KENNICK: A Bad Boy Romance Novel (32 page)

“Don’t you run off on me,
now,” he said, and I thought I could detect a hint of actual worry in his plea.

“How can I?” I said,
gesturing to the keys he held in his hand. He looked down at them and smiled,
laughing at himself.

“I’ll come back ‘round
later, or see you at the bar,” he said, leaning forward and cupping my chin in
his hand, our lips meeting once again, tongues just barely touching for one
soft, blessed moment.

And then he was gone, a
shaft of too-bright light appearing in the room as he swung the door open, then
disappearing as he shut it.

Do you know the tale of the
tell-tale heart?

As soon as I was alone in
that room, it was like that duffel bag in the safe was the beating heart
plaguing the narrator in Poe’s story. I fell asleep, slowly but surely, to a
dull, imagined throbbing sound emanating from the safe. As though it were
alive, glowing and thumping against the walls. Trying to escape.

A metronome that lulled me
to sleep as much as it frightened me.

It could have been my own
heartbeat.

~
8
~

“Give me a screwdriver,
Honey” Reign said, sliding onto a stool in the tired morning light of the bar.
He’d moved Gabriella’s car, loving the smell of her that lingered in the
driver’s seat, and walked the two blocks back to the bar in a sort of
exhausted, lust-or love-struck stupor. He hoped it was just the former, prayed
that it wasn’t the latter. Honey twisted her dishrag around her hand, looking
at him with her eyebrows raised.

“Now what in the hell’s got
you out of bed before noon?” she asked before turning to pour out a very, very
stiff drink. Kid sure looked like he needed it.

“Ain’t my bed. Got kicked
out,” Reign said, taking a long swill from the drink and smacking his lips
together. “Sure glad I didn’t brush my teeth first.”

“You spent the night with
someone?” Honey asked, more surprised than anything else. “I thought that was
one of your rules, never spend the night?”

“Yeah, well, the girl was so
good, I wanted to get it again when I woke up. But we never did get to
sleepin’,” Reign said, somewhat bashful. He realized that he was slipping back
into a more comfortable vernacular, and thought about how much he’d wanted to
impress Gabriella. Even after she’d let him do whatever he wanted to her body,
some part of him still wanted to impress her mind. He kept his eyes away from
Honey’s as she looked him up and down.

“You’re not talking about
that curvy piece what was in here last night, huh? The one with the shiner made
her look like damn Mohammad Ali?”

“That’s the one. C’mon,
Honey, that bruise was gnarly but those hips…whew!”

“I like girls, too, Reign,
but girl like that means trouble. The way she was clutching that bag to her
like it was her baby…someone’s looking for her, most likely,” Honey said, idly
wiping at the bar.

“Yeah, a cop,” Reign said
with a half-smile. Honey stopped wiping the bar, put her hands on her hips.
“Her hubby is Colorado PD.”

“You think that’s something
to smile about? You fuckin’ think that’s a joke? We ain’t exactly selling
flowers here, Reign. Jesus, I though thirty-year-olds were supposed to have a
little more going on between the ears, but you provin’ me wrong, boy,” Honey
said, visibly agitated.

“Aw, she’ll be movin’ on
soon, I reckon. She sure plans to. Though I hope not too soon…”

“Damn right she will be. I’m
kickin’ her out. We don’t need that kinda trouble around here,” Honey said.

“You’re not doing any damn thing
like it,” Reign said, suddenly no longer playful. Honey turned to him, eyebrows
raised, as he stared at her. She felt ice plunge into her heart. He meant
business.

And she couldn’t exactly
argue with him, not with him being the likely next president of the Black
Smokes. Reign kept his eyes glued to hers as he pulled out a pack of
cigarettes, rapping it against the table. Two coffin nails popped out and he
brought the pack to his mouth, holding both between his lips, never breaking
eye contact. With a flip of his other wrist, he lit his zippo, both cigarettes
lighting at once. He puffed on one while grabbing the other, holding it out to
Honey.

“Smoke up,” he said. “And
don’t you walk around sayin’ you’re gonna kick people out. We all been in that
girl’s place, you know. She needs a place to hideout, this one is as good as
any. We’ll smell that pig coming miles away. We always do, don’t we? And make
sure you spread the word that she ain’t here. We never seen her. Never even
heard of her.”

“Uh huh,” Honey said, taking
the offered cigarette and indulging in a long drag, blowing the smoke above her
head, eyes closed as she tried to shake the bad feeling that was trying to
settle in her bones.

Women’s intuition
, she thought. Reign wouldn’t get it, but she just had
that notion in her heart that this girl was trouble. She seemed sweet enough,
and Honey didn’t wish her any ill, but that didn’t change the fact that
battered women with mysterious duffel bags and cop husbands were never going to
be anything but bad news.

“Why don’t you drink with
me, Honey?” Reign said, dropping his death glare and offering a truce in the
form of one of his famous, knee-knocking, panty-dropping smiles.

Honey’d been down that road
before, most of the chicks had, and knew exactly how much of a man Reign was.
She smiled back, in spite of her bad feelings, the affection she felt for the
savvy but young biker beating out her cynicism. Pouring them both a shot of
vodka, and a screwdriver for herself for the side, they made a toast to damsels
in distress.

“You ought to go have a chat
with her, Honey,” Reign said, somewhat out of nowhere. Honey scoffed. “No,
really. You know where her head’s at better’n me, probably. And she’s smart,
real smart, like you. She knows all about these dead old philosophers. She’d
listen, if you wanted to give her some advice, I think. C’mon, you got
something better to do? Pretend like you’re a bartender?”

