Sweet Perdition (9 page)

She felt a flush creeping up her neck at his crudity. “I honestly don’t know.” Better to be vague, right?

“I see.” Shepherd searched her face. “What has he told you about the club?”

“Not much.” She bit the inside of her cheek. And no information was much worse than unpleasant info, because her imagination could fill in all sorts of blanks.

“Well, judging by Ryker’s clubhouse seduction scene going on here, I’d say on the serious scale, y’all are hitting ‘pretty damn’. What if he wanted to make you his old lady one day?”

She lifted an imperious brow at him. If she’d had glasses, she would have perched them on the end of her nose, librarian style. “Why is my private life your business?”

He smirked at her. “It isn’t, but Ryker’s is. We don’t let everyone become an old lady, just like we don’t let any guy become a prospect.”

“Well, I’m neither one of those things.”

He leered at her, all villain-in-a-movie style.“Well, we got two kinds of chicks in the clubhouse, sweetheart. If you aren’t an old lady, you’re a hellion.”

She remembered Cowboy calling her a hellion earlier. “What’s a hellion?”

“They’re women who hang around the club. They usually got some serious daddy issues and a biker fixation. They come and go as they please, as long as they are useful and,” he drawled, “very,
very,
accommodating.”

Yuck.
She’d been warned Ryker was a slut, but she didn’t know he practically had a harem at his beck and call.

“I could be wrong – you’re still here and I’d have laid even money against that happening. But I don’t think you’re the hellion type. And if you’re gonna stick around, you should know what you are in for.” He pointed to the wall. “For example.”

She followed the direction of his finger and noted four holes in the wood paneling. She’d noticed them when she sat down, but hadn’t given it a second thought. She felt cold all of a sudden, realizing
exactly
what they were. “Those are bullet holes, aren’t they?”

“Yep. Drive by. A rival crew did this as payback. You ever heard of the Raptors?”

She shook her head.

“They’re an MC about half an hour from here. Nasty blood-soaked bastards. They shot the place up one night and killed one of our brothers. That’s why we left the holes in the wall. It’s a reminder to watch your back.” He ashed his cigarette into Ryker’s wine glass.

Her chest felt uncomfortably tight. “I don’t remember reading about a drive by shooting in the paper.” Surely, something that big would have made front page news.

“I know you didn’t.” He wore the same cold expression Ryker pasted on earlier.

Holy crap.
What
had
she gotten herself into? He didn’t just act all rebel without a cause, he actually lived the life and one day he might die that sort of death. She hadn’t even considered it, as naïve as it sounded.

“I don’t want to scare you, sweetheart. I’m giving you a reality check is all.” He placed his hand on hers, soothingly. Then, rubbed the back of her knuckles with his thumb. “You seem like a good person and this world might be too much for you. He has never gotten involved with a citizen before. As a general rule, we don’t mix with your kind. They don’t understand us and we sure as shit don’t get them.”

At her look, he explained. “A citizen is someone from the outside. Someone not affiliated with the club. That’s why I want you to have all the facts. For the safety of everybody involved, you can’t be half in, half out of the Horsemen. But if you decide to stay with Ryker after all this? We’d be more than glad to have you.”

She blew out a shaky breath. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” She said the words automatically, gone on autopilot by the sheer enormity of the situation. She’d wanted to know the truth and now she did. She never could have guessed it would be this frightening.

Another knock sounded at the door and she jumped.

A cute younger guy entered and she tried to focus on him instead of the panic attack threatening to overtake her. He had big green eyes, blue-black hair and wore white T-shirt with a pair of black leather pants. His vest had a
Prospect
patch on the front. He held two plates of food.

“Hey Shep.” His chin jutted in the direction of her companion. “Thought she had a date with Ryker. Are you eating dinner with her instead?”

“What if I am, Pretty Boy?” Shepherd raised a brow and the boy’s smile died. “I don’t recall asking your fucking opinion on the matter.”

Pretty Boy was an apt nickname, she conceded. He had a model perfect appearance, his face perfectly symmetrical. While Ryker had more masculine, harsher outlines to his face, which she preferred.

He trudged over to the table, about to set the food down, when Shepherd cleared his throat. “Think, prospect. Do you see him here? He doesn’t want to eat cold food, go put it back in the oven until he’s ready.”

Pretty Boy sighed. “Voodoo said he would have my ass if I didn’t serve it now because it will dry out.”

“Tell Voodoo that he isn’t here to eat it,” the VP said slowly, as though his patience had been tried one too many times.

“Got it.”

“Got it, what?” Shepherd challenged, lifting his chin a bit.

“Sir,” the prospect blurted out, before backing out of the room and then trudging down the hallway. She didn’t miss the appreciative way Shepherd’s eyes lingered for a millisecond on the guy’s cute butt.

Hmm.
The VP had a thing for the prospect? She bet nobody else knew. Apparently, the house of pain had more than a few secrets. Given the macho man vibe around this place, she doubted any of his brothers had figured it out. She latched on to the topic, if only because it felt safer than the last discussion.

“Now that we’ve gotten my relationship all squared away, why don’t we talk about yours?”

“I got no idea what you’re driving at, sweetheart.” He sat back in his chair and took another drag on the cigarette.

“Yeah, I just bet you don’t.”

He swallowed hard and looked away, but neither confirmed nor denied her suspicion.

A minute later, Ryker shoved open the door. He sighed heavily when he saw Shepherd. “What the hell, man? We had this talk before. What are you still doing here?”

“Enjoying my afterglow, dickhead. What the hell does it look like?” He finished off his cigarette and dropped it in the dirty wine glass.

Ryker’s jaw clenched. “Explain yourself.”

