Taking a Dare - A Hellion MC Novel (16 page)

After showing me what he'd saved, Dare had let me
know he'd never forgotten either. That he had held on to that
memory just as tightly as I had. I know he'd spoken some more, but
I hadn't paid a damn bit of attention because I was wallowing,
reveling in both the memory of young Dare and his adult self.

"Took me a motherfuckin' lifetime to get over you."
His face was deadly serious as he talked in between our kisses,
walking me to the Escalade. "Seems I'm gonna have the same fuckin'
problem going forward."

The bad part was that he probably didn't even know
the half of it on my end.

We needed a change of subject, I decided as I settled
myself in the driver's seat of the expensive SUV. In my estimation,
the best way to do that was to get him in a lip-lock. And all I had
to do was lift my mouth and point it at his in order to quickly
receive what I wanted.

The only thing I hadn't counted on was how much Dare
had changed in the years we'd been apart. When he was a boy, he'd
kissed like one with tender presses and gently sliding lips before
he'd initiate any tongue play. Not so with the grown up version of
Dare!

There wasn't any hesitancy and nothing,
nothing
, was slow in the adult Dare. He absolutely and
positively devoured my mouth as if he was starving for it, twisting
me on the seat until my legs bracketed his. And I gave it right
back to him, meeting him swirl for swirl, tangle for tangle.
Building and recreating the fire we'd always had between us.

I couldn't get enough of his mouth, couldn't hold him
tight enough or get close enough but I kept trying, not knowing or
caring where we were.

It was our last kiss, one I was going to savor and
hold in my heart and mind for the rest of my life.

As we pulled apart, I saw Dare's eyes go from soft
and gentle to such a hard, brittle glare even as I felt his fingers
dig into my skin.

"This is bullshit, Ryley! Fuckin'
bullshit
!"
he said on a harsh whisper, staring deeply into me. "I'm a fuckin'
Hellion, which means I live free or fuckin' die! Your fuckin' dad
can't control me, can't take my motherfuckin' cut for wanting to be
with you!" He yanked me to him, crushing me against his chest.

"Bullshit!" he whispered again only this time, his
voice broke on the word.

The tears I'd been holding back at the thought of
never being able to even touch him again spilled over and a sob
escaped my swollen mouth. I needed to pull it together, needed to
be the voice of reason because if what I thought was true, Dare was
ready to do something drastic.

I swallowed thickly and moved my head on his shirt to
dry my eyes.

"Come away with me, Ryley," he urged and I knew then
he'd hit his limit. "Let's just grab our shit and go…"

"No, cowboy," I murmured, pulling my face away and
using my hands on his chest to push back. "That sounds wonderful
and fucking romantic as hell but that isn't us. Not the people we
are or the people we want to be. The club is your life, Dare. Your
family. The same as it is for me. You don't throw over your entire
existence for a…for a…". God, I didn't even have a name for what
had rekindled between us. "This was the best time in my life,
blowing the hell out of our week before. But it's not something you
give up a life for, cowboy. At least, I can't."

As I spoke, I saw the glare in his eyes recede as the
light in them grew suspiciously flat. Was he listening to my words
or to his own anger at the unfairness of it all?

"So you're fuckin' willing to let me go, just like
that." Damn, now even his voice sounded dead, lifeless.

"I'm not willing to do anything except ensure you
still have your brothers, the club and your job when I go back to
Spokane," I tried to explain. "I'll work on my Pops but unless he
sees we aren't together—"

"Fuck your father, Ryley," he announced, cutting me
and my soft explanation off as he took a step back, releasing his
grip on me. "This is bullshit and you're choosing to buy into
it."

It was. And I was. But I felt like there was nothing
we could do.

Which must've showed in my face because he took
another couple of steps away from me. His hands went to his hips
and he looked around the forecourt. "You need to go, sugar."

I twisted my body in the driver's seat without
thinking about what I was doing. My eyes stayed on him, watching
all sorts of emotions flash across his face as he stared at me.
"Dare, please…"

"Just go, Ryley. Go back to your dad, your club and
your life," he said with finality. As I turned the key in the
Escalade's ignition, I thought I heard him say, "and I'll fucking
try to live mine without you."

