Matt

 

Body Canvas was a narrow shop that was set up like a foyer with a hallway at the end stuck onto the back as an afterthought. There was more to it than that, but you wouldn’t know it if you didn’t have the inside scoop. The walls had been painted black, but were half covered by prints and photos with examples of our work on them. Roses were the theme, but there were skulls, crosses, Celtic crap, and even photo realistic faces. We did just about anything and the best of it was on display.

 

The business was legit, but the people who ran it, myself included, weren’t. At least not always. We needed a place to run the money through, clean it up before it made the rounds. Having a legitimate business in place helped out with that. Most of what we did was legal, but there wasn’t a soul out there dumb enough to believe that we didn’t get a little side cash, too.

 

“That punk ass doesn’t have a peg leg to stand on,” William growled, folding his arms over his broad chest. He was wearing only a leather vest, no shirt beneath, and looked the part of a Mad Max road warrior. He was my right hand because he was loyal and intimidating as hell.

 

I valued that in my lieutenants.

 

We were seated in the very back of Body Canvas, our chairs anything from milk crates to old tattoo chairs. I’d chosen to stand because I wanted people to know I was in charge. That was what this meeting was all about: authority. It seemed stupid to have to have a pissing contest as a grown man with a bunch of other grown men, but ultimately that was part of the deal. I ran a business that depended on the loyalty of my men. And if that meant I had to stomp around a little bit and make some noise so they remembered who was in charge, I didn’t have a problem with that.

 

And when they still didn’t listen? I’d bust some heads.

 

“Mathis doesn’t need a peg leg,” Buck countered from my right. He was seated on one of the adjustable stools, straddling it like a little kid. He was the youngest of my lieutenants at only eighteen years old. He’d be nineteen at the end of the year, and if he’d still been in high school, I probably wouldn’t have kept him around. But he was a hard kid already and he’d attached himself to me like a cold sore. Even if I got rid of him once, he’d come back at the first, most inconvenient moment he could.

 

William growled at Buck, but the kid ignored him like he wasn’t afraid, which was pretty impressive since William was about five inches taller and looked like a pro wrestler. “Mathis just needs to be convincing, and since god didn’t see fit to bless him with good looks, he gave him the gift of fucking others in the ass. Otherwise known as being a sneaky but convincing bastard.”

 

Across the way, Daniel was leaning back against the tattoo chair, the old one he’d spray painted with neon colors that made it look like a piece of modern art—or trash. Either way. With his arms folded behind his head, he wore a lazy smile on his mustached face, like he wasn’t interested or concerned about any of this. Which was a load of bullshit, but he never liked to appear too invested in anything.

 

“Let him weasel his way into whoever’s bed he wants,” Daniel told the group easily, tone light. “He can whisper them sweet nothings until he’s blue in the face. I say let him go so we can find the rats and out them. Anyone who ain’t with us don’t belong to the Reaper.”

 

I was inclined to agree with Daniel, which was a rarity. The Reaper’s Thorns were mine and I ruled them with an iron fist. I had to after the retirement of Mr. Jenkins. He’d been a good leader, for the most part, but he’d been sloppy. Too loose with the boys, too lenient when they stepped out of line. It had led to dissention in the ranks, to factions within that left me with half the club poised to overthrow me, while the other half cowered in fear of what I would do if they didn’t listen.

 

It was a hard way to do business. “We need the numbers. And we need the loyalty,” I finally told the group.

 

James was the only one who hadn’t tossed his two cents in and I knew he was waiting on something. He was a big man, but quiet. When he did speak, he meant every word and you’d best listen, because he was probably bestowing worthwhile pearls of wisdom on you.

 

The group fell silent, mulling over the situation. I didn’t like the sense that I was losing a grip on my boys, but I didn’t know what else to do about it. I’d started as many fights as I’d broken up, and I was about ready to kill that little snake Mathis if I didn’t think I’d have to take half my men on to do it.

 

Finally, James leaned forward on his milk crate and fixed me with a piercing stare. “You gotta be the boss, Boss,” he told me seriously.

 

I frowned at him. “I am the boss.” My tone was cool, challenging.

 

He held up his scarred hands, showing he meant no offense. “Yes, you’re the boss, but you’re not Mr. Jenkins.”

 

For a moment, it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. All of my lieutenants seemed to be holding their breath, waiting to see what I was going to do or say. A big part of me wanted to walk over to James and punch him until he bled out on the black-and-white checkered floor. I didn’t take insolence well, and my first reaction was always violence. It was quick and effective; nobody argued with violence.

