Chapter Four
Rivulets of sweat ran down Wes’s spine, wetting his shirt. His muscles burned with each bale of hay he tossed onto the truck.
“How’s it goin’ down there, boys?” Uncle Matthias asked from his perch on the tractor that hauled the hay wagon.
Wes shot his cousins a look. The three of them had always hated haying season but more so as adults who realized their labor could be cut by the purchase of a machine that picked up the bales and shot them onto the wagon.
“Be better if you weren’t such a cheapskate, Dad,” Aiden grumbled.
“You missed one, Aiden.” Matthias grinned as he pointed toward one Aiden hadn’t picked up.
Wes hooked his gloved fingers under the twine of two more bales and hefted them. Walking behind the wagon this way and working this hard at least kept his mind off Stormy.
Or at least for a few minutes at a time.
He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he returned to the club to hear Druid’s response to him was no.
Wes didn’t do no.
Especially when it came to Stormy.
After most of the hay was up and hauled back to the dry shed, Uncle Matthias dismissed them all to shower and rest. Aiden and Judd made a beeline for the house, but Wes hung back.
Matthias jumped off the tractor and faced Wes.
Sundance was the only man he’d suspected to be his father—except Uncle Matthias.
It all fit. They were about the same size, with the same dark hair and angled jaws. Their eyes the same steel gray. One time Wes had actually compared his hands to his uncles and thought they shared the same slightly bent forefinger.
But he couldn’t speak the words.
“What’s up, Wes? Didn’t get enough of hayin’?”
“Well, I do wonder why you don’t purchase better equipment.”
He chuckled. “Maybe I like having my boys around me like old times.”
My boys. Wes was a nephew. Wasn’t he?
“The twins are so busy with their new wives that I miss the hell out of them. And you’re spending more and more time at that club.”
Wes looked down at the grass springing up around his boots. “Yeah.” He’d spend a hell of a lot more time there if he could.
“Your aunt still hates it, I have to tell you,” Matthias said.
Wes nodded. “She tells me every chance she gets.”
“Seems there may be another reason you’re spending so much time away lately. A woman?”
Snapping his head up, Wes met his uncle’s stare. “Not just any woman.”
Matthias’s smile cut across his cheek in exactly the same way Wes’s did. Nature or nurture? He had no fucking idea and wasn’t ready to ask outright.
His uncle leaned against the tractor. “So this woman… I’m guessing she’s worth your time.”
“Oh yeah.”
“I’m sensing there’s a problem, though.”
He always was good at rooting out troubles in him. As a kid, Wes rarely had to say what was on his mind before his uncle would bring it out in the open, much to Wes’s relief.
“Bikers are close people. The Bighorns are the same. They don’t mind me coming around, but they don’t want me to spend time with this woman either.”
“What’s her name?”
“Stormy.”
Matthias nodded. “Women named after seasons or acts of God can run you around good, believe me.” He looked toward the house and the woman named Winter he’d spent a lifetime with.
“Her father’s trying to stand in the way,” Wes said.
“Daddies get protective of their daughters. Seen it with my own father when my sisters started dating.”
“This is different. It’s more old-fashioned than that. Like I don’t belong to their society, so his daughter can’t go outside the group.”
“Does he have a man picked out for her already?”
Now that didn’t sit well with Wes. He clenched his jaw—and his fists. “Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t put it past him.” He racked his brain for anybody he’d seen showing Stormy interest but could come up with no one.
“So you need to become one of them. Is that what you want?”
“I enjoy it, but I’d rather be at Eagle Crest.”
He nodded. “So you have to show him that his daughter can have a life outside the club.”
“No idea how to do that. Last time I took her on a ride, the guys surrounded my bike and forced us back.”
“Don’t like the sounds of that, but I trust you can handle yourself.”
Wes nodded.
“Seems to me you have to get her away for a while and make her happy outside the club.”
Wes met his uncle’s—maybe his father’s—stare. “Bring her here?”
Matthias clapped him on the shoulder and they started toward the house and cool glasses of iced tea. “I’m sure Judd’ll thank you for bringing someone new around to get your aunt’s mind off something besides Cecily’s waistband. C’mon, son. Let’s go inside and cool off.”
