Ransomed MC Princess #1 (2 page)

“I’m sorry I didn’t stay in the car!” I blurted out. “I’ll stay in the car next time, I promise!”

She frowned at the boy. “It’s not you I’m worried about, hon.”

“We were all just getting to know each other,” Gnarles said. “Right, Damien?”

He squeezed his kid’s shoulder. “Right, right,” Damien said.

Cheyenne’s frown deepened. “I hope so. Come on, hon. Let’s go see your daddy.”

I just barely stifled the urge to stick my tongue out at the nasty little boy again. That’s right, not only was my dad the President, but my mom was Cheyenne!

***

The next day Cheyenne let me hang out at the club while she ran some errands. All the guys were in the shop working, so I sat on the hood of a cherry Benz and wiggled my pink heart scandals back and forth to AC/DC.

I’d already met most of the guys from the club at family dinners. They were all like family to me. Well, a leather-clad, kick-ass family who liked to eat way too much, as my Cheyenne liked to say.

I
really
didn’t mind about the “eating too much” part. It meant that there were a ton of tasty snacks in the garage. Everyone was happy I was finally there.

Everyone except for one person, that is.

“You gonna actually work in here, or did you just come here to dance around and eat all our food?”

My eyes narrowed at the slimy shit spawn. “Hi Damien.”

Ganja poked his head out from under the hood of a car. “Is he bothering you again, Annie?”

“No. Just trying to,” I yelled back, which made the guys laugh and really pissed Damien off.

I loved doing that. Pissing him off. Which I was swiftly learning was incredibly easy to do.

“Seriously, you’re useless,” Damien muttered under his breath, going back to work.

“Well if you think she’s useless, why don’t you teach her how to do what you do?” Gnarles yelled Damien glared in his dad’s direction. “Shit.”

“What’s that?” Gnarles asked. “Did you just say you were really looking forward to teaching her?”

Damien shuddered. “I’d be fine with teaching her, but I don’t think she wants to learn.”

Oh man, he was lying through his teeth. This was gonna be fun. I slid off the hood of the car and landing on my feet with a big smile. “I want to learn!”

“That’s a great idea,” Gnarles said.

“Yeah,” Ganja agreed.

My daddy grinned. “I’d love it if you learned how to work in the shop, Annie. Thanks for taking her under your wing, little man.”

Damien looked like he wanted to murder all of them. Slowly.

I smiled harder.

“You might as well wipe that grin right off your face, ‘cause this ain’t easy,” Damien told me.

“I can do it.”

Damien raised his eyebrows. “You think you can?”

“I
know
I can.”

“Yeah? How do you know?”

“Because if you can do it,
anyone
can.”

Damien grit his teeth. “Fine.” Then, he started telling me about his tools and told me to remember each one. Oh man, all I had to do was hand him tools? This was gonna be easy peasy.

“You got it?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Great. Pass me the Wudignzia.”

Except Damien hadn’t said ‘Wudignzia.’ That isn’t even a real tool, but he might have well have asked for one because I didn’t remember a thing he’d told me.

Oh no!
I stared at the tools sprawled around my kneecaps. There were only seven of them, but it suddenly felt like seven hundred.

“Did you forget already?”

“No! I totally didn’t!” I yelled defiantly.

“Well, hurry up then. I don’t got all day.”

As my dad always said when my mama wasn’t around,
shit!
“Uh…” I grabbed the one in the middle with the big circle hanging off the end. That looked like a mighty fine tool. Mighty fine enough to be the one he’d asked for, even.

I handed it to him.

Damien looked at it, then back at me. “You don’t remember what I told you, do you?”

“Sure I do.”

He pushed himself out from under the car. We were the same age but with the grease smears on his cheeks he suddenly looked older. And his green eyes looked even more vibrant in the dusty, dark shop.

Not that I cared about stuff like that. He was still a jerk face.

So, no surprise, he decided to do something jerk-facey. “Oh yeah? What is that called?” he asked, pointing to one of the tools.

I followed to where his finger pointed. The tool was kinda long and lumpy and shiny looking. Long, lumpy, shiny thing. Hmmm… “That’s a Stinging Bat Wand.”

His face scrunched up. “The fuck?”

