Stella

 

It took Stella until that night to panic about what had happened. She was sitting up in her bed, doodling in her journal and making mental notes about her monthly budget, when suddenly it hit her.

 

She’d fucked a perfect stranger, basically. She’d never done that before. Even during the periods of time when she and Cameron were “broken up,” she’d remained chaste, only ever masturbating to take care of herself when Cameron wasn’t around. But more importantly, she’d never been fucked so well in her entire life, including all her time with Cameron. Her body still trembled with the after effects of it, her muscles aching with the memory of what Mark had put her through. It thrilled and terrified her at the exact same moment.

 

On one hand, she’d come harder than she’d ever done before in her life, feeling her cunt practically explode under the pressure of Mark’s thick cock inside of her. But on the other hand, this might ruin everything between them. They’d just barely gotten on friendly terms, and now of course everything was going to be about the sex they’d had.

 

And more crucially…she knew that Cameron would be fucking infuriated if he found out about them. He might actually send somebody to kill Mark. Stella shivered and had to rub her own shoulders, just thinking about it. If something happened to Mark because of her, she’d never forgive herself for it.

 

So that was her mindset going into work the next day: keep this a secret at all costs, even if it meant not having sex with Mark again. She avoided eye contact with him when she showed up for her shift, going behind the bar and focusing instead on the customers’ orders, making small talk during any lulls to keep herself distracted.

 

Eventually, though, the crowds petered out, and it was just a few other people in the bar, drunkenly slumped over in the corners. Mark and Stella were the last two people on staff, except for Wesley somewhere in the back, but he barely left his office anyway. Stella didn’t know what to do to keep herself occupied, so she just started rubbing down the counters of the bar and even moved on to the various tables that filled the room, furiously wiping down each surface until they shone.

 

“Need some help with that?” For one long, glorious moment, Stella thought that Mark had said that to her, that he’d reached out first to try to keep their communication going. In that moment, she realized that she hadn’t just kept her distance because of Cameron. It was a test, too, attempting to find out if Mark liked her or wanted to hang out some more.

 

But no, it wasn’t Mark. It was just another similarly deep-voiced guy, a random patron who must have woken up from his drunken stupor when she approached him. Stella shook her head and said as politely as she could, “No, thanks, I’m almost done.”

 

“Hey, come on, baby, I’m just trying to be nice,” the guy said, coming up behind her and pinning her in place with his hands, trapping her so that she couldn’t move.

 

“Don’t really need anybody to be nice to me right now,” Stella said, her irritation seeping into her voice despite all of her best efforts to remain civil.

 

“Maybe you don’t know what you need,” the guy said, leaning in to lick the back of her ear, making all of the nerve endings in Stella’s body scream in protest. Fuck, this is disgusting, she thought, desperately fighting the urge to turn around and smack him away. Luckily, however, she didn’t have to.

 

“All right, time to get out, time to leave,” Mark said a moment later, forcing his way in between Stella and the creepy guy and nudging the latter over to the door until he left the building. “That’s right. Goodbye.”

 

For some reason that served as a sign to the other wasted patrons, who all got to their feet and stumbled out of the bar until it was only Mark and Stella left in the whole building.

 

“Thanks,” Stella said a little awkwardly, tightly wrapping her arms around her own waist for comfort. “Thanks for that.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Mark said, turning on his heel to head for the stairs that would lead to the cellar.

 

Stella blew out her breath, biting her tongue to keep herself from yelling after him. But she wanted to. She really, really wanted to shout after him, That’s it? That’s all you’re going to give me? You’re not going to acknowledge me or say anything to suggest that we’ve gotten a little closer?

 

But almost immediately, other thoughts returned to her brain, battling it out with her base impulse to get closer to Mark. It was so stupid and wrong of her to want to be more intimate with him, anyway. She wasn’t ready for a boyfriend. After ten years, off and on, dealing with Cameron, she needed to be alone for a while, if only to get to know herself better. She needed to know what it was like to not have to be defined by a man all the time.

 

And anyway, it wasn’t even safe to get closer to Mark, in more than one sense of the word. For one thing, Cameron was still lurking around the borders of her life, probably keeping tabs on her to make sure she hadn’t moved on too quickly. But just as importantly, Mark was an unemotional, broody asshole. He didn’t put other people’s feelings first, as far as Stella could tell. No matter how mysterious and noble he seemed, carrying a bunch of invisible wounds from the war, he wasn’t right for her. It was ridiculous for her to be obsessing about it when she stood to gain nothing from the whole situation.