Wes gave him a light punch on the arm. “Doesn’t look as if you even broke a sweat.”
His uncle leveled his gaze at him. “That’s what I’ve got strong boys for.”
* * * * *
“C’mon, Dirty.” Druid grabbed his shoulder on his way to the door.
Alarms went off in his head but he got up and followed. Outside, two men flanked him, drawing weapons.
Dirty’s pulse slowed. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a situation with armed men who disliked him. He’d come out alive then and he would now. Too bad he’d be taking out a few Bighorns in the process—that surely wouldn’t get him closer to being on their good side and seeing more of Stormy.
“What is this? My sidearm’s in my saddlebag.”
“You won’t need it. You can use mine.” Druid slapped him on the back, but he didn’t feel a hint of brotherhood in that touch. Was it pistols at dawn then? Or in this case pistols in midafternoon?
His mind went through the motions of disarming the men around him and incapacitating them. An elbow jab, knee to the balls, arm twisted upward to dislocate.
Nope—he wasn’t dying today.
They crossed the yard as a group and rounded the garage where the bikes were stored. When he spotted Sundance and some of the others setting up targets, Wes almost laughed.
Druid shot him a glance, probably hoping to see him discomposed. Wes’s years of hiding his emotions served him well now. He gave him a bland look in return.
“Let’s see if you can shoot, Dirty.” Druid held out a .44 Special on his hand. Too easy—all the Roshannons preferred a .44.
He accepted the weapon with a nod and aimed it away and to the ground as he checked the chamber. Locked and loaded. He waited till the Bighorns had the targets set to go and moved into position behind him.
“Let’s see what you can do.” Sundance sounded much less menacing than Druid. Then again, Wes and Sundance had found common ground from the start with his mother.
Wes took aim at the first target, a human figure with the rings on the chest and one on the forehead.
He squeezed off a shot and it hit where the eye would be.
Druid laughed. “He missed.”
Wes gave him a crooked smile then directed another shot that punched through the target, creating a second eye. Then a nose. Finally, he shot one through the heart and one through the head.
Silence descended over the group and then Sundance said, “The boy can shoot.”
Several chuckles sounded. Wes extended the weapon to Druid and nodded his thanks.
He started walking back to the club, but Druid stepped in front of him. “Now you need to know how I shoot.”
“Why would I care about that?” He met the man’s gaze.
“Don’t let him scare you off, Dirty,” Sundance said.
Wes hitched a thumb in his jeans pocket and watched as Druid reloaded and fired a perfect group through the heart of the human target. The ragged paper flapped in the mountain breeze.
When Druid turned and walked back inside without a word, Wes gave a low laugh. If he thought that was going to scare him off seeing Stormy, he didn’t know anything about a man’s determination.
Sundance grinned. “You passed the test, son.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, you can shoot like a pro and didn’t flinch when Druid challenged you. Other men haven’t done so well.”
“This is some sort of test to win his daughter?”
“No. Druid won’t let you have her that easily if at all. But he might not growl as much when you look at her now.”
Wes’s lips tipped into a crooked smile. The guys continued with practice, but Sundance took him back into the club. When Wes saw what was going on in the main room, his instinct was to stop and look more closely. His years of hunting down criminals wasn’t easily forgotten.
And the Bighorns were showing him how they really liked to party. The black duffle was set atop a table, the zipper open to reveal baggie after baggie of weed and prescription drugs.
Wes had suspected they were buying, dealing or both. But the fact that they were letting him see had to be another test.
He glanced up to see Druid watching him. Wes gave a chin nod to acknowledge him and moved to the table where he’d been sitting earlier staring at Stormy. Only she wasn’t in the room—none of the women were. Did they ask them to leave when they got out the duffle?
Druid circled behind the bar and came out with two bottles of tequila. Fuck, Wes hated drinking games, but it seemed this might be another test.
He tried not to let out the sigh he was holding in. One thing he’d learned early in adulthood was that he was big enough to hold his liquor. If they were having a drink-you-under-the-table pissing contest, Wes would win hands down.
But besting Stormy’s father at this wouldn’t be a win for him any way he looked at it.
