Sexy Bastards Anthology: Bad Boy, Biker, Alpha, Motorcycle Club, Contemporary Romance Collection (80 page)

Chapter 17

Talon

I doubled back one more time, even though I knew it wasn't necessary. We hadn't been followed.

We finally arrived at the address Rams had given me and I pulled my bike around to the back of the fourplex, parking it.

"Rams is in B," I said, nodding at Crystal. It had taken hours to make the police report, and I doubted it would do any good. The cop had immediately assumed it was some rival gang shit and seemed to not give a crap about taking our report. I kept my anger in check though. If the guy showed up again, my plan was to shoot him. A prior police report would only help me stay out of jail. I'd been arrested, even been in juvie, but I'd never been to a county lockup. I figured if that ever happened, it would be a sign my life was turning in one direction for good. Not necessarily the direction I wanted it to go.

Night had fallen while we'd been wrestling with the law. The street was quiet, no traffic at all. Somewhere nearby I could hear a dog barking and kids yelling, but the place seemed safe.

Crystal knocked on Rams' door and he yelled that it was open. We pushed inside to find Rams on the couch, beer in hand, watching Firefly on Netflix.

"How many times you seen that?" I asked, laughing.

Rams paused the show to look at us. "This is my 18th time."

I shook my head. I didn't get how he could watch the same show over and over again. I looked around. The place was neat, but tiny like he'd said. It smelled good, like vanilla. I imagined Rams lighting a candle or something. He always did that kind of shit if there was a woman involved. It didn't matter if he liked her or not. He just cared that they were comfortable and treated them like china dolls. That's why they tended to walk all over him.

"I'll put on something else," Rams said, switching back to regular TV.

I walked inside and Crystal followed me, her head swiveling to take in everything. There was nothing on the walls. No pictures or decorations. The kitchen was to our right, a short hallway to our left. The living room held a beaten-up, brown couch, a green lazy-boy chair, and a flat-screen TV, and that was it. Rams kept his beer between his legs since there wasn't even a coffee table.

"Beer's in the fridge, if you want one," Rams said.

"Thanks." I sat down in the chair and Crystal sat next to Rams on the couch.

I settled in and tried to relax. The last few seconds of some show played and then the TV flipped to a commercial. Two crows sat on a branch talking to each other.

"Jesus!" Rams cried, and stood up. His beer spilled onto the floor but he ignored it and took off down the hallway.

"Dude," I called but Rams ignored me. I heard a door slam.

Crystal was up already, heading for the kitchen. She came back with a wad of paper towels and cleaned up the spilled beer.

I picked up the beer bottle and chucked it in the trash in the entryway. "That's a freaky phobia," I said. "Imagine spending your whole life afraid of birds. I don't know how he manages to function, much less ride."

Crystal threw away her towels and walked over to me, looking at me strangely. "Didn't you ever hear the story of how my dad first got him?"

I shook my head. Crystal pursed her lips. "Rams was the only baby Dad ever took in. He preferred teenage boys, like you. He said if he put a bunch of bike parts in front of even the worst-behaving boy and put a wrench in his hand, with a promise to the boy that he could keep anything he fixed, he always stayed out of trouble for at least a few years. The foster care placement team thought he was a miracle worker."

I nodded. Whip had saved me in exactly that way. Said if I got in one more fight he would take away the motorcycle I was working on. I had wanted to finish that baby more than anything in the world. The self-control that had always eluded me before suddenly came easy to me.

"Rams was different. He'd been abandoned by his mother as a baby. They found him in a dumpster and everyone who took him in gave him back quickly because he was such a colicky child."

I sucked in a breath. No, I'd never heard this before.

"My dad wasn't set up to take babies. Jaze was two and my mom was pregnant with me, but he had some older boys and some members of the club who felt sorry for Rams and promised they'd help take care of him. He'd been in all the newspapers and there had been appeals to find both the people who abandoned him and a new family for him. Everyone knew who he was. I can show you the old newspapers the next time you are at my house."