I grabbed the tool and held it above my head. “It’s what the evil bats use to ward off the stinging bee warriors! They’re trying to cross the soda spring fountain to get to the lollipop castle! Actually, I just decided the bats aren’t evil. They are super-duper cool. They’re like, glittery bats, not night-time bats with red eyes that drink your blood, you know?”

He just stared at me.

“You know. Because they have to protect the magical beef jerky princess?”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re just thinking ‘bout food, aren’t you?”

I
was
a little hungry. “Maybe.”

He dropped the Wudignzia. “You’re hopeless.”

My shoulders fell. I gulped.

MC Princesses don’t cry. They get even. They…

Oh, who was I kidding? I sucked. I couldn’t even remember the name of a stupid tool!

“Oh shit,” Damien stammered. “I didn’t mean it like that. You’re not hopeless. Please don’t cry.”

I glared at him, eyes burning. “You’re just saying I’m not hopeless now because you don’t want me to cry because then you’re daddy will get mad at you!”

“No, that’s not true.”

I frowned.

“Alright, it’s sort of true, but not totally true. I just don’t want to see you cry,” he said.

“Why? Because it’s inconvenant, no wait, inconvent—inconvu—?”

“No,” he interrupted, “I want you to stop ‘cause it makes me feel like shit!”

My heart beat so fast I felt lightheaded. I didn’t understand it. It made absolutely no sense. But for some reason, I
liked
that it me feeling bad also made him feel bad for some reason.

Gnarles turned down the music. “What the hell’s going on over there? Something we should know about?”

Damien turned white.

“No!” I yelled back at them. “He’s just teaching me stuff.”

“Good,” Gnarles yelled, then the music returned to its normal volume and the guys got back to work.

“Thanks,” Damien whispered.

My stomach flipped. Why the hell did being around slimy shit spawn make my body do weird things? “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. Now I owe you one, and I still have to make up for how I talked to you the other day.”

My stomach did an entire gymnastics routine. “You want me to forgive you for that?”

“Well, yeah. My dad says I have to.”

So he only wanted to make it up to me because his freaking dad said so? My stomach dropped to the floor. Fuming, I pointed the end of the Stining Bat Wand at him. “Well, you’re just gonna have to tell your dad that it’s too bad because I’m totally not going to forgive you! Ever!”

Damien had the nerve to look shocked. “The fuck?”

“You’ve got a dirty mouth, Damien. And you’ve got dirty ways.”

“What the hell do you know about ‘dirty ways,’
Princess
?”

Was he walking closer to me? What was up with all this confidence radiating off him? “I know tons about it.” I gulped. My voice didn’t shake when I said that. Not even a little bit.

Damien tilted his head to the side. “Wanna bet?”

“Um, my daddy says I shouldn’t bet.”

“How about I make you a promise, then?”

“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Oh, I’m gonna keep this one.”

I shut my eyes. “You really don’t have to keep it.” I did know what his promise was gonna be, but I just knew with every fiber of my being that it was gonna be bad!

“I’m gonna teach you all about ‘dirty ways,’” he told me. “And you’re gonna like them.”

I scrunched up my nose and threw the Stinging Bat Wand at his feet. “That’s disgusting!”

Damien just kept on laughing.

I learned everything I needed to know about Damian that day. Unfortunately, all that knowledge didn’t help me at all for what came next.

I groan. Unfortunately, I’m the only groaner. Or the loudest. Or the most consistent.

The huge black and white photo I have of the extended MC family in front of the compound thumps against the wall in the same sickeningly steady rhythm as the creaking bedframe in the room next to mine.

“God he’s disgusting,” I said to Candy, my bff and co-conspirator.

Candy coughs, face red. “Yeah. He’s gross. Totally gross.”

My eyes narrowed at my best friend and c-conspirator. With her black hair pulled back, I could see that her cheeks were getting mighty rosy. “You don’t think he’s nasty?”

Candy looks away. “That’s not it.”

“Listen to that woman! It sounds like she’s freaking dying in there.”

The corner of Candy’s lips quirk up in a smile. “Maybe she is experiencing a little death.”

My entire body recoils. “That was so uncalled for.”

“Look, it’s obvious Damien knows how to please a woman, alright?”

