Phantom Riders MC - Hawk (7 page)

Chapter 9

Hawk

Fuck, Audra was a stubborn and feisty bitch.

It shouldn’t have turned me the fuck on, but it did.

First off, I fucking loved a challenge. My brothers knew she was treading on dangerous ground, but Audra didn’t have a clue the damage that I could do her. I was going to make sure she was educated in the ways of biker life when we stopped for the night. Her ignorance was the only thing that had saved her ass, and there wasn’t going to be a fucking second chance.

The next time her pretty little mouth got her into trouble I was going to spank the hell out of her ass before showing her who was boss. Her asking to ride with Clay after being on the back of my bike was a fucking problem. A woman didn’t sit on the back of one brother’s bike and move on to another one without there being consequences. I didn’t own Audra, and I didn’t intend to claim her, but as long as she owed me and my club she was going to stay exclusively mine.

No way I’d let a woman sit behind me who was fucking another brother, and that’s what would happen if she rode behind Clay. Clay was smooth, he knew how to fucking woo a woman into his bed, he’d give Audra the kind of loving she wanted, all the bullshit that went along with getting off and feeling good.

Sonya’s beautiful, traitorous face flashed behind my eyes. She was the reason I didn’t get close to women anymore. She was the reason I didn’t let a woman get close to me, not decent women, anyway. I couldn’t allow myself to forget what love had cost me. Sure, it had soured me toward all women, and maybe I did know deep down that they weren’t all alike, but it was a good excuse for keeping them at arm’s length. That is until I wanted relief. Then I didn’t give a fuck if they were decent or whores.

As long as they understood the score.

I clenched my jaw until I thought it would fucking crack. Knowing that I didn’t have it in me to give Audra what she wanted, why didn’t I just let her go to Clay? The thought of his mouth and hands on her tits and pussy made me feel like an animal, one that wanted to rip his dick off and shove it up his ass. Christ, it wasn’t even his fault I fucking felt that way. The woman behind me was screwing with my head.

Maybe I’d gone too long without sinking my dick into a warm, willing pussy.

Fuck, how long had it been?

Too long. I’d been making do with blowjobs, and the fact that I couldn’t recall the last time told me enough to be worried for Audra.

She was in a prime position for relieving my self-induced draught.

I was too fucking aware of the tightness of her body behind mine, the link of her small hands just above my zipper. I swear I could feel the heat of her cunt against me, and every time we circled a corner or hit a bump and her thighs tightened against mine my dick responded. Fuck, how long could I hold out from claiming her pussy? The blowjob she’d given me the night before had blown my mind, especially when she’d done that little trick with her finger in my fucking ass, causing me to shoot my load like an exploding geyser. The women I knew would have never dared to do something so personal without checking with me first.

The sight of smoke in the distance had me signaling to stop. After the little altercation at Juicy Lucy’s that morning, I’d decided to avoid the highway and take the back roads the rest of the way home. I was pretty damn certain that Audra’s ex had more than two men on his payroll, and that there would be others after her. The cloud of smoke burning out in the middle of nowhere could spell trouble, the kind where the people involved didn’t want any witnesses. Clay and Keg pulled up on the left of me.

“Someone burning trash?” Clay guessed.

I shook my head. “Doubt it.” There was nothing around for miles except overgrown pasture lands, downed fences and abandoned farms.

“I’ll check it out.” Keg said, spinning gravel as he took off.

I watched him disappear around the curve in the road. It was hard to tell how far away the smoke was. It was too far away to smell anything from where we were. I didn’t like riding into any situation blind. We were the kind of club to face shit head-on, but other MC’s played dirty, and I didn’t plan to make it easy for anyone by riding into an ambush. We’d just left Last Hope with a sweet payoff after several fights, leaving behind a few sore losers.

When I faced a man in the ring I left him bloody, broken, and ruined.

Clay took the opportunity to light a cigarette. A slight movement drew my gaze downward to see Audra’s hands slowly unlink just above the snap of my jeans. The brief visual of her undoing my zipper and slipping her hand inside was ruined by the sight of her stretching her fingers several times and then pulling her arms from around me.

“Fuck, it’ll be nice to get back home,” Clay grumbled around his smoke. His eyes rested on Audra, squinting through the smoke curling up from his lips.

I’d seen that look on him before, the one that he got when he wanted something, and at some point he’d decided that he wanted her. He wouldn’t touch her though, not as long as she was on my bike. That alone told my brothers that I’d claimed her until I was done with her, and it didn’t matter if it was for sex or until a debt had been paid back. It kept shit straight when they understood early on to keep their hands off and to keep their distance.

“One more night, brother.” I listened for any sign of trouble in the distance. The only noise I could make out was the low rumble of Keg’s chopper. It wasn’t long before the sound reversed, and grew louder, telling me he was on his way back. Sure enough, he came into view with a grim look on his bearded face. Fuck. I knew this wasn’t going to be good.

He pulled up next to me until we were face to face. “The Blue Knights were having a little barbeque,” he said. “Saw them riding off as I got close.”

“Another motorcycle club?” Audra asked from behind me.

“Yeah, and not good lookin’ guys like us, baby,” Clay joked, tossing his cigarette butt.

I ignored her snort. The Blue Knights were a club of young college-age pussies that aspired to become hard-core bad asses by doing anything they could that they thought an outlaw club was involved in. Because of that warped philosophy they didn’t have any boundaries, deciding that we were all involved in drugs, weapons, and the sex trade. They made bad fucking decisions, anything to get their MC noticed and on the map. What they didn’t get was that they were being noticed for all the wrong reasons and that no one respected them, or took them serious.

