Not that he was gay or anything, but a dude knew when another dude had pull with the bitches.
“Bannon know it’s comin’?” Preacher asked.
“Fuck, yeah,” Cage said. “Fucker set it up himself. Texted me the location ’bout two hours ago. Shit’s goin’ down tomorrow.”
Preacher’s loud laughter echoed throughout the small room. “Give ’im two,” the man said. “One in each eye, one for Deuce and one for me.”
Cage smiled grimly. Preacher’s signature “I can see you, fucker” hit was infamous. Everyone knew a bullet in each eye meant the Demons had gone and cleaned house. Everyone. MCs countrywide, nomads, cops, the Feds…everyone. Trouble was, no one could pin it on him. The man was just that good.
“Will do,” he said, standing up. “But right now I need shut-eye. Tiny said Eva’s old room is up for grabs?”
Preacher nodded. “Only for family,” he said. “And that means you, kid.”
Preacher reached to the right of him and Cage heard a desk drawer being opened, then closed.
“Heads up,” he said, and tossed a key chain over his desk. Cage caught it one-handed. It was a single silver key on a Harley wings key chain. In the circular center of the wings, Eva had been inscribed.
Thanking him, Cage took his leave and wandered back out into the hallway feeling more at home in an MC all the way across the country than he did in his own. Eva was lucky, having a father like Preacher.
Real fucking lucky.
She was also the best thing that had ever happened to his family, not that his father deserved her. That man could make good on a million promises from now until the day he finally kicked it, and it still wouldn’t make up for all the shit he’d put her through.
But whatever, that shit wasn’t his business.
About to head into the brownstone’s stairwell, a curvy blonde came out of a nearby bathroom, smiling as she passed by him, purposely brushing up against him. His arm shot out and his hand gripped her wrist. Yanking her back around to his front, he gave her a quick once-over.
Natural blonde, early twenties, cute face, killer rack, hips he could get a good hold on. She was a little meatier than he liked his women, and he was usually pretty liberal, preferring his women soft, liking watching their shit shake like fucking Jell-O while he slammed into them. But fuck it, those tits were calling his name.
“You family?” he growled, yanking her flush against him.
She shook her head.
“Anyone layin’ claim?”
She shrugged. “Preacher has me most nights,” she said. That made sense. Preacher liked his bitches curvier than most; the more to grab, the better, the man had always said.
But if she wasn’t claimed, that was all he needed to know.
“Upstairs,” he ordered, turning her toward the stairwell and slapping her hard on her juicy-as-fuck ass.
When they reached Eva’s bedroom door, Cage grabbed her again, pushed her up against the wall just outside Eva’s old room, and shoved her too-tight T-shirt up over those two big bad boys, already half hanging out over the scrap of purple lace she was passing off as a bra. Thrusting her chest outward, she helped them the rest of the way out and he watched, growing hard as the soft flesh piled over. Bringing her small hands to her chest, she cupped both breasts, squeezing and kneading, spilling through her spread fingers.
“You like?” she whispered, smiling up at him.
He stared down at her. She might be young but she knew what was up, and he had to wonder how many times she’d been passed around the club already and to how many brothers.
Fuck it. Why did he even bother to wonder? He’d fucked so many club whores and random sluts, women he knew had been passed from brother to brother and back again. Hell, there’d been so many he’d lost count a long time ago.
Yeah. He was a whore. A man whore. He knew it; hell, everyone knew it. He’d been sleeping with every pussy that came his way since he’d lost his virginity, courtesy of Mick and Tap, at the age of twelve to a club whore seven years older than him. After that, after a few more sexual encounters, it just seemed like it was…his thing.
The girls flocked to him. They thought he was hot as hell and didn’t give two fucks if he fucked them once and then tossed them aside because, really, all they wanted was to say they’d fucked him.