My eyes burned with the unshed tears I was holding
inside as I tried to navigate down the long driveway and out into
the street. I refused to look back, absolutely refused to even
glance at Dare in the rearview mirror. I'd already done that once
in my lifetime and I wasn't up to it again.

Fuck your father, Ryley
.

I drove back to Lock's place in a fog, one so deep
and so opaque nothing got in except the smell of Dare on my
clothes, my skin. And the continued throb of the aching flesh
between my legs, so sweetly and thoroughly abused, didn't help.

But the ache in my heart seemed to be the worst. The
ache of knowing my father had set it up that way. Through threats
and coercion he'd made it so that we couldn't even fuckin' explore
what might have been. Had snuffed out even the promise of Dare and
I together.

Shoving the gear shift into park, I let the big SUV
idle as I tried to think, to get my thoughts, my priorities in
order.

Fuck your father, Ryley.

Dare was right. It was bullshit. Complete and utter
controlling bullshit guaranteed to keep me where daddy wanted me.
Under
his
thumb and living by
his
rules,
his
edicts. All done, according to him, to protect me.

But it was
my life
! A life that was meant to
be lived in order to learn, to grow even if it wasn't in the
direction my father wanted me to go.

There was one thing my dad couldn't make me do,
though, and as soon as I realized it, I shifted into reverse and
turned back to watch the street as I carefully backed up to make my
way to the Rosemont.

It was time to cut it off with March.

And, as per usual, I was planning my speech in
advance. What to tell him and what to leave out. How to let him
know that I would never marry him, but that I'd get the horribly
huge-ass diamond back to him when we were back in Spokane.

And how to do it without mentioning Dare, my pops or
to talk about March's alcoholism. Which I knew, and had known, was
an issue even when he'd proposed. Although, if we were going to put
it all to rest, March was a
functioning
alcoholic.

He could work his corner of the Hellion Construction
HVAC market even when he couldn't drive at nine in the morning to a
work site. He could convince both my dad and Leif that he was
nursing one drink the whole night even though he had a bottle of
whiskey stored at the bottom of the men's room wastepaper basket.
Something I'd found right after he'd been made road captain, when
it was my turn to clean the clubhouse since the Spokane recruits
had been so few and far between. And it had been the smell of the
cheap booze inside the bottle, the one that clung to March's
clothes that had let me know, that completely explained, both his
lapses in memory and his lack of sex drive.

Yeah, that particular vice, that addiction left a man
less than in so many ways.

But did I need to make mention of it as I cut him
loose?

Nah. But I'd sure as hell mention it to my father
when I gleefully told him that March and I were through.

The desk clerk was quick to provide March's room
number as I slid another twenty into the drawer beneath the double
paned glass window that separated us.

"Just upstairs and it’s the third door on the right,
miss," he'd said through our electronic connection of microphone
and speaker.

Climbing the stairs, I again mentally reviewed all I
wanted to say, all that need to be said before I stopped at door
217. I turned to gauge what time it might be from the angle of the
sun that was just starting to hit the flaked paint of the railing
and knew it was too early. But I had to get it over with, to be
done with March so I could wrest a measure of my own life away from
the control of my father.

Knowing March wouldn't likely rouse to a simple
knock, I used the side of my hand to bang against the cheap wood of
the door. And kept the movement going long after the social
politeness of a basic three-knock was lost.

The door yanked opened and I saw Vegas's upper naked
torso fill the doorway.

"Ryley?" she mumbled and blinked before shuffling to
hide her store bought jugs behind the cheap wooden panel. "Uhm,
what are you…I mean, I thought you were at Lock's?"

I just bet she did but the sight of her half naked in
my fiancé's motel room didn't give me pause as I brushed by her to
enter the dark space.

I'd always kind of known that March's type was more
along the lines of Locke or Vegas—tall, lithe blondes—because it
usually took him more than a bit to get hard enough to do the deed
when he was trying to work it with me.

