“Hell, yeah, it is,” I said, pulling her back to me.
“You’ve obviously been with the wrong women,” she commented before sucking on my bottom lip.
“With the right one, now.”
I slid my tongue into her mouth and my hand into her hair as she groaned. God, she made me hard. I was seriously contemplating saying fuck it and carrying her back to bed when she finally pushed away and took a couple steps back.
“Go. The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be done.”
I nodded, trying to clear the Trix fog from my head. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’ll call you if I do.”
As I opened my mouth to reply, she raised her eyebrows, so I snapped it shut again. I didn’t want to fight with her—especially when I was leaving. With my luck and Trix’s temper, she’d probably take off just to prove a point if I pushed her.
“Be back soon,” I said with a nod.
I strode out the door and closed it, then moved away as I heard her engage the deadbolt. I only got a few feet from the door before I had to turn around, though.
Pulling my keys from my pocket, I unlocked the door again, then peeked inside to yell, “See you soon” so she didn’t think I was nuts, right before shutting it. Then I locked the door myself, making sure the deadbolt held when I tried to open it.
* * *
“Things have gone quiet,” Slider said loudly over the noise of the room, making men shut their mouths mid-sentence. “I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on. The two informants that gave me information got nothin.’ No news from Salem, no news about Eugene, no fuckin’ news, period.”
“What the fuck?” Samson, an older guy with hair down to his ass in a long, thin braid called out. He’d been a member for fuckin’ ever, and I’d known him since I was a kid.
“We got no fuckin’ clue what’s goin’ on.”
“Maybe they changed their minds,” Mack said seriously, making me chuckle. God, that guy was green.
“Doubtful,” Dragon mumbled next to me with a shake of his head.
“Keep yer eyes open,” Poet called out harshly from behind the bar. I didn’t know what the fuck he was doing back there—it’s not like the man would be serving drinks. We had prospects for that shit. God, I was glad I never had to go back to that.
I was a second generation Ace. My biological father was an Ace before he went fucking psycho and kidnapped Farrah, and Casper was, too. So, from the beginning, I’d had an in.
That didn’t save me from the bullshit, though. Our president, Slider, and his VP, Poet, were under the impression that getting the shit beat out of you and taking on the most menial jobs in the club built character. I didn’t know about that. What I did know was that by the time I’d been patched in, I’d had dirt on almost every single one of the men in the club, from where they stashed their personal drugs to where they dipped their dicks. When you’re cleaning up after a person, you figure out things about them that they never wanted other people to know. Like Carl, who stuffed his blow up his ass when he went on a run.
Fucking nasty.
The probation period worked, though, especially for guys like me. I’d known most of the men in the club since I was a kid, and I’d seen them as uncles. But once I was a member, they weren’t uncles. They were brothers. They were my equals and my greatest allies. Instead of living under the protection of the club, I’d become a part of the protection. And as I’d found my place among them, their view of me had changed, too—from the kid they’d watched play in the mud to a man they knew would have their backs.
That thought brought me back into the present and I glanced around the room, not seeing Will anywhere.
“Where’s Will?” I asked Casper quietly as someone peppered Slider and Poet with questions.
“Haven’t seen him. Think he went back to his place after he got patched up earlier,” he replied.
“You find anything out?”
“Nope. Thought Grease was gonna fucking kill him when the kid wouldn’t stop mouthing off. Didn’t learn anything new, though.”
I nodded and sat back in my chair. I had to track down Will and get things straightened out before shit started happening. I needed him at my back—without a fucking knife.
“Just keep doin’ what you’ve been doin’,” Slider finally called out with a tired wave of his hand. “We’ll keep our ears to the ground, let ya know if we have any news.”
“This mean we still can’t have girls on the grounds?” some idiot called from the back of the room.
Slider glanced at Poet, then back at the room. “Gates are open again.”
A cheer went up from the guys and the crowd dispersed, heading to call their sidepieces and go back to work.
The garage we ran was a legitimate business that kept the police mostly off our backs, but running the business meant actually fixing cars. So that’s what we did—and we did it well. Most of the men that patched in with the Aces had started out as gear heads, their love of bikes bringing them to the club.
Our other businesses weren’t quite as aboveboard, and there were only a few of us who handled those. Poet and Slider, Grease, Dragon, Casper, Samson, an old-timer named Smokey that couldn’t do much anymore, me and pretty soon, Will, ran the not-so-legal side of the operation. A few others were muscle, stepping in whenever asked, but they knew very little. We kept our shit tight and our mouths shut, bringing in the other brothers if we needed them, but leaving them out when we didn’t. They all knew the score, they’d all been on runs when shit went down, but they rarely had to deal with the shadier side of the Aces.
They didn’t mind not getting their hands dirty, though they’d all been dirty at some point. It was a win-win. Those who wanted to be a part of shit usually were, and the others wouldn’t go looking for trouble, but were more than happy to step in if the need arose. The way it was organized meant there were very few that knew the intricacies of what we were doing, which left little room for error.
“Church,” Slider called as the room cleared out.
