Risking It All: A Hellfire Riders MC Romance (The Motorcycle Clubs Book 14) (4 page)

Lily

It’s full dark when I get back to town. I blow straight through, heading for the county line. Pretty much everywhere in this part of the state can be called ‘the middle of nowhere,’ but the Barracks sits out on the edge of nowhere. That’s the way everyone who visits the strip joint likes it. Fewer eyes prying. Fewer deputies driving by.

Jack’s black workhorse is already sitting in the parking lot. Fuck. My gut tightens up again. I haven’t checked my messages in the past hundred miles, but as of ten o’clock, he hadn’t replied.

I find an open spot at the far end of the lot. Buckcherry’s
Crazy Bitch
spills through the Barrack’s open front doors. The lighting outside is crap and the bright glare of my phone’s screen blinds me for a second. A message from Anna—a picture of glitter in a toilet. Still no reply from Jack. Maybe I should have expected it. After our first night, I didn’t hear anything from him either. He just froze me out.

I don’t know if I can bear looking into his eyes and seeing nothing again.

But it’s not like I have a choice. I pocket my phone and start for the door. With every step, I lock all the hurt down. The only response Jack fucking Hayden is going to get from me is
“I don’t give a shit.”

A solid shadow peels away from the side of the building. “Lily.”

My heart slams into my ribs. Jack. Tall and gorgeous and waiting for me. And I do give a shit, because I sure as hell don’t deserve to be treated like it. No matter how monstrous his dad was. No matter how screwed up he is.

“Fuck off,” I say and keep on walking, but his reply stops me in my tracks.

“I’ve got six nights left.”

Gravel grinds beneath my boots as I round on him. “How do you figure that? Because I’ve got a hotel receipt where we spent night number one and it has the date right on it. Our bet began one month ago, plus one day. So it’s over.”

Jack moves in closer. The back of my neck tenses but I don’t give an inch. Jesus, he’s big. It’s one of those facts my mind accepts without even thinking about it, like ‘water is wet’—Jack Hayden is built like a tank—but every once in a while the full meaning of it comes home. Usually when he’s carrying me to bed and I actually feel small against him. Or when his body is braced over mine, fucking me, all those thick muscles flexing as he grinds deep, and he’s all I see.

He’s all I see now. At my height, there’s not many men I have to look up to, but he’s one. In the dark, his face is all shadows and angles, but I’ve memorized every feature. The roughly hewn planes, the high-set cheekbones, his wide and firm mouth. The slashing eyebrows over eyes that see right through you, brown irises so deep they’re almost black.

“It’s not over.” Voice rough, he crowds in. “You didn’t say a month. You said thirty nights.”

Disbelieving, I stare at him. I
did
say thirty nights. But who the hell takes a statement like that so literally?

Jack fucking Hayden, that’s who. I should have expected it. He always takes people exactly at their word. But that still doesn’t explain why the hell he was missing so many nights. “Were you saving the days up?”

His dark gaze drops to my lips. “Yes.”

Instead of just asking for more? So maybe he still can’t. Maybe he’s still got all that fucked-up shit in his head holding him back.

The warmth of that thought cools when I remember how there’s no toothbrush. No trace of his presence at my place at all. No sign that this has ever been anything other than a hookup for him.

“So was that the plan?” Each word is as strained as my throat. “You scratched an itch hard the first two weeks. But now, hey—you’ve been well scratched. So you can just bank the days and wait until you’re horny again, because you know I won’t back out of our bet. I’ll be available whenever you want. The easiest hookup anyone ever had, outside of a morgue.”

“A morgue, Lily?” The corners of his wide mouth flick up in a smile. “Even I’m not that fucked up.”

Oh, shit. I don’t mean to laugh. But it huffs out of me on a sharp breath, and he’s so damn quick. His big hands capture my face, his long fingers slipping into my hair. He catches my parted lips with his, and holds me still as he tastes, as he takes.

God, the way he kisses. It’s like the way he fucks. Not just with his mouth or his cock but as if he’s putting everything behind it. I don’t have a defense against that. I don’t have a defense against
him.
A single touch is like running a live wire through my system. So when he licks into my mouth, sucks on my tongue, the shock of pleasure lights up every nerve. My nipples harden to aching points, my inner muscles clenching.

