Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Delaney
With the wine glasses filled, I pick them up and take them into the living room.
“Thank you,” Erica says as I hand her the glass.
“You’re welcome,” I tell her as I sit down on the other side of the couch.
We turn toward each other, tucking our legs underneath us as we get comfortable. Music plays softly in the background, just to fill the noise.
She sighs after she takes a drink. “I love a good red.”
Laughing softly, I shake my head. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“How was work this week?” she asks, changing the subject.
“Good. Glad it’s over. You?”
She groans. “I had to stop myself from quitting like three times, but it’s the weekend, and that’s all that matters.”
Erica loves her job but doesn’t love her boss. Time will tell how it plays out. He’s going to step out of line one day, and she’s going to lose it.
“Enough about me, though. You’ve been quiet since we got dinner. What’s up?” she asks, resting her head in her hand on the back of the couch.
For a moment, I contemplate how much to tell her.
Do I tell her that she’s right about Blaine and he is becoming a problem? Do I tell her about Tank?
“Spit it out, Delaney Grace,” she says after a beat.
Screw it.
“So after we left the other night, I ran into Blaine, which caused me to do something crazy.” I wince.
Her eyes narrow. “What kind of crazy? Surely if you murdered him, you would have called me before now to help you hide the body.”
I roll my eyes. “Always so dramatic.”
“Don’t get sidetracked, tell me.”
“Well, I saw this big biker-looking guy. I went right up to him and asked him to kiss me, and he did.”
“You did what? You texted me that you had gotten to your car. You lied?”
“Well…”
I fill her in on the rest of the details.
Well, almost all the details. I didn’t tell her about how our one-night stand was almost a flop because of me. Just that we hooked up and that Tank wants to do it again. How he tracked me down despite me giving him the wrong number.
By the time I’m done filling her in, her mouth is open, and her eyes are wide.
“Are you serious?” she asks once she finds some words.
“Yes.”
She leans toward me. “So let me get this straight. Dipshit harassed you, and you walked up to a complete stranger, who has face tattoos, and kissed him. Said stranger then bought you a drink and then took you to a hotel room and made you come?”
I cringe. “When you put it like that, I kind of sound like a whore.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please, you are so far from a whore it’s not even funny. What you are is lucky. You lived most women’s wildest dreams, and you don’t even realize it.”
“He tracked me down after the fact,” I remind her.
She waves her hand through the air. “Who gives a shit. That’s hot. You were such good conversation, and your pussy was a drug that he had to come find you. That’s amazing.”
“Is it though?”
She shakes her head slowly. “Yes, but based on your reaction, you aren’t telling me something. Otherwise, you would agree.”
I don’t want to break his trust, but I need to get it off my chest. I don’t know how to compute what he told me. Not without a sounding board.
“Delaney Grace, just spit it out,” she snaps.
“He likes it when his partner is in control, calling the shots. He doesn’t like to be the one who leads.”
Her eyes widen, and for a moment, she’s quiet. “Are you telling me that he likes to be dominated?”
I nod. “I guess you could say that.”
She leans back and speaks softly, “Holy shit, you found a leprechaun.”
“Be serious, Erica,” I say, taking a drink.
“I am. You found the holy grail of men. They only get off if you do. They want whatever you want. It’s almost unheard of. They like taking instructions. You hit the literal jackpot.”
“You say that, but I have no idea what it means. What it entails,” I say, throwing my free hand up. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved what we did even if I don’t quite understand it, but that doesn’t mean I can do it. This is all new to me, and I didn’t even know it was an actual thing.”
“Yeah, but that’s an easy fix,” she says as she reaches toward my TV remote.
“Oh really, and what do you have in mind?” I scoff.
“Porn,” she says as she turns on my TV, pulling up my internet browser.
I freeze. “You can’t be serious. We can’t watch porn.”
She looks over at me and raises a brow. “Why not?”