"My dad took him in, and everyone in the club who was able to, did six hour shifts so someone could hold Rams twenty-four hours a day, even at night." Crystal smiled and her beauty floored me. "We've got pictures of everyone, Whitey, Big Jon, even Rush when he was only fourteen years old, holding Rams in a baby carrier on their bellies."

I smiled. I would love to see the pictures of those hard men taking care of a baby like that.

"My dad had him for five years, and then his grandma showed up from New York and took him for a few years. Moved across the river. She wasn't a very nice lady and once he was old enough he ran away constantly to my dad's. Eventually the cops stopped making him go home."

I shook my head. "So how does that explain the bird phobia?"

Crystal looked down the hallway then back at me. She dropped her voice and came up close to me. "When they found him in the dumpster he was already four months old. He was malnourished and sick. But the guy who found him had to chase away a flock of birds out of the dumpster to get to him." She bit her lip then went on. "They were crows. His poor little face and neck was all bloody and he was too weak to even raise his arms. They were feeding off him, Talon, and if they'd gone an inch higher they would have pecked his eyes out."

My head swam as my stomach lurched. No fucking wonder he was scared of birds. I looked down the hall and started that way. I wanted to talk to him.

Crystal grabbed my hand. "No, let him be. He just needs a few minutes. He's figured out how to get past it. I've seen him do it dozens of times. You have too."

I had. We'd lived together at Whip's off and on, before I joined the army. I'd never heard the story before but I'd known he had the phobia and I'd seen him freak out when birds came too close. He always got past it.

I didn't know how though.

Chapter 18

Talon

Ten quiet minutes later Rams came out into the living room like nothing had happened. "I changed the sheets on the bed. Crystal, you can sleep in there."

"No, Rams, I couldn't, I can't. I'll sleep here on the couch."

Rams dropped onto the couch. "No way, missus. This couch and me get along perfectly."

Crystal turned to me. "Then you sleep with me, Talon. We can share the bed like we did the other night."

I saw Rams look at me from the corner of my eye. I'd never discussed my ... hell, I had to face it, my crushing desire for Crystal with anyone, but I'd always wondered if Rams had it figured out. He'd never said anything, but that wasn't his way. If you didn't want to spill a secret, he wouldn't press.

"That's settled then," Rams said and grabbed up the remote.

Fuck. Another sleepless night with an eight-hour hard-on. That had to be bad for me. Lower my IQ or my testosterone or something.

"Hey, man, you ok?" I asked Rams.

"Fine." The word was clipped, hard. Ok, I got the message. Fine, as in, leave me the fuck alone.

After a moment, Rams turned back to me. "So what did Whip say? You guys know who was shooting at you today?"

His question pulled me back to reality. I looked over my shoulder at the door we had come in. "That the only entrance?"

Rams narrowed his eyes. "That and the windows."

"Can we block it?"

"You expecting a repeat?"

Rams watched me closely. Crystal's eyes bounced back and forth between us. Did Crystal know Rams didn't know about Jaze? I couldn't fucking remember, and I couldn't find one reason to care anymore. Keeping Whip's fucked-up secrets made my head hurt.

"Shit, Rams, there's something you don't know."

Rams raised his eyes and got up. He grabbed a beer out of the kitchen for all three of us, passed them out, and sat back down, shrugging his shoulders. "I got all night."

I sighed and started my story. By the time I got to the warehouse and the shooting, Rams was shaking his head. When I spilled that we'd learned Whip owned the building, Rams was pissed.

"He told you not to tell any of us?"

"Yeah."

"That's bullshit. Jaze has been missing for a month? Could be dead?" Rams stood and paced and almost pitched his beer at the wall. He turned back to us. "The guy who shot at you today, it's related?"

"Crystal was attacked on campus yesterday. She got away by stabbing the guy with her keys. Pretty sure he was the one who shot at us too. So yeah, it seems like it."

"Fuck, man," Rams said, the anger leaking out of his face. In three steps he stood in front of Crystal and pulled her into a bear hug. "Good job, baby girl, you ok?"

