Wild Dream (Vicious Reapers MC #5)

Prologue

PIGGY

As I sit at the table, I try not to look at the stage. I’m here to focus on Goffredo Hagerty, not the sexy-as-fuck women dancing. I’m a cop. I can do this. I need to act professionally. And I know I can. I don’t have a choice. I have to.

Except when the main stage lights dim before they come back up again, something gold and glittery catches my attention. The lights slowly brighten, the music grows louder, and, as if something forces me, I shift my focus.

Turning my head slowly, I blink at the sight in front of me.

The glittering gold sight. Dark-red hair, gold bra and panties, gold shoes, and her entire body shimmering with gold paint or makeup or something.

But that isn’t why I’m staring with my lips parted in awe as if I’ve just seen a ghost or an angel, I’m not sure which.

I know her.

All of her.

Every fucking centimeter of her. The way she tastes. The way she feels. The noises she makes when she’s close and then when she does come. I know it all, and she knows all of me, too.

As much as I try to focus on the task at hand, on Goffredo, I can’t.

Not when she is up on that stage.

Not when I haven’t seen her in over ten years.

Not when the sight of her causes my cock to instantly harden.

Back then, she was eighteen, and I was thirty-two. I should have been a lot fucking more mature than I was. I think out of the two of us, she was more emotionally mature than me. I let her get away.

No, that’s a lie.

I watched her walk away after my pigheadedness pushed her away.

Ironic.

My road name is supposedly given to me because I’m a cop, but it also works for my personality. I’m pigheaded as fuck. Egotistical, proud, and stubborn to a fault. It cost me this woman and her love. And I’ve regretted it every fucking day the last ten years.

I didn’t even know she was living in Raleigh, not that I ever went looking for her.

Once she left Thunder Rock, I drowned myself in pussy and booze.

I pretended it didn’t bother me, that I wasn’t dying inside and hurting for her.

I’ve lied to myself and everyone else for a decade because it did bother me.

It fucking gutted me.

And now she dances on stage.

Her body shimmers in the dim lighting around her. She appears almost otherworldly, dripping in gold. I watch as she spins around on the pole. I can’t tear my gaze off her. When her body is suspended in the air, every fucking muscle is engaged.

She is stunning.

I always knew she could move, that she was graceful, but seeing it like this… it’s breathtaking. I know it shouldn’t turn me on the way it does, but I can’t help it. My balls ache, my cock begs for me to drag her off that stage and rip those little panties she’s got on to shreds.

A million different thoughts swirl around inside my head.

Anger, regret, and possessiveness.

I feel them all deep in my core.

This woman dancing on that pole should be at home in my bed. She should have been there the past ten years, but she’s not, and it’s all my fault. I have nobody else to blame but myself, and I wonder if this isn’t a second chance, a moment to rectify that.

A noise to my side draws my attention away from the stage. It’s the telltale sound of a scuffle. Turning my head, I watch that little prick, Goffredo, being dragged out of the club in cuffs.

It’s quick and discreet.

If anyone else notices, they don’t react.

One of the Raleigh police officers jerks his chin in my direction as he walks over to my table. He’s going to talk to me about what went down, and while I would have been more than happy to have this conversation an hour ago, I don’t want to any longer. I want to watch her.

He sinks down in the chair beside me. I don’t even know his name, and I don’t ask, either. He starts to tell me about the sting and the arrest. All details I have to force myself to soak in so I can relay them to Bullet and the rest of the Reapers.

I’m trying really hard to listen to him, to pay attention to everything he’s saying, but I can’t give him the focus he deserves, not when she’s up there.

All I can do is think about that woman on the stage and how much I want to keep watching her and forget that anything else in the world even exists, at least until she’s finished.

“Shit went just as planned. Guy took that bait, knew she was young, and gladly and gleefully offered to pay her extra. What a sick fuck. They’re going to love him in prison,” he murmurs, chuckling at his own words.

I can’t help but laugh as well. That asshole assaulted, in every way possible, Cidney Whitaker.

Not only is she Ivy’s cousin, but she’s essentially Goose’s woman even though he hasn’t officially claimed her yet.

I’ve known her since she was a kid. She’s like my little sister, and I would do just about anything to protect her.

Not to mention, all of that was after he shot Lightning in an attempt to get to her.

The drama of it all is convoluted and stupid.

Goffredo must have something wrong with him upstairs, because no person in their right mind would have behaved the way he did. And I could maybe excuse him shooting Lightning, if it was a mental break or some such shit, but not what he did to Cidney.

Never.

