Monroe, Marla - Brandy's Bikers [The Dirty Dozen 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (4 page)

“When?” She popped her hand over her mouth as if she hadn’t meant to say it.

“Whenever you’re off next.” Kyle smiled at her.

“I–I’m off tomorrow.”

“Then how ’bout we pick you up tomorrow at seven and we’ll go have steak?” Kyle asked.

“Um, okay. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night then.”

“Wear jeans, Brandy.” West thought he might need to remind her that they were on bikes.

“Good night, Brandy. Go on inside and lock your door.” Kyle tapped the door drawing her attention.

“Oh, okay.” She fumbled with her keys, but managed to get the door unlocked and slipped inside.

West listened for the locks to turn. Once he heard them, he breathed easier. He didn’t trust that Jim wouldn’t come back. He should have put him down for the count. But they didn’t need attention. Who was to say they wouldn’t end up in jail over this as it was?

“She’s actually going out with us.” Kyle sounded amazed.

“I sure wouldn’t have believed it this soon.” West walked down the steps of the porch and followed Kyle toward their bikes. They’d parked close to the diner to follow her home so they would know where she lived.

“It was that damn kiss you gave her, West. What did you put on your lips tonight, a love potion?” Kyle teased him.

“Fuck you, Kyle.”

“We’d better tell Cole what we managed to get ourselves into tonight before the sheriff comes calling.” Kyle mounted his bike and started it up.

West grimaced. He hated to get Cole all up in arms about something. The man had a rotten temper. He could do without riling him. Following behind Kyle, he thought about the kiss and damn near ran a red light doing it. Kyle winked at him, and he shot him the bird.

They pulled into the parking lot of the hotel and met Ranger, Neal, and Shane walking toward their rooms.

“Where you been?” Neal asked.

“Courting,” Kyle told him with a grin.

“That pretty redhead from the diner?” Shane asked.

“Yeah, we’re taking her out tomorrow night,” West supplied.

“You’re fucking me. Really? Man, you guys worked fast.” Ranger shook his head.

“Cole in his room?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah, got back about an hour ago.”

West followed Kyle over to their room and carded in. Then Kyle knocked on the connecting door. Zack answered it.

“Where you dudes been?” he asked.

“Why?” West instantly didn’t like the question.

Kyle clapped him on the back as a warning to calm down.

“Out,” Kyle said. “Is Cole around?”

“Yeah, I’m here. You better get your asses in here and explain to me why the sheriff was over here earlier.”

Kyle dropped his head and Zack snickered. West growled at both of them. He didn’t see why he should have to explain shit to anyone.

Kyle looked over at him with a warning stare. “We ride together, we work together, and we answer to each other.”

He followed Kyle into the other room. Cole was laid back in the bed watching something on TV. He stretched his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall.

“So?” he prompted.

“We were out riding and decided to catch Brandy, the waitress from the diner, as she was leaving to ask her out. We missed her, but heard her yelling at someone to let her go. We ran over there and found some guy with his arms around her. She was obviously not happy about it, either. West pulled him off of her, and we walked her home. End of story.” Kyle crossed his arms and planted his feet wide.

“So you didn’t break his fucking nose?” Cole asked West.

“I should have broken his fucking neck. She had bruises on her.”

“Hell, fine. The sheriff was friendly enough, but wanted to warn us to keep a low profile. Seems he knows the trouble this Jim guy causes.”

Cole pulled the chair from the desk out and straddled it backwards. “So, did you ask her out?”

“We’re taking her out to a steak house over in Searcy,” West told him.

“Never known you to work so fast before,” Cole said, looking at Kyle.

“She’s special. Don’t want to waste a minute of time that we could be spending with her.” Kyle shrugged.

“How special?” Cole asked, sitting up and swinging his legs off the edge of the bed.

“Special,” West answered.

“Fuck. You’re looking at more than the six weeks we’re here, aren’t you?” Cole demanded.

“So, what if we are?”

“Just fuck, that’s all.” Cole looked over at Kyle. “You in this, or is this just West?”

“I’m all the way in. She’s the one for us, if we can convince her.” Kyle uncrossed his arms and turned to go.

Zack stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Good luck. Both of you.”

“Thanks, we’ll need it. She’s scared of us even though she agreed to go out with us. I’m not sure why.” Kyle looked over at West.

West nodded and they left. He wanted to lie down and relax. He was wound tighter than a damn spring. He’d never get to sleep like this. His cock was rock hard, and had been ever since that kiss.

Kyle switched on the TV and jumped on his bed. He stretched out and grabbed the remote to switch channels. West watched him for a few minutes then decided he had to know.

“Are you just going along with me because I chose her, or do you really feel something for her?”