My breath shudders over lips moistened by our kiss when he eases back, his dark eyes locked on mine, his hands still holding me tight. The deep gravel of his voice shivers over my sensitized skin.

“I want the rest of the time due to me, Lily.”

Sharp pain pierces my chest. Not
more
time. Just the rest of it.

Six more nights.

But I can do that. No big deal, right? I’m the queen of hooking up. This won’t be any different.

On a deep breath, I nod. “Whatever. I said thirty nights, so you’ll get thirty nights.”

Jack’s fingers tighten, as if my breezy response wasn’t agreement. “Good.”

“But no fucking around this time. Six
consecutive
nights. Not just whenever you feel like getting some pussy. Each night counts whether you show or not.”

“I’ll show.” The iron in his tone leaves no room for doubt. “Starting tonight.”

Tonight. God, I want that. But I want it too much, and after getting so little sleep last night and riding all day, I’m too damn tired to deal with all this emotional shit. I’ve got to lock it down first.

“Starting tomorrow,” I tell him. “It shouldn’t be too hard for you to wait. You weren’t interested last night, or the past few nights, so one more day won’t make much of a difference.”

His eyes narrow. “Not interested?”

He’s just echoing my words, but it sounds like a threat. Like he’s about to prove something to me.

But his thumb only glides over my bottom lip as he softly says, “I’ll always be interested.”

Oh, that’s a laugh. My entire life proves what a joke it is. I scoff and finally pull away. I’ve sparred with him enough times to know I’m only able to go because he lets me go.

His deep voice follows me to the Barracks’ entrance. “I’m not done, Lily.”

Not yet. But he will be. And a month ago, I risked everything by believing otherwise.

I won’t take that risk again.

• • •

Jack

The strip joint smells like piss and sweat and beer. A disco ball and laser lights flash color across the stage. Some of the brothers are watching the dancers but most don’t give a shit about seeing yet another pair of tits. Most of the club pussy will shake theirs for free, and the working girls aren’t the only ones warming the brothers’ laps. They’re just the ones who don’t have a cock in them when they do.

Lily heads straight for the bar, her anger like a steel rod across her shoulders. She’s got two modes when she’s out with the brothers. Either she’s having a good time or she’s pissed. Usually she’s having a good time. But if she’s pissed, there’s not anyone who doesn’t know it.

What they don’t know—and what took me too fucking long to figure out—is that her anger is a cover. Not always, but sometimes. It’s how she protects herself. Never showing vulnerability. Never showing weakness. Never giving anyone reason to say she should be an old lady instead of a patchholder.

It’s why she never fucked any Rider before the night of our first bet. It’s why she never even flirted with or teased one. It’s why she didn’t invite any local men into her bed. She’d have too much shit thrown at her.

It’s why I believed I’d never have one night with her, let alone thirty. Why I waited two years to win the bet that allowed me in.

I didn’t see that her mind was changing, or that she started believing her place in the club was solid enough she could finally fuck anyone she wanted. Instead I saw that her place should have been solid enough from the day she patched in. I saw that she’s stronger, quicker, meaner than some of the brothers. More loyal, too.

I never saw the hurt.

In the past month, I’ve gotten better at looking. Although I’m seeing anger now, it’s not sitting right. She was pissed from the moment she saw me outside. She
arrived
pissed. But Lily doesn’t hang on to her temper very long. She hangs on to her hurt.

And she believes I’m not interested in fucking her anymore.

Not interested. In fucking Lily Burns.

She’s either making shit up or she brained herself while riding today, because I’ve never heard her say anything so goddamn stupid.

But she’s not stupid. So if she’s not just throwing shit out and hoping it’ll stick, then she truly believes I don’t want her.

One thing for damn sure—she’s never going to make that mistake again. By the time these six nights are over, she’ll know exactly how much I want her. She’ll know I never intend to let her go.

She’s standing between two stools, waiting for the bartender when I come up on her left side. The glance she spares me is dark and gray, like polished flint. Her light blond hair hangs down her back in a thick braid that I love to wrap around my fist when I’m pulling her close. Her helmet matted and flattened the rest. Road dust outlines the shape of the sunglasses she wore earlier in the day, leaving paler circles around her eyes. Her full lips are windburned, and thin into a tight line when she glances at me again and sees that I’m still looking.