Crystal hugged Rams back and dropped her head onto his chest. "I'm ok, I'm good."

They stayed like that for a long time.

"Fuck sleeping," Rams said when he finally let Crystal go. "I'll stay up. Keep watch."

"Nah man, we gotta sleep. This guy's gotta sleep. Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow."

Rams nodded and but didn't look happy. Then he grabbed the end of his couch and lifted it, flipping the end towards the door. He walked to the other end and pushed it against the door, blocking it before I could even get up. He turned around and lifted his chin at me. "He ain't getting in the door without me knowing."

I took a swallow of my beer and raised it towards him in a toast. Rams had our back like I knew he would.

Crystal looked at the couch, then looked pointedly at me. "I'm going to go lay down. Night, Rams, thanks."

"Of course Crys."

Crystal disappeared. I stayed in the chair. Maybe I could sleep right here. It wasn't too bad. I flipped out the foot rest to see how far it reclined.

"Talon, can I talk to you for a sec," Crystal called from the bedroom.

Rams looked at me knowingly but I avoided his gaze. So much for getting out of pitching a tent all night.

I stood and headed back there. Crystal motioned for me to shut the door behind me. The room was as sparse as the living room had been. It held a bed, one wooden chair in the corner, and that was it. The bed was a queen though, bigger than the one we'd had to share the night before.

"Who sent you those papers?" she asked. "The ones that said my dad owns the building."

"A buddy of mine." She didn't know about Knox and his brothers and that I'd figured out who my father was yet. I hadn't told anyone but Eric and Greg. I'd wanted to tell her but talking to her sometimes felt like stabbing myself in my own heart.

Her face was worried. "Did you see what else was in there?"

I pulled the envelope out of an inner pocket of my cut and held it up. "Not yet." I opened the envelope and pulled out the papers, flipping past the deed to the old building and found Whip's rap sheet. Colorful and a mile long. Lovely. The charges dated back to the year he started MMMC, then cut off altogether the year that Jaze was born. Eighteen years of hard living. He'd been arrested for assault over a dozen times. Was this what she wanted me to look at? I'd always known Whip had been hardcore after Vietnam, although it had never slapped me in the face like this.

I turned to the last paper and scanned it. Life insurance on Rose Brier Santee in the amount of a million dollars? I stopped reading long enough to look at Crystal. Her eyes were sad and scared and locked on the paper in my hand.

I scanned the rest of it. Jaze and Crystal were the beneficiaries. Unless they were dead. Then it was Whip.

I fluttered the paper in front of me, then dropped it on the floor as if it meant nothing. "Crystal, you don't think ..."

She rushed me and put her arms around my waist. I thought I heard a strangled sob come from her throat, which put me on edge. I'd never seen her cry, not even when she'd tangled up in a hurdle during a track meet in her senior year of high school and broken her femur in two places.

"I don't Talon, I don't."

"I trust your dad."

Her voice was soft, breaking, definitely on the verge of tears. "I do too. I just wanted you to see it. I didn't want to be the only one who had seen it."

"Shhhh, Crystal, I saw it. I don't know what it means, if it means anything, but I saw it."

She held me around the waist and cried silently, sobs physically shaking her shoulders and twisting her torso. I caressed her hair, held her tight, just stood there without a fucking clue what to do to make it better. Except find her brother or get her father to talk, and I didn't know how to do either of those.

Her sobs tapered off, dried up, and her shoulders relaxed. We stood there for what seemed like a long time. She held on to me, her hands moving around my waist, rubbing my back like I was the one that needed comfort. My dummy dick began to take notice of how close she was and I dropped my head back in disgust, focusing all my thoughts on heading it off. It didn't work. I tried to break our connection by stepping back but Crystal didn't let go. She followed me, her hands still around my waist, her head on my chest.

I angled my hips backwards so she wouldn't feel me and she followed, pressing her belly right up against my hard cock.

Fuck.

