Taking a Dare - A Hellion MC Novel (7 page)

Trey's lowered voice was the only warning Dare got
before the big man spoke again. "How are you holding up with
her
here?"

Dare didn't even try to play like he didn't know who
Trey meant. Number one because he knew that Trey wouldn't let him
pull any bullshit, having first-hand knowledge of how he and Ryley
had started. And how it had fuckin' ended.

"Got over it a long time ago," Dare mumbled. "Nice to
see her again but that's about fuckin' it."

Trey's snort let Dare know exactly what the pres
thought. "Calling bullshit, Dare."

The younger man shrugged and brought his glass up to
hide his grin. "What fuckin' ever, dude."

"Gets to be too much, then…" Trey rapped his knuckles
on the table before standing. But he never finished his sentence.
Not that Dare would've responded anyway. Ten years should've been
enough time to get over a teen-aged crush.

When Trey had walked away, Dare saw Ryley was only
one table away from where he was seated. And felt his heartbeat
increase at her nearness.

He counted himself lucky Trey had left the bottle
because he was feeling the need to drown in the shit.

Chapter Seven

"Hey, Dare! How're you doin'?" Ryley's voice was
nicely polite just the way an unavailable but single Honey should
sound when meeting a brother from another club.

"Long time no see, Rye. Look at you, all grown up."
He was determined to just get through her little bit of nice-nice
and move on. No matter how much he wanted to get with her, he knew
he just wanted their bit of meet-and-greet over and done with as
quickly as possible. He wasn't so buzzed he didn't remember the
pain of losing her and the aching hole she'd left inside him. But
was sure he was too buzzed to initiate his play to get with her
that night.

At the use of her shortened name though, he saw the
beautiful girl visibly flinch but she kept with the polite
stuff.

Interesting!

"Me? God, cowboy," she started with a smile just this
side of sincere. "You're fucking huge compared to the scrawny kid I
used to know!"

"That's what the ladies tell me. Only they fuckin'
include the word 'everywhere'," he murmured, trying to keep his
grin covered by the glass at his lips.

He watched her eyebrows lift as her smile became more
natural at his words.

"I haven't seen you for almost ten years and within
seconds you wanna talk about your dick? The outsides might have
changed but the insides haven't!" Christ! He'd forgotten what a
smart ass she could be or how good her laughter felt as it entered
him.

"It's worthy of at least a mention," he laughed back
and then let his eyes do a slow but thorough roam over her sexy
form. "Although, we could
explore
the changes we've both
gone through if you want."

She opened her mouth to speak but before any words
came out, she quickly turned her head towards a small altercation
that seemed to be brewing a couple of tables away. "Shit! I gotta
take care of this." Her eyes came back to his. "Don't go anywhere.
I'll be right back."

He watched her shapely ass as she made haste to the
table where a storm was brewing. Once there, she leaned down and
began to whisper into one of the Spokane Honey's ear. Whatever she
said wiped the smile from the other girl's face and had the black
haired woman standing before she walked to the kitchen. As the
other woman moved away, Ryley planted her hands on the tabletop and
spoke quietly to Pagan and Jay before returning to where Dare had
remained sitting.

"Sorry. Just needed to stop Wanton from doing what
she does best," she advised, pulling her leathers up by the belt
loops and shifting her very shapely hips.

"Which is?"

"Causing trouble. Now where were we?" It was her
cheeky grin with her words that brought out his own.

His answer was immediate. "Think it was along the
lines of a mutual but explicit look-see at how we've changed over
the years. You up for it, Ryley?"

"What? No note first?" she challenged. "Or don't you
need them anymore since everyone knows you like to use the
equipment shed for your kind of…
exploring
?"

Dare threw back his head as he laughed long and loud.
God! It'd been so long since a woman had called him on his shit and
for Ryley to do it was fuckin' awesome. Or maybe it was only that
she remembered their time together too that had him dazzled.
"Maybe. Maybe not. Guess you got to go with it, sugar, to find
out."