But like he said, it was his thing. It was almost expected of him to act like a slut. That was all anyone ever thought about when they looked at him. And that was cool, whatever, sex was fun as hell, he loved it.
Until he didn’t love it anymore.
Now it was just…sex. And now, every time he came, if he even remembered it, he was starting to feel more and more like shit. He wasn’t even sure why he felt like shit. What dude feels like shit after getting laid? Sometimes multiple times in one night.
This dude.
Suddenly he didn’t want to touch this bitch. He definitely didn’t want his mouth where he knew countless other mouths had been and…
A vision of Preacher came to mind; the old guy sucking on her fat tits, jerking his hips back and forth between her thick thighs.
Feeling…off, Cage backed away, all the way into the opposite wall, ready to tell her to take a hike, when suddenly she dropped to her knees and yanked his leathers open. The bitch had his cock out and in her mouth, sucking his shit like a starving leech, faster than he’d ever freed that motherfucker before.
Holy fuck. His head fell back against the wall, his hands found her hair, grabbing handfuls, fisting, and his eyes closed. This bitch wasn’t a leech, she was a goddamn circus clown, the kind that blew up balloon after balloon, turning those fuckers into ridiculously detailed balloon animals.
Holding tighter to her hair, he punched his hips forward, forcing her to take all of him. Jesus, fuck, that felt good.
He expected her to protest, to gag, something, but Jesus, she was so damn into it, sucking and licking his shit, moaning and purring like a fat kid with a fucking ice cream cone.
Groaning, he came quickly, more than likely a straight shot into her stomach considering she’d been champion deep-throating him like a sword-swallowing porn star.
After licking him clean, she shot to her feet, her tits nearly hitting her in the face as they bounced with her swift movement, and curled her body around his. “My turn,” she purred, grabbing his hand and helping him down the waistband of her jeans.
Eh. Whatever. Fair was fair. Circling her clit he went clockwise, counterclockwise, then slid a finger inside her and began pumping slowly. All of two seconds passed and he was bored out of his fucking mind. He needed this over with, like, yesterday.
Grabbing her throat, he squeezed until she gasped, then swung her around and shoved her up against the wall.
“Come on, bitch,” he growled, cutting off all her air supply as he continued working between her thighs. “Give it here.”
Eyes wide, eyelids fluttering, the girl went stiff, shuddering silently through what was probably the best orgasm she’d ever have. Cage silently thanked Bucket for telling him, years ago, how to pull that shit off as quickly as possible. Although, whereas Bucket used the trick to keep the bitches coming back for more, Cage used it to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
Releasing her throat, he backed away from her and buttoned up his leathers.
“You wanna fuck?” she called out, her voice breathless.
God, fucking, no. That bitch was a straight-up whore. Barely twenty and already a fucking champ. Her pussy would be swinging wide open by thirty. Fuck that.
“Nope,” he said evenly, pushing past her. Pulling out Eva’s key from his pocket, he proceeded to unlock the door.
“Asshole,” he heard come from behind him.
Uncaring what the bitch thought of him, he stepped inside and slammed Eva’s door closed behind him.
Falling back against the door, he took several deep breaths. What the fuck was wrong with him? Since when did he give a fuck who else was fucking who he was
fucking? Aside from club whores, he almost never fucked a bitch twice for that reason, not wanting to step on anyone’s toes, or to ensure the bitch didn’t get emotionally attached to him.
Maybe he was getting a cold? Maybe he swallowed a bug on the ride up here and he was now dying of West Nile virus?
Or maybe he was just sick of fucking whores?
“Whatever,” he muttered as he scrubbed his hands over the stubble on his cheek and jaw.
A quick survey of the room showed him a bed, a dresser complete with an ancient stereo system, and a rack of CDs beside it. An old, ripped bean bag chair sat on the floor, and the yellowed-white walls were lined with posters: Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash, Hendrix…and Billie Holiday? Huh.
Eva and her random, usually crappy, borderline-obsessive taste in music would never fail to amaze him.