 

But still, knowing all of that didn’t stop her from thinking about him as she walked home, crawled back into bed, and shoved her hands into her panties. She thought of Mark’s thick, hard cock and how it felt to be speared open by it. She imagined being fucked by him on the floor, over the bar, in the bathroom. She imagined getting screwed in her own shower, being pressed up against the fogged-up glass until she came, shattering apart in a thousand directions all at once. And finally, she pictured getting fucked in a bed, soft and slow, his cock coming in and out of her gently, brushing up against spots that she’d never known before.

 

“Idiot,” she breathed to herself as she finished masturbating, cutting herself off before she could reach orgasm. “Fucking idiot.”

 

# # #

 

Cameron

 

“Bad news, boss,” Rob, one of the newer junior members of the MC said as he walked into Cameron’s office late that night.

 

“Oh, joy,” Cameron said, rolling his eyes as he grabbed himself another beer from the mini-fridge next to his desk. “Well, spit it out. I don’t have all day.”

 

“There’s somebody there with her,” Rob said as he took a seat across from Cameron. “I don’t know the extent of it, but something is definitely happening.”

 

“Who is he?” Cameron asked, clenching his fist hard around the cold beer in his hands. Fucking Stella. Fucking slut. Who the hell did she think she was, apparently making a connection with a guy just a few weeks after they’d broken up? 

 

“I think his name is Mark,” Rob said, screwing up his face in concentration as he recalled the name. “That’s what I kept hearing from the staff members at the Haven. Anyway, I tried to put the moves on your girl, you know, test the waters, and he threw me out in like two seconds.”

 

“You put the moves on her?” Cameron asked between clenched teeth, raising his eyebrows at Rob.

 

“Just as a test!” Rob said defensively, putting his hands up in the air as a nonverbal surrender. “I didn’t get anywhere, don’t worry. Her boy made sure of that much.”

 

“Yeah, okay, get out,” Cameron said, pointing at the door.

 

“Sir, I was just trying to help—”

 

“Get the fuck out!” Cameron bellowed, sending his beer flying across the room until it hit Rob in the stomach, spraying him with the dark brown liquid. That was all the poor fucker needed to do as he was told, apparently, since he fled the room in about two seconds flat, going back out into the main bar at Stormwatch.

 

Cameron stared down at his messy desk for several long moments, weighing his options in his mind. He could keep sending random members of the MC, new guys that Stella was less likely to recognize, over to the Haven to keep tabs on her, but the new recruits were all so fucking dumb, so inexperienced at anything other than jacking themselves off. He needed someone subtler, someone smarter with lots of common sense to handle this particular hurdle. And, of course, whoever he chose to keep tabs on this Mark guy had to be incredibly loyal, through and through. Really, there was only one man that he knew that fit that particular description.

 

He reached down into his pocket to grab his phone, sending off a quick text to Ian, even though his top lieutenant was probably just in the other room. Sure enough, Ian stepped into his office a few moments later, having apparently gotten his text while he was sitting at the bar.

 

“What’s up, Gav’?” Ian asked, stepping around the large puddle of beer on the floor in front of Cameron’s desk.

 

“I need you to keep track of somebody for me. His name’s Mark. He’s new in town. A bouncer at the Haven place that just opened up.”

 

“Mark?” Ian repeated, his brows furrowing together as he considered his assignment. “I think I might know who you’re talking about. Ex-Army guy?”

 

Cameron shrugged. None of the younger recruits he’d sent to the Haven had been astute enough to pick up on that fact, if it were in fact the truth.

 

Ian bit down on his bottom lip, considering the situation. “I think he lives in my building, if he’s the guy I think you’re talking about. Big, bulky dude? He just moved in like a month ago. Pays his rent late.”

 

“Perfect. That’s fucking perfect. Put a video camera in his apartment when he’s out,” Cameron said, a smile spreading across his face. God was looking out for him, apparently, making things easier. But it made sense, after all. He and Stella were meant to be. They were destiny. Fated. Nothing was going to come between them. Nothing. 

 

# # #

 

Ian

 

Ian was fucked. For the longest time, he tried to keep a neat separation between his two jobs. There was Ian the Marauder, and then there was Ian the landlord, and luckily so far there hadn’t been much overlap between the two. But now he had to spy on one of his tenants, invading his privacy in a totally immoral—not to mention illegal—way. But what could he do? He couldn’t exactly turn Cameron down. It was the number one rule of the MC. Cameron was the king, and you just didn’t disrespect him, even if he was being a little irrational about the whole Stella thing.

