Tanner
I wake up bathed in sunlight. The room seems familiar; the bed feels familiar; but it looks different.
The curtains are pushed open wide, letting in the mid-morning sun from the east. The walls, once a rich golden color, are now off-white. There are no pictures on the wall. I look around and there is the familiar bathroom. This is Griz’s room, but with a clean slate.
I reach up and feel a bandage on my head, scrapes on my face. My hands are covered in scrapes, too. I swallow, feeling constricted. The last few days start to come back to me—Spike attacking me, Kit attacking me. Spike again.
“I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you,” Griz says.
I jump at the sound of his voice. I thought I was alone, but he’s sitting at the foot of the bed, head in his hands. I hadn’t even noticed him there until he spoke.
“It’s not your fault,” I say, my voice thick with sleep, scratchy. I clear my throat and wince at the pain.
“You have a concussion,” he says. “We’ve had to wake you every couple of hours to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m okay,” I say quickly. “How long have I been out?”
“Two days,” he says, sighing heavily. “I was …”
“Concerned?” I try to finish for him.
“Beside myself with worry,” he says. He grimaces, as if admitting this hurts him. “I can’t … this might surprise you, Tanner, but I do have feelings.”
“It doesn’t,” I answer. “I knew there was a beating heart under all that … crankiness.”
His lips quirk, an almost-smile. “Crankiness?”
“You’re kind of a cranky old fart for a young dude,” I say, smirking.
He stands and comes to my side. “You’re asking for it, woman,” he says. “I warned you about talking back to me.”
“Bring it on, Ebenezer Scrooge,” I say, giggling as he tosses his big body up onto the bed next to me.
“If you weren’t already beat to shit, I’d bend you over my knee, young’un,” he says, still trying desperately not to smile.
“Was that a joke, David Grisham?”
“No.”
I roll to my side. “I think it was.”
“Nope,” he says. “I don’t joke around about punishment.”
“Oh?” I ask innocently. “So this is real punishment we’re discussing? I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”
“Just you wait,” he says with a huff of a laugh. He turns to his side, facing me, his face going serious. “Tanner, I … I need to talk to you. Kit is dead. Spike is dead. Your father wants to absorb Chained Angels into the Grave Robbers club. I’d be his vice president. It feels like defeat.”
“Then don’t do it,” I say. “Maybe there’s another way.”
“It’s the safest thing to do,” I say. “For you. For me. For the club.”
I start to speak, to tell him I believe in him. I want him to know that there is at least one person who believes in what he’s built here. He seems to read my mind though, shaking his head, reaching out to pull me closer.
Griz kisses me then, slow and long and deep. It makes something tense unspool inside of me. This feels like home, being with him. I’m glad to be back, even in the midst of all this turmoil.
I pull away, grinning shyly, covering my mouth. “I should brush my teeth,” I say from behind my hand.
“Take your time,” he says, flopping onto his back.
I spend time cleaning up, behind closed doors. I look at my reflection in the mirror, barely recognizing the woman I see. I’ve lost a few pounds, but I’ve always been thin. It’s not that I look so very different, I guess. It’s just that this woman is covered in scratches and bruises—she’s seen something in this past week. She’s grown up a bit, seen some of the things her father tried to shelter her from seeing.
I never thought much about what I’d want for my own life. Something I haven’t told Griz is that I actually went to community college, got a degree in communication. I had a little job working in the public relations department at my mom’s company. It was nothing serious, and certainly nothing I loved.
Somehow I feel like connecting with Griz will lead to something more than whatever my existence was before. I’m inspired by him, by how hard he’s worked, by how much he’s built on his own here. It makes me think that I can find something I’m passionate about as well. And maybe I can help him figure out what’s next, too.
I have no idea what that will be, but I’m excited to explore it. First, though, we have to get to know each other. See how deep this connection really goes. I think it’s real, but I’m not dumb, I know that sometimes sex is just sex.
