Chapter Seven #3
“Ryatt. You’re in a halfway house. That’s one off from a trap house. Users know users and they all know dealers. Kings are going to be asking about you.”
“I’m so fucked. I’ve got nowhere to go.” I glanced at McKelle. Sleep finally had her. Soft snores slipped past her slightly parted lips. “I can’t let my problems become her problems.”
“If you walk now, she’s going to blame me.” He stood with his empty beer bottle and held his hand out for my empty can. “She’s not ready to fight with me yet.”
Why did he sound disappointed?
“How serious are you about prospecting?” Cruz tossed both in the garbage. “Because you can’t sort of want the patch. You earn it with blood, sweat, and you’ll probably cry yourself to sleep a few times.”
“I was hoping to be out of the halfway house, and out from under my PO first. He could rescind my probation for associating with Hellers.”
“A room is opening up at the MC. Rent is cheap. Community bathroom, but you’ll have to talk to Romeo.
Prospects aren’t Hellers, and rooms are usually only rented to patched members.
But they make exceptions. They did for me, but there was never any doubt that I was going to do whatever it took to get the patch. ”
And that’s where we were different. Brotherhood, but not at any cost. I wouldn’t put the club before McKelle.
I stared hard at Cruz and lowered my voice. “Are we going to pretend this isn’t fucked up?”
“Completely fucked up.” His gaze shifted to McKelle. “I can’t explain our relationship to you. I don’t think she could either. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I might.” I was still here after seeing them together at the track. Still here knowing she was in love with him. Still here because I couldn’t stay away. Still here because she wanted me to be.
“Our relationship has always been volatile.” He bowed his head. “I wish I could say I’d never hurt her, but I have.”
A hot flash of anger burned in my gut. I vaulted up. “What the fuck do you mean you’ve hurt her?”
Cruz jerked back in the chair. “Not violent, you asshole. I’ve hurt her with my behavior. I let her down when she was always there for me. When your whole fucking world is burning down, you gain perspective. She’s everything.”
“Was she everything when you were working for the patch? Now that you have it, now that you don’t have to make a choice, you choose her.”
“I know how it looks, but you’re wrong. Not the patch, not the Hellers, not even you were the reason.
” He rubbed the knuckles on his right hand, probably thinking about punching me for kissing McKelle.
“Just me. I fucked up.” He stood and shrugged out of his leather vest. Oh man, the dude was cut with muscle.
He could definitely make me hurt. “I’m having another beer.
” He opened the mini fridge. “Because I’m crashing here tonight. ”
“Not with her.” I said the words before I considered the impact they’d have on Cruz.
He twisted open the bottle and took a sip. “If you can’t handle her dating both of us, you should walk.”
“And you can?”
“Apparently, I can, and no one is more shocked than me.”
“Dating or fucking?” Because I’d hated seeing them together at the track. He hadn’t just kissed her. He’d consumed her. I’d hated it because he kissed her like he owned her, and she submitted like she was his.
And I wanted her to be mine.
“It’s her choice,” Cruz said. “Always. I’m taking whatever she’ll give me.” He grabbed a quilt from the stack, kicked off his boots, and sat in the recliner again. “What do you think about the room at the MC?”
“I don’t know.” I stood. “I can’t bring my troubles there.”
Cruz chuckled and reclined the chair. “Kings won’t fuck with the Hellers. If they fuck with you, they fuck with all of us.”
I headed toward the stairs to go use the restroom, still confused by the shift in the conversation.
“And Ryatt?”
I paused and turned toward him. “Yeah?”
“You’ll be my prospect, not Romeo’s.”
“Why?” Why would Cruz get involved? I figured he’d tip off the Kings, give them my location or worse, hand me over, and remove me from the situation.
“Because we both got something with McKelle. We’re not putting Romeo or any other Heller between us. It’s the only way you’re getting the patch. The only way you get my vote.”
While I’d been gone to take a leak, Cruz had stripped out of his shirt and jeans. He’d made himself comfortable, as if he belonged in her space. Maybe he did. Maybe we both did.
Fully inked and full of fuck-off attitude, he reclined in the chair.
His hair hung to his shoulders. Some of the guys at the MC were scarred and scary as fuck.
And then there was Romeo. He’d always gotten girls.
They liked a pretty boy. When we were kids, our dick of a foster dad would call him Michelle instead of Michael because of his effeminate features.
