24. Chapter 24
Xjumps up from the bed and rips my T-shirt off, exposing every square inch of her luscious body.
“For Christ’s sakes,” I exclaim as me and my dick both stand. “What the fuck are you doing?”
She throws the shirt at me.
It hits me in in the face, then drops to the floor.
“Being bitter,” she retorts, turning her back, marching into the bathroom and slamming the door. Her ass is magnificent, but so are her tits. Both gorgeous handfuls separated by a sweet little waist.
I forget my resolve. All the things we just talked about. All the things I told her.
She’s goading me. Daring me. I should just let it happen, make my point. Be the prick so many other men are. Fuck her, then let her go.
I shake my head. I could maybe be a bastard with any other woman, but this is X and I won’t fuck with her emotionally.
You already did, asshole.
Instead of punching myself in the head to stop the guilt, I pick up the T-shirt and bring it to my nose, inhaling it. It’s saturated in her sweetness.
The patter of water on the shower floor taunts me. The girl is naked, in the shower and I want to be in there with her.
Instead, I slide on the T-shirt she was wearing and leave the room.
I find Haley in the kitchen. “You got any spare clothes here that X can borrow?”
“Sure,” she says. “I keep a small bag in the car for me and the boys in case we go into lockdown.”
She leaves and while I’m waiting, I make a cup of coffee. The first gulp burns my mouth and forces me back to reality. I’ve brought a kilo of coke into the clubhouse. The owners, whoever they might be, are looking for it. And they’re stone-cold killers.
Ice slides up my spine. The worst thing that could happen is X getting killed. The second worst is Paulie.
I don’t get why whoever the coke belongs to doesn’t play it straight, call up Hangman, explain the situation, ask us to return the blow. I have a sudden insight as Haley returns with her suitcase. Maybe the pricks don’t know the Jury’s involved.
“There’s two days changes of clothes so she has a choice,” Haley says, passing the bag to me.
I take another swallow of coffee, then drain the cup. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she replies without the hostility of some of the old ladies. Haley’s sweet, the best old lady we have. We gotta acknowledge her more.
I head out of the kitchen with the suitcase, but I’m stopped by Joker, our VP, who has just stepped out of Hangman’s office.
“Got church in a few,” he says. “Don’t leave.”
“Yeah.” Inside I want to tell him to fuck off, but church is church. Unless you’re hanging off the side of a mountain without a parachute, you don’t miss it.
I take the stairs two at a time and walk into the bedroom to see X with a towel wrapped around her curvy body and another in her hand, drying off her long glossy hair. “It’s beautiful,” I say before I can stop the words.
Her hands still as she meets my eyes. “Could be softer though. Whoever’s doing the laundry should change laundry detergent.” She’s not smiling, her eyes aren’t flashing and I feel like a prick for dimming her light.
“I’ll let them know.”
She tilts her head. “Who’s doing your laundry anyway?” And the fire’s back.
“Doesn’t matter.”
She throws the towel on the bed. “Matters to me. You don’t do your own laundry, I don’t wanna hear how beautiful the towels are.”
I set the suitcase on the bed. “You know I wasn’t talking about the towels.”
She opens it up and inspects the clothes. “Same girl give you this?”
“No!” Sure the passarounds do some of the laundry, but never mine because I don’t live here. “Haley.”
The news doesn’t seem to make her happier. “Haley, the bartender?”
“Yeah. King’s wife.” I don’t know why I’m explaining myself since I’ve just made it clear we don’t have a future. “Nothin’ to do with me.”
She nods tersely as she shakes out a pair of jeans. “Okay then.” She rips off the towel she’s wearing, tosses it at me, then gathers up the clothes and marches into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
My face tightens into a grimace. She’s gonna be the death of me. “X,” I say softly as I rap on the door. “Can’t leave for an hour or so. Got church.”
She yanks the door open. “Which denomination?” She’s wearing panties now and the shirt, a button up one, hanging open in the front. My mouth dries up as I scan her body. Christ. I’ve never been so attracted to a woman. Sure, it’s the goods. The tits, the ass, the little puff of belly. But hell, I’ve never met such a fearless woman. Mouth, attitude, total and utter bedlam. Wrapped together. No pretense.
She’s got her head tilted when I meet her eyes. “Uh,” I say like the smooth talker I am. “Not that kind of church.”
“What does that even mean?”
She’s got a point. “It’s just a thing for when my club meets. Like a regular meeting.”
“Why not call it a regular meeting then or morning prayers or something that makes sense?”
She’s baiting me and it’s pissing me off. I reach out and tweak one of her nipples. Hard.
“Ow,” she exclaims as she slaps my hand away. “No touching the goods, Judas. Remember. You’re a pig and I’m a vegetarian. We’re incompatible.”
Fuck, I want to take her over my knee and spank her ass until she’s tapping out. I grab her arms and yank her to me. “You need to settle down, baby. You’re the only one that gets me losing my cool, and you piss me off bad enough, I’m gonna blow.”
She places her hands on my chest and throws her entire body into the shove, which has enough force to make me stumble backwards out of the bathroom. “Go to church and confess your sins. It’ll do your soul good.”
She slams the door in my face before I can recover.
I get to church just after Hangman does, which is never a good thing. Church starts when he arrives, even if he’s early.
“Thanks for comin’,” He sneers. “I’m gonna forgive you because that chick you got stashed in your bedroom is a nightmare.”
