Reaper's Promise: A Wild Reapers MC by Kiki Leach (1)

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 

As with all my MC novels, I do not sugarcoat these stories or the language used. Of course, not all members of MC's speak in the way that I portray in my books but I have done research of outlaw clubs over the last few years in helping me to bring these stories to life and yes, many of them do. Their world is very different from our own in which they live by their own set of rules and have a certain way of life; there is only so much that I can fictionalize about it until the story itself becomes something that it isn't. Therefore, if alpha asshole bikers who use vulgar language offends you as a reader, then please put this book down immediately and walk away.

PS: There are two 'guest' characters in this book named River and Blue. Both are members of the Shadow Riders MC and have their own books in that series, INFLAMED and CODE BLUE, respectively. Though it is not necessary to read either prior to or after this one, if you would like to get to know those characters outside of the Reaper's world, it would be in your best interest to check out their individual stories.

'Reaper's Promise' is also an IR/BWWM romance with a length of approximately 100k words.

Thank you.

 

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Reaper's Promise ~ A Wild Reapers MC

"They play by the rules and get fucked. We don't and never do."

Colette: I woke up in Vegas married to my ex-boyfriend's hot as hell biker brother. Not that I'm exactly complaining considering I've practically been in love with him since forever, but... Record scratch. Wait a second. I bet you're wondering how the hell a kindergarten teacher got here, right? Well join the (biker) club, because so am I!

Roman: She woke up next to me in Vegas with a diamond cuff around her ankle and a matching ring on her finger, and is wondering how the hell she got here. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she only said yes to my proposal because she thought I was my inept kid brother. I didn't have the guts to tell her that I've wanted to know the taste of her skin and the feel of her legs wrapped around my waist from the moment she was first introduced to me as his girlfriend nine years ago. But I DO have the b*lls to tell her that since she's now officially been made mine, there's no way in f*ck that I'm letting her go.

Complete standalone with an HEA (no cheating) told in first person for each Colette and Roman in alternating chapters. Sometimes silly and fun, sometimes serious and thoughtful, 'Reaper's Promise' contains adult situations such as swearing, explicit sex and violence not suited for anyone under the age of 18.

 

© 2017 Kiki Leach

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.

 

First Edition: May 2017

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

 

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Kiki Leach was born and raised in Oklahoma City, OK where she still resides. As a child, she was surrounded by books, pens, and notepads, all of which she quickly took advantage of from the time she could read and write. Her favorite past-time has always been telling stories and in college, was encouraged by her mother and professors to take her storytelling more seriously. 

 

To those learning to love again.

 

Colette

"That shit really did a number on you last night, babe." Roman placed the key to the diamond cuff that had been linked around my ankle behind himself on the counter -- something of which I was still confused about; why the hell had I been chained up to his belt all night while we were in bed together, like some kind of dog? -- then bent forward to give me a glass of water.

As my eyes rolled down to his hand, all I could think was how big it was along with the other one that he kept firmly at his side. Just the thought of them both being wrapped around someone's neck or even a watermelon made me wonder just how quickly they could be crushed or snapped in two thanks to his strength. At just over six-foot-three and whatever the hell he weighed of pure muscle, he didn't leave much of it to the imagination, at least not to mine.

He leaned his head aside and arched a brow when my response to the water wasn't immediate. "Babe?" His voice was thick and gravelly now. My heart skipped a few beats, but I wasn't entirely sure if it was due to him or the impending hangover. "You still don't remember any of what the fuck happened, do you?"

I glanced up at him through mascara smudged lashes and slightly wagged my head, then took the glass from his hand with ease and quickly lowered my eyes back down to the table in front of me.

Damn, he was beautiful; too much for me to even stare at for longer than a few seconds at a time, lest my entire body burst into a ball of flames where I sat. Because this man -- and I do mean man in every damn sense of the word -- was like a fantasy come to life right before my very eyes.

He had dark grey eyes that reminded me of an overcast on a gloomy winter morning or the aftermath of a full on rainstorm on a hot summer day in June; a thin layer of stubble covering all sides of a perfectly angled jawline that had been known to shatter damn near every fist that ever came into contact with it since the beginning of his time; thick rose-colored lips that I was all too desperate to know the taste and feel of as they kissed and suckled along every inch of my body, and skin so perfectly, naturally and evenly tanned that it looked as if he had literally been born beneath the sun and was raised in a field full of wheat. And for most of his life, wore nothing but overalls, grass and sweat before graduating to baggy jeans that hung just a few inches below his amazingly taut waist, showcasing the very top of a perfect V that led straight down to an all too visible bulge between his thighs, along with black leather jackets and white tanks that fit him like a glove.

Not to mention that thick head of hair; beautiful, jet black hair that often looked as if a woman had just threaded her fingers through every strand of it during sex and he never bothered to fix it right after, much like now; the broad shoulders that made me wonder if along with being a mechanic for the 'business' portion his MC (at least one aspect of it), he shuffled boulders across town on the weekends; the perfectly sculpted eight pack hidden behind the fabric of that crisp white tank that made him look as if he had been carved from pure stone and blessed with the personal touch of God Himself; and those thickly muscled arms, each laced with a spiral of tattoos that swam around his biceps like thorn covered vines and dipped straight down to each of his long, thick fingers like a set of blooming rosebuds.

My God. Just the thought of him dragging each one across my bare breasts while flicking my nipples with his tongue, against my stomach, between my thighs and directly inside my sex while making me scream out his name in every language I knew and even those I didn't until I went hoarse at the exact same time, made my body quiver in places that I hadn't felt react to even the idea of sex since I first learned what the hell went where and why, and maybe even longer than that.

I gulped back the saliva flooding against the inside of my cheeks as my mind raced with more reckless and impure thoughts I knew I shouldn't have been having in that very moment in front of him; especially given my current condition of feeling and looking like absolute shit (I was certain) and the circumstances of not even remembering much of what the hell happened from the night before. Then I raised the edge of the glass up to my lips and took a quick sip of the lukewarm tap water that had been slushing around inside.

"You might wanna have a few aspirin with that too, babe," he told me, his rough voice forcing the tiny hairs on the back of my neck to stand on edge, while a hard, solid throb pounded directly between my thighs and against the soft flesh of my sex like a gong.

Had I been a few shades lighter in my complexion, I would've blushed with complete embarrassment at what I was feeling in that exact moment with him, which I'm sure would've either made his cock go completely out of control (he could never seem to resist a woman, any kind of woman whatsoever, being turned on by his voice, his face, his charm when he used it well enough, his body, his absolute everything) or forced him into a fit of laughter that he wouldn't have been able to control (considering he had known me since I was just nineteen years old and never saw me as much more than his younger brother's girlfriend, more than likely turned ex for good after this shit). Or hell, maybe even both.

I wagged my head at him again and muttered a quick, "I'm fine," though we both knew that I wasn't, then leaned back in the chair. He stood up straight and cleared his throat, then rested his hands on either side of his hips. And that's when I caught a glimpse of something shiny and silver wrapped around the base of his left ring finger. There was no way in hell it was what it looked like; I had to still be drunk out of my mind from the night before. "What the hell is that?" I asked him, pulling the glass from my lips and nodding toward his hand.

He arched his thick, bushy brows and glanced down at himself, then lifted his shoulders in a shrug and ticked up the corner of his lips. "What the hell does it look like to you, darlin'?"

Darlin'. I both loved and hated the way his hard, gravelly voice sounded when he called me that; the softness of each syllable was part teasing and part... sex.

I tilted my head back to stare him straight in the face this time and tried like hell to concentrate on everything but his perfectly defined, chiseled features while responding. "It looks like a wedding band," I said.

He bobbed his head and widened his smirk. "Well, you'd be damn correct in that shit."

I narrowed my eyes, then shoved my brows together in complete wonder. 'Am I in fact still drunk or has this man lost every bit of his damn mind? Or is this some kind of joke or a trick? Or hell, is it all the above and then some? Maybe I'm still asleep...?'

"Who the hell did you manage to get married to last night in the middle of what I'm guessing was nothing more than a big, fat pile of chaos not long after we showed up here?"

A light but throaty chuckle escaped him and he brought his left hand up to his mouth and dragged his fingers back and forth across and between his lips. Then he folded his arms over his chest, slid his hands beneath his arm pits and cleared his throat again. "I'm looking right into the big brown eyes of the woman I married last night, babe."

I blinked once and loosened my fingers around the glass. "What?" He pointed down at my left hand and when my eyes followed the direction of his index finger, they widened in absolute shock. "Holy fucking shit!" I didn't normally swear like a sailor and all in one sentence, but if there was ever a moment in my life that called for something more than a few bad words that often gave the devil himself a chuckle, this was it.

On my ring finger was a square yellow diamond surrounded by a double row of white diamonds that looked to be the size of my head, and more than likely cost the entirety of what I had yet to even begin paying back in student loans. I had guessed about 20 carats but I was no expert; I had just managed to see enough of something similar over the years from friends who had gotten engaged and eventually married to their current spouses to know the difference between cheap as shit and hella, over the top expensive.

This thing was a definite member of the latter. My hand must have been completely numb to not have even felt the band around my finger; my eyes must have been blinded by the beauty of this man's face and hard as hell body as he stood in front of me to not even catch a single glimpse of it in the sunlight as it shown through the curtains across the room, until he directly pointed it out to me.

What the hell have I done?

"Yeah, darlin'," he said as I continued to remain quiet and in awe. "Just in case you were wondering--"

"I'm not wondering about anything except for how the hell this all happened to me in the first place and why."

"What happened is that we got hitched at the Little White Chapel a few blocks from this place last night," he replied, his voice a light rumble of pure ecstasy. I shuddered, hating that I was all too desperate to know the sound of it up close and personal as he had me pinned down on my back on the bed. "The why is a bit more complicated than that and might take some time for me to explain and for you to fully understand."

"You had enough time to get me married last night, you've got enough time to tell me how the hell it all happened."

But he didn't, unfortunately, and instead turned from me as if I had asked him nothing at all.

God, why couldn't I just go back to hating him in the same way I had when we first met nine years ago, when he silently refused to shake my hand and never once looked me in the eye the minute his brother Jeremiah first introduced me to him as his latest girlfriend. We were at their place, a shared house off the lake back in Culver City, during a BBQ that had been thrown together at the last minute by his MC. I never outright asked what the hell his problem was during all of that, but often got the feeling that he didn't think I would stick around long enough for him to get to know me much like the other women in Jeremiah's life often didn't; but I did.

I was around long enough for him to talk marriage between us, to talk kids and a real live family before we each turned thirty-five and were trying to get our careers off the ground; he currently worked three days a week at the local infirmary as their computer tech while aiming to become a pilot despite refusing to take classes and his own lessons for it. The man had the skills but constantly lacked ambition; always wanting money from high powered jobs but never wanting to work hard enough to get or keep them. Not to mention what little he ever earned is what he often managed to gamble away during every other weekend spent out here alone. My ambition had always been to teach young children, though I often hoped to someday open my own child care center back home.

I was around long enough for him to buy the ring, one the size of a half-boiled peanut in comparison to this one, but a ring nonetheless. Though he would never actually propose due to wanting to 'wait for the right time', which truth be told, never came. I was around long enough to personally come in contact with just about every living member of his family, from uncles to cousins to aunts and grandfathers in the same way he had managed to come in contact with my legal guardian at the time, my grandmother, before she passed; long enough that their father had openly accepted me as an unofficial daughter-in-law before he eventually passed away from cancer just six months later.

And I was around long enough for Roman to soften his touch a little after getting to know me as a person; to see me as more than just another notch on his brother's belt after realizing that I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon; which led to random talks at 2am around the kitchen table and between buckets of ice cream about his MC and brothers, about my gig teaching kids their ABC's, and sometimes about life in general, how shitty it could be without even trying and the like. All of this when I had initially come to see Jeremiah, who often fell asleep right after sex.

There were other times when he would catch me staring off into space during one of Jeremiah's boring as hell stories about something that never mattered, if only to hear his own voice for hours on end, and would crack a smile wide enough to show off that perfectly slanted dimple in the center of his left cheek, right along with those exceptionally white teeth that almost seemed man made. And times when he unconsciously held the door open for me when we would attempt to enter the house at the same time, which often led to a few shared laughs and awkward glances tossed back and forth between us.

I've never fully wanted to admit just how much I treasured the hell out of those moments because despite them being so small and insignificant (at least to him, I was certain), and few and far between, they were also the moments that made me start to see him as more than just a pretty faced, tattooed biker with brass knuckles and a snarl, and more like someone I could spend the rest of my life with instead of his brother.

But now sure as hell wasn't the time for any of that.

When he continued to remain silent, I pushed away from the table and jumped up from my chair. Without realizing that I was even still holding onto it, the glass in my hand went flying across the room like a Frisbee, straight into the wall near a tiny box television set in the corner, as water splashed across the floor in a kitchen small enough to fit inside of Barbie's dream house. I assumed that any chance of a decent hotel and room went out the window the moment this ring was put on my finger.

Roman peeked over his shoulder at the shattered pieces of glass that had crashed down hard against the linoleum, then dragged his cool grey eyes back to my face and frowned.  "That's some shit I wasn't exactly planning on paying for along with everything else in here, babe."

"I don't remember asking you to pay for anything last night, but I'm STILL asking how and why the hell this all happened?!" I screeched; my tone was so hard and loud that he made a face at me and stood back. "Because there's no way in hell that I would've married you like this last night, drunk or sober!"

Damn it, what the hell was I even thinking in coming out here to Vegas with him in the first place? And alone? Sure, Jeremiah and I were done for good after I had just so happened to come home from a late night run to the grocery store, only to find him with one of those MC whores named 'Cherry' of all things, and in a bed that I had paid for with my own hard earned money no less.

But the minute Roman told me in that hard, gruff voice of his and with a certain look in his eye that I only ever saw in men who wanted to screw my brains out, that I needed to get my mind of off everything swirling around inside my head regarding his stupid brother and move on; and that going to Vegas of all places would help to do the trick, I should've walked right off of that compound just as quickly as I had stormed onto it to confront him about Cherry and the other club whores they often had laying around, hopped into my 1965 orange Mustang and sped the hell off, never to see him or his jackass of a younger brother ever again.

But I didn't. Instead I got sucked right into that killer smile, into that lusciously deep voice that seemed almost too determined to make me feel like I was the only thing that ever mattered to him and ever would; sucked into all things Roman 'Brawler' Starvaski II and hopped onto the back of his bike with nothing but my purse in one hand and my lack of dignity in the other. As my shoulder length, caramel colored hair went flying out behind me in the wind, I tightened my arms around his waist and grazed the tips of my fingers against his rock-hard stomach. Then I closed my eyes and prepared for the unknown, never dreaming I would get so blackout drunk that I would wake up the next morning in a fleabag motel with him standing over me like a moving brick wall and calling me his wife.

Of all the stupid things I had ever done after breaking up with someone, this had to be at the top of the list in being the absolute stupidest. If I could've kicked my own ass for what I had done, it would've saved a hell of a lot of trouble in other people doing it for me, which after getting back to the city, I knew would be coming soon enough.

Roman leaned his head aside and glowered in response to my reaction, then finally said, "Well, you did, darlin'," referring to my agreement of marriage to him. "Both drunk and sober."

Confused, I leaned back on my heels and folded my arms across my chest. "What the hell does that even mean? You asked me to marry you when I was sober, then plied me with shots of liquor to get me to say yes to you while I was drunk?"

He shoved his brows together in ire, then jammed his index finger into the center of his chest and bent forward. "You really think this shit is all on me?"

"What the hell else am I supposed to think?" I snapped. "You have very clearly managed to remember what the hell happened last night while damn near everything after showing up to this city is nothing but a complete blur for me, aside from maybe a few things."

