FOUR
Splice
Goddammit.
A hot slosh of heat made his stomach muscles clench.
Lisa Wolfe was still the hottest woman on the planet. He’d always thought so.
It was hard not to be transported back into memories he’d thought he’d long forgotten as he watched her shoulders go up around her ears while she turned away from him to lock the door.
Of all the women he’d known in his twenty-nine years on this earth—and he didn’t want to calculate the numbers—Lisa was the woman he had the most memories with.
And none of those memories were bad. But knowing that, there was a weird knot in his gut, and it had been there since yesterday when she pretended not to know him.
Once his brain recovered from the shock of seeing her, he didn’t like the feeling and had been dwelling on it.
Splice didn’t hold bad feelings toward any ex, not that he had exes, really.
Everyone knew he was the notorious commitment-phobe.
When it was time to go their separate ways, the women he spent time with were cool about it.
He didn’t lie to any woman. If they wanted to hang out with him, he laid his shit on the table from the get-go.
He had no interest in relationships or long-term commitment.
If women looked at him as a potential old man, he cut them loose.
No bad feelings on his part.
Until he was dismissed yesterday with a nice to meet you.
Nice to meet him. From a woman he’d known a handful of years ago in the deepest, most intimate way a guy could. Unless she’d developed amnesia, Splice knew there was no fucking way Lisa had forgotten him.
Splice braced his feet on the wet road and forearms across the handlebars.
He’d long switched off his bike, having been there for half an hour or more.
A dog walker had given him a look, as if she thought he was casing the neighborhood.
She probably didn’t know he lived only two streets away.
Go fucking figure. Was it a coincidence or weird fate he hadn’t even known Lisa was that close?
He probably shouldn’t even be here, but here he was.
Lisa’s steps were sure; each clacked with her heeled ankle boots as she approached him. Splice let his eyes wander from head to toe, not missing out on a detail as his gaze scaled over a woman who’d once meant a whole fuck of a lot to him in his younger days.
She’d kept her trim figure with popping curves.
But even if she’d stacked on some needed pounds, Splice knew she’d still be a bombshell.
Lisa never overplayed her looks, almost as if she hadn’t realized how spectacularly sexy she was.
She was just effortlessly attractive; the reason she’d caught his attention.
Her hair was as blonde as he remembered, maybe lighter, swinging in a high, flirty ponytail with wispy side bangs over her forehead.
Squinting, her sea-foam green eyes stared at him accusingly.
Splice smiled beneath the bandana before pulling it off his face, leaving it around his chin.
No one would ever guess she was older than Splice; her appearance was flawlessly beautiful, and she looked no older than thirty.
Unashamedly, his stare ate up her steps, mapping the way her body moved like a runway model, her hips gliding side to side in a hypnotic gait, trying to forget how that banging body felt under his greedy hands.
She stopped in front of him, waiting without a word.
He really liked that patient aspect of her, and it seemed that hadn’t changed. Poise oozed from her steadfast gaze as he watched one of her eyebrows arch toward her hairline.
“You wanna tell me what that was about yesterday, babe?” It wasn’t his finest as greetings went, but those were the words he’d wanted to say. To elaborate, he added. “You pretended not to know me, Lisa.”
Her facial expression changed, and he watched a soft, embarrassed smile split her glossy-looking lips.
He might not be indulging in carnal activities these days, but Splice wasn’t dead, and neither were his sexual organs. He saw a beautiful woman in front of him, and his body remembered what he liked. And everything that wet his tongue came in her five-three package once upon a time.
“Oh.” She smiled. “That.”
“Yeah, that. What was going on there, babe? We’re not enemies. Are we?”
She blinked. “Of course not.”
“And you know me, yeah?”
She tutted, and he liked that a lot. Recalling how she’d do it when he said something funny and she was trying not to laugh.
“Yes, Ryan, I remember you.”
Fuck him. Few people these days used his birth name.
He’d transitioned to being Splice a long time ago, and it was just natural for everyone he came into contact with to use his road name.
Even his uncle called him Splice. Only his mom called him Ryan.