With a clank, Druid set a bottle before Wes. The guys zipped the bag and put it away again. Then they gathered around the table as Druid took a seat opposite Wes. He opened his own bottle and eyed Wes.
“I’m a beer man really.”
Druid twisted his lips. “Beer’s for pussies.”
“Fine. How much are we drinking?” Wes picked up his bottle. He’d have a sour stomach and a hell of a headache tomorrow but there didn’t seem to be any other course. If he walked away from Druid’s challenge, the man would keep trying to best him.
“We drink till you pass out.”
Wes nodded and raised the bottle to his lips. Before he took a sip, he lowered it and eyed Druid. “I don’t think your daughter needs a man who can hold his liquor. I’d say having a man who can support and protect her is better.”
Sundance’s eagle eyes sharpened.
“Who said anything about my daughter?” Druid glared.
Wes glanced at the door, expecting to see Stormy there but she wasn’t. He upended the bottle and swallowed the burning drink with smooth gulps.
When he set the bottle down again, it was one-third lighter. He waited while Druid did the same and they stared at each other. The liquor didn’t take effect quickly, as Wes knew it wouldn’t. He was still clear-eyed and clear-headed when Druid’s speech began to slur.
“S’again,” he said.
Resigned, Wes drank. Half an hour later, he was still upright and Druid listing to the left like a ship about to sink. Someone produced a knife and set it on the table between them.
Wes looked up, feeling hazier than usual but knowing if he had to get up and fight his way out of here, he could. “Are we carving our names in the table next?”
One guy laughed. “Wouldn’t be fair—Druid’s name has more letters.”
“I see your point,” Wes said dryly.
“Five finger fillet,” the guy said.
Great. Now they wanted him to sacrifice a finger to prove himself. The knife game where you stabbed the table between your outstretched fingers wasn’t going to end well.
Wes looked at Druid. “Is this really necessary?”
“Yesss.”
Movement in the doorway drew Wes’s attention and he barely realized what Stormy was doing until she plopped into his lap.
Her father didn’t register what was happening at first, a testament to how the alcohol affected him. But Wes planted a hand on Stormy’s side as she cuddled closer, her thigh riding close to his crotch, now bulging at the first feel of her weight on his lap.
She leaned in to whisper, “I can’t let you lose a finger. When Dad drinks, there’s no winning.”
Wes reached up to brush the hair from her temple and then placed his mouth against her ear. “I need all my fingers to stroke your pussy.”
A shiver ran through her and she steadied herself with a hand on his chest.
Finally, Druid’s mind caught up to the situation. “That’s my daughter. Get your hands off her!”
Stormy didn’t move. “Dad, why don’t you sleep it off?” She looked past him to the doorway where two women stood as if waiting for her cue. They came forward and each cozied up to Druid. In seconds, they were fawning over him and he forgot all about a drunken game of five finger fillet and his daughter being in the lap of a man he didn’t want her with.
Stormy was resourceful, he’d give her that.
Sundance jerked his head toward the office off the main room. “Can I talk to you, Dirty?”
Reluctantly, he let go of Stormy, though he couldn’t resist letting his hand linger on her hip as she got up.
Stormy threw him a concerned look as he followed their president. An office with a table large enough to seat eight members. The ruling body of the Bighorns.
The duffle sat on the table. Wes stared at it.
“I’m not going to ask you to make a run, Dirty.”
He met Sundance’s stare. “You know what happened to my mother.” She’d OD’d on sleeping pills the Bighorns had probably provided to her.
He nodded. “And I was damn sorry for it.” He lifted the bag to reveal two patches on the table. A new recruit and the arching insignia of the Bighorns.
Wes’s chest constricted. This meant…
“They’re yours, son. If you want them,” Sundance said without hesitation.
Wes twitched to life. “I never expected it.” He reached for the patches, sliding them across the shiny tabletop with two fingers.
“I know you probably thought Druid was just testing you for rights to his daughter.”
Wes chuckled. “That’s true.”
“Over the past few weeks you’ve shown us that you’ll be an asset to the Bighorns. That is if you want to become a member.”
“I do,” he said at once. Aunt Winter would hate it, but he had no intention of living any differently than he did now. Only having more time with Stormy.
