Cheyenne Chapter 6
I was nervous as hell and wanted to turn around and run back home. Over the last week and a half since I’d been hit by the car, Reaper and I had been slowly getting to know each other. He’d text throughout the day to see how I was doing. In the evening, he’d call, and we’d talk on the phone. He’d brought me lunch a couple times at work. Another time he came over to my place and brought dinner then we watched movies. All the normal things a man and a woman did when they were getting to know each other.
Only, I was still worried about why he wanted to go through all this. He didn’t need to go to these lengths to get a woman to sleep with him. Alisse kept telling me it was because he liked me. I was starting to think it could be possible. I fought not to get my hopes up, though I had to admit, he’d kissed me a few times, and I’d practically melted into the floor. That man was lethal when it came to kissing.
It only made my nights harder since I dreamed of him now every night and I was in a constant state of arousal. If I didn’t know what I did about bikers, I would have probably already slept with him. And that said something because I didn’t think or feel like that.
Both Reaper and Alisse had worked on me until I agreed to come to his compound for a family party, as he called it. It was supposed to be his club, his sister and her husband’s club with their families. I had to be crazy to have fallen for that! I looked over at Alisse. She was driving us both to their compound. I think she volunteered to do it because she was afraid I’d chicken out. I was happy she would be there with me. As the compound and its gate came into view, I grabbed her arm. “Turn around! I want to go home,”
I told her in a panic. I could feel my heart starting to beat like crazy. She shook her head.
“Cheyenne, we talked about this. Reaper is a good guy. I’ve seen nothing to make me think otherwise. I’m here and nothing is going to happen. We’re just going to have fun and eat a bunch of food and relax. You’re going to get to meet his sister and the Punisher’s closest friends. I’m going to feast my eyes on yummy bikers. It’s all good,”
she teased me. I swallowed the lump in the back of my throat and nodded.
“You’re right. I’m being ridiculous. Thank you for coming with me.”
“You’re not ridiculous and you’re welcome.”
We pulled up to the gate which was open. We drove inside and I looked around. It was a lot like a typical club compound. It had a large building that I could only assume was their clubhouse. There were a few other buildings that I had no idea what they were, but what surprised me was the fact there was more than one house here. He’d said they lived at the compound, but I assumed they all lived in the clubhouse.
There were mainly bikes parked out front but a fair share of regular vehicles too. The other thing that took me by surprise was the number of kids. They were running and laughing while adults stood nearby watching them. And it wasn’t just women, I saw some of the men watching them too. As Alisse parked and shut off the car, I looked around more.
I saw several guys I recognized as Reaper’s guys. The rest all wore colors that read Archangel’s Warriors on the back of them. The women I saw were wearing property cuts with the name of their man on the back. Seeing those had my stomach clenching. Before I could tell Alisse I’d changed my mind and wanted to leave again, my door swung open and there stood Reaper.
He looked so damn hot and sexy, I wanted to climb him and kiss that mouth of his. Whoa, stop right there, libido. No jumping anyone, I chided myself. See, he made me crazy and not act like myself. He held out his hand, and I took it. He helped me out and onto my feet. I’d barely straightened before he was kissing me. I got lost in that kiss and everything and everyone fell away.
His arms wrapped around me and he tugged me against his hard chest. His tongue and teeth were both working to drive me insane. His hands were resting above the top of my ass. As I kissed him back, they slid down and he gave my ass a squeeze before he stepped back. His eyes were blazing, and he licked his lips.
“Hello, Bright Eyes. I’m so damn glad you’re here, though I’d rather take you somewhere private. I guess I need to be a good host and show you around.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his crestfallen face. “It would probably be best. And it’ll keep us both out of trouble.”
“Oh, baby, we can work on getting into trouble later,”
he teased, then looked over the top of the car. “Hey, Alisse, good to see you. Come on. Let’s get you two drinks and I’ll introduce you.”
