Duck (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 8) (2 page)

Goddamn it
.

Reuben stood across from their parking space on the contestants' lot and watched as Ray led a cute—but obviously tipsy—redhead into the living quarters of their trailer. She was new to the circuit, a promising young barrel racer and pole bender, stumbling along, giggling and giddy at the attention paid her by the reigning champion bull rider.

Reuben knew if he stayed, there would be no sleep for him tonight. The skin on a redhead like that would mark up in ways which would make Ray creative, and he knew his brother would keep at her long past the point where she would have had enough. Ray’s evenings ran late when he had company, and even if he wouldn’t go as hard on her as he could one of the gals he had already broken in, Reuben did not want to listen to her cry as Ray took her dry and rough. Or hear her gag and vomit around Ray’s cock when he thrust it down her throat. Or listen to the girl scream, if Ray had occasion to show her the sharp blade of his displeasure.

Untying his horse from the side of the trailer, he led the mare towards the barns. He would rent a stall for her, saving the horse from having to deal with the stench of terror that would surround their equipment by morning.
Then I’ll take my happy ass to the fucking motel yet a-fucking-gain
, he thought, deliberately slowing his quick retreat to a swaying saunter. It wouldn’t do for anyone to wonder why he was fleeing his own rig, and he had long ago learned not to risk bringing attention to Ray’s proclivities. Not if he wanted to keep getting invitations to meets and rodeos with good paydays.

Part of his avoidance was fear. Since turning eighteen, Reuben expected if things went bad, by him leaving the gal in Ray’s clutches he would be counted as an accomplice. Part of it was embarrassment, because if people knew what kind of animal his brother was, if they knew what their father had raised Ray to be, he knew they would wonder about him, too. Already their nosiness and distrust of his family was brought home by sidelong glances, or whispered conversations that trailed off when he got near. The townsfolk weren’t above talking about the Nelms men. God knew he already had a full measure of that type of talk, just from the rumors flitting around the rodeo grounds when Ray held court. His brother didn’t have it in him to be quiet about what he liked, frequently boasting about the quantity and quality of the buckle bunnies he scored, along with the kind of hard riding he liked best.

Two more rodeos. Two more, then I’m bailing on him
, Reuben decided as he walked. Enough was enough. With what he had in the bank now, two more rodeos gave him a chance of earning enough money to keep him going for a while. He could stomach two more, then leave Ray to his own devices, let him dig his own hole with the rest of the competitors on the circuit. Reuben could stay on the ranch, work for the stock company, and deal with his father. A third-generation business, DN Rodeo was a stock contracting outfit, supplying all sorts of livestock for both the close-to-home southwest circuit, as well as several further afield. If a wrangler or event organizer wanted to locate hard-to-ride bulls, rank bucking broncs, fresh-from-pasture roping calves, or steers ready to be wrestled, DN was known as the go-to company. As shitty as it would be back in Lamesa, it was still a lot better than continuing to try to cover for Ray.

He walked through the open archway into the shed row and nodded to the barn manager. Five minutes later, on his way out with his stall assignment, he caught sight of another of the circuit’s talented barrel racers. Mica Scott.

His mare pulled up lame at a rodeo a couple weeks earlier. Out of options, he had been ready to scratch from his events when Mica came up and talked to him about the injury. She had a massage treatment she wanted to try, and by that point, he didn’t have anything to lose. So he’d bought her dinner, then watched as she worked some kind of voodoo magic to unkink pinched nerves in the horse’s hip, her strong hands sure and confident as they pressed and stroked.

She had done an excellent job on the mare, enabling him to compete, and he had gone on to win big that weekend. He wanted to see if she thought the horse could use another one of her tune-ups. A side benefit of this interaction was since she was sweet, sassy, and cute, Mica was everyone’s favorite on the circuit, including him, so talking to her was no hardship. She was sorting gear near where her horse was stabled across the way, so after settling his mare, he walked over to talk to the girl.

Chicago, Illinois

“No, Prez,” Reuben said in response to the clipped question. “She’s not my woman. She’s…” He shook his head. “Jesus. My brother hurt her. It’s been years ago now, but I just gotta…”

Frustrated, he trailed off, looking down at the bar in front of Davis Mason, national president of the Rebel Wayfarers, a motorcycle club he had recently patched into as a prospect. He was trying and failing to explain why he needed to head out of town tomorrow, which would mean he had to bail on a club party this weekend. As a prospect, that kind of thing just wasn’t done. A prospect’s life was the club, and he was expected to be in attendance at all events.