 

But I resisted the urge because this was James and he was telling me what everyone else was too scared to tell me. It made me respect him enough to keep my temper in check.

 

Just barely.

 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

 

The room seemed to ease a little now that they’d all realized I wasn’t going to start a vicious fight with one of their ranks. Even James’s shoulders relaxed fractionally, telling me he’d been half expecting it.

 

“I mean Jenkins was a certain kind of man,” James explained carefully, clearly picking his words to give the most impact and the least insult. “Maybe he was a little soft on the boys, but he was also a good man, a family man.”

 

I raised an eyebrow at him. “A family man?” I snorted. “What? Are you telling me I need to go out and knock some chick up and start a family for the boys to accept me?”

 

James shrugged his shoulders, then offered me a crooked smile. “Kind of. At least the knocking her up part would be fun.”

 

The others laughed a little at that, though still clearly nervous. I cracked a smile, but it was forced. A family? Was he nuts? Sure, I’d considered it. Not in the context of the club, but in my own personal sphere of existence. A pretty little wife waiting for me at home, someone to bang every night and kiss on the cheek every morning. Maybe a kid or two who I could teach about baseball and motorcycles and whatever else I thought was important. Hell, maybe we’d even get a damn dog.

 

But the problem with all of that was that I wasn’t the kind of man who could do that crap. I was Matt Samuels, leader of The Reaper’s Thorns, known for my ruthlessness, my iron grip, and my temper. What sort of asshole thought a man like that should have a white picket fence and a bun in the oven?

 

“You’re out of your mind, James,” I finally said, and the laughter died. I glanced around the semi-circle of men, their faces all wearing matching expressions that were grim and unfortunate. It wasn’t until I looked at each of them in quick succession that I realized that these men were in agreement on this crazy proclamation. I looked down at Buck and found that even he seemed to think so. “Seriously?” I asked him, disbelieving.

 

He winced a little at being singled out, then shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I mean, the man’s got a point. Jenkins had that cute little girl with the pigtails—the guys were crazy about her! You see all these big, burly bikers, tougher than nails, and then this little girl asks them for a tea party and you know they’ll all sit there with her damn teddy bears and play pretend with her anyway. That’s loyalty there.”

 

They others chuckled at that, but I considered what he’d just said seriously. It was true. Jenkins’ little girl, Alice, had been an angelic little monster that made grown men dressed in leather and covered with tattoos crumple beneath her big blue eyes. It had been both adorable and terrifying.

 

Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to rule through my daughter’s whim. Violence had always been effective for me.

 

“So you’re saying I need a six-year-old little girl to run this club?”

 

It was Daniel who spoke up next, shocking us all by sitting up and waving off my words like they were annoying mosquitos. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one wants you to go and adopt some orphaned girl. But they’re saying they want you to show you’ve got a softer side. That you’ve got some consistency, some roots. They want you to be their boss and their dad.” He shrugged, then grinned at me. “Apparently, riders all have daddy issues.”

 

I let out a sigh and shook my head. It was one thing to have James or any single lieutenant tell me that I should settle down, but when everyone was going over the same idea like it was the best one they’d heard all night? That was different. That gave more weight to James’s suggestion.

 

“So, I’m supposed to settle down,” I said evenly, keeping my temper in check because I knew it wasn’t going to win me any ground tonight.

 

The others considered it, then one by one ended up nodding their heads in agreement. Even William, which was surprising. He wasn’t a big family man himself and I wouldn’t have pegged him as appreciating one in charge. Still, despite his bulky, body guard type frame, he wasn’t an idiot. He thought things through better than most.

 

Buck looked up at me and said, “Maybe if you just found some hot chick, you know? One you could stick with and have at home. One you could show off at barbecues and shit like that.” He shrugged. “You know, give you the look of someone who’s got things in order.”

 

I felt the intense urge to roll my eyes at his suggestion. Having an eighteen-year-old boy tell me I should settle down with some chick for the sake of appearances was a little ridiculous. But the fact of the matter was that I was starting to think he and the rest of them were right.

 

But it was a more complicated suggestion than they realized.

 

Who the hell was I supposed to settle down with? Most of the women in the club, by nature of the club, were already attached to riders. Our policy on females in the group was more lenient than most clubs out there, but fact was that I needed to know that any woman in the group could hold her own, and I didn’t have faith in most of them.

