“So, there’s this dickhead and he kidnaps a woman. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.” – Grinder.

 

Day Two

 

 

Self-loathing had forced Grinder to lift himself off Luxe’s prone body hours ago and he was still hating himself for the weakness. What the fuck had he been thinking. Seriously, rocks in his fucking brain. But that was the thing, he hadn’t been using his brain in the last few days, that organ had taken off, leaving behind one dumb as fuck shithead.

The need for her had almost overtaken his fucking logic, even now his blood was boiling, he kept his eyes lowered while he reined in his fucking self. Dickhead move, like she would want his kiss.

He could say sorry. But what good was that now? Even though he wasn’t truly sorry, he could still feel his temper bristling underneath his skin, he’d wanted her to give in, to tell him what he wanted to know, hadn’t expected the beauty to stand up to him, glowering with her dark eyes and spitting curse words off the end of her vicious tongue. She was a thief and a tenacious hellion and the one woman to make him lose his stringent control.

Christ. He was stuck on her scent. Sex and danger. It was a heady combination he wanted to inhale. Shit made him crazy … crazier. And he couldn’t blame her for the attitude, at the same time liking it. She had passion, but then, he knew that already, he’d wanted to gulp her blaze before until she’d sneaked away with his cock hard and tongue saturated in her taste. What Grinder knew now was, he still wanted Luxe just as much.

Keep dreaming. If you kiss me again I’ll never forgive you.

Her words bounced around his skull watching her curl up falling to sleep. She never moved all night, she looked so innocent that mid-way through the night he’d strode across the room and covered her over with a blanket, even then she didn’t flicker, he was so tempted to brush her hair from her face, to show her he could be tender, that this bullshit wasn’t really him. Give me a chance.

What the fuck was he doing? He’d ignored a text from Preacher asking where he was and did he want to grab a drink. His buddy was going through some of his own crap with his old lady and while Grinder wanted to help, he’d gotten himself caught up in this clusterfuck. Only when he received a message from Rider did he pause. His president needed a recon job doing ASAP concerning the Russian’s, he ordered a visual to pinpoint where they were in Armado and who they spoke to. The thing being the go-to guy, Grinder never had a minute to himself some days, because Grinder knew guys everywhere. He had a courthouse guy, a police guy, a drugs guy, a snitch guy, a guy in the local government. At any given time, he could reach out and have some fucker with the right answer. He paid to have a lot of people in his pocket, but it sure got busy.

Fuck.

Great timing, but this was his job, not kidnapping. On it. he’d replied to his prez.  

Continuing to sit there in that too small arm chair listening to the traffic outside as people laughed and stumbled along the landing to their own rooms, he eyed the roll of duct tape and the rope he’d used, the cloth blindfold in his pocket made bile roll up into his throat. Had he really tied a woman to the bed? Fucks sake, he’d truly lost all his goddamn mind, hadn’t he?

It made him think of that bleak time when his mom had taken off for good this time and his Pop didn’t move from the couch for weeks, and when he did he was drunk and then after that he was just lifeless for a long time. Grinder, as a boy, didn’t truly understand a lunacy a woman could inflict on a man, all he knew was his dad was different, didn’t want to play catch or video games and hardly went to work. His uncle had stepped in and made sure Grinder turned up to school every day, had lunch and dinner and took him to ball games on the weekend. He’d overheard his uncle shout at his Pop a lot from the other room, telling him to pull his head out of his ass and ‘forget the bitch’ It had taken a long fucking time for his Pop to even resemble the man Grinder used to know.

Was he going down the same path, getting crazy over a woman? How had it come to this?

Luxe had slept most of the night, or given Grinder the impression she was asleep, her back turned to him, the comforter pulled up to her ears.

He felt such a pull to the woman.

Mostly he’d felt anger this entire year every time he’d dragged up the memories of her.

Now he wasn’t sure exactly what he was pissed about. That she’d stolen from him, no big deal, it wasn’t his bike after all, or the fact she’d led him on and dumped him mid-lust.

The same lust he had covering his vision as he watched the gentle rise and fall of her slim shoulders.

With a left jab of her scent he groaned the sound of a tortured man.

Keep your shit together.

Grinder was a capable hunter able to track a man clear across the country and never lose his cool even when they ran him a merry dance, because he knew one thing for definite; he always got his man. There was no felon he couldn’t track, criminals were stupid at heart, because a scared man makes mistakes, they resorted to form and it takes some skill to learn these lessons, to get into the minds of people who would instinctively try to outrun the lion. Poor fucking stupid gazelles, they ought to know by now to just lie down and wait for the inevitable.

Grinder was the lion.

He got his mark. Always.

But this one woman and her tempting scent that was a punch of pure sex and need and enticement, she was making him lose his mind, he was unfocused, and just a bit unhinged taking shitty risks he never would in a normal setting.

Tying a woman to a bed for days was as far from normal as he could get and he’d had some bondage fun in the past.

This wasn’t fun.

He was unnaturally tortured by her.

How was it he was the imprisoner but the dirty rotten thief had all the power?

