Sexy Bastards Anthology: Bad Boy, Biker, Alpha, Motorcycle Club, Contemporary Romance Collection (66 page)

She watched him pick up his jeans, unable to ask him to stay. His side gave her a sexy profile of the magnificent muscles of his bottom and down his long lean legs. Her heart pounded madly in her chest. They disappeared too quickly in the denim of his jeans.

He leaned across the couch and kissed her, softly. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

She had meetings all day. They would likely run late. “Maybe, but I don’t know what time. Work.” She grabbed her jeans and slipped them on, not bothering to look for her thong, wherever it had ended up. She smiled when she caught Morgan watching her with the same blatant stare she had just used a moment earlier.

She walked to the door in just her jeans and black lace bra. She opened the door, knowing no one would be up on the penthouse floor to see her. She swallowed, her breath catching when he slipped a hand inside one of her bra cups and pinched her nipple. It responded instantly to his touch.

He growled and pressed his mouth against hers. “I could fuck you again in the hall here. Then in the damn elevator.

She pulled away and giggled. “I’m not sure what the security guys watching the video camera’s in the elevator might do if we tried that.”

He pressed his forehead against hers as he pulled his keys out of his jean pocket. “I’d pay ‘em for a copy of that video.”

She laughed. “Go! I’ll call you when I’m done working.”

He looked her right in the eye, his face oddly serious. “You know what the hardest part of being free is Katie?”

She shook her head.

“Realizing that you aren’t, and deciding to do something about it.” Then he vanished.

“Kathleen! Why were you not at the cocktail party at the Masterson’s?”

Katie forced herself to smile as she looked up from the files on her desk at her father. “Sorry. I got really involved in some work I took home and forgot all about it until it was indecently late.” Indecent images of Morgan and her on the couch flashed through her mind. She shifted and crossed her legs, hoping her father wouldn’t notice that she suddenly felt flushed.

“I see.” He came closer to her desk. As usual, he was impeccably dressed in a hand-tailored suit and silk tie. “I understand getting caught up in work but you need to remember that when one has social obligations—particularly those that go hand-in-hand with one’s business interest—those commitments must be honored.”

“Yes Dad—Father.” Her tone was colorless, robotic. Tears threatened but she blinked them back. Her entire life had been an exercise in trying to please the man standing in front of her desk, and she had finally, just recently come to believe that it was never going to happen.

He would never be pleased with her. She would never measure up to his expectations. She couldn’t. Because she wasn’t Peter.

Peter. Her brother and Blake Wilkes’ son, and firstborn. Gone now, for many years. Perfect Pete.

She lowered her gaze, feeling guilty for mocking her brother. She shouldn’t be doing that to his memory.

“Very well, Kathleen.” Her father sighed, clearly disappointed in his daughter. He flipped through a file on her desk before looking up again. “Also, your mother’s going to be returning home soon. I’d appreciate if you would spend some time with her.”

“I will.” She would, but she had no idea why. Her mother had never been her mother, not in any sense of the word. She had never spoken to her unless she had to. The woman was even colder than her husband.

Katie stared at her computer screen. It was not her fault, she thought miserably. None of it was her fault. It didn’t matter. She would always be the second child. The substitute born after the golden boy had died. She would never be loved by either of the people she called her parents. To them she was nothing more than a symbol that everything was good in their lives; that they had moved on from grief. She was the heir to their thrones, the pale and poor stand-in for a life lost too soon, and badly.

Her dad shut the file and dropped it back on her desk. “I want you to attend a small dinner party this evening at the Berkley Club. Please dress accordingly. No getting lost in work again. You need a social life. It’s embarrassing.”

For her or for him? “Yes Father,” she said softly.

The Berkley Club. Where they served fancy food in tiny portions, and wine so expensive that the wine list didn’t even list a price. If you had to ask you could not afford it and the waiters knew it. They were trained to say, “I’m so sorry. The prices are not listed due to the nature of the vintage. They are, naturally, some of the finest wines in the world so they are priced accordingly.” In other words, you can’t afford it. That was the unspoken message.