“Because it’s weird to watch with someone else?” I say weakly.
Erica rolls her eyes and then hits the button on the remote that picks up voices. “Woman dominating man in bedroom.”
Next thing I know, hundreds of videos flood my screen.
“This is weird,” I mutter as she scrolls.
“Okay, this one. It’s got the highest views,” she says as she clicks on a thumbnail.
Together we watch as a woman dressed in leather makes a man drop to his knees.
Every order she gives, he does without protest. He’s completely at her mercy.
What gets me though is that I barely pay attention to him.
I can hardly take my eyes off of her. Not because she’s gorgeous, which she is, but because of how confident she sounds.
She doesn’t stutter once, and she doesn’t question her choices.
As soon as the words leave her mouth, it’s almost as if they are law and he obeys them.
It’s…beautiful and everything I never knew I wanted.
Was Tank right? Is this why I struggle in the bedroom? I need to be the one calling the shots?
When the video ends, Erica pulls up blog posts and articles about dominatrixes. Part of it resonates with me while other parts don’t sound like something I would be into, but it makes me intrigued.
What feels like hours later, Erica turns toward me. “So what do you think?”
“I think I have questions, but he might not be wrong,” I tell her softly.
She nods. “Are you going to call him? Tell him you want to give this a shot?”
“I don’t know, I think I need to sleep on it.”
Truthfully, I already know I’m going to do it. I just can’t admit it out loud yet when I haven’t even accepted it myself.
Tank
The only thing I hate about club life is church. Not because I don’t want to know what’s going on, but because it seems to take for fucking ever. I don’t care about how the businesses are doing in great detail. As long as they are bringing in money and I get a check, I’m happy.
Not only that, but if Smoke doesn’t directly call on someone to give an update, everyone sits around looking at each other all awkwardly and shit.
It’s annoying as fuck, and I have a million other things I could be doing.
Like setting up the new smoker we got. Or working on a car in the garage that needs turned out. Or putting on a new roof with Crow and his crew. Any of it is a million times better than sitting around talking numbers.
“Any threats popping up?” Smoke asks, piquing my interest.
As club enforcer, I love threats. Threats mean I get to use my fists. My entire life I’ve had anger just boiling beneath my skin, ready to blow at any given moment. There are only two times that it’s not present. Right after I fuck someone up and while I’m on my knees waiting to be told what to do.
It’s honestly fucked how my brain is wired.
“Shit’s been quiet. Almost too quiet,” Gunner, our club vice president, mutters.
I can’t help but smirk as I stare at him. He’s such a grumpy fucker. Granted, before Sloane, his old lady, he used to be worse.
Is that what women do? They come into your life and fuck you up in unexplainable ways?
“Tank, are you listening?” Smoke snaps.
Shaking my head, I look around and see that everyone is staring at me. “Sorry, what did you ask?”
Mac chuckles, shaking his head. “Your ADD is getting the best of you today, huh?”
“I don’t have ADD.”
Lifting my hand, I give him the middle finger and turn to look at our president, who’s pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I said that once Fox has the file put together, you will confront Hanks. We can’t have a brother doing illegal shit behind our backs,” Smoke says.
Hanks is one of the newer brothers who is also part of Crow’s crew. He’s not bad per se, he’s just not the brightest.
“Let me know when to act, and I will.”
Smoke nods. “Next up, Lotus San Antonio reached out and thinks we should all switch routes for the next run. Said they have some concerns. What do you think about that? Did you pick anything up on the last run?”
I try and think back to when we last saw them, but my mind comes up short.
“No, I can’t think of anything. It was a typical handoff. There were some more cops on the road, but that’s about it,” I tell him.
Mac nods. “The traffic was insane on our end, so I can only imagine it was worse for them.”
“How much longer are we going to be moving shit for them? I fucking hate dealing with the cartel,” Bear says.
Smoke sighs. “We have a while yet. The money is too good to pass up. Especially when we are still trying to establish ourselves here.”