Lifting his head, he looked Mason in the eye, trying to convey the depth of his commitment to this woman. “My brother hurt her. I could have stopped it, should have, but I didn’t. I ran like a coward, leaving her to pull her own fat out of the fire. Friday night, tomorrow…he will be heading into her town, down where she’s going to college. After everything he put her through, she’s just getting her life back on track, barely starting to make her own way again. He’s a hell of a threat from a distance, now he’s rolling into town and she doesn’t have a clue. I can’t let her down again.

Sucking in a deep breath, Reuben continued, “I have…I
need
to make sure he doesn’t catch sight that she’s within reach, Mason. That means I need to get down there and see the lay of the land once the trucks show up, figure out how to keep her…safe.” His words were rushed, tumbling over themselves as he said, “Means I can’t do the gig here, man. I’m sorry, but this is—“

With a nod and a chin lift, Mason wordlessly interrupted, giving him permission. Reuben sucked in a harsh breath of relief, knowing he would have been going anyway, but this way, Mason made it easy for him. Easy for him to keep his solemn—if unspoken—promise to make up for his cowardice. For walking away, for closing his ears to the tortured screams coming from the rig. For letting his brother touch something that was sassy, sweet, cute, and loved, breaking that beauty in ways Reuben knew would never be healed.

He couldn’t undo the past, no matter how much he wanted…needed, even prayed for a chance to walk a different path. He couldn’t change history, but he could hold tightly to the future. And he would. He had promised himself he would. For the rest of her life, Mica Scott would be safe from Ray. Reuben would make sure of it. She wouldn’t see Ray, didn’t have to think about him, and—
please, God, someday
—she wouldn’t have to remember time spent with him and what he’d done to her. No skeletons in her closets to bring her grief. Not as long as Reuben could keep her safe.

***

Three nights later, leaning a shoulder against the wall behind the clubhouse, Reuben took the first untroubled breath he had drawn in days. The first free-feeling lungful of air since learning his family had won the bid for the college rodeo at UI in Springfield. Tension had coiled around him as soon as he knew their trucks would be rolling into Mica’s town, bringing the chance of Ray with them, because once he'd lost Mica, Ray had dropped from the circuit. He had gone home to help run the business, taking over when their old man died.

At least that was the official line presented to the public.

Reuben knew differently, which was why Ray coming to Springfield scared the absolute shit out of him. Because the unofficial, back-door talk said Ray was looking hard. Obsessively going through his contacts trying to find the one woman he never thought would walk away from him, using the business to hide his inquiries.

Finally, after a weekend which seemed as if it lasted for-fucking-ever, everyone was safely at home. A none-the-wiser Mica tucked back into her on-campus apartment, and him standing just outside the club’s base in Chicago. Since patching into the Rebels, he chose to keep a room at the clubhouse instead of renting a place. This had the dual benefit of giving him access to the few amenities he needed, as well as making sure he stayed deep in his brothers’ pockets, keeping him in the middle of things within the club. As a prospect, he still worked to prove himself every day, and this situation immersed him in the club in a way he found he liked.

He shifted, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes, resting and relaxing for a moment. Still filled with nervous tension from the weekend, he was trying to unwind before heading to bed. By himself. He knew if he were looking for company, he could have it at the drop of a hat. There were plenty of girls inside who would be happy to help him. Party dolls, prospects of a different sort, proving themselves, ready and willing to do whatever any member wanted.

He could have his pick of them, but as always, not one of them drew any interest from him. Even now, when the emotional response to a satisfying day was to want to master something, not a single one of those women were what he wanted in his bed. None of them were his dream woman, the one girl who ruled his thoughts. Most would think it was the girl he kept safe, but they’d be wrong.

“Bee,” he breathed and his cock swelled in response. Just her name enough to make him hard, his thick dick straining the buttons on his jeans.
My hometown beauty.
In the West Texas countryside, where ranches could be miles apart, neighbors were separated by pastures, surrounded with barbed wire fences and dangerous ravines. In those situations, you took the time to build relationships with the ones who lived closest to you. For Reuben, Brenda McCoy had been the only kid within fifteen miles, which meant they were automatic playmates and became good friends growing up.

