11. Not If I Can Help It
Chapter 11
Not If I Can Help It
Steel
Simone had to be all talk. Born to be a president’s old lady , that was too much. At the same time, she was right. Her spunky side only came out when it wouldn’t bite her in the ass. She had the ability to keep her cool. Over the years, I’d found that hard to come by in most women – especially the women determined to be with me for my position.
We ate spaghetti on the deck. She had a recipe memorized and it had to be the best meat sauce I’d ever tasted.
If only I were ten years younger.
Jordan needed his head examined. After spending the entire day with her and learning more and more about her, no matter how much I loved Jordan, he was a massive moron to let her go.
The sea breeze had calmed down as the sun set. The encroaching darkness along with the heavy food in my belly, the time had come.
“That’s an ominous look on your face,” she said.
This had been a great day, but also reckless of me. I should have left when Volt did. Yet, I craved her even as I sat across from her.
“And now you’re biting your lip again,” she muttered.
I put my napkin on top of my plate. “I have to go.”
She nodded and smiled. “Okay, gonna leave me with dish duty, after I cooked for you. That’s… a choice.”
My lips quirked. “Simone.”
“What?”
“You make it hard to go.”
She stood. “Now can you imagine if I were being clingy? Ride safe, it’ll be dark soon and believe it or not, you’re more likely to be on the road with drunks right now than at midnight.”
A reckless idea struck me. I didn’t put women on the back of my bike. Not even Naomi, for a ride around her neighborhood that she’d begged for the day she met me. Right now, I wanted to take Simone back to my camper, and I didn’t want her driving there. Another upside was that she wouldn’t have wheels to make a getaway.
Putting her on my bike made a statement though.
I didn’t give a shit about statements. Not with Simone. The more I thought about having her at my back, the more I wanted it.
“Let’s get your fuckin’ dishes done, Jade. Then you need to put on some boots if you brought any.”
She grabbed her plate. “Boots?”
“You’re coming back to my camper tonight, and you’re not driving yourself. You’re riding with me, so yeah, motorcycle boots would be good if you packed any.”
All that sass made for a great show as she cocked a hip, tilted her head, and smirked. “What kind of MC princess doesn’t pack her motorcycle boots? Seriously, Steel, this isn’t my first Bike Week.”
I grinned. “Hurry up woman, or we’ll never leave, and that’s a fuckin’ problem since I got a meeting at nine tomorrow.”
Her lips twisted. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I need my car.”
I walked past her and led the way inside to the kitchen sink. “What for?”
“I’m not missing the wrestling. It’s the entire reason I came down here.”
With the hot water turned on full blast, I gave her a pointed look. “Not to corner me? Or eavesdrop on me?”
She put her plate on the counter and grabbed a Pyrex dish with a lid. “That was pretty much Abby’s idea. I wasn't going to look for you since it seemed crazy that you could be the father, but Abby and my friends wanted me to get a look at you. Jasmine suggested I drive up to the mother chapter compound, but Abby said the campsite would be easier.”
While she loaded the leftover pasta into the glass dish, I grabbed her plate and washed it.
It seemed strange that other people wanted to hunt me down and not her. “Would you have made the drive to Augusta?”
She chuckled. “If I had a death wish, I suppose.”
I shook my head. Our reputation preceded us, but for once that wasn’t a good thing. “You would have gone on without ever finding me?”
She gave a very slow nod. “Probably. Dad and Mom were adamant I find the father. Hell, I went back to Pi House to talk to the bartender.”
“Bet that made his day,” I muttered, rinsing the pot.
Dish towel in hand, she grabbed the pot and dried it. “Right until I mentioned that I was off the Jack Daniel’s Honey for a few months.”
I choked on laughter.
“What’s that for?”
I shook my head and washed the empty pot. “Serves the fucker right.”
Her head reared back. “You’re possessive.”
“Damn straight. Wanted to punch him that night when he flirted with you about fuckin’ Old Fashioneds. What’d he tell you?”
She dried a plate. “That he wasn’t able to give out that information.”
I nodded. “If the wrestling is the only reason you came down here...” I trailed off when an awful thought hit me. “You’re not planning to wrestle are you?”
She tilted her head back and burst with laughter. Her joy and humor was contagious. Not since that night in December, had I smiled and laughed this much.
Christ. Being around her felt natural and right. I didn’t get much of that in my life.
Her laughter waned and she dabbed at her eyes. “Oh, that’s funny. No. I won’t be wrestling.”
