ROUGH RIDER (3 page)

I
was only half
-lying when I said I needed to eat. The truth was I wasn’t about to leave the safety of my cabin for a while. Not without my crew.

I knew the Iron Godz were surely looking for me…for both of us…by now. I wasn’t naive. I knew I’d have to face them eventually, but for now, until the dust settled, the girl was safer here with me for a while.

The girl…hell, I didn’t even know her name.

“What’s your name?” I asked as we walked into the cabin. Bear raised his head from his bed by the fireplace, a big trail of drool hanging from his droopy lips. I walked over and began throwing logs into the fireplace. He shook his head and I groaned as thick strings of drool flew through the air, landing on the wall and floor.

“Gabby,” she said hesitantly, almost so quietly that I didn’t hear her.

“Gabby,” I said, letting her name settle in my mouth. “I like that. You look like a Gabby. Why don’t you get a couple of beers from the fridge, Gabby? Relax a little, while I get this fire started.”

She stood watching me silently for a second, her eyes raking over my body. I stared back, taking in her curves. She was fuckin’ hot, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, she looked scared as a rat who’d wandered into a snake’s den.

She finally nodded and then turned towards my small kitchen and walked away. I watched her ass sway in her tight jeans, holding my breath until she’d disappeared around the corner. I shook my head, trying to clear away the fogginess. I needed to think more about protecting her than fucking her right now, but the way those jeans hugged her hips made it damned near impossible to achieve that feat.

I finished lighting the fire, warming my hands as it began to grow, the orange and yellow flames flickering and dancing in the dark room. I hadn’t bothered to turn on many lights, which was my usual routine. This was our official clubhouse, but I was the only one who lived here. Unless there was a party or other business to attend to, I had the place to myself. I spent most of my nights staring into the flames with nothing but the sounds of the night and Bear’s incessant snoring as company.

Gabby walked back into the room holding two opened beers in her hands. She handed one to me and sat down on the old, brown leather couch, her eyes glued to Bear warily. I sat down next to her, taking a big swig of the beer, downing half of it quickly.

“He’s harmless,” I said.

“Right,” she whispered, tentatively turning her head to meet my gaze while keeping one eye on Bear.

“And what about you?” she asked.

I laughed. “Guess that depends on who you ask,” I replied, with a wink.

“I’m asking you,” she said, flashing her green eyes at me. My cock swelled, reminding me once again that it was impossible to ignore it when a girl like her was sitting in front of me.

“You’re safe with me, if that’s what you’re asking,” I replied somberly.

“I guess that’s all that matters,” she said with a slight smile. “So you’re a biker. A president? Does that make you some kind of criminal?”

“It’s not really like that sweetheart.”

“No?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Then how is it?”

“I guess you could say we aren’t your usual club… And I’m not your usual MC president. There’s seven of us. We’ve known each other forever, grew up together, went into the service together, basically we’ve gone through hell and back together. We stick together, no matter what.”

“So, you’re not running drugs, money, or girls?”

“No,” I laughed, taking note of her suspicious gaze. “We mostly fix bikes. We have a bike shop in town. That’s how we make our money. But those guys back there? At Otto’s? Those are the kind of guys you’re talking about. The bad guys. But we’re not them.”

“Then why were you there? At Otto’s.”

“I just stopped for a drink. Wasn’t exactly looking for trouble…” I said, my voice trailing off as I took another gulp of my beer.

“What were you looking for?” Gabby asked, her eyes flashing at me curiously.

That was a damned good question. I had a bottle of whiskey in my kitchen, along with a case of beer. It’s not like I needed to stop for a drink because I didn’t have any booze of my own. So why was I there?

Fuck, I hated to even admit it to myself, but I’d found myself feeling a twinge of loneliness lately. And that was something I thought would never say. I thought I’d be happy to be alone forever, ever since I’d started living my life without Maggie.

Maggie’s beautiful face flashed in my head, and I did what I always did when that happened. I closed my eyes and tried to drink in as much of her beauty as I could because I was terrified the day would come when I wouldn’t be able to conjure up her face.

“Are you okay?” Gabby asked next to me.

Shit. I’d done it again. Drifted off into thoughts of her. It’d been over five years and I still couldn’t have a normal conversation.

“Yeah, sorry. Want a shot?” I asked, standing up and walking to the kitchen.