In less than five minutes, we both had drinks, and he was taking us to a group of people. I saw the looks cast at us when the ones from the other club saw us. They were looking at us curiously. I saw some checking both me and Alisse out. That made me feel tense.
When we stopped, Reaper addressed them, “Hey, everyone, I’d like you to meet Cheyenne and Alisse.”
They all nodded or murmured greetings. One woman in the group was watching me intently and had a questioning look in her eyes. She had long dark brown hair with blond highlights and hazel eyes. She was maybe a couple of inches taller than me and a bit slenderer. I estimated her to be a couple of years older than me.
Next to her was a man who was even taller than Reaper. This guy was holding a small boy who looked like him. The man was older and had the darkest blue eyes I’d ever seen. Combined with his tan skin and longer blond hair, he was gorgeous. Reaper tugged me under his arm and pointed to the woman.
“Cheyenne, babe, this is Harper, my sister. The blond asshole next to her is her husband, Viper.”
Viper grinned and flipped Reaper off. “This little man is my nephew, Cayden.”
All of them were looking at me and the arm he had around me.
The little boy broke the silence. “Reap say bad word,”
he crowed in delight. Everyone burst out laughing.
Reaper grinned at his nephew. “You’re right, I did. I’ll put money in the jar. At this rate, his college will be paid for before he even starts school.”
“If not by you, then his father and the guys will have it more than covered,”
Harper said. Viper kissed her hard and then smacked her ass.
“You wouldn’t have me any other way, woman. Nice to meet you, Cheyenne and Alisse. How do you know Reaper and his guys?”
he asked. I could tell he was curious about who I was and what I was doing here. I looked at Reaper. I had no idea what to say.
“I met her when I had to take Ratchet to see the doctor. Chey works at a doctor’s office in town. Actually, both of them do. Alisse is her best friend.”
“And you two are what, friends or something?”
his sister asked boldly. From the tone of her voice, I could tell her use of “friends”
wasn’t the same as mine. I stiffened. This hadn’t been a good idea. I tried to step away from Reaper, but he held on tight to me. He was frowning.
“Harper, I don’t like that tone of yours. No, we’re not friends like you mean. If I can convince her, Cheyenne is going to be my lady. Way more than friends, both kinds,”
he said with a bite to his tone. Her face registered shock, and she looked at me again. This time, I didn’t see anything condescending on her face. She held out her hand, and I saw she was blushing.
“I’m sorry, Cheyenne, forgive me. I can be a bitch sometimes. Nice to meet you and you,”
she said as she gave her hand to Alisse. That broke the ice and Reaper quickly introduced us to the others. We met Ghost, and his wife, Wren. Smoke and his wife, Everly, and two single Warriors, Thorn and Gunner. Both of them were quick to flirt with Alisse. I was trying to act like I wasn’t stunned by his lady remark. What in the hell was I getting myself into coming here?
From there it was a whirlwind of names, and the number of kids was staggering. They were everywhere and unlike the adults, didn’t have on cuts with their names, though I noticed the women had road or nicknames like the men. Reaper’s sister was called Vixen. Everywhere I looked I saw people laughing, having fun. There was no fighting, no inappropriate behavior. They might swear, but the women were given loving glances, and the kids were well taken care of and not just by their parents. It was truly something that was blowing my mind. I had no idea how to process it all.
As the day wore on, I relaxed more and more. I got to know the other women. Eventually, Reaper had let go of me and I sat with some of the women while he was talking to some of the men. Harper happened to be one of them. She scooted to the edge of her chair. “Okay, tell me everything!”
“Tell you everything about what?”
“How did you get my brother?”
“Get him? I don’t have him. We’re friends.”
She laughed. “Bullshit! My brother has never introduced me to a woman. And he said he was trying to get you to be his lady. I know what that means. I’m so damn excited! I thought he’d never settle down.”
“Whoa, hold on, he hasn’t settled for me. I have no idea what his lady remark was about. We met a few weeks ago. He and I have hung out, but that’s all. He asked us to come today, and we said we would,”
I protested.