"A few things like what?" he asked me, his tone serious.

I bit the inside of my cheek, a bluster of nervous suddenly filling my chest, and shook my head. "They don't matter," I told him.

"They should."

"They don't. Anyway, add to the fact that you're not even bothering to offer up any kind of explanation as to how we got here in the first place and why, which I'm sorry, makes me somewhat suspicious about your role in all of this, and here we are."

He grinded his teeth together so damn hard that they were making harsh crunching sounds. He was pissed at me now, I could tell. But the reason behind his anger wasn't exactly something that I was able to fully comprehend, considering. "You know what, babe? Truth be told, the shit doesn't even matter all that much anymore, alright? What matters right now is that I asked you to be my wife last night and you said yes to me without ever even thinking about it--"

"Which is the entire point!" I said. "I wouldn't have said 'yes' to a marriage proposal from you in my right mind last night and in Vegas of all places, which is almost too cliché to even admit aloud. Which means that you must've forced me into it, you had to!"

He took a step forward and threw his hands down on top of the table, forcing the edge of it to nearly crack in half as the legs shook in their own version of fear. The muscles in his arms flexed, extending the width of his tats; his jaw clinched as his face became hard and his brows furrowed again. I dropped my arms and jumped back in both straight up fear of this man, and deep, unabashed arousal. My mind hated my body being so turned on by everything he did while my body just wanted my mind to shut the hell up already and get with the rest of the sexy as hell program.

"Nothing that happened to you last night was forced in any way, shape or goddamn form, babe," he replied. His tone was stern and unflinching as his eyes trickled from my face down to my breasts. It was then that I realized I was still in my black skirt and matching tank top from the night before; one that just so happened to make my breasts look much bigger than they actually were thanks to the tight fit and an amazing pushup bra behind it. He darted his tongue between his lips while keeping his eyes focused on them, then brought them back up to my face and stood up straight again when he noticed me staring directly at him. "I need you to stop saying that shit as if you even getting on the back my bike last night wasn't something that you wanted just as much as I did."

Just as much as I did?

What the hell?

"Now, I asked you to marry me last night," he went on, "and you said yes, end of fuckin' story."

"Wait a second, hold on. It's not the end of any story. If anything, it's just the beginning of one -- Hey!" I reached out for his arm as he tried turning from me again and wrapped my fingers around as much of his bicep as I could. But instead of pulling him back toward me, he tugged me forward along with him just before stopping. I tripped over my bare feet and stumbled directly into his chest. It felt like falling into a pile of stones encased by plush bedding.

Quickly, I readjusted myself as best as I could, then released his bicep, which had flexed inside my hand, and rested my arms and hands alongside myself to keep from reaching out for any other part of him; particularly the one between his thighs which felt like a giant steel rod the minute my thigh grazed against it.

I cleared my throat.

"We need to get this marriage annulled as quickly as humanly possible," I told him, hoping like hell to keep my voice from rattling with nerves in the process. "As soon as we get back to Culver City, I can have my friend Maxine handle this. She's been a top-notch attorney with one of the local law firms for six years now. And since she's known me for at least the last three of them, I'm sure I can get some kind of family and friends discount for whatever the hell she plans on actually charging us for it."

He dragged his feet back and leaned against the counter near the stove. Then he shook his head at me while muttering a quick but quiet, "No."

My shoulders dropped and I glared. "What?"

"No," he said again, his response much louder and more firm this time.

I guffawed. "You can't be serious, Roman, we can't stay married! I was practically engaged to your brother at one point for crying out loud."

"That motherfucker never actually proposed to you, Colette," he snapped. That harsh truth brought me right back down to a reality I wished I had no longer been part of. "He never got down on one knee in front of you and asked you in the way that a man who gives a damn about marrying a woman is supposed to."

"And I'm supposed to believe that's exactly what you did for me last night while I was drunk off my ass?" I asked him. "Got down on one knee and made everything so damn magical for me that I just couldn't bear the thought of ever saying no?" He fell silent for a second time and tightened his jaw again. I wasn't sure what the hell to make of his almost non-reaction this time, but continued anyway for fear that if I didn't, I would find myself more caught up in this mess than I had ever originally planned or wanted to be. "This just can't happen between us, okay? You are an on the run criminal--"

"I've never been on the run from anything a single day in my entire damn life, darlin', alright?" he told me in a cool voice, as if I were crazy to make such an assumption about a well-known local criminal. Sexy as he was and maybe even a little bit out of his mind to think that this was in any way sane, I wasn't blind to the fact that the man had a record as extensive as the road was from here leading us straight back to Culver City.

"Well, you're an outlaw," I said. "A one-percenter if I recall correctly--"

"You do?" He grinned heartily and a thrill of something that I could only describe as being 'electric fire' shot straight through me like a lightning bolt and settled at the base of my core.

I stopped to roll my eyes at him to keep him from taking much notice of it and continued. "Which means that you don't abide by the rules of any laws but your own and as a result, the cops could pick you up at any second for something that you've done."

"Or some shit they think I've done, which has managed to be the case from time to time considering who the hell I roll with and how the hell we go about doing it." He sucked in a deep breath, pushing out his chest, and dragged his eyes from my face right back down to my breasts in the same way he had before.

I noticed his muscles clench in every visible place on his body and the bulge in his pants enlarging by the second. I shifted my eyes across the room again to keep from practically drooling all over myself and muttered, "Whatever. The point is that I'm a school teacher -- and at Wayland Academy on top of that."

He shrugged and carelessly looked aside. "So?"

"So that plus anything you're planning on calling yourself this week doesn't exactly go hand in hand," I said. "I can't afford to have the cops banging on my door at three o'clock in the morning because of whatever might have gone down with you and your brothers or someone else at the club. And I can't afford to bail you out of jail in case you decide to do something stupid in terms of retaliation against another MC or anyone else who just so happens to piss you off."

"We never get caught."

"Famous last words," I said under my breath.

"Babe, something that you need to know in being with me is that one-percenters are a helluva lot smarter than the regular motherfuckers who're always managing to get caught up in a shit storm because we have to be. They play by the rules and get fucked. We don't and never do."

"Either way, I can't afford to be on the local news if and more than likely when something happens to go down out there that you can't keep under wraps or control." I paused as he deeply sighed in agitation and dropped his eyes down to the floor. Then I asked him, "Why the hell would someone like you want to stay married to someone like me anyway?"

He lifted his head to stare me in the face again and narrowed his eyes in either confusion or annoyance this time. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that your club is always crawling with half-naked women often trying to get their piece of you and the others, so why the hell bother with me? Your brother couldn't--"

"I'm not my brother," he replied.

"Sure, but I distinctly remember hearing from your president during one of those 'parties' he once suckered me into showing up for that 'old ladies' weren't exactly welcome to them like the other women who were often known for giving themselves up to whatever brother happened to be ready for them at the time."

He sighed. "Well darlin', regular club pussy doesn't seem to be giving me the same kind of pleasure that it used to anymore."

I eyed him up and down in slight disbelief and held back the urge to chuckle. "And since when the hell was that?"

He rolled the tip of his tongue against his bottom lip and while arching up the corners of his mouth into a sharp-toothed grin, gave me that same look of wanting to fuck my brains out. Though his gaze was so much more intense this time, around to the point that I was sure if his eyes had the ability to burn the clothes right off my body and onto the floor, they would've done so in less than two seconds flat.

"Since now," he said, and in a voice so deeply and suggestively seductive that my stomach lurched and my mouth fell open in response. He chortled to himself and moved forward into my personal space, just as he always did without me even asking for it, then slid his index finger beneath my chin to close it. "You." He brushed his thumb back and forth across my chin, then glided his finger down the center of my throat and snickered at the wild pace of my insanely beating pulse.

I gulped as my entire body tensed at the softness of his touch, as the muscles in my stomach tightened and the butterflies fluttering behind them spazzed completely out of control. My lips slightly parted to inhale the light sheen of sweat forming just above his brows and upper lip as he dipped his head toward me. And as the throbbing between my thighs returned and slid against my sex like the fluttering tip of what I wished had been his tongue, I closed my eyes for the entire length of a heartbeat and imagined his hand moving down between my breasts just before making its way directly beneath my skirt and inside panties. All I needed was for one of his thick, long fingers to slide deep inside of me and make itself at home. Just one reaching for my G spot and clit and forcing my heart to damn near stop where I stood right in front of him.

Damn it, just one.

Maybe two. Or even three.

"I--" I started as my eyes flew open to stare up at him again. But he wouldn't let me finish, instead moving in closer and unleashing a harsh, thick groan that oh God, was so unbelievably sexual in nature that it pricked my skin and dared me to release an all too quiet moan just for the two of us. As his cock brushed against the back of my hand and between my knuckles, long, thick and hard, and dear Jesus was I desperate as all hell to know the taste of it on my tongue, I gasped and dropped back, then rested a hand across my chest to keep my heart from completely exploding right through it.

I couldn't believe how much this man was teasing the absolute hell out of me and just how damn good he was at doing so. I knew there was no way he was serious about a marriage with me of all people, about starting a life together? Sex was practically a given, I could see it in his eyes just as I was sure he could see it in mine, feel it in the nature of his touch and straight down to the core of who he was as a man, in the thickness and hardening of his cock. But there couldn't have been much more to it than that. And considering what he had been used to for most of his life, I wasn't looking forward to playing house with him just for that reason alone.

"I'm not going to be some kind of experiment for you," I finally told him.

He placed both of his hands in front of himself and laughed aloud. "What, babe?"

"You heard me," I said, breathing as slowly as I could and doing my damnedest to keep my voice from fading in and out as I spoke. Dear God in heaven, why the hell did he have to be so terribly sexy? Muscles upon muscles, a soothing voice, eyes that could see right through me, straight down to the core of my soul if I let him. And a giant, thick cock that could make me scream until my voice reached another octave or just gave out completely between thrusts. I shut my eyes for two seconds this time, then peeled them wide open and looked straight up into his deliciously chiseled face again. Damn, I was doomed. "I know that you want sex out of this."

He wagged the tip of his tongue up and down against both corners of his mouth and rubbed his hand back and forth across his chin. "I wouldn't be opposed to it." His face darkened, becoming more serious than I had ever seen before.

"Well, I..." I stopped to relieve myself of the lump building up in the back of my throat and gulped. "I'm not going to be that something different for you; that something outside of your usual, slutty norm."

He stared down at me like a confused dog. "What are you talking about?"

"Just what I said," I told him. "The facts are that you like an excessive amount of booze and cigarettes, probably before, during and after a random night of wild sex. You like Harley's, crime, guns and loose women, and I've never wanted any part of that life -- I've never seen the appeal of it."

He bobbed his head. "Alright. So, what exactly appeals to you then, darlin'?"

I blinked up at him and frowned. "What?"

"What appeals to you?" he asked me again. "What do you like?"

It was a question that I was less than prepared to answer, if only because I wasn't exactly expecting him to ask me about it.

But after taking a few minutes to think in silence, I finally managed to blurt out, "I like the idea of having only one man to sleep with for the rest of my life and no one else."

His brows quickly arched high up on his forehead just before lowering back to their normal position. I wasn't sure just yet if the expression of clear shock that crossed his face was a good or bad thing. "Alright--"

"And I like a clean house and bed with fresh sheets in a variety of colors," I continued, "and home cooked meals after a long day of dealing with screaming children and sometimes their inept parents."

"I could give you all that and more, Colette."

I laughed aloud. "I highly doubt it."

He lifted his shoulders, and in a tone so low and genuine that I almost caved into throwing myself on a silver platter right in front of him and offering myself up as a meal, he asked, "Why?"

I looked left to right in a slight panic and quickly rattled my head. "Because you just can't," I told him, hoping he hadn't noticed the slight squeal of my voice. "It's not who you are as a person or as a man; you're not into any of that."

"What am I into?" he retorted.

I took in a breath while struggling to form a response. "You're into sheets that are plain, white and wrinkly," I told him, knowing damn well it wasn't good enough but continuing on anyway. "And you don't give a damn if they get dirty as long as you don't have to see it all piling up. I also know that you're used to eating out of paper bags around the bar at the club at 3am and drinking from whatever glass happens to be laying around at the time, regardless of if it was yours or someone else's to begin with, even if the bottom is covered in ashes and cigarette butts. I hate the smell of smoke unless it comes from a grill and I'm obsessed with organization, from the lining of my furniture against the walls inside my house, to the way I fold my laundry and stuff it all inside my drawers. You don't care what anything looks like as long as you don't have to deal with it for longer than a few minutes at a time."

He grinned, flashing his teeth and I wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor like a box of ice cream left out in the sun. "You think you know me pretty well then, yeah, babe?"

"Erm." I tucked my hair behind my ear and turned my attention elsewhere to keep from being distracted by the absolute perfection that was his face. "I think I know you well enough to know that this little stunt between us can't last."

"It's no stunt, babe." He pointed down at my hand and nodded. "That ring on your finger is permanent; 'til death do us part and all that shit, and even after." His face didn't flinch and he didn't blink. I knew then that he was being honest and it scared the absolute hell out of me more than the black and white coiled snake tattoo that I knew graced the center of his back. "Now get your shit together and start packing up the little you came with." He tossed his hand toward my purse in the chair in the corner of the room and sighed. "We've only got this hotel room for another hour and a half or so, and I've gotta get back to the club before the boys start church later this afternoon."

I lifted my brows in surprise at that. "Church?" I asked him.

"That term we use for a meeting between the brothers, babe. I think I've told you about that shit before."

I chewed the inside of my cheek and nodded. "Oh yeah."

"Watch out." He bobbed his head and pressed his hand against my arm to gently shove me aside, then headed straight for the bathroom on the other side of the room.

As soon as he slammed the door shut behind himself and turned the lock, I thought about grabbing my purse and shoes, wherever the hell they were, and running out of the place without ever taking a single look back. But the fact was that we lived in the same city and knew too many of the same people. He knew exactly where my house was located right down to the street number and color of my garage; he probably knew just how many cracks lined my driveway all the way up to my front porch.

There was no way in hell that I was officially escaping him, not like this. If I wanted to get out of this mess that I had helped to create for myself, I knew that I had to suck it up, stop bitching about what the hell happened and why, and start playing by his rules.

At least for now.

 

Roman

I leaned over the counter surrounding the bathroom sink and stared straight into my own damn reflection in the mirror. Jesus Christ, I was fucked. I knew it the minute I invited her out here and even long before that. But when she came out to the club last night with tears in her eyes, screaming and waving her arms and hands at me about how my idiot brother was such an asshole for screwing around on her in her own damn house and bed with one of the club whores, I felt as if I didn't have any other choice but to make up for that shit in some way.

And in all honesty, I invited her out here for myself too. Not just because I'm a selfish, son of a bitch or prick at heart, that's only part of it. But because from the moment Jeremiah first introduced me to her on the hottest fourth of July on record nine years ago, when she was just a wide-eyed nineteen-year-old girl filled with nothing but the hopes and dreams of being with that asshole forever, I knew that she should've been my woman instead of his. I was a hell of a lot better looking than that bastard, still am, and a hell of a lot older too. Not in comparison to my old man and his damn near teenage 'lady friend' at the time, but old enough to know that I shouldn't have been wondering what the hell those cherry colored lips of hers would've felt like wrapped around my twelve-and-a-half-inch cock when she first walked up wearing those shorter than short-shorts and that tight as hell tank top, with her head resting down on Jeremiah's shoulder and her hands tightly wrapped around that string-bean he called an arm.

