7. Match
7
MATCH
Lifesaver flicks on the light and we all pour into his office. It’s been a minute since I was last here. Two years ago must’ve been the last time, when I was concussed from a nasty blow to the head that one of Vlad’s men very kindly gave me. I was trying to save a schoolboy’s ass. He’d landed himself in debt from drugs the Bratva had freely handed over to him, and some Russian dude kicked my head in.
And now his boss wants the mayor of Las Vegas dead.
Holy fuck.
Not like I’d jump the gun for an individual who’s always had one cautious eye open on the Venom Vultures. The only reason he didn’t add us into his campaign is because Lifesaver is his best fucking friend.
I perch on a chair in the corner and scratch my chin. I fucked up last night, not putting a stop to the wedding. The other two think with their dicks and hearts most of the time—I’m supposed to be the brains out of the three of us.
And I let us down.
Alice too.
What nonsense possessed my head last night? Booze can only be blamed to a certain extent, because studies suggest that intoxicated actions are sober desires.
But it’s ridiculous.
I don’t want my name branded on Alice’s ass cheek.
I didn’t bump into her yesterday and feel the urge to stick a wedding ring on her.
Inhaling a sharp breath, I sit up in the chair and set my eyes on the door, waiting for our guest to arrive so we can process this annulment and move on.
Maybe I’ll entertain a brunette tonight at the clubhouse. A few simultaneously.
Come to think of it, Alice is the one girl who hasn’t begged on her knees for me to tattoo her ass cheek and brand her mine. That has to mean something, right?
Wrong.
Clearly the Fireball is still running through my system.
I’ll be myself again tomorrow after a solid eight hours of sleep.
KNOCK!
One loud thud at the door has us all holding our breaths. Brander tenses his jaw, and I look across the room to see Lifesaver rigidly lift from the exam table he’s been sitting on. His throat tenses as he crosses the room to unlock the door, a golf-ball-sized lump wedged in his esophagus. Lifesaver is supposed to be the easygoing extrovert of the group, the one who isn’t capable of tensing up, yet here he stands looking like he’s about to open a door to another universe that will change everything.
Brander shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
I find myself doing the same when I see her. My chest contracts. Blonde locks of hair curl around her shoulders, lifting in the breeze that funnels in through the door with her. Fresh poppy-scented perfume reaches my nose, and my senses can’t get enough. I want to bathe in the stuff. Take showers only if the water runs down my body smelling like this.
A white V-neck tee drapes around her shoulders, and on her bottom half she wears distressed denim shorts that emphasize her long, slender tanned legs. Classic white Vans are the shoes she’s gone for today, which means she must drive a car. Nobody would walk five miles out into the desert wearing slip-ons in pristine condition.
But enough about her body. Her face says it all. Frustration creases her brows. They’re not as dark as yesterday, but still a few shades deeper than her hair color, so they contrast nicely against her fair features. Swirling around her green eyes are too many emotions for me to pinpoint. She’s innocent-looking still, even more so than yesterday since she’s wearing no makeup, but I see bits of anger spilling out.
Her mouth confirms the emotion when she says, “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Lifesaver smooths his hand over her wrist but she forces it away.
Stronger than she looks.
“Whose idea was it to get married?” she asks.
Lifesaver and Brander both glance across the room to me.
Typical.
Spokesperson as usual.
“Yours, sweetness.”
“What?!” She folds her arms over her chest, and I avert my eyes from her cleavage. No matter how perfect it looks, now is not the time. “When did I—?” She pauses and trails her eyes back to the ceiling. Then they go wide, and she stares at the ceiling some more. Reality has crashed over her. Her shoulders weren’t tense before, but they are now. “I was drunk !”
“So were we, darling,” Brander says. “None of us were thinking straight.”
“Look.” I rise from my seat, leathers squeaking. “It’s pointless wasting our precious breath when we could be talking about more constructive matters like, for example, the annulment. We’ll need to go about this cautiously to avoid the judge finding out about the Venom Vultures.”
“I don’t care about that,” snaps Alice. “Right now, I’m more bothered about something more permanent.” She slides down her shorts before I even have time to prepare myself. “ This .” She turns around so she’s facing the door, and my cock twitches at the sight of her round, bare ass cheeks sitting pert in an orange G-string.
