Her breathy moans were my undoing. As I came, my eyelids fluttered down and the rest of my body drew up tight. Above me, Indy increased her pace until she writhed, those beautiful breasts bouncing with every moment, drawing my gaze to them again and again.
On a growl, I shot up into a sitting position and latched my mouth onto her pearled nipples, sucking on them. Indy cried out, running her fingers through my hair, tugging back roughly. I grinned as I felt her start to come. “That’s it, baby.” Why the hell did I ever walk away from this?
Indy settled back under the covers and pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “Thought we were supposed to go slow that time.” Her voice was soft and sleepy. Sated.
“Next time,” I promised.
She rolled her eyes at me. “How is it that you’re hard even after coming? Is that some porn star trick?’
“I’m just gifted like that.”
Laughing, she smacked my arm before my phone sitting on the bedside table rang with an incoming call. “Haste,” I said in greeting.
My father’s low voice rang over the line. “I need to see you. Come to Neptune’s.”
“Be right there.”
“And bring Indy,” he added.
My body stiffened. Why the hell did I have to bring Indy along? “Does this have something to do with last night?” I asked but the line was already dead.
“What’s wrong?” Indy asked from beside me.
I drew a hand over my face. “That was Knuckle. I have to get to Neptune’s.”
Disappointment showed on Indy’s features. “Oh, okay.”
“He wants me to bring you.”
“What? Why?”
“No clue,” I answered honestly.
“Do you think he’s still mad about last night?”
“Could be. I did make a mess of his face.”
Indy winced, no doubt remembering the blood and the swollen mess his nose had become as it continually met my fist. I groaned as I got up from the bed, the sheet falling off, leaving me completely naked. An ache panged through my entire body, the only downside to marathon sex. “Come on. Get changed. I want to know what this is about.” Indy was already scooting over to the edge of the bed, searching the floor for her clothes. As she picked up various articles of clothing, I stopped her when she bent to grab her panties. “Thought I told you no more panties around me.”
“But we’re—”
“No.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re such a caveman.”
“You like that about me. Besides . . .” I shoved one leg into a pair of clean jeans and then the other, pulling them up. “They just get in my way.”
Indy walked over to me and tilted her head up for a kiss. “Deal with it.”
I nipped her bottom lip. “I think you like me ripping them off you.” Laughing, she slipped into the blasted pair of black panties. My eyes followed her movements as the slip of silk dragged across smooth skin. “You’ll pay for that,” I told her with a pointed finger. “Come on, let’s go.”
This thing with my father couldn’t wait.
Indy
When we arrived at Neptune’s, the place was closed so we entered through the back entrance and found Knuckle and Hanna sitting at one of the tables. “What’s going on?” Hastie asked immediately. I was desperate to know too.
My gaze shot to Knuckle who had a bandage across his nose and an impressive black eye. I braced myself for some hostility but surprisingly, the prez looked calm. Hanna stood once she saw us coming in, as if she was nervous about something. Now she settled a thigh over the edge of the table, half sitting, half standing. “Hanna, what’s going on?” I asked.
The redhead cleared her throat. “Last night has shown us a few things we had failed to see before then,” she began, looking at each one of us as she spoke. Her voice sounded rehearsed, all computer-like and so unlike her. “I think it’s safe to say that we were all blinded by our emotions.”
I slid a confused look at Hastie, wondering if he was as lost as I was about all this. The
WTF
that was plastered all over his face confirmed it.
“We all made some mistakes,” Hanna continued. “But in making them, it helped us realize the important things.”
There was a beat of silence as we stood there confused. And then Hastie said, “Okay, what the fuck is going on here? Just spit it out.”
Knuckle cleared his throat and spoke for the first time then. “We’re getting married.”
What?
My jaw dropped. Hastie’s jaw dropped. Hanna’s jaw dropped. “I wanted to tell them!” she cried out, glaring at Knuckle.
“You were taking too long! You wanted them to know. Now they know.” He brought a pack of ice up to his eye and grimaced.
