Parker
There were certain things in life that were a total no-no for men like me. The sorts of unacceptable things I couldn’t allow to go on in my presence. One was child abuse. Kiddie abusers knew better than to do business with MCs, or anybody who dealt with us, because when we got wind of what went on, we did what had to be done to balance the scales. Maybe that was because so many of us came from broken, fucked up homes.
Another thing was the abuse of animals. There was just no need for it. When we came across a dog fighting ring a few years into my membership with the club, it had damn near broken my heart. They used to make the dogs fight until one of them died, then threw the bodies into a dumpster behind the building. I had never seen grown men cry until that day, and I’d come damned close to crying myself. The sight of all those dead, mangled dogs. The live ones weren’t much better. It had been a joy to free to dogs, burn the entire building to the ground and tip the cops off to the presence of the ring.
Men who hit women were real high on my list of pieces of shit who needed wiping off the face of the Earth, as well. Real men didn’t do shit like that—it only proved how small and scared they really were. They needed to hurt something smaller and weaker than them to feel good about themselves. Why couldn’t they see it? How did they get through life without killing themselves? If I woke up one day and saw myself for the low-life piece of shit woman abuser the man in the kitchen of the diner was, I’d put a bullet in my brain.
I saw red when I saw him shaking her like that. Sandy’s warning had been enough for me to pay attention to what happened in the kitchen, but the way she cried out back there was enough to get me barreling through the swinging doors and heading straight for the two of them. There he was, in his trench coat, thinking he was tough shit. Shaking a woman until her head bounced around.
I pulled his hands from her arms. It was nothing, really. He was so weak it was almost funny. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I growled in his ear. I had an arm around his neck, and my free hand just itched to reach for my piece. It was locked and loaded. A single bullet to his brain would mean one less piece of shit scumbag in the world.
“Get off me.” He jerked in my arms, but it was no use. He was fighting steel. He gave up pretty fast.
“Not until you tell me why you had to hurt her like that.”
“I wasn’t hurting her. It’s none of your goddamned business, you piece of trash. Get your hands off me, unless you want a lot of trouble for you and your gang.”
I wondered who he was, and how he knew who I was. He must have seen the guys and me when he walked in, and saw enough of me out of the corner of his eye to put it all together. He threatened the club, too. I had to think as the president would think. What was best for my men? Killing the asshole right there, threatening him a little more, or letting him go?
As much as it fucking broke my balls to do it, I let him go. Slowly, though, to let him know I wasn’t playing around. He hadn’t scared me personally—not a damn thing he could do to me that hadn’t been done before. I just didn’t want to get the club in hot water. The way he dressed told me he was a bigshot in town.
“What did he do to you?” I asked Ellie. She was against the wall, rubbing her arms where his hands had dug into her. From the look on her face, he’d really hurt her.
“None of your business,” he spat.
I turned to him. “Last time I checked, I was talking to her. Not you. Why don’t you try minding your business instead?” I looked at her again.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’m okay.”
“You should go back to your buddies before things get really bad for you, pal.”
I looked him up and down. The perfectly combed blond hair—he must have put product in it to get it to sit just right. The gray eyes, the narrow face. He looked like a rat. He was also around half my size. I smirked at him. “I’m not your pal. Why don’t you drop the shit and get the hell outta here, huh? She doesn’t wanna talk to you, and neither do I.”
He moved a little closer to her, and I saw the way she shrank back. She was terrified of him, and not just because of what I saw him do. It went back a long way, the abuse he gave her. I had seen too many women with that same look in their eye.
“Go to hell, man. Get outta here. You don’t belong here.” I took a single step toward him, closing my fists. I was willing to use every bit of my kickboxing training on him if I had to. I would love it, actually. I wouldn’t have minded caving the fucker’s face in if given the chance.
He looked me up and down the way I’d looked at him, his eyes going over me. He must have seen me for who I was: a tough son of a bitch who was twice his size. He sneered but held his hands up.