Brander shifts again in his seat.
“I know, sweetheart.” Lifesaver chances a hand around her lower back. To my surprise, it works. She doesn’t swat him away this time. “Listen, we’re very sorry. Here, come sit down.” He guides her to the exam table. “Let’s try and talk this out. I know it’s not the ideal situation for you, and I know you already have enough on your plate as it is.”
Her ass cheeks bounce as she walks. She takes quick steps, the shorts still puddled at her feet. Hoisting herself up onto the exam table, she slumps, swinging her legs midair.
The shorts land on the floor.
Would it be inappropriate to grab them and bury my face in the crotch area?
I bet it’s still warm.
Self control, Match.
Tears form in her eyes, “I just don’t understand why you would do that.”
Lifesaver plucks a tissue from a box and hands her one.
“I think it’s fair to say that if we could all write off last night, we would,” I say.
Both Lifesaver and Brander flash me a subtle look that suggests otherwise.
Alice turns her gaze to the floor and mumbles, “I dunno.”
“Speak up, darling,” Brander says.
“The crazy part is…” She shakes away pieces of fallen hair. “I actually had the best night, all things considered.” She gazes at each of us. “It was fun. The bits I can remember, anyway.”
Lifesaver returns his hand to her lower back. “Which bits can you remember?”
She sinks her teeth into her lip and averts her eyes, cheeks turning pink.
“I remember throwing away my engagement ring from the back of your motorcycle.” She turns to Lifesaver. “And certain events…unfolding. Then I remember going back to Brander’s house.” She drops her eyes, and the blush on her cheeks transitions from pink to red. “I dunno.” She shakes her head. “It was really nice. I enjoyed it.” She pinches her eyes. “I also remember laughing a lot, and strangely, a Pepsi drawing on the wall.”
She remembers the Pepsi drawing but not Brander’s knife collection? Explaining that again to her sober will be a challenge.
But a challenge we’ll never have to face. Hopefully this will be the last time we see her.
It needs to be the last time we’re in her vicinity. Otherwise I’ll be sewing myself to her side like a leech and never wanting to leave.
Strike while the iron’s hot.
I clear my throat to cut through the tension before it grows any more. Even though I’m on the other side of the room, I can practically feel Brander’s and Lifesaver’s temperatures skyrocket. Survival is Brandy’s special talent.
But perhaps this time he won’t make it.
“About the tattoo,” Brander says, cutting the silence in half with his deep-throated voice. “I’m sorry, but a removal isn’t something we can do. We use black ink for a reason, and it’s because it’s the color least likely to fade.”
Alice picks at her lip with her manicured nails. Weirdly, her face is neutral. Her voice too. “Sure you can get rid of it. Look.” She jumps down from the exam table. “If you’re scared of hurting me, then you have nothing to worry about. I have an exceptionally high pain tolerance. My fiancé broke up with me a week before our wedding, and we were together for four years. If my heart can go on beating after that, I can survive painful laser no problem.”
Jealousy cuts through me sharper than a knife. Her ex isn’t a topic my ears particularly like hearing about. It’s like tuning in to a static radio station—the crackling soon worms its way into your bones if you listen to it long enough.
“That’s not quite how we operate things, sweetness.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The tattoo is, like you said, permanent—so we can’t remove it.”
Her eyes space out. A perfect opportunity presents itself for her to lash out and call us all the most hurtful names under the sun, but a lip twitch is the only reaction she has to my words.
I make eye contact with Brander. God, he looks terribly sober now. Darkness shadows under his eyes, but it has nothing to do with the two hours of sleep he caught last night. His thoughts always show on his face, and this one translates into a sort of dread.
That’s when it hits me.
Other women are out-of-bounds now. We can’t distract ourselves. Pretend none of it happened. The mark on her left ass cheek has sealed the deal that Lifesaver, Brander, and I share exclusivity with Alice. She’s only permitted to open her legs for us, and by code of conduct, she is the only girl we can fuck.
I wipe a hand around the back of my neck. Being exclusive with this woman is how I lose my sense of self.
It’s a face-palm moment.
I could accept it if Alice wasn’t Alice .
But here we are.
