Reaper's Property (8 page)

Worked for me.

I rolled off his lap to my knees,
collecting everything up and putting it back into the bag.

“Hey, why aren’t you helping?” I demanded
playfully.

“Enjoying the view. Love that sweet ass of
yours.”

I shook it at him, smirking, and he crawled
over to me, cupping my cheeks in his hands, rubbing the inside curves where
they met my thighs with the pads of his thumbs.

“Fuckin’ hot, babe. Can’t wait to get
inside.”

I shivered, pushing back at him.

“So goddamn sweet,” he muttered, dropping
his head down to kiss the small of my back.

Sweet.

Sweet ass.

Sweet butt.

“Horse, what does sweet butt mean?” I asked
suddenly. He stilled. “I know you said you call me that to piss me off, but it
means more. I know it does. Tell me.”

“Doesn’t matter, babe, you’re not one of
them.”

Uh-oh. I pulled away from him, cooling a
little. Didn’t like the sound of that at all. I sat down, facing him, knees up
to my chest, arms wrapped around them pointedly, and waited.

“Drop it, babe,” Horse muttered, sitting
back on his heels. “We’re in a good place, let’s just let this flow like it
should. You’re thinking too much.”

“When a man tells me I shouldn’t think,
that’s a bad sign,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Explain. Now.”

Horse ran a hand through his hair and
shrugged.

“You don’t know much about the Reapers, do
you? Or motorcycle clubs in general?”

“I don’t know anything about them,” I said.

“Well, bikers—bikers like us, part of a
club for life—are a different culture,” he said after a short pause. “We’re not
regular citizens, we’re more like a tribe that shares territory with citizens
but only answers to our own kind. Everyone who’s part of the tribe has their
place.”

“Okay,” I replied, wondering where this was
going.

“Fuck, this is gonna piss you off and then
you aren’t gonna let me stick my dick in you,” he muttered.

“Do you have to be so crude?” I snapped.

“Have you met me?”

“Who says I’d let you do it anyway?”

“Babe,” he replied in a low, rough voice,
raising his eyebrow at me. I blushed. Okay, yes, I’d planned on it.

But that could change.

“So tell me.”

“Well, there’s two kinds of people, those
who are in the club and those who aren’t,” he said. “If you’re in the club,
you’re family, and we’ve got each other’s backs. You got a cut and three
patches, you’re a member and you vote. We got prospects too, who aren’t full
members yet, but if they don’t punk out, they will be eventually.”

“What about women?”

“No women in the club,” he said, shaking
his head. “Women hang around the club, but they aren’t part of it.”

“Sounds pretty sexist.”

“It is what it is,” he replied with a
shrug. “Don’t have to like it, but that’s the reality in the MC world.
Remember, we don’t live in your world, we live in ours and the rules are
different. Some clubs let women ride, ours doesn’t. We’re old school. Seriously
old school. But that doesn’t mean women aren’t important to us.”

I didn’t like the direction this was
headed.

“A man takes a woman, means to keep her,
she becomes his property,” Horse continued. “We covered that before—it’s a sign
of commitment, of respect. It means he’ll protect her and everyone else better
keep their fucking hands off her or be ready to fight him and all his brothers.
You do not want to fuck with a man’s old lady.”

“Sounds messed up, Horse.”

He shook his head, clearly frustrated.

“You’re judging it by citizen standards,
but we’re not like you,” he said. “Remember, we’re a tribe. We live together,
we die together and what’s ours is ours. When times are good, we’re all good.
Bad times, we may eat shit but we eat it together. Most people can’t handle
that level of commitment. It’s like when you’re in combat and taking fire—you
have to trust that your brothers would rather die than let you down. You feel
that kind of brotherhood during war but when you come back home people expect you
to sit down and work in an office like it never happened. Men—at least men like
me—don’t work like that. I turned into something else in Afghanistan and I
can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. In the club, they don’t ask me to.”

“That’s intense,” I murmured.

“No shit,” he said. “I know this is hard
for you, but I want you to understand. This is a different life, and we have
our own rules and our own justice, but it’s not bad. In fact, it’s pretty
fuckin’ good. I got a nice house, make good money, have a great time almost
every fuckin’ day of my life. I’m alive, babe. Ninety-nine percent of men are
okay with following the rules and doing what they’re told. We’re the other one
percent, so we built our own world with our own rules. You don’t fuck with us,
we won’t fuck with you. But once you fuck us, you will pay.”

I shivered, even though the air was warm. I
reached over and grabbed my shirt, pulling it over my head. Horse’s eyes
followed me, holding an expression I couldn’t begin to fathom.

