Chapter 4

“But I need a change of clothes, and where would I sleep?” Mary Jane looked around. “I’m not sleeping on one of the couches.”

Roughing it was never a problem, but trusting these men with their wild reputations? She wasn’t stupid by any means.

“You won’t have to.” A beeping sound came from somewhere around Storm. He pulled out his phone and answered it, giving her his back.

She had to admit she was glad to be sleeping anywhere but at Jimmy’s. Pain shot through her. Oh, God, she missed him already. She needed to think of anything but what happened to Jimmy. He’d understand. There was nothing she could do, and the police were investigating his murder. Jimmy had loved adventures and her being in the middle of the Brothers of Mayhem’s clubhouse would’ve been the biggest adventure of all.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she replayed the list of things to do. Her parents would need to be notified, but since they had no phone, she’d have to visit. Snail mail was too impersonal. While she waited for her lawyer to arrange Storm’s release, she’d called the Flyer’s team manager and told him the bad news. Then she’d spoken with her operations manager, and he promised to notify the necessary people in the organization.

Before she could think further on it, the two men who had taken her Corvette back home walked in with several bulging plastic bags.

“Here you go.” Storm pocketed his phone and nodded to their loads. “Venom, did you get enough of her stuff for a few days?”

“Sure did, boss.”

“Few days? My stuff?” They dared to go through her private things? She glared at the culprit who ordered them to do so. “Wouldn’t it have been easier for me to return my car and get my own things?”

“Would you’ve come straight here without me sending someone?” He crossed his arms.

She ignored the question. He knew the answer to that. It was no. If she had gotten scared, the storm shelter Jimmy had built next to the house would be the perfect place to hide out.

Without waiting for a reply, he said with a self-satisfied grin, “That’s what I thought. You’re safer with me here.”

She wanted to stay angry at him, but the man knew how to play that smile. He was gorgeous. Not the pretty-boy kind, but the kind who would bite and then have a person asking for more. Playfully dangerous.

“So how long do you think I need to stay with you?”

His gaze traveled down her body. Heat swirled along the path. She twisted her fingers in the halves of her skirt. The way he studied every inch tightened her skin and weakened her knees. With a certainty, she knew he imagined running those big rough hands up her legs and between her thighs, even to the moisture waiting for his touch. No one had ever looked at her that way. She liked it.

His chest heaved and then he pointed toward steps running alongside one wall of the room and instructed the men, “Take her bags upstairs and put them in my room.”

Her attention remained on his face. It gave no clue as to his intentions. Did he expect sex in exchange for protection?

Though she was still a virgin, she’d grown up on a commune and had seen a lot of nature taking its course, so she had no sexual hang-ups. But strangely, she was old-fashioned enough that she knew she wouldn’t practice “free love” with just anybody. She’d want to get to know the person.

She found Storm interesting, fascinating actually. His looks attracted her, but there were aspects of his personality she needed to examine first. Like the gloves. She knew lots of bikers used them for long-distance rides, but except for his time in the interrogation room, he had worn them all day and night. Why?

After Storm had ridden off, her lawyer had said that he’d been stripped and every piece of clothing examined for blood. He was a prideful man. It would’ve ruffled his feathers good. That helped her to understand his earlier attitude. She would’ve been pissed at the world too.

She halted in place. “Shouldn’t we talk terms first?”

The intense sexual look he gave her had her taking a step back. The man did have the power to say a lot without speaking a word.

“Terms of the protection.” She said each word in a clear tone.

He grinned, one corner of his mouth a little higher than the other.

“We’ll talk in the morning. I’ve got a few things to do. I’ll feel better knowing you’re secure in the one room. No one will enter without my permission.”

That didn’t bode well for her. If no one dared to enter, then if she screamed who would save her from Storm? Looking around, she decided she could protest and they would only laugh.

Storm had been rude a couple, well, a few times, but she never felt threatened bodily by him. Damn. She wished he would quit giving her that crooked grin. It was so freaking sexy.

“Okay. One night. Then we talk and come to an understanding. But we’re not sleeping in the same bed. You can sleep on the couch down here.”

He gave an evil chuckle and waved her toward the steps.

When she reached the hallway above, she was pleasantly surprised by how normal it looked. Pictures of motorcycles and people lined up behind banners proclaiming different runs and chapters of the Brothers of Mayhem covered the walls. There were four closed doors.

Storm opened the one at the end. The room had a sitting area with oversized recliners and another large-screen TV, an old pinball machine, and several large pictures of motorcycles hung over an unmade king-size bed at the opposite end next to a long dresser without a mirror. With an archway dividing the two areas, she guessed at one time it had been two rooms. There was another door off to the side near the bed that led to a roomy bathroom.

Besides a pair of socks near the bed and a towel thrown in the corner, the area was cleaner than most bachelor pads. There were no drug paraphernalia or pictures of naked girls straddling bikes, and no cement blocks to hold up furniture. It was a more cared for and mature version of downstairs.

She turned around and almost bumped into his chest. He jumped back as if she had tried to contaminate him. She felt a little hurt by the gesture until she noticed his face had a paleness around his lips. Was he going to be sick? What was going on with him?

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’ll sleep in a recliner. Won’t be the first time.” He strolled to the pinball machine and leaned on it, clacking the paddles, ignoring her. Or was he trying to pull himself together?

Heart beating fast, she decided to ignore his odd behavior. She walked over to the matching recliners. They each were large and deep enough for two. Pressing on the soft brown leather, she found the stuffing was thick enough to be a feather mattress. They would be as comfortable to sleep in. Some of her guilt at the thought of taking his bed eased away.

