, his arms tattooed and thick. He’s the king of pain and it’s scary what his charming smile can hide. You’d never know he was a murderer if he wore a suit and tie. That’s how handsome and dangerous he really is.

“You can’t come and you know that.” Benji slides my blonde hair behind my ear. His touch soft but firm.

His ocean eyes bore into mine, searing me where I stand as if I’m the only girl in the world. The feeling is warm and fuzzy, and a façade. I’m not the only girl in his world. If I was, maybe things would be different between us.

My eyes fall along his sharp face. The dark stubble on his chin causes my fingers to twitch with the urge to run both of my palms over it just to feel the scratch of it on my fingers. His shaggy black hair falls in his eyes when he looks at me. Trundles that are lighter in color from riding in the sun too much curl around the tops of his ears.

He notices my lingering stare and flicks his nose with his thumb, his tongue sliding along his bottom lip as he looks at me with hooded eyes. His smoldering blue orbs too intense to look at, my eyes fall to the scar on the bridge of his nose. It’s lighter than the rest of his tanned skin demonstrating even though he’s beautiful, he’s an unpredictable man. I remember the day he got that scar. A club passing through stopped at the Shadow Keepers go to spot for whiskey. The Rolling Barrels Pub. The other club disrespected our club’s colors, and Benji got heated and got in his face. The man from the opposing club punched Benji right in the face and broke his sunglasses; slicing his nose wide open. Benji broke the man’s right arm after that, and there’s no pain for a biker like not riding their motorcycle.

It was one of the few times I got to leave the club, and I witnessed the whole club fight that night. I’ll never forget how much Benji looked like a monster and less like a man.

Benji and I grew up together, MC brats. Both schooled and confined within the walls of the Shadow Keepers MC. My home is just above the clubhouse my father is the president of. Benji’s dad, Roadie, is the VP and they both live downstairs in two of the club’s rooms. Benji is my best friend, we do everything together. Just not runs or anything club related.

The Shadow Keepers’ clubhouse was founded in Arizona by my father. He came back from the war a lost man and not only homeless but jobless. He stumbled upon a condemned home by a beach and slowly rebuilt it. Other lost souls joined him, and they began to get into pot running and before they knew it, they became the Shadow Keepers.

They’re a motherfucking legend around here. A club named Tail Chasers used to run this side of Arizona. They sold weak pot and some cheap guns. Eventually, Dad moved in on their territory and wiped them out with better weed, and eventually better stock in guns. Many have tried to take out the Shadow Keepers, and many have gone missing trying. Keep your competition six feet under, and you’ll always remain on top.

“Meet me on the roof after the meeting?” he asks with a low rugged tone. We always head to the roof, smoke a blunt and talk bullshit after club meetings. But tonight, my palm aches to hold a .45. My heart beats to the sound of the clicking mechanism of an automatic weapon. I’m programmed to wreak havoc and leave a path of blood in my wake. Nobody can stop that, not even the code of the club.

I’m becoming restless being sheltered in this fucking club.

“This is bullshit,” I grumble shaking my head. My eyes fall to my bed with the club colors printed on the bedding.

“The day a woman sits at the table, is the day the legacy of biker clubs around the world die. You know that,” Benji quotes my father, but his tone of voice lacks the belief in that sentence. I flick a brow up at him, his words insulting and out of line.

The very thought that I will never be in that room weighing heavy on my shoulders, I lash out the only way I know how.

Grabbing the red lamp on my night table, I throw it at him. He ducks, the lamp barely missing him, and he gives me a sideways glance as if I’m crazy. It’s ironic, as we both know I’m past crazy. There’s no cure for what I have. I’m the bitch with the leather jacket, matching boots, and joint hanging out of her mouth as I drive the fucking crazy train through the image portrayed for what a lady is to act like.

“It’s not healthy for you to be around violence,” he raises a brow, repeating what my therapist has told me.

“I get it. I’m a fucking nutcase,” I sneer, pointing to my head. There’s a darkness inside of me that weaves and vines through my limbs, and when my heart pounds to the rhythm of someone hurting, or I get a waft of spilled blood. That darkness blooms within me past unstoppable. Members of the club have told me I scare my own father, and that hurts. I refuse to believe I frighten him, I should make him proud. The DNA of what he stands for runs deep inside of my body, nothing will stop me until I am at that table.