She hated the Berkley Club. The pizza and draft beer she’d had the night before with Morgan was probably the best meal she’d had since she’d been in college. She’d be stuck talking to men and women who all wanted to talk about nothing but business and politics, and none of them would ever know what it felt like to ride on the back of the roaring motorcycle with Morgan. What it meant to be free.

Her spirits plunged. Freedom. It was heady, but not something she would ever really know either. No matter her place in the grand scheme of the Wilkes family, she was a Wilkes. The last of the Wilkes’. Nobody had to tell her how important it was that she carry on the family name. Not anymore—anyway. It had been engraved into her brain.

“I trust you are working hard on the project?”

“Of course. I made the changes as well.” Her heart felt like a lead lump in her chest. There was no joy in what she did, no passion in it. She was good because they had taught her to be, because she had set out to be, but there was no love in her for it.

In fact, she rather detested the family business. She freakin’ hated it.

“Good.” Blake left and she slumped in her seat, inside her ridiculously large office. Her eyes were on the file he’d dropped, but her mind was very far away. What would it have been like to be born into a family that wanted her? The thought reminded her of Morgan. At least they had something in common. Neither of them were wanted by their parents.

The thought of him brought a smile to her face, and she went back to work feeling better than she had since her father had come into her office.

**

Morgan couldn’t get his mind off Katie. There was a lot going on around him, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her—not just her incredibly sex-ass body but how she looked like a lost little lamb. He needed to stop, he knew how dangerous that was. Except he knew she was lying to him. He just couldn’t figure out what it was she was lying about. She told the truth as well, and it was difficult to decipher which part of what she said was truth or lie. She did it so beautifully.

He groaned and rubbed his face with his hands.

She was an enigma. More than that, she was a total mystery. One he wanted to figure out and yet stay as far away from as possible. Trouble, in its purest form. She was entrenched in a life she didn’t want, that was obvious, but he couldn’t figure out what her reasons for staying in it were.

She’d said it was a family thing but she’d looked away when she had said it. What was her loyalty to the Wilkes’ really all about?

Did she owe them money?

He supposed it was possible.

Or maybe she loved the wealth she got to rub against. Somehow he doubted that was true. She hadn’t wanted to show him the apartment, if she had been eager to show it off he would have believed she was enjoying staying in such a fancy place.

Fancy and fucking cold. Not freezing cold but lifeless. Not a hint of the penthouse being a home. Not one sign of anything personal in that place, not a photo or a souvenir. Everything on the shelves was obviously placed there by some interior designer, and placed just to make the person looking at it see it.

Katie had looked utterly out of place. She’d been the only living thing in the whole place.

Hell was she alive! There was a deep well of untapped passion in her. He sensed it. She was holding back, keeping herself contained but if she ever let go—Hell he wanted to be there when it happened.

Who was he kidding?

He wanted to be the person who made that happen.

He wanted to take her to heights she had never known, show her things she had never seen, and watch her come to an even bigger bolder life.

First though, he’d have to find out what she was hiding.

**

After work Katie headed home and went straight for her closet. She needed to be at the Berkley Club by eight and it was nearly seven. If she moved fast, she’d have enough time to shower, dress and do her hair. She was just heading toward the bathroom when her cell phone rang. She answered quickly, not bothering to check the number because she figured it was her dad reminding her not to be late. “What now? I mean, hello!”

“How do you feel about fried foods and an insane amount of alcohol?”

Morgan?
She burst into laughter. “Pardon?”

“It’s my way of asking; do you want to come to a party?”

Did she! She couldn’t though. She just couldn’t. She had to go to the club. She’d never be forgiven for skipping out twice in a row. Her father had probably arranged for some very suitable bachelors with incredibly good genes and a family fortune behind them to be there. They’d size her up like they’d size up a thoroughbred.

She sighed. “I can’t. I have a work thing.” The regret in her voice echoed in the empty hall.

Morgan hesitated a moment before saying, “It’s okay. Why don’t you give me a call tomorrow then? Or… if your work thing is boring, call me and I’ll come pick you up on my bike and save you.”

“You’d be my man on shining armor?” She giggled. “I really need to go to this. But I will call you.”

“I’ll be hanging by my phone waiting.”

She laughed again. “I highly doubt that. Thanks for the offer. Have fun.”

“You too. Bye Katie-pie.”