She watched the exchange with wide, wary eyes.

“I nailed her on the conference table,” Shepherd said, deadpan. “She said I lasted a hell of a lot longer than you, quick draw.”

At Ryker’s thunderous expression, she couldn’t contain the laughter bubbling from her throat anymore. She laughed, tears streaking down her cheeks. God, it felt so good to let go for a bit and mock Ryker’s possessive streak. She needed the tension release. A sly smile spread over her face. “Actually, we had sex
under
the table. I’ve got really bad rug burn.” She pressed a hand to her back, rubbing it.

Seeing that he’d been had, he scowled at both of them until Shepherd left, still chuckling.

He sat down in the chair Shepherd vacated and she noticed the knuckles on Ryker’s left hand were raw and bleeding. He’d wrapped them in a blue bandana, but the blood soaked through. She thought about asking him about the injury, but thought better of it. Evidently, he’d used his fists to
negotiate
with the alcohol delivery man. The Four Horsemen might be in the same town, but they lived in an entirely different zip code. A few minutes later, Pretty Boy brought their food again and she managed to eat a few bites of steak.

But she couldn’t stop staring at those big bullet holes

***

I’m gonna give Shepherd a good, swift kick in the ass.

He had no idea how to salvage this evening. Elizabeth had picked her way through dinner, obviously lost deep in thought. He doubted she’d be in the mood for the sex he’d been fantasizing about all day, especially after Captain Cockblock had gotten through scaring the ever living shit out of her.

After they ate, he took her back to his place, and tossed his keys on the coffee table before he plopped on the couch. He patted the sofa next to him and she sat down, suddenly fascinated by the carpet at her feet.

“Come on. Tell me what’s on your mind, Pinky.” Might as well get it all out in the open.

She wrapped her arms around herself. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

He sighed.
Women.
“Obviously, you aren’t. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what the problem is.”

She sliced her head to the side. “I don’t think this is fixable. You are an outlaw biker. I am a librarian. We couldn’t be more different.”

“Ah shit. That’s what you were talking with Shep about. He enlighten you about the club?” He forced himself to keep his temper in check. He didn’t want to upset her any more tonight, but the blood practically boiled in his veins.

“Yup.”

“It isn’t nearly as bad as you think. I promise.” He could give her a few more details, maybe set her mind at ease. “No one is perfect. Sure, we aren’t strictly on the up and up here, but I’m not exactly Al Capone either. “

“No?” she asked, finally meeting his gaze. He picked up on the hopeful tone and decided to build on it. He knew she liked him and maybe he could calm her fears enough to keep her in his bed.

“Let me give you a bit of background.” He held out his arm to her and she leaned against him, laying her head on his shoulder and listening. “The club went through a big shift in the early eighties. We got caught up in this RICO sting. Nearly every guy in the club ended up dead or hauled off to jail to do serious hard time.” Her eyes rounded, so he hurried along with the moral of the story. “What I’m saying is we learned our fucking lesson. The hard way. After that shit went down, the ladies formed a new club and we are legit these days.
Mostly.”

She searched his face. He assumed to determine if he had just told her the truth. Then, she nodded, seeming to accept his statement. “Is that why you have a Phoenix patch on your vest? Because you guys had to form a new club?”

“We call them cuts and yes, it’s called the Phoenix chapter because we rose from the ashes of the old club. The only holdovers from the old days are Goat and Captain. Goat had already been in prison went shit went south and Captain was a prospect so the feds couldn’t find anything to pin on him. He escaped the rap.”

Her eyes widened. “Really? So women ran the club for a time? I thought bikers were sort of infamous for being a boy’s club.”

He rubbed her shoulder, noticing how tense the muscles were. Right now, he should be taking her panties off instead of fielding uncomfortable questions.

“Yeah, well, don’t repeat this, but the old ladies did a better job than the previous brothers. They invested dough in businesses like the bar, a restaurant, and hotel, and some others. They didn’t want their sons going to jail, so they went a bit more legit. And we made new rules to keep it that way. No illegal gun sales, no drugs, and no prostitution. Took some serious heat off our backs.”

“And the whole hellion thing?” she scrunched up her nose in a disgust.

Aw, hell. Shepherd had blabbed about the hellions too?
Keep some fucking secrets in the bat cave, Alfred.

“Consenting adults, darlin’. What can I say? The brothers like easy pussy. The girls happen to like hot bikers and who could blame them? And I don’t give a fuck about society and their sexual hang-ups.”

“Is that what I am to you?” She turned bright red. “Available pussy?” She got real quiet, pushing away from his chest.

Dammit.
He wasn’t good at explaining this kind of crap and he only seemed to dig himself deeper. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. Shit has nothin’ to do with you and me. You aren’t a hellion or an old lady. Hellions take any biker dick, but the only cock who has access to yours is mine. Get the difference?”

She didn’t seem too happy about it. “Yeah, I guess I got it.” She cocked her head to the side. “And do you plan to help yourself to hellions and sleep with me at the same time?”

He froze.

He hadn’t thought that far ahead, but women liked to plan shit. Most times, he reacted in the moment, especially when it came to fucking women. One pussy was as good as the next, right?

But for the time being, he only seemed to be interested in Pinky. He knew it could change. He had no intention of being housebroken and coming home to the same pussy every night. Ever. That’s one of the benefits of not having an old lady… you can fuck as you please.

Yet, he had the feeling the more he said about this particular topic, the higher the probability he’d piss her off again. So instead of answering the question and maybe incriminating himself, he changed the subject real quick.

He cleared his throat. “You kept staring at the wall during dinner. I’m guessing he pointed out the bullet holes.”