“I think we’re pretty well established at this point. No one fucks with us, and the other ‘gangs’” I use finger quotes, “know to stay the fuck away from us.”
“That’s true for now, but we all know that all it takes is one asshole who thinks he can do it to fuck shit up. We’ve watched it happen before,” Smoke reminds us.
“I’ll put my ear to the ground, see what I can find,” Fox says.
“Thank you. Now, onto a different subject. My brother called,” Smoke says, changing the subject.
“What the fuck does he want?” Gunner mutters.
Smoke’s brother Ghost is the president of the mother chapter back in Boston, the chapter most of us left when Smoke took off. It’s not that he’s a bad guy or anything, but he wasn’t who I wanted to be in charge of me.
“He mentioned to be on the lookout for one of our nomads. I guess the guy said that he was thinking about heading south to Florida before heading west.” Smoke shrugs.
“Did he say which brother?” Mac asks.
“Pumpkin, I think?” Smoke says, running his hand through his hair.
“Fuckin’ weird name,” I quip.
“We have an Acid, so I don’t think we have much room to talk.” Taz, the club’s treasurer, laughs.
“Acid got his name because he did too much acid,” I joke, making everyone laugh.
“You know that’s not how he got his name.” Bear chuckles.
I shrug, smiling.
“Anyway, back on track. We need to be on the lookout for the guy. I told Ghost it was fine,” Smoke says, getting back to the matter at hand.
“I actually think I know the guy, if it’s who I think it is. Legit dude,” Bear adds.
“Good. Not that I don’t trust my brother, but it makes me feel a little better that one of us knows the name,” Smoke says.
His phone vibrates, and he sighs. “I bet that’s Kelly telling me that we’ve gone over time and everyone is hungry.”
“That’s why I tried to tell you not to do these things before dinner,” Doc offers.
“And what am I supposed to do? Hold them first thing in the morning?” Smoke jokes, making us all wince.
“I swear to Christ, if you fuckers make me get up any earlier than I already do, I’m going to bust some heads.” Gunner glares.
“And here I thought I was the violent one,” I tease.
“Enough.” Smoke picks up the gavel and bangs it on the table. “Meeting adjourned. Let’s go fucking eat.”
Without having to be told twice, we all jump up and exit the chapel.
As soon as the door opens, the sounds of the clubhouse smack us in the face.
Music is playing, and some of the girls are occupying the billiards table while others are at the bar, chatting away while brothers who aren’t part of the cabinet do their own thing.
I watch as Kelly turns toward Smoke and throws herself into his arms, laughing. Sloane says something that makes Gunner lean down and whisper in her ear, making her cheeks turn red. Meanwhile, Mac is talking to his woman Jane and their two kids.
Fuck me. I want that.
I’ve never been the type to get jealous over the fact that my brothers have found their people, but for some reason I am today.
Delaney.
It’s all her fault. Just one taste and she’s flipped my world upside down. Making me want things that I have no business wanting.
My phone starts vibrating, so I fish it out of my pocket. My heart stutters when her name flashes across the screen.
“Laney,” I say as soon as I answer.
“Hey, are you busy?”
“Not for you, I’m not,” I tell her as I head for the side door, where it’s quieter.
“I only need a minute.”
“Sure, what’s up?” I ask as the sounds from the clubhouse fall away when the door clicks shut behind me.
“I just wanted you to know I’m in.”
At first I don’t think I heard her right.
Did she really just say yes?
“Can you repeat that?” I ask.
She laughs softly. “I’ll be your no-strings fling.”
“Fuck yes. You won’t regret it. When do we start?” I ask, making her laugh.
We hash out a few details, and when I get off the phone, I can’t help but smile.
Fuck yeah.
“You good, brother?” Bear asks, stepping outside.
“Couldn’t be better, man. Couldn’t be any fucking better,” I tell him, meaning every word.