Even then, it was either doggy style or missionary,
but my face had to be turned away from him as he fucked. Though we
hadn't done it but a handful of times, I knew March didn't like me
looking at him as he did his duty.

Did his duty. Crap! Why hadn't I realized it before?
Nobody fucked me as their freaking obligation! Jay-sus. Maybe
because I'd just come from Dare's bed, where I knew I was more than
wanted, I could now finally see the difference.

And I wasn't going to fucking settle for anything
less!

I glanced at Vegas who was cowering against the back
of the now closed door and my heart took a hit at what I recognized
was the truth.

Yeah, screwing me was March's fucking responsibility
in order to get ahead and was not done because of some overwhelming
desire for me. March would do any and everything if he thought it
would get him a higher position in the club. I was just another
rung in his ladder to access the Hellion inner circle and
powerbase. Vegas was the kind of woman he really wanted, what he
needed in the times he could get it up.

While March wasn't a bad man, his ambition had, just
like his alcoholism, colored my opinion of him and not in a good
way.

My dad, though, loved him. And had mentioned on
several occasions, too many to count, that March and I were a
perfect match. "He's such a hard worker, girl," my dad had intoned
on more than once never noticing how many trips to the Men's room
the lean biker made or how his eyes always roamed the blondes in
our club.

"Wake him up," I instructed Vegas and watched as she
covered her bountiful chest with a crumpled t-shirt from the floor
and went to where March was sprawled face down on the mattress. The
air in the room stank of both alcohol and sex.

I watched but didn't listen as she tried to rouse her
man— stuck in the fact he was not mine and, truly, never had been.
The realization didn't hurt. No. But it there were traces of
disappointment. Mostly at myself for continuing a ruse that had no
business being in play in the first place.

Fuck you father.

As soon as March was up on his elbows, muttering a
slurred, "wha', baby?" I was there.

In his face and all up in his grille.

"We're over, March," I instructed, making sure my
voice was loud, sharp and hard. "I'm done with you. I'll give the
ring back when we're in Spokane!"

"Wait? Rye? Wha' da fuck you doin' here, hellcat?"
His eyes jerked around the room, seemingly of their own accord
before settling on Vegas. "Oh, hey, baby. We doin' a threesome or
somethin'?"

I couldn't help my snort and shot a glance to Vegas
to see her twisting her hands and biting her lip. Oh yeah, in any
other circumstance she'd be in deep shit. Up to her neck in the
kind of trouble no Honey wanted but I wasn't aiming for that. To
tell the truth, the girl had done me a solid by taking the
drunk-ass, no account, social climbing bastard off my hands.

"It's all good, Vey," I murmured, knowing March
either wouldn't hear me or if he did, my words wouldn't make sense
to him. Turning back to the skinny man that barely even rounded the
covers in the motel bed, I repeated myself only louder that second
time.

"We're fucking done, March. No wedding, no forever,
all right? I'll get the ring back to you when we get back to
Spokane," I shouted, throwing a wink at Vegas over my shoulder.
This was, I had to admit, turning out even better than I
envisioned.

"Gonna be the preshidant by fucking nailing the
prenshiss!" March yelled back, the evidence of his continued
inebriation showing in his slurred speech.

"Yeah. Sure you are, stud," I pretended to agree and
saw Vegas slip into bed next to him before she covered his mouth
with two long-taloned fingers.

"He doesn't know what he's saying, Rye," she advised,
her beautiful but black-liner smudged eyes seemed to be pleading.
"You can't hold what he says against him because he's still fucked
up from last night."

I smiled and whipped out my cellphone to capture the
moment. Even before the flash had died away, I was moving towards
the door. "Vegas? Honey? That piece of shit is
always
fucked
up and doesn't deserve a girl like you. You can do better,
girlfriend and I hope you do. No matter what, though, I'm done with
him."

It was hateful to admit but I laughed all the way
back down the hall to bang on my father's door. As soon as it
opened to reveal a bleary eyed Dee, I shot my eyes to the bed to
see an even blearier-eyed dad propped up on an elbow.