“I am a bartender, Reign,”
Honey said with a roll of her eyes, taking another drag of the cigarette. “More
like a bar protector. If I weren’t here dolin’ out the drinks, this place would
be dry in an hour from you guys raiding it.”

“Aw, what a martyr we got
here. Well, whatever, you don’t gotta do a damn thing just ‘cause I suggest it.
You’re just a respectful broad, is all, and that little thing maybe needs to
see someone like you, who’s been in her shoes, who’s come out the other side.”

“You think this is comin’
out the other side? That girl don’t want this life,” Honey said.

“Neither did you, when you
first come here, did ya? But what do you think comin’ out the other side is?
You ain’t breaking any bones around us, now are you? Nobody giving you shiners
anymore. Anyone even try slapping your ass and five guys’d turn his knees to
powder,” Reign said, sipping his drink slowly.

“Fuck that, I wouldn’t need
five guys, you know damn well I’d take care of ‘em myself,” Honey said with a
chuckle and a smile.

“Damn straight. But you came
here cowerin’ at every little thing, same as her. Don’t forget that,” Reign
said, tapping his knuckles against the bar, the sound of his metal rings
against the wood echoing in the silence of the morning. Honey shrugged.

“Maybe,” she said, not
committing to anything. She didn’t want to have to go talk to this poor little
girl. She wanted this poor little girl to get gone. But if it would make Reign
happy…it was hard to let those eyes down.

Honey didn’t fancy Reign
like some of the younger girls did, hoping he’d make her his old lady. She
didn’t want to be anyone’s old lady. She liked being everyone’s old lady,
choosing who she wanted to spend the night with…or not, when she wanted to
spend the night alone. But she really, truly liked the kid. He was a good lay,
and he had a good heart. And he was rising straight to the top. Always good to
be on the right side of a man like that.

Reign slammed down the last
of his drink, smacking his lips and sliding the glass back to Honey, who caught
it one-handed.

“Refuel?” she asked,
grabbing the bottle of vodka. Reign seemed to think for a moment, his blue eyes
toying with the day’s possibilities. His head hurt from being up all night. The
thing he liked most about his life in the club was that he could sleep in and
stay up all night.

Reign loved sleeping more
than almost anything else in the world; he never got heavy into uppers like
some of the other guys because he loved the feeling of a pillow under his head.
He kind of wanted to skip the next drink and head back to bed. He wished he
could head back to Gabriella’s bed, her head nestled into the crook of his arm,
but his own bed would do.

But, what the hell, it
wasn’t every morning that he felt as good as he did that morning. Another drink
wouldn’t kill him. There was plenty of day left to sleep away.

“Line ‘em up, and one for
the most beautiful bar protector this side of the wild West,” he said, thumping
his fist against the bar. Honey favored him with a smile and refilled both
their glasses just as the door to the bar swung open and a gigantic, booming
groan filled the room.

“GOTTA HANGOVER TO PUT W.C.
FIELDS TO SHAME,” Cotton yelled as the bar doors swung shut behind him. Reign
and Honey turned to look at him, amused. He swayed slightly as he staggered up
to the bar.

“You ain’t hungover, stupid,
you’re still drunk,” Honey said, grabbing a third glass and filling it to the
brim with vodka and orange juice. She went to the small window that separated
the bar from the kitchen area. “Hey Endo, we’re gonna need some eggs and bacon,
stat. Triple servings for starters. And some hash browns, huh?”

“Comin’ up,” Endo, the
club’s resident chef, called back. As the smell of cooking food filled the bar,
and the morning began to grow late, the bar slowly filled with the same men
who’d been there the night before, each and every one of them demanding
eye-openers and plates of food.

It was another day for the
Black Smoke Motorcycle Club, and, like every day, it was as chaotic as you’d
want to imagine. Outside, bikes revved and stalled as hungover men parked them
willy-nilly around the bar.

God damn, but I love this life,
Reign thought as he listened to
Cotton wail along to a Hank Williams song on the jukebox. His planned early
morning nap kept getting postponed. It was just past noon. With no plans for
the day, the whole club was just enjoying each other’s company, like a family,
the family Reign had never had. A family where you didn’t get beat on unless
you really deserved it. A family that laughed when you laughed and cried when
you cried.

Across the bar, Honey was
sitting on Endo’s lap as he enjoyed a break from cooking, sipping a beer,
sharing his cigarette with her so that the butt ended up smudged with lipstick.
She caught Reign’s eye and winked. He smiled back, but wished he could sit like
that with Gabriella.

The thought did more than
surprise him.

It scared him.

He’d need to sleep soon. He
wished he could slide into bed beside that girl…clutch her hips to him, press
himself against her ass, fall asleep in the fragrant sea of her hair…

Meanwhile, she was dreaming.
Of nothing and everything at once. All her future and all her past, swimming
together in a confused ocean of pain and pleasure. The money throbbed in the
safe. The sun rose and rose and then began to fall. It was her first day of
freedom, and she was sleeping, safe as she’d ever be, safer than she’d been in
the five years under Jeremy’s spell.

He would make sure she was
safe, no matter where she went, he would make sure she could sleep. As he left
the crowd behind, stumbling to his quarters on the far end of the property, he
thought that over and over again.

I’ll make her safe. She’ll sleep safe. She’ll always sleep safe and
sound.

He didn’t know how. He
didn’t even know why. But that was all he could think of. And he meant to make
it come true.

End
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