One Step Too Close - Coffin Nails MC Louisiana (Gay Biker Stepbrother Romance) (Sex & Mayhem Book 6) (2 page)

“Maybe you should let me
watch some time?”

Those words went
straight to Jed’s cock. Not because of Tom, even though his closeness was
sparking arousal like any other guy’s would. No. It was remembering how he was
just thirteen, and Ryder offered him a front row seat in his closet (oh, the
irony), so that Jed could watch Ryder fuck his then-girlfriend. Jed had thought
it was a great idea, eager to see what it was about when it came to sex, but
the experience shattered his presumed straightness like no other thing ever.

As soon as Ryder’s
clothes had ended up on the floor, Jed was afraid to even blink, not to miss a
second of seeing his cock hard, dark, engorged, already big at that age. Jed
didn’t as much as glance at the girl, completely enamoured by the way Ryder’s
ass flexed when he fucked her, how his hips worked like a piston, the muscles
of his back sweaty and rigid. When Ryder came on her stomach, Jed came in his
pants. Just the few seconds of seeing Ryder’s cock dripping with cum provided
sleepless nights for a month. Nothing had been ever the same after that one
experience, and as hard as Jed tried, he couldn’t scrape it out of his mind.

“She’s not into that,”
Jed said and chuckled, even though his forehead was getting hot at the memories
flooding his brain.

“She doesn’t have to
know.” Tom pulled Jed through the dancing crowd.

Jed liked crowds. This
way at least he had a chance to touch guys without anyone noticing, and so as
he followed Tom, he savored every touch of buttocks against his hips, even
through the jeans. Moral? No. Delicious? Yes.

“Maybe, maybe…” Jed
said, though he knew it would never happen. He’d sooner fuck a gator’s jaw.
“You got something good for me, Tom?”

Tom opened his mouth
with a wide grin. “Thought you’d never ask,” he said as they pushed through the
corridor past the lounge, all the way to the open back door. There were some
women congregated there, smoking cigarettes and talking, as there were no
ladies’ rooms in the clubhouse, but no one bothered him and Tom as they rushed
toward the garage. It was only when they heard loud moaning inside that Jed
remembered it was where Axe and his two female friends had decided to have some
fun, and so he rolled his eyes.

“We might ask to join
them,” whispered Tom, pressing his ear to the steel wall.

“Are you kidding? I’m
all out of cum, man. Give me an hour!” Jed grinned and thudded on the wall,
just to piss off Axe. “Police, fuckers! I heard there’s some blowing going on!
It’s illegal in the state of Louisiana,” he yelled.

Tom laughed out loud,
holding on to Jed’s shoulder, even more so when Axe yelled back.

“I plead guilty,
officer!”

The feminine laugh that
followed sent Jed on his way. He drank from his bottle and pulled Tom along to
a deserted picnic table underneath a tall tree, which covered the sky with its
spread-out branches. The air was crisp and cool, getting to Jed even through
his thick plaid shirt. How Tom was all right wearing only a cutoff T-shirt, he
had no idea. He must have already taken some speed.

“Only for you,” said
Tom, opening a small tin box with an old school illustration of puppies playing
around with a ball. It was meant to carry mints and other small candy, but the
white pills were not meant for children.

“A good friend if I’ve
ever seen one.” Jed grinned back at him, and took one of the pills. For a
moment, he considered taking two and keeping one for Ryder. Tom would probably
not oppose. But if Jed offered when Jess was there, she’d probably whinge at
him, being a nurse and all that. He remembered that time when he and Ryder took
speed together and ended up smashing Dad’s car into a hydrant. The water had
blasted up so high they called it a geyser, and couldn’t stop laughing even as
the police arrived. Dad, being familiar with the effects of drugs, waited till
the next day to execute his punishment.

Tom had a pill as well,
and he leaned back, staring at the glimpses of sky between the leaves above.
“My heart’s squeaking,” he said randomly, leaning closer to Jed.

Jed swallowed the pill
and laughed. “What does that even mean? That you have to grease it? Wait, let’s
go ask Jess.” He got up, and dragged Tom by the skinny arm.

“Might be the speed,”
said Tom, leaning his weight on Jed. “Sounds like one of those rubber toys for
dogs.”

“Yo, Jess!” Jed yelled
from afar, eager to break up the mouth to mouth she was giving Ryder.