Cruz wasn’t pretty or rugged, but I could understand why McKelle found him appealing. He was fit with a lean but muscular torso and had flat, toned eight-pack abs.
The dude was ripped and good looking. His attitude wasn’t conceited or arrogant when it was truth. The guy had appeal. If I wasn’t working at hating him, if he wasn’t an asshole, I might actually like him.
His chest lifted with a deep breath in, and then his lips pulled into a smile. “You’re staring.”
“Fuck you,” I snapped.
He mumbled something that sounded a lot like eventually.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Get some sleep,” he said and tossed a pillow at me. “On the floor.”
I grabbed a quilt, snapped off the light, and used my foot to move the pillow onto the rug, closer to the couch.
I lay on the floor and thought about what he’d said about McKelle and about the MC.
Romeo coming back into my life had been the best thing to happen to me until McKelle.
But this situation was about to get messy.
We were both going to be with her. Dating her.
Kissing her. Eventually fucking her. I’d never been good at sharing anything, mostly because I never had anything of value.
I wouldn’t have to be jealous because she’d be mine, too. Maybe it would all go to hell, but that was my life. Nothing good ever lasted. And it always sucked when it ended.
Would this be any different?
Cruz breathed deep and heavy, but I wasn’t hearing McKelle’s soft snoring anymore. I turned my head toward the couch.
Moonlight gave just enough glow to see she was awake. She smiled with her sleepy eyes locked on mine. “How did you get the floor?” she whispered.
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I’m not sleeping.” She scooted back.
I climbed from the floor and stretched out next to her. Adjusting the quilt, I covered us. We’d been in this position before, but never with her ex snoring across the room.
“I heard you talking to Cruz.”
I tucked her hair behind her ear. “Good, because I’m going to need your help interpreting the shit coming out of his mouth.” Our words were whisper-quiet in the room. “If I prospect for the club, I might be able to rent a room at the clubhouse.”
“Is that what you want?” she whispered. “Hellers would give you protection from the Kings.”
“It’s more than that. I can find a room on Craigslist. I’ve never belonged anywhere.
Meeting Kiss, finding Romeo again, meeting you and your family, just feels like the first time I could have something good.
” Her hair slipped through my fingers. “The problem is sleeping on the chair across the room. He’d be my sponsor. ”
“He won’t be a problem,” she said like a promise. “He wouldn’t do something to hurt you because he knows it would hurt me.”
I closed the space between us and kissed her. In the darkened room, her mouth opened, and her tongue tangled with mine. Beneath the quilt, I ran my palm along her flank, and onto her ass.
I wanted to do more than kiss her, but not with Cruz in the room. I wasn’t going to let that stop me from having a taste of her mouth.
As I kissed her, I split her legs with my thigh and held her just above the edge of her jeans so I could feel her satiny skin beneath my fingertips. Heat slipped along my spine and sank low in my groin. As my gut clenched, my cock hardened.
I sucked on her lip, then slipped back into her mouth for another heated taste. As I continued to kiss her, our bodies shifted. I hovered over her, kissing her, rocking my cock into the apex of her thighs, sliding my hand under her shirt, and bracketing her ribs with my palm.
I rasped my thumb against her nipple and cradled her breast, and she sucked in a little breath, pressing her chest into me. Her tit filled my hand perfectly. The turgid tip prodded against my palm. I gently squeezed the fullness, then pinched and twisted her nipple between my thumb and forefinger.
She smiled and nipped my chin. Wedging her hand between us, she unsnapped my jeans, lowered the zipper, and slid her hand into my boxers.
I inhaled hard, flaring my nostrils as she banded her fingers around my dick. Were we really doing this now with Cruz in the same room?
“Baby,” I whispered. Her hand felt so good on my dick. “I can’t fuck you with Cruz in the room, but I need to touch you, too.”
Leveraging up, I opened the snap on her jeans. Fabric rustled and the leather creaked as she shimmied her hips and pushed her jeans down her legs and kicked them to the floor.
My lips found hers again. At the same time, I pushed the crotch of her panties to the side, traced the seam of her smooth, drenched pussy, and gently grazed the edge of her clit with the tip of my finger.
“Ryatt.” She tensed as I spiraled a finger into her tight passage. She sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed my dick. I smiled against her lips, then doubled up, fucking her with my hand. Her back arched, and her low moan saturated the air.