CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Meeting!” Deuce yelled again, pointing to his office. “Right the fuck now!”

Ignoring the gaping stares of everyone inside the clubhouse, Dirty turned to Ellie, who was still wrapped up in Danny’s arms while the girl jumped up and down and squealed.

“I, uh, I have to go,” he said, frowning at Danny’s back, wondering why the fuck she wasn’t letting go of Ellie.

Ellie gave him a small smile. “I’ll be fine,” she said and let out a little laugh. “I’m in good hands.”

Danny finally surfaced and glanced up at Dirty, and then back to Ellie. “I’m confused,” she said. “Did you two come here toge—”

Danny stopped talking and abruptly swung her gaze back to Dirty. And just stared.

Dirty truly liked Danny; she was one of the few people he could stand to have touch him. They’d gotten to know each other fairly well a few years back when she’d been down and out over Ripper leaving, but she didn’t know jack shit when it came to his past or what he did in his spare time. And he aimed to keep it that way.

“Oh my God, Dirty,” she whispered and Dirty flinched, dreading what she was going to say next. “You look so—”

Ellie snatched Danny’s arm. “Danny,” she said. “Please tell me you have something other than leather I can wear, I’m begging you. I’m sweating like crazy. I think even my knees are sweating.”

“Uh, yeah,” Danny said, looking flustered. “Just let me grab Harley and we can go to mine and Ripper’s room, I have a ton of stuff in there.” Before they walked off, both women shot him one last look. Danny’s was full of confusion but Ellie’s was…

She gave him a knowing smile. And that’s when it clicked.

She hadn’t been sweating, or maybe she had, but that wasn’t why she’d asked Danny for clothing. She’d been protecting him. Just like earlier when she’d very slowly wrapped her arms around his middle, stopping when he’d started to freak out, giving him time to adjust to it.

She was protecting him from himself.

Her wearing his jacket. Her protecting him. Her smiling at him; a secret smile that only the two of them knew the meaning behind it.

His breathing grew uneven. Then he found himself picturing her naked again, seeing her standing there in his bathroom doorway, her hair wet, hanging long down her body, her huge breasts, tipped in large dark nipples, heaving with deep breaths, the dark triangle of hair covering her pussy…

His dick punched forward.

“What…the…fuck.”

Dirty shoved at Cox, whose face had suddenly appeared only inches in front of his own.

“Seriously, brother,” Ripper said, having joined them, studying Dirty. “I didn’t know you had skin under all that fuckin’ hair and filth.”

“You are Dirty, right?” Cox continued, looking him up and down.

“Naw, dude,” Ripper said, grinning. “He ain’t. He’s clean.”

Cox snorted. “Nice one,” he said and held up his fist. Ripper bumped it with his own and then they both went back to studying him.

“Fuck off,” he muttered to both of them. “And back the fuck up.”

Cox shrugged. “Whatever, dude, but you know, I can’t really help myself. You’re lookin’ really fuckin’ sexy.”

The corner of Dirty’s mouth lifted and he started to relax for the first time in days. At the club he could be the man he wished he really was. He could shoot the shit, joke around, talk about women the way the other boys did. It didn’t matter that it was all show and that most of his brothers knew how shit really went down for him in the bedroom. Not that any of them knew why he dosed the club sluts, but neither did they ask.

“Speakin’ of sexy,” Ripper said. “Ellie kinda bottomed out in the ass, yeah? Whatcha doin’ with her anyway? Is that what this meeting’s about?”

“I’d still fuck her,” Cox said. “Her face is still bangin’. Who gives a fuck about her ass?”

Ripper burst out laughing. “Dude, you just miss ass ’cause your old lady ain’t got one.”

“Fuck you,” Cox shot back. “I miss pussy. Period. I don’t give a fuck what’s packin’ in the back, I just want some goddamn fuckin’ pussy. I’m ’bout ready to blow and fill Kami up with all the fuckin’ spank juice she wants.”

“Fuckin’-A,” Ripper said, backing away, looking disgusted. “Keep your Sparky Marky and the Spunky Funk stories to your fuckin’ self.”

“I am!” Cox shouted. “That’s the fuckin’ problem!”

“MEETING!” Deuce roared, spurring the three of them into action, jogging across the room and into Deuce’s office. The table was filled except for Ripper and Cox’s designated seats, so Dirty headed for the back of the room and took a seat beside Anger on one of Deuce’s two leather sofas.