Hanna sniffed, but turned to us to gage our expressions. I still couldn’t figure out what mine was. This was all so sudden. Though, thinking about it later, Hanna did say Knuckle had proposed to her. “What changed your mind?”
“I realized last night that I didn’t like you shaking your tits for him.”
Oh shit.
“Hanna, I’m so so—”
She held up a hand. “It’s fine. I’m actually glad you did it because I knew you had no interest in him at all. In the past few days, I noticed a change in your behavior while you worked. And with the way Hastie was avoiding Neptune’s like it was diseased, I figured you two had a falling out of some sorts. So even though I knew you were doing it to spite Hastie, I still didn’t like it. It made me realize my feelings for Knuckle ran deeper than I initially thought.” Hanna turned to look at Knuckle then, her eyes going soft. “I realized I loved him.”
Wow.
“Marriage.” Hastie sounded dumbfounded. “Holy shit, Dad. I was expecting you to ambush me, tie me up, and beat me for the stunt I pulled last night. Not this.” He paced in a small circle, running his fingers through his dark hair. When he lifted his head, there was a smile there. “I guess this beats getting my ass pounded.”
Knuckle tossed the melted ice pack onto the table with a thud. “Any other time, I would. But considering what I was going through, I could understand what spurred your actions. Had it been Hanna shaking it for some other motherfucker, I would have killed him.”
And knowing Knuckle, he’d back those words. “So what does this mean for Neptune’s?”
“It’ll be the same as ever. Neptune’s will still be our clubhouse, just in a more official capacity.”
“When are you actually planning to tie the knot?” Hastie asked.
“We’ll decide that.” Knuckle grabbed a hold of Hanna’s hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “But it’ll be on our terms.”
“I guess congratulations are in order then.”
Hanna’s face brightened. “Thank you!”
Knuckle grunted and rose to address his son. “You and I got some business to discuss. Call in the others.”
“Oh.” Hastie feigned surprise. “So we actually do have something important to discuss?”
“Don’t be a jackass,” Knuckle snarled. Hastie chuckled as he sent out a text to the rest of the club.
“Go on home now, darling,” Hanna said now, pulling me into a hug. “Thanks so much for coming. I just wanted to tell you in person. No hard feelings.”
Those words eased the tension out of me immediately. “I wouldn’t have done it if—”
“Shh, it’s over. It’s okay. I don’t hate you.”
I smiled. She really had a pure heart. “Congrats, Hanna. You’re going to be a beautiful bride.”
Hanna’s smile could have lit up all of Ward Four, and I couldn’t have been happier for my friend.
Hastie
Conversations with my father always ended in two ways: in fists or in fuck-yous. I was curious to see how today would pan out.
Glory members rolled into Neptune’s one by one, settling into the back room where we held all of our regular church meetings. The prospects waited outside, guarding the bikes while the woman went around their own business.
Once we were sure everyone was present, I asked, “So what have you got for us?”
Knuckle dropped a manila folder onto the table between us. I grabbed it, leafing through its contents before looking up at him. “Fuck.”
“Yup.” Knuckle sat back in his chair, lit up a cigar and puffed on it. Everyone could feel the anger radiating from his body.
I stared down at the photos in my hands. They were all shots of Brennan and his men, handling at least a dozen new firearms. The obvious question was, “Where’d he get them?”
“Who the fuck knows? He could have obtained them in another trade.”
As the main albeit unofficial distributor of firearms, this meant that someone was going behind our backs, working with Brennan to gain access to these guns. Kitt leaned in, looking over my shoulder as I flipped through the photos. “They don’t look like the ones we carry.”
No, they weren’t. Which meant previous buyers weren’t selling our firearms in trade agreements with Ward Three. But if it wasn’t our clients then who was it?
After leafing through the photos once more, I passed them out, allowing everyone else to inspect them and make their own assumptions. After examining one, Beck chucked the photo into the air. It drifted for a second before landing on the pile in the center of the table. “Brennan’s thirsty for war,” the sergeant at arms stated. It was exactly the same train of thought my mind was on. “First he tries to coerce us into selling him guns. When that doesn’t work out, he retaliates by trespassing across Wards and stealing from us! Even killing one of our own. If it was me, he’d be dead already.”