She was now Brenda Calloway, and the proverbial girl-next-door had been helping out with DN since before his father’s death. He hadn’t seen her in more than five years, not since his last night in Lamesa, when he left to begin his search for Mica. Brenda had built a life, a family, something he would never allow himself to have, deciding long ago the risk of his father’s blood too much to take on. He hadn’t seen her since he'd walked away from where she lay sleeping in the bed they had shared, his retreating footsteps echoing in his ears, a decision he regretted every day.

Bee
.

With a guttural groan, he slipped one hand down, cupping himself through the fabric of his jeans. Stomach muscles tense, his cock twitched and jerked in response, the heat from his hand adding to the growing need to feel something…anything around him.

His mind briefly returned to the women inside the clubhouse, but he pushed those thoughts away. They weren’t what he wanted. He wanted Bee.

Fingers working at his waistband, he unfastened the first two buttons. Corded muscles in his arm tightened as he pushed a hand into his pants, the urgency to
feel
trumping any concern he might have over potential discovery by his brothers.

Cupping his palm around the shaft of his erect cock, his fingers ringed the base with a brutal grip and he hissed, feeling the blood pulse and throb in the engorged head as he tightened down a second time.
Fuck. Bee
.

With his other hand, he shoved his pants down and open in the front, bringing his cock out into the heat of the Chicago summer night. Humid, unlike the nights in Lamesa, but his mind painted over the empty clubhouse courtyard with an image of the room shared with Brenda, memories lending the air an acrid, desert tang.

“Reuben,” she whispered through a delighted giggle, her mouth slipping down his jaw to his neck, teeth delicately nibbling on his skin, lifting her mouth to his for a sweet kiss.

Her hand moved down his stomach, fingers delving under the covers she had pulled over them, her sweet modesty making the contact even more gratifying. Two years earlier, with tightly clenched teeth he had listened to her high school boyfriend brag about his backseat conquest, torturing Reuben with inept pictures painted by crude words.

At the time it had upset him, thinking about the asshole wedging his hips between her legs. Aggrieved him even more knowing the bastard hadn’t held her in enough regard to keep his mouth shut about what they had done. Reuben had provided a lesson about respecting a woman, making it an unforgettable and bloody one for the boy.

Now, lying beside her, the knowledge she had been with someone else didn’t bother him as much. Knowing she wasn’t a virgin would make their coming together easier. He would have liked to be her first, had wanted that for himself, but life conspired against them. He wasn’t a virgin either, but he hoped his experience in this arena would be an advantage tonight. He wanted to make it good for her, make it memorable. Make her love him.

He groaned into her mouth when she touched him, her palm stroking the underside of his rigid cock. Twisting on the bed, he rolled her onto her back and slipped a knee between her legs. The soft pillows of her breasts pushed at his chest, flattening against him, peaked nipples teasingly rough as they rubbed across his pectoral muscles. Pushing a hand into the panties she’d left on while disrobing, he found her wet—soaked. Her pussy lips swollen and hot when he slid his fingers between them, the tip of his middle finger teasing, slowly circling her entrance.

Her hand jacked him, moving up and down his shaft, fingers wrapped around with a firm hold, not tentative. Pausing to cup her palm over the head, she rolled her thumb across the sensitive spot just under the rim, jerking a curse out of him as he jolted and shivered in response to her touch. He pulled a similar reaction from her when he pushed his finger deep, gliding steadily inside until his knuckles were pressed against her body, then he crooked his finger, curving and stroking before pulling out and thrusting back inside. “Bee, I wanna be in there.”

She gasped a breath and her head moved, nodding. Rolling away, he pulled his cock out of her hand and grabbed his wallet from his pants. Three years ago, he had put a condom in there, hoping for a time like this with her. His lucky condom. Rolling it on, he moved and stretched out over her body, supporting his weight on his forearms. Looking down, he held her gaze as he pushed slowly, gliding inside on one long stroke, feeling her all around him. He watched as her deep blue eyes filled with a light he had never seen, chest swelling with pride as her lips moved, breathing out his name.
His
name on her lips, “Reuben.”
His
Brenda, finally.

With a groan that echoed through the night, he flung his head back, semen splashing onto the grass at his feet. Swaying shadows of supple, wind-blown trees danced across the evidence of his desire for a woman thousands of miles away. Still, after all this time, she could take him there with only a memory. “Bee,” he breathed again, his tone filled with sadness and loss. When he stopped trembling, he tucked himself away. Buttoning up his pants, he turned, striding into the clubhouse and his home.