MC Bear My Baby (Beartooth Brotherhood MC) (2 page)

T
ate leaned
against the door and jabbed his finger against the doorbell of the sprawling Littlefield, Arizona ranch where Molly lived with her mother. He didn’t see her mom’s Dodge Ram in the driveway, so just to fuck with Molly’s head, he kept his finger pressed into the buzzer. The door chimes went off like crazy and he smiled. Oh, this was gonna be
real
good.

She swung the door open with a scowl on her face. “Tate.”

“In the flesh.” He raised his eyebrows, wiggling them at her

Her face relaxed. “Don’t give me that look, or that sucker grin.”

He pointed at his face. “What? This?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“It draws in the ladies like flies to rotten fruit.”

“That’s because you ain’t hardly honey, darling.”

He stepped up and kissed her on the cheek. “Damn straight. No use fooling them into anything unrealistic.”

“Not when you’re known for raising hell.”

“Remind me to tell that to any chick who’s begging to stay the night… So, I heard you needed my services, sweet thing?”

“Something like that—”

He didn’t wait for her to invite him in. He turned sideways and stepped in through the small opening until she was forced to move or be run over in her own living room. Molly took two quick steps backward and Tate continued into the rest of the spacious, well-decorated house. This time he looked around through discerning eyes. This place was massive. It would be a bitch to keep secure, unless he could carve out one or two rooms where they would hunker down if there were a crisis. After a second of perusing the place, he nixed the idea. She was better off at the clubhouse.

“Hey. What the hell are you doing?” Molly slammed the door behind him.

He winced, and a shot of excitement went up his spine. The little spitfire was back and he’d probably set her off in a big way. “Checking the place out. What else?”

“Seriously Tate, just like that?”

“You’re the one in danger, doll. By the way, after I’m done with you, you need to pack a bag. You’re staying with me. And while we’re on the topic, there’ll be hell to pay for not telling me this shit was going down before. It pissed me off that I had to hear it from someone else.” He added a smile to set her at ease, yet needed to remind Molly exactly where to place the blame now that he was in the picture. After checking each room on the main floor, he did a room-by-room sweep upstairs. She followed a few feet behind him with her arms crossed, but knew him well enough to keep her voice down as he assessed the space. When he was finished, he returned to the sitting room on the main floor and threw himself back into the plush blue sofa. He stretched both his arms out over the back, kicking up his boots on a wooden coffee table and looked at her.

“Now you can tell me all about your troubles, baby.”

Molly’s pursed her lips and swept her long raven black hair into a squishy bun thing on the top of her head. Her pale blue eyes were gleaming. She was pissed. “If I tell you I’ve changed my mind, does that mean you’ll hightail your hot ass back to the MC so I can get a redo with someone who’s not an asshole? Because that option is looking pretty damned good right now.”

She hadn’t moved from the spot in the center of the room, fixed in place from her anger, ready to pounce. In fact, she was staring at him as if she half expected him to leave.

“What? You really think Silas will honor your request because we’ve been knocking boots or something?” Tate mentally shrugged, patted the spot next to him on the couch, and crooked a finger. “Come on, tell the good doctor what ails you, baby.”

Molly sighed and leaned against the wall. He figured she wasn’t in a roleplaying mood. He looked at her more closely. Her tiny frame, all of five feet four inches, was stretched out thin as if she hadn’t been eating well. There were the beginnings of bags under her eyes. Those weren’t there the last time he’d seen her, which was in his room on the second floor of the clubhouse. She frowned and shot a glare in his direction. She was actually shaking. The possibility she was in some seriously dangerous shit sobered him up fast.

He leaned forward and wiped the smile from his face, resting his elbows on his knees. “Get over here and sit, Molly. What the hell’s going on?”

She came closer but still didn’t take a seat. The woman was pacing like a caged up jungle cat. That in itself wasn’t unusual, given her high energy, no holds barred personality, in and out of the bedroom. “Save it. This is a business call, Tate. I expect you to be serious and do your goddamn job the right way or not at all. My mom didn’t cough up cash for your pleasures. We need help.”