Moving on, he found photos of a very young Eva sitting on the back of Preacher’s Harley, holding tight to her old man. Then one of Eva and Kami, they couldn’t have been older than five or six, and the photos that followed were of them growing up together as kids, teenagers, and women.
More photos of Demons barbecues and out-of-state runs, photos of Eva and the boys as she grew up within the club.
Eva’s high school graduation, her college graduation, Kami’s first wedding to some douchebag lawyer, and the birth of her first son, Devin (who looked nothing like that lawyer and a whole lot like Cox).
Cage started laughing until he came to another photo, and he stopped laughing.
Eva and Frankie’s wedding picture.
Cage stared at the maniacal face of Franklin “Crazy” Deluva, Eva’s first husband, the madman who’d ganked Ripper on a run and slashed his face and body to shit; the asshole who’d murdered Kami’s first husband in some sick serial-killer-fetish fashion; the fucker who’d broken into the Horsemen’s clubhouse, cuffed Deuce to a radiator, and made him watch while he raped Eva.
The man who’d then taken Eva, who probably would have killed her if she hadn’t killed him first. The man who, because of all that, had fucked his already fucked-up family even more.
Noticing something strange about the photo, he stepped closer and studied it. Yeah, the bottom left corner was pushed out. Lifting the picture off the wall, he turned the frame over in his hands and flipped open the clasps holding it together. After tossing aside the backing, he found what was making the bulge in the photo. An old envelope, folded in half.
Setting aside everything else, he unfolded the envelope and looked inside.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
It was Eva, sitting at the bar next to Blue, her elbows propped up on the countertop, her chin resting on the palms of her hands, grinning at the camera. And she was young, real fucking young, like…
He looked around and locked on a photo of her at her college graduation, wearing her cap and gown. She was college young. Which meant…
He counted back the years and…
Yeah, his parents had still been together. Just barely.
Cage looked back at the photos. He knew there was some hard-core history between his old man and her; he’d heard some of the boys tease Eva about it on occasion, but he hadn’t known the whole story. The most he’d ever gotten out of his old man was after he’d first brought Eva back to Montana with him.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“She the reason you’re pissed off all the time?”
“Yeah.”
“She the reason you left Mom?”
“Yeah.”
“You love her?”
“Yeah.”
There was a long pause.
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
He continued flipping through the old photos. Some were of Eva and the boys, some of Kami being mauled by both Cox and Ripper, some of ZZ, some of Dorothy and Jase.
Jesus. They were all younger than he was now.
But it was the next photo that caused his jaw to drop.
Lying on her back, propped up on her elbows, butt-ass fucking naked, legs spread wide open, sprawled across what he recognized as his old man’s bed at the club, was Eva. College-age Eva with that “come fuck me” smile, and those tits, hanging heavy off to her sides, begging to be—
Hurriedly, he tossed it aside. Yeah, they weren’t actually related, but she was his old man’s wife and the mother of his youngest sister, meaning he shouldn’t be using her as bate material. At least, not anymore.
Back when he was eighteen, yeah, that was a whole other story.
The next photo was even worse. It had been taken at such an angle that you knew the person shooting it had been lying down, capturing the person above them.
And the person above them was his father, looking ungodly young compared to now. His long blond hair was pulled back, his suntanned face drawn tight, his nostrils flaring, his light blue eyes were hooded as he stared down at the photographer with…
Lust.
Adoration.
Maybe even some disbelief.
And even though Cage couldn’t see anything past his father’s tattooed chest, it was obvious what was happening. Eva had snapped a picture of his old man while he’d been in the middle of fucking her. No, not just fucking. That sorry old bastard had been in love.
Even way back then.
Jealousy swamped him. Not jealousy over Eva, even though she was one fine-ass female, but jealousy of his own father.