Of course I’m still looking. She’s fucking stunning.

She turns away again when the bartender slides two bottles across the counter.

“Water and a Bud for the lady.”

“Thanks, Pete.”

The old man looks to me. “What’ll it be?”

“Whatever you have within reach.” I watch Lily screw off the bottle cap and chug the water. She’s still chugging when Pete digs his fingers into a nearby bowl and flips a lemon wedge in my direction before leaving us alone again. “Long ride?”

Still drinking, she raises her middle finger to my face.

The message is clear, but I wait anyway. I like to hear her say it.

But she goes one better than a
Fuck off
. Wiping her mouth, she tells me, “You don’t get to say a fucking word to me until tomorrow night.”

“All right.” I lean in so close I can smell the dust in her hair. She doesn’t back away. She never backs away. “But tomorrow I’ll say that I don’t know what I love more—sucking on your nipples or your juicy clit—but I love the way you squirm and moan when I do. I’ll say that I love the way your tits look when they’re dripping with my cum. I’ll say that I love how your cunt clenches around my cock, and how you beg me to fuck you deep and hard. I’ll say how much I love eating your pussy after you’ve come with me inside you, when you’re so soft and warm and wet. And I’ll tell you that I’ll never lose interest in any of it.”

I have her until the end—breath caught, lips parted, eyes locked on mine, and something like hope sparking through the flint gray. Then her gaze shutters and she shakes her head.

“Back the fuck off, Jack,” she says.

For now, I will. But I don’t even move a step before a drunken bray of laughter comes from her right.

“Oh,
shit.
You in the doghouse, Blowback?” Burnout half stands, half slumps against the bar, his eyes running over Lily’s rigid posture, sizing up the tension between us. “What’d’ya do? Leave the toilet seat up? The ladies are so pissy about that kind of thing.”

Her jaw locks. This is exactly the shit she was trying to avoid when she wasn’t fucking anyone local. We’re all Riders, but when she’s taking dick they treat her as something different, as if that difference matters more than the colors she’s wearing. Sometimes she gives back twice as hard. This time she’s biting her tongue.

It used to be, I’d tell him to shut his fucking mouth. And that’s how I gutted her for five years—by shielding her instead of having her back. By making her work harder to prove herself, to prove she didn’t need a man defending her. So this past month I’ve kept my mouth closed when the shit is thrown, watching how she handles herself. Figuring out where I went wrong.

And where I went wrong was thinking it was about her. It’s not. It’s about the assholes shitting on her. Burnout thinks he’s real funny. The truth is, he’s got a rock for a brain.

But the brother’s not so stupid that he doesn’t recognize the danger when I zero in on him. Though he looped me into his joke, he’s usually too uneasy to say more than a few words in my direction.

There’s good reason a lot of the brothers are uneasy around me. I lean in, try to look friendly. Lily told me once that I only have two expressions:
I don’t give a shit
and
Don’t fuck with me
. Judging by the way Burnout pulls back, my friendly face looks just like the
Don’t fuck with me
one.

His eyes dart back and forth, as if he’s looking for an escape, but as soon as I start talking his gaze snaps back to mine, as if watching to make sure I don’t come closer. “The first time the boss sent me out on business, it meant getting past two fuckers guarding the house where they’d stashed the shit they’d stolen from us. If they make a noise, wake up the rest of their crew, I’m fucked, so I pull a knife from my boot and hit the first one in the throat. When the other fucker looks to see why his buddy’s choking, I rip out his tongue before stuffing it back in his mouth.”

Burnout’s not laughing anymore. And although I don’t move, he draws back a little more, his lips flapping shut and sucking in over his teeth, like an old man testing the seat of his dentures.

I can’t smell his fear over the booze, but I know it’s there, as sour and yellow as the lemon on the bar. “I do all that without breaking a fucking sweat, then stop for a steak on my way home and eat it bloody. Yet when shit’s going down between Zoomie and me, you assume that
she’s
the one with the problem?”