“Not his bedroom,” Red grumbles. “My bedroom. And the fuckin’ walls are thin.”
I think about earlier. “Your ears are too big if you think you heard fuckin’.”
“I wasn’t talking about the fucking. All the two of you do is bitch at each other.”
Rocky and Trigger exchange raised-eyebrow glances.
“Maybe we could talk about this some other time.” I look around at the rest of the club. Most of them are smirking, even Eight, who rarely cracks a smile.
Red seems not to notice. “Or maybe you could give me back my room.”
“What crawled up your ass?” I ask him, bewildered at his attitude.
“Don’t know,” he replies as he glares at Trigger. “I was sleeping in this asshole’s bed. Could be any number of things.”
That gets everyone laughing, including Trigger, who’s probably better than anyone else at taking insults. “Don’t live there anymore, brother, but be nice to the crawlers I left behind. They might end up being your only friends.”
Hangman puts a stop to the banter. “We’re in shit up to our eyeballs, thanks to this asshole.” He jerks his head at me. “Who thinks he’s a knight in shining armor.”
I sigh. “It made sense at the time. X needed help. Her pop’s paying us for protection.”
“It had nothin’ to do with her caboose?” says Hash, sitting next to Coyote. Fucker’s still cut up from a vicious beating he took a few weeks ago from a couple of assholes. Crank, one of our prospects, was killed trying to help. Wasn’t the Blackbeards, our rival bike club, just like the coke isn’t theirs.
“Maybe,” I say because I’m not gonna admit that it runs deeper than that. Not in front of these animals.
“I hear wedding bells,” Rocky says smugly.
“Jesus Christ,” Hangman intervenes. “Fucker gets married and now he’s turned full-idiot.”
King grins. “Leave the poor bugger alone. He’s gonna be up to his tits in shit and spit-up soon enough.”
Hangman grins maliciously. “That’s gonna be fun to watch.”
Joker is sitting at the other end of the table from Hangman. “Let’s get focused on what we gotta talk about. Rocky’s soap opera can wait ’til later.”
Hangman nods at the VP. “You wanna fuckin’ lead the conversation, get leadin’.” It’s not animosity on Hangman’s part. He has a big ego, but he and Joker work well together. Even though it sounds like Joker pissed him off, he hasn’t really and Joker doesn’t take offense at his reply.
Instead, he looks down at the paper in front of him. “Let’s talk about the attack on Bryce and Peyton.” Bryce is Coyote’s old lady; Peyton is Hash’s. They were attacked a couple of weeks ago out at Jess and Rocky’s cabin by two motherfuckers who somehow found out where they were. Peyton took them both out, but one lived long enough to tell us that they were hired by a couple of assholes in suits to send us a message.
Hash nods carefully. “Same guys that attacked me, is what he said.” He pauses. “Those fuckin’ feds.”
“Yeah,” Hangman says. “Problem is only a couple of us knew where the thief and Scary Spice were vacationing. So I gotta ask myself, who’s the fuck that told them where the girls were?”
“Not me,” Rocky says. “I was in Vegas gettin’—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Hangman says glaring at him. “We know it’s not you.” He looks around at the rest of us. “Ain’t Hash either. Who the fuck’s talkin’?”
Glances are exchanged, an uncomfortable silence ensues. Hangman’s watching it all with the eyes of an eagle.
“What are you implyin’?” Fender finally says, his eyes narrow and deadly.
Joker swivels head towards Fender. “It ain’t a leap. Someone in our house is talking to the feebs, just like Jess’s brother was telling them tales about the Blackbeards.”
Rocky glares at Joker for bringing up the former Blackbeard who was passing information along to the rogue FBI agents until they killed him for finding dirt on them. Dirt we now have.
“Why don’t they talk to us direct?” Coyote says. “All this bullshit isn’t endearing them to us.”
“They’ve fucked around with us too many times. Know they crossed a line they can’t come back from. Now they’re trying to show us how tough they are,” Joker says.
“Fucking bastards,” Hash snarls. “That wasn’t a line they crossed, it was a major freeway.”
“Why don’t you hand over the evidence to the feebs in Washington and let them do the job?” Rider says.
Hangman grunts a laugh. “When did you get so stupid? We don’t play nice with those fuckers. Besides, we’re gonna bury the bastards alive after we’re done skinning them. We hand the evidence over to the feds, they’re gonna do them for the murder of the journalist and nothin’ else and even that might not stick. Those bastards protect their own.”
“What about Wendy? She say anything?” Trigger asks. Wendy is Evanee’s employee at the vet clinic and Evanee is Trigger’s ol’ lady. Wendy was approached by the feds who asked her to work for them.
Hangman shakes his head. “I’m cuttin’ her loose. Don’t fucking trust her. She was conveniently absent the day the Blackbeard’s blew up the vet’s clinic.”
Trigger sighs like he’s heard this argument before. “Wendy wasn’t involved. You don’t like her cause she talks back.”
“I don’t like her,” Hangman bellows, “because she has a fucking answer for everything.”
I have to agree. Not someone I warmed up to.
“She’s clean,” Trigger argues.
“You’re fucking blinded by your ol’ lady’s cunt,” Hangman says.
Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Hash says, “You should close your eyes or you’re gonna go blind, brother.”
The laughter moves us away from the feds. Unfortunately it moves it on to me.