There was a wave of nods from all the members as everyone thought of our fallen brother. With the loss still fresh in our minds, the need to avenge Newt was a burning need inside of everyone. “He’s gone too far,” Kitt agreed. “Something needs to be done.”
At the head of the table, Knuckle’s eyes were dark with fury. “He thinks he can get away with this. We need to shut him down before it’s too late.” After the events of the past few days, everyone looked hammered, the worst being Knuckle. But he remained strong as he brought his closed fist to his heart, over the Glory MC ink marked permanently into his skin. “Blood in. Blood out,” he said in a voice that was filled with emotion.
In unison, everyone else in the room mirrored his actions, fists to chest. “Blood in. Blood out,” we roared as one. This would be for Newt. And for everything he’d done for the club.
Brennan thought he could outmaneuver us, but in doing so, he had signed his own death contract. And now Glory MC was forced to retaliate.
SEVENTEEN
Birthday Girl
Indy
T
here were some days that you wished that you could skip completely and today was one of those days for me. And it was for no other reason than the fact that it was my twentieth birthday.
I didn’t always used to hate birthdays. Once upon a time I used to be excited about being one year older and doing things that I couldn’t at a younger age. But that sense of magic faded as I grew older and realized that down the road there was just more responsibilities and growing up to do.
The decision to be with Hastie was a definite risk but it hadn’t backfired on me yet. Yes, there had been times when we fought but we eventually got over those issues. Keeping my disorder from him wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t terrible either. Our short time together had shown me that I could be normal for once, that there were people like Hastie who didn’t immediately shun me like society usually did. I just had to be a little more careful.
But these past few days Hastie had kept asking me if something was wrong. Could he sense something? Was I acting differently again? His questions made me paranoid and it didn’t help my already worried state. Since it was my birthday, Hastie wanted to celebrate it with me, but the idea was already making me uncomfortable. He had pushed me for hours, trying to convince me that it would be fun. An adventure, he said. Just a short trip. And because I didn’t want to be a downer, I finally relented.
With the afternoon sun blazing down on us, Hastie and I took a ride to an area that reminded me of the night of Lucky’s hog roast. High rocks punched out from the ground, offering obstacles to climb on. The recent flare had dried everything to a crisp, leaving the air feeling brittle. Sweat made my hair cling to my shoulders and I had long given up on finding something to hold it all back from my face. At least the shades sitting on the bridge of my nose offered some protection for my eyes.
Hopping off the Harley, my hands immediately reached for the canteen, gulping down the refreshing water. Glory MC was crazy to be riding in this kind of weather all day. How the hell did they do it while still looking badass? “Remind me again why we just did that?” Because that had certainly felt longer than a “short trip.”
Hastie grinned before he took a swig from the canteen. “Thought you liked a bit of adventure.”
Adventure? Try torture. My legs felt like they were going to fall off. “I forfeit.”
“Oh no.” Amusement laced Hastie’s tone. “We’re just getting started, baby. Come on.” He slid the canteen back into the bag and held out his hand.
I groaned loudly as Hastie led me up over the rocks. I had to work extra hard to keep up with his long strides. Otherwise, I’d risk turning my ankle in the process. I just wasn’t cut out for this kind of stuff. Thank goodness I decided to wear regular shoes instead of heels on my birthday.
The climb was steep and tricky, requiring my full focus and muscles I didn’t know I had. My whole body shook from the effort as I hefted my body up on another large boulder that seemed like Mount Everest. To my annoyance, Hastie hopped up after me effortlessly. Was that how he got such good-looking calves? “This has to the most exercise I’ve had all year,” I panted.
Hastie laughed, shaking his head. “Then clearly I’m not doing enough in the bedroom.”
I looked up at him. “Not just in the bedroom though. You do it in the shower. On the stairs. On the kitchen table, too.”
“Don’t forget the one time on the side of the road. That was fun. We still haven’t done it on my bike though.”
I made a face. “I’m not entirely sure how that would work.”
“I’ll show you later,” he promised with a wink. “But first, there’s just a little more to go.”