TWENTY-FIVE #2
While he prepared Lisa a coffee, his mind was already working on a solution, but he cocked his head to look at her, to ask, “Do you wanna pack a bag and come to stay with me until I get this sorted out?”
She looked surprised at first, and then she flashed him a smile. “No. Thank you, though. I don’t want to be run out of my home, or I’ll never feel safe here again.”
“Got it,” he answered tonelessly, but he wanted to grab her up and just put her in his basement where nothing could upset her again.
For now, in front of Lisa, so as not to freak her out, he was gonna treat this situation like it was just a pest, but his veins were already on high alert.
The steaming coffee was placed in front of her. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to Lisa’s neck. “When this is behind us, you’ll come to stay, yeah?”
“Of course,” she answered easily, and some of his tension melted away. She was still all the way in with him; that was good. “I meant everything I said yesterday. It feels like a million other things have happened since then, but I’m serious about us.”
“Good, sweetheart. Me too.”
She smiled at him, and he tapped a kiss to her upturned lips.
“Come to the club with me,” he said once she’d finished the coffee. “We’ve got a guy who can look into this.”
“Oh.” She looked unsure but slipped her hand into his. “Okay. I was supposed to go out with the girls tonight. Maybe I should cancel.” She nibbled her lower lip, and Splice groaned, thumbing it free.
“Don’t change anything.” He said. “You’ll be in one of our bars, so you’re protected. I’ll send the probies to keep an eye on you. Or I can skulk in a corner and have my nasty eyes all over you.”
She flushed so lovely and pink, he wanted to take her down to the ground and lick her blush all over.
“Would you really do that?”
“There’s not much I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Ryan...” she breathed and leaned into his chest. “I’d feel better if you were there,” she trusted to say, and he felt his chest inflate with that trust and need. “Would the girl’s mind, do you think?”
Splice grinned, “Ask any of ‘em; their old man has probably stalked her all over town more than once, so they’re used to it.”
* * *
Striding into the clubhouse holding Lisa’s delicate hand, Splice clocked about twenty pairs of eyes turn their way like nosy missiles, but all he felt was pride that he had brought his woman to the MC.
To show his closest people that Lisa wasn’t anyone casual, she was his one, his soon-to-be old lady, if he got his way.
But having to deal with this situation, he postponed his old lady patch campaign for now.
“Look who it is.” It was Reno who approached them first, grinning from ear to ear. Splice was ready for whatever ribbing the guy dished out, recalling the crap he gave Reno for hooking up with Kylie, so it was warranted.
“Lisa, you must’ve done some awful shit in a past life to be stuck with Splice, damn, I feel for you, really, I do.” He joked, and Lisa burst out laughing.
“I must have been Dracula,” his darling woman joined in and sent a smile up at him, poking him in the ribs.
“I like her,” Reno told Splice, “welcome to the Diablos.”
Situating Lisa at the bar, he made her a coffee. Standing behind her back a moment later, he rested his chin on her shoulder. Because he always needed to be close to her, but primarily to give a message to the curious female eyes that were around.
“You might hear some shit while you’re here, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” she answered easily, and it was one thing he loved about her: how she took everything he said at face value and didn’t twist it into something it wasn’t.
“I mean from the women hanging out here that aren’t old ladies.”
“You’ve slept with them. I get it, Ryan. I’m not so delicate as to think you’ve been a monk since me.”
He wished he had been.
He groaned into her shoulder, and she ruffled a hand through his hair.
“Be a brave boy,” she said, and his dick jerked. “I’ll deal with whatever comes at me. I was prepared for it before I agreed to come here, so there’s nothing to pre-warn me about.”
“You’re fucking amazing, you know that?”
“I must be; I was Dracula in a past life, apparently.” She kidded and made him laugh.
“Okay, sweetheart, I need your phone so I can have Primo look at it. I’ll get it back to you.”
She handed it over without a quibble. Trusting him again.
Splice bent his head and took a kiss from her. He wanted to deepen it until he tasted her moans but held himself in check.
“Keep Lisa company,” he whistled to Mouse, who jogged over and plopped down on a seat beside her.
His eyes were eating her up for a second, reluctant to leave her alone, partly because he didn’t want a sweet bottom saying bitchy crap to her.
As prepared as Lisa said she was, he knew those women could be vicious if they thought someone was moving in on a biker they liked.
So he gave a shrill whistle until he caught everyone’s attention.
The smile gone from his face, his hand possessively on Lisa’s jean-clad thigh, he said, “Anyone who gives my woman hassle will have me to deal with, got it?”
“Oh my god, Ryan,” she shrieked quietly and batted his forearm. “There’s no need for that. I’m fine.”
Mouse cackled. “Possessive dog, might as well piss up her leg.”
Yeah, he was.
He kissed her again, forceful and possessive, and strode off to Primo’s computer room.
* * *
Primo could be spitting bullshit or speaking in voodoo tongues, for all the stuff Splice understood what his club buddy was saying. But he trusted the guy had more intelligence than the entire club membership put together, and if anyone could find out who the anonymous caller was, it would be him.
Splice perched on the opposite desk and watched Primo at work as he kind of spoke to himself. He got like this when he was in the zone, as if no one else existed. After he’d plugged in Lisa’s phone, he turned to Splice.
“You wanna take a peek through your girl’s phone? See if she’s talking to anyone else behind your back?” Primo smirked.
“Fuck no. She isn’t. You stay out of her shit; just look at the call log, or whatever you need,” he warned, making Primo cackle.
He couldn’t say what he was looking for on her phone, but once the info was on Primo’s computer, he unhooked the phone and handed it back to Splice.
“Wait. Can you put one of those apps on it to keep track of her?”
“Like Life360?”
“Something better. Similar to what we have on ours.”
Primo nodded and did that easily, handing the phone over. “Just interested, are you gonna tell her you’re tracking her?”
“It’s keeping her safe if any shit happens. I’ll know where she is. And yes, I’ll tell her.”
“You’ve changed, brother.”
“Have I?”
Or was he just the man he’d always meant to be, but got lost for a decade?
That’s how he saw it. Fate had put him back on his chosen path, finally.
And no bozo, who had grandeur for threats, was gonna fuck with that.
“I like this look on you,” Primo said, then went back into hacker mode, mostly ignoring Splice while he muttered to himself, hunched over his keyboard.
“Ah, that was smart, fucknut.” He said, tapping. A lot of code was on the screen, and even if he had been waterboarded, Splice couldn’t have explained what it all meant. “Okay, let me pull the metadata. Got it..., ahh. That’s okay, I can trace the VoIP routes.”