“Fine, I’ll go.” Before he did, though, he turned to Ellie. “This isn’t over, sweetheart. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”
“Do I have to put your fucking face in the fryer for you to get the message? Out!” I barely had to raise my voice for him to flinch, and he almost ran away. I waited until he walked out, watching through the order window to see him leave.
I turned back to her. “Are you all right?” When I thought about the way he shook her, I wondered how many other times he had done things just as bad—if not worse. No wonder she was such a hard ass when the guys flirted with her. She had seen enough bad guys in her life.
I couldn’t believe it when she looked pissed at me after what I did. “Why did you do that?” she asked. “You should mind your own business, Parker.” The way she read the name off the patch over my chest made it sound like a curse.
“What?” I took a step back. “Are you fucking serious? I only came in here because I heard you yelp. He shook you so hard I thought your head might come off.” I reached out, pulling up the short sleeve of her uniform. She winced, flinching back, but not before I saw the dark rings already forming around her arm. I wanted to kill him when I saw how he had bruised her. “You’re gonna tell me I shouldn’t have stopped him? What should I have done? Walk out? Pretend I didn’t see it?”
“I don’t need your help, okay Parker? You don’t know what you did.” She pushed her way past me, going around a corner. I followed her without thinking about it. She went to a bathroom, but left the door open. I heard the water running as she splashed her face.
“You did need my help, and I don’t care what I did. I would do it again,” I insisted. Why did she have to be so stubborn?
She looked at me in the mirror, and I noticed how blue her eyes were. “Oh, you would? What if I told you you just made my life even harder than it has to be? Now he’s going to come back after me, and when he does, he’ll be pissed off this time. Even more than he already was, actually. He’s going to want revenge. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he took revenge on your club, too.”
“Who the hell is this guy? What makes him so goddamned special?”
“I know you probably haven’t heard of them, but he’s the Connor Baker in Baker, King, and Collins. The biggest investment banking firm on the west coast. And he’s my ex-husband.”
“I knew he was your ex,” I muttered.
“How did you know that?”
“The other waitress told me. Sandy. I was looking for you, and she was worried.”
“Oh, great. I’m sure she told you the whole story, too.” Ellie turned around, leaning on the sink, glaring at me.
“She didn’t tell me anything but that. She didn’t have to. I’m not fucking stupid, you know. I saw the way he treated you. If that’s why you left, you did the right thing.”
“I’m glad I have your vote of approval,” she said, smirking. “But he’s made my life even more of a living hell since I left. And he wants our daughter, and I won’t let him have her. I swear I won’t. I’ll die before I let him take her from me. You saw what he did, right? Imagine him doing it to her.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t know her kid, but I could imagine a little girl shaking back and forth like that, with her head flopping around the way Ellie’s had.
Like she heard my thoughts, her hand went to her neck. “Yikes,” she muttered, massaging it.
“You should go to the hospital. File a report on him. You’ve got the bruises, you’ve got an eyewitness account. I can tell them what I saw. I mean, come on. If he’s trying to take your kid, you need to have a case against him. Right?”
She smiled, and I noticed for the first time how tired she looked. “Yes, I have to have a case against him. Do you know how well-known he is in this town? How beloved? How much money his firm donates every year to various civic causes? The police and fire departments. The hospitals. The campaigns for local politicians. The schools, even. See a pattern? All the people who could potentially raise red flags against him. He convinces his partners they need to donate money, to raise their social standing and give back to the community. All these causes of his know the money will disappear if they say anything against him. That’s how he keeps them in his pocket.”
She shook her head, sighing. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? Three times I went to the hospital after he hurt me. One time I had a broken arm. Another time, a black eye and bruised ribs. Another time he broke my collar bone. All those times in just a couple of years. He took time off when I was pregnant. I can at least give him credit for that.” She laughed bitterly. “Do you think once, even one time, anybody asked me if my husband did it to me? That’s the first question they ask, isn’t it? If somebody in your household did something to you.”
“I really don’t know,” I replied.