 

Which meant the three around who were available were Isabel, Elisabeth, and Sierra. None of which I had any interest in cuddling up with.

 

Isabel slept with anything she could wrap her legs around. Elisabeth was a lesbian. And Sierra…well, Sierra was such a bitch that I only called on her when I wanted to pick a fight with someone.

 

No, not exactly candidates to make me look more like a family man.

 

I could, of course, look beyond the confines of the club. There were women out there who liked to be attached to a bad boy, but most of them weren’t really interested in lingering—and most of them I didn’t want to stay anyhow. Finding a girl I wanted to fuck and whose company didn’t drive me up the walls was a feat that I’d yet to accomplish.

 

Frustrated, I ran my hand through my hair. I was tired of thinking about this crap. I needed to let out a little steam. I needed time to think this over—and to come up with an alternate plan, because I had a feeling this one wasn’t going to work.

 

I wasn’t the settling down type, whatever fleeting fantasies I might have had.

 

I was the kind of man fathers warned their daughters about. I was the kind of man who slipped between the sheets and rocked a woman’s world, then left her in the morning. I was the kind of man who took what he wanted and fuck all the rest.

 

Not the kind of man any woman wanted to settle down with.

 

Letting out a whoosh of air, I finally glanced around at my men—my lieutenants and, for the most part, my friends. “All right. I’ll consider it. And while I’m considering it, I think we all need to go and have a couple of beers.”

 

The others agreed instantly, including Buck. But it was fine. Where we were going, no one was going to card him.

 

We left Body Canvas through the backdoor, heading into the small fenced-in parking lot that was for employees only. Which actually meant members of The Reaper’s Thorns motorcycle club. I mounted my Harley and revved it up. When the other bikes joined in the sound, I took off, leading the way towards the outskirts of Mount Rose where the seedy little bar known as No Man’s Land clung to the edge of society by the skin of its teeth and the generosity of assholes like us.

 

***

 

No Man’s Land was crowded. It was a Friday, so no surprise. Most of the less than wholesome characters in Mount Rose partied at No Man’s Land on the weekend. It was when they got to strip off their work suits, put up their good boy pants, and trade them in for the leather and roughness that wasn’t appreciated in the everyday lives of good, honest, god fearing townsfolk. A big joke. Mount Rose, like any other town—growing quickly to the title of city—had its underbelly, despite the dear mayor’s best attempts.

 

The bar was settled along a backwoods road that only had one measly sign half faded and scraped off. The bar itself looked almost like a log cabin on the outside with plain wooden panels for the walls and a porch with railing that was always knocked off and usually left in a pile off to the side when the owners got tired of putting it back up. The place looked ready to fall apart at any minute, but it was one of the few places in Mount Rose that allowed for drinking until three and fighting at all hours.

 

So long as you took it outside.

 

The bouncer tonight was Big Mike who had about three hundred pounds too much on his tall frame and liked to sit by the door like he didn’t give a fuck what was happening.

 

Which everyone believed until the first time he stepped between two assholes trying to pummel each other and lifted them up like they were made of papier-mâché. He tossed them outside and told them to get along inside or duke it out outside. He didn’t care which.

 

After that, people made sure to be extra polite to Big Mike.

 

I gave him a nod, which he returned, then led my boys inside to a table next to the bar and along the wall. It was as rickety as the rest of the place and half sticky with spilled alcohol, but you just accepted that about this place. The girls who worked here did their best to keep it picked up, but they were also fending off rowdy, drunk assholes and trying to keep their asses out of the hands of those they didn’t want.

 

I’d never had one brush my hand away before.

 

A pretty redheaded waitress stopped by, one I’d seen before and had a roll in the hay with. She took our orders, then winked at me. I considered taking her to bed with me, though I didn’t like going back to the same woman more than a time or two. It got them to thinking we were a more permanent establishment than we were, and I was an asshole, but I wasn’t a dick. I didn’t like leading anyone on about anything.

 

Still, I was supposed to be considering a long-term affair with a woman. I just didn’t think the fiery little redhead in the Daisy Dukes was the kind of woman anyone had in mind for that.

 

“Hey, so, how well do you know her?” Buck asked as she walked away, his eyes riveted to her plump ass.

 

I rolled my eyes. “I know she likes a little tongue beforehand. And that she’s easy. So go on before someone else bites off a piece of that tonight.”