“I can see that, and no problem. Talk to me.” He kept it short and sweet. Better to stay on her good side. She was liable to start swinging, because her hands kept balling up into small fists. The woman had a heart of gold, but she was a tough one. That alone made him wonder who she could be so scared of that she and her mother would hire outside help for protection.

“Molly. Either sit or get all those clothes off. You’re way too sexy to be pacing around like that and expecting me to just watch.” That got her attention. By now he was ready to hear her lay it out for him so he could do his job instead of thinking with his cock. At the moment it had jammed itself up against the fly of his leathers, hard as slate as she stood there. His dick really loved it when Molly got all hot and bothered, because that meant she would take it out on him and leave him with the marks to prove it for days.

His gaze flicked up from her breasts and back to her angry death stare. Clearing his head, he slid his palms down his pants and cleared his throat. “Sit. Down.”

Finally, she groaned and took a heavy seat beside him, leaning her head back until she was looking at the ceiling. “Are you sure you can handle this, Tate? I wanted someone from your MC on the job because I trust your guys, but maybe this,” she pointed back and forth between them, then added, “wasn’t a good idea. I may be the idiot for thinking Silas would have sent someone else.”

“There’s no one better for the job, Moll. Tell me something. Do you trust me?”

Her head jerked over at him, probably at the sobriety in his voice. He kept his gaze firm on her face as a variety of emotions flickered across her expression. She nodded. “Yes, if it comes down to it.”

“Good, because I do my job well. Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste your time.” Tate cleared his throat. Something was bothering her in a bad way, so he needed to drag the details out of her. “Tell me what’s going on with this stalker problem.”

She cleared her throat, then she sat up in the chair and took a breath. “It’s an old boyfriend.” She seemed to be gathering her thoughts or maybe measuring how much to tell him. Tate played the silent card. “We broke up two years ago, long before Mom and I moved back here from Louisiana. He was a charter member of the Beartooth Brotherhood chapter out there. He was a decent enough guy, but things just didn’t work out. Anyway, we came back out here when Mom’s sister took ill, and he got it in his ignorant, stubborn head that I was leaving to get away from him. Over the past six months he’s been telling me I need to go back to him. The prick isn’t taking no very well, and actually he’s been a persistent jackass…kind of like that time you wanted to have a threesome with Cindy—”

“Ah, good times.” He smiled, readjusting on the couch. Silas’s mom and Molly in one bed, well, that was hot while it lasted. “Continue.”

“Yeah, anyway he started sending me some crazy texts, leaving notes in my mailbox, dropping off flowers when we’re not at home, and he won’t leave me the hell alone. He has some screwed up delusion that we’re meant to be together. The sicko calls me
Wifey
in every note, message, and flower card. It’s beyond disturbing, Tate.” Molly swallowed and gripped the edges of the chair. “The worst part is he showed up at my job two days last week and got everyone there riled up. He had his guns at his belt and a machete on his back. That pissed the crap out of my boss. Anyway, someone needs to get him to stop.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“The more serious stuff started a month and a half ago, give or take. He’s been cut off since two years ago, but we used the text here and there. When he upped the ante, I cut him off, figuring he’d leave me alone or at least take the hint. After silence didn’t work, I begged him to quit the crap. That’s when it got worse. Now he’s threatening me, scaring the hell out of my mom when these packages show up… I think he needs some incentive to give up this game, like a good, old-fashioned whoop ass only an MC knows how to deliver.” She sighed and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She was really scared.

“And you didn’t think to tell me about all this sooner,
why
exactly?”

“I didn’t think he’d keep it up this long…Last night he started following me…”

“I could have shut down the asshole weeks ago. He would’ve left you alone by now instead of going all out.”

“Well back then, this wasn’t your problem. I just hired you, remember?”

Tate shook his head. “How do you figure a stalker isn’t my problem, Moll? I mean, shit, if someone wants to hurt you that’s a big fucking problem to me.”

“We’re not a couple, Tate. We’re sleeping together. Well, it’s more like playing with each other, which hardly warrants you going all primal on another guy for me. You don’t have any obligations, and I’m not your girlfriend.”