“Sure, I guess,” she replied to my back. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t let her see the look in my eyes, the last thing I needed was to show her the pain that lingered there no matter what I did to erase it.

I poured the whiskey into two small glasses, hoping like hell I could get through this night without being haunted too much by my past.

D
ante was
a hard nut to crack. I couldn’t read him. One minute, I was positive I saw him checking out my tits, and the next he was jumping up from the couch like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

What was his story?
I wondered.

He sure looked the part of the big, bad scary biker, even if he said he wasn’t like the others. Not to mention he was sexy as fuck. But it’s true, he wasn’t like any of those assholes back at the bar. I wasn’t afraid of him at all.

In fact, I was intrigued. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I watched the way he moved, drinking him in as much as I could.

He was dripping masculinity, his jaw twitching as he walked away, his tight jeans hinting at the muscles hiding under his clothes.

He was this hot, and yet he lived way out here in the middle of nowhere, hidden away in the woods, with not another soul in sight. Why didn’t a man like him have a woman waiting for him at home? This place was quiet as a church.

Well, except for that mess of a dog that was currently snoring loudly, as he napped by the fire.

Something didn’t seem right.

“Do you know a girl named Bella?” I asked, suddenly wondering if this was Bella’s biker.
That would suck
, I thought to myself.

“Nope, should I?” he asked, looking over his shoulder before he disappeared into the kitchen. He returned with two glasses full of whiskey. I’d barely taken two drinks of my beer. He worked fast, I noted. He sipped from his glass as he waited for my answer. Sitting next to me, the warmth coming from his large frame competed with the fire. Light flickered in his long wavy hair and I resisted the urge to reach out and touch it to see how soft it was.

“Well?” he prodded.

“What?” I replied, staring up at him like I’d never seen a man in my life. I shook my head, trying to shake the fog from my brain. “Sorry…never mind.”

“Who’s Bella?”

“My best friend…well, I mean, she used to be,” I replied, reminding myself that I was pissed at her for getting me into this situation.

“Used to be? Why’s that?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Because she - um — I — never mind,” I stuttered, clamping my mouth shut quickly.

“Tell me,” he said, prodding me again, adding a gentle smile this time.

“Let’s just say she gave me some bad advice,” I said, dragging my eyes from his smoldering gaze.

“We’re going to be here all night, you might as well tell me,” he said, scooting over closer to me.

I hesitated, biting my bottom lip as I tried to decide how much I should tell him. I didn’t know anything about him, hell, I didn’t even know if I was really safe here, but all I had to go on was my gut, so I decided to trust it until it steered me wrong. Still, I chose my words carefully.

“Bella is the one who convinced me to go to Otto’s. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have been there…” my voice trailed off, the lie sliding off my lips, leaving a lingering taste of guilt on my tongue. So, she hadn’t
convinced
me exactly - in fact, she didn’t tell me to do it, nor did she even know I was there, but in my defense she had gone on and on about her biker. That was just about the same thing, if you asked me.

“Only two reasons a girl goes to Otto’s,” Dante said, raising an eyebrow.

“And what are those?” I asked, a ripple of electricity running through my body as I met his gaze again.

“Drinkin’ and fuckin’, basically,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, winking at me. “Mostly fuckin’.”

A hot blush crept into my cheeks as I pulled my eyes away again. For fuck’s sake, was it that obvious? Of course it was. What was I thinking?

I was being completely naive. What the hell was wrong with me? I knew better than this. I was a
Loprinzi
, for fuck’s sake. I knew not to trust anyone.

“Look, I really should go home,” I stood up quickly, more determined than ever to get out of here. To get away from this man who’s eyes peered into mine like he was looking into my soul, as if I were standing stark naked in front of him.

“Sure, sure,” he said, leaning back on the couch, stretching his long, thick arms along the back of the couch, a slow, lazy smile spreading across his incredibly beautiful face. “Tomorrow, Gabby.”

“What? Tomorrow?! I’m sure those guys are gone by now,” I protested. There was no way I could wait till tomorrow.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But we haven’t even had dinner yet. Tell you what, you sit here and enjoy the fire, I’ll make us a few steaks and we’ll talk about it again after dinner,” he reached over and patted my knee, his hand hot and heavy, before he stood up, leaving me alone with Bear, the flickering orange flames, and my frustration.