“You’ve been helpful and proven yourself as loyal, though we got off in a bumpy way. We like having you around.”
“I appreciate that.”
Sundance extended a hand, which Wes shook. “I have to say I’m mighty fond of Stormy. Look at her like a favorite niece. I only want what’s best for her.”
Wes stiffened, on alert, prepared to be mowed down by Sundance as well.
But Sundance smiled. “If you’re patched in, Druid won’t have as many reasons to shoot you down.”
A smile stretched Wes’s mouth. “Now that I appreciate, Sundance. Very much.”
“You’re welcome. Now,” he eyed Wes, “you know there’s a run tonight and we don’t leave our club or ladies without protection. Druid’s down for the count, I’d say, and that only leaves you to look out for what belongs to us. I’m asking you to stay here and see that it happens.”
“I’m your guy.”
“I know you are. Just make sure come morning, there aren’t any little baby Dirtys left behind, all right?”
At that, he laughed. “Got it.”
As the president gestured for Wes to leave his office first, he couldn’t help but feel a kinship toward the man he’d once suspected was his father. He was handing him so much—trust, an honored place among them and his favorite “niece” all in one fucking awesome package.
Wes knew just how to celebrate such a sweet victory.
* * * * *
Stormy made a sound of surrender, and he didn’t hesitate to pick her up and carry her into her room, still kissing her. She dug her fingers into his shoulders as he kicked the door shut, boot heel slamming off the wood with a cracking sound.
“Don’t stop, Dirty.”
His chest tightened with something more than lust. He couldn’t afford to feel anything for a woman who didn’t even know his real name, but he had no control over that sensation of warm, bubbling happiness.
He set her on her feet and they stared at each other.
“What did Sundance say to you?”
He shook his head. “Club business.”
“I think you’re growing on the Bighorns.”
“It’s the new recruit patch.” As soon as Stormy had seen the patches, she’d whisked his cut away to the kitchen and later it was returned to him with the patches stitched on.
“I don’t think that’s the only reason.” She slapped at him, but the abuse soon turned to murmured sighs as he cupped her breast, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the distended tip.
She hurled her arms around his neck, yanking him down to kiss him with a passion she’d never felt before. Tongues twirling, they tore at each other’s clothes. She took off his cut with a reverence a Bighorn had for the sacred leather and patches he’d been given tonight in a short ceremony before the guys had left on their run.
He stripped her top overhead and her bra followed.
The instant her full breasts bounced free, he dipped his head to one, sucking the tip into his mouth. She moaned and slid her arms into the warm leather she’d just taken off him. He rolled his tongue around her nipple until it strained and then he grazed it with his teeth.
“God, yes. Your mouth feels so good, Dirty.” She shimmied again, pulling on his leather cut.
“Fuck, you look gorgeous. The black leather against your pale skin makes me ache. God help me. I don’t know if I can hold back,” he rumbled.
“I’m not asking you to.” She gripped the sides of the vest and parted it open for him to see her breasts.
He reached between his shoulder blades and pulled his shirt overhead. Her gaze danced over his chest. She stepped up to him and rested a hand in the center. “I love that you have chest hair. So manly.”
He gripped her wrist and guided it down the planes of his abs to the bulge in his jeans. He pressed her hand harder to his throbbing erection and stared into her eyes. “Do you love this too, baby?”
“You know I do.”
“Then get on your knees and suck it. Suck my cock while wearing my cut.”
A spear of desire stabbed between her thighs as she sank to her knees before him. A dizzy wave of need overwhelmed her.
He grated out, “Unbuckle my belt and my jeans.”
She worked over his fly and he fixed his gaze on her. She pulled his cock free and leaned in to skim the tip of his hard cock with her tongue. She flashed a look at his face to see his stare on her, eyes dark.
She swirled her tongue around and around, easing down the length until she had all of him in her mouth. Right to the root.
“Fucking hell,” he growled.
Humming in response, she ran her lips up and down his hard length, pausing to suck the head with a soft pull of her lips, before repeating her explorations. He grunted and tensed, leaving only a primal beast who was putty in her hands.
She loved the power of that far too much.