“So finish it,” I said, breaking the
silence. “You’re telling me this for a reason, I guess. What does sweet butt
mean?”

“Well, not all women attached to the club
are old ladies,” he said bluntly. “Being an old lady is a big deal, like I
said. You don’t want to take some skank as your property if you aren’t ready to
throw down for her. But a man’s still gotta get laid. That’s what sweet butts
are for.”

Oh, I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Continue,” I said, my voice cooling.

“We got women who want to be old ladies,”
he said. “Or just like hanging around bikers. Maybe they want a place to crash
for a while. They come around the club house and if they make themselves
friendly enough we let them hang around. They clean up, take care of shit, and
we sort of—”

He paused, looking away.

“You’re really not gonna like this,” he
muttered.

“Tell me. Now.”

“Well, they’re pretty much public pussy,”
he said. “Man needs a woman, that’s what they’re for. Entertaining the
brothers. Those are the sweet butts.”

I saw red.

“You jerk!”

I got up and went for my pants. He reached
for me, but I slapped his hand away, yanking up my jeans.

“You think I’m a whore!”

“No. I do
not
think you’re a whore.
I told you, I like pissing you off sometimes, it’s hot. You aren’t a sweet butt
either. You see any other guys around here? Not exactly lookin’ to turn you
into Chinese handcuffs, Marie!”

“WHAT?” I didn’t even know what that meant,
but I knew it wasn’t good. I finished getting dressed and grabbed my purse,
pulling out my phone. Great. No service.

“Fuck,” Horse muttered, pulling on his
pants and tee, then grabbing his cut and jerking it on. “You won’t even listen
to me. You aren’t like them, babe. I know that. The guys know that. It doesn’t
mean anything.”

“Then why did you all call me sweet butt
the first time we met?” I demanded. “It’s not like we had anything between us
then, so you didn’t do it just to piss me off. Explain that, Mr. Badass
Reaper!”

He looked away, rubbing a hand along the
stubble on his chin, then turned back to me.

“Because that’s what you looked like,” he
said finally. “You were waiting outside that trailer decked out like a fuckin’
wet dream. We knew Jeff didn’t have a woman, at least not one in particular.
Just assumed, babe.”

“Take me home.”

“Babe, please.”

“Take. Me. Home.”

He turned away and kicked a rock, sending
it into the hot springs with a splash, running his hands through his hair
again. I wished he’d stop doing that, because it just made him look sexier and
I didn’t need to think about him being sexy right now.

I needed to remember the man was a pig.

“Okay, I’ll take you home,” he grunted,
turning back toward me. “But I want to show you something first.”

“By all means!” I declared grandly,
throwing my arms wide. “Please, do whatever it takes to get me out of here and
away from you.”

Horse stalked over to the leather saddlebag
he’d brought and opened it. He stood there, staring down inside it for what
seemed an eternity, then glanced back at me.

“You need to know that I didn’t just bring
you here to fuck you, Marie.”

I snorted, rolling my eyes.

“Don’t give me that shit,” he growled. “I
can get laid whenever I want, I don’t have to drive four hundred miles round
trip to get off. Women see the bike, they see the tats and the cut, they’re all
over that shit. Pussy is just pussy, but you’re different. That’s why I had
this made for you—I wanted to ask you to come back with me, give club life a
shot.”

He pulled out a black leather vest, much
smaller than his, and held it up. On the back were two embroidered patches,
reading “Property of Horse, Reapers MC.”

Holy shit.

“Are you kidding me?” I demanded.

His face tightened, eyes growing cold.

“Never offered this to anyone else, babe.
Not a joke.”

“Well, don’t offer it to me,” I hissed. “I
hardly know you, but what I
do
know is that you’re a sexist pig and you
can go fuck yourself and your stupid club.”

“Don’t insult the club, Marie.”

Something in his tone stopped me mid-rant.
All traces of my sweet Horse were gone and the scary biker stood in front of me
in full standoff. My anger disappeared, replaced with terrible unease. I’d
forgotten how terrifying he could be.

“Let’s stop this,” I said after a pause.
“What we’re doing, there’s nothing good here. Let’s just stop talking and leave
before things get worse.”

“Works for me. Get your shit.”

Funny, but hiking to the spring had taken
about thirty minutes. Hiking back felt like ten hours. The ride home was even
worse. I worried about falling off the bike the whole time, but I’d be damned
if I was going to wrap my arms around him and rest my head on his back like
before. I held the sides of his hips, trying to keep my lower body from
touching his, which was all but impossible.