I can wave goodbye to feeling as light as a bird not burdened by feelings, and hello to complicated. To a heavy heart and an overthinking mind. Things all came together for Bane, Alto, and Colt when they branded Harlow behind Grizzly’s back, and the same followed for some of our other members. But this doesn’t promise a stable life for me.
Last night wasn’t just a fuckup.
It was the day Match died.
“You belong to us now, Alice,” Brander says.
She leans back against the exam table. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you can’t see any other men.”
She folds her arms. “Because I have a tattoo of your names on my butt?”
“Exactly,” I say.
“And what about the marriage?”
Silence answers that question. It’s a good one. What about the marriage? Normally, that comes years down the line when you actually know a person.
“It means,” Lifesaver begins, “that even after we file for an annulment, our exclusivity remains the same. Me, you, Brander and Match.”
Until death do we fucking part.
She tilts her head. “Why?”
“We took an oath at initiation to never break any codes of conduct,” he answers.
She thinks for a moment, swiping her tongue over her teeth. “And you can’t just break the oath? It’s not like anybody outside of this room knows about our…arrangement.”
I’m outnumbered. The hesitation on Lifesaver’s and Brander’s faces shows me all I need to know. It’s not the Vultures badge they’re afraid of losing. It’s Alice.
Sometimes I think former deceased members watch over us in spirit form and whisper secrets to the Prez when anything arises. I’ve seen it happen before many times. Beaty, for example. He got tossed out into the desert just as I was starting six years ago, for shifting murder blame onto a Bratva assassin when really it was him responsible for the death of one of the club’s prospects. Apparently “He stole my girl” wasn’t a good enough excuse.
Other instances have occurred, point being that nothing goes unnoticed.
Breaking the code of conduct will, at some point down the line, get me banished.
If there’s one thing worse than being tied down to a woman who will have me surrendered to my emotions for the rest of my life, it’s losing my place in this club.
Hands folded over her chest, Alice stands waiting for somebody to speak, swinging her hips back and forth in that tiny orange G-string.
My eyes drift south to the thin fabric that covers her mound. A desire to snatch a pair of Lifesaver’s medical scissors and cut the thing off grows more and more tempting. Lifesaver’s tense posture makes sense to me now, when he went to unlock the door for Alice. Hiding under her clothes is, indeed, the whole world. I feel myself morphing into a servant, just looking at her. One command and I’ll do it. Anything she desires. No hesitation. Morals and codes of conduct trashed.
“Look, sweetness, we’re really sorry for last night. If removing the tattoo is something you want, we can give you some money and recommend a tattoo artist who will clean everything up.”
We’ll probably have to coax him with an additional grand to keep his mouth shut in case any club members pay him a visit and start asking questions.
Alice drops her hands to her sides. “No.” She shakes her head. “I don’t want that.”
“Then what do you want?” Brander shoves his hands into his pockets. “How can we apologize? Say the word and we’ll do it. We’ll make it up to you.” He grits his teeth. “Try to, at least.”
The blush on Alice’s face quickly turns a tomato red. She looks away to the window, but drops her gaze because the blinds are drawn. She messes with her fingernails, picking at the ends of the manicured tips as if to avoid eye contact with all three of us.
What’s going on in that gorgeous head of hers?
Deep down, I think I know. The blushed-red cheeks would suggest she’s thinking about the activities that unfolded at Brander’s last night, and how they didn’t go quite…all the way.
The thought thickens my pulse.
Sweat pools hot down my back.
I’m in if that’s what she’s thinking.
All she has to do is say the words and?—
“Alice?” Lifesaver slides in front of her. Tries to meet her eyes.
“We could”—she looks at Lifesaver—“pick up from where we left off at Brander’s yesterday evening…?”
“Pick up from where?” Brander frowns.
“We could go…all the way?”
The suggestive question buckles my knees, and the sweat down my back becomes boiling in temperature that will make me pass out if I keep this fucking shirt on for one more minute.
Lifesaver’s voice breaks. “If that’s what you want.”
Alice shakes away her hair and raises her chin so it’s perpendicular to her neck. “Yeah,” she says, assured. This time she flashes each of us a look, a sort of confidence sparking in her eye that hasn’t been present up until now. “It is what I want. Right here. All of you. You’re standing here telling me that you all belong to me. Why don’t you just show me?”