When I wander back out into the bedroom, I laugh out loud, finding Griz dead asleep, shirtless, one arm up over his handsome face. It melts my heart a little. He said someone had been waking me up regularly for the past two days. I now wonder if that someone had been him. Poor guy probably hasn’t slept in days.
I crawl back into bed next to him, nestling against his big body, fitting myself along his form as if I was customized to be there. His arm tightens around me.
I’m pretty sure I love this man. I’m cautious, realistic, but I feel it. I can’t believe that I’ve developed this depth of feeling for a man I only sort of knew existed a week ago. I’m in love with a man I met when I was bound, gagged, and beaten. I was expecting rape. Instead, I found a man with honor. A man who works hard for his club, who loves his daughter, who’s seen loss.
Griz is like no man I’ve ever met before. As I close my eyes, allowing my body more time to heal and Griz time for much-needed rest, I find myself hoping against hope that he loves me, too.
# # #
Griz
“I’ve thought about it, yes,” I say into the phone. I’m trying to sound bored and unaffected but, truthfully, I probably just sound tired.
“And you’ve come to your senses about merging our two clubs?” Draven asks on the other end of the line.
“I don’t know,” I say. “What if I haven’t, as you’ve said, come to my senses?”
“Well,” Draven says, “Then I’ll have forty guys there to take threefold what you’ve taken from me. You’ll be first on deck. My daughter will become a widow. Your club will still end up in ruins.”
“Draven, you know I respect you. I respect the process. I’d never have authorized this bullshit Spike pulled off,” I say. “I’m asking you to think rationally about this.”
“I do understand, but a leader takes responsibility for all of his brothers. Spike was yours to control. You did not. He is now gone, and you have to pay a price for his actions. I’m the one damaged here. Two guys down, one of them my second in command. My daughter claimed, when I had planned a union for her here. These are losses, Griz. Pay the price.”
“I’ve worked hard to build this,” I say. “I made a choice when I shot my weapon at Spike. I gave you restitution by ending a life.”
“I know, boy. I know,” he says, and I can hear in his voice that he gets it. “This life is hard work. Leadership is full of choices and some of them are shitty, but right. And the next choice you need to make is to say yes to what I’m offering. There don’t need to be more bloodshed. I know you don’t want it, and neither do I. So let me take this off your plate. I can help you save face by putting you in a second position and if things work out, you’ll be back in the top spot when I retire. I can give you time with Tanner, with your daughter. You can make the club part time, whatever.”
The thought sounds good. Take what I’ve built, make it stronger by merging the clubs. More time with Shannon. More freedom to explore other interests. The club won’t have to be my number one priority all the time. Tanner will be safe. I can be with her. For real.
“I’m still thinking about it. Seriously thinking about it, because it’s a totally fair deal. I just … need to talk to some of my guys,” I say.
“Forty-eight more hours,” he says sharply. “And how’s my daughter?”
“Better,” I say. “I never left her side. She looks worse for the wear but she’ll be fine.”
“Do you love her?” he asks.
“Does it matter at this point?” I counter. “You were going to marry her to someone she had no interest in.”
“She would’ve been safe. He would’ve treated her like a queen,” Draven says.
“I disagree,” Griz says.
“So you do love her, then?” Draven asks.
It’s so hard for me to admit feelings. To anyone. When Giselle died, I felt like I’d never even feel again, let alone feel something like love. My head tells me it’s too soon—I barely know this girl. This woman. But I feel … something. A flicker of hope, maybe. A familiarity. A comfort. A chemistry.
I mean, I’m not going to write a sonnet or any silly shit like that, but I do care. I do want her.
“I care for her, yes.” I admit.
“That’s a start,” he says. “Thank you.”
As I hang up, Tanner comes to where I sit by the window, lowering herself onto my lap. Her long blonde hair hangs around her shoulders. Her brown eyes are wide in her thin face. Her lips are pink and succulent. I can’t help but kiss her. I kiss her like a man who’s found water in the desert.