When we reached the trailer he didn’t even
bother getting off his Harley, let alone watch to see if I got in the door all
right.

Horse just roared away without looking
back.

Chapter
Eight

Sept. 7

Me:
Are you there?

Sept. 9

Me:
Horse, we should talk. I don’t want
us to hate each other. I think we made a mistake, please call me. I miss you.
Let’s fix this

Sept 10

Me:
Are you even getting these? Please,
even if you hate me, call me. I need to tell you something

Sept. 13

Me:
Okay, you win. Bye

Sept. 15

Things got a little dark after our trip to
the hot springs.

Work was okay, but it wasn’t like I loved
what I was doing. Don’t get me wrong, the kids were awesome, but it’s tiring to
be surrounded by little people constantly when they can’t even wipe their own
rear ends. And sometimes diapers blow out, which means exactly what you’d
think.

Good times.

Life with Jeff wasn’t going very well
either. It’s not like we didn’t get along, because we did. We didn’t fight or
anything. But he’d stopped talking to me, didn’t seem to work much and smoked
more pot every day. I had my first hint of real trouble coming when he asked me
how big my paycheck was. By this time I was buying all the food, which I didn’t
mind. After all, he’d floated me when I first got here, and when I’d gotten
hurt too. But it wasn’t like him to mooch, believe it or not. He’d always paid
his way and I’m pretty sure he’d carried Mom a time or two.

Things came to a head right after the
Reapers visited us again, this time without Horse. Jeff didn’t warn me and it
was hard to tell whether the visit was planned or not. I’d learned my
lesson—don’t ask questions unless you want to hear the answers. Honestly, I
didn’t think there were any good answers to the questions I had about their
business relationship.

I came home from work to find bikes in the
driveway. Horse’s wasn’t there. We were totally out of food and beer because I
hadn’t done my grocery shopping for the week, and I sighed in frustration. I
decided to go and buy pizza instead of cooking because I had a little extra
cash. I just didn’t feel up to whipping something together.

I walked in to find Picnic, Bam Bam, Max
and Jeff standing around the kitchen bar in tense silence.

“Um, hi?” I asked, setting down my purse.

“Hey, Marie,” Picnic said, and while his
voice wasn’t friendly, it wasn’t cold either. I guess Horse didn’t go home and
talk too much shit about me. “Just talking some business here.”

“Yeah, I see that,” I replied. “How ’bout I
go and grab some pizzas? Sound good?”

“Sounds great, Marie,” Bam Bam said. He
reached around to his wallet, pulling out some bills and offering them to me. I
was stunned.

“You don’t have to do that,” I murmured.

“Take the money and don’t forget beer,”
Picnic said, his voice short. Arguing with them didn’t seem like a good idea,
so I grabbed the bills and retreated. I took my sweet time getting the pizzas.
I really, really didn’t want to come back home too early, but after hanging out
at the takeout place for forty-five minutes I got a text from Jeff telling me
all was clear. I grabbed the pies and drove home, hoping Jeff’s weirdness
lately wasn’t connected to the Reapers. I kept hearing Horse’s voice in my
head.

Fuck with us and we
will
fuck you
back.

Jeff wouldn’t be that stupid, would he?

When I got back, I had another of those
surreal moments that seemed to happen around the Reapers with alarming
frequency. Earlier I would have sworn things were ugly between them and Jeff.
Now everyone was friendly—practically jolly—and they welcomed me (or rather,
the pizzas I carried) with the kind of cheer usually reserved for returning war
heroes. I tried to give Bam Bam his change, but he wouldn’t take it, telling me
to use it for gas.

The evening followed a familiar pattern. We
ate together and then they sat around drinking beer while I cleaned up. As the
night went on, the jokes got dirtier. I drank several beers. They built a
bonfire. Someone suggested tequila shots. I don’t usually do shots, but it
seemed like a fantastic idea when viewed through my beer goggles. But I’d been
up since early that morning and I had to be up again at seven to get ready for
work, so eventually I decided to hit the sack.

I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the
guys outside and how Horse should be with them. Then I thought about how it
felt when he held me in those strong arms of his and we slept together, all
warm and safe. That made me sad, and this was where things got ugly.

“They” always say you shouldn’t drink and
text, whoever they are.

I should have listened to them. They’re
pretty smart.

Me:
Horse, muss yu

Me:
Why dont anser?

Me:
Horse like yur name. Horsey. I’d
like to rid u horsey, LOL. You sleeping? Or busy with someone?

Me:
I know yur there. I bet you got a
new gurl alredy. Screw you.

Me:
Screw you and your slut. I hate you.
Take yur club and shove it up yur ass I wudn’t be yoor old lady for ten milion
dollrs.