Alisse snorted. I looked over at her. She rolled her eyes. “Girl, when are you going to realize that man wants you so damn bad, he’s about to explode. He’s done everything from sending her flowers, to staying with her at the hospital when she was hit by a car, to bringing her lunches and dinner, and hanging out with her at her place. I’d say that’s more than he wants to be friends with her.”
I glared at her.
“Oh, hell yeah, that is! He’s done all that? And what do you mean, he stayed at the hospital?”
Harper asked. I quickly explained what had happened and didn’t bother to address anything else. Why? Because a huge part of me wanted it to be true—that he was looking for a relationship and he wanted one with me. Something that I had no idea how to have. The idea made my heart skip a beat.
They had a good time trying to get me to admit it was a relationship and teased me. I was happy to have them stop when we were called to eat. The food had been brought in and it was great. After everyone had stuffed themselves, we went out back to relax more. It wasn’t dark yet, but it would be soon. We would most likely move things indoors.
We were in the back when the roar of more bikes was heard. All the guys looked up and frowned. I was sitting with Reaper. He jumped up, and I saw him gesture to his guys. He looked at me. “Stay with Harper, babe. We’ll be back. I need to see who just pulled up. We’re not expecting anyone else.”
He looked at his sister. “Take the women and kids into the clubhouse, through the back and go to the basement. One of us will be down.”
She didn’t argue. The guys all left in one big group. The only ones who stayed with us were a couple of prospects with the Warriors. All the women hurried to gather the kids and to get inside. I was racing to help. I couldn’t help but worry about who was here, and why were we all rushing to go to the basement?
Once we were all safely in the basement, I looked around. It was a massive room that had a heavy steel door. The room was equipped with chairs, tables, and even beds. I looked at Harper. “What is this?”
“Reaper hasn’t shown you around yet?”
I shook my head. “This is the safe room, I guess you could say, though it’s used for the kids and stuff if needed.”
She saw the fear come over my face. They needed a safe room? Maybe they were more like what I had initially thought. She put her hand on my arm.
“It’s just a precaution until they know who showed up. They would do the same thing at our place. We don’t have a lot of trouble, but we do like to be prepared.”
I gulped and looked over at Alisse. She looked a lot more relaxed than I did, but then she had no actual idea how bad this could get.
We were there for maybe fifteen minutes before Braxton came down to get us. “It’s okay to come upstairs. Reaper said to stay in the common room. They had to go into a meeting with some people. They shouldn’t be long,”
he told us as we herded everyone upstairs. I looked around when we got up there but didn’t see anyone. The others quickly got back into party mode. I stayed more alert.
I was playing with Cayden. It was maybe an hour after we’d come up from the basement when a door off the common room opened and out streamed the Warriors and the Punishers. I watched as they came out talking. They didn’t seem upset or on edge. They were relaxed. I felt the tension seep out of me. There, I worried for nothing.
I handed Cayden back to Harper and stood up. I wanted to go to Reaper as soon as he came out. I edged closer to the door. Before I got there, he came out. He was talking to another man who had his head down. Reaper looked over and saw me and gave me that panty-melting smile of his. Then the man with him looked up and my heart stopped beating. I screamed and backed up.
The other man’s eyes got wide and then an evil smile crossed his lips. I didn’t wait to see what he’d say or what any of them would do, I took off running. My worst fucking nightmare had just come true. I’d been betrayed. And Reaper was the method of my destruction.
***
Reaper:
As I hurried to the front of the clubhouse, I hoped that Harper would get everyone inside and down to the safe room in the basement quickly. It might not be anything to worry about, but we weren’t expecting anyone and certainly not anyone on bikes. Call me paranoid, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. I was glad that I had friends at our back if anything happened. You’d have to be suicidal to pull shit with both of our clubs here.
As we rounded the corner of the building, I made sure Maniac and I were in the lead. Terror and his VP, Savage, were right behind us. Then it was a mix of both of our men. I saw that Carter was at the gate, watching four men who were sitting on their bikes on the other side of the gate. I didn’t pull out my gun, but I knew others had theirs ready.