And Nina, when she was pissed off at him.
But he didn’t hate his name coming off Lisa’s tongue.
“How did you know where I lived?”
“You answer me first.”
“I thought it might be awkward, and not really the place, to say we knew each other a while ago. I was saving you from embarrassment.” Her voice was soft, with a musical lilt.
Knowing her job was languages, or it had been back then, she’d always had impeccable pronunciation of the English language, not like him, who butchered words all the time.
Lisa had the voice you’d wanna listen to late at night to help you sleep.
“Embarrass me,” he repeated, slower, straightening his spine, hands on his thighs now. “I don’t embarrass easily. You could have acknowledged me.”
Lisa nodded. “Fair point.”
But then, Splice realized, he could have reminded her they knew each other, but had seen the panic in her eyes, so he’d gone along with the nice to meet you bullshit.
“How long have you been in town?”
“A couple of years ago, I bought this place.”
The driveway had room for more than her champagne-colored Toyota Corolla.
Did that mean she lived in the modest-looking house alone?
He’d already clocked yesterday; she wasn’t wearing any marriage jewelry, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a man in tow.
He’d looked her up online several years ago—more from reminiscing curiosity than anything else—and he’d found an engagement announcement photo of her.
Looking at her smiling face and a nameless man at her side, Splice had felt bummed. He hadn’t prepared a game plan for finding her, but seeing her nearly married, he gave up.
Now, it was an out-of-body experience facing her again.
A good surprise, he realized, and he half-smiled. Yeah, a good surprise.
Some people shouldn’t stay strangers. And she’d been someone he’d liked as a person.
“How did you know where I lived?” she repeated.
“I asked Nina before she took off with Tomb last night. I didn’t know you were friendly.”
“I could say the same about you and them. She’d mentioned Splice. I just didn’t...”
“Didn’t know it was me,” he finished for Lisa. “Small world, huh, babe?”
She smiled and lifted the purse onto her shoulder. “You could say that.” And then she paused but added. “I need to run, Ryan. I’ll be late to the sheriff’s office. Or should I call you Splice?”
“Either is fine,” he said, surprising himself. He never told people to use his government name. “Sheriff? You in trouble?”
She chuckled a little, and the sound hit his ear just right. His eyes, against his will, traced the shape of her stretched lips.
“No, I’m not in trouble, but thanks for thinking I could be. I’m working there today.”
“Are you still in language translation?”
“I am.” She smiled, then gestured to his chest, his club cut showing through his open jacket. “I see you made it to where you wanted to be. I’m happy for you.”
He nodded, and that was all they said to each other.
What else did he want to say? Can I see you again?
How about we meet for coffee to catch up?
Because he wasn’t blocking her driveway, he waited until she slid into her car and drove off, giving him a shy little wave and half-smile through the window.
Once Lisa was out of sight, he kicked the bike stand and went another way.
His workday rarely started this early, so he headed toward the local diner, where he ordered breakfast biscuits and a coffee strong enough to wrestle demons.
It was funny how life took twists and turns no one could expect.
Case in point, yesterday, Splice was oblivious to any gaping holes in his chest while he celebrated with his brotherhood.
It had taken one pair of green eyes watching him from across the backyard for him to realize who was eyeing him and then to recognize a pulse in his chest. Those holes let him know they were there and who made them forever ago.
Funny that he’d lived an entire decade since meeting Lisa, thinking he was great; he was fulfilled in every avenue.
And yet.
And yet, he’d hardly slept at all last night, waiting for a decent hour to ride to her house, after all but tackling the address out of a nosy-ass Nina so that he could confront her again.
For being a self-aware bastard, as he thought he was, he couldn’t find a good enough reason for his morning actions.
Fishing out his wallet, Splice left money on the table, enough for his food and a tip.
Then he lifted a hand to the older lady behind the counter who served him every morning and ambled out of the diner.
The colder October air suddenly bit at his face, so he lifted the bandana across his mouth and nose before straddling the bike.
With the half helmet clipped in place, he mentally went through the list of things he needed to do today.