Kissing isn’t enough, though. I spin her around so she straddles me. I need her to feel the hardness of my cock between her legs. I need the press of her perfect tits against my chest. I need all that hair in my hands. I’ve been so careful with her since she’s been back. She looked so frail and damaged and I felt so, so guilty. Tanner Williams would not have been hurt if she hadn’t come into my life.
The flipside, of course, is that I know she wasn’t happy there. She was afraid of what it would mean for her to marry Kit. She wasn’t interested in him at all. It makes me want to punch a hole in the wall to think of his hands on her. If he wasn’t dead already, I might just kill him anyway.
I’m brought back to reality, back to sanity, as she presses against me, her hips moving on my lap. Her tongue searches mine and her moans become more intense, more wanting. Tanner is a vocal lover, and I find her sex sounds extra motivating. My hands are on the back of her head, holding her lips to mine as my tongue explores her mouth.
I should be careful with her. She’s bruised and broken and scarred. But I suddenly want her so badly that I can hardly control myself. I want to claim her again and again. I’m suddenly feral.
I pick her up and take her back to the bed, divesting her of the T-shirt she wears, worshipping those lovely breasts with my hands, my mouth. I slip my pants off and push those tits together, slipping between them before bringing the tip to her lips. She parts, gladly taking me in, her moans so sexy as she opens her throat, letting me thrust, her tongue working magic and her hands caressing my balls.
I swear I’ll explode. I want to. I want to see my cum on her tits and face. That’s what a claiming is, my mark all over her. But I also want more of her. I want my face as far up her sweet pussy as I can get it. I want her wet and wild and undulating through a chorus of orgasms that make her forget her own name. I want to be balls deep inside of her, sweaty and angry and pushing so hard she might crack in half.
As I go to pull out, she grabs my ass, forcing me to stay, She wants to give this gift, and it only takes a glance at her gorgeous mouth around my hard rod to get me closer. She takes it, so gorgeous, her grunts and moans surrounding me in a symphony of pleasure. I pull out only as I burst, spraying my pleasure all over her neck and breasts and belly.
“You’re mine,” I growl. “You hear me?”
She whimpers pleasurably, wiping my cum all over her body, lifting her fingers to her lips to experience my taste.
I move down her body, kissing her, tasting myself on her skin. She wraps her legs around my waist, her arms around my neck. We kiss for so long as I recover and when we can’t stand it anymore, she unwraps and puts her hands above her head, inviting me to worship at her altar.
Because I love the way her nipples pucker, I start there, but my hands soon find her wet, soft lips beneath her tiny, silk panties and I stroke, finding her clit, then her sweet hole, where I insert two fingers. She arches to meet me, a moan escaping those perfect lips. As the pace increases, she pushes right back against me, so slick and wet and wanting. She lifts her legs so that her ass is in the air, my fingers getting deeper entry as I punish her with the speed of my thrusts.
Her orgasm rips through her and she stops breathing as her pussy tightens around my fingers so intensely that it feels I might not be able to retrieve them.
“Fuck, baby,” I breathe. “Your pussy feels so good. You feel so good. So wet. Come again for me.”
She cries out and her head thrashes back and forth as her pleasure goes on and on, the longest orgasm I’ve ever seen a woman experience. I just keep thrusting in and out, finally desperate for her, dropping further down, ripping her panties from her body, causing her to cry out in shock. I dive in, my tongue joining my fingers, working her clit as it pulsates, enlarged, a second wave of release taking control of her.
Her eyes roll back in her head and her mouth opens, her tongue darting out to wet her gorgeous lips. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life as this woman coming. I could watch it all day. I feel kind of awestruck, frankly, ready to come again just from watching it.
When she finally calms, her eyes focus on my face and a wide, natural smile brightens her face.