I put my hands over my ears. “I so do not want to hear this.”

“Then don’t ask!”

So I don’t. In fact, I don’t say anything at all. Unfortunately, what fills the silence between me and Candy is more groaning. A headboard banging against the wall like a jackhammer. A loud slap followed by begging.

“Oh God, Damien! You’re going in so deep! I’ve never felt anything go so deep before!”

I shudder. It’s like they’re filming a porno over there. Who actually talks like that?

“Yeah, babe. Show me that perfect, little greedy cunt.”

“My cunt is yours!”

That’s it. I stand up, take my family portrait off the wall, and shove it in my desk drawer. It’s cruel to subject everyone in that photo to this! I mean, I know they can’t hear anything but…GOD DAMN! I glare at that offensive wall. “Are you listening to this?”

“Stupid question. I can’t not listen to it.”

I guess it was kinda stupid. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

She shrugs. “I’m used to it. It happens every time we stay overnight at the club.”

“And
that
doesn’t bother you? How we’re supposed to just take it?”

Candy gives me a pitying look.

“How am I supposed to live next to him?” I go up to the wall and start banging my fist against it. “I mean, some of us are trying to sleep here!”

“Sorry Princess!”
Damien’s deep voice calls back. Then, he laughs. He
fucking
laughs. God, he’s still such an asshole.

For a beautiful, brief second, the noises stop.

“Sorry, babe. Gotta finish up quick. We’re bothering the Princess.”

I rush to the bed and put my hands over my face. “Oh God. Here it comes.”

Candy puts her arms around me. “It will be over soon, girl.”

I knew it would be, but it was never fast enough.

“That’s it, babe. Cum for me.”

Desk drawers pop open. Some of the clothes in my closet come off their hangers. For a second, it feels like the entire room is going to implode. The girl starts screaming. Not like she’d been screaming before, when she was probably biting into a pillow, trying to keep it quiet. No, the real screams start. The intense, skull-shattering,
my-soul-just-got-ripped-out-of-my-chest-B-horror-movie-style
scream. The,
oh-my-god, the-world-is-ending-Roland-Emmerich-style-and-everythin-you-love-is-being-blown-to-fuck
scream.

Then it stops, and I hear him groaning out his own release.

This. Is. So. Fucking. Gross.

Candy stops hugging me and smiles. “Hey, it’s over!”

I hear Damien zip up his jeans. Fabric rustles. There’s another ass slap—I know it’s an ass slap because she
thanks
him for it. More fabric rustling. The door opens. She thanks him again and begs him for a next time. Then, she suggests that next time could be
right now
.

“Na babe,”
Damien says.
“It’s Princess’ bedtime. She’s gotta get her beauty sleep.”

“Beauty sleep? BEAUTY SLEEP?!? Does he think I’m a fairy tale princess? I am MC President’s daughter! Who
the fuck
is he?”

“That’s the spirit!” Candy mock cheers.

I cross my arms over my chest. “You think I’m pathetic, don’t you?”

Candy gives me another pitying look which tells me that regardless of whatever she says next, she thinks I’m pathetic. “No way. I just think that you gotta get over this thing you have with him.”

“What do you mean I have to get over it? He’s the one fucking girls left and right every time I stay over!”

Candy stands and puts up her hands. “No. Don’t give in.”

But it was too late. I wanted blood.

Damien’s blood.

I stomp out of the room and into the hall just in time to see his latest conquest push up her sequence gold dress so she can adjust her pink thong. After a few seconds, she lowers her dress back over her ass.

I glanced right.

Damien’s leaning against his door in nothing but his jeans, showing off all his inked, sculpted muscles. The asshole wouldn’t have such godly muscles if he didn’t spend all day riding motorcycles under the hot sun, fixing cars, getting into stupid fights, and fucking himself and every other woman around him stupid.

But it’s not like I’m noticing his muscles right now. Or the tattoos that snake up his torso, stretch down his arms and coil around his wrists and neck.

I take a deep breath.
Calm down
. His tattoos are beautiful, and it’s okay to admit they’re beautiful because another person put them on his body and it was wrong to condemn an artist for making a work of art just because they used a shitty canvas.

“Hey.” He tilts up his chin, dark green eyes filled with even darker promises.