I needed those hands wrapped around my arm instead, along with those sweet brown eyes of hers staring up into my face while I stared down into hers, beaming like the same kind of love-struck assholes we often made fun of back at the club, with my arm wrapped around her waist to pull her in close to me with never a thought of ever once letting her go. The woman was like an angel sent straight down from heaven; straight down from God Himself as a gift to mankind, still is. But sent straight down to a piece of shit, worthless motherfucker who never once deserved to call her his own.

I knew before she even had the chance to open her mouth that he wouldn't treat her right; that he would take every bit of her perfection for granted. Knowing that despite her anger and fears that he would screw her over, given his long running reputation throughout Culver City for treating women he claimed to care about like shit, worse than any brother from the club in 'pumping and dumping' and leaving them out to dry, that she would still care about him even while claiming to hate him because it was just who the hell she was. She was too good of a person for a jackass like him, too motherfuckin' intelligent and sweeter than a goddamn sin in the same way I often imagined those perky tits of hers to taste as I slid my tongue across and between them, sucked her rock-hard nipples into my mouth and tugged them between my teeth until she came.

Fuck.

I couldn't even bear to look her in the eyes when she finally told me her name because I was too damn tempted to ask her to say it a few more times, but slower and in a softer voice just so that I could see it roll off the tip of her tongue and between those plump, red lips of hers at the same damn time. I wanted to know just how the hell it would feel against the base of my ear as I lowered her to the bed and dipped my fingers into her silky brown skin, as she dragged her nails along the muscles in my back and gasped for air between sobs of joy and screams of ecstasy, while I slid myself between those warm thighs of hers and made myself right at home.

When I didn't respond to her in the way she wanted, which was at all, and instead looked down at the ground, at the beer in my hand or around the lake and at anyone else that walked even a few feet within distance of us, she lifted her hand to me, daring me to take it in my own. But I couldn't do it. Just the thought of even touching her made my cock go completely out of control inside my jeans. Any closer and I would've had her bent over the side of a nearby picnic table with her legs spread wide open and my tongue rammed against the soft, sweet opening of her slick, wet cunt.

She would never know any of that shit though, instead being convinced that because of my lack of response and care to get to know her as a person in the beginning that I didn't want a single damn thing to do with her. It didn't help that I pretended to be annoyed as shit whenever she decided to come around, or maybe it did. Grunting like a pissed off animal anytime she showed up out of the blue to spend time with my brother, excusing myself from the room whenever she decided to make herself at home right in the middle of our living room, and often wearing something so short and tight that my mind raced like a motherfucker with thoughts of my hands all over her body, squeezing her tits and cupping those rock-hard nipples as she suffocated the hell out of my kiss and sucked on my tongue. Shit like that often forced me out of the kitchen as soon as she reached high up for something in a cabinet or on top of the fridge while proclaiming to make dinner for all three of us, and insisting that I stick around to watch a movie right after that she had initially picked out for just the two of them.

I realized all too quickly during those times that it was her way of not wanting me to feel as if I was a third wheel inside my own damn house. Or her way of not wanting me to feel so damn left out with the two of them being together as a couple, while I was just some lonely asshole whose only comfort was booze, a random, nameless whore from the club from time to time, my brothers who were more like family to me than my own damn flesh and blood at times, and my '65 Harley Davidson. I've never had much else to satisfy me outside of those few things from the time I was eighteen, but part of me became convinced after a while that if I had her, she would be just enough of everything I ever needed and more. So I finally manned the hell up and toned down being such a dick, pushed aside whatever feelings I had of trying to be respectful to my brother and of his relationship and started responding to her in the gruff, hard voice I knew women liked hearing from me right after she would say 'hi'; I'd even give her a small wave of acknowledgement just before taking off to the club for business and sometimes the pleasure I knew I would never get from her.

The best was when I started going out of my way to open doors for her because it benefitted us both; shit made me look like a decent person in her eyes and I got to have a nice long look at her from behind, and Christ, was she beautiful as all hell from behind. Shorts, jeans, skirts, no matter what the hell she wore with a pair of red or black heels, it was perfect; the woman was shaped like a coke bottle and had to know that her body made just about every cock in sight completely lose its shit. Though she wouldn't ever believe that I often qualified as one of those men who wanted their taste of her because of 'loyalties' to my blood. Shit, I couldn't even afford to be nice to her for more than a few seconds at a time over the years if only because I was sure as hell that I would try to turn it into something more, something I had often hoped she wanted from me in return but was never too sure. Jesus, my dumbass brother didn't know what the hell he had when he had this woman; what's worse is that in all the years they were together, all the time she could've spent being mine, he never once seemed to give a damn about any of it.

As she continued screaming in my face about him last night, I just let her, all the while knowing the reason behind her anger before she even showed up thanks to the text I had gotten from him earlier in the night about what the hell he had done. My brothers thought I was crazy as shit to let a woman who had yet to even see my cock in person lose it on me on my own damn property and right outside the front of the club; not even in the back of it like most of them often handled shit with their old ladies and 'random pussy of the month', but I didn't give a damn about any of it.

The truth was that I liked hearing her scream at me, though I would've preferred having her on my cock while she was doing it. But I liked when she got fired up with her arms going all over the damn place and her nose scrunching in confusion of what to say to me between deep breaths. I liked when her brows would flinch and small wrinkles would form between them as she tried glaring at me in the same way she often did my brother when she was pissed off.

I sure as hell didn't like the reason behind it, but if I could've calmed her down with just a simple kiss, placed my beer on the ground next to my bike and slammed her up against the wall of the club with my body, shoved my knee between her legs to separate them from each other, wrapped my hands around her wrists to keep them in place and slid my tongue across those sweet red lips of hers before dipping it between them just to get a single taste of her... If I could've done all of that and more to keep her from screaming out about that asshole, to get her mind and body completely focused on me and no one else ever again, I would've done it in less time than it would've taken for a single heartbeat to pass between us.

Instead, I cut her off with the suggestion of coming out here with me. And after clamping her lips back together and lowering her arms back down to her sides, she looked at me like I had two heads shaped like watermelons attached to both sides of my neck and asked me, "Are you're serious?"

I bobbed my head and eyed her up and down without saying another word in response. She fell radio silent and swallowed hard, then darted those almost too-damn-perfect-for-words dark brown eyes across the yard while shaking her head at me and smiling in a way that my cock couldn't help but react to it in front of her; though I tried like hell to keep her from taking notice, shifting positions so the bulge wouldn't be as visible as it pressed down hard against the crease of my zipper.

As that caramel colored hair of hers swirled around her shoulders in the wind, I sucked back the rest of my beer and just stared up into that perfect face, wondering just how in the hell any part of her -- every goddamn part of her could even be real.

Shit, she had no idea how much I wanted her on the back of my bike; no idea just how much I needed to know what her hands felt like wrapped around my waist, what her thighs felt like tightening around my hips as I revved up the engine and the seat hummed beneath us. She was oblivious to my need of knowing the feel of her breath on my skin in place of the wind that often slammed against me as I sped from one end of the city to the other without a single care in the world outside of my club and sometimes her. I was practically begging her to come out here with me like a bitch in heat the longer she stalled with an answer, taking her hand in my own, ignoring the swelling of my cock and balls as her soft fingers slid across my palm and her lids hooded with desire. An electrical current of some kind shot right through me then, like the feeling you would get after jamming a fork inside a busted outlet, and when her fingers stilled and her eyes shifted, I had no doubt that she had felt that shit too; maybe even a little bit more than me.

I tightened my hand around hers to keep her close, then tossed my beer aside, pushed away from my bike and stood right up to my feet. Her eyes traveled up past my stomach and chest, landing right at my face. When I matched her gaze with a smirk, she slid her tongue across her bottom lip, then sank her teeth into it and gulped. I knew right then and there that no matter what I told her next, she wouldn't be able to say no. And so I said for the second time that she needed to come out here with me while I handled some business for the club, and without another second of hesitation, she gripped the strap of her purse across her shoulder with her free hand and bobbed her head in agreement.

I didn't even bother telling my brothers that she was coming along with me to meet up with the Prez of the Crimson Devils MC because they would've had my ass for it. Rules are that when handling business with other clubs, especially during drop-offs, you're never supposed to bring outside people along with you. There's not only a chance that they could see something they're not supposed to and get killed, but there's a chance that if they don't get killed, they could take what they've seen back to someone who never needed to know about that shit in the first place and you could be the one who ends up dead.

But when it came to Colette, I knew she didn't give a shit about anything that had to do with my club outside of the whores often hanging around it. So after my business was taken care of, we rode out to the only bar I knew within the area that served the best but cheapest drinks to anyone willing to pay no more than five bucks a piece for them: a tiny hole in the wall named Dolly's just a few miles west of The Strip.

After heading inside and grabbing a pair of empty seats at the end of the bar, she ordered a gin and tonic along with a shot of whiskey. I ordered a beer on tap and two shots of tequila.

"I didn't know that you were much of a tequila man," she told me, her voice lifting as she eyed me with content. "I've only ever seen you drink beer, vodka and rum back at your house or out there at the club."

I rested my arms along the edge of the bar and shrugged. "You know the shit they say about what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, yeah, darlin'?"

She swung her hair over her shoulder and lifted the corners of her lips into a sly grin, then rolled her bottom lip into her mouth and sucked down hard as if she were imagining the taste of my cock right between them. It was some of the sexiest shit I think I had ever seen. "If only that were true," she said.

I bobbed my head at her and adjusted myself in the seat to keep my cock from making an unwelcome appearance in front of her, and snickered. "Yeah," I told her. "Yeah, if only."

After a few more beers shared between us and an entire bottle of whiskey that she seemed to enjoy the taste of a hell of a lot more than I had expected her to, she tugged at my hand and attempted to drag me out into the middle of the floor for a dance.

I sucked back the remainder of beer number I-couldn't-even-manage-to-fuckin'-remember by that point, and wagged my head at her. "No."

"Come on." The bridge of her nose wrinkled and she pushed her eyebrows together to show legitimate anger toward me. But instead, she just looked like a pissed off kitten. I couldn't help but find it sexy as hell. My cock couldn't seem to help it either. "There's no more than five people in here anymore," she said, turning her head left to right before focusing her eyes back on mine. "And that's including the bartender. Nobody will care that you can't dance, they're all drunk already."

I laughed aloud and tossed back my last shot of tequila. Then I wiped my mouth clean with the back of my hand, turned back to her and said, "It's not that I can't dance, darlin'."

"Then why won't you come out here with me?" She dropped her hands down to my thighs and shoved herself between my legs. My cock rose to immediate attention; the heat pouring from between her thighs shot straight into me like a goddamn fireball. "Just one dance, that's it, that's all I'm asking for. Just one." She curled her nails into my jeans and I dropped back against the bar, forcing her to lean in even closer. "Come on with me, Roman, please?" My name sounded like sex and sin rolling off her tongue and between those cherry lips; the shit made me want to suck every bit of her dry 'til there was absolutely nothing left.

"Babe."

"Please?" She blinked up at me and dipped her head forward. "You don't even have to move all that much, I can just move for the both of us. Here, it'll be fine. Come on." Come on. She rolled her hand beneath mine and with an ease that I let happen, she pulled me up from the stool and out into the middle of the floor between a set of empty tables and sprawled chairs. As the jukebox in the corner flipped to some piece of shit music I had never heard of before, she tossed her arms around my neck and started moving her body from side to side. Not knowing what the hell I was doing, because most women who danced with me never wanted to really dance with me at all, I snaked my arms around her waist and followed her lead as best as I could. She stared down between us, then leaned her head back to look me in the face again. "You're not terrible," she said, a half smile splitting those perfect lips in two.

I chuckled and nodded at her. "Thanks."

As our feet lifted from the ground, only to fall back down on top of piles and piles of peanut shells with every twist and turn we made, she shoved herself against me in a way that made me start to wonder just how long it had been since she was this close to a motherfucker before. Was my brother that much of an asshole, even more than what I had originally thought, that he couldn't even stand to hold his girl this close to himself? From the way she moved and dragged her fingers up and down the back of my neck, then up into my hair while releasing a soft moan, I couldn't help believing that the shit was true.

"This feels nice." She paused and swallowed hard. "You feel nice." Her hand lowered from my neck to my shoulder, then down to my chest where she stopped directly in the center of it, feeling the speed of my heart as it pounded between the both of us.

Jesus, I just wanted to take her right then and there, shove her up against a flat surface and drive my tongue directly between those soft lips as my hands cupped her bare tits and she slid her hands down inside my pants. But I held back and instead yanked her closer to me, grunting as her hips and groin grinded into me as if we were naked and on top of each other in bed. "You feel nice too, darlin'." My voice deepened and I gulped while looking down at her, into those eyes that sucked me in, forcing every thought in my head to evaporate on cue like a strike of lightening breaking through a goddamn cloud. "You feel real fuckin' nice pressed all up against me like this."

"Oh, I can tell." She dipped her head back and laughed, exposing her throat to me. I licked my lips in anticipation of just how soft it was, how good it would taste tugged between my teeth and against my tongue. "Every inch of you is just so...damn...big." She sucked down on her bottom lip again and deeply inhaled. "My God."

After a few seconds, she lifted to her toes and opened her mouth. My gut said she wanted a deep kiss from me, one that curled her toes and made her moan with pleasure; one that made her tits swell against me and her skin feel like it had just been set on fire by the heat from mine. She wanted to feel good, better than she had before we left Culver City and maybe ever, and I was determined as hell to make it all happen for her tonight no matter the cost. I dipped my chin and leaned into her, preparing for it. But instead she dragged the tip of her tongue across my bottom lip, then curled it around the top and teased me like a motherfucker by darting it inside my mouth, pulling out the minute she felt my own tongue collide with it. Blood pumped south, swelling my balls and the head of my cock as it rose and shoved against her soft stomach.

She leaned away from me and gasped, and I watched as her eyes went wide with a need for more of me, for more of this. There was a shine in them as her pupils dilated and a light glisten on her lips from her own tongue as she swirled it around them.

"Come with me," I told her.

"Where are we going?" she asked, a hint of excitement in her voice.

I jutted my chin toward the back of the bar and took her by the hand. Once we were around a corner where we could barely be seen by anyone else, I leaned against the wall and stared down into her face as she looked up into mine. Perfect and angelic as always, but there was something different about her look this time; a hint of fire that never seemed to exist when she stared at my brother; it was something, I was convinced, that she had tried like hell to keep hidden, or like a bright burning flame, he had often tried like hell to put out.

"What are you looking for from me tonight, darlin'?" I asked her. A small smile formed on those full lips and she moved closer to me. I knew what she wanted, she knew it too. But I needed to hear the words from her first, even in this clouded frame of mind. I needed to be sure that if we did this, she wouldn't have a single regret about it in the morning. I needed to know that if I had her, when we woke up beside each other or with her in my arms that she wouldn't lose her shit on me for it or go running from me and this, leave everything we had ever been together before now all behind. "Darlin'." I raised a hand to her face and caressed her cheek.

"I..." She stopped and reached down for my pants, then slid her hand up and down the length of my shaft from the outside; her skin against the fabric caused a sudden friction between us that forced my cock to jerk against the inside of my zipper and against her palm. Her smile deepened the minute she felt it. "I'm looking for everything," she said, sounding damn near out of breath. "I want this... I want you, like always..."

"You're sure?"

"Yes... Yes, I'm sure." She moved in even closer to me and closed her eyes. A flood of heat surged straight down to the tip of my cock the longer she continued to stroke me. I was on the verge of exploding but needed to feel the softness of her hand wrapped around me first. Or her mouth; that soft, sweet mouth with plump red lips and a tongue that tasted like strawberries and whiskey. Just the thought of my cock sliding back and forth against it as she swallowed every drop of my come made it stiffer than a bag of concrete. "You feel so damn good," she said in a quiet voice. "So unbelievably... So damn good against me. God." Her breath was warm and sweet as it hung in the air between us.