As she continued to retrace the path from root to slit, he held his breath. She pushed his jeans and boxers down to his knees and sank her nails into his ass to pull him nearer. He watched her face as she brushed her lips against the trim hair at the base of his cock.
“Fuck.”
She withdrew on his cock so only the tip was between her lips, clamped softly as she stroked her tongue over the tip. Pre-cum oozed from him, and she moaned.
Then she drew back, parting her lips so he could see the cum stretching between his body and her tongue.
“My God.” He cupped her face and pulled her back down on him. “Look at me.”
She flicked her gaze up to find the depths of his eyes burning with need.
“Bite down,” he ordered, his voice sounding like grit.
Her eyes opened wider.
“Not too hard. Just use your teeth.”
She’d never done such a thing. She wasn’t that experienced in the first place, but what Dirty was asking wasn’t typical either.
She wanted to give him everything he asked for and more.
She wrapped her fist around his cock at the base and opened wide to show him her teeth. When she grazed the head of his cock with them, he threw his head back on a groan. She ran her teeth down to the middle of his shaft and then back up. She didn’t need to ask to know he liked what she was doing.
His legs shook with the effort to remain standing. “Fuck, don’t stop what you’re doing. It makes me want to give you my cut and helmet both.” Each a symbol of what she meant to him.
As she moved back to the head, he urged her in a low voice to bite down again. She barely grazed him when he jerked away.
“Enough.” He grabbed her by the hair, wound it around his fist and urged her to her feet.
Her nipples couldn’t get any harder. She’d liked what he’d asked her to do. Liked his rough treatment of her too.
“I bet you’re soaked for me, aren’t you?”
She nodded, panting hard.
“Pull your pants down and let me see.”
With another flash of her eyes, she stripped off her boots, socks, jeans and finally her panties. When she stood before him wearing only his leather and patches, her breaths came too fast.
“Pull your pussy open for me to see how wet you are.”
“Oh my God, Dirty,” she whispered on almost a plea.
He settled his gaze on her face. “Now.”
Sliding her hands down to her thighs, she used her fingertips to pull her outer lips open. Revealing her slippery clit and inner folds.
“The road to heaven and hell,” he muttered.
He picked her up and tossed her on his bed. She bounced only once before he pinned her thighs open and sank his tongue deep into her pussy.
A cry left her, followed by a long, throaty moan. He lapped in and out and then up and down her seam, just skimming her clit enough to drive her crazy.
“You liked sucking my cock, didn’t you?” he asked between flips of his tongue.
“Ahhhh. Yes, Dirty.”
“And did you like biting me?”
She trembled. “Yesss.”
“You want to do it again, don’t you?”
“Please.”
“Just like you want me sucking your clit, but I won’t.” He ran his rough five o’clock shadow over her sensitive inner thigh.
“Please, Dirty. Right there. Oh God.”
He pulled his tongue away from her clit again before she could enjoy it too much. She squirmed in his grip, trying to get where she wanted him most.
He sank his tongue into her wetness again and again. She was on fire for him.
When she bucked upward, he finally gave her what she asked for—he sucked her hard pearl into his mouth and drew on it with soft, insistent pulls.
It took her three point two seconds to scream his name. Another millisecond to explode in a half dozen pulsations.
Need swept her upward on the wave of her release and she had no conscious knowledge of him donning a condom, or moving over her and sinking his throbbing cock into her squeezing tight pussy until he was buried inside.
She gasped and looked into his eyes. “Move, Dirty,” she rasped.
He braced himself over her and did five slow, grinding pushups. Sinking deeper with each pass. Her pussy clenched as that familiar sensation of heat about to rush upward.
He slid his hands beneath her ass and angled her just right. Another scream ripped from her as she squeezed him with her inner muscles. His movements grew disjointed and she knew he was losing it.
The first jet that left him tore a growl from his throat. The next three made her see stars again and by the sixth spurt, he collapsed atop her. His lips found hers and they shared a slow, lingering kiss.
Fuck, she was in so much trouble.
It didn’t stop her from kissing him back with all the pent-up passion she was feeling. Slow passes of their tongues soon turned into hungrier, eager kisses and she straddled him to give herself two more orgasms.
When he rolled her over and took her again, something inside her heart broke open.
On the heels of that thought was, Hell, now what?