Benji growls. “You know I hate it when you fucking call yourself that. You’re just… different, Harley, and your dad doesn’t want you around club shit. It brings the worst out of you,” he clarifies.

What does he want me to say? That ‘I’ll change?’ Be a good girl who likes to decorate and bake cookies? That I’ll look the other way of innocent blood shed as I step over the empty bullet casings serving beer to club members?

I won’t be that woman. Ever.

“I won’t give up my self-respect just to make people who think they love me, feel normal,” I growl in reply. His eyes widen with insult.

“And you think I’m one of those people that want you to change?”

My brows furrow inward with uncertainty. I didn’t think he used to be one of those people, but the way he quotes my dad so often anymore… I’m not so sure. I’m hoping he’s just telling himself I am better left up here so that one day he will believe it himself.

“You better get going, Dad will bust your face if he finds you in here again.” I look over my shoulder with a grave expression. Benji knows he’s not allowed in my room, if Dad heard him in here it’d be both of our asses.

Shaking his head, he walks out of the room, slamming my door behind him. My shoulders tense from the loud echo of the door.

Sometimes I cannot believe he agrees with the rest of the club, or should I say my fucking father. That’s something that makes me question him. He’s always pushing for more between us, yet when push comes to shove, he takes my father’s words as his bond.

“No woman will ever be patched in.” I hear my father’s voice echo through my brain. I have more balls then the crew my father has behind him.

My loyalty runs blood deep, and the fact I have a pussy is blinding anyone from seeing that. This club is who I am, it’s who I’ve always been.

I just need to prove myself I have what it takes to stand with the rest of them. Then they will all see a woman is just as worthy to sit at the club table as a man. Raising my hand, my fingers fumble with my bottom lip in thought.

I stall, my eyes widening with a brilliant idea.

That’s just it, I need to prove I’m strong. A chance to show them that I can be trusted to do what is needed to be my dad’s right hand. It’s 2018, times of change. Why can’t a woman sit at the table, ride a motorcycle, and be a patched-in member? Especially if she proves she has what it takes just as much as any other man at the table?

I jerk the door open, and quickly head down the stairs, determined to make my dad give me a job. The doors to the chapel are closed, meaning church is already in session. Church as in, this where they hold their meetings and daily business. I’d do anything to be at the table, to hear where they’re going, who they’re hurting, and what is to come at the hands of the Shadow Keepers. I want to see who falls to their knees at the mercy of my family, to see the fear seep from someone who crossed us. I can’t sit idle a moment longer, I need excitement. I need … to find my place in this world.

We’re all sinners here, yet I’m the only one everyone walks around like a sacred angel that might break at any moment. I’m no fucking angel.

I carefully press my ear to the metal door to listen in. These doors were crafted from old boat docks nearby, and are thick. Making it hard to hear anything. Still. This might be the closest I’ve been to that table in a long time. My heart pounds so loudly I gently place my hand on the swell of my chest trying to calm myself so I can hear what’s being said.

“Governor Timothy hasn’t paid us back. He still owes us ten grand for making that leader protesting the rebuild on the Animosity Community, disappear,” my dad informs the table. My mouth parts hearing we killed a protestor to help a governor. There has been a lot of speculation on the television about his backroad ways, and if he’s in with our club then he’s definitely messed up.

“That build wiped out a lot of wildlife.” Viper’s tone grim, and I frown thinking about all the animals losing homes. Viper is one of the younger men at the table and has a fascination with snakes. I hear he has a poisonous viper in his room, but that’s not why they call him Viper. One time last year he walked through the club with a bottle of half-filled Jack Daniels bottle in one hand and was completely naked. I caught a glimpse of a snake tattoo winding up the side of his hard body. A viper to be exact. My spoon fell into my bowl of Fruit Loops as I’ve never seen a naked man look so beautiful before, the clinking sound caught his attention and he winked at me as he continued his way through the clubhouse as if his erect cock wasn’t swinging freely. It was so long, it could be a snake. So it begs the question. Do they call him Viper because of his lengthy cock, or is it because of the tattoo?

He’s the Sergeant at Arms. You need a weapon, he has it. I hear his room has guns of all sorts on the walls. I’ve tried to pick the lock to see for myself, but it’s impenetrable.