I slid my hands around her waist, then down to her plump, round ass. She yelped as I squeezed her cheeks and gave her a nice hard smack. Then she spread her legs and hiked her thigh around my waist, opening herself up to me. "Touch me," she said, grinding the lower half of herself against my cock again and damn near forcing me to release inside my jeans.

"Fuck," I groaned.

"Please touch me."

"Babe," I rasped.

"Please. God, you just don't know -- you just don't know how much I so badly need this from you. To feel you, for you to feel me..." Her voice lowered and her eyelids fluttered. I had never realized until that moment just how long her lashes were. Beneath a dim red light that was on the verge of blowing out for good and the haze of tequila swirling around inside my head, she looked even more beautiful to me than she ever had before. And she sounded like a motherfuckin' dream, one I sure as fuck had no desire to ever wake up from again. "Please." Before she even had the chance to ask me again, because I was never one for turning down a woman begging for me to touch or taste her, especially one I wanted, I crawled my fingers between her thighs and lightly pinched her skin. She let out a sharp moan and shivered, falling against me. Her other hand went crawling up my back, past my neck and back into my hair. Her fingers massaged my scalp and as she whimpered against my ear, opening her mouth and snagging the tip of it between her teeth, I growled and rubbed against her, needing her to know the taste and feel of every inch of my cock before it burst right through my jeans. "Touch me." The tip of her tongue outlined the base of my ear and I moved my hand even further up inside her skirt. But before I could even reach that soft, sweet slit hidden behind her insanely wet panties, she pulled back from me with her eyes closed even tighter than before and muttered, "Please, Jeremiah. Please..."

And that's when shit got fuzzy.

A knock from the other side of the bathroom door immediately pulled me away from the sink and out of my thoughts about her and last night. I rubbed my hand back and forth across my mouth a few times, then turned to reach for the knob, unlocked it and pulled back. She stood in front of me with her arms folded across her chest and a scowl on her face that remained in place until her eyes lowered to the bulge inside my pants. I watched as she slowly pulled her thighs together and rolled her tongue across her lip. Christ, what the fuck I'd still give to know the feeling of it swirling around the swollen head of my cock as she cupped my balls in those soft warm hands of hers. Last night was just a tease of everything I knew she could do, everything I knew she wanted to do with me and only me, regardless of Jeremiah's name spilling out of her mouth during that drunken haze. My own mind had gone to complete shit right after, but the feeling of her hand pressed against my cock for the first time is something that'll no doubt be burned into my memory from now until forever.

'Til death do us part.

"Did you get your shit together?" I asked her, my voice gruff as I watched her mouth twitch.

"What?" She brought her eyes back up to my face and swallowed hard after taking in a breath. Then she knit her brows and stared blankly at me as if she couldn't even remember why the hell she had started banging on the door in the first place. "Um..." She cleared her throat and unfolded her arms, then after a few seconds of what looked like her trying to get herself together, she said, "I've got my things together already, yeah. It's not as if I brought much with me considering I had never planned on staying overnight in the first place."

I nodded my head and leveled my eyes with her tits. Still fat and heavy as they sat behind that tight, black, tank, I could see her nipples becoming hard and pressing against the fabric. I dragged my tongue between my lips at the thought of finally having a taste of one just as my cock started pushing against my jeans. "Listen, I, uh..." I took a few steps forward into her personal space, hoping to just breathe her in. I was expecting her to take a step or two back but she didn't and remained in place, tilting her head back to focus those perfect brown eyes up on my face again. "I know this shit isn't exactly something that you're looking forward to, but it happened and I'm gonna need you to accept it as is."

"I could maybe learn to accept it a hell of a lot better if you ever bothered telling me the how and why behind it all happening in the first place," she said.

I grinned and she parted her lips to suck in a breath. "Look, when the time comes, you'll know just as much as I do about all of this shit, alright? 'Til then, why don't you get cleaned up so that we get the hell outta here and start heading back to town."

 

Colette

Within less than five hours and hardly any traffic at all, we made it back to Culver City in one piece. After pulling up in the driveway just outside of Roman's house, he cut the engine on his bike and dropped his feet to the ground. I took a deep breath in and loosened my grip from around his stomach, then leaned back and removed the helmet from my head.

He turned halfway to look at me from the corner of his eye and arched his brow as he took it from me. "You alright?" he asked, his voice solid and gruff. The entire time we had spent riding, I couldn't help wondering what it would sound like with his mouth pressed against my clit, tongue deep inside me with his fingers gliding over every inch of my bare body, forcing me to shiver against him. I tried like hell to keep my mind from going there again, but given the vibration of the seat and the humming between my legs that couldn't help but be felt because of it as I kept them tightly wrapped around his hips, I didn't have all that much of a choice in the matter.

Well maybe I did, but in truth, I wasn't all that sure I wanted another one outside of what I had already chosen; much like I had done in choosing to stick with him.

"I'm fine," I finally told him, trying to keep my voice steady as I clutched the strap of my purse and lifted my leg up and over the seat. I stood back from the bike as he yanked the keys from the ignition and stood up for himself. Then he dropped his keys inside his pants pocket and with the helmet tightly clutched between his hands, started making his way up the sidewalk and to the front door. "Hey," I called out to him. He stopped and glanced back at me over his shoulder. "Is there any chance of Jeremiah being in there? Or if he's gone, coming back anytime soon?" I stopped to release the air I had been holding inside my chest and swallowed. "Because if so, I don't think it's a good idea if I--"

"No. He, uh..." He knit his brows and narrowed his eyes while lowering them to the ground. It was as if he was purposely trying to avoid even a second of solid eye contact with me now in comparison to before, which meant that whatever came out of his mouth next was going to be full of complete shit. "Motherfucker let me know that he was taking off and didn't know when the hell he would be coming back," he said.

"Really?" I stepped closer to him and shrugged. "Taking off where?" I asked him, dipping my head and attempting to refocus his gaze. "And when?" He finally turned back to me and glowered. "When did he let you know all of this? Was it before I showed up at the club to see you about him last night? Right after? While we were in Vegas? This morning before I woke up -- what?"

He reached his hand around to scratch the back of his neck, not as if he was confused by what I was asking and all at once to boot, but as if he was annoyed with the questions in general. "Look, why don't we start moving all of this shit inside, babe, alright?" He dragged his hand around to the front of his neck and cleared his throat. "My neighbors become nosey as shit the minute they see me roll up and I've still gotta get out to the club for church in a few. If I'm not there on time, Prez will have my ass." He turned from me as quickly as he possibly could and continued toward the door. But I remained in place and folded my arms over my chest.

"Why the hell did you bring me back here in the first place instead of taking me back home like I was expecting?"

He stopped in his tracks and leaned his head back, then after a few seconds, spun around on the balls of his feet to face me again. "This is something you maybe should've thought about asking me about before we left."

"Maybe I would've asked you about it before we left if I hadn't been expecting you to kidnap me first."

His mouth dropped and his brows lifted in shock. "Kidnap you?" He chuckled in what sounded like a load of disbelief that I even allowed the words to come out of my mouth, and shook his head. "Jesus Christ, Colette. What the fuck are you talking about now, babe?"

"I'm talking about you bringing me out here to your place instead of taking me back home first, or at all."

"Babe, this place is your home now, alright? My place is yours because you're gonna be living here with me now as my wife."

Wife.

The word sounded so completely ridiculous and yet strangely natural coming from between those nibble-worthy full lips of his. And for someone who at one point or another during various conversations with me over the years often said with more pride in his voice than a roaring lion in the jungle that he had never planned to settle down with just one woman for the rest of his life because he didn't think his cock would be able to handle it, I was stunned as all hell to say the least.

"We'll get the shit with your house settled soon enough, alright? Work out all the details when we've got the time; now's not it. Now let's get inside," he continued.

"Wait, I..." I started. He stopped again and turned back to me. "Regardless of all this, I still feel as if I should've been able to at least head back there first to pick up a few things I might need."

He made a face of confusion at me and lifted his head. "What are you gonna need?"

"I don't know, clothes maybe, another pair of shoes. The heels on these Mary Janes are worn out and my feet hurt after holding them up on that bike. Not to mention, I'll need to get my things for school in the morning, for both the classroom and my students."

He dragged his eyes up and down my body and pinched his lips aside. "Yeah, alright," he muttered. "We can head off to your place and get all of your shit later when we've got time."

"Wha..." I opened my hands in question while moving closer to him. "Why the hell do you keep saying that?"

He rattled his head as if he had water lodged between his ears and glared at me. "Saying what, darlin'?"

"That we can handle things with my house or make it back there when we've got time. All it tells me is that right now, we're not on my time or even our time, we're on your time. You have to make it back to the club for 'church' so it's all about you right now. Meanwhile, you want me to hang around this place and do what until you come back? Twiddle my thumbs while laying out on the couch? Stare at the wall or the television set? Clean or cook your dinner?"

"I'll probably eat something at the club," he said in a clipped voice just before turning from me again. "Maybe out of a goddamn paper bag." He made his way up to the door, then ripped a separate set of keys from the inside pocket of his black leather jacket, which read in big, bold, red letters on the back WILD REAPERS just a few inches below the collar, while CALIFORNIA sat beneath a giant emblem of a skull with a knife smashed through the crown of it; drops of blood dripped from the pointed tip jutted out from beneath the chin.

After shoving the door back and making his way inside, I followed in closely behind him and darted my eyes around the giant living room; one so large that it could practically fit my entire house and maybe even a few others around his neighborhood. The last time I had seen it was just a few weeks ago with his brother, yet everything from the 54-inch flat screen TV hanging high up on the wall, to the wrap around black leather couch lined up against another wall on the opposite side, along with the few pictures of him and his brother together at the club, and some with their father and MC brothers that sat on top of an old school black stereo, managed to look completely different. The sloped high ceilings with wooden beams appeared slightly dusty; the normally white carpet was somewhat beige and covered in random sets of footprints. The plain white walls appeared dingy and in need of both a washing and a new paint job, and the blinds covering each set of windows all around were bent and worn.

As Roman reached around me to close the door, I moved across the room and sat my purse down on top of a long wooden coffee table, something I had never seen before now, seated in front of the couch just opposite of the television set. He placed his helmet alongside it, then removed his jacket and carelessly flung it across the room onto an old chair made of sticks that he once mentioned having put together in a high school shop class.

"You want anything to drink?" he called out to me as he started making his way toward the kitchen. He looked over his shoulder at me and peered. "Beer is all I've got. And tap water."

"No, thanks," I told him.

I leaned against the frame and looked around the kitchen. The linoleum was shockingly spotless, which only told me that he didn't spend much time in here as of late, at least not long enough to make himself some food. The island was covered with sacks of brown bananas and bread that, from where I stood, appeared to be turning completely green in color. Pots and pans still hung high above it on the rack dangling from the ceiling and it was clear that each one had yet to be used outside of the few times I had taken chances with trying something new with whatever food happened to be in the fridge or cabinets at the time.

On the opposite side was a chrome microwave, which was currently blinking the wrong time. It looked sleek and new and completely more for Jeremiah than Roman, considering the latter often appreciated the plain black one that he had for much longer than I had even known him, with splattered food across the inside of the door and a broken handle; while the round table seated near the enclosed patio looked just as rickety as always. Another shop class project, I noticed that someone had removed the book from beneath one of the legs that just so happened to be a few inches shorter than the other three.

As Roman pulled back on the door to the fridge and reached inside for a cold beer, he peeked over at me again and nodded. "You're sure you don't want one for yourself, babe?"

"I think after last night that I've had my fill of drinking for the entire damn year," I said. "Probably even reached some kind of quota that I didn't even know existed considering the way my head was pounding when I finally woke up this morning."

"Alright." He slammed the door shut, then snapped the lid off the beer with his teeth like a caveman and tossed it into the trash beneath the sink. Then he raised the neck of it to his lips and slightly tipped his head back, gulping.

With each swallow, he kept his eyes keenly focused on mine, almost as if to keep my attention on him and nothing else in the room. He didn't have that problem though, he never did when it came to me, even when his brother was around. But something inside me jumped this time with excitement, watching his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, taking note of his neck muscles and just how strong they seemed to be as the beer splashed against the back of his tongue and glided down his throat; while something else beneath the surface of all that had just leaped out at me with fear.

I was absolutely terrified to be alone with this man for any longer than what I had been already. Not because of what he could do to me, but because of what I was certain I would let him do to me over... and over... and over... and over... and over again to the point of completely embarrassing myself in front of him for years to come. Though I wasn't exactly expecting to still be in this for longer than maybe a few weeks’ tops, there was another deeper, darker and much more sexually aroused part of me that wanted to see just how far things went between us, both good and bad.

Sure, it was all crazy -- the biker and the kindergarten teacher getting blackout drunk and tying the knot in Vegas; the biker refusing an annulment and keeping his lips zipped regarding how the hell it all happened in the first place and why -- but at this point, what else did I have to lose anymore? My co-workers would probably give me enough side-eye to cause their eyes to stick, the parents of my students would probably whisper about me to each other during PTA meetings while secretly wondering if the Reapers were as wild and crazy as people around town often made them out to be. I would be envied and despised; chewed up, spit out, tossed into the nearest trashcan and probably recycled. Everyone and their mother would have something to say about it, good or bad. Jeremiah would have something to say if he ever managed to learn about it, though I wasn't all that certain he ever would.

"You know, I want to make sure that I get to keep my place," I told Roman as the thought suddenly started swirling around inside my head.

He lowered the beer and wiped his free hand back and forth across his mouth. "What?"

"My house. I want to keep it in case all of this just so happens to blow up in my face much sooner rather than later like I'm almost expecting for it to."

His brows pinched. "Yeah, we can rent it out if need be, babe. But uh..." He swiped his palm across his chin. "Are you really not expecting for this shit to work out between us?" he asked me, his tone curious and somewhat suspect.

"You can't tell me that you're actually expecting the opposite," I said with a slight chuckle. He remained quiet. "I mean, I agreed to play by your rules for the time being if only because going against you now doesn't seem to be the smartest thing in the world for me to do, but--"

"Do you think that I'd actually hurt you if you didn't?" he asked me, his question genuine; his jaw locked and his nose wrinkled as if he had suddenly gotten a whiff of something that smelled bad.

I blinked up at him and made a face. "What?"

"Do you think I'd hurt you?" he asked me again, his tone more even this time but still curious and filled with fear of what I would say to him in return. "Do you think I would try to do something to you physically to keep you from leaving me?"

"God, Roman." I shook my head at him in shock that he would even allow those words to leave his mouth and stood away from the frame. "No."

"Then what you said about--"

"What I said was that..." I paused and took in a breath, slowly releasing it. He swallowed hard and kept his eyes hard and focused on my face. "What I said is not what I meant, at least not in the way that it came out."

"Then what the hell did you mean with it, darlin'?" His gaze had become more intense now, much more inviting.

Just then, my sex clinched and I bit down hard on my lip. The way this man seemed to have such an effect on me was both dangerously exciting and excruciatingly painful. "Um..." I mentally spluttered around for the right answer. "I just meant that you don't seem all that eager in trying to end this."

"I'm not," he reassured me.

"I know," I replied. "You're not eager and trying to go against that any more than what I have already just doesn't seem like the best thing in the world for me to do right now. Wasted energy and all that."

He continued staring at me for a long while, then placed his beer on the counter and dropped back, folding his arms across his perfectly sculpted chest. He looked just like a statue made of stone and all I could seem to think about was just how much I wanted to climb him like one.

Damn it, what the hell is wrong with me?

