Biker's Claim: A Bad Boy Romance (Demons MC) (Contains bonus book Cocked!) (7 page)

C
lutch wasn’t
in the mood to talk, and neither was I. After he’d told me flat out that he thought I was making a mistake, I took my lunch into my room and spent the next few hours watching Netflix while he sat on my couch.

I had a knot in my stomach the size of Texas. Clutch didn’t know it yet, but I was going to meet Jetter at the clubhouse later that night. I didn’t feel like telling him what was going down later on, since he really didn’t need to know.

But I wished I could talk to him about it. Maybe he wasn’t the subtlest guy in the world, but at least he seemed to give a shit about me. He’d be able to offer advice or at least a comforting grunt or two.

Instead, he was making it fucking clear that he didn’t support this and wasn’t going to. Fine, he didn’t need to support it, but he at least should have been trying to help make this easier on me. This decision was hard enough without Clutch giving me shit for it, giving me those looks, making me rethink everything.

I didn’t realize that he had the power to make me reconsider my decision, but as I kept thinking about that kiss, about the dream I’d had about him, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t tell what it meant, if I cared about him or if I just wanted to feel his hands against my body, slowly stripping my clothes.

And I had no real way of knowing, not anymore. I couldn’t just walk out there and strip off his clothes, or maybe let him strip off mine. I wanted to. I wanted to let him do all the dirty things he’d promised he could do. I believed that he could make my body feel incredible, do things to me that I’d only ever dreamed about, especially after that kiss.

But we were way past that now. We’d had our chance the night before, but I had backed down. I could have given myself to him, or at least let him take me, but I had stopped it just before that had happened.

Maybe that was a mistake. Hell, it probably was, but there was no going back now. I wanted it, but I shouldn’t.

After a few hours, I eventually changed into clean clothes and went back out into the living room.

And laughed at what I saw.

Clutch’s feet were kicked up on the coffee table, and he was fast asleep.

I stared at him, grinning. I went into the kitchen, got two pans, and snuck up behind him.

I banged those things together as loudly as I could.

He jumped up, startled and grunting. He reached for his gun and almost drew it out until he noticed me laughing my ass off.

“The hell you doing?” he asked, annoyed.

“Just waking my bodyguard up.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

I laughed again, shaking my head. “You’re the worst bodyguard. Anyone could have come in here.”

“You could have gotten shot.”

“You were sleeping!”

He shrugged. “You can’t prove it.”

I shook my head again, smiling big. “Come on. Take me to the club.”

He grumbled but complied, getting his stuff.

I smiled to myself the whole way back to the clubhouse.

W
e stood
outside the front door and Clutch looked at me. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m about to meet Jetter for the first time.”

He stared at me, unmoving. “Really.”

“Yeah.” I looked up at his rough, handsome face. “I’m nervous.”

He nodded. “I’m here. You’ll be fine.”

I bit my lip and nodded once. I wanted to say something else, but instead I walked into the clubhouse, Clutch just behind me.

The place was still crowded. I went right back to my dad’s office and knocked, Clutch coming along with me.

“Come in,” Dad called from inside.

I walked inside. “Hi, Janine,” he said. “Clutch.”

“Hi, Dad. Where is he?”

“The council room.” He looked at Clutch. “You mind waiting outside for us?”

Clutch nodded, looked at me for a second, and then left.

“How’s he been?” Dad asked.

“Great.” I paused. “Can we just get this over with?”

“Of course.” He stood up, and we exited through a side door and down a long hallway. We paused outside a large wooden door. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

“Let’s go,” I said.

He nodded and pushed the door open.

The council’s room looked a lot like an office’s conference room, if offices had guns and deer heads mounted on the walls. The Demons patch, a horned skull, was etched into a long, wooden table.

Sitting at that table were four men. I recognized Stonewall and Reggie, and I assumed the other two were Jetter and his guy.

The four of them stood up.

“Janine,” Dad said, “this is Jetter.”

Jetter walked around the table, smiling at me. “Well, hello, Janine,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He had slicked-back, black hair and a crafty smile. Instantly I didn’t trust him and didn’t like him, but I sucked in a breath, steadying myself. It wouldn’t help if I couldn’t even stand to meet the guy once.

“Same,” I said.

We shook hands. His grip was firm, and he looked into my eyes, smiling.

He looked away and to Larkin. “I know this is hard, but it’s the right thing.”

“Sure,” Dad grunted.

“Mind if I have a moment with Janine here?”

Dad gestured and Stonewall left, Reggie right behind him. The other man came up and stood next to Jetter. He was short and bald and had this evil, sick smile that twisted his ugly face.