“Aw, look. Viper grew a vagina,” Roadie teases Viper for caring about the demolition of nature. Roadie is our road captain and just happens to be Benji’s dad. I’ve known him a long time. He’s getting older in age though, I don’t think he will be able to lead many more rides due to his sore hands and back. I head the last ride they went on they had to keep stopping to give Roadie’s hands a break.

“Are you wanting to fuck me now, Roadie? I knew you were fucking gay,” Viper strikes back.

“Only if there’s a tight pussy in between those ass cheeks,” Roadie replies seriously.

“Enough,” Dad orders the banter to stop. “He has threatened to burn down our club, and turn us over to the police if we retaliate in any way,” my father informs his men. This news makes my nostrils flare. This is my home, my life. Surely my father won’t just sit back and let this man breathe after such grave threats.

I bite my bottom lip as I listen in, my ear nearly suction-cupped to the door.

“We should send a warning,” Bridge states. Bridge is one of those men that look like they just got out of prison. Hairy, tattooed, and built. He’s quiet, and mysterious too. Only thing that breaks that outlaw look is the fact he hates driving his bike over bridges. Benji told me Bridge has driven an hour out of the way from the rest of the men just to avoid a fucking bridge. Nobody knows why he hates bridges, and if you ask, all you get is a serious, intense stare. Like he might snap your neck.

So, nobody asks anymore.

“Whatever we do, it has to be a smart move. Bold and quick so he can’t follow through with his threats,” Dad clarifies.

“You can’t trust politicians,” Viper sneers, and I roll my eyes. Viper doesn’t know shit about politics, so his statement is vague as shit.

“Babe, what are you doing?” I snap upright, my spine stiff. I’ve been caught listening in to club business, which is a big lawbreaker of the Shadow Keepers. We don’t have a lot of rules, but the ones we do have are firm and the law we live by. It’s not like the laws normal citizens follow, those are trivial compared to ours if you disobey them. There is no hope for you here; you’re fucked. I remember one time Benji and I sat on the stairs as we watched Roadie and my father take a blow torch to one of the member’s backs burning off his club colors for underselling some of our top pot and keeping the profit. I’ll never forget the smell. Benji tried to cover my eyes, but I wanted to watch. Something drew me to the violence and excited me.

The sound of Tickles clearing her throat makes me tense, and my head snaps in her direction. She’s a club bitch and thinks she belongs here more than I because she sleeps with everyone. The men call her a club cunt, but I hate that fucking term just about as much as I hate her. She’s got cherry red hair with blue streaks, and fake eyelashes so big they touch her thin eyebrows.

She’s not fat, but not skinny. She has curves, and big breasts to match. I’ve seen her naked more than I’d like as she has no shame walking around without any clothes on.

I know I’m no good for Benji, but when Tickles gets around him and bats those lashes, it’s like all the butterflies in my stomach die off one by one. I want to kill her.

Seeing Tickles stare at me as she waits for my response on why I am listening in to a chapter meeting has my hands rolling into fists. I want to hurt her, but even if she is just a club slut… she’s one of ours and I can’t touch her without repercussions.

“I was just seeing if they had started their meeting, I needed to ask my father something and didn’t want to interrupt,” I lie with a fake smile. She rolls her eyes and tucks herself behind the bar for a morning drink. Vodka with a splash of orange juice.

“Daddies little psycho path,” she mocks with an ugly face.

My nails dig into my palms as I glare in her direction. I hate being called that, and she always does it. I know it was her that scratched it into my bedroom door.

“You think those men are capable of savage acts?’ I ask. “I will murder your whole family if you talk to Benji again.” I threaten with a blank stare. She blinks slowly, her brain trying to process if I’m fucking with her or not.

Keeping chin up, I make quick of my footwork, and I head back upstairs to our house. I grab my leather bag from the corner and start stuffing it full of clothes as quickly as I can. If my dad isn’t going to protect this club with guns blazing, and won’t trust me behind the table with him, then I will fucking do a job by myself. Without his consent.

I have to find my place in this world, and if breaking club law and going behind his and Benji’s back is the only way… then so be it. They won’t kill me for disobeying, I’m the club princess after all.