"Babe," he started, snapping me out of my little fantasy of him. "I don't want this to end 'cause I'm sorta thinking that us being married might be able to benefit us both in a way."

I winced, certain that somewhere in between our conversation, he had completely lost it. "How?"

"Well for one, it keeps my cock in check when it comes to the other bitches at the club. I won't have to--"

"Hold on for a second... bitches?" I made a face of disgust and looked away from him while trying to process what he had just said to me and why. "Do you really have to call them that? I mean, I've heard it from time to time from the others, but... it's just -- it's crass. And, crude. And rude, and... completely unacceptable."

He lifted his shoulders and carelessly shoved out his bottom lip. "It's what my old man always told me they are, darlin'," he said. "Club pussy and all that."

"Does that make it right?" I asked him.

"Right or wrong, it's what I've always known."

"Well, maybe it's time for you to finally learn something else."

"Like what?" he asked me. "Shit, what do you think I should call them instead?"

"I don't know, 'women', maybe?" I snapped. "Or how about by their names."

He shook his head at me as if I had no business even discussing it and replied, "That shit's irrelevant unless they're regulars we plan on keeping around the place for one reason or another, babe."

"Hm." I gradually moved inside the kitchen and nodded. "And does that one reason or another often include them having a taste of what's inside your pants?" As soon as the words left my mouth, I clamped my hand down over it in complete shock at myself and muttered, "Oh shit," between my fingers, highly embarrassed. Just a few hours married to this man and already I was beginning to sound like my very own version of biker trash.

While I remained completely mortified, Roman chuckled with what seemed like full blown pride. "I don't think I ever realized that you had such a mouth on you like that, Colette."

I dropped my hand alongside myself and shook my head. "You know that I don't, normally, anyway. But I guess waking up next to you in Vegas with this diamond on my finger has just brought out a certain side of me; a much more colorful one I'm not all that sure I even like just yet, which is ironic."

"Well I like that side of you just fine," he said. "I like it a whole motherfuckin' lot as a matter of fact."

"I bet you do."

He stared down into my face with such a heated desire in his eyes that I felt it all the way down to the tips of my toes and back up again; it was as if he wanted to eat me alive right there in the kitchen with nothing but his hands and thick, wet, soft tongue. And I'm ashamed to say just how much and how quickly I would've been willing to let him if he had just given me the word for it. But instead, he leaned away from the counter and stood directly in front of me, then said, "I need to take a quick shower before heading out to see the boys." I said absolutely nothing to him in response, too stunned by how he was still staring at me and by how much I enjoyed it. He nodded as a smirk crossed his lips, realizing the reason behind my silence, then shuffled around me.

But before he could leave the kitchen, I remembered something.

"Hey," I called out. He stopped and turned back to look me in the eyes again. "What about my car?"

He shrugged. "What about it?"

"Where the hell is it and when am I getting it back?"

"As far as I know, it's still back there at the club, probably pushed off to the side of the garage while they worked on other cars. I'll have one of the boys haul it in for you tonight when I'm on my way back home."

"There's no chance of you just calling one of them up and having them bring it by now? I'd be able to head back to my house and pick up some things while you're out there doing whatever the hell it is that you bikers do with each other."

"No," he replied, his tone stern and steady. He furrowed his brows for a few seconds as if he were thinking something, then lowered his eyes to the floor. "Like I said, I'll have one of the boys bring it by here tonight."

"You won't even allow me access to my own damn car, but don't consider this kidnapping?"

"You're free to go on foot if you want," he said. "Nobody's stopping you from doing that much, darlin'."

"At over twenty-two and a half miles away from this place driving, you're actually giving me the option of walking back home? Gee, thanks."

He snickered. "I never said you didn't have a choice. By the way, you'll be bunking with me in my bedroom tonight and from here on."

I blinked up at him and bugged my eyes. "Wait, what?"

"Unless you want me to sleep on one of the couches out here, which I can."

"Well, what about the other three bedrooms in this place?"

"What about them?"

I soured and wrinkled my nose. "What about me sleeping in one of those rooms instead?"

"Jeremiah's room is off limits for obvious reasons and the guest rooms are for guests only, which you're far from being at this point."

"So it's your bedroom and no other option? Unless I decide to sleep at my house instead, I guess?"

"That walk back to your place sounds real nice right about now, yeah?" he replied, his tone filled with sarcasm. When I failed to respond to it, he shrugged. "Look, we slept together last night and--"

"What?"

He stopped and laughed quietly, taking note of my panicked expression, and wagged his head. "I mean we were in the same bed last night, babe, asleep. Nothing happened between us--"

"Nothing except for the marriage."

"Yep, nothing except for that. Listen, you can figure out where you wanna sleep while I'm in the shower, alright? And maybe fix yourself something to eat if you get hungry... and while you're at it, you can fix me something too."

"I thought you said you would eat at the club?"

"Darlin', if you're willing to fix something for me instead, then I've changed my mind." He winked at me before disappearing around the corner and down the hall to his bedroom.

I fell back against the wall near the kitchen and slid my hands down the front of my skirt. Then I pressed my knees together and tried like hell to keep my mind focused on how angry and annoyed I was with him instead of how delectable he would look naked and in that shower with the water sliding all over his body, between the creases of his thick muscles, down the center of that perfectly sculpted ass and dripping from the head of his thick, giant cock like precum.

Damn.

I licked my lips and balled my fists to keep from touching myself while just thinking about it. Being doomed was no longer an option for me.

Knowing that I would have to sleep in the same bed with this man every night -- because there was no way in hell that he would be sleeping on one of the couches no matter what he said about it; and from what I recall, he often went to bed completely naked as he didn't like being confined by t-shirts and hated feeling as if he couldn't let his dick and balls breathe at night -- was so far beyond the pale now that it could hardly be seen.

 

Colette

After taking some time to toss out the old food on the counters and some of what was left inside the fridge to get my mind off that man and my insatiable need for him, I sunk down into one of the couches in the living room and grabbed my cell from my purse to call up Maxine. Since Roman was so hell-bent on me staying put, it left me with no other choice but to get in touch with the one friend I had who not only had her own set of keys to my house but knew her way around my bedroom (thanks to her being the previous owner of the place) without me having to point things out to her via Facetime, and ask her to bring me some clothes and other things that I would need before the night was over and for in the morning.

After a few rings to her cell and no answer, I left a brief voicemail and text about where the hell I was and why, along with Roman's home phone number and address just before my phone officially died due to the lack of a charge from overnight.

Not two minutes later did Roman's house phone start blaring off the hook from the kitchen, and after kicking off my shoes, I jumped up and grabbed it without even bothering to look at the name and saying 'Hello'. Nothing but heavy breathing and a hard and fast 'shit' from what sounded like a man's voice greeted me on the other end before abruptly hanging up. I pulled the phone back and stared at the base for a few seconds, then flipped it over and pushed a few buttons on the back to check for who the hell it could've been. Everything came up private, name, phone number and even the area from where the call was made.

"Hm." I placed it down on top of the counter and tapped my fingers along the edge while staring at it. Two seconds later it rang again and when I reached for it this time, I sucked in a deep breath before answering with a much quicker but quieter 'Hello'. But it didn't seem to matter because the person hung up again, this time without even breathing or saying an actual word. I placed the phone back down again and on a whim decided to see if it was the same asshole from before. When I pushed those same buttons, Jeremiah's name and number flashed across the screen. I jumped back as if I had just come across a snake in the grass and balled my fist. "Shit."

I debated while continuing to stare at it, wondering if it was even worth mentioning to Roman given our current circumstances. I didn't want him telling Jeremiah anything about us being married just yet and over the phone, and I sure as hell had no desire to hear Jeremiah asking questions as to why I was in his house in the first place without him being there. After catching him in my house and bed with Cherry last night, I had all but blacked out while throwing things at them and screaming until my voice nearly gave out. They both flew out the front door without their clothes on when I threatened them with a gun neither knew I didn't have, hopped into Jeremiah's truck and went speeding down the street. I never expected to see him again after that and in truth, never wanted to. Well, maybe part of me did, but not because I necessarily wanted to be with him again. What I sure as hell didn't expect was to wind up in this crazy as hell situation with his brother instead.

After taking another look at the phone, I decided that it was probably better to just let Roman know about Jeremiah calling before he could find out for himself and question why the hell I didn't bother telling him about it first. I picked it up from the counter and tightened it inside my hand as I left the kitchen, and made my way down the hall to his bedroom at the very end.

I stood in front of his door for a few seconds, slowly breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth as it would be the first time I had ever seen his bedroom in person after all these years, then knocked twice. When I heard nothing on the other side, I lowered my hand to the knob and pushed back. The door opened with such ease and when I stepped inside, the hint of Old Spice and rum hit my nostrils almost immediately. "Roman?" I called out to him, but not loud enough for him to hear me after I realized that he was still in the shower. My eyes moved from one side of the room to the other, taking in the white, crumpled sheets on his king-sized bed as well as the small wooden table located near the window. He had a brown, handmade lamp that rested on top of his nightstand while his WILD REAPERS leather cut hung on a metal hook near the closet adjacent to his bathroom. 

I moved even further into the room and placed the phone down on the edge of the bed, then stepped closer to his cut and dragged my fingers across the worn leather, as well as his 1%, ASS KICKER and CULVER CITY OG patches. There were a few others lined up and down each side of the lapels that I didn't know what the hell they meant or why he needed so many of them in the first place, and as time had gone on over the years, I never thought to ask; mostly because I had no real desire to know. A part of me felt somewhat differently about that now but I wasn't sure of the exact way I needed to go about questioning him.

I knew that club business was club business and that there was a good reason anyone not involved had no real business in knowing a damn thing about any of it. It's one of the main reasons I didn't bother asking him what his business was about last night in Vegas during that 'drop-off' or whatever the hell it was with the other club. But now that I was his wife, it meant that I needed to know more, at least enough to be able to keep myself safe, just in case. I guess the question now was how much I needed to be aware of anymore, and why.

When I heard the water from the shower being shut off, I stepped back from Roman's cut and moved over to the bed. I reached for the phone again and held it in both hands this time, then sucked in a breath to hold inside my chest the minute he pulled back on the bathroom door. "Sweet baby Jesus in a manger," I muttered, nearly choking when I finally saw him.

He stood there in front of me in all his glory, at least somewhat. In his right hand was a large white bath towel that he was holding over his very erect penis that I could see pushing against the cotton of it. Water dripped from his eyebrows down to his lashes and rolled down the corners of his nose before reaching his top lip, which he licked and sucked into his mouth while keeping those cool grey eyes completely focused on my face, seemingly studying my sheepishly embarrassed yet highly aroused reaction to him. His hair was messy and soaked and all over his head. His tattoos glistened and his muscles looked completely defined and perfect, almost unreal. His thighs were thick and hard and muscular, and my God, I just wanted to take a tiny bite out of each one.

As he started to approach me, his large feet sliding across the giant black rug that lined his room from one corner to the other, I immediately spun away from him to face the opposite side. Then I lowered the phone from my chest where I had been holding it against myself and shakily exhaled. This man was more beautiful without clothes on than I had ever imagined him to be, and God knows that I had imagined it far too often over the years to even keep an accurate count of how many times I had pictured it inside my head. Calling him perfect was redundant, but I couldn't think of another word to describe him. The man was perfect, physically speaking, anyway. He had his flaws no doubt, just like anyone else; but for me, he was everything that I could have ever dreamed of having for myself and more.

"Did you get lost somewhere along the way, babe?" he asked me, his tone playful as hell as his deeply seductive voice finally broke the silence between us.

I slightly turned my head but kept my eyes at a distinct distance to keep from directly staring at him again and muttered, "No."

I heard him moving even closer to me and jumped when his towel went flying across the room and landed across the bed.

Dammit, I'm screwed.

"Then what brings you back here so early? As much as I wouldn't mind getting in bed with you before heading out to the club, I don't exactly have the kind of time that I would like to spend exploring every inch of you as my wife."

God.

My head was spinning in circles like a basketball around a rim before finally falling into the basket; I couldn't keep my thoughts straight since they all kept drawing back to the size and shape of his dick. "Um..." I inhaled, then exhaled again and tucked my hair behind my ear to calm my growing nerves. "Your brother called," I finally told him.

There was a long pause before he responded. "What?"

"Here." I reached around behind myself and held up the phone. He snatched it from me almost immediately and without even seeing his face, I could tell that he was pissed. "He called twice," I said. "The first time, it came up anonymous or private or whatever. The second time, it came up with his actual name."

"Then how the hell do you know that it was him calling the first time, babe?" he asked.

"Um..." I rattled my head. "I don't, I guess. I'm just assuming." I heard him pushing a few buttons before throwing the phone onto the bed alongside the towel.

"Fuck. Did you say anything to him?"

"Just 'hello'. The first time I heard him... if it was in fact him, he was just breathing and only said 'shit' before hanging up. That's what made me think it was him after he called the second time and I saw his name."

"Did he say anything else to you then?"

"No," I answered. "He just hung up again." I paused and rested my hands in front of myself. "I debated saying anything considering our current circumstances, but thought that you might want to know in case he needed you for something."

"Nah, that son of a bitch doesn't need me," he said. "He's probably calling to ask for some money or some shit."

"Where exactly did he take off to?" I questioned. "You weren't as forthcoming about that before."

He groaned. "New Orleans or some shit is what he claimed," he replied. "Our old man has family down there that if he was telling the truth, he went to stay with for a while."

"Did he tell you exactly why he took off? Was it because of what happened between us last night, or something else?"

"More than likely had to do with a mixture of a lot of shit, babe. But I'm not really one for getting into the details about all of that right now."

"Right, sure, yeah. You have to get to 'church'." I started making my way to the door.

"Hold on," he called out. I stopped instantly and swallowed hard.

"What is it?" My heart was practically pounding right through my ribs by that point.

"You know that you can look at me if you want to, darlin', yeah?" he said, his voice playful again and delicious. I gulped. "We're married now, so you're free to look at me anytime that you want, with or without a towel wrapped around my waist to hide what I know you're really hoping to see."

I deeply exhaled and blinked a few times. My eyes were beginning to water and I wasn't sure if it was entirely because of him or the smell of that rum and Old Spice suddenly filling up the room even more than what it had before he emerged from behind the steam filling up the bathroom. "That's good to know," I said. I took another step forward and reached out for the door this time.

"Colette." I stopped again and pulled back, placing my hand on top of my chest. I yelped when I felt him moving in directly behind me, swinging his rock-solid tool back and forth against my ass.

"Oh my God." When his large hands moved around my waist, jerking me to him and his breath hit the back of my neck and ear, I stopped breathing completely. He turned a little and shoved his face into my hair and when he inhaled me, sharp ripples of pleasure flowed throughout my entire body like tiny pebbles bouncing off waves in the ocean. I closed my eyes at his touch and whimpered.

"Jesus, you smell like a motherfuckin' dream come true," he told me, his hands tightening around me. "My dream come true. Like honey and whiskey and strawberries or some shit. If I could just dip you into a bowl of whipped cream and sugar, and curl my tongue around that sweet, soft skin..." he trailed off.

I swallowed hard, my muscles tensing despite my need to relax against him. "I haven't even showered yet," I replied, my voice rattling with each word that managed to find an escape from between my lips. To say that I was nervous of what the hell could come next between us would've been the understatement of the millennium.