I nodded and pulled the drain stopper on the sink. “That’s right. Who’s the Riot woman who wins every year? She belongs to Roll, is her name Tricia?”
She laughed again, loud but short. “You mean Trixie, and she isn’t in it this year.”
“Get the fuck out.”
Her smirk gave her the barest hint of a dimple. “No, her daughter is taking her place. I damn sure can’t miss that.”
I yanked the dish towel out of her hold, dried my hands, then threw it on the counter. Grabbing her wrists, I pulled her closer and wrapped my arms around her. “Guess not. What time is that tomorrow?”
She rested her hands on my chest and gazed up at me. “Around lunch, I think. Why?”
“I’ll take you.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, I saw wariness and caution there. “You’re sending a fair number of mixed signals, sir.”
My cock twitched hearing her call me ‘sir.’ That didn’t feel natural and right, it felt like a balm.
I stayed focused. “You’re right, but you’re not leaving my side this weekend. I’m a total bastard for this, but if you can hack it, I’m gonna spend the next two days with you and to hell with the consequences.”
Her head tilted and her eyes narrowed. “If I can hack it?”
I grinned. “As long as you don’t expect more. Don’t get attached. I’m a selfish asshole and I want as much of you as I can have all weekend. After that… we go our separate ways because I’m bad for you.”
“Bad for me?”
I dipped my chin. “You and your lime-sized peanut deserve better.”
The calculating look on her face, I expected an argument.
Instead, she grinned. “I’ll go get my boots and a change of clothes.”
Perfect.
“Is the coast clear?” Simone asked, coming out of the bedroom in my fifth-wheel.
For the second time that morning, I admired her figure in her dark purple baby-doll dress. The damn thing made me war with myself.
“It’s clear, but you’re in trouble, baby.”
She grinned, and hell if I didn’t see the outline of her nipples against the cotton dress. That had my blood rushing south.
“Why am I in trouble?” she asked, her tone light and innocent.
I crooked my finger at her. “You know exactly how fuckin’ sexy that dress is and you wore it around one of my chapter presidents. Had him drooling over you so bad I almost punched him, which forced me to send you to the bedroom.”
She smirked while strolling toward me, slower than normal, putting some extra sway in her sexy hips. “Like you weren’t going to do that anyway? No way are the two of you meeting while I’m within earshot.”
I hadn’t moved from my seat on the couch, but she now stood within a foot of me. We’d maintained eye contact the entire time. My hand darted out, grabbed hers, and I yanked her onto my lap.
She let out a surprised yelp, but quickly shifted so she straddled me. Her beaming smile twisted me up inside.
“You wearing this just to make me jealous?”
Her brows drew together. “No, crazy man. I’m wearing it because it’s sexy as fuck, I knew you’d like it, and the open criss-cross cut-out in the back keeps me cooler than my tank tops do.”
I rubbed my hands up and down her rib cage, slowing at the top so my thumbs grazed her nipples.
She leaned toward me. “And I was right. You really like it.”
I slid my hand around to her back – my fingers dipping under the criss-cross straps to stroke the skin of her back. “Yeah, I do. Now kiss me, baby.”
As much as I wanted to fuck her in this scrap of a dress, the front door was wide open with just the screen door keeping the bugs out. I wasn’t down with putting her on display like that.
She lowered her smiling lips to mine, and kissed me. I let her take her time about it. Her tongue explored my mouth, gentle and almost tentative. My other hand went up to her neck. I angled her head, and took control of the kiss.
A knock sounded on the metal door just before Tie’s voice filled the camper, “Hey Prez… Ooh, sorry, I’ll come back.”
I pressed Simone’s face to my neck. “What is it?”
I felt her lips curl and then she nibbled my neck. I tightened my grip on her waist and neck. My naughty girl redoubled her efforts and sucked. I swallowed a groan and concentrated on Tie’s words.
“That problem I mentioned last week back home… got a new firm lined up, same cost, but you can meet with them next week.”
I dipped my chin. “Set it up.”
Tie nodded and grinned. “You got it, Steel.” His eyes cut meaningfully to Simone and back to me. “And, I like that for you.”
My eyes widened. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
He chuckled. “No. I was gettin’ worried. You ain’t been yourself since December. She’s just what you need. Later.”
I glared at his back as he walked away, then shifted to break Simone’s suction on my neck. “Give me your naughty mouth, baby.”