What were they doing in this remote area? A barbeque in the middle of fucking nowhere meant they were probably getting rid of evidence. “How many?”

Keg shrugged. “I only saw two.”

“Why would anyone have a barbeque way out here?”

Audra’s naive question received snorts from Keg and Clay. I grinned. She didn’t want to know, but I had a feeling she was about to find out. “Okay, let’s go.”

We slowed down as we rode up to the fire, which wasn’t very far off the road. There was no denying what the Blue Knights had been burning. The charred remains of a body were clearly evident in the flames.
Stupid fucks.
They had a lot to learn. Fire didn’t destroy everything, and they’d left plenty of fucking DNA behind.

I felt Audra tense behind me. “
Ohmygod!
” She shuddered violently. “Who—what—what kind of monster—”

“Don’t look.” I knew it was too late, but I said it anyway. The movement I felt afterwards told me that she’d turned her face away. I could feel her cheek rub against my shoulder and the trembling in her arms.

“They better hope the bastard doesn’t have dental records,” Clay remarked as we came to a stop. The fire had burned away the lips and enough flesh surrounding the mouth to show a full set of perfect teeth. “Wonder who the poor fucker was.”

“Wait a minute.” Keg got off his bike and moved close to the fire. He kicked at something on the ground, and then bent to pick it up. “Holy fuck,” he growled in an ominous tone.

“What is it, brother?” I narrowed my gaze at the shiny object in his hands. He walked back to me holding his hand out, and dropped a heavy gold ring in my palm. It was a man’s, large and expensive, with the initials DC. Finding something so obvious told me a lot. “They wanted the body identified.”

Clay leaned in to take a look. “Fuck, they offed Covacks’ son, Dominick?”

“They’re either dumb as dirt or they have a fucking death wish.”

Keg was right, on both counts. Covacks was wealthy and powerful and had a small army of mercenaries on his payroll. He owned as many illegal conglomerates as he did legal, one of which was the underground fighting in Last Hope, New Hampshire. It was one of the very few neutral grounds for all biker clubs, the irony being that they went there to fight. Covacks kept tight control, though. Fighting was kept in the ring.

I’d gone a round with his personal fighters after hearing how lethal they were. I’d wanted to see for myself just how good they were before sending any of my brothers into the ring with them. It was one thing to set brother upon brother to let off a little steam and win some money for their club, but everyone knew that Covacks’ fighters were trained to fucking kill or he lost a lot of his own green. Well, they hadn’t fucking killed me, and the club was a little richer for it.

I pocketed the bulky ring and then took out my phone and snapped a few pictures of what appeared to be the smoking remains of Covacks’ only son. The Blue Knights were fucked if it really turned out to be Dominick, and he wouldn’t just go after the killer, he’d go after their whole fucking club. For a new MC with little resources and even less smarts they wouldn’t stand a chance.

“The smell…can we please go?”

Yeah, it was fucking bad. The combination of copper, sulfur, and something sickly sweet was enough to turn the strongest stomach. There wasn’t another smell like that of burning flesh, and it was something you never forgot. If you were really unlucky the smell could stay inside your sinuses for days. I couldn’t blame Audra for wanting to get the fuck out of there.

Before long we’d put a mile behind us, and then another and another, until we were nearing the end of the day. I’d hoped to find an abandoned house to spend the night in, but by the time we stopped there were none in sight. That was fucking okay with me and my brothers, and nothing new when we were traveling. I fucking preferred sleeping out in the open anyway. It agreed with our free way of life philosophy.

We pulled off the small, narrow road into a field, parking our bikes under a cluster of trees. “We have a short ride tomorrow,” I said to Audra, helping her off.

She stretched with a moan before running her hands down her backside. “Thank, God.” Her tone revealed that she was achy and tired. “Then what? Will you report that murder?”

I glared at her long and hard, knowing that she could see my eyes in spite of the fucking darkness. “No.” I dismounted. “If I was gonna do that I would have called it in.” I walked away from her to the nearest tree to take a piss.

“But, that’s insane, Hawk. Someone died in that fire. Those other bikers—” Audra was right behind me and it was obvious that she was getting worked up.

“Look,” I swung on her with a snarl. “Let me give you a brief history of
our
life, baby.” Her shoulders were small beneath my hands as I grabbed them and pushed her up against that same tree. “We don’t call cops, for the same reason that we took care of those men back at Juicy Lucy’s we take care of our own problems and have our own set of laws. We’re not weekend warriors pretending to be hard-core bikers after the nine-to-five-job is done for the week.
We
eat, breath, and die for this life.” She was struggling against my hold, a rush of angry breath leaving her mouth. “And that reminds me.” I lowered my face close to hers. “While you’re on the back of my bike, you don’t question me, ever. You don’t challenge me. When a biker puts a woman on the back of his bike he’s committing himself to protecting her. She belongs to him.”

I could tell that she didn’t like that, not one little bit. Her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish out of water, gasping for air. It might have been funny if I hadn’t had to pee so fucking bad. I released her and stepped behind the tree, unzipping my pants. As I emptied my bladder the relief was instant. Audra was still standing where I’d left her when I stepped back out from behind the tree, zipping up my jeans. Our eyes clashed.