The first port of call was riding to the car wash.
In his role as Sergeant-at-Arms, he oversaw all the club’s external ventures.
Those included car washes and laundromats scattered across Utah.
Just recently, they’d opened a new cafe and bar restaurant and a third biker bar.
Those last two needed some tweaking before they could run on their own.
So today, after the simple stuff was done, he went to the busy part of Laketon and let himself into Hellfire Bar and Grill.
“Yo, boss.” Greeted Zen from behind the bar where he was restocking bottles, the spike-haired thirty-something manager he’d hired a month ago.
“Hey, man. Anything that needs my attention today?”
“I don’t wanna jinx it, but things have been running well for the past few nights.”
“Now we know things are gonna go to shit, thanks for that.” Smirked Splice, and Zen laughed.
“Do you want a coffee?”
“Nah, just had one. I’ll be in the office. Some people are coming in for interviews, just send ‘em back when they show up, yeah?”
“Will do, boss.”
Splice could chill out and trust the managers once Hellfire was running right. Until then, he was a regular face, and he plonked his tired ass behind the office desk, scrubbing a hand over his face to liven himself up.
There was plenty of shit to keep him busy, but Splice would be lying if his curious mind didn’t flicker toward Lisa once or twice that day. Wondering what she’d done with herself in the last decade. And where the husband was.
It wasn’t a yearning for a woman that had slipped through his fingers. Not when he’d put himself on a self-imposed celibacy train a while back. It wasn’t that. Though she was still drop-dead-fuckable.
Splice was happily single and assumed he’d stay that way. He liked his life to be complication-free.
But it was fine to be curious about the woman who’d taught him how it had felt to become submissive in bed and fucking love it. No woman had ever edged him like Lisa.
After all, he thought, Lisa had been the first and only woman he’d done that with.
He didn’t have time to think about it before someone knocked, and when he called out, “Come in.”
A young girl, no taller than his knee, walked in, and Splice gestured for her to take a seat.
She blushed and smiled at him, introducing herself as Grace.
She flattened the skirt over her kneecaps.
Judging by her polished college-girl appearance, she seemed innocent and unprepared for the situation, and therefore, she wouldn’t have the skills necessary to deal with a drunken mob.
But he had to be fair and interview all the prospective bar staff.
“So,” he started, drumming his fingers on the desk. “Tell me why you want to work here.”
“Rent is due, and I can’t live on instant ramen much longer.” The girl answered with a determined voice, holding Splice’s eyes.
He laughed, impressed. He’d been expecting the same bullshit answers he’d listened to for weeks. Maybe she’d do all right with that kind of honesty.
By the end of the day, he’d hired two additional bar staff, Grace included, leaving the training to Zen.
Much of what he did was rinse and repeat, but he’d always loved his SAA position and wore his patch with pride.
His life could have taken a turn for the worse with his father’s death, but Axel’s gift of purpose made him do anything for his MC. Some might have seen what he did as grunt work, but to Splice, he was part of the bigger picture.
Each brother added their bit until they were a well-oiled working cog.
He was happy his job had a good mix of tasks. He couldn’t imagine doing what Axel did, being the spearhead and delegating to asshole people.
He enjoyed the freedom of not being tied to one job. By nightfall, he had ridden nearly a hundred miles across Utah.
Before hanging out at the club, he had one last stop and was ready to break skulls if it didn’t work out. He pulled out his phone and made a call.
“What’s happening, Splice?” answered Diamond, as if the bodyguard expected trouble at any moment.
Splice smirked and blew hot air into his icy fist.
“I’m a few blocks away from your place, and it’ll be your funeral if you tell me you don’t have any cookies for me. It would be a shame to kill you for holding out on me, my brother.”
At the other end, the massive biker, who looked like a wrestler, chuckled in a low, gravelly voice. Splice doubted he could take Diamond in a bare-knuckle fight, but he was willing to give it a go for chocolate chip cookies because he had a raging sweet tooth that needed babying often and a lot.
Fortunately for everyone, Splice especially, Diamond gave him some drive-by cookies.