She crossed her arms across her very shapely chest,
only a minimum amount of cleavage on display as she laughed along
with him. But he saw her glance over her shoulder at the table
where her dad was sitting.

"Sorry, cowboy. Too many eyes and wagging tongues to
do
that
. But I'd be good with going someplace to talk," she
advised, and Dare somehow knew there was more to her words despite
her light, flirty tone.

Christ, there should've been a law against the kind
of honest admiration she held in her eyes when she looked at
him.

He stood and was glad to note that he only wobbled a
little. Catching the neck of the bottle and using two fingers
inside his glass to hold it, he wove around chairs until he was
standing next to her even though her back was to the room as he
faced it. "I get you alone, gorgeous, it ain't gonna be to just
fuckin' talk. Have wanted you for too goddamn many years, jacked
off to thoughts of you too fuckin' much to goddamn talk,
Ryley."

She gasped and he wondered if he'd gone into the
truth arena too fast for her. But that was the man he'd grown up to
be. Up-front and in a person's face. Better that she knew it at the
beginning of whatever was gonna happen between them.

And, oh yeah. Things were
definitely
gonna be
happening.

He glanced around the room, seeing the people who
were taking note of the two of them talking together.

"So far, I've got your goddamn dad, Leif and that
other fucker, what's his name? Oh yeah,
March
, shooting me
daggers. And as a grown-assed adult, I don't have to fuckin' pussy
foot around my doings or my wants. You wanna me talk to me alone,
gorgeous? Then put on your big girl panties and follow me out."

She turned her face up to his and he got lost in her
beautiful, amazing eyes. "There'll be hell to pay if I do."

"Yeah? So?" he breathed almost on a pant. Christ, she
was so close he could smell her. That combo of vanilla and the
essence that was, he knew, all her. "Does life as we motherfuckin'
know it get destroyed just because you and me fuckin' connect
again?"

"I'm supposed to spend the night with Lock," she
hesitated, her eyes never leaving his. "She's gonna be with Blaze
so as long as I'm available by phone…"

"No one needs to fuckin' know where you are." Dare's
summation was offered on a tight voice. It was still fuckin'
sneaking, a goddamn trait he couldn't stand in others. But, if that
was what it took to have Ryley naked and writhing underneath him,
he was willing to consider it. At least until he could get a sense
of why she was still under her fucking father's thumb.

"That's true," she admitted and he had to search back
to his last statement in order to make sense of her words.

Dare nodded and tried to smile so that the brothers
that were still sending looks their direction thought they were
simply having an easy conversation. Two former buddies just
shootin' the shit instead of him plotting to have the girl of his
memory, fuck, of his heart, in his bed.

"A large-cabbed Silver Chevy truck will be waiting in
the street across from the driveway," he said as he dropped his
smile and watched her do the same. "Just follow, Ryley."

He saw her long neck move as she swallowed deeply
prior to whispering, "that won't work for me, Dare." She glanced
over her shoulder before she raised her face back to him, a face
he'd thought he'd remembered so well but hadn't even caught the
half of its beauty in his imaginings, his memories. "Talk is all I
can promise for right now."

He nodded even though his heart had landed somewhere
around his boots when it'd dropped sharply at her words and the
almost scared expression on her face. Even his dick had taken a hit
at her words, losing its edge of desperate need.

"There's a couple of picnic tables around the corner
of HC's main building. Grab yourself your drink of choice and meet
me there," he suggested. Something was working behind her eyes and
he wasn't sure what it was, but he was determined to find out.

She nodded and his heart took flight with her
unspoken agreement.

It was all he could do to weave between the remaining
people and tables, dropping his bottle and glass on the bar before
he exited the building. Because the fullness of both his crotch and
his chest at the thought of having her all to himself was more
intoxicating than all the booze he'd consumed, making him take
wonky, out of cadence steps.

Goddamn.

Ryley
.

*.*.*.*.*

There was no way he could've realized what'd he'd
asked of me.

No fuckin' way in hell.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have ever spoken like
that.