 

Buck did a small fist pump, reminding me he was definitely still a kid, then bounded towards the waitress. I watched them just long enough to see him waggle his eyebrows at her and her lean forward until her heavy breasts were on the counter top. He’d get into her pants tonight, I was sure of it, and it didn’t bother me in the slightest.

 

Definitely not long-term material if I don’t even care who else she sleeps with, I thought as we waited on our beers.

 

It didn’t take long for Buck to come bounding back. I looked at his hands, which were full of several beers.

 

“Wow, not only did she get an eighteen-year-old to fuck tonight, but she got you to do her job for free, too,” commented William, laughing at the glazed expression on Buck’s face.

 

The younger man made a face. “Shut up. I’m almost nineteen.” But he didn’t argue about getting laid or doing her job, just set the beers down in front of us. We talked a little after that, mostly joking about Buck’s interest in older women.

 

“Hey! Age is just a number!” he’d tell us whenever we brought it up.

 

I wasn’t sure about that. That redhead was close to my age and he was six years younger than I was, so I thought that was a bit of a gap. Still, pussy was pussy and I doubted they were going to get married over it, so I didn’t stress it. He could make his own fumbling mistakes and learn from them easily enough.

 

We drank and laughed, but I was muted. I was still worked up over the family man crap, not to mention Mathis’s determination to stir up trouble in my club. The beer wasn’t doing much to soothe my frayed nerves and I realized that I was either going to have to beat the crap out of someone or fuck a woman as hard and fast as she’d let me. Either would be fine at this point.

 

My gaze traveled over the faces in the bar, lingering now and again on a pretty one. I’d assess her heavy makeup, then move on to her body. I’d look over her breasts—were they big? Perky? Real? —then her ass and hips. Guys were so focused on the tits that they forgot how important the hips were. Something to grab onto while you were thrusting. But every time, I let my gaze shift to the next woman. I couldn’t seem to find anything that caught my eye tonight, and maybe I wasn’t really looking. A woman wasn’t the thing that I absolutely needed tonight, but she could fill in that burning need to do something. Violence or sex, I needed one of the two tonight, and if I couldn’t settle on a woman, I’d have to go with the violence, which meant picking a fight with one of the mean bastards in the bar tonight.

 

Because that’s a bright idea, I thought to myself.

 

My gaze continued along until I saw the door open and Big Mike wave in a group of people that couldn’t possibly be old enough to be in here. They looked like they could sit in the same classroom as Buck and be perfectly okay.

 

I would have just glanced right over them and moved on except that I caught a quick view of lovely cleavage that was ringed in a hot pink bra. I didn’t know what it was about that particular pair of tits that caught my eye, but when someone crossed over them to block my view, I found myself straining to see them again. The figure moved and I caught sight of those lovely breasts. They were perky and large, curved in just the right way to tell me that they were young and full, but also real. And they also happened to be attached to a complete knock out.

 

She was wearing a black shirt that was tight enough to be a second skin and was torn strategically enough that I figured she’d bought it that way. It had rhinestones on the front of it, telling me that she wasn’t as hard as she wanted to be. The tears exposed the edges of her hot pink bra as well as her midriff, a smooth expanse of silky pale flesh. The shirt stopped just above her belly button, and her jeans—black and definitely ripped deliberately and probably expensive as hell—were slung low and tight on her hips. The result was what looked like miles of sweet, slender flesh.

 

At first I thought she was fairly tall for a woman, but then I noticed the little ankle boots she was wearing, black and with heels so high and thin I was sort of amazed she could walk at all without stumbling instantly. But she seemed comfortable in them, confident even. Like they gave her a little extra power.

 

They certainly did a little something extra to the growing bulge in my tight leather pants.

 

Her blonde hair was thick and wild, but like everything else on her, it was well maintained and very obviously deliberate. I saw her pink tongue pop out of her mouth and slide over her bright cherry red lips, full and sultry.

 

When my gaze finally reached her bright blue eyes, I let myself take in the whole of her. I groaned.

 

The woman was barely a woman. She could have been eighteen, or even younger, and it made me hesitate for half a second. If she was still in high school, she was off limits, but the way her curves called to me…

 

I’d ask if she was eighteen, I promised myself. I’d sneak a peek at her ID. Whatever. The way her body was put together was like a godsend, and it was more than I could just walk away from.

 

“Who is that?” I heard Daniel ask from across the table, leaning over slightly so he could be heard over the loud music with indiscernible lyrics.

 

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I told him, then tore my eyes from her long enough to fix him with a warning glare. “But she’s mine tonight.”