Maybe, just maybe, he could convince himself if he tried really fucking hard, that it didn’t bother him, that a woman he’d wanted played him like a chump. He was no Don Juan, he couldn’t have every woman he’d fancied a taste of over the years, so why this one stuck in his throat he didn’t know.

Fuck.

In any case, he couldn’t psychoanalyze himself today, he had to get his head in the game to do the recon for Rider.

At least that he could think logically without it giving him fucking hives in his throat.

Goddamn annoying Russians. He’d had no interactions with them so far, and yet his irritation was prodded. Grinder rose, felt the snap of his aching spine as his bones realigned to accommodate his frame, mostly lean muscle, he’d missed a few work-out sessions this week, interrogating a thief was more time consuming than initially anticipated.

Get your head on straight, he warned himself. Another look in Luxe’s direction. He had nothing good in his mind keeping his eyes on her.

Nothing good at all.

Downright filthy.

He could still feel her gorgeous tits in his mouth, how plump and firm they were and the hard-little button of her nipple rolling along his tongue tip. The way she’d moaned when he’d begged her for a taste, real low, hardly distinct, but she’d gripped his hair, keeping him right there as if to tell him keep going with his sucking. It was only when he’d slipped a hand down her belly and further, cupping her crudely, grinding the heel of his palm that she’d put on the brakes after pumping her hips a few times. She’d been breathing speedily. Grinder had been practically panting to get inside her. Let me give you the best fuck of your life. Only she’d smiled, kissed him again and told him she would be right back.

Good job he didn’t hold his breath, he griped, he’d be standing there now stone dead.

With a roll of his shoulder, and stealing his jaw tight, he had a plan and was sticking to it.

The dirty rotten thief needed to know she wouldn’t win everything.

Not with Grinder.

Not with him any longer.

He left the woman tied to the bed.

 

Six hours later, he called in his report. He had eyes on the big apartment building the Russian mafia were staying in. In the heart of Armado Springs no less. The cocky motherfuckers had strolled In and made themselves at home, they might as well have invited themselves to Rider’s dinner table.

It hadn’t taken much for Grinder to locate the Bratva. With an inkling they were not hiding themselves, and didn’t that jar his irritation, no one, mafia included, had any respect nowadays for the bigger dogs. They were making a play for Armado, blatantly flaunting that they were a presence in his town, the town owned and run by Renegade Souls MC, it had been that way for the last fifty years and the club wasn’t about to make any changes in power, no matter how hard they were pushed. RS would always push back harder.

“They rented out the whole block,” he communicated to Rider and heard his boss curse. “Talked to one of my guys,” Grinder had a slew of informants throughout the states, a network of snitches and eyes everywhere. “He said the Russians moved in fully a few weeks ago, and a few more joined them earlier this week, they came in from Chicago.”

“Grigori is upping his attendance.” Rider’s voice was tight.

“Do we know what the deal was he had going with Hades?” Hades, the deceased motherfucker who had been the frontman for the defunct Raging Rebel’s MC. The mangiest outlaws to ever walk. On principle Grinder would have hated them, but they’d had a long rivalry with the RS, Hades had tried for years to destroy Rider’s legacy and failed hardcore seeing as Hades was now dead. But before he’d gone belly up he was the only club that had dealt with the Bratva, no other club in the area would have been dumb enough to climb into a cold bed with the underboss of the Russian mob.

As far as Rider was aware those Russian based mob had a piece of most every state, the ones the Italians didn’t own, Grinder couldn’t be bothered with mafia politics, it didn’t touch him and his. His club didn’t deal in firearms or hard drugs and didn’t traffic sex, unless the Russians were going into the Vodka business, Grinder couldn’t see exactly what they wanted with Colorado, he reckoned it was simply to have Rider under their thumb.

Measuring dicks never got old.

“Whatever it was, brother, it was nothin’ good.” Replied his president.

“What do you want me to do now, stick around?”

“Nah. We’ll see if they step out of line first, then I’ll have words with Grigori to take a message back to his alpha dog.”

“Roger that, Prez.” Grinder pushed himself off the mailbox he’d been leaning against and crossed the street, he needed to grab some food for Luxe, she’d be awake by now and spitting her fury no doubt to find he’d slipped a piece of tape over her mouth while she slept.

“You heading back to the club? Between you and your boy playing daddy this week I’m two men down.”

Guilt chewed on Grinder’s intestines until bile rose up his throat. Shit. Hadn’t he been at Preacher’s side recently to watch him say his I Do’s to his old lady? Whatever his friend insisted that it was to gain custody of Ruby’s nephew, Preacher was in love. He’d been pleased to see his buddy happy at last, and to gain the insta-daddy role.

“Yeah, soon, Prez. I’ll make up my time in the shop.” He didn’t tell him he might be taking a trip to New Mexico, that a pussy had finally driven him crazy and he was being led by his own dick.

His guilt swelled by about seven million notches.

Detouring on his way back to the motel, he stopped in at Preacher’s place and met his new son.