Hard Core: Biker MC Motorcycle Club Menage Steamy 3 Story Bundle Set (Hot Tales From a Hard Road Book 1) (13 page)

Chapter 7

 
Ryder and Bear shared a joint and watched the evening horizon from the clubhouse stoop.

“Haughey’s put a proposition our way. A run.”

“Hardware? The
Skulls
’ hardware?”

Bear nodded. The two men looked at each other for awhile. The
Skulls
’ President and Sergeant-at-Arms had been taken into custody, so it was well known that the club had problems. Weapons trade, principally rifles and explosives out of Mexico, were the
Skulls
’ major source of income.

Ryder said, “Don’t make sense, does it?”

“Nope, but it makes money though. They say it’s because of their two ranking officers being in the pen.”

Ryder’s brow knotted. “I heard about Iron and Jam getting busted.”

Bear said, “Haughey wants an answer, and John Reader wants to talk it through with you.”

“Me?” Anger and confusion flashed in Ryder’s eyes, “Why me?”

“John Reader thinks the Skulls could be setting us up for something.”

“And he’d rather they set me up instead?”

“No.” They both chuckled. “Well, yeah, obviously. But he thinks there’s a way it could go down differently if you were willing to head it up it instead of one of us Blades.”

Ryder shook his head and said, “Man, I hate business around guns. Some fucker always confuses the product and the deal.”

Bear said, “Haughey’s sending Mace to crack out terms.”

“Here to the clubhouse? Not out on a disused lot or in some bean field?”

Bear considered it, “Maybe he’s coming for the visitor’s rights.”

Ryder’s lip curled.A senior representative from another club would expect a high level of hospitality. He held the smoke in and then said, “We’ll have to be sure and repay the kindness.”

“Amen to that, bro.” Bear took the joint.

Ryder shook his head as he looked up the road. “Can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing Mace, all the same.”

“Nope. I don’t think his headlamps are anybody’s favorite sight.”

Taking back the joint, Ryder said, “He’s got too much enthusiasm for mayhem and carnage.”

“It’s useful to have a man that won’t flinch from a grim task, Ryder.”

“Sure, but a man who relishes it, that always leaves some questions.”

Bear nodded slowly and said, “Mace has a reputation for recklessness, too.”

“Carelessness the way I hear it, plain old couldn’t-give-a-fuck-ness, in fact. He’d probably spit-roast his grandma just to hear the funny noises she’d make.”

“Truth, bro. A man like that can be a danger to everyone.”

They were both quiet for a while. Then Ryder said, “You’re right, Bear, I’d sooner see his tailpipes any day.”

Bear’s face screwed up. “You just put a picture in my mind for which I do not thank you, bro.”

Chapter 8

Ryder watched Mace lumber into the smoke and noise of the clubhouse with the swagger of a visiting emperor. He was tall, broad and stocky, with wavy black hair and thick red lips framed by a thin mustache and pointed beard. His narrow green eyes flicked about in constant motion.

Bear and Ryder stepped up to give him bro hugs and a club welcome, set him up with drinks and generally make him feel like the honored guest, although he seemed like he felt that way already.

John Reader waited for him in the big leather-padded swivel chair in the club office at the back. When Bear told Mace, “Come through, John’s waiting,” Mace grabbed the nearest two girls by their arms and dragged them along with him.

Mace’s voice was like cracked glass. “Bring a bottle,” he told Bear.

There was a form to club manners, and, whatever it was, sticking a big hand in the candy jar on your way to meet the club president wasn’t it. Ryder and Bear shared a look, but they led him to the office where John awaited.

Then they waited on either side of the closed door while he took the girls and the bourbon inside to make his proposition. They heard squeals and yelps from the girls and occasional male grunts and growls.

Now and then came an impact like a thwack or a thud. The proceedings lasted no more than fifteen minutes before the door opened. Mace filled the doorframe, one arrogant eyebrow cocked. His hand gripped the two girls’ wrists. The girls looked rather more disheveled than they had on the way in.

John’s smooth, dark voice followed them out of the office. “Give him the rumpus room.”

The rumpus room was set up for all kinds of activity that was of a partying nature. It was spacious and it had low lights, soft rugs and couches, low tables and a stereo system. Thick, soft fabrics covered the windowless walls.

As Bear and Ryder showed Mace inside, he held out the wrists of the two bedraggled girls. “Get me a couple of fresh ones.” Bear took Mace into the room to settle him with a spliff, maybe a line or two, and Ryder led the girls away.

He had seen that he smaller of the two was limping. “You okay, Hazel?”

She put on a bright little smile, “Yeah, Ryder. I’m great, thanks.” He doubted this had been her best night at the club. “You stepped up for the club there, Hazel. Go upstairs and rest up tonight. Play some games or watch a movie. You too, Shereen.”

Shereen’s eyelashes fluttered. “It’d be a lot more fun to play a game with you, Ryder.”

He patted her ass and encouraged her up the steps, “That would be a heap more fun for me, too, than an evening entertaining the Neanderthal, but duty calls.”

As their cute little butts wiggled—well, Hazel’s half wiggled—Ryder said, “I’ll have someone bring you some drinks, anda little food maybe. Okay?”

Shereen pouted as she called back, “Can’t you bring it?” and Hazel said, “Yeah, Ryder.
 