She stiffened and I waited for it, knowing I was about to get treated to the sharp side of her tongue.

"Oh God," she whispered and my mind rebelled, not sure what it was hearing.

She pulled one of her hands between us and grasped my erection through my jeans, squeezing it. I stepped back, my ass hitting the wall behind me. "Gidget, what the fuck?"

Crystal raised her eyes to mine and stared at me, then stepped forward again, her hand finding my cock like she was a piece of metal and it was a big fucking magnet.

I moaned. I couldn't help it. I'd been dreaming of her touch for years, coveting her the way a little boy covets that bike his best friend has but his own parents can't afford. Not only because it would be amazing to ride and have as his own, but also exactly because he can't have it. Because it's not his. Off-limits. Forbidden.

Crystal's hands rose up to my belt and frantically undid it. I had a hard time believing this was really happening, and not just something I was imagining.

I watched her in stunned disbelief as she pulled apart my zipper, then reached inside my boxers with absolutely no hesitation. Her small hand grasped my cock, making me suck in a breath. Crystal's hand was on my cock and she was staring at it with a hungry look in her eye that I'd never seen before.

Reason tried to reassert itself in my head. We couldn't do this. She couldn't do this. But as much as I wanted to tell her no, I wanted to grab her and show her exactly what I could do with it about a million times more.

I groaned and thrust my hips forward as she curled her hand around me, each tiny movement of her fingers sending more dizzying heat straight to my head.

"Talon," she whispered. "You're hard."

Her voice did something to me. Deactivated whatever haze was clouding my judgment, telling me this was ok. It was very much not ok and never would be.

"Fuck, girl, of course I'm hard. You can't just reach in a man's pants like that. Anything can set that shit off, especially a woman grabbing it like it's a three musketeers in the candy bowl."

I removed her hand, even though it was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. I pulled my boxers back up and tried to snap my pants.

Crystal seemed to come to life, reaching for my hands, her eyes pleading with me. "No, you were hard before I ever touched you. When we were hugging."

"Maybe, but that don't mean we can do this," I growled, fastening my jeans and yanking away from her, even as my dick plotted how best to overthrow me. It wanted her and didn't get why I hadn't already tossed her on the bed and brought her half way home.

She followed still, something desperate overtaking her look. Her hands covered mine. "Talon, I want to."

God fucking damn shit fuck hell. How was I supposed to resist that? I knew there'd been something different about her recently. And how could I pass up an offer like that? Even if it was just one time, one time was better than no times. Better than watching her go on to her richer, better life without ever having touched her bare skin or hearing what she sounded like when she orgasmed.

Right?

I knew there were other reasons why taking this woman to the bed in front of me was a bad idea, but with her fingertips grazing the head of my cock, I couldn't manage to lay a brain cell on one of them.

"You want to what, Gidge?" I forced out, mostly to stall the decision.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me lightly on my chin as her fingers pulled my zipper apart again and her hand grasped my cock solidly, then moved up and down, pulling noises from me that I didn't want to make.

She stared at me. "I want to ... I want you to ... I want us ..."

"It'll never happen with us, Gidge. It's not meant to be."

"Nothing more has to happen, Talon. I'm not asking you for anything. Just sex. Just pleasure. Just one night."

Just one fucking night. I knew it. Could I handle it? Would one night be enough for my greedy-ass cock? If I took her, made her mine if only for a few hours, would I be able to give her up finally. Give up the entire idea of her and wish her well as she went on to live her
real
life?

I had no fucking idea.

My dick tried to convince me it was no problem. Right now was all that mattered. The future wasn't important.

My entire being ached for her, to have her body naked, exposed, open and dripping for me. To take her every way I knew how. To convince her biker cock was the best cock she was ever going to find, and maybe it could be good enough for her.

Anger leaked out around my desires as I thought about it. Was she really slumming? Or just using me as a way to forget about her heartaches for a few hours?

I made my decision.

If she was using me, then I would make it worth her while.

Give her something she'd never experienced before, and would never, ever forget.