So plainly. So goddamn open.

With words that sent shivers through me, tightening
some parts of me so hard I could barely breathe. And my heartbeat
was out of control, knocking so hard against my ribs I was sure it
could be seen beating against my leather top.

I stood still for a second as he walked away,
recognizing I couldn't move. Not with shaking knees and so very wet
in places that might make its presence known if I so much as took a
step.

Making my way slowly back to the populated area of
the room, my mind raced to think of how to excuse myself and find
him. Lock's was a good pretext but I hadn't yet told March that I
wasn't going to be joining him at the motel, which my girl had
already said was a foregone conclusion.

Something I hadn't even considered before telling my
pops I'd join the run.

"Hey, sweet girl," my dad called. "Worked through the
room okay? Good."

I smiled but it didn't feel real. My heart was
outside, tied tight to a man who'd told me he drove a silver truck
but was willing to meet me on a picnic table. "Yeah, it's nice to
see everyone again. But think I'm gonna head out."

"You need the room key, babe?" March asked, reaching
for one of his pockets. Why did he look almost emaciated after my
eyes had beheld the wonder of Dare's hard, thick and muscled
form?

"I'm staying with Lock this run. Lots to catch up on,
you know," I said, spreading my face out into another insincere
smile. Leif's eyes, so much like mine but more blue, narrowed at my
words. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

"Be sure to touch base with Dallas before you leave,"
my pops advised with a sharp look as if I didn't know my duty.
Shit! Raised in a club, I knew when, how far and to whom to offer
my fealty. I dropped my eyes though so he couldn't see the
resentment in them. I just nodded and moved away, the sting at the
way I was treated skittering across my insides.

"Come see me when you're done talking with her." Pops
eyes never left me, giving a warning that he had something to say
and he wasn't going to let it go. Although why it had to be done
there and then, I hadn't a clue.

"I was thinking of taking off, Dallas, unless you
need me," I offered when I met up with her in the kitchen. She
smiled and I saw it was one of beauty. Okay, so she may have not
been of Honey material but the woman was seriously spectacular in
her own right.

"Not 'til tomorrow. I'll know more about where we're
doin' the Honey thing in the morning and I'll text you," she said
dragging out her phone and taking my number. Tomorrow was Hellion
Church, a mandatory meeting for the brothers and one the Honey's
provided the food for. But the compound's kitchen was off-limits to
the Honeys as the men held their meeting. So on Sundays the girls
met at one another's places in order to cook the piles of food the
men so looked forward to.

"Great. Okay, then see you tomorrow," I said and gave
her a hug before I turned away. Anxious, so fucking anxious to get
away.

Before I could push out the door, another set of
hands pushed it open for me and I heard Pops' voice over my
shoulder.

"Told you we need to talk, princess," he said with
one hand on my lower back as the two of us stepped outside. "Saw
you talking with him. Told you, Ryley. Told you to stay away from
that fuckin' boy."

I twisted my head to look up at him, feeling my
eyebrows as they pulled together in a frown. "What the hell was I
supposed to do? Ignore him? He's a Hellion, Pops. It's my job to
greet all the Missoula brothers!"

He stopped us down the building, just beyond the
kitchen window.

"To my mind, your little chit-chat went on for a lot
longer than it should have! " my old man mumbled. "Dare is shit,
Rye. Always was, always will be. The fact he caused all of us so
much trouble way back when hasn't been forgotten. Will never be
forgotten."

"He didn't do anything, Daddy…"

"Shut it! I know what he fucking did and for you to
deny it grates at my last goddamn nerve. So here's how it works,
little girl. You stay away from him. No ifs, ands or buts."

"That's not fair…" I started but as soon as the words
started coming out of my mouth his head started shaking from side
to side. "I'm a grown woman and you can't tell me what to do."

"I fucking can and will!" he announced as he hitched
up his pants before pointing his finger in my face. "Stay. The
fuck. Away from. That boy." He turned and wandered back inside
leaving me with a careening heartbeat and so mad I could've spit
nails.