Once everyone was seated and had shut up, Deuce turned to him. He watched his prez give him a long once-over but, unlike everyone else, Deuce didn’t comment.

“Tell ’em,” Deuce said. “Start from the beginnin’.”

As if it weren’t bad enough they were all staring at him like a circus sideshow freak.

But he sucked it up, his all-over-the-place emotions and crazy thoughts, and explained to everyone what had gone down. From his ride, to hearing Ellie scream, to finding her in the alleyway with Officer Dipshit, to today on the street. He told them all of it and what he missed, Deuce filled in for him.

“Yeah,” Tap said. “Fucker is definitely playing games. He musta made you in that alleyway, Dirty, knew the Horsemen had her from the get-go. Ain’t no man stupid enough to take it to this level on a fuckin’ hunch.”

“He knows we need him for this deal to go through,” Ripper said. “I guarantee he’s gonna play that card tryin’ to get at Ellie.”

“You think he’s gonna try and pull a trade?”

“What fuckin’ else? He might have a hate hard-on for us, but we’ve been fillin’ his pockets for too long now, him and his parents. Ain’t no way he’s gonna bite the hands that feed him by tryin’ to turn us in to the Feds. Nah, this is about him gettin’ to Ellie.”

Dirty stayed silent, just listening to his brothers talk it out, shooting ideas and possible scenarios back and forth, trying to figure out what Mooresville was really up to, until someone said something and he lost his shit.

“Who gives two fucks about the fat black chick?” Bucket said around a mouthful of smoke. “We need this fuckin’ deal to go down easy. We got too much cash ridin’ on this shit and if anyone, the Feds, the ATF, anyone gets wind of what’s about to go down here, we are fuckin’ through. We can all kiss this club good-fuckin’-bye. Let’s cut our fuckin’ losses and just give ’im the bitch.”

Dirty didn’t think, he just reacted, and he wasn’t even too sure as to what he’d actually done. One minute he was listening to Bucket run his mouth, and the next everyone was shouting and he was hauled off Bucket, his fists still swinging. Bucket jumped to his feet and Dirty tried to lunge for him again.

Deuce slammed him backward into the wall and held him there.

“What the fuck, brother!” Bucket yelled. “What the fuck I do to you?”

“First off,” Deuce yelled, pointing at Bucket. “Watch your fuckin’ mouth. Been knowin’ Ellie her whole damn life. She’s Danny’s friend and no one’s givin’ her to Mooresville if I can help it!”

Then Deuce turned back to him. “Second,” he yelled. “You keep whatever bullshit you got goin’ on inside that bald fuckin’ head of yours REELED THE FUCK IN! We’re discussin’ business, you dumb motherfucker. You wanna knock heads, you do it after the fuckin’ meetin’. You fuckin’ feel me?”

He nodded.

Deuce leaned in. “You got somethin’ you need to tell me? Somethin’ like why the fuck you ain’t got no hair and don’t smell like my fuckin’ toilet after Cage comes to visit?”

Dirty didn’t respond and the moment Deuce figured out he wasn’t going to, the man nodded once and released him.

“Everyone sit the fuck down!” he shouted and everyone sat right the fuck down.

Glaring at everyone in the room, Deuce shook his head in disgust. “Don’t see how,” he muttered. “I’m always the voice of fuckin’ reason in this circus.”

• • •

“Ellie?” Danny asked, pausing in rummaging through her clubroom closet. “I didn’t want to ask in front of everyone, but how did you get those bruises? Are you the reason we’re on lockdown?”

Ellie nodded, but was unsure of what she should or shouldn’t tell Danny. She didn’t know the ins and outs of the MC, and honestly did not want to make any more waves than she already had.

Danny pursed her lips together. “Okay,” she said softly. “I get it. I’ll get the scoop from Ripper, but I’m here if you need to talk, okay?”

Ellie stared at her old friend who, unfairly enough, didn’t look a day over twenty-two. If there wasn’t an adorable little blonde girl sitting on the bed right next to her, who looked like yet another drop-dead gorgeous direct descendant of Deuce, Ellie would have never guessed Danny had been pregnant.

“You look great,” Ellie said. “And your daughter is beautiful.”

Danny’s eyes found her daughter and her lips split into a smile. “Thank you,” she said.

