The Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club, Books 1-3 (54 page)

What the fuck was he doing here? She'd been joking around when she invited him to go with her to the sheriff's office, and if she had any sense she'd boot his ass out the minute he showed up, if the cops didn't throw him in jail first. But dammit, she had no one looking out for her, and the cops wouldn't be able to help. Conundrum was a biker town. The kind of protection she needed was the kind of protection only a biker could provide. Still, showing up here took things to a whole new level. Maybe she'd think he wanted more than another night with her in bed.

Maybe he did.

“Sir? If there's nothing you need, perhaps you could step out of line.”

And leave Dawn to the inept fumbling of the local police?

“I'm meeting a friend who's seeing the deputy sheriff. Dawn…”
Christ
. He didn't even know her last name. Par for the course. He usually didn't care about a woman's last name when he was buried deep inside her. Or her first name, for that matter. But Dawn wasn't like the others and he silently berated himself for not making the effort.

“Dawn. No last name.” The receptionist lifted a manicured eyebrow in censure, and Cade scowled.

“Just make the call.”

Five minutes later, accompanied by two suspicious police officers, he walked into the intake area of the sheriff's office. An assortment of drunks, vagrants, and a few high school girls in cuffs were seated in the waiting area. All the desks were in use, and the air was thick with the stench of unwashed bodies, old cigarettes, and pastrami.

The lead member of his entourage gestured to a desk in the corner where Dawn sat across from a cop with brown hair and the chiseled good looks of those losers on the front of men's magazines. Cade snorted at the frickin' gigantic shiny badge on the dude's blue shirt, but his derision faded when the deputy met Cade's gaze and then reached over the desk to clasp Dawn's hand.

A growl escaped Cade's lips. So that was the game. Bastard thought he could put his hands all over Cade's girl.

Okay. Technically, she wasn't his girl. But he'd slept with her, wanted to sleep with her again, and he'd had a good time with her and her kids on Sunday afternoon. Hell, he'd even missed joining Gunner and Sparky at a little pool party with Delilah and the girls from Peelers Strip Club. Now, that was something he would never live down.

His gaze still on Cade, the deputy stroked Dawn's hand.

How fucking pathetic. Was that his idea of a challenge? Seated at his fucking desk in a collared shirt, patting Dawn's hand? He'd give anything right now to get the deputy outside in the alley. Pansy ass would go down with one punch. Guaranteed. And the guy was an idiot if he thought he'd rile Cade up enough to risk assaulting a police officer. Not that Cade was afraid of doing time, but he had business to take care of first, and item number one was to get the deputy's paws off his woman.

“Thought you were done with bikers,” the deputy said, loud enough for Cade to hear. Cade snorted and put more effort into thudding his boots across the tiles and rattling the chain hanging from his belt.

Let the fucking games begin
.

Dawn looked over her shoulder, her brow wrinkled in confusion. “I am. He's just a friend.”

Friend? Ha. He didn't fuck his female friends. He didn't give free rein to all the kinky, twisted shit in his brain and have them demanding more. And he certainly didn't come so many damn times in one night that the sight of blond hair the next day made him instantly hard.

“A biker friend. Same poison. Different color.” The deputy's face soured when Cade bent down and brushed his lips over Dawn's unbruised cheek, a direct response to the challenge in the deputy's eyes.

“Babe.” He stroked her hair for good measure and then sprawled on the empty chair beside her, ignoring the salivating police officers behind him. They knew who he was. And they also knew they had nothing on him. The Sinners kept their illegal activities under the radar, and if someone did get caught, they had a big-shot criminal attorney on retainer.

“Um … this is Cade.” She gave the deputy a weak smile, and then her cheeks flushed and she pulled her hand away. “Cade, this is Deputy Sheriff Doug Benson.”

“Cade.”

“Benson.” He deliberately used the deputy's last name, not his first name or his title, letting him know with that one small gesture where Benson stood in the hierarchy of things. But just to make sure, Cade lifted his arm and placed it over the back of Dawn's chair, his hand dangling with deliberate casualness over her shoulder, fingers brushing her bare skin.