“I went with a friend of mine to the ER once. She had tripped and fallen while we were out one day. Her wrist broke. I drove her to the hospital. And the first thing two nurses and a doctor asked her was that very question. Did somebody in her household do it to her, and was there anybody there she was afraid of.” Ellie stared at me. “Nobody asked me in three visits. Not a single person. What does that tell you?”
“It tells me this town is even more fucked up than I thought it was,” I muttered.
She nodded. “You don’t even know,” she whispered. “So that’s what I’m facing. And if he can use that kind of power against me, imagine what he can do to people like you.”
The words hung in the air. Her cheeks went red when she realized what she had said. “People like me?”
“Motorcycle clubs. I know who you are. The Inferno Hunters.”
“Congratulations. You can read.” Everybody knew who we were when we went out in our kuttes, and we never rode without them.
“I’ve heard of you, is all. I know what you’re capable of. And he will know it, too. I promise. He’ll make it his business to find out everything he can and bring you down. I wish to God you had left it alone. It’s enough that he’s making my life a misery. I don’t want to see him doing it to anybody else.”
“Even trash like me. Isn’t that right?” I laughed.
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. I’m used to it.”
She stood up straight, coming toward me. She couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall, but when she wanted to, she could make those inches count. She put her hands on her hips, staring me down. “I’m sorry if I give a damn about what my shithead of an ex-husband will do to you, okay? Maybe it’s all the years of feeling like a loser for staying with him as long as I did. I don’t know. Either way, I have guilt issues. If you have half a brain in your head, you’ll stay far, far away from him and lay low for a while. Don’t even stick your nose outside if you don’t have to.”
I chuckled. “Nobody tells me what to do. I do what I want. I helped you because I wanted to, not because I wanted your permission or your thanks. Good thing, I guess, since I didn’t get either. I didn’t do it to be a good guy either.” I leaned down, closing the gap between our faces. Her eyes went wide under dark eyebrows. “I’m not a good guy. But I guess you knew that already.”
She breathed hard, heavy, through slightly parted lips. Thick, full lips. The kind a man wants to suck on until a woman cries out for more. The kind I imagined being sweet and soft and juicy. I licked my own lips just looking at her.
“Get away from me,” she whispered. She didn’t sound like she meant it, though, and she didn’t make a move. Her eyes were on my mouth, too. She watched me closely, gasping a little with every breath.
I needed to do it. I couldn’t help but take her by her tiny waist and pull her closer to me as my mouth met hers. I had to taste her. I had to know if she was as good as she looked. The first instant when our mouths met was electric. My cock sprang to life, aching for more of her.
I parted her lips with my tongue, and she sighed and melted against me as I explored the inside of her mouth. She was so sweet, and warm, and alive in my arms. Her hands found my shoulders. She gripped me hard, moaning a little in the back of her throat. I thrusted my hips toward her, rubbing my erect cock against her hip, and she moaned louder.
Then she gasped, pushing me away with more force than I thought a little thing like her would have. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. From the way she breathed, I would have thought she’d just run a marathon. Her tits rose and fell as she panted for air. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. Her mouth was a little swollen from the rough way I had kissed her. She sneered, wiping the back of her mouth with her hand. “Go to hell,” she spat.
I couldn’t explain why I felt disappointed. Something inside me went sour. I could only smile a little at her choice of words. “I’m already there,” I said, shrugging before I turned to leave the kitchen. The cook looked at me with wide eyes. He was still scared from that asshole being there. He had a right to be scared. I had a feeling, if Ellie was telling the truth, that he could be a lot of trouble for all of us.
“There you are!” Ryder saw me as I walked out of the kitchen. “I told you to go after her, not to do it right there in the kitchen. You couldn’t have waited a little bit?”
I looked around the table. Ryder was the only person left. “Where did everybody go?”
“The already had their dessert. The other waitress, the cute little MILF-y thing, she brought out pie and cake. You were gone for a long time, brother.” He finally noticed the look on my face, and his smile disappeared. “What’s wrong? What happened back there?”
I wanted to brush it off, wanted to ignore her warnings. I couldn’t, though. “I think it was trouble,” I said.