He moaned and squeezed my waist. Unintentionally, I think, I rubbed my ass up and down the length of his cock. A growl erupted from him then and he mumbled, "You could've easily joined me in there, darlin'. I would've gladly cleaned you up with my hands... tongue... giant cock. And maybe even a little bit of soap if I remembered to use it." He chuckled. "No way in fuck would I have objected to any of that shit." I felt a hard throb between my thighs as he slid one of his hands around to the front of my stomach and beneath my tank. His skin was warm and wet against my own. Then he lowered his mouth to the side of my throat and parted his lips, and like a wild animal in heat, licked my skin from the base of my collarbone all the way up to the tip of my earlobe. I dropped back against his solid chest and perfectly defined abs, unable to continue holding myself up. He slowly dragged his hand back and forth across my stomach, then moved the other one down to my skirt, sliding it around to the front of my thigh and pushing it up beneath the hem. I parted my legs for him almost instinctually and suddenly found the will to start breathing again. "Nine years I've dreamed of nothing else but knowing just what the hell you taste like, babe," he said, his voice husky, salacious. "Just knowing what the fuck you'd feel like with that sweet, sweet cunt tightly wrapped around my cock like a vise, with me balls deep inside and grinding my way home 'til you never knew the feeling of another motherfucker but me ever again..."

"What?" I asked, breathless and completely confused by his words while at the same time wholly transfixed.

He moved his hand up from my stomach, past my breasts and wrapped it around my throat. Then with his thumb and index finger, he tilted my head aside and slid his other hand directly between my thighs.

"I bet you are so damn tight," he said. "And so motherfuckin' sweet... Fuck." He slid his thumb along the cotton of my underwear, directly against my slit. I shivered against him like a desperate and horny as hell teenage girl about to be taken by the man of her dreams for the first time. "You are already wet for me, babe," he rasped. "Goddamn." I moaned as my mind turned to complete mush in that very moment. "Do you remember what the hell you said to me last night while we were at the bar in Vegas?" he rasped, his breath warm as he exhaled against my skin. I dropped my head back against his shoulder and shook it back and forth. "You asked me to touch you. Just like this."

"Did you? I mean..." My voice was soft and weak; I wasn't even sure he had heard me until I heard him snickering.

"Yeah, babe, almost."

"What the hell stopped you from it?" I asked. But he went silent after that and brought his mouth back down to my throat, sucking and licking my skin until it damn near bruised. I mewled, needing more of him and removed his hand from my throat.

He grunted until I roughly shoved it against my breast, forcing him to squeeze it; then he groaned. "Fuck." Needing more of the same but all too desperate for skin on skin instead of skin on fabric, he dropped his hand inside my tank, pushed his fingers past the cup of my bra and latched onto my breast as if he needed it to breathe. A soft moan escaped me before I even had the chance to stop it, though I'm not exactly sure I would've if I had known that I could then. "Jesus, you are so goddamn sweet, baby. Everything I've ever imagined you would be from the first time we met and more." He rolled his fingers around my nipple; it hardened within seconds. Then he pinched the skin around it and rocked himself against me. I was so unbelievably aroused by this man that I could hardly begin to even express myself with words.

As my sex became heavy and flooded with wetness, I felt his fingers sliding along the fabric of my panties again. "God, Roman," I begged him. "Please, just touch me. I need it, I need you...touch me." His lips turned up into a grin just before he teased me with easing his index finger around the fabric and sliding it directly against my opening. My legs trembled against his pelvis and thighs as he grazed the tip of my clit; it was sensitive as all hell, forcing me to nearly fall over in pleasurable agony. I needed so much more of him inside me to help control the current sensation I felt pricking my skin like a mild rainstorm that was on the verge of turning violent very soon. My heart quaked, my toes curled against the floor. "Oh my God, Roman." I reached my hand around in search of his cock, needing to know the bareness of it against my skin.

"Babe," he snarled, his breathing heavy as his mouth remained against my throat. He unleashed his tongue again and flicked the tip of it against my pulse. It was as if he had finally pushed the button of ecstasy and I screamed out. He silenced me in an instant by removing his hand from between my thighs, the other from around my breast, turning me around to face him and plunging his tongue deep between my lips. I could hardly breathe from it as he took full advantage of exploring my entire mouth, pillaging with an insatiable hunger, but I didn't care.

All that mattered was that we were (finally) kissing now, so hot and so damn heavy that as my hands fumbled in finding their way up his back -- my God his back was hard and strong yet so soft and smooth at the same time -- past his neck and into his wet hair, the moisture from it dripping down between my fingers and sliding across the back of my hands, I didn't even notice his hands moving around my waist again, shoving me back until I was pressed against the dresser located directly across from his bed. His mouth was unbelievable; wet and soft, his lips tasted like wine and sex and soap and heat all at the same damn time. I sucked the bottom one into my mouth and gently wrapped my teeth around it. He growled and tightened his hands around me again, then lifted me from the floor and sat me on top of the dresser.

I gasped as he pulled his mouth away from mine and started moving down my throat, sucking, licking and biting. His kisses were rough and hard, no doubt leaving marks all over my skin, but I loved every second of it, just as much as I have always loved him.

"Roman." I tilted my head back and closed my eyes while sliding my fingers in and out of his hair. He lowered his face down to my chest and opened his mouth even wider this time, allowing his tongue to bathe me with his heat. Then he crawled his fingers up my arm and to my shoulder and with the tips of them, dragged the straps of my tank and bra down to my elbow. My tit popped out and with an insane craving that I had never witnessed from any man before this very second, he sucked my nipple into his mouth and suckled me until it grew hard against his deliciously wet tongue. I jerked the lower half of my body forward, needing to feel him inside me before I exploded. "Roman, please." He continued to ignore me, teasing the absolute hell out of my body with soft licks and bites. I squirmed against the dresser and slightly spread my legs, then rolled my hips in a circular motion to satisfy myself in some way as I could feel an orgasm building to the same beat of my pulse, and hoping like hell that he would take notice and finally indulge me.

Then without warning, he pulled away completely, removing his mouth and hands from my body and drawing back toward the bed. I dropped my head and opened my eyes, and that's when I saw him in full. His dick was a sight to be seen, that was for damn sure; absolutely the most beautiful one I had ever seen before in my entire damn life. It was dark pink in color with a perfect tip that slightly curved upward in its erection. It was thick... Jesus, it was so unbelievably thick that I wasn't even sure my entire hand would be able to fit around it, let alone my mouth or even my sex. And it was so long, the man was practically hung like a damn horse.

My eyes expanded like a cartoon character that had just been hit over the head with a barrel and I damn near salivated while staring at him. My heart pounded so hard and loud that I could hear and feel it beating inside my ears. His face was dark, almost mysterious while staring at me. I could feel myself becoming wetter and wetter by the second and decided to get up from the dresser. I hadn't even realized that my breast was still out until I felt the air in the room brush against the wetness from his tongue that now covered my nipple.

Gradually, I dropped my feet down to the floor and started making my way toward him. He kept his eyes focused directly on my face but didn't move an inch. When I finally reached him, I looked up into his face, my vision suddenly fading in and out as this hunger for him, this violent, urgent need to finally taste him zapping every bit of sense from me, that I couldn't help myself in falling straight down to my knees in front of him. He didn't even need to ask for it; he didn't need to say a single damn word. I did it on my own because I wanted to, I needed to; for my desire, for my lust. He remained completely still as I finally took him in both of my hands. God, he was so hard that I was starting to wonder if he could break me if I took him into my mouth. But that curiosity, that fear wasn't enough to keep me from trying. I pumped him long and slow, then hard and soft. His hips jerked forward and he clinched his teeth and locked his jaw. I rolled my eyes up to meet his as he rolled his eyes down to meet mine. And then he raised his hand and brushed the back of his fingers along my cheek and jawline. I bent forward and rolled the tip of my tongue in a circular motion around the head of his cock, tasting his pre-come. It was like inhaling liquid sex.

He dropped his hand from my face then as if he had just been shot with a tranquilizer. His head fell back and he moaned a hard and loud 'fuckkk' and that's when I knew that I had this man; he was officially mine and always had been, long before the day we ever met and forever after.

"Babe." His voice was hard, rough, dangerous and sexy as all hell to the point of melting me from the inside out. He lifted his fingers again and tangled them in my hair. I felt my breasts swelling and my nipples becoming so hard that they could've punctured right through the fabric of both my bra and tank. I started pumping him again and he jerked his hips for the second time. Then I finally leaned forward and slid him into my mouth. My eyes nearly rolled into the back of my head as soon as I felt him on my tongue. And then I started sucking; I started sucking with the vigor of a woman who had been in love with this man for most of her life; the vigor of a woman who never dreamed that having this man would become a reality; the vigor of a woman who never believed that this same man would want her in return, in the same damn way and for seemingly just as long.

"Fuck." He wrapped his fingers around a chunk of my hair, tightening them as his balls began to swell up. Though he attempted to guide me in the way he wanted me to go, I continued moving at my own pace, taking long, slow strokes to experience the entirety of him, the fullness of his cock inside my mouth. As the tip of it reached the back of my throat, I almost gagged, but I couldn't bring myself to stop. I had never had a man of his size before, though I hadn't had many outside of Jeremiah before him. Still, in my head, I knew that he was bigger than the average man and now it was a genuine, bona fide fact. "Darlin', I'm gonna come," he murmured. I peeked up at him through my lashes and noticed his lips quivering as sweat poured from his temples and down either side of his face. His breathing had become much harder and more abrupt, turning me on even more than I was already.

I moved at a much quicker pace then, sliding him across my tongue and between my lips, and using my other hand to massage his balls with such an intensity that I could feel the veins in his cock swell up near the head of it just before he jerked forward and finally exploded. Hot liquid poured into my mouth like molten lava, warming my insides as I swallowed. As he began to relax and soften after a few shivers, I released him. And while trying to catch his breath, he reached down for both of my hands and pulled me up to my feet.

His skin was flushed; his full lips were still wet from his tongue and his cool grey eyes were darker than I had ever seen before. The man was starving and I was his breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert right after.

"Where the fuck did you learn to suck a cock like that, darlin'?" he asked me. "Jesus." He wrapped both hands around my face and drove his tongue between my lips before I could even answer. I nearly fainted as he circled his tongue around mine and suckled the tip. My hands moved up his back again and I clawed my nails into his skin to hold myself up. And that's when his phone rang, distracting us. He was only slightly startled, pulling away for two seconds before bringing his mouth back down to mine. He practically devoured me in that kiss, taking turns to suck on each of my lips before slowly sliding his tongue across and between them again, and fluttering it against the tip of my own. Then he dropped one of his hands from my face, dragging it down past my breast (when his finger brushed against my very erect nipple, I shuddered) and stomach, and pushed it between my legs again.

My panties were completely soaked by now and he didn't hesitate or tease me this time when he moved his fingers past the fabric, slid it back and forth between the lips of my slit and finally pushed one deep inside me. I gasped as his kiss deepened, as his tongue practically suffocated me with each soft stroke. "You are so fuckin' wet for me, babe." He slid another finger inside me and I bucked my hips against him while clawing my nails into his back so hard, it was only a matter of time before I officially broke through his skin. "And so fuckin' sexy, goddamn." He lowered his other hand from my face in that moment and as the phone rang for the second or third time, we continued to ignore it, especially him, as he was too damn busy falling to his knees in front of me and sliding my panties down my legs. Once they reached the floor, I rested my hands on top of his shoulders and stepped out of them. He looked up at me with a deliciously intoxicating yet dangerous fire in his eyes that almost made me want to come right then and there.

He slid his hands around the back of my thighs and squeezed me hard until I nearly fell over on top of him. He chuckled and tugged at my skirt, yanking it down to the floor along with my panties, forcing me to step out of it just the same. Then he leaned forward and kissed me just below my belly button, keeping his eyes on mine the entire damn time. My hands crawled up the sides of his throat and then his face. His jawline was so exceptionally strong and masculine. I needed to know what my thighs would feel like wrapped around it. He extended his tongue and swirled it around my skin. I closed my eyes for less than a second and he brought his hands up to my bare behind. I nearly choked when he squeezed me again, harder this time as if to make sure that I felt it and leave his marks. Then he gave my cheeks a light smack while gently sucking, licking and nibbling his way down to my clit. I could hardly remain on my feet the minute I felt his teeth; but as he lifted one of my legs over his shoulders to angle himself and I moved my hands back up into his hair, I was able to find a steady balance that worked out well for the both of us.

Almost too damn well.

Once he finally moved his face between my legs and I felt the soft hairs of his jaw brushing along the inner parts of my thighs, he brought his hand back up to my breast that remained free outside my bra and tank and lightly pinched my nipple with his thumb and forefinger. I gyrated without even realizing it until the tip of his tongue slid along my wet opening and fluttered against my clit. "Oh my God!" I called out, my entire body on the verge of bursting into flames.

"Just me, darlin'," he said with a soft chuckle. "Just me."

I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth and smiled while slowly dragging my fingers in and out of his hair. He flicked his tongue against my opening again, then used two fingers to spread my lips. And then he kissed me in the same way that he had my mouth, stroking his tongue against me, shoving it in, pulling it out and swirling it around my all too sensitive nub. Then he rocked his mouth against me in the same way that he had with his cock and my body reacted, spreading my legs even further, allowing him to go even deeper, and he did.

Goddddddddd. I felt him then, all of him, every last damn inch of his tongue. "I'm coming," I told him. "Oh, God, Roman, I'm coming already -- ahhhh."

"Not yet, babe," he growled. "Not fuckin' yet." He pulled away from me again, lowering my leg back down to the floor, and stood up to his feet. I could have killed him for dragging me to the edge only to yank me back so quickly and I probably would've tried if he hadn't recaptured my mouth again and replaced his tongue against my slit with the hard pads of his index, middle and ring fingers. "I need to feel that shit," he told me. "Jesus fuckin' Christ, I need to feel you." He pumped in and out of me in the way I wanted and needed his cock to do the same. Then he walked me back over to the dresser and as I fell back against it this time, I hiked my legs around his waist and tightened my arms around his neck. He used both of his hands to hold me up and as the head of his cock slid against my opening, I cried out for him to push it deep inside me. He wrapped one hand around himself and began pumping until it was hard and ready, then teased me by slowly rubbing the head up and down between my slit and rolling it in a circle against my opening and clit.

"I hate you for this," I told him, breathless, weary, anxious and needy as I squirmed against him again. Tiny bumps rose on my skin as I felt it flaring up from the inside. "Roman, you just don't know how much I hate you for this."

"I know it, babe." He leaned forward and pressed his mouth against my ear, then he muttered. "Believe me, I know that shit all too goddamn well."

When the phone rang again and much louder than it had before, I lowered my legs from around his waist as it had officially broken the mood, thus rejecting any chance I had in achieving the fullness of an explosively delicious orgasm, and dropped my feet back down to the floor. "Damn." Every part of me still ached and felt sore even though he had barely done anything to me. I started to wonder once he finally had, would I even be able to survive it?

Once he pulled away from me, I noticed that his entire face was completely red; his skin was so flushed from his arms all the way down to his hands and thickly muscled thighs that it was now beaming beneath what was no longer water but sweat. His cock was still hard while the tip of it gleamed from my wetness; had he not walked away from me to pick up that phone from the bed, I would've gladly dropped right back down to my knees in front of him again and taken him even harder and much further inside my mouth than I had before.

"Yeah," he finally said after answering. He peeked at me over his shoulder while holding the phone inside his large hand as I moved forward, rolling my tongue around my lips and taking in the entirety of that black and white coiled snake tattooed in the center of his back, and picked up my underwear and skirt. He turned his entire body halfway when he noticed me holding onto them and grabbed my hand, slightly shaking it and forcing me to drop everything back down to the floor. I frowned at him. He narrowed his eyes at me and rattled his head. "Yeah, brother, I got caught up with some shit back here at the house," he replied to what I assumed were questions about why the hell he hadn't yet shown up for church back at the club. "No, everything's good." His eyes remained on my face while he rubbed his thumb in circles against the back of my hand, slowly, as if to cause me arousal once again. "Just some shit that I needed to take care of that's been handled for the time being. Something I plan on getting back to later tonight." I held back a smile and sank my teeth into my bottom lip. He turned to face me completely. "Just let Prez know that I'll be there in a few. Shouldn't take me too long to get ready and finally head out there." I heard the voice on the other end of the line mumbling something and Roman nodded his head. "Alright, yeah." He yanked the phone away from his ear and pushed the off button just before tossing it behind himself back onto the bed.