Benson's jaw clenched, and they locked gazes, trying to stare each other down.

“Enough,” Dawn snapped. “Both of you.”

Didn't see that one coming. His girl had backbone. No doubt about that.

Benson's eyes glittered, and then his gaze dropped. Cade puffed out his chest and gave a satisfied grunt.
Challenge met. Dominance established. Woman claimed
.

“What are you doing here, Cade?” Dawn looked up at him and his fingers took advantage of her exposed neck, tickling their way to her ear.

“You invited me the other morning. In the restaurant.”

Dawn's eyes widened. “It was a joke. I would never, in a million years, have expected you to show up.”

“Shows how little you know me.” He rubbed his knuckles over her cheek, the gesture at once intimate and possessive. “You want me to go, just say the word. But I don't trust the cops, and Benson here is gonna be able to do dick-all about Mad Dog. I can.”

Benson bristled. “Actually…”

“Am I wrong?” Cade leaned forward and tilted his head to the side. “You suddenly got the balls to take on the Devil's Brethren?”

“Yes, you are wrong,” Benson said, his expression smug. “The town recently installed CCTV cameras in high-traffic areas. Dawn says she was assaulted in a public place. We may be able to pull some footage and get enough evidence to charge Jimmy … Mad Dog with assault.”

Cade chuckled and leaned back in his seat. “That kind of evidence will disappear so fast you'll wonder if you even had it in the first place. Evidence rooms aren't as secure as you think. And even if the evidence doesn't disappear, strings will be pulled and he'll be walking out the other door as soon as you hand in the paperwork.”

“Doesn't mean we stop trying. Justice needs to be served. And I promised Dawn I'd do my best to get her justice.”

Cade toyed with Dawn's curls, his fingers brushing over the back of her neck. Damn she was soft—soft skin, soft hair, and a soft heart. But he was learning she had a core of steel inside.

“There's the big difference between us,” Cade said. “I serve justice hot. You serve it cold.”

Benson tipped his chin, a tacit acknowledgment of the truth of Cade's words. There was no due process in biker culture. No rules or laws or procedures that had to be followed. Biker justice was swift, and often brutal, but it was always effective. Just as it had been the other night.

One down. Five to go
.

“Dawn, you want to give that statement now, or after your friend leaves?” Benson picked up his legal pad, but Cade didn't heed his dismissive tone. He wanted to hear the details of the assault as much as Benson did, but unlike Benson he would do something about it.

Dawn studied Cade intently, her eyes boring into him as if she could see into his soul. Well, there wasn't much to see except a black hole that he'd spent a lifetime trying to fill with countless women in countless beds, and enough whiskey to ensure his remains would be well preserved when he finally passed.

“You can stay.”

Score!
He caught Benson's gaze and made no effort to hide his triumphant grin.
Take that, bastard. She wants me.

Benson's hand tightened around his pen, but to his credit he remained professional. “That's fine. You can give me the details, and after you're done, you can talk to someone in our Victim Services—”

“I'm not a victim,” she said abruptly. “I'm a fighter. That's why I'm here.”

“Damn right,” Cade said. “Of course, coming here is the equivalent of trying to fight Mad Dog with a feather, but as a civilian you're doing the best with what you've got.”

Benson put down his pad. “I take offense at that statement.”

“Good. It was meant to be offensive.” Cade stared at the scowling deputy. “Admit it, Benson. This is a biker town, and in a biker town the police have no power. You get Dawn's girls back yet? You got Mad Dog jail? And Victim Services? How's that gonna stop him?”

“I didn't choose the name and the unit is there to help people who have suffered as the result of a crime.” Benson shifted in his seat. “Looking at Dawn's face, I would say she suffered. And as for being a feather…”

“You're not going to win that one, Benson.” Cade gave him a grin. “Don't even try. Plus, I got a plan to keep Dawn safe.”

“What plan?” Dawn turned to him and frowned.