He cannot live after what he did to her, and thankfully, he won’t. Once he’s sentenced and put into the system, Hogg, who is serving a life sentence, is going to ensure that Goffredo dies a slow, painful death.

It’s just desserts that will keep us from going to war with his family, considering we’re, as a club, contracted to protect their shipments on the road. A tangled fucking web of convoluted bullshit, that’s what it is.

And I’m glad to be one step closer to being done. I’ll be even happier when we can wash our hands of our entanglement with this organization altogether.

“You ever thought about getting out of the mountains and working for us?” the officer beside me asks. “You’re a good cop.”

I jerk my chin, and my lips twitch into a smirk. “I like the mountains,” I reply.

“It’s a good place to maybe work a few years after retirement, but you’d make a lot more money here, be busy as fuck, too. Never a dull moment in Raleigh.”

I shift in my seat, trying to hide my smile because he has not a single fucking clue that I make more a year as a member of the Vicious Reapers MC than he makes in five years. At least I’m hiding my involvement well enough.

“I like the peace and quiet. The city is too much. Plus, I’m reaching twenty years soon.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, I could see that. Hey, maybe I’ll come and hang out for a while, see what the quiet mountain life is about.”

“Anytime,” I say.

It’s a lie.

I don’t need him or anyone else knowing what I’ve got going on in Thunder Rock. I’ve got it fucking great there, and the last thing I need is internal affairs breathing down my neck. He shakes my hand, then stands to leave. I hang back, my gaze slowly shifting to the stage again.

She’s gone.

My golden goddess.

MILLIE

My eyes must be deceiving me. I thought I saw Axton in the audience, but that can’t be possible. No way would he need to come to a strip club. Not when he can have half a dozen women at any given moment in Thunder Rock or anywhere else he goes that has a Vicious Reapers clubhouse or affiliation.

I shake my head, trying to get the thoughts of Axton out of it, my hands trembling. There’s no way that was him in the audience. It was just an illusion from the lights and my mind playing tricks on me.

I’m just seeing things because I’m back in North Carolina and know he’s nearby. Sinking down in the chair across from my station, I close my eyes and inhale a deep breath, holding it for a moment before I open them again and take in my reflection.

I shouldn’t have come back here. I should have stayed in Las Vegas, where I could be lost and stay lost. I would have if I weren’t desperate. Not desperate for money, because making money, for the first time in my life, was easy for me.

Stripping wasn’t something I just did. In Vegas, beneath the lights, it was something I excelled in.

I danced, and I’m good at it. Probably the only thing I’ve ever truly been good at in my life.

I showed up in town eager to learn, and my teachers were amazing.

They were happy to pass on the baton and teach me everything they knew. For a decade, I thrived.

But I witnessed something I wasn’t supposed to.

And now I’m back here, hoping that twenty-three hundred miles between them and me is enough to keep me alive, breathing, and safe.

But I didn’t truly think this through. It’s been a decade since I’ve been here in North Carolina, and the memories of the past are at the forefront of my mind, memories that I’ve suppressed and thought I’d forgotten.

I didn’t forget.

Not that I really thought I did, but a girl can hope.

A girl can hope to forget the man who broke her heart. The man who tore it out and squished it into the ground with the heel of his sexy biker boot. I don’t think I could ever forget him, though.

Piggy. Axton Colter. Whatever he’s going by these days, he’s not someone you forget. Not the way his lips feel, not the way they taste. You don’t forget his fingers on your skin or the way he moves inside you.

Not a single solitary moment of it.

“You ready for your next set?” a voice calls out from behind me.

I don’t have everyone’s voices or names memorized yet. I’ve only been here a few weeks, so I have to turn around to look at who is standing in the doorway. It’s Anna, the woman who manages us girls.

“I’m ready,” I state, even though I’m not sure I actually am.

Anna’s got a clipboard in her hand, and I watch as she writes something down on it as I approach. She doesn’t move out of the doorway. Instead, her hand reaches out, and I feel her fingers curl around my bicep.

“The place is full of police tonight. They’re working undercover, don’t do anything even slightly illegal.”

I stare at her for a long moment, wondering what the hell she’s even saying. I never do anything illegal. I don’t do drugs, and I don’t do favors of any kind, paid or otherwise. I’m not someone who is going to party.

Dipping my chin in a single nod, I shift past her. I’m not going to explain myself or try to defend anything. Her warnings aren’t for me, so I don’t need to pay any attention to them. She steps to the side, allowing me to pass, and thankfully doesn’t say anything else.

It’s time for me to get back to work. I have money to make and bills to pay.