"I need to put my clothes back on," I told him. "I can't walk around here like this all damn day."

He crinkled his brows and shrugged. "Why the fuck not?" He wrapped his arm around my waist and yanked me to him. "And for the record..." He raised his hand to my face and brushed his thumb back and forth across my chin; then he moved it up beneath my bottom lip and gently tugged it open. "The way you taste..." His eyes lowered to my mouth and he gulped. "You've got me addicted to you like a goddamn drug. I've needed that taste of you since the beginning of all this, babe."

"Since the beginning of all this?" I asked, sounding dumbfounded. He nodded. "Erm, since the beginning of all this?" I tried clarifying. "Or since the beginning of all... this?" I stared down between us.

He chortled. "Since the day I met you, darlin'. Right outside the house near my lake out there, I knew right then and there that you should've been my woman instead of Jeremiah's."

Be his woman.

I wanted to melt.

He said the words with such hardcore conviction and ownership. My insides immediately lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and I beamed up at him like the brightest star sitting right at the top of it.

"Really?" I asked him, my voice hopeful as hell that I hadn't misheard him say a single thing to me.

"Yeah," he muttered, nodding his head again to reassure me. It was almost as if he could read what I was thinking word for word and needed me to know just how serious he was about all this; how serious he was about us. "I couldn't stare at you for too long back then, couldn't even touch you because I knew there was no chance in hell of me ever letting you go. My brother's a stupid son of a bitch who never deserved a good woman like you. Never deserved your sweetness and everything perfect that you've ever had to offer up to him or anybody else. And now I can say that everything you ever thought you should've been giving up to him, you can give to me and I'll treasure it all like a motherfuckin' pile of gold." He dragged his thumb from one side of my face to the other and tugged at my bottom lip again. Then he dipped his face forward and I inhaled him.

"I've wanted you," I told him, the words spilling out of my mouth before my brain even had a chance to get them in a decent order of some kind. "Ever since that day, I've wanted you every moment of every hour of every second of every day, Roman Starvaski. I thought you hated me but I was so young and naive then that I didn't care. I just wanted to see you, to be near you, talk to you, get to know you as a man... I wanted to see you in ways that I never saw your brother, ways that I never even imagined that he or any other man I knew could ever be. Telling me this now, it makes so much sense but I hate knowing after all these years that we just wasted so much damn time in not being together."

"We don't have to waste that shit anymore," he said. "Everything that happened might not have been the way you wanted it, including last night, but it all happened for the reasons it was supposed to. We've wanted each other for so goddamn long and now you're my wife." He grinned, and that dimple in his cheek outright drove me insane. "I wanna keep you forever. Take care of you the way you deserve. Make love to you in the way you've always needed but never had. I wanna give you the full life you've always dreamed of having. It might not come in the prettiest of packages, but I'll make damn sure that it comes inside the package that's perfect enough for you, babe."

"You're what's perfect enough for me," I told him. "Even though all of this is crazy and I'm crazy as hell for wanting it."

"You might be." He snickered. "Just the same as me."

"Maybe," I replied. "But I do. I want this and I want you so badly and I won't apologize for that anymore."

He dragged me to his chest, forcing my bare breast to push against him. His thick, hard penis slid between my thighs again and as I rolled my sex along the shaft of it, he pulled me into yet another deep kiss. This time, he kept one arm around my waist while wrapping the other just below my bottom to continue holding me up against him, because I nearly fell over as soon as I felt his tongue again. "I wanna taste you again tonight," he said between my lips, just before pulling away. "After church, I'll need to stick around the club for a bit for the other brothers, but I won't be longer than I need to be. Especially when I've got much more important shit to take care of around here."

I shoved myself against him even harder than before, drunk on the everything that was this man, and draped my arms across his neck. "I want to take a shower while you're gone."

"No fuckin' way," he said, wagging his head like a wild dog.

I looked into those cool grey eyes of his with question and knit my brows. "What?"

"You don't get to do all that without me being here to watch and take some part it in."

"You showered alone," I replied with a small laugh.

"That's different," he shot back.

"How?"

"It's before you came in here and let me taste you." He grinned. "Had we done all this shit beforehand, I'd be missing the entirety of church just to stick around here, risk losing my patches and having my Prez and VP kick my ass for it. Speaking of which..." He wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and crushed his mouth to mine again. Once again, I could hardly breathe as his tongue performed a whirlwind of insatiable destruction against and around my own. "I should start getting dressed and heading out there." I exhaled after breaking away from him and bobbed my head. My lips felt swollen and sore from his tugs, nibbles and full on bites but I couldn't help in still wanting more of his pain; mixed with as much pleasure as he gave me, it had quickly become my favorite drug of choice in the same way that I was for him.

"I'll cook something up for you while you're gone," I told him. "It won't be much considering there isn't a lot to work with in the kitchen, but--"

"I'll eat anything you put on a plate in front of me, darlin'. Even if that includes..." His eyes fell between my legs. I threw a hand into his chest to playfully shove him back. He kissed me one last time, but I jerked my head back and reached down for my clothes before he could fog up my brain again. Then I scurried from his room and closed the door behind me.

I dropped back against it and pulled up my bra and tank over my breast to cover myself, along with my skirt, though I left off the panties, and allowed myself to think. In less than twenty-four hours, I had gone from the girlfriend of one man to the wife of his brother. And in even less time than that, I had debated my morality, placed it alongside his and told myself that as much as I wanted him, there was no way in hell that it could ever work out or become real between us. He was a criminal, possibly a murderer given all that his club had ever been known for (the 1% wasn't just a patch given to the members for show and tell to other clubs) and no matter what he wanted to say about bringing me here instead of taking me home where I thought I belonged first, he was basically a kidnapper. A kidnapper whose hands made my body warm, whose tongue set my mouth on fire; whose eyes made me melt and whose dick made me damn near come just from the very sight of it.

I was officially the wife of an ASS KICKER in the WILD REAPERS MC. And I'll be damned if in that moment of realization, a small part of myself didn't suddenly start to enjoy the absolute hell out of what it now meant for me in being one.

 

Roman

I pulled up into the parking lot in a spot just outside the front of the club about an hour and a half later than I was supposed to be there for church. No doubt Riggs, my club president, along with Tracker, his VP, would be lined up and ready to kick my ass for holding shit up and keeping the rest of the brothers waiting for longer than necessary, which they hated on days like this when fresh pussy would be making its way here later this afternoon once we were finished with our usual business.

But if I had to do the shit all over again and be even later than I was right now, I would without question. Finally having that sweet taste of Colette after all these years, knowing just how her lips moved against mine when we kissed, how her hips moved against my mouth and cock as it pressed against her wet slit and teased the absolute hell out of her clit; how her fingers felt tugging at my hair and digging into my back as I devoured that sweet, soft cunt and made her come apart at the seams with every stroke of my tongue against her opening, was just what I needed to get myself up and recharged like an old car battery finally getting that well-deserved tune up after years of sitting dormant inside a broken down garage.

And her hands. Goddamn, those hands wrapped around my cock as it went hard... I was sure as shit that I was going to come before she even positioned herself right in front of me just like the woman of my dreams and took me right into her mouth without hesitation. I wasn't even sure who the hell wanted it more by that point, me or her. But I was damn sure that even as she swallowed my come and I went soft against her tongue and between her cheeks that I didn't want her to stop. Another tug at my balls and I would've been ready for her to suck me off a second or even third time right after. Just thinking back on it made me hard all over again. Had I not been out in front of the club, I would've shoved my hand down inside my pants within seconds and whacked right off to the memory of her and what we had done.

"Yo, motherfucker!" As soon as I heard that familiar voice calling out to me from the door leading inside the club, I rattled my head and quickly shut off the engine to my bike. Our Road Captain, Atom, was standing there with his arms folded over his giant round belly that hung over his pants. It had gradually blown up over the last ten or fifteen years thanks to his guzzling back one case after another of beers and eating more shit that a man of his age and growing health issues didn't need to even look at, let alone swallow whole like a goddamn garbage disposal without the blades to help break it all down.

While he continued staring at me, I noticed his brows lifting high on his wrinkled forehead before dropping back down to a straight line. His green eyes narrowed and his jaw, covered in thick grey hair that rolled down to the center of his chest, flexed.

Jesus Christ. This motherfucker was pissed.

I lowered my eyes to the ground and wagged my head again, then after placing my helmet at the edge of the bar handle, hopped off my bike and started making my way toward him. "What's up, brother?" I opened my arms wide and leaned my head to the side while parting my lips and flashing my teeth in a grin, doing my best to show off that whatever the hell would be coming my way next from him and the rest of these assholes, I was ready for it.

"Fuck you, Rome," he snapped, pointing his crooked index finger in my face as soon as I stood in front of him. I jerked my head back and locked my jaw tight, ready for an impending blow. "Prez is pissed at your stupid ass, you know that?"

I sighed and nodded, then swallowed hard and told him, "Yeah, I know."

"Do ya?" he asked, sounding unsure. He flicked a thumb out behind himself and leaned forward. "Son of a bitch has been waiting to get his cock sucked since 6am and you have managed to fuck him over with that shit in not playing your part."

"And how the hell is that?" I asked him.

"Because the chick he was hoping to get with can't make it out for the party tonight. This morning was his only chance at having a shot at her before she headed out of town again with her crew, but with you being late..."

"Shit." I dragged my hand across my mouth in a sham of concern for the current state of Prez's limp cock and exhaled. "Well look, there'll be other sweet butts out here once church is over like always, right on cue, yeah?" I said, lowering my tone and trying to smooth shit over as best as I could. "Maybe even some of those younger ones that he likes bouncing on his balls so goddamn much. I think he'll be good by then."

"Not this time, brother," he replied.

"Yeah." I tried shoving past him but he stepped to the side and threw his hand into my chest, pushing me back. I looked down into his face and snarled. It wasn't the first time the old man had put his hands on me, but for once, there was no need for it. At least not one that I had been made well aware of before showing up here. "What the fuck--?"

"You and the drop-off last night," he said.

I shrugged and looked aside. "What about it?"

"Why the hell did you fail to mention to me this morning that you had some chick out there alongside you while it was taking place?"

"Christ, it was just Colette," I told him, my response nonchalant in comparison to his full-blown panic. "You know she doesn't give a damn about any of this club shit outside of the chicks always hanging around out here, and has got no clue regarding the business side of it."

He made a face and jerked his chin forward. "Colette?" He waited a moment and closed his eyes to think, then after a few seconds, peeled them open and nodded his head. "Oh yeah, that hot chick with the perky tits, fat ass and thighs that touch that's been dating your brother for far too damn long, yeah?"

I bobbed my head and looked away from him. "Yeah." I snaked my fingers through my hair and soured. "Except they're not together anymore after the shit that went down with them last night before she showed up here to see me."

He lifted his shoulders and peered. "What the fuck happened?"

"She caught him in her bed back at her house boning Cherry."

He whistled and held back a chuckle. "Jesus, no shit?"

"No shit. That's what she was out here screaming at me about before we finally headed out to Vegas."

"Fuck." He burst into a fit of laughter and slapped his stomach a few times. "That must've been what Chute and Tracker were snickering about when I got here this morning, but I wasn't up on all the details; the whys, and hows and all that. Too bad I couldn’t see it for myself but priorities called where my cock and old lady were concerned last night, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know all about that shit, brother." I adjusted my pants, thinking back on Colette, and grunted. "How the hell did you hear about her being out there with me last night in the first place?"

"Right after I hung up with you this morning to make sure that everything was still cool, Primo gave Riggs a ring and mentioned you showing up to his compound with some chick on the back of that bike."

I groaned and rubbed my hands down the front of my cut to keep from balling my fists and smashing them straight into the door. This shit was not good. "Why the hell would he wait 'til the morning to bring that up when it didn't matter to him last night when he actually saw her out there with me? Especially when I told him that she was good and didn't give a fuck about what the hell we were even taking care of."

"I don't know, brother, but it sounds like he maybe got spooked after the fact."

"From what?" I snapped, a mixture of anger and confusion boiling up inside me by the second. "The only thing Colette gave a damn about while we were out there was getting drunk and having a good ass time to keep from thinking about my prick brother and what the hell he had done to her."

Atom tilted his head to a certain degree and made a face at me, damn curious. "And did she?" he asked me, his low voice piqued, his thick grey brows flying up high on his wrinkled forehead once again. "Have a good ass time and get drunk and all that?" I nodded. He leaned away from me and wrapped his hands around the base of his cut. "And did it just so happen to lead you into being able to get some in all this shit? 'Cause I know it's been a long while for your ass. Almost too goddamn long since you've even seen a pussy up close and personally."

"Yeah." I laughed quietly and dropped my hands inside the pockets of my jeans. "Yeah, I got something from her; something damn good that I'm still trying to figure out a way to recover from, but not 'til this morning when she was sober enough to remember all of it."

"Is that why you were late?"

"One of the reasons for it, yeah." I shuffled around him to make my way further inside the club.

"Well goddamn, was it that good?" he called out from behind me, the excitement in his voice bouncing off every wall inside the place. "What'd she taste like? 'Cause with that shiny looking brown skin, she looks like she'd taste damn good, brother. Like cinnamon or some shit, maybe even chocolate. Did she spin around on your cock like some of them do? Did she let you enter through the back door with that giant ass cock of yours? Did she swallow or spit that shit out to the side when she took you inside her mouth? I hate when they spit 'cause it shows a sign of disrespect. Especially when they do it right in front of you, Jesus."

I ignored all his questions while making my way toward the bar near the back of the place and hollered out, "Where the hell is Prez? The other brothers?" I leaned over the edge and enfolded my hands, shifting my eyes from side to side.

Atom walked up and moved in beside me; he rested his elbow against the edge of the bar and turned to stare me down in the same way he would the member of a rival club and often had. That's when I realized he had noticed the silver band on my finger.

"What the fuck is that shit?" He pointed.

I glanced down at my hand and shook my head. "It's nothin'."

"More like something, asshole. What the hell did you two do out there in Vegas last night?"

"I got piss drunk, that's what I did." I looked over at him and shook my head again. "We had a good motherfuckin' time."

He stared at me until his face colored, then pushed himself away from the bar and sighed. "Jesus Christ."

I rubbed my hands back and forth against each other and glimpsed at him from the corner of my eye. "Don't push this shit any further than what you've done already, old man."

"Somebody's got to, young buck," he spat, leaning in to make sure that I heard him loud and fucking clear. "Before Riggs comes out here and sees that shit on your finger for himself."

"He won't see shit if I remove it."

"But you won't," he said. "I know you too well and if you didn't take it off right after it happened or before coming here, there's no chance in hell of you removing it now just to prove some kind of goddamn point to him or to yourself." He lowered his eyes back down to my hand and grimaced. "Besides, he'd notice the print on your skin from you having it on all motherfucking night as it was."

"Shit." I sighed heavily and gulped. "Where the hell is he?" I asked him again. "And the other brothers? With all that calling you were doing before I finally showed up, I was expecting a line out the door with every one of them just waiting to kick my ass collectively and then one by one."