* * * *

“Why are you asking me this, West? Don’t we always work together? We’ve been a team for years now.” Kyle wondered what was wrong with West. He’d been acting out of character ever since they’d seen Brandy.

“Because if you don’t really think she’s the one, then we have a problem. I don’t want you going along and then somewhere down the line decide you were wrong and want out. It would hurt her. It would piss me off.”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it, West. You should know me well enough by now to know I would have said something. What gives?”

“You aren’t acting like she’s gotten under your skin like you tend to do when you’re around someone you’re really interested in. If you’re really interested in her, you should be driving me fucking crazy about her.”

“I figure I need to have a head about me with you so enamored with her. You can come on a bit strong, and sometimes I have to calm things down. I don’t need to have my cock ruling my brain right now, ’cause yours is.” Kyle stared at his friend hard.

West drew in a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right. I’m fucked up where she’s concerned. I want her under us soon. I need to know she’s ours.”

“And that is the reason I’m controlling myself right now. She’s spooked. I’m not sure why she agreed to go with us tomorrow night, but she’s scared of us. I think she said yes out of appreciation that we’d helped her. We’ve got to take it easy with her, West, or we’ll lose her for sure.”

“I know. I’ve been trying to tell my dick that for the last twenty-four hours.”

“Mine isn’t too accommodating either,” Kyle said.

“So what are we going to do tomorrow night when we pick her up?”

“She can ride with you. Then she can ride back with me. We treat her like a princess and find out all we can about her before we take her home. As to what after that, I think that is going to depend on how she responds to us. If she’s receptive, maybe we screw around a little and get her used to us. If she’s too nervous, a few kisses, and we let her go.” Kyle knew that wouldn’t go well with West. His buddy was head over heels in love. It was obvious by the way he reacted to her and around her.

“Hell, turning away is going to be hard as hell.”

“Don’t I know it. I’m hard enough now to pound nails.” Kyle found a movie and dropped the remote back on the nightstand.

“What are we going to do when we catch her, Kyle?”

Kyle wasn’t expecting that question from West. The man was always so self-assured and had everything in its place in his head. That he wasn’t square with this only proved he was in deep.

“Love her. The rest will depend on her. If she’s dead set on living here, I guess we move here. If she’ll move, we move her to our place back in Texas.”

“What about the gang? We’ve always ridden together and worked together.”

“If we take this woman home with us, I’m looking at having a family, West. What about you?” Kyle asked.

“Fuck, you mean kids and everything?”

Kyle snorted and tried not to laugh. West was in deep.

“Yeah, kids and everything.”

“I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead. She’d probably want children. I would love to see her round with our baby.”

“So you’re okay with it?” Kyle could tell West was more than okay with it. His eyes had gone soft.

“Yeah, we’ve got a plan.”

* * * *

Brandy stood with her back against the door for a long time trying to figure out what she’d just done. She’d just agreed to go out with not one, but two, bikers. Had Jim scared her that badly that she would make that big of a mistake? She didn’t date, and she sure as hell didn’t date bikers. Where had her mind gone when she was saying yes?

She swallowed and double-checked the locks on her door, then nearly ran to the back door to check the locks there as well. She was as safe as she was likely to get, she told herself. But what about tomorrow night when they picked her up?

Face it. You’ve lost your mind. You’re attracted to them, and you know it. What are you going to do when they want sex? They’re going to want sex. That’s all men want anyway, and they are bikers.

She guessed she would cross that bridge when she came to it. They’d more than likely run like hell the first time she went crazy when they touched her. Then she hadn’t gone crazy when West had kissed her earlier. What was up with that? The man oozed sex and danger, yet she had responded to him.

She’d been too upset over Jim to really know what she had been doing. If he’d done that out of the blue, she would have freaked out. She was sure of it, wasn’t she? Brandy wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

The fact that she was attracted to them bothered her, especially when she hadn’t been attracted to any man since her attack three years earlier. It seemed like yesterday some nights, and others, it was as if it had happened to someone else and she had watched it in a movie. She dreamed about it periodically, much less than when it had first happened. She’d had nightmares for months afterward.

She’d worked late at the diner that night because they’d had a bowling league descend on them at closing. It was close to midnight when she started out to go home. She left by way of the back door, like always. She’d come to the hedges that encircled the back parking lot when two burly guys walked out and stopped her. They’d been bikers she’d seen periodically around the diner. They were dirty and crude, and she had been wary of them then. Now she was scared shitless. They began pushing her around. Talking about what they were going to do with her.

When she started to scream, one of them had
knocked her to the ground. They stole her purse. She would never forget the pure terror that they were going to kill her. Then Hal had come outside to get in his truck and found her, having scared them off.