Come play with us.”

Ryder smiled. “You got a favorite prospect? If you do, I’ll try to send him.” Why not? Improve everyone’s evening. Everyone’s except his.

The two girls giggled and they said, “Sparks! Send Sparks.”

What really would improve his evening would be that fine, squirmy little Jesska. As the thought came to him he realized that he didn’t particularly want to see her around Mace, either.

As Ryder passed the office, he looked in on John Reader. The big man’s frame was settled in the wide leather chair as if he and it were made as a pair. His quiet, unhurried authority added as much of an impression of importance to the president’s chair as it gave him.

John Reader looked up at Ryder and waved at the chair opposite, indicating for him to sit. He looked at Ryder for a long moment. Unmistakable strength and a mind that weighs the consequences of a decision glowed out of his pale blue, hooded eyes, but what he was thinking, few men ever attempted to guess.

At length, he said, “So, Ryder, will you take the run?”

“What did you negotiate with Mace?”

“He said the Red Skulls can’t take the cargo because of the heat they’re getting while Iron and Jam are penned up. They want to hand it off to us.”

“This month’s shipment or ongoing?”

“He didn’t say.”

John Reader poured a shot of bourbon for each of them. They clinked and each took a swig, then Ryder said, “How about the price?”

“I offered him a number, he said, ‘perfect’.”

Ryder’s eyes were still. “He took the first number you put out?”

“Mmm. I told him we’d think it over.”

The two men rolled their whiskey around and sipped some more. The Blades’ president asked Ryder, “Will you take it?”

“I pick my own team, make the trade on my terms?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll do it. The risk will be on me, but I think you and I both know what’s happening here.”

John Reader raised his glass, “Let’s hope so.”

Ryder clinked with him again, “So let’s keep all the details between you and me.” Both men nodded. Ryder said, “This thing smells worse than a rat’s ass.”

“Agreed. There’s enough subter-fucking-fuge in this mix already.”

Chapter 9

Jess wondered whether Ryder would actually remember asking her to come back to the clubhouse. He had admitted that he had a ‘game plan.’ She refused to admit that his plan was probably targeted at the exact thing that she wanted herself. She knew almost nothing about him. What little she did know all told her,
stay away
.

The feelings he had stirred up were deep and they were real, but she knew they were wrong, or at least that they were liable to bring her a lot of trouble and probably not much else. That was all she could ever count on from her emotions.
 

As she stepped through the door of the Blades clubhouse that second night, Jesska had a strange sensation in her stomach, a feeling somewhere between fear and elation. A feeling that she didn’t trust.

Several of the bikers acknowledged her with a look, a nod or a raised hand as she waded through the clubhouse fog. She didn’t see Bear or Ryder. At the bar, Gyro said, “Hey, Jess. What can I get you?”

She asked for a beer and then, as he handed her a cold bottle, just casually she asked him if he knew where Ryder was. He said that he wasn’t sure but he’d ask someone to take a look for her.

Mary Ann stepped up from behind her with a breezy smile. “Oh, I think he’s in the rumpus room, back there,” and her grin widened as she linked Jess’s arm, “C’mon, honey, I’ll show you through.”

Mary Ann steered Jess through to the back of the bar and down a long corridor. She opened a door ahead of them. In the room, Bear, Ryder and another biker sat on couches. The biker Jess didn’t know had the two dancers from last night in his lap

Ryder sat on a couch building a spliff on a coffee table. He looked up with a ‘Who, me?’ little boy grin on that Jess could have knocked off with her beer bottle.

The biker with all the girls on him waved to her and Mary Ann, “Hey, the more the merrier. Come on and get a line, girls.”

A beautiful Mexican-looking girl danced in the middle of the room. A couple of the girls wore torn hold-up stockings, and all but one of them had on heels.

Other than that, none of the girls wore any clothes. The girls’ skin all shone with a wet sheen. The room reeked of pot and sex.

The brown-haired girl who had being working so hard under the tables last night was crawling up from below the table in front of Ryder. Her head appeared between his thighs and she looked around to the door.

A painful knot twisted in Jess’ stomach when Ryder said, “You want to come in and play?” with that damned grin on.

“Nah, looks like you already got your hands full, Ryder.”

The biker she didn’t know had an evil gleam in his eye. “You can chow down on Ryder’s cock while the rest of us bros pump you up. How about that?”

She didn’t look at him, but at Ryder. “Any one of these girls will do that for you, Ryder.”

He grinned and took a pull on his beer. “Damned straight.”

“Maybe I will, too.” She studied his eyes, “Not tonight though.”

As she turned to go, Bear blocked her path. Ryder said, “Bear, let her go, okay?”

Bear didn’t move. Ryder just said, “Bear,” and Bear backed away.

Jesska strutted all the way through the club with her hips swaying and her head high, and straight out the door. Her eyes stung, but she didn’t risk making eye contact with anyone.

The idea seemed to creep around the tops of her thighs, making her nipples kinda sore. She imagined a pile of hot, hectic bodies, all over each other.
 
The hot bikers, peeling the denim off their hard torsos as the dancers casually shrugging out of what little remained of their clothing, before the orgy really got started.

But she didn’t want it to be like that. Not with Ryder, not with anyone, not now. It wasn’t like she was just a beer that could go warm any second and be replaced by another one.