A
s the steaks
sizzled in the pan, I tried to convince myself I wasn’t attracted to her. Hell, I hadn’t felt these sensations in a while, and I could just as easily chalk them up to too much whiskey or some newly developing health problem, but I’d only be lying to myself.

I wanted her. I wanted her bad.

I’d gone into Otto’s just to test the waters and instead I’d plunged into waters that were a little deeper than I expected. Now, it was up to me to swim or pull myself back to shore. But damn, if these waters weren’t fuckin’ warm and tempting.

The fire, the whiskey, the quiet silence of the night…not to mention the smokin’ hot black-haired beauty that was waiting for me on the couch…all of it had me thinking about what it might be like to plunge back into the dating scene…or at least the one-night stand scene.

I almost felt like a virgin. Which sounds totally fuckin’ stupid to say, I know. I’m Italian, after all. But Maggie’s death hit me like a freight train and even though it’d been five long years, I still hadn’t so much as kissed another woman since then. I’d gotten a lot of shit about it from the guys, that was for sure. But once we’d gotten back to the States, I’d just had no interest in starting anything up with anyone else. It just never seemed right. I felt like I’d be betraying Maggie’s memory or something.

“Fugettaboutit,” I’d reply to their occasional ribbing. “When I’m ready, you’ll know it.”

“Yeah, we’ll know it because it’ll be like Mt. Everest erupting in your fuckin’ pants!” Romeo said. Romeo Romano is the ladies man of our club. He probably hadn’t spent one fucking night alone since we returned from overseas. I was surprised his dick hadn’t fallen off yet.

“Shut the fuck up, Romeo. Not everyone lets their dick rule their life,” I replied, doing my best to defend myself at the time.

That had been two years ago, and I had been nowhere near ready.

But now? Tonight? Was I ready? Maybe now I was.

Or, maybe I wasn’t.

But there was only one way to find out. I hadn’t meant for this to all go down this way, but now that Gabby was here, squirming on the couch like she was just as torn as I was - why pass up an opportunity to jump start things?

I mean, fuck, what else were we going to do all night anyway? Talk to each other?

“
S
o
, why is your gang called the Deadly Sinners?” Gabby asked, in between bites of steak. She was eating like she was starved and I watched with satisfied amusement.

“We’re not a gang, we’re a club. There’s seven of us, and at one time in our lives, we committed a lot of sins together. It’s just something we came up with when we were kids on the street and it stuck.”

“So you’ve all known each other a long time?”

“Yeah, since we were kids,” I replied. “We grew up in the Bronx on Author Avenue. You know the neighborhood?”

“Yeah, a little,” she said, her eyes darting away. I couldn’t stop looking at her across the table and every time she tore those green eyes from mine, I wanted to reach over and pull her gaze back.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Howard Beach,” she murmured, dismissively. “So, tell me more about your club.”

“The club? Right. Well, like I said, we grew up together. We were just little kids, you know? Riding bikes around the neighborhood. When I was sixteen, I saved up and got my own motorcycle. Of course, then the other guys had to get one too. I had all the parents so pissed at me after that. Hell, Italo and Alonzo’s Ma still hasn’t forgiven me.”

“Italo and Alonzo?”

“Yeah, they’re twins. They had an asshole dad, like most of us kids in the Bronx did, so they were raised by their Ma. She still refuses to let me in her house. Once, when we were about eighteen, before we all went into the Army, Alonzo laid down his bike. It was his fault. Stupid ass took the curve too fast and the bike slid out from under him. His Ma came over to my house, hitting me with her purse and yelling some kind of Catholic curse at me for almost killing her son.”

Gabby’s laughter echoed in the small kitchen and I couldn’t help but smile.

“You were in the Army?” she asked.

“Yeah. I get blamed for that, too. But whatever. I was the oldest of all of us guys, and no matter what I did, they followed. I tried to tell them all not to join, but they didn’t listen. Sure as shit, one by one, they each signed up. We all ended up in the 101st Airborne Division together.”

“Why did you sign up yourself?”

“I didn’t have a lot of options as a poor kid in the Bronx. You know what it’s like. If you’re lucky, your family has some kind of business you can join. But if not, like me, you don’t have anything like that to fall back on. It was either that or get tangled up with the mafia and I figured my chances of staying alive were a lot better if I stayed out of that scene.”

“Right,” she replied, slowly taking a drink of her beer. “So what did you do in the Army?”