The closer we got, the more I took in. The men were all dressed in leather, jeans and boots—the typical biker uniform. I’d guess them to be in their late twenties to late thirties. One was sitting slightly in front of the others. I guessed him to be the leader of this group, whoever they were. They had their hands out in plain sight. They were looking around in interest at what they could see through the bulletproof glass we had fabricated into the metal gate. An idea I also got from the Warriors.
I stopped at the gate and called through on a speaker, “What can we do for you guys?”
The one in the front swung off his bike and stepped closer. He smiled. “Hi, sorry we scared you. I wasn’t expecting our meeting to start like this,”
he said in a joking manner.
“Meeting? What meeting would that be?”
I asked him with a frown. We didn’t have a meeting set with anyone.
“The one we had for today. I’m Serpent and these are my guys. We talked about meeting with you to see if we could join your club. Ours has been disbanded and we’ve heard really good things about your club.”
Realization dawned. These were the guys we were supposed to meet with next Saturday. What were they doing here today? “Of course I remember. But you’re a week early. That meeting isn’t until next Saturday.”
“Well, shit! I fucked that up.”
He looked at his guys then back at me. His face was wrinkled in what looked like consternation. “I thought for sure we’d scheduled it for today. We rode all the way down from Pittsburgh. Damn, can you recommend a place we can stay tonight? It’s almost a six-hour drive back to Pittsburgh. We need to rest before heading back. Sorry, we messed up the dates. We’ll just have to come back next Saturday. I can see it looks like you’re having a party. We don’t want to interrupt.”
I didn’t want them to interrupt either, but it would be shitty of me to make them go all the way back and then ride here again next week. I looked at Maniac, and he shrugged at me. I glanced back at Serpent. “That’s okay. It was a mistake. We all make ‘em. Tell you what, if you’re okay with it being a brief talk, we can do it now. Then if we like what we hear, we’ll get back to you about coming back for a more extensive meet and greet. How does that sound?”
He got a relieved look on his face. “Hell yeah, that sounds perfect. Thanks a million.”
“Before you come in, I need to let you know, we can’t have you guys here with your guns. We’ve got women and children. You’re unknown. Not meaning to piss you off, just a fact. Will you let my sergeant-at-arms take your weapons? We’ll give them back when you leave.”
No way was I going to have them in here with them. I could tell they weren’t excited by the idea. If it had been men only here, then I wouldn’t have cared since we outnumbered them. Serpent was quiet for a minute then he nodded.
“Carter, open the gate. Why don’t you guys pull inside, then stop. Crusher will pat you down and then we can all head into the clubhouse and talk,”
I instructed. The four of them revved their bikes, pulled inside, and stopped. I kept an eye on them as Crusher patted them down and took their weapons. I knew Terror and his guys, along with the rest of mine, were just as alert. Once they were disarmed, we walked to the clubhouse after telling them they could leave their bikes by the gate. They found spots and then followed us.
I led them to our church, which was right off the main common room. Inside, we had a huge-ass table with more chairs than we had ever needed. I liked to be prepared. I gestured to where they could take a seat. The rest of us took the remaining seats. Crusher and my enforcer, Mayhem, made sure to be the ones closest to the door. That way they could see them.
I opened a fridge we kept in there and pulled out a shit load of beers and bottled water that I sat in the middle of the table. The four of them all grabbed a beer, while a few of my guys took water. The Warriors were a mix. With that taken care of, I got down to business. I wanted to get back to Cheyenne.
“Alright, let’s get down to it. We haven’t done a full check into you guys yet. We planned to do that this week. We know the club you were with in Pittsburgh disbanded a year ago. Why come all the way to Virginia to join another one? Surely, there are several in your area? How did you even know about us?”