“Good?” I ask.
“You’re smiling,” she says. “Oh, my god. I’ve literally never seen you smile.”
“You’re gorgeous,” I say, moving up, my ready cock finding its place at her entrance.
“I’m going to hate myself for saying this later, but I think I love you,” she says.
I feel my face splitting into what’s probably a teenage-looking, shit-eating grin. It’s a stupid feeling, so I bury my face in her neck and my cock in her pussy. She cries out, scratching her nails along my back in a way that makes me forget everything else in my life at that moment.
I can’t say it back. Not just yet. But damn, it makes me feel good to hear it.
# # #
Tanner
Chef has outdone herself with this crazy breakfast. I’m alone in the dining room as Griz meets with his members to tell them about my father’s offer. I’m here with pecan-chocolate waffles, fluffy scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and a cappuccino that literally makes me want to create a shrine to cappuccinos.
Sex makes me hungry, apparently, and Griz and I have had a lot of it. He told me to spend some time thinking about redecorating the bedroom, though I can’t figure out why, because it seems like if we merge clubs, we might have to live in the Grave Robbers’ house.
Or better yet, maybe we’d find our own place and just have an occasional night in the Grave Robbers’ headquarters. That would be much better, since I’d rather not get fucked six ways to Sunday with my dad under the same roof. Thank you very much.
After I finish my breakfast, I practically have to roll myself down the hallway to the gym. I do a workout that almost makes me feel less guilty about all the calories I’ve just ingested, and then head for the shower. There’s a palpable energy change in the house. For me, it’s better without worrying that Spike will pop out from behind a corner to threaten or intimidate me. But I know other are worried about what comes next, what Griz will choose to do, if they made the right choice in retaining their allegiance to him.
It’s afternoon when Griz comes back in, grim-faced and looking every bit like a man who needs a good night of sleep.
“What happened?” I ask.
He flops onto the chaise lounge. “Well, about two-thirds of them totally get it. They feel like it’s the right move. They don’t want a bloodbath. They have families to protect and none of them want to see their children without fathers. Many of them feel like this will make us stronger as a club because they like what Draven has to offer. More opportunity, more in the brotherhood. So that’s all good. The other one-third want my head on a silver platter. They feel like I’m copping out, taking the easy way. They think we should go down in a blaze of glory.”
“And what did you decide?” I ask, snuggling next to him.
“Majority rules. We go,” he says simply. “It was loud but it was democratic.”
We’re both quiet for a long minute. Then he says, “This is for the best. I think.”
“Maybe,” I say. “What will happen here? To this house?”
He takes a deep breath and strokes my arm, raising goosebumps. “I think he’ll let us stay, actually. Having this house really does expand his territory. What matters is working together, merging our businesses. I think if we all get with his program, he’ll be inclined to allow us a little bit of slack.”
“What about Shannon?”
“Well, I think it depends,” he says. “I own the house she lives in with Cary. We could live there most of the time, I think. Be more parental. Stay here a night or two.”
The thought of living in a home with his daughter … I get a little panicky about it, actually. She’s never met me. What the heck is she going to think about some strange woman moving in, living in her home with her father, who’s hardly ever around? I can only imagine the battles for attention. And … I haven’t been around a ton of kids. I have no idea if I’m maternal or not.
Griz must read it in my body language because he shushes me, tries to soothe me.
“She’ll love you,” he says quietly. He takes a minute and then continues. “Like I do.”
I swear to God my heart stops. Stops beating. I stop breathing. The world stops turning.
“Stop being dramatic,” he says with a chuckle.
The world resumes as I roll on top of him, ready to attack. He’s ready for me, his hands on my ribcage as his mouth meets mine.
I can’t get enough. He loves me.
# # #
Griz
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask.
Tanner giggles as she pulls her hair into some fancy braided style that my daughter will think makes her look like a princess. “Is that a real question?”
“Sure,” I ask.