She smiled and lowered her lips to mine. We both lost control, the kiss was so wild. I shoved my hands up under her dress. Groaning at the feel of her bare ass. The thong she wore had to be the skimpiest one I’d ever felt. She drove her hands in my hair, those nails grazing my scalp and making me growl. Moments like these were dangerous, but I lived for danger.
In that moment, one word filled my brain. The one word that had to be the craziest idea: mine. She was mine.
I couldn’t and wouldn’t leave her. I might not want to be a dad again, but this sassy vixen had it right. She wasn’t Debra. Nothing about this was the same, and sticking by her side was the least I could do.
Whether I’d move or ask her to move remained to be seen. The Jacksonville chapter had been a problem for years now, and I’d let it slide. At a bare minimum, I could find the right person to lead that chapter and help him find prospects to join their ranks.
I pulled one hand free of her dress, then I wrapped her hair around my hand and pulled.
She tipped her head back with a gasp. “Love when you pull my hair, Steel.”
My teeth sunk into her neck. She laughed.
I took her mouth again and, somehow, she pressed even closer to me.
“Dad, or I guess I should call you Steel,” Jordan called before the screen door squawked as he opened it.
Simone’s body tensed, and she shoved her face to my neck again. Neither one of of us wanted to face Jordan like this, but I couldn’t have a conversation with him while Simone sat on my lap. Then again, I’d struggle to talk to him with a hard-on too.
Fuck.
Jordan eyed us and his lips curled while he rolled his eyes. “Think you can send your young woman away, so I can talk to you?”
Simone pulled her head back, but she focused on me. Those brown eyes burned with ire.
With as much subtlety as I could muster, I gave her a stern look. “Yeah, Jordan.”
I pulled my other hand free of her dress.
Jordan blew out a sigh. “Aren’t you forty-five or some shit?”
“Forty-one,” I bit out.
Simone stood, kept her face angled toward me, but her expression said she was holding it together by a thread.
I rose and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, planning to keep her face pressed closed to me while I hustled her into the bedroom.
Jordan glanced at us from the corner of his eye. “God, is she even legal?”
Simone snapped, pulled free of my hold, and put a hand on her hip. “Yes, Jordan. I’m legal.”
“S-s-simone?” he spluttered.
“Yeah, Jordan. That’s me.”
“Why are you with him? How do you even know him?”
“Jade, head to the back,” I muttered, pulling her gaze from Jordan’s.
She opened her mouth as though she might argue, then nodded. “Yeah.”
Watching her saunter down the narrow hallway, I couldn’t fathom how Jordan could cast her aside.
Once the bedroom door closed, Jordan said, “You call her Jade? That isn’t her name.”
I met his angry gaze. “No, but it suits her.”
He sneered. “You know I lived with her for two years?”
I nodded once.
Disbelief clouded his face. “Do you know she’s pregnant?” His head turned a fraction and his jaw dropped open. “You’re the man from out of town, aren’t you?”
I bit my lower lip. “Why’d you come by, Jordan?”
He either didn’t hear me or ignored me. “How did you meet her? Or did you decide you wanted my sloppy seconds?”
I closed the distance between us. “Anyone else said that shit, they’d be laid out on the fuckin’ floor right now. You’re my son, and I’m giving you a pass, but that’s the last time you disrespect her or me. Now, what do you want, Jordan?”
He gaped at me as it hit him that I cared about her. “She’s my age!”
“I gave you the fuckin’ money, so what do you want?” I whispered.
It took him a moment to get his shit together. “It doesn’t fuckin’ matter. Mom was right, you always want the younger, prettier, shinier model. Said you love to rob the cradle. Hell, you killed a man for pointing it out when you were prospecting.”
I cocked my head to the side. “That’s a fuckin’ lie, Jordan. I killed a man. Not because of that, but because he bad-mouthed your Mom, and age had fuck-all to do with it.”
“Whatever,” he muttered, turned on his heel and left.
I shut the front door of the camper, locked it, and went to the small fridge for a beer. While I had it open, I grabbed a soda for Simone and moved to the bedroom.
She sat on top of the bed with her legs folded.
I put the soda bottle on the tiny end table next to the bed. “Know you heard all that shit. You got something to say about it?”
She pressed her lips together. “I didn’t hear all of it. Not after he said I’m his age.”
I swallowed a slug of beer. “Are you disgusted by the difference in our age?”
“Hell, no,” she said, unfolding her legs and scooting further up the bed.
“Are you pissed?”
“No, I’m… Did you want to hit him for calling me sloppy-seconds?”
“I fuckin’ say what I mean, Simone.”