“See ya’ Captain Morgan.” She hung up and headed for the shower, quickly stuffing her hair in a bun and figuring not washing it would save her a bit of time. She washed, shaved and was out in five minutes. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and her heart beat faster.
Morgan
. Did she dare to skip out on the club? Her father would be furious…

And if she did show up and did her best to smile and chat her way through dinner he would come into her office tomorrow to discuss, in minute detail, every little gaffe she had made—all in the name of making sure she knew where she had gone wrong and to make sure she would not repeat that mistake ever again. Training her, he would tell her. Training her to be perfection. Cool under pressure, womanly when needed, tough as nails when it was required. Then he’d shake his head and give her the look. The one that told her she had only disappointed him yet again. He would do it without ever even knowing how badly it hurt her either. He honestly believed he was helping her.

What to do?

Go to the club or to a party with Morgan?

She took three long breaths.

Morgan.

**

The party must have started early because it was in full swing as they got off Morgan’s bike. The small house in a slightly rundown neighborhood carried the sound of heavy bass music over the backyard fence as Morgan reached for her hand and headed in the direction of the beat.

Katie eyed the group of men wearing the same leather jackets that Morgan wore. The small backyard was crowded, the men standing around a fire burning in a barrel. Liquor bottles were everywhere, and plenty of red cups strewn across the lawn. The party had probably started out as lunch and just carried on.

Morgan nodded at the boys in leather and took Katie around to a group of women huddled close to a table that held a large box of wine and a platter of crackers and cheese. “I’ll be right back,” he murmured in her ear and moved back to the fire barrel.

Katie watched him go, part of her wishing she had just gone to her father’s party. This was going to be just as uncomfortable… but on a totally different level.

A redhead with bright green eyes watched her. She smiled back when Katie caught her staring. “So you’re the one that’s got Morgan’s attention.” She winked. “Good for you.”

Katie blushed. “We’re just friends.”

The redhead laughed. “That’s what they all say.”

Who were they? Katie wanted to ask but let her eyes float over to Morgan instead. He stood talking to a broad-shouldered guy drinking directly from a bottle of Jack Daniels.

The redhead held out a hand. “I’m Penny. Clive’s wife.”

“Katie.” The hand that took hers was warm and strong.

Penny nodded, as if pleased by Katie’s firm return shake. “Help yourself to some wine.”

She looked at the large box. With no idea how to open it, the only wine she’d ever drunk came corked or from proper wine barrels at a winery. “I’m okay just yet. Thank you.”

“Morgan said you went with him to take Reilly back.”

She smiled, relieved Penny didn’t notice. “I did. It was…I know it sounds silly, but it was an amazing thing to see him home again.”

Penny shook her head. “Not silly at all. Clive brings home all kinds of critters and Morgan is trying his best to one up him on the count.”

“Could be worse things to compete about.” Money, number of women you slept with, number of STD’s.

“You got that right. At least it’s a good thing Clive and I are both vets.”

Katie’s mouth fell open. “Both of you?”

“Yeah.” Penny nodded, her face genuinely friendly. “It’s how we met and what we love to do. What about you?”

“I…I work for the Wilkes’.”

“Oh.” Penny made a face. “Are you a maid?”

Katie laughed. She knew it should have insulted her but it didn’t. “No, I’m more of an assistant.”

“Then you’d better have some wine.” Penny handed her a plastic wineglass. Katie stared at the box until Penny said, “Use the spigot.”

Katie finally figured it out and filled her glass. It was tart in her mouth. Not carrying the aroma and oak flavors she was used to. Red wine in a box that tasted tart and kind of fruity at the same time. Five minutes later she filled it up again.

Morgan caught her arm and she raised her glass to Penny as he whirled her away to dance to a lively country tune playing from the speakers set up by the house. She danced with him for as many songs as she could then she was sent spinning back toward the women while the men gathered to talk again.

She lost count of the plastic cup refills but the wine went perfect with the sizzling hot dogs from the grill. Penny stuck by her side when Morgan wasn’t pulling her away. Way more fun than the stuck up dinner she should be at. She pushed the thought from her mind and focused on the strength of Morgan’s arms and back as he danced with her, lifted her high in the air.