“I’m gonna head home,” I told Casper as we climbed to our feet.
“Home, huh?”
“That woman—” I couldn’t help but laugh uncomfortably and shake my head. Casper and I had talked about a lot of shit in the years since he’d taken me in, but I couldn’t talk to him about Trix. Shit with her seemed almost sacred, too important to tell anyone about it.
“Glad you’re happy, boy.” He gripped my shoulder tight, then turned and walked through the doors to the meeting room.
I wasn’t invited in there.
I may have been one of the few that knew exactly what was going on, but that didn’t mean I got into the inner sanctum.
I’d only been gone for a couple of hours, waiting for the rest of the men to show up before Slider made his announcements—and for the first time, I was anxious to get the fuck out of there.
* * *
“Trix?” I swung the front door open and stepped inside the apartment, surprised at the low murmur of voices coming from the kitchen.
“In here!” she called back cheerfully as I locked the door behind me.
When I got to the kitchen, I stopped abruptly, my neck heating as I took in the scene. Trix was at the table with some guy, leaning over a couple of textbooks. They weren’t touching—that’s the only reason the guy was still breathing.
“Hey,” Trix said cheerfully, standing up to greet me. “You’re back a lot earlier than I thought.”
“Clearly,” I said flatly, ignoring the way she’d wrapped her arms around my middle and leaned up for a kiss. “Who’s this?”
Trix’s neck snapped back in surprise, then turned toward the kid sitting at the table.
He was clean cut. T-shirt and jeans. Plain black converse. Short hair. Black framed hipster glasses. Five-nine on a good day. Not built, but not scrawny, either.
“Hey, man. I’m Steve,” he said, standing to shake my hand.
“Hulk,” I intro
duced myself, keeping my arms at my sides.
“Is that your real—” his eyes drifted down my chest and he grinned. “Biker name, huh? I get it.”
“Probably not,” I replied flatly.
“Cameron,” Trix warned lowly, stepping away from me.
“Since your boyfriend’s home, you wanna work on this tomorrow?” Little Steve asked, his eyes moving to Trix. He smiled and shrugged like he felt bad for her, and I wanted to knock his head off his narrow shoulders.
“That’s okay, we can—”
“What’s for dinner?” I asked, cutting her off as I stared at Steve.
I swear to Christ, her head whipped toward me so fast she was lucky she didn’t get whiplash.
“Make your own fucking dinner,” she hissed, her face growing red.
The kid looked between us a few times before reaching down to gather his shit. “We can just work on this tomorrow.”
“Seriously, it’s fine—” Trix tried again.
“I’ve got plans, anyway,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I’ll text you later.”
He left the apartment slowly, taking his sweet ass time packing up his stuff, and the longer he was there, the closer I came to putting my boot in his ass to get him moving. As soon as he was gone, I flipped the deadbolt and stomped back to the kitchen to get a beer.
“What the fuck was that?” Trix yelled as soon as she saw me, stuffing her books into a bag.
“You tell me,” I replied, grabbing a beer and using the countertop to take off the cap—just to piss her off.
“I was studying, you know the thing you do when you want to pass your classes?” She sneered, “Oh, wait, you wouldn’t know about that.”
I ignored her jab. I’d never done well in school—it just wasn’t my thing. But I could piece together any car or bike from scratch. If she was trying to get under my skin with that shit, it wasn’t going to work.
“You always have men over when you look like that?” I asked calmly, even though I was feeling anything but calm.
“In shorts and a t-shirt? Yeah, pretty much,” she huffed.
“You even wearin’ a bra?”
“You are frigging unbelievable!”
Trix stormed out of the kitchen, which was probably a good thing—I felt ready to snap. Little Steve had obviously been there to study, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I’d always been possessive of Bellatrix, but this was something else. Something beyond the need to keep her to myself.
The kid was too clean cut. Too fucking personable. Too easy to forget.
And the thing that made the hair on my neck stand up more than anything else? He hadn’t been afraid of me.
Chapter 6
Trix
I was so pissed I could have screamed as I dropped my backpack on the foot of my bed.
Fucking Cameron.
I’d known he was possessive. I’d always known that he considered me his, even before the afternoon when he’d practically beat his chest and growled “mine!” my senior year of high school. Possessiveness didn’t bother me. In our world, it was a sign of love, no matter how outsiders chose to perceive it.
My dad had always been super growly and handsy with my mom when there were other men around, it was just his way. She didn’t have friends that were men. Her relationship with Casper was completely transparent, but I’m not sure that she’d ever spent time with him without my dad—and that guy had taken a bullet for her. But on the flip side of that same coin, my dad had no women friends, either. He didn’t spend time with other women at all—not without their husbands present—and single women? My mom would have gutted him. It was a sign of respect, of loyalty.
So it wasn’t Cameron’s possessiveness that had me slamming things around my room. I understood that.
It was the way he’d embarrassed me in front of my classmate.
When Steve had called to ask if we could work on our group project for our marketing class, I’d jumped at the chance. It was hard as hell to get the group together with everyone’s busy schedules, and as it was, our third member had been at work and unable to come over. I hadn’t thought twice about it, I’d just been happy that we could get part of our project done.