“This is Burke,” Jetter said, “my second in command.” Burke nodded at me, and Jetter motioned for him to leave. Burke grinned and left the room.

“I’m staying,” Dad said.

“Very well. Janine, let’s sit.”

We took seats at the conference table, Jetter to my left. Dad went and sat at the head of the table, not far away.

“Well,” Jetter said. “This is awkward.”

“Yeah,” I said. “A little bit.”

“I know this isn’t something you want,” he said. “I’m fully aware you don’t want to marry me. Frankly, I don’t blame you. I’m not too excited about the idea myself, although you seem like an intelligent and beautiful woman.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You understand why this is happening, so I won’t explain it all again. Larkin and me, we have a very complicated history.”

“Yeah,” Dad grunted, “we do.”

I nodded. “I’ve heard stories.”

“Yes,” Jetter said. “Stories.”

“All of them true,” Dad added.

“I understand why you likely hate me, and with good reason. What happened years ago was unfortunate, but I’m coming home now.”

“Unfortunate?” I asked him. “Didn’t you get control of your own gang? That seems like a real win for you.”

He laughed. “That’s true. I can’t deny it.”

“What I don’t get is why you’d give that up to join us.”

He gave me a strange look. “You’re a smart one. Well, it’s simple. The Snakes are bigger and stronger, and without the Demons, we will be crushed. This is to save my club.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I get that. Same reason I’m willing to do this.”

“I understand.” He leaned back in his chair. “So, Larkin, I claim your daughter for my own.”

Dad nodded. “Witnessed. I’ll tell the boys.”

“Good. When do we start patching?”

“Soon as we can.”

“Fine.” Jetter stood up, and Dad and I followed suit. “Janine, it was nice meeting you. We’ll be seeing each other more soon.” He paused and took my hand. “I promise this won’t be horrible for you.”

“I’m sure being your wife will be lovely,” I said.

He grinned, dropped my hand, and turned to Larkin. “I’ll get my man and head out.”

“Fine.”

Jetter left the room.

I looked at Dad and felt like I wanted to throw up. He walked over to me and put his arms around me, pulling me into a hug.

I hugged him back.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “I promise.”

“He didn’t seem so horrible.”

“He’s a piece of shit,” Dad said harshly. “Don’t let him fool you. He’ll be nice and polite, but it’s all a game and an act for him.”

“I understand,” I said.

We pulled apart and Dad looked at me, frowning. “You can do this,” he said. “And you can back out at any time.”

“I know,” I said. “I can do it.”

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go tell the boys the shitty news.”

I smiled but felt a pain in my chest. Jetter didn’t seem so awful, and he actually seemed to feel a bit sorry for me and my situation, but still. I had to keep reminding myself that Jetter was scum, even if he seemed polite up front, just like Dad said.

But it was becoming real, much too real. I’d known it was going to happen, but actually meeting the man underscored the whole thing.

I was actually going to marry this stranger, all for the good of the club.

I could barely believe it. As I followed Dad out to the main room, and he sat me down in his office while he went out and made the announcement, I felt numb. I’d never been claimed by a man before, and I’d never really wanted to be. But now I was Jetter’s, all because I didn’t speak up.

I was claimed by some piece of shit stranger, and I hated it, because the only man I wanted was the man I most couldn’t afford to have.

As I sat in that room, waiting for Dad to break the news and for the boys to calm down, I just wanted to see Clutch. It was irrational and stupid, but I wanted Clutch there in the room with me. I wanted to feel his rough hands, hear his deep voice, see his big, inked frame. I felt safe with him around.

I felt safe, even if that safety was oh so dangerous.

“
W
e’re patching
over the Rebels.”

The boys went fucking nuts, yells of outrage, anger, some outright treasonous shit. It was about what I expected, but maybe a little more intense.

Larkin stood there staring back, totally impassive. I leaned back in my chair and glanced at Ford, who just shrugged.

Finally, Larkin held up his hands and the room slowly quieted down.

“You all know my daughter, Janine,” he said. There were murmurs in the group. “She has been claimed by Jetter, witnessed by me. To solidify our relationship, Janine and Jetter are getting married.”

There were more murmurs, some more intense grumbling.

“Does she even know him?” Noble called out.

“No, she doesn’t,” Larkin said.

The guys got louder at that.

I sat back and watched, a small smile on my face. It felt good to see the guys getting as annoyed as I was about this whole thing.

“I know some of you think this arranged marriage is something we stopped doing,” Larkin went on, “and you’d be right. But in this instance, it’s important that we bring these two clubs together the right way.”

“Fuck that,” Noble yelled out. “You’re selling your daughter off to that traitor fuck.”