She blinked and pulled
the handsome face against her neck, her eyelids fluttering, as if Ryder did
something particularly pleasant. A shiver went down Jed’s spine when he
imagined Ryder kissing his neck. For a moment, he was lost for words, but Tom
was already getting restless.

“Jess, if my heart
squeaks, does this mean I’m gonna drop dead?” he asked before randomly breaking
into a loud laugh.

She frowned and gave Jed
a disapproving look. “A heart can’t squeak. It’s just your imagination.”

“Maybe it’s pumping
air,” offered Tom, making little restless jumps in place.

“Like this.” Jed wiggled
his eyebrows and humped the air in front of him, pretending he was holding on
to someone’s hips.

“Or maybe you need to
get your ears cleaned. Might be the echo you’re getting from your artery,” said
Jess, clearly disinterested in performing her medical duties.

It was then that Ryder
looked up, his mouth slightly swollen from kissing, dark hair in disarray.
Jed’s brain came to a halt.

Ryder nodded at him.
“What about you?”

Jed stilled, awkwardly
holding on to the air, and getting hotter by the second from the speed. He
wasn’t a short guy himself. Six foot two, he worked out to be strong and lean,
yet Ryder was still taller than him, and that made breath catch in his throat.

“I… What about me?”

“Has your heart turned
into a horny mouse, too?” asked Ryder and winked at him while squeezing Jess’s
ass .

Jed shrugged and put his
hands in his pockets with a silly grin. Right now, his heart began fluttering,
and it wasn’t the speed affecting him. “You know me. I’m always horny.”

Ryder snorted. “Then
maybe you should get better company than Tommy here.”

Tom moaned in protest.
“I could be the background noise… and I think Dana’s left.”

Ryder raised an eyebrow.
“So?”

Jess leaned back and
looked at him with her brows low. “She’s his girlfriend. Don’t put any ideas
into his head.”

Jed grinned and pulled
out some cigarettes, only now realizing he must have left his half-empty bottle
of beer at the picnic table. “Those kind of ideas are clearly in Ryder’s head…
I’m a saint compared to this guy.” He nudged Ryder with his elbow, enjoying how
hard the muscles of his stomach felt.

Jess looked at Ryder,
who gave her a blank stare, which must have turned a switch in her head, as she
started slipping out of Ryder’s arms. He held her still and finally looked up
at Jed, splashing venom out of his eyes. “Don’t joke around like that!”

Ryder was usually
totally fine with this type of jokes. What was the big deal that Jess was
there? Didn’t
she
have a sense of humor?

Jess burst out with an
odd laugh. “Why not? With that patch, no girl’s gonna resist you. Your life
will be so much easier now,” she said in a sour tone, and Ryder’s eyes became
wider as he looked at her.

“Christ on a stick!” Jed
rolled his eyes. “It’s not like she doesn’t know you’ve fucked tons of pussy.”

Ryder’s eyes narrowed,
and he grabbed Jess’s wrist so abruptly it must have hurt. “What the fuck? My
woman’s standing right here! Maybe you should have a doctor pour some brains
into your head, because something definitely fizzled out just now!”

Jed pursed his lips with
a groan. He didn’t like how serious Ryder was about Jess. It was always
supposed to be the two of them against the world, in their little biker family,
going to parties, and pissing off the cops.

“
Sorry
, Jess,” he
hissed, and tried to lean down to kiss her hand, but she pulled it away as soon
as he touched it.

“Take a hike and sleep
it off,” said Ryder with a shake of his head.

Tom gently pulled on
Jed’s sleeve, and Jed didn’t even want to look at Ryder again, going off to the
other side of the yard.

As soon as he
approached, the guys sitting there got up and made room for him. At least some
people knew their place. This was club grounds, and the patched members were
royalty.

“Is he proposing to her,
or something?” asked Tom, only fueling the ugly fire in Jed’s heart. “The bitch
clearly can’t take a joke.”

Jed turned to him with a
frown, and took a big drag of smoke. “I know, right? There’s a fucking stick up
her ass, that’s for sure. And
no
, he’s not proposing to the bitch. I
would know!”

Tom pressed his lips
together and shrugged, fidgeting in the seat. “Yeah,” he said, clearly not
convinced, which only infuriated Jed more.