"There's a chance that shit could still happen -- the day's still younger than you are, fucker," he said, his voice as cold as a block of ice. "Especially after they learn about this shit." He continued glaring at me, damn near burning holes in the side of my face as I kept my eyes straight ahead at the liquor bottles sitting at the back of the bar near the cash register and mirror. "Prez is in the back trying to secure himself another blowjob for the night," he finally told me. "Chute's out back trying to talk his old lady out of killing his girlfriend after she showed up to his house this morning for something for his kids. Tracker is dealing with the prospects, Checkers and that other one, who got into it over some mutual club pussy just minutes before you showed up. Limb, Axel, Poker, Reefer and Smack went to get food and beer for tonight, while Patch went off to take a piss or dump considering we didn't know just how the hell long it would take for your ass to finally get here." He stopped and leaned against the bar again; he shoved his brows together and made a face. "Did this chick put you up to that shit out there?"

"You know that nobody can put me up to anything, old man. Especially when it comes to having my cock on lockdown for good."

"So what you're saying is that you've been hoping to tie this chick down from the very beginning of it all then? And you saw Vegas as the one opportunity to finally make it happen? Your brother being with her all these years before now be damned."

"My brother never deserved her."

"And you think your criminal ass does instead?"

I stared down at the bar and weighed my options in responding to him upfront.

Atom was the second oldest living member of the club, just behind Tracker, who helped to name and bring it all together along with Riggs and my old man right after all four were honorably discharged from the Vietnam war. His tattered leather cut, just like my old man's, was covered in not only patches for the club but patches for his time served. After my old man died from cancer brought on by not having his balls checked on the regular, on top of smoking too many packs of cigs day after day from the time he was fifteen years old, Atom became somewhat of a surrogate father for me. I looked up to him, admired the hell out of him and for as long as I can remember, have wanted to be just like him, have what he had in his loyal old lady, Perla, with kids running around the house 'til they were damn near grown; a life of happiness outside of this one and full blown security.

I often told him shit that even my old man never had a clue about, mostly to do with women or the club. Hell, he was the one who nicknamed me 'Brawler' after seeing me get into a fight with a former prospect twice my size during a pussy party after the asshole dented my truck with the front end of his bike. I had had too much to drink and was already amped up, but the feeling I got from slamming my fist into that fucker's face was almost as good as the feeling I had after Colette first swirled her tongue around the head of my cock this morning. And pressed her hand against it for the first time last night.

Once I was officially patched in by Riggs, I earned that ASS KICKER patch during a landslide vote, which meant that anytime a brother needed something handled with fists and muscle instead of guns, knives or money, I was the one to call.

"Hey." Atom threw the back of his hand into my arm and straightened himself, then pointed across the room. I turned my head to see Riggs standing near the edge of the bar.

"Yo, brotha," he said in a dismissive tone as his brown eyes sharpened in color while staring at me. We looked at one another for a long while before he spoke again. "You know, I wasn't all that sure about you ever showing up." He threw his hand out toward Atom and nodded. "This motherfucker assured me that you hadn't deserted us for something better out there in Vegas or on the other side of this town, and I guess for once that he was right about something."

"Yeah," I replied, keeping the shit as short and sweet as possible.

Atom clucked his tongue and rolled his eyes up into his head before turning to stare Riggs straight in the face. "You ready to get this shit started and over with, Prez?"

"Mm-hm." Riggs responded but kept his eyes on me and nodded again. "Call up those other assholes and make sure they're on their way back here. Then grab up Chute from the back and tell him to send both his old lady and that sister wife from hell of hers back home. Tracker's wrapping shit up with those two prospects and'll be out here in a few."

"Alright." As Atom ripped his cell from his back pocket and started making his way toward the back of the club, Riggs moved around the bar and stood directly in front of me.

I turned to face him straight on and grabbed onto the lapels of my cut, jerking it forward. By no means did we ever hate each other; the respect was real on both sides as was the brotherhood, always had been, always would be. That was what it meant to be a member of this club. But I would be lying my ass off if I didn't cop to the fact that he had a way of doing things I often found myself disagreeing with in much of the same way that he often found himself disagreeing with me and mine. And that shit went for both in and outside of the club.

"Now that we're out of that old man's earshot, you mind telling me just exactly what the hell it is that you've been up to this entire damn time away from the club?" he spat. I took a step back from him as some of it went flying out from both sides of his mouth and onto my cut. "Atom said that you didn't even start making it back to Culver City 'til this morning after he called to let you know about church. What the fuck have you and what I just found out was your brother's old lady--?"

"She's not his old lady," I interjected, making a purpose to cut him short. "She never was."

"Alright, so whatever the fuck she's been to him for the last nine years then, yeah?" He stared straight into my eyes to intimidate and see if I would question him in return. I didn't bother. "What the hell have you two been doing since the drop-off last night? Is she the reason you insisted on taking care of this shit on your own before taking off out there instead of having a brother ride along with to help you out? She the one who convinced you to send along that half-assed check-in via text once it was all taken care of? 'Cause I gotta tell you, brother, in all the years you've been a member of this club and even long before that when you were nothing but a measly prospect like those other two assholes out back, I've never known you to handle your shit like this when it came to business that we needed taken care of. It was sloppy as fuck." He paused and eyed me up and down. "Did you get a taste of her pussy at least?" he asked. "Is that what's got you all twisted up like this?"

I cleared my throat and stood up straight. I knew nothing I said would satisfy him completely but at the same time, it was clear as shit that I had to tell him just enough to eventually get him off my back. "We got married last night."

His eyes went wide with shock and he dipped his head back to stare up at the ceiling. "Motherfucker," he finally said. "Does she know about this shit?"

"What?"

"Does she know that you two are married?" he asked me again.

"What the fuck -- Of course she knows about this shit, Prez. She was standing right there with me when we took our vows."

"So she was there with you, but was she alert? Was she hopped up on anything, dope or pills or some shit as it was taking place?"

"We just had some drinks."

"How many?"

"Enough," I told him. "Look, one thing led to another after we nearly hooked up at a bar and next thing I knew, we were standing inside that Little White Chapels just off the Strip."

He nodded but eyed me with heavy suspicion. "So she fully agreed to this shit then, yeah?"

"We reaffirmed everything this morning once we were both sober and it's all good," I said.

"Good," he replied. He tightened his jaw and took another step forward. "Because the last thing this club needs is another situation in which we're dealing with a chick who cries about something that ain't true and accusing us of shit that didn't happen in the hopes of extorting us for more than what the hell we've got in both the bank and inside all our pockets combined. Remember that club bitch Savannah who roamed from charter to charter? Thanks to Smack, she was damn near able to fleece us blind."

"Jesus." I leaned my head back and shook it back and forth. "Yeah, I remember that shit now that you've reminded me of it."

"Mm-hm, and we don’t need what went down with the two of them a few years back to be the same situation here."

"It won't," I said. "Colette's had a thing for me for years. We're good."

"The shit better remain that way from now 'til death do you both part." His tone was threatening but I ignored it and nodded at him. "Now." He slapped his hand on top of my shoulder and dug his nails into the leather of my cut. "Was the reception you had with her worth being late for church?"

I chuckled. "Yeah."

"Well at least you were able to get something out of this shit, seeing as I won't be able to."

"No pussy came through?"

"Not a single goddamn one," he said, his tone defeated as he dropped his hand from me and stood back. "Even Cherry backed out at the last minute."

"Yeah, well, that shit's probably for the best; especially after all that went down with her last night."

"Maybe the best for you and your girl," he told me, "but my cock would say otherwise if it could." He stopped to think. "I'll check around to see what actually shows up out here tonight. But if nothing satisfies me enough to keep me from jerking off by myself in the shower later, then it'll be your head on the block. And I won't be the only one standing by, ready to chop that shit off." He latched his arm around my neck and dragged me along with him to the chapel.

 

Roman

Once we were all around the table, Riggs picked up his gavel and slammed it against its base to start the meeting.

"Alright." He bent forward and opened his hands. "First things first as far as getting some of this shit out of the way." He looked over at me and pointed. "Congratulate this stupid fucker on getting hitched out there in Vegas last night post drop-off."

"Vegas?" Patch spoke up and when I turned to look at him, he shook his head, blond hair going every which way around the hair on his face and across his bony shoulders. He was like a goddamn pencil with arms and legs attached at both ends, but women still seemed to lose their shit in those strange looking blue eyes he had. Too bad for them, he was barely thirty and had no concept of ever being tied down to just one of them for the rest of his entire damn life. "Fuck that shit, Brawler." He threw a hand out toward me to dismiss what he'd just learned and dropped back in his chair.

"Jesus Christ," mumbled Tracker. He wrapped a pale hand over his mouth and eyed me with concern and fear, both of which I knew was more for the club and what the hell would happen now as opposed to than anything to do with me getting married. "You had one job to do out there, asshole." He dropped his hand from his mouth and pointed his index finger up toward the ceiling. "Just one." His dark green eyes almost went black in color. "And it didn't include this shit--"

"Hitched?" asked Smack from the other end of the table. He cocked a jet-black eyebrow and darted his brown eyes around to every brother seated on either side of the room. "You actually put a ring on some chick out there in Sin City?"

"It's not as if the shit was actually planned for me, brother," I muttered. "It just kinda happened."

"Who the hell was it with?" Limb hollered out. His plain white face flushed red, matching the shade of his hair, as did the whites of his grass green eyes. "Vegas pussy is never the best kind to bring home with ya unless you're planning on taking it right back to where you first found it out there. Just ask this motherfucker to my left." He tossed his thumb out toward Smack and snickered.

I sighed and brought my arms up from the table to fold over my chest and blurted out, "I didn't find a chick out there to marry. She came along with me from Culver City." I paused and sighed heavily. "It was Colette."

"Colette?" Reefer sat up straight in his chair and made a face. He shook his fingers through his short black hair, then pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Is she that cute brunette I see popping in and outta here from time to time and wearing more clothes than the usual’s often looking to suck us off, with the really nice tits and tanned skin?"

I looked over at him and glowered. "Motherfucker, don't talk about her tits, alright? And it's not tanned skin that she's got, it's her natural color. She's black."

Atom dragged his hand down his face and wagged his head while looking over at Reefer. "Jesus Christ, this fuckin' idiot."

"You can't always tell, old man, alright?" he replied. He rubbed his eyes until the light brown color in his irises nearly faded. I took note that he was still high as a kite from the night before. "Some of them can be in that tanning booth for too many hours at a time and come out looking like--"

"Just stop talking, asshole, alright?" Axel bent his head around Patch and stared down at Reefer from the other end of the table. His blue eyes narrowed as the redness in his face flared up. "You're digging a deeper hole for yourself by spewing all this shit, so just sit the fuck back and shut the fuck up already. Goddamn." Reefer flipped him off before sitting back in his chair and mumbling something under his breath. Axel then turned to me, ignoring the absolute shit out of him, and jerked his chin. "Congratulations, brother." He tightened his jaw and bobbed his head while snaking his fingers through his ear-length brown hair. "I've never known too much about your girl outside of what I used to see with Jeremiah, but she makes a mean potato salad and always looked like she'd make a damn good old lady to me. A definite keeper."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah, damn good old lady, cute as a motherfuckin' button on a suit and probably a whirlwind in the sack, which is why your ass was late today, yeah?" said Tracker. "All this mushy shit is 'nice' for a change, but you know what? I'm still a helluva lot more curious than these other fuckers in here about a few more important things."

I glared. "More important things like what, asshole?"

He looked into my eyes again and rubbed his hand up and down both sides of his jaw. "Like how all this shit even managed to come about in the first place with you two out there." He glanced over at Riggs, whose face appeared both blank and annoyed as hell. "How the hell did this girl known for boning your brother for nine years and wanting him to be the one to finally put that ring on it, who screamed her head off at you last night for the Cherry shit and in front of the rest of us who were here, turn into your wife in less than twenty-four hours of it all? The shit makes no goddamn sense to me whatsoever, brother."

I shrugged and dropped my arms back down on top of the table. "Maybe it doesn't have to make any goddamn sense to you, brother," I said. "Maybe my cock just has that golden touch."

"Nah." He smirked like the devil himself, his beard ticking up along with both corners of his mouth. "Nah, nah, that shit can't be it."

"Whatever the reason, we can discuss it later, alright?" said Riggs. "We've already spent too much time on this shit as it is -- Just be happy that he'll finally be getting sucked off on the regular more than some of the rest of us around here, your ass included." He pointed at Tracker, who sneered. "Now we need to get into the business of the club which is why we're all here in the first place. I talked to Primo this morning as you all know and despite this one here" -- he leaned his head in my direction and sneered -- "parading 'wifey' around on the back of his bike while meeting up with him, everything on both ends looks good thus far."

"What do you mean, 'thus far', Prez?" asked Patch.

"Just what I said," he told him. "There were no fuck ups, no mishandlings. I had to reassure him that Colette was good since his entire purpose for calling was from being paranoid that she would snitch to the cops or a rival club or some shit about the package we handed off to him out there. My guess is that he managed to get into some of his own stuff as soon as he pushed the latest round of six-dollar pussy off his cock this morning and smoked out too much of it, fogging up that already cracked out brain he's got." Reefer and Smack chuckled. "Either way, we won't have to worry about him for a bit, at least not until he's in need of another package to have shipped off to the Mexicans, which I'm pretty damn sure won't be anytime soon. Now we've just gotta deal with what's going on as far as Divide and Conquer is concerned."

A collective groan rumbled throughout the room.

"Jesus Christ." Chute bent forward and rattled his head in aggravation. His brown eyes went as dark as the hair on his head and the tips of his ears went bright red. None of us were in the mood for this shit, especially since the place was becoming nothing more than a money pit for the club.

"You know," said Poker, leaning forward, "I still hate that being the name of our joint." He slid his hand across his bald head and tugged at the piercing in his right ear. "It's never made any sense regarding pussy swinging around on a goddamn pole."

"I've gotta second that one, Prez," said Atom. "We've got half-naked chicks swinging on poles for money, sure. Shit's worthy of jacking off to. But the name itself has never matched what the place has really always been about."

"And I'm thirding it," I chimed in. Tracker turned to me and shoved his brows together. Considering the idea of opening a local strip joint to make extra cash for the club a few months back was partially his from jump, he wasn't all too happy that so many of us had been so dissatisfied with it since day damn one. Pussy we enjoyed; worthless pussy, not all that much. "I get the name in theory and why you and VP wanted to call it that. But unless we are out there on foot, verbally telling random motherfuckers passing by on the street just what lies behind the doors of the place, we get little to no business from it. At least not the kind we need in helping to keep it open."

The other brothers nodded and mumbled to each other.

"Maybe we could even send the girls out there for us," said Atom. "Have one or two to hand out flyers, make themselves more known. Once a motherfucker gets a peek of the TnA they're carrying, we've got a better chance of business picking up."

"And an even bigger one of being locked up considering what some of those girls used to do prior to working for us," replied Riggs. "We may have the cops in our back pocket for the time being, but we can't afford any public fuck ups like that."

"Then the name, brother," said Axel. "That shit has got to fucking go."

"No," said Riggs, his voice firm. "I understand where you're all coming from as far as that goes, alright? But I'm not changing the name of the joint just to satisfy you pricks; at least not yet. Shit's got personal meaning for both me and Tracker, and even Atom despite him not wanting to cop to it; we're attached."

"So how do we tick up business and start making actual money with it?" asked Chute.

Riggs peered. "We get somebody with extensive experience in the pussy business to help us fix what the hell's been broken with it from the inside out."

"And how the hell do we go about doing that?" I asked him, leaning my head aside and cocking my eyebrow while tapping my fingers along the edge of the table. I was curious about his answer despite remaining cautious of what the hell he would say.