“Later. Benson already looks pale. Don't want to give him a heart attack by revealing too much about our evil biker ways.”

Dawn tipped her head down, hiding a smile. “I kinda like your evil biker ways,” she murmured.

His groin tightened and he leaned over to whisper, “Next time I get you in bed, I'm gonna show you just how evil my biker ways can be.”

“Cade!”

He threw back his head and laughed. Really laughed. He loved the way she shrieked his name.

*   *   *

Dawn gave her statement and answered Doug's questions with Cade's arm around her shoulders the entire time. Although she considered shifting his arm away, especially since his overt possessiveness clearly made Doug uncomfortable, she liked his warmth and quiet support. Even Doug had never made her feel as safe.

“If you change your mind about Victim Services, the number is here.” Doug slid a piece of paper across the desk. “And if you think of anything else…”

“I'll call.” Dawn moved to stand, and Cade helped her from her seat.

Chivalry. From a biker. Fancy that.

“Anytime,” Doug said. “You have my number.”

Dawn made her way to the door after a farewell wave. Yes, she had Doug's number, but she suspected the reminder wasn't entirely directed at her.

Friends since meeting at Doug's self-defense class at the community college, she and Doug had met up for coffee every few weeks for the past year and often bumped into each other at the monthly get-togethers with their self-defense class. Doug made it clear early on he was interested in more than friendship, but Dawn turned him down again and again. He was too nice, too straight, too rigid, too … good for a girl with a wild side and a r
é
sum
é
that included aiding and abetting a criminal organization, and stripping in some of Montana's seediest clubs.

“Is he still watching?” Cade slid an arm around Dawn's waist and pulled her into his side.

“There was no need for a pissing contest,” Dawn said. “Doug understands that I just want to be friends. I've made it clear to him on several occasions.”

“Ha.” Cade barked a laugh, and they descended the concrete stairs to the main level under the watchful gaze of Cade's police escort. “No man understands when a woman wants to be friends. All a man hears when a woman says that is, ‘I'm not gonna fuck you right now, but maybe later.' That's why he hangs around. For a guy who isn't getting some on a regular basis, ‘maybe later' is a chance not to be missed. Not that I've ever had that problem.”

“Of course not.” And she would be wise not to forget it. Cade wasn't a one-woman man. But what if he was? What would it be like to be with Cade? She amused herself as they walked down the sidewalk, imagining how many jobs she would have to go through before she found a boss he deemed acceptable, and how many sheriff's deputies he would cow into submission with the fierceness of his scowl. And then she imagined how it would feel to be under the Sinners' protection. Jimmy would never have dared take her children if he had to face Sinner justice. Nor would he be able to threaten her ever again.

“I thought we were friends,” she teased.

Cade stopped and pulled her to the side after they exited the station. “Aside from Benson, any of your friends want to fuck you?”

“Um … no. Not that I'm aware.”

“Well, I do,” he said. “Means we're not friends.”

She tugged him forward. “So what does that make us?”

“Still trying to figure that one out.”

The light turned green and Cade led her across the street, his eyes darting from side to side as if he expected a vehicle to blast through the intersection at any minute.
Always keeping me safe
. He probably had no idea how much those small gestures meant to her.

“The police can't help you,” he said as if reading her thoughts. “You got a biker problem; you got to deal with it the biker way. Look what happened when you got the courts involved in your custody dispute.”

“Easy to deal with things the biker way when you are a biker. Not so easy when you're a civilian.”

Cade slowed his steps and stared at her, his face thoughtful. For a moment she wondered if he was thinking of asking her to join the MC, but when she saw his bike parked in an alley near the bus stop, she figured he'd been leading her this way. Always in control, but in a subtle way. She liked it. Maybe too much. She didn't have to sweat the small stuff when she was with Cade. But what if he took that control too far, the way Jimmy had? She had learned the hard way that in the biker world no one would be there to help her.

“You don't have to take the bus to work.” He gestured to his bike. “I could give you a ride.”

Dawn's lips tipped at the corners. “Last time you gave me a ride, we wound up in your bed.”