“I’m sick of sitting
here. Let’s go do something.” Jed tapped his foot against the dirt. If Ryder
got married, he’d be even less available. It was enough that he
lived
with Jess. She was his most serious girlfriend so far, possibly on the way to
becoming Ryder’s old lady, and Jed hated the way her presence reduced the time
Ryder had for Jed. They used to be inseparable, but that had changed since Jess
came into Ryder’s life with her colorful sheets, fresh flowers, and fluffy
slippers. Ryder even gave her a cat, a pretty tabby she called Daisy, probably
the least rock ’n roll name ever. If Ryder gave Jed a cat, he’d name it Dr.
Martens, shorten it to ‘Doc’. The cat would be much cuter than Daisy too.

“What?” asked Tom,
spread out on the table. Jed didn’t even notice him climbing on, too absorbed
in grim thoughts.

“Go find someone who
wants to race me. I’m putting down fifty bucks that they lose.”

Tom rolled to his
stomach and slid off the table, almost falling over on a stack of beer cans.
“Do I get to be the judge?” he asked, rubbing Jed’s shoulder in vigorous
strokes. Even his voice sounded excited, with its higher pitch and warmth. At
least someone was eager to spend time with Jed.

Ryder

Ryder took a sip of his
beer as he watched Jed’s pale form under the tree. The bright spot of the
burning cigarette kept trailing between his mouth and the knee where Jed was
resting his hand in a gesture that felt more erotic than it should. Stretched
out so that he was taking up half of the bench, he looked incredibly handsome
with the plaid gray shirt revealing a white top that hugged Jed’s body. Jed had
always been a bit of a pretty boy, but he was able to grow a short beard, which
gave him a more masculine look. The blond hair was tossed all around Jed’s
shoulders, creating a picture every girl could dream of before falling asleep.
Jed could have someone much better than Dana.

The bitch was
attractive, she cooked well, or at least she had done the two times Ryder and
Jess came over for dinner, and seemed to be the model girlfriend. And yet,
whenever she smiled or touched Jed, there was something off between the two of
them, and Ryder had no clue what to think of it. Jed might be all grown up but
was still his little brother, so Ryder kept a close eye on Dana. They’d met her
through her cousin, a shady guy with mafia connections, so that was an extra
reason not to trust her one bit. Ryder supposed the bad-bitch persona was part
of the appeal for Jed.

Ryder smiled when he
remembered the young, pretty kid that suddenly came into his life so many years
ago. They first met when Ryder’s dad started a relationship with Jed’s mom, and
while the sudden appearance of a younger kid in the house wasn’t appreciated by
the then-eleven-year-old Ryder, with time, they became very close. Ryder never
told this to anyone, but he was glad that Jed’s mother abandoned him when she
split from Dad and left. She hadn’t been much of a mom anyway, and Ryder didn’t
have to part from the stepbrother he grew to appreciate.

It was only much later,
when Jed started slowly turning from boy to man, that a strange tension
appeared and never let off since. Ryder couldn’t explain it, but after Jed’s
voice became soft and thick, his jaw became sharp, his chest and shoulders
filled, and it was almost as if he became a different person. Where little Jed
had been sweet and easy to tease, adult Jed was cocky, rude, and
confrontational. Instead of protecting Jed, Ryder now had to keep him from
doing something needlessly reckless. With time, he understood Jed’s closeness
made him feel confused and frustrated, so he tried not to touch him too much,
but he couldn’t keep himself from staring when no one could see.

Jess left to use the
restroom, seemingly ready to just ignore the inappropriate comments she’d heard
earlier. Ryder focused more on what Jed was doing on his side of the courtyard.
He sat alone on the bench, his muscular form slouched, and his facial
expression was the essence of ‘broody’, but only now Ryder realized Jed was
putting the hot red end of the cigarette against his hand. Each time Jed did
so, Ryder’s frown deepened.

He got to his feet and
rushed over with a tightly-set jaw. Did the speed consume Jed’s brain enough so
that burning himself became his idea of fun? He clearly didn’t want to make it
a social activity, because as soon as Ryder stood in front of him, Jed hid his
hand in the sleeve of his shirt.

Jed looked up at Ryder
with piercing blue eyes that broke many girls’ hearts and pulled on strings
that Ryder didn’t know existed in his chest. “What’s up?”

Ryder opened his mouth,
suddenly unsure what to say. It had been a while since Jed took whatever he
took, and if he hadn’t acquired another dosage, he might be sober now. “Yeah...
just thought you shouldn’t be sitting alone like this when I’m celebrating.”

“What do you care? You
have Jess to celebrate with.” Jed shrugged and gave Ryder that look he’d had as
a disgruntled teenager.