 

Personally, Ian liked Stella. She was a sweet girl, and she was his girlfriend Nicole’s best friend, after all. But he didn’t quite understand Cameron’s obsession with her. The leader of the MC had bedded so many women over the years, but this one girl seemed to stick more than anybody else, consuming his thoughts. Cameron claimed that half of the reason he was tailing Mark was to eventually take over the Haven. But Ian knew that was just a flimsy excuse to leverage the MC’s resources to get his girl back. Of course, Ian didn’t say any of that to Cameron, even if there was a part of him that wondered if his friend might benefit from his insight and advice.

 

Sitting at home on the couch next to Nicole later that night, he wondered if maybe there was an alternate route to literally bugging Mark’s apartment. Maybe he could figure out enough information to debunk Cameron’s theory about Stella and Mark without crossing any lines.

 

“Hey, Nicole,” he said, but she didn’t look up from her legal studies textbook. She was going to community college nearby, studying up to prepare herself for law school. It was weird that someone so closely affiliated with a biker gang would be attracted to the law, but Ian wasn’t about to tell her to stop following her dreams.

 

“Nicole,” he said again, a little more insistently this time so that she sighed and looked up from her book.

 

“What,” she said flatly and woodenly, clearly unamused at having her study session interrupted.

 

“I just wanted to ask you some things, if you can take a break for a minute,” Ian said, trying to sound as casual as possible, like he was just a good boyfriend genuinely interested in his girlfriend’s life.

 

Nicole looked at her watch and considered the huge block of highlighted text in her book for a second before sighing and nodding. “Okay, I can give you, like, five minutes. Shoot. Go.”

 

“I was just wondering how Stella was,” Ian said.

 

Nicole’s eyes immediately narrowed, not even trying to hide the suspicion from her face. “Why…?” Nicole asked, drawing out the single word for several seconds.

 

“Just curious,” Ian said a little too quickly. “I know she’s your best friend and I haven’t seen her around in a couple weeks. I hope she’s okay, without the club and everything.”

 

“What is this about?” Nicole asked, sliding her textbook off her lap and placing it down on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Why do you care?”

 

“I told you!” Ian said defensively, his voice coming out a little higher and more intense than he would have liked. “I’m just worried about her, that’s all.”

 

Nicole was silent for a minute, staring at her boyfriend through narrowed, knowing eyes. “I think you mean Cameron is worried about her. Am I right?”

 

Ian sighed and shook his head. “Look, I was just trying to take an interest. That’s all.”

 

Nicole scoffed and straightened up in her seat, which was always a bad sign that she was getting ready for a fight. “You know, I know you’ve got some weird loyalty thing with Cameron, but the least you could do is not lie to me. Cameron wants to know what’s going on with Stella, right? So what, is he tasking you with now? What are you supposed to find out?”

 

Ian considered for a moment, looking up at his girlfriend and wondering if she would really be willing to help him. “Do you know a guy named Mark?” he finally asked.

 

Nicole’s face was unreadable as she stared at him coldly, her eyes betraying nothing until she finally shrugged. “Should I know a guy named Mark?”

 

“Nicole, come on,” Ian said. “You can’t berate me about not being honest and then turn around and do the exact same thing.”

 

Nicole rolled her eyes and picked her textbook back off the table, refocusing her attention on the highlighted text about torts. “She’s mentioned him once or twice if that’s what you’re wondering. But if I were Cameron, I’d back the fuck off. If he doesn’t be careful he’s going to lose any chance of ever getting back with Stella. She needs time. And space. And, like, her own life. He needs to step away from her for a bit, at the very least.”

 

“Why don’t you tell him that?” Ian said. In his ideal world, Nicole would be his liaison with Cameron, helping him lead the MC’s boss onto the right path.

 

But Nicole just scoffed again and shook her head. “Like anybody listens to me.”

 

“I listen to you,” Ian protested.

 

“Then prove it now, okay?” Nicole said, reaching over to take Ian’s hand into her own. “Back off. Leave Stella alone. Out of everybody on the planet, she deserves some space, okay? Don’t fuck things up for her.”

 

Ian didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to tell Nicole that he would follow her advice. He didn’t want to lie to her. But what choice did he have?