Ellie suddenly felt very uncomfortable, like she was intruding on a private moment, one she couldn’t even relate to. She had experienced moments like this with her own parents, catching her mother or father watching her, a small smile on their face, lost in thought.

But she’d never witnessed it as an outsider, a third party, watching a mother gaze at her daughter, the look in Danny’s eyes telling Ellie that this little girl was Danny’s whole world.

She felt inexplicably lonely too. She missed her parents, yes, but watching this, it felt like more than that. Thirty wasn’t right around the corner but it was close enough, and what did she have to show for it? No husband, no child, not even a boyfriend. She had a career that wasn’t going anywhere and a crazy chief of police after her, and now she was locked up inside a criminal motorcycle gang’s clubhouse for God only knew how long.

And this was her life?

Shame enveloped her for ridiculing Danny when she’d heard of her marriage to Ripper, of her pregnancy, of never leaving Miles City, for settling.

But Danny hadn’t settled at all. Danny was happy and whereas she’d thought she’d been, Ellie now knew that she was not.

“Speaking of beautiful,” Danny murmured, looking away from Harley. “Dirty is…just…oh my God.”

Ellie nodded. “I know,” she said. “I never knew he was so…” She trailed off, looking for the right word.

“Beautiful?” Danny suggested, raising an eyebrow.

Yes. Beautiful just about covered it. Dirty was, for lack of a better description, symmetrically flawless. Not only that, he was the very definition of masculine beauty. His forehead was broad, his cheekbones defined, his brow and chin both prominent, and his jaw chiseled to perfection.

Yet, at the same time there was this…almost innocent aspect to him. Something that seemed untouchable despite his age. The combination of the two, the masculine beauty and that innocence, were what made the man breathtaking.

The shower and shave hadn’t hurt either.

The sound of screaming had Ellie jumping off the bed in a panic. “What’s happening?” she cried, looking toward the closed door.

Danny let out a long-suffering sigh and shook her head.

“That’s Tegen!” Harley exclaimed from her seat on the bed. “She yells alllllll the time!”

Ellie glanced over at Danny, who shrugged in response. “She’s right. Tegen yells all the time and right now she’s extremely mad at my father and my brother…whatever…they are all crazy.”

Danny turned back to the closet, then suddenly spun back around. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I almost forgot! Apparently ZZ and Tegen have been living together in San Francisco! We’re like one big happy family!”

It took Ellie a minute to figure out Danny wasn’t actually happy or excited about this information but instead was overdoing it on the sarcasm.

“Are you actually upset about it?” Ellie asked. “Because you chose Ripper, right?”

Sighing, Danny sat down on the bed and dropped her hands into her lap. “This is going to sound weird, but it’s not that I’m upset. I mean, I was worried about him for a long time and all this time my dad knew where he was and with Tegen? Ugh. Seriously, it’s just gross. I mean, I slept with Ripper, then ZZ, and Cage slept with Tegen and then Tegen slept with ZZ, and it’s sort of like we all slept together.” Danny wrinkled up her nose and shuddered. “It’s just skeezy, you know?”

Ellie started laughing. “I think you’re seriously overthinking this.”

“I know,” Danny said, sighing. “But he left because of me…and now he’s living with Tegen? I mean, he must be miserable.”

Ellie laughed even harder. She didn’t know Tegen particularly well; the girl had been two grades below her, but the few encounters she’d had with her, she had to agree, the girl was very volatile.

“So, her and Cage now, huh?” she asked. “Well, that’s…interesting.”

Danny rolled her eyes. “Oh God, who knows. They are a hot mess together. He screwed her over a long time ago, then she comes back from California after D got shot, looking like a dirty hippie, and suddenly Cage is all, ‘Oh, she’s hot, blah, blah, blah,’ but Tegen’s all, ‘Don’t touch me or I’ll kill you,’ and ever since then every time they are in the same room together, all hell breaks loose.”

Ellie wrinkled up her nose. “Sounds fun.”

“Yeah. Tons. Personally, I think they’re both in love with the other. I mean, Cage has never had a serious girlfriend, ever. He doesn’t have any interest in any female other than for…” Danny trailed off and glanced at her daughter. “Other than you-know-what,” she said in a whisper.

“And I wish they would just beat the crap out of each other, kiss and make up, and be done with it, but whatever.”

Danny shrugged again and got to her feet. “Welcome to the insane asylum,” she said, and went back to rifling through her closet.