Ryder couldn’t help but
laugh. He sat next to Jed and wiggled his fingers, asking for a cigarette.
“Don’t be a prima donna. You’re still pissed off over me defending my
girlfriend? You’d have done the same if I were talking shit to Dana.”

Jed passed him a
cigarette, still holding the sleeve to hide whatever he’d done to his hand.
“No. I don’t dwell on some bullshit.”

“Sure you do.” Ryder
clinked his beer against Jed’s empty bottle. “Remember that one time when I
mixed ginger powder into your cocoa, and you were still mad at me two months
later?” He couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Jed spitting the cocoa all
over the place and drinking water straight from the tap.

Jed groaned, but Ryder
could see a hint of smile on his lips. “Seriously? That was like fifteen years
ago.”

“I know. Still
hilarious.” Ryder poked Jed with his shoulder and looked at him, irritated that
he couldn’t see Jed’s face well as it hid in the shadow. He wanted to pull
Jed’s head back by the long, wavy hair, but stopped himself at the last moment.
There was no need to get weird.

“Not really, no. I think
hemorrhoid gel in your toothpaste was a lot funnier.” Now Ryder could see Jed
smile even through the messy hair. Ryder couldn’t take it anymore and rustled
Jed’s mane, just like when they were kids, uncovering the straight nose and
plump lips surrounded by fair stubble, but he stopped when Jed’s eyes reflected
the moonlight at him.

“Yeah. That... was a
good prank. Never forgive, never forget.”

Jed laughed and pushed
Ryder’s hand away, but that gesture made the sleeve slide beneath Jed’s wrist
and revealed nasty red burn marks between his index finger and thumb.

“I don’t think Jess
would appreciate a revival of pranks.”

“Yeah, well, she
wouldn’t be included,” said Ryder and grabbed Jed’s hand, pulling it hard to
take a look at the circular wounds.

“Don’t,” Jed groaned,
but wouldn’t catch Ryder’s gaze. It was as if the temperature rapidly dropped.
“It’s nothing.”

“This isn’t funny. And
it’ll look shit,” sighed Ryder before smacking the back of Jed’s head.

Jed snorted. “It’s just
my hand. Must be the speed, ‘cause it doesn’t hurt much.”

“You’ll fuck up your
skin,” said Ryder. If Jed were a bit younger, Ryder would have insisted to
patch up the burns somehow. He stroked the inner forearm along the line of dots
that sprayed the otherwise perfect skin. Of course Jed would do something
stupid while he was on drugs. Better this than trying to fly off the rooftop.
Ryder needed to keep an eye on him tonight and make sure that he wasn’t doing
anything even more brainless.

“Chicks dig scars.” Jed
smiled and pulled his hand away. Always trying to turn everything into a joke.

“Not like these. Those
are like the emo knife scars,” chuckled Ryder, shaking his head.

Jed’s lips parted, and
he hid his hand in the sleeve again. “Fuck you.” He took a long drag of smoke.
“Not like the one on your chin, huh? No, that’s super-fucking-manly, ‘cause
it’s from a knife fight? Whatever.”

Ryder laughed. “Doesn’t
count if you do it to yourself. You could have at least had a road accident,
right?”

Jed opened his lips for
a longer moment, looking over Ryder’s shoulder. “Jess is waiting for you.”

Ryder looked up to see
his girlfriend calling him over with broad gestures. “What’s up? We’re
talking,” he responded, but she shook her head.

“They want you in the
office,” she yelled, sitting down with a drink.

“Crap.” Ryder rolled his
eyes and looked at Jed. “Sorry. Can’t say no to
that
.”

“Congrats, man. If
someone deserves this patch, it’s you.” Jed patted Ryder’s arm.

Ryder lingered for a few
moments, not sure how to respond, but in the end, he rushed all the way back to
the clubhouse, brushing his fingers over Jess’s soft shoulder on the way. As
nice as she felt, he still felt the burn from where he touched Jed. The music
was a pleasant buzz in his head as he made his way through the lounge, pressing
between countless bodies. He finished his beer before reaching the door to the
office and handed the bottle to a random hangaround.

Down the corridor from
the common area, behind double doors, Ripper, the prez, and Ryder’s dad,
Wolver, who was the VP, were waiting in beat-up brown leather chairs. Both men
looked like bikers, the old-fashioned way. Ripper’s horse-shoe moustache gave
him the look of an aged male porn star whose prime had been in the eighties.
Wolver on the other hand sported a long gray beard that looked fitting with the
round stomach hanging over a pair of legs that were average in size.