“Jumped out of planes. Lived through a few battles, thankfully. Did a tour in Afghanistan. Did another one in Iraq.” Dammit. There it was. That steeliness that returned to my voice, the ropy muscles in my neck tensing painfully - it always happened when I talked about the service.

“
T
hat must’ve been hard
,” she said, her green eyes filling with concern.

“It sucked,” I nodded. “It fuckin’ sucked big time.” The last thing I wanted to think about was my time overseas. None of it was good.

“Enough about me,” I said, shaking away the haunting memories of screams that I never wanted to hear again. “Let’s talk about you, Gabby. Tell me something interesting about your life.”

“Oh, my life isn’t as interesting as yours,” she replied, smiling back at me, her long lashes fluttering as she blinked. “Tell me more about the guys.”

My eyes landed on her bottom lip, the urge to kiss her overwhelming me. I wanted to forget everything she was asking me about, in fact I was done talking altogether… But I knew if I went too fast, it would scare her away.

“Well,” I began, calling on all my reserves of patience. “I told you about Italo and Alonzo, the twins. There’s Giovanni - we call him Gio. He’s a cool guy. You’d like him. He’s half black and half Italian. His Ma died when he was born, so he was raised by his father’s Italian family. He makes these meatballs that I swear are better than my Grandma’s. Unfortunately, his dad got mixed up with the mob and was killed when Gio was eighteen.”

“That’s awful,” she said, a look of horror crossing her face.

“Yeah, it’s another reason I went a different direction after high school. It kind of turned us all around, seeing Gio go through that shit.”

“I see,” she said quietly.

“I told you about Romeo,” I continued. “And then there’s Angry Bobby and Bats. Angry Bobby is the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet.”

“Why do you call him Angry Bobby then?” Her eyes flashed with amusement, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her beauty. She was breathtaking. Her long black hair framed her gorgeous face, her high cheekbones made me want to reach out and trace them with my finger. I studied her like a painting, committing every line and curve to memory.

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” I answered. “Once, when we were in Afghanistan, one of the other guys in our squad said something nasty about one of the local women, and Bobby went off on him. He was totally out of control, off the chain pissed off. Thought he was gonna knock the other guy’s head off. We’d never seen him like that before and the nickname stuck.”

She nodded, her eyes watching me intently. I hadn’t had such a rapt audience in quite a while and it made me feel good. I wanted to make her smile again, to make that light shine in her eyes all night long so I could keep watching.

“And Bats? What’s his story?” she asked, taking a drink of her beer. She was loosening up now, and she hadn’t looked at the front door in five minutes at least.

“Bat’s story is pretty fuckin’ sad. Bats was the star pitcher on our high school baseball team. He was one of the greatest. He was recruited by all the best schools, and offered a full-ride at Princeton. But instead of going off to college, he chose to follow us all into the Army. Some really violent shit went down,” I said, my voice lowering as I remembered it all. All the fuckin’ blood. The blood-curdling screams. The look on his face when he realized what had happened. The memories would haunt me forever. “He lost his arm in a roadside bomb. I feel completely responsible.”

“That’s horrible!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I said, filling the glass with whiskey and taking a huge gulp, the harshness of the sweet poison ripping my throat apart like a razor blade. “It’s been over five years, but he’s adapted better than you’d expect. Maybe that’s because he can still ride, which is one of his favorite things in the world. The technology is amazing these days. He has a special modification on the grip of his bike so he can still hang with us as if he still had both arms. His attitude is amazing, he’s really an amazing dude. They all are. They’re my family.”

“I can see why,” she replied. “Family is important. They sound great.”

“Yeah, it is. Maybe you’ll get to meet them sometime. You’re close to your family, it sounds like?”

“I guess so,” her voice lowered to a whisper. “We all have our problems.”

“Shit, yeah we do. Fuck this,” I said, standing up and putting out a hand for her. “Let’s stop talking about all this sad shit and take a walk.”

“A walk? It’s so dark out,” she said.

“Are you afraid of the dark?” I asked, staring down at her. She smiled slowly, and shook her head.

“No, I guess not,” she said, taking my hand and letting me lead her outside. Bear stood up slowly as soon as we opened the door and followed us out.

A blood red moon hung high in the black sky, dimly lighting our path as we began strolling down the long road that led away from the clubhouse.