How many times had that asshole fucked up? How many people had he hurt along the way? And as punishment, God goes and gives him one of the most perfect women Cage had ever known? Beautiful, eighteen motherfucking years younger than him, with a heart so big, everyone around her could feel that love just pouring out.
Fair. Real fucking fair.
His asshole of a father had everything, and he had…
A whole lot of nothing.
Cursing, he jammed the photos back into the envelope, then inside his cut. After setting the photo back to rights on its place on the wall, and giving Frankie one last long look, he headed for the bathroom, suddenly acutely aware that Frankie had once walked these very same steps, had headed for the very same bathroom, pissed in this very same toilet, showered in the very shower behind him, slept in that bed…beside Eva…with Eva.
Fucker had been damned obsessed with her. Worse, even. He’d raped his own wife, forcing Eva to kill him, her own husband.
Flushing, Cage headed back into the bedroom and went straight for the door. No way was he sleeping in a room full of creepy memories and a ghost who may or may not have haunting capabilities, which may or may not include gouging eyes out and slashing skin and making dudes eat their own dick.
Yeah, he liked his intestines exactly where they were, thank you very much.
He’d sleep beside Tiny. Hell, he’d sleep on top of Tiny before he slept in here.
“You didn’t deserve her either, Frankie,” he muttered, closing the door, gladly leaving behind him his stepmother’s painful past and all the garbage that had followed in its wake, locked up tight inside that shrine Preacher was passing off as a room.
“And now you can rot in motherfuckin’ hell. All alone.”
CHAPTER TWO
Eleanor “Ellie” Tate was SO over the entire world. Over it. Done. Finished.
With her purse clutched tightly to her stomach, she marched down the steps of the very same high school she’d graduated from with honors, feeling utterly rejected.
So much for racism not being as obvious or prevalent in modern day society. How could she have never noticed it until now? She’d been born and raised in Miles City, population nonexistent, a predominately white community with the exception of the surrounding Native American reservations. The whites had stuck together, the Native Americans kept to themselves, and then there was her family. Her mother was white, her father was black, and she was a mutt.
Something she’d never thought twice about until right now. Until she’d left Miles City college bound, spe
nt four years at MSU, another two interning while she worked on her master’s degree, only to return home hoping for a teaching job and getting shut out.
By her own principal, Mrs. Adele Lancaster.
She’d known for a fact there had been several positions open. It was the reason she’d come home. Her mom was sick, stage four breast cancer, and her dad was a wreck. She’d wanted to help out where she could and at the same time get a jump start on her career. Not wanting to waste time getting a connecting flight to Miles City, she’d gotten off the plane in Billings, rented a car, and drove straight to her job interview. She’d planned on surprising her parents, directly afterward, with good news.
So much for that.
I’m very sorry, Ms. Tate, but you’re just not what we have in mind at the moment.
So much for coming home again.
She’d gotten out of there before she’d let that bitter old bitch see how upset she was. But now that she was alone, marching aimlessly down Main Street, past her parked car with no destination, her tears began to fall.
She should have never come back.
Pausing on the sidewalk to wipe at her wet cheeks, she glanced up. Hank’s. The only bar in Miles City and also the only establishment in town she’d never been inside of. Other than one horrible incident in college where she’d ended up with her face in a toilet bowl, she didn’t drink.
She’d never been much fun, something her old friends Anabeth and Danny had loved reminding her of only every other second. Both were blonde, skinny, fun-loving, and perky, everything Ellie wasn’t.
Aside from her blue eyes, Ellie was the dark to their light. Her skin was the color of caramel, her long black curls were tight and unruly. And she was curvy, well aware that she was carrying around a few extra pounds, that her stomach wasn’t exactly flat, her breasts were annoyingly large, her hips more pronounced than she would like them to be.
But it wasn’t just in looks that she’d differed from her two closest friends.
Danny had never left Miles City. She’d ended up in community college, then got married and saddled with a kid, all before she turned twenty-five.