“You didn’t, just because he’s your son?”
I closed my eyes and exhaled. “Yeah.”
“Is it wrong that I wanted you to punch him?”
I opened my eyes. “You wanted me to hit him?”
She nodded. “I don’t like him judging us… even if there won’t be an ‘us’ after this weekend.”
“Wrong,” I said, pulling my boots and socks off.
“What do you mean ‘wrong’?” she scoffed.
I already had my cut off and yanked my t-shirt over my head. “I mean you’re wrong about that.”
My hard-on had dissipated while Jordan was here, but Simone in that baby-doll dress, wearing no bra and a tiny thong, had me hard as a rock. I carefully dropped my jeans and underwear.
“You are so sexy,” she muttered, licking her lips.
I grabbed her legs and yanked her across the bed so she was laying down. My control was slipping, but I pulled her thong off without destroying it. I dragged my index finger through her folds. She was sopping for me.
I loved that .
“So are you, baby. Get your dress off or I’ll tear it off and I really fuckin’ like that dress.”
She smiled. “I’m glad.”
When she tossed the dress on the floor, I pinched one of her taut nipples. “But the next fuckin’ time you wear it, you will wear a bra, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
I lifted her legs and surged inside her. “Do you know what you fuckin’ do to me, calling me ‘Sir’?”
“Maybe. Are you gonna show me?”
“Yeah, because it’s time to take your fucking.”
Between the lengthy make-out session earlier and my pent up anger, I fucked her hard, wild, and fast. So damned good… the best.
While we both came down from our orgasms, she traced her tongue along my collar bone. “I love how you work my body, Steel. It’s fantastic.”
I loved being buried inside her. That was even better.
Watching my fingers slide her hair off her forehead, I said, “You were wrong earlier.”
“What am I wrong about?”
I grabbed her hands, pinned them to the bed, and gave her more of my weight. “You said there wouldn’t be an us after this weekend. That’s wrong.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s not what you said last night.”
I nipped at her lower lip. “And I’ve changed my mind, woman.”
Her head tilted. “You’re fuck-drunk.”
I threw my head back and roared with laughter.
She got the drop on me and rolled me to my back, dislodging my cock from her pussy.
I grabbed the globes of her ass. “I could be, as addicted to you as I am, but that isn’t what prompted me to change my mind.”
“Really?” she asked, lowering her torso to mine.
My lips curled into a smile while I gathered her hair in my hands. “Yeah. Deep down, I don’t want you having to figure it out for yourself. That’s wrong. Then there’s what you said about how you’re different from Debra. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how true that is. Hell, it’s what drew me to you that night. You didn’t want me because I’m president of a mother chapter. You didn’t know shit about me.”
She rested her forearms on my chest and propped her chin on top of her arms. “Yeah, but I… I’m gonna ask this anyway, are you sure you won’t bail on me like you did with Jordan? I won’t be cool with that, and I want to be in on that kind of decision… ‘cause you don’t understand how much I’ll fight back with someone who fucks with my family.”
I gave her ass a squeeze. “I can’t make that promise, but we’ll take it one day at a time.”
Her eyes rounded. “I’m not moving to Augusta, I just put a deposit down on an apartment and I want my doctor to be—”
I put my finger on her lips. “One day at a time, baby. My club’s had issues in Jacksonville for a long-ass time. You’re in Jacksonville. I have to make a visit there to solve the fuckin’ problems. I’ve decided I’m gonna be in town for a while. That means I’m staying with you, but we’ll take precautions.”
Her lips tipped up. “Right, that sounds like a plan.”
I liked the excitement lacing her tone. It almost had me looking forward to a trip to Jacksonville.
She stared at me like she couldn’t believe what I’d said. My gut said my next words would wipe that look off her face.
“One more thing, Jade.”
“What?”
“Most of those weekends, I’ll have to go back to Augusta. You’re coming with me as often as possible.” Her eyes went wide. “And it’ll kill me, but that won’t be on the back of my bike.”
Yep. Her expression drooped like a wilted flower.
“Sorry, baby, but how many pregnant women do you see on the back of a Harley?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s annoying when you’re logical.”
I rubbed my hand up and down her back, squeezing her ass every chance I got. “Is Volt gonna freak the fuck out again?”
She grinned and slid her eyes to the side. “Most likely. But, he’ll get over it as long as you don’t fuck me over.”
Those words made my lungs freeze. The word ‘never’ sat on the tip of my tongue, but life had a way of fucking things up. “Not if I can help it, darlin’.”