I should have thought it through, but to be fair, Cam and I were brand new. Did I think about him constantly? Yes. It’s not as if I’d forget him when I’d seen him naked for the first time only an hour before. But I hadn’t yet wrapped my mind around the little things I’d have to do to make it work with him.
Like not having a man over to the house when he wasn’t there.
I knew that he trusted me¸ that wasn’t the issue. Not really.
But that didn’t appease my anger. Not even a little bit.
“You gonna stay in here all night?” Cam asked from the doorway, just as I’d begun scooping laundry off my floor and tossing it into the hamper.
“I’m pissed at you, go away.” I grabbed a pair of dirty jeans from underneath my bed and tossed them across the room. How the hell did jeans get that far under my bed?
“You’re pissed?” He laughed nastily. “Right.”
“Seriously, Cam? You were a total dick.”
“Yeah, well, you knew that before you decided to fuck me.”
“Yeah, well,” I sneered back mockingly, “that won’t be happening again any time in the near future.”
“That right?” he asked softly, stepping into the room as he pulled his cut off his shoulders.
“Quit,” I snapped, rolling my eyes. God, he was such a pain in the ass.
My eyes widened as he stepped in farther and gripped the back of his t-shirt, pulling it over his head and dropping it on the floor. Oh, God. His boots went next, then his socks. And then suddenly, he was a foot away in nothing but his jeans.
“Strip,” he ordered softly.
“Not happening,” I replied with a nervous laugh. My eyes met his for only a moment before they were drifting down his torso. God, he was big. Big and defined and tattooed. My mouth watered.
“You need some help?”
My eyes shot back to his and I swallowed hard. “No, I don’t need help.”
“Then get movin’.”
“Maybe I’m not in the fucking mood.”
“Your eyes are fuckin’ black and your nipples are hard as a fuckin’ rock. Don’t give me that shit.”
“I’m mad at you!” I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Best time for sex, baby. Get all that shit out.”
“I’d rather punch you in the throat.”
“I’d rather you scratched the hell outta my back.”
My heart began to race as he took another small step forward, and without thinking it through, I pulled my t-shirt over my head.
“Good girl.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“You’re also not naked yet,” he growled.
I huffed, but still unbuttoned my shorts and pushed them and my underwear down my thighs in one movement. Before I was fully upright again, Cam was in my space, unhooking my bra and pulling the straps down my arms.
“You still pissed?” he asked teasingly, his hands sliding up the front of my torso.
“Yes,” I spit back, pushing on his chest sharply with both hands so he stumbled back a bit.
His head tilted a little as he studied me, then his nostrils flared as his eyes darkened. “That’s how you wanna play?”
His fingers reached my nipples and pinched, making me inhale a desperate breath.
“Okay, Sweetbea,” he said gently. “Let’s play.”
Then his hands were in my armpits and I was being tossed onto the bed.
“You embarrassed me,” I hissed, sitting up quickly to find him dropping his jeans to the floor.
“You pissed me off.” He moved forward and braced his fists beside my hips, his face inches from mine.
“That doesn’t mean you can treat me like crap.”
“When
exactly did I treat you bad, baby?”
“Don’t call me baby in that tone. We’re fighting.” I scowled.
“When did I treat you bad?” he asked again.
“You—you—”
“I wanted him out and I got him out.”
“You made me look bad!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. Did you see the way he looked at me?”
Cam leaned closer until we were nose to nose, and I had to close my eyes as I felt his breath fan my face. I was still so angry, but hell, he smelled so damn good.
“Yeah, I saw the way he was lookin’ at you. Didn’t like it. Boy’s lucky he didn’t leave on a stretcher.”
I leaned away and opened my eyes. “What?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine, nipping at my bottom lip before sliding his tongue into my mouth.
I moaned. Hell, my entire body lit up like a firework.
Then I bit him.
“Jesus Christ!” he pulled away quickly and scowled at me, then jerked my hips, making me lose my balance and fall flat on the bed.
His hands moved to my thighs as I tried to sit back up, but before I could get any leverage, he was ripping my legs apart and his tongue was sliding over my clit.
I fell back with a gasp.
He mumbled something about a man in “his” house, as his mouth opened up wide and covered my pussy, sucking.
“Holy shit,” I groaned as he closed his mouth again, his bottom teeth scraping against my flesh.
“You wanna bite, Sweetbea?” he asked darkly.
“No. No.” I shook my head and leaned up on my elbows, meeting his eyes for a brief moment before I felt his teeth against my clit. “No, Cam!”
I started to panic.
“Bea?” he asked in confusion, lifting his head.
“Don’t bite me.” My voice wobbled.
“I wasn’t gonna hurt ya. Shit.”
I was panting as he leaned back down, kissing my skin lightly before lifting his head again. “I’d never hurt ya, Sweetbea. You know that.”
I nodded. I did. I did know that, and I didn’t know why I’d panicked. This was my Cam. Where the hell had that come from?