Larkin stared down Noble and the crowd gently mumbled.

“This is not something I want to do,” Larkin said. “It’s something that must be done for the club to survive. Janine was asked if she would be willing to do this, not forced.”

I looked over at Ford.

“Like she could really say no,” I said.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Larkin loves that girl.”

“He does,” I conceded, “but he loves the club more.”

Ford gave me a look. “Don’t we all?”

I leaned back in my chair and didn’t answer.

What did I love more than my club? As far as I could see, the club was all I had. I’d never needed to think about this before, and I hoped I’d never need to again.

Because she was marrying another man, and that was that.

“The Rebels will start getting patched over as soon as possible,” Larkin called out. “I understand you don’t want that, but too fucking bad. They’re going to become our brothers, so lay down your grudges and deal with it.”

“The boys are not going to be okay with this,” Dow mumbled.

“Are you okay with it?” Ford asked him.

“Guess I don’t care,” he answered. “Blood is blood.”

“These are men that killed our brothers,” Ford said.

“That was a long time ago,” I said.

“Not that long.” Ford shook his head. “This isn’t going to go down easy.”

“I suspect they know that,” I said, “which is why they’re marrying Janine off.”

Ford nodded. “Yeah, guess so.”

“We can’t get caught up in our petty anger,” Larkin said over the general buzz of activity. “If we begin to fight within ourselves, we’ll lose the fight with the real enemy.”

“The fucking Snakes!” Stonewall hollered.

“And those fucking Mezcals!” Reggie added.

“That’s right,” Larkin yelled, getting the boys riled up. “We’ve got no love for the Rebels; that’s true. But they’re about to become our brothers, and with that added strength we’ll crush the Snakes and the Mezcals and end this fucking war.”

The boys all hooted, cheering.

“Now let’s fucking drink!” Stonewall yelled, and the place went fucking nuts.

I looked at Dow and he just shook his head. “Grunts will follow,” he said.

“What are we going to do?” I asked Ford.

“Nothing,” he said, “and you know it. We’ll follow the club. This might be bad for Janine, but it was her choice.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it was her choice.”

The place was buzzing with electricity and excitement. There was still an undercurrent of anger over the Rebels coming into our club, but for the most part everyone was excited to have some added strength coming.

Truthfully, the war had been hard these past months. The Snakes weren’t exactly gaining ground, but we were losing guys faster than anyone wanted. There were grumbles about the war, some guys getting angry over the death and the waste.

But to me, those guys were just fucking cowards. This was what we did, the war shit. We killed our enemies and that was it.

Drinks were poured and the place got rowdy. After about ten minutes, I caught sight of Janine walking over toward our table.

She stopped nearby. “Clutch,” she said, “I’m heading home.”

“The wife calls,” Dow joked.

I glanced at him. “Better not,” I said. “Jetter might hear.”

Dow grinned.

“Later, boys,” I said, and walked over to Janine.

I led her out of the place, out of the roaring crowd and into the quiet evening.

“How did it go, meeting him?” I asked her.

“Weird,” she said. “Very weird.”

“What did you think?”

She sighed. “I’d rather not talk about it. Can you just take me home?”

“Whatever you want, princess.”

We got onto my bike and roared toward her apartment. She looked tired, real tired, and I could only guess at what was going on inside her head. The girl had just met her future husband for the first time and been officially claimed by him.

She could still back out, but it was going to be much harder. There’d be much more fallout now if she left.

I knew she wouldn’t. I knew she wasn’t the type to back down when things got hard. If anything, she was stubborn as hell and was going to dig in.

I parked out front again and took her upstairs, leading the way. She didn’t argue this time, just looked too tired to fight. I unlocked her door and went in first, checking the place out before letting her in.

She disappeared into her bedroom without a word.

“Well shit,” I said, sitting down on my couch. “Guess it’s just you and me tonight, couch.”

But after ten minutes of watching some shitty action movie on television, I couldn’t take that shit anymore. Annoyed, I got up off the couch and went over to her bedroom door.

I knocked once and then pushed it open.

She looked up at me, shock clear on her face.

Janine was lying on her bed wearing only a long white T-shirt cut low. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her nipples were hard, standing out from the thin cotton.

And her hand was between her legs.

My cock was instantly hard as I realized what she was doing.

“Clutch,” she said, staring at me.

But she didn’t ask me to leave.

I didn’t say a word. I just walked over to her and grabbed her hips, yanking her toward me. She spread her legs and wrapped her arms around my neck.

“I thought this was a mistake,” she said.

“Mistake or not, I’m taking what I want.”

I kissed her hard.