“You first,” she non-answers. “You didn’t grow up wanting to be a motorcycle club president, did you?”
“Ha, no,” I say. “When I was little I wanted to be a firefighter. I think all little boys do. As I got older, I thought I might leave, go work on Wall Street. Make a million bucks.”
“Well, you’ve definitely made a million bucks,” she says.
“At a big cost,” I answer, my mood souring.
“This is a dangerous business,” she agrees. “But you built something good here. And you’re doing the right thing. My dad is a good man. He won’t let you down.”
I nod. “I think you’re right. I hope you’re right.”
“I wanted to be a popstar,” she says, lightening the subject once more. “When I was little. Like one of those Disney people. Demi Lovato or Vanessa Hudgens or whatever.”
“Can you sing?” I ask.
“Not to save my life,” she laughs. “I actually went to college, did you know that? My degree is in communication, but it’s not that exciting.”
“I did not know that,” I say, grinning. “A college girl. I think I’m in love. Although I do think you’re a good communicator. What would you rather do instead?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” she says. “I really like to work out, and I know lots of the guys at GR say their old ladies wish they were in shape like me. I was thinking I might like to be a personal trainer. Is that cheesy?”
“Not at all,” I answer. “I think it’s a great goal. And maybe, with my head for business, we could even set you up a gym or something.”
She looks giddy as we daydream. God, it’s been a long time since I’ve allowed myself this luxury. I really can see setting up a gym in the territory. I can run the business side; she can be a personal trainer, maybe help with the marketing. I like it.
Once she’s ready—looking delicious in a white sundress that makes her tan look dark and her legs look nine-miles long – we head out to meet her father for lunch at Grave Robbers’ headquarters. We’re having lunch. I wore a suit jacket instead of my colors and I feel like a tool.
It’s so awkward at first. Her dad looks at her finger about a million times, a silent question as to why a baller like me hasn’t gotten his lady a ring since we’re supposedly married after knowing each other all of a week and a half. He’s no dummy, Draven. He knows she lied; I’m sure of it.
He can’t do anything about it, of course. Kit is gone and from what Tanner has told me, he didn’t groom anyone to take his place. It makes me feel a little better, actually. I suffered the same issue with Spike, kept him around because there was no one to fill the void. I felt real stupid because of it, too, so to hear that Draven made the same mistake makes me feel a little less like an asshole. Bottom line is he needs me, as much as I need him.
We make small talk before we finally get to the meat of the conversation. The negotiation. How will we merge these two clubs?
I explain the reaction of my members. “Most of them get that this is the best for all of us,” I explain. “But they value their colors, their name. They value the work we’ve done, and they like the house. I like the house. I designed it.”
“The house is nice, a good asset, I agree. And it belongs to you,” Draven concedes. And, as suspected, he says, “It’s valuable to have a second property for the clubs, on the opposite end of the territory we’ll share.”
His choice of words is interesting. Share.
“A third of my guys might defect,” I continue with a shrug. “They’re cowboys, ready to shoot it out. But the other two-thirds don’t have a death wish. We talked about it for a long time and I gave them a vote. The larger two-thirds want peace, so we’re coming.”
Draven bangs his hand on the table, making the cutlery bang together loudly. “Smart move. And the dissenters will either get with the program or leave. It’s their prerogative. No penalty for defection.”
We finish lunch with a plan that I feel good about. Draven claps me on the back as we leave, calling me “son” and telling me he’ll have paperwork sent over for review in the next few days. “We’ll have a party,” he announces. “A real blowout. Pop a bottle over your nuptials and our merger. It’s a fuckin’ celebration.”
I take Tanner’s hand as we head out, thanking him. She squeezes, knowing just how much I hate this one remaining lie.
We get on my bike and rumble over to the edge of the territory, where Cary waits for Shannon to get off the bus.
Step one of this day is complete. Now comes the battle with my sister.