To say I was hung over when my alarm went
off at seven that morning would be a bit of an understatement. I discovered the
messages I’d sent between barf two and barf three, and then that particularly
nasty one after barf three. I wanted to crawl under the trailer and die, I was
so embarrassed. Through the force of extreme will, I managed to get myself to
work on time. Fortunately the head count was low for the day, so the kids
weren’t too loud and crazy. I kept thinking about those messages, trying to
decide whether to call Horse and apologize, text again or what.

I finally decided to text. He probably
wouldn’t take a call from me anyway, and I couldn’t blame him for that. But I
couldn’t just leave it like that—I wasn’t that kind of person. I drove home
after work, grabbed a big glass of water and crafted my text carefully.

Me:
I’m really sorry about my messages
last night. It’s no excuse, but I was drunk and wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry I
bothered you and I’m sorry for the things I said. I was a bitch, it wasn’t
called for and I feel like shit. I promise, I won’t bother you again.

I sat, holding my phone, not sure if I
wanted him to reply or not. Shit, my head was killing me. Why did I drink the
tequila? I couldn’t handle tequila, I knew that. The last time I’d done tequila
shots I’d stripped off my shirt and danced on the coffee table at a party that
had thankfully been very small. Gary’d stuffed dollar bills in my jeans and
told me to drink more tequila. His friends had cheered me on and waved around
their own money. Gary thought that kicked ass.

Guess I couldn’t claim there hadn’t been
warning signs that the man was a douche…

The door slammed open and I winced.

“Marie, I gotta talk to you,” Jeff said,
sitting down heavily on the stool next to mine.

“I’m pretty hung over. I don’t want to
talk,” I muttered, closing my eyes.

“It’s important. I need money.”

“Um, I’ve got a little in my purse,” I
replied. “How much do you want?”

“A lot,” he replied, not meeting my eyes.
“I’m kind of in a bind.”

That caught my attention, and I looked at
him. Really looked at him. What I saw shocked me. He’d lost at least ten pounds
in the past couple weeks, and his hair clearly hadn’t been washed in a couple
of days. His face was sallow and his eyes dull—not just hangover dull.

“Jeff, are you sick? You don’t look good. I
want to take your temperature.”

“Jesus, Marie!” he burst out, slamming his
hand down on the counter so hard I felt the trailer shake. I jumped, startled.
“Why are you so damn pushy? I’m not your kid, I’m a grown man.”

I froze. Jeff never yelled at me. In fact,
Jeff never yelled, period. He’d always been mellow and the pot didn’t exactly
work to change that.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching up and
rubbing his shoulder, as if he’d been carrying something heavy and his back
ached. “I shouldn’t yell at you. But I really need some money fast, Marie.”

“Why?”

“Capital,” he replied, not meeting my eyes.
“I’ve got a business deal in the works, but I need startup cash. In fact, I
need a lot of startup cash. Hell of an opportunity, I can’t afford to miss it.”

I shook my head, wondering if he’d lost his
mind.

“Seriously? You know I don’t have money
like that,” I said. “You can have all I’ve got, but it’s about twelve hundred
bucks total. That’s it.”

“What about Gary?”

That stopped me short.

“Gary?”

“It’s a community property state, isn’t
it?” Jeff asked, shifting nervously. “You can call him and make him give you
the money. Do it for me, Marie. I really need the cash.”

I shook my head slowly, unsure I’d actually
heard him correctly.

“Well, for one thing, Gary never has any
cash,” I said slowly. “He spends it faster than he makes it, and it’s not like
we owned anything valuable. And for another, did you forget that the last time
I saw him
he beat the crap out of me
?”

Jeff leaned toward me, putting his hands on
my shoulders, meeting me face-to-face.

“I’m desperate, sis. What about your house?
Can you get a line of credit on your house?”

I shook my head again, stunned. Had Jeff
lost his mind?

“The house is already mortgaged to the
hilt. We’re probably upside down on the thing. What’s really going on?” I
demanded. I didn’t buy this “business deal” thing for a minute, and I refused
to believe Jeff had forgotten what Gary did to me. I couldn’t deny it any
longer—something really wrong, really wrong was happening. Something bad enough
to make my baby brother desperate.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head at me,
turning away. “I wanted to make this deal happen and thought you might help me.
You’re right, I shouldn’t have asked you. I’m sorry.”

With that he turned and walked back out of
the trailer. Seconds later his car started and he disappeared for the night.
Seems so obvious in retrospect, but honestly—I didn’t see what happened next
coming.

Not even a little bit.