Ryder closed the door
behind himself and sat down opposite them both.

“We have news on the Man
from Colombia,” Ripper said in his raspy voice created by years of abusing
alcohol and cigarettes.

Ryder leaned forward,
his brain sobering up. Was he on the in now? Would he get intel before everyone
else? He cherished the trust put in him, and he could see pride reflected in
his father’s eyes, but the weight of what he might hear made his stomach clench
slightly. What was so important that they felt the need to talk to him during a
party thrown in his honor?

“What about him?” Ryder
asked, looking between the two older men.

Ripper lit himself a
cigar. “He goes by Toro, and he might come over at some point. Apparently,
there’s a price on his head, so he keeps delaying to keep his whereabouts
vague. Nothing is set in stone yet, but I thought you should know what the
deal’s about. We don’t want everyone just running around and yapping about it,
because Toro’s a private man. We’ve come into possession of ten Soviet rocket
launchers. They’re stored away, and he will come over to view them. We might
have a route to get more. He’s paying good money, so we want to build a stable
partnership with him. For now, his associates will be taking the rifles we
acquired lately, but we want to keep things quiet to the rest of the club.
They’d want to spend the money, and we need to re-invest it, not run around
with empty pockets, barely paying for the fucking free beers the hangarounds
are leeching off us.”

Wolver nodded as Ripper
spoke. They were the oldest men in the club, both Coffin Nails for over forty
years, and Dad had told Ryder that a lot had changed in the last decade. Some
arrangements broke off, and with money drying up, they sometimes had to resort
to muling drugs, which wasn’t what their club was about. They needed solid
deals, and men who could handle their shit.

Ripper massaged his
chest absent-mindedly and looked straight at Ryder. “Love our younger boys to
bits, but this club is getting a bit too shitheaded lately. That’s where you
come in.”

Ryder took a deep breath
and tried not to look too eager, but he was proud to be entrusted with all this
responsibility at a time when their chapter was not doing all that well. He’d
seen it too, the endless parties that frequently went out of hand, thousands of
dollars burnt on nothing. Club life was about freedom, but there were rules
even to the life of the free. Otherwise, what they had now could be lost.
Ryder’s new position was to be as much of an honor as it was a burden.

“I’ll do what I can.”

Wolver snorted. “Your
position hasn’t been filled for too long. You won’t be popular,” he said with a
wide grin.

Ryder smirked, even
though an invisible hand tightened around his throat. “We’re all brothers, and
brothers fight sometimes.”

Wolver shook his head.
“You’d be the first one to know that.”

“Go on, get back to
celebrating,” Ripper said with a wide smile.

“Just one more thing,”
said Wolver and ducked underneath the table, only to come up with a bottle of
liquor. He took a long swig and presented the bottle to Ripper, who drank just
as eagerly. Ryder could only follow their example as they patted him on the
back. The whiskey burned, but it felt good, like new fuel in his gas tank.

He returned to the
clubhouse and immediately went outside, seeking Jed, but in the place where he
had sat just twenty minutes ago, Bert was fucking his old lady with so much
vigor Ryder expected them to fall to the ground soon.

“Okay?” asked Jess,
grabbing Ryder’s hand and pulling him closer. He scratched his head and leaned
down, kissing her sweet-smelling hair.

“Yeah. Have you seen
Jed?”

“Oh, he left with Tom,
maybe five minutes ago.”

Ryder frowned as he
looked around. A number of people seemed to have gone. The type of crowd that
usually hung out at their parties—midnight was much too early for them to
leave. He spotted Dana in a faraway corner, staring at her phone.

“Hey,” he called out,
trying to put himself into a civil mindset. It made him crazy that out of all
the girls Jed could have, he chose this cold bitch. “Where’s my brother?”

She looked up at him,
her face illuminated by the pale glow from the phone. “He’s racing again.” Dana
rolled her eyes as if it was no big deal.

Ryder looked at her, taken
aback. “He’s fucked up on speed and beer. Why didn’t you stop him?”

She blinked and stepped
back, as if shocked by his tone. “He told me to stay here.”

Ryder groaned, out of
ammo. “Where is this idiot?”

“On the outskirts of
town, by the former tanning factory.” She looked back at her phone, and Ryder’s
blood boiled when he saw that she was playing fucking Candy Crush.