Pulling open my top drawer full of panties, I dump them on the floor, grabbing the pistol just before it clanks to the carpeted ground. Pulling the chamber open, I make sure it’s loaded and shut it again. Dad doesn’t know I have it, nobody does. I snatched it from Roadies’ holster one night when he was so drunk he passed in the middle of taking a piss by the back door. He thinks a hang-around stole it. Which is something that is very likely to happen. A hang-around comes around when parties are going on, someone who wants in the club but hasn’t shown their full worth yet. To have a gun from a Shadow Keeper, that is show and tell at its fucking finest.

Stepping out of my room I tiptoe down the stairs, look at the church door one last time, before running out the back of the club.

Bud stands just outside, making me skid to a stop.

“Bud,” I say in surprise. Hat lowered, Bud looks up, eyes meeting mine before falling to my leather bag. Bud looks down before going inside and slamming the door. Bud knows I’m running and is letting me go.

I strengthen my hold on my bag. “We can do this,” I encourage myself. Pumping myself up for the journey ahead. I’m not going to lie, I’m scared as shit. I’ve never been outside these walls by myself.

The bus station is only a mile from here, I can make it on foot. Tossing my bag over my shoulder, I run. The night air is crisp and fills my lungs as I sprint away from the only thing I’ve ever known.

I’ll prove them all wrong. I’ll prove that I belong here. There is no other choice.

Running across the beach and the main highway I head to the bus station, looking over my shoulder the whole time. I’m so scared I’ll get caught it’s taking everything I have to hold down my dinner.

It’s raining, thunder cracking in the sky as my clothes stick to my skin making it harder for me to run. Huffing out of breath, and freezing despite the heat, I finally make it. Trying to catch my breath I sit under the small awning and look the governor up on my phone, getting all the details I need to make him my target. A family picture of him, his wife, and who looks like maybe his daughter and her husband grab my attention.

The young man’s hand is interlocked in the daughter’s, as she smiles and waves as if she’s fucking running for Miss America. The husband looks scared, miserable even.

I run my finger over my screen. Their clothes are so nice, their faces smooth and unknown of hardship.

They’re privileged and that alone sparks a burning jealousy in my chest. The hardships of my life are badges of honor I wear proudly. It’s proof I’m stronger than those who stick their nose up as they walk by.

The husband’s shirt catches my attention as my finger slides over him. He’s wearing a typical Arizona college shirt. You see young kids wearing them all the time, but this man looks to be in his thirties and doesn’t look to be a college student in the least bit. I click a new browser open and Google the college and the professors. Finding his profile picture at the very top. I open it.

Professor Michael Prescott teaches American literature. Volunteering in the horticulture department as a passion on the weekends. He’s married to June Prescott, the governor’s daughter—

I stop there, tapping my foot in thought. Dad said we needed to be smart, but bold in our strike against the governor. Maybe instead of going at the governor directly, I should take what matters most to him. His family.

A family walks past me, and I fake a smile. A mother and father pass carrying a little girl. She has bouncy blonde pigtails and an old teddy bear hanging from one of her hands. The little girl looks over her dad’s shoulder at me when they pass. Her eyes locked on mine.

“Hi!” The little girl waves at me, her bravery to talk to me taking me aback. The father looks over his shoulder and frowns when he sees me. “Don’t talk to her, Lizzy,” the father scolds, but that doesn’t stop the girl from smiling at me. The mother and father quickly pick up their pace, as the father hugs his daughter tighter in pursuit of escaping the lone biker chick.

I cross my boot-clad feet, the shoelaces sticking to the wet concrete and look the other way. I’m used to it, but the way the father tried to protect his daughter makes me think twice about going after the governor’s daughter. She’ll be too protected by guards or something I’m sure. But what about the son in law? He’s a man of no stature, and possibly too proud to lug around men to protect him.

I know shit about literature though unless you include the Harley manual in the garage that our mechanic Hairy had me read as a book report.

Turning my phone off, I go up to the window, with trembling hands I hand over a fifty. I’m scared, excited, and out of my mind being out here by myself, and doing what I’m about to do.

“I need a bus to the local college,” I inform the old lady behind a scratched -up plexiglass window, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She doesn’t even look up from her Hollywood gossip magazine as she punches something into a machine before sliding me a ticket from under the window and taking my money. Grabbing the ticket, I turn where I stand, and look up at the big blue and white bus pulling up next to the station. I feel high with adrenaline, my teeth chattering with fear.

I should turn around. No, I’m going.

I can do this. I am doing this.