But she couldn’t help asking, “Don’t you have a spare guest room? I noticed a few other doors in the hallway.”

Maybe she was being silly, but she asked about another room for a good reason. It was as much to keep her from temptation as to keep him away. Those broad shoulders appealed to her too much.

“You’re sleeping here, and I don’t want to hear another fucking word about it,” he said, still facing the pinball machine. Obviously, his patience had come to an end.

Her eyebrows lifted. A few snappy comments zipped through her mind, but she saw no purpose in angering him further.

As if he regretted his sharpness, he turned to face her and said in a soft voice, “I’ll be back in about thirty minutes. Don’t worry about a light. I know my way to the recliners in the dark.”

Then he was gone.

Storm carefully closed the door behind him and stalked down the hallway but hesitated at the top of the stairs.

What the hell just happened? He not only handed over his room, but his bed to the girl. He glanced back, imagining her stripping and getting ready for bed.

Girl. That was right. He needed to think of her as a girl, not woman. Hell for that matter, she wasn’t his usual type. He liked his women short and curvy with a big ass and tits. He had to admit, having her small firm breasts and beaded nipples pressed to his back had driven him crazy. He never let anyone touch him, especially his back, but those small mounds felt good.

What was he thinking of bringing her to the clubhouse? To his bedroom? Sure, the Thirty-Second ass-wipes would be searching for her, and there was no way he would allow them to touch her. No woman deserved to be treated like they planned.

Sliding his hands into his hair, he pulled, barely holding back the scream he wanted…no…needed to release. With a shake, he regained his composure. Then he loped down the steps and headed toward the front door.

“Hey, boss! Where’re you going?”

Wolf stood at the bar with a half empty bottle of beer to his mouth.

“Getting some air.” He jerked the door open and headed toward his bike. That was one thing he couldn’t get used to, being the chapter president everyone wanted to know where he was twenty-four-seven. He’d had enough of that in prison.

When he was paroled six months ago, he’d come back to the club as a patched member. His award for taking one for the club and going to prison. The clubhouse was his home away from home. Hell, the only place he’d almost felt like he belonged.

The club’s national president, also called the Skull, Mitch “Speed” Crane, had been his foster father and that helped to move him into position as chapter president after only a few weeks out. Storm had given three years of his life for the Brothers of Mayhem. No prospect shit for him. Fuck, yes! Prospects, men who wanted to join the club and had a sponsor, had to take orders from every patched Mayhem Brother, no matter how demeaning. He’d done enough of that hanging around and running dope and guns for the club.

Three months ago, he suggested to the membership that becoming bodyguards for the rich and famous would bring in the currency they needed to live on and the club to flourish. Everyone was on board, and the first few jobs went smoothly. People with cash loved the idea of having a dangerous outlaw biker keeping an eye out for them.

Not everyone in the club stayed happy. Venom and Bullhead, newly released from prison a month earlier than Storm, had protested after the first couple of jobs. Storm told them he wouldn’t stop their dealing in meth and pot, but to keep it away from the clubhouse. The Feds and the locals would love to take them down again. With so many arrested and still in prison, the Mayhem Brothers had barely held together last time.

Bullhead had left the club. Good riddance. Venom stayed. Except for his meth habit, he was a good guy.

He lit a joint and leaned against the building. Gradually, the need to scream subsided. He chuckled. Venom did provide the best ganja.

Mary Jane.

He shook his head. Why had her parents stuck her with a moniker for pot? Shit! His mom had named him after the weather outside the hospital the day he was born. Maybe all those drugs they shoot into women during childbirth fucked with their brains.

Taking another toke, he exhaled the light stream of smoke. Thank goodness, he had something that helped to relax him.

After surviving the pen, he often felt like the walls were closing in on him. He learned to get out and stand beneath the open sky. Feeling a breeze filled with diesel fumes from the nearby trucking terminal was better than stale recycled air.

Using the roach clip hanging on his keys, he finished the joint and then headed for bed.

When he walked into his bedroom, sunlight sliced through a crack in the curtains. He overlapped the material, darkening the room.

He clicked on his cellphone light as he stepped over to the recliner catty-corner to the bed and stopped. Unable to resist, he pointed the beam toward his bed. He partly did so as a way to see Mary Jane. She was curled in the center of the mattress, looking so small and fragile. Yet, standing straight, she reached his chin. She was taller than any woman he’d fucked. Again, another way she differed from his usual taste.

He liked how the waves of hair rested beneath her jawline and across her neck, leaving the swell of her breasts to his gaze. Most likely after she fell asleep, she’d kicked off the sheet and comforter. He liked how her T-shirt bunched around her waist exposing her dainty white panties and her long legs. Damn, he liked that a lot. Those legs appeared to go on forever. His fingers twitched with the need to slide his hand up the silkiness and underneath the ass-cupping shiny material. His cock throbbed, begging for attention. With disgust at his reaction, he clicked off the light and stepped away.

Yanking off his cut and T-shirt in one fluid movement of exasperation, he tossed them over the other recliner. In careful, slow movements, he eased into the recliner, the leather creaking despite the softness.

For a split second he thought of jerking off. Anything to relieve the need to grab her ankles and sink into the sweetness waiting between her legs.

Yeah. Show her that he was a freak. How many times had he caught her watching him in the last eighteen hours? She already expected him to attack her at any minute. Though he had to admit she must have changed her mind. She was sleeping. In his bed. A couple feet away. Asleep. His bed. Christ! So hard to believe.

Creaking alerted him to how his fingertips dug into the supple leather. His hands released the armrests, and before he realized it, they cupped his groin and massaged.

She rolled over and smacked her lips.

He snapped his hands away.

Jesus H. Christ! He was in hell.