Molly crossed her arms over her stomach and leaned back with her eyes closed. This was his shot to take in his fill of her gorgeous, gym bunny body from the tips of her toes to the cute mussed up tangle of a bun at the top of her head, and everywhere in between.

“Except now it’s gotten so out of hand, it’s my job to keep you safe. Do you see how fucked up that is?”

She grunted and sunk further into the chair, tucking her knees to one side until they were almost touching. Tate swallowed and took his shot. His hand skimmed along her knee until he barely brushed her inner thigh through her jeans. He watched her bite her lip, and then her eyelids popped open. Their eyes locked, and her nostrils flared. That familiar flush on her pale skin crept up her shoulders and neck underneath her purple tank top. Her muscles tightened beneath his soft stroking—she didn’t push him away so he didn’t stop.

“I really didn’t want to involve you guys.”

“Yet, here I am, involved.”

“He won’t stop.”

“Shhhhh. I’m here now. No one’s getting near you…well, no one but me right now.” Tate slid off the couch onto his knees and twisted his body, parting her knees so he could fit between her legs. Her eyes fluttered closed, forehead creasing, and he couldn’t keep the smile from stretching across his face. The two of them together had always been damned combustible. He eased his fingers up her jeans, gripped her hips and pulled her forward into his chest. “What do you say we take advantage of the time we have together now and play your favorite little game…shoplifter and police officer, was it? With a little frisking?”

Molly moaned. He was winning her over but she was fighting it. She laughed and rubbed her forehead. “Yeah, really not the time, babe. How about we figure out this stalking problem first, okay?”

“What?” He pulled back to look her in the eye. “You and I both know this is something right up my alley, but I get the feeling there’s a whole lot more you don’t want to tell me.”

“I just told you everything.”

“You didn’t.”

“And how would you know? Are you a mind-reader now?”

“With you, I might as well be. First of all, you gave me that whole spiel about the guy and you didn’t tell me his name. Second, you didn’t tell me he broke in through the side door, which I had to figure out with my own damn eyes when I looked around. And third…” Tate lifted up her left arm at the elbow and pointed to her wrist. “You didn’t tell me he grabbed you so hard he left a mark, but that was before…” he set down her left arm and gently took her right hand, pointing at the back of her hand. “Before you gave him a right hook in the jaw to get him to leave.”

Molly reared back, surprised. “How did you figure that out?”

“Really? Have you forgotten I’m a bear shifter? I have a sixth sense about things like this. And I know the difference between marks you get for sexy play time versus marks like these. This is a real bruise…definitely a defensive wound, and I can see that with my regular old human eyes too.”

“I wonder what else you’d see if you do your shifter thing and become a bear.”

He eyed her with a disapproving glare. She’d been begging him to show her his bear for ages. “Not gonna happen. We don’t shift all willy-nilly in front of humans and you know that, Molly. Now talk to me about this bruise. It happened last night, didn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Wait here.” He got up and went to her large custom kitchen for an ice pack, which he placed on the back of her hand when he returned to her side. “Where’s the first aid kit?”

“Powder room at the end of the hall.”

He left again and scoured the powder room cabinets, only to find a tiny travel-sized kit that could probably only fit five bandages and maybe a couple of sterile gauze pads. “Remind me to get you a real first aid kit for your birthday or something,” he told her when he got back into the sitting room. “Some of you humans need to get a clue about lifesaving shit like this.”

“Don’t act like such a smug bastard. My medical bag is in the car outside.” She grumbled something about him being an arrogant shifter and he smiled.

“It ain’t no help out there in your Jeep. Apparently I need to get on your case a hell of a lot more, Moll. A five-year-old cub scout has more supplies on hand than this.” He placed a gauze pad on each side of her wrist, taping it down with a few adhesive bandages. “There. All better. So what else do you need to tell me? Or are you gonna make me have to figure it out on my own around here?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s all. And by the way, I’m fine.”

“Yeah. Right.” He gave her a more serious look. “You’re shaking like a leaf, so stop trying to hide that you’re scared as fuck about this guy.”

All she did was stare at him.