Serpent answered, “Yeah, the Steel Falcons decided a year ago that they wanted to disband the club. Most of the guys were old guys who couldn’t ride much anymore. And while like us there were a few younger guys, there just didn’t seem to be many who wanted to continue. We talked about it and decided we’d try something else. At first, we were going to create a whole new club, but we’d still have the same issue if we stayed local.”
He took a swallow of his beer. He was looking around the table at all of us as he talked. “That brought up the idea that we’d have to think about moving somewhere else. Chubbs, here,”
he pointed to the husky guy beside him, “said if we had to move, why not find a club we could join rather than have to start from scratch? I couldn’t argue with that. None of us is looking to be running a club if we don’t have to. Love to ride, but don’t want to have all that responsibility falling on our shoulders. We have no problem working and helping,”
he rushed to reassure us.
“So, with that idea, we started to look into clubs all over the country. Ones that would be similar to what we had with the Steel Falcons. We’re not looking for an outlaw, one-percenter club. That stuff will get you killed. As you can imagine, that narrowed down our options a lot. We’ve checked out a few others, but when we heard about the Punishers, we thought you sounded like a great fit.”
“How did you hear of us all the way in Pittsburgh?”
I asked him.
“Was at this rally and some guy who’d been to a rally or something held down here mentioned you guys. We were talking to him, asking if he knew of any clubs like yours. He was the one that told us. His name was Chains.”
“What was the name of the club he was with, this Chains?”
Maniac asked.
Serpent chuckled. “Hell, I forget who he said he was with. We were all kind of drunk that night, but I do remember his name. Anyway, we started to ask around and heard from others that you guys are a clean club, have legit businesses, and overall, live in peace with your communities. That’s something we want. We had it with the Falcons.”
He leaned back in his chair. His guys all sat there not saying a word. I decided to get one of them to talk. Everything he was saying sounded like it could be true. I’d had Spawn already look into the Steel Falcons. They had been a legit club that had disbanded about a year ago. Now that we met these guys, I’d get their names and see what we could find out about them.
“You’ve been with the Falcons for long?”
I asked Chubbs. He looked at Serpent then back at me. He nodded.
“Yeah, I’d just made my ten years before they disbanded.”
“What about you? What’s your name?”
I asked the one on the other side of Chubbs. Since they didn’t have a club anymore, none of them wore colors with their names on them. They had on plain leather riding vests.
“My name is Loon. I’d been with them for seven years. I joined after doing four years in the Army.”
“And you,”
I asked the last one.
“The name’s Tires. It was nine for me. I knew Serpent, and he got me to join.”
“So, how long have you been with them, Serpent?”
I asked. He looked to be the oldest of the guys. Unless he did time in the military first or had done other things, I bet he’d been in longer than the other three.
“I joined when I was eighteen, patched at nineteen, so I was a patch for sixteen years when they disbanded. I’m thirty-six. I hate the idea of starting over as a prospect, but not sure how else to do it.”
“Well, you do realize, we have to look into you closer. We don’t take our membership lightly. Everyone who ever prospects with us undergoes a background check.”
I saw Chubbs look at Serpent. I couldn’t tell if it was because he had something to hide or if it was just something they hadn’t expected.
“Not a problem. We’ll give you our names and stuff. Hey, we know you guys are busy. Is there anything other than our names you need? Because if not, we’re gonna let you get back to your party. We’ll head out tomorrow. You let me know what you need or decide. We really hope you decide to accept us. We’d love to be part of a club like this,”
Serpent told me with an easy smile on his face.
It took a couple of minutes to get their basic information then we all shook hands and headed back out to the common room. I sent a text a while ago to let the prospects know to allow the women and kids out of the basement as soon as we knew who these guys were. I was ready to find my woman and see what else tonight would bring.
As we walked out, I was telling Serpent I’d get back to him as soon as everything checked out. We’d just entered the common room. I looked up and saw Cheyenne headed toward me. I couldn’t help but smile. She smiled back, Then I saw her face go pale, her eyes widened in horror and she screamed as she backed away from me. What the fuck!? I stood there frozen as she took off running for the door of the clubhouse. I didn’t know what to do.