1
Grit
Carter rolled up next to me at the stop sign, and with a sigh, I arched my brow at him, waiting for him to spit out whatever he needed to say to me. Carter, the youngest in our small found family, sometimes just didn’t know when to leave me alone. We’d been riding forhoursto get home after doing a weapons exchange with another small club. I wanted peace and quiet with nothing but the rumble of my bike accompanying my ears. Why he couldn’t give me that peace was beyond me.
“You gonna be good if I split from you and go get food from the bar?” he asked. “Fucking starving, man.”
I waved him off. I didn’t care what he did. He’d been part of the same platoon as me, Blink, and Carver, and we’d seen him in action when it came to life-or-death situations. Carter, while lighthearted and just a little quirky ninety-nine percent of the time, was a deadly son of a bitch when the people he cared aboutneeded protecting. And I knewverywell that he was more than capable of holding his own.
He nodded once and turned left toward town, while I continued straight, heading for the clubhouse. I wanted a hot shower, maybe a hand job while I was at it—courtesy of my reliable right hand—and then a sandwich. A sandwichalwayshit the spot after a long ride. There was just something about a little too much mayonnaise that made my gut happy.
But that’d have to wait. Because a red Honda Accord was parked near the gates as I drew closer. A woman with medium-length dark hair that’d been permed into tight ringlets was leaning against the hood, her eyes hidden behind a pair of polarized sunglasses. In a pair of jeans that showed off her curves well with a red sweatshirt tucked into the waistband advertising a Texas college, she definitely had my attention, and not just because she was somewhere she didn’t belong.
She was goddamn beautiful.
I definitely noticed women. I wasn’t blind. But never had any of them snagged my attention the way she did. She just… commanded it without so much asmoving. I was so viscerally aware of her, every single one of my senses was on high alert.
A woman like her would be detrimental to my health.
Remaining keenly aware of my surroundings, I turned my bike off but remained on it, my thighs still straddling the seat. “Can I help you?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her around town before, but then again, I didn’t get out much. I preferred staying to myself and sticking to the clubhouse. Going on runs like I’d just come back from was the most out-and-about-ing I did. This womandidn’tseemdangerous, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have ties to the rival club we were currently at war with.
The Lockheart MC were nothing more than a bunch of cocky assholes who thought they were holier than thou. And they didn’t like us moving in on a buyer they wanted. But we’d checked all our bases before setting up shop here to make sure we wouldn’t step on anyone else’s toes, and they weren’t running us out of fucking town. In fact, after he’d run Blink’s old lady, Lindsey, off the road, and he’d abused the absolute fuck out of his daughter, Jennifer, who was now Carver’s old lady, running us out of town was the last thing the Lockheart MC would be getting.
A bullet in each of their skulls would be their gift for thinking they could fuck with us.
The woman pushed off her car, her black boots crunching across the gravel as she bravely made her way to me. When she pushed her shades to the top of her head, revealing pretty hazel eyes that were a stunning mix of green and gold, the breath was knocked from my lungs. No woman had any fucking right being this damn attractive, yet there she was right in my fucking face.
“I’ve been trying to get in contact with your president all day, but whenever he answers the phone, he just hangs it right back up as soon as I get ready to introduce myself. And I’m pretty sure he’s disconnected the line at this point.”
I wouldn’t be surprised. Blink didn’t allow calls to the clubhouse except for when one of us were calling or the old ladies. We didn’t care for other calls, and he certainly didn’t. Blink was an asshole through and through. A man of few words, too. Hearing he’d hung up on her multiple times was actually right up his alley.
“What do you want?” I asked, needing to get this over with so I could send her on her way and forget she existed. Any other woman, I might have tried to entice into bed just so I didn’t have to use my hand, but this woman spelled trouble. And I avoided trouble at all fucking costs. At this point in my life, I wanted peace as much as possible.
“God, the lot of you areallrude, aren’t you?” she asked, exasperated. I only arched my brows at her. She rolled her pretty eyes at me. “I’m organizing a charity fundraiser to raise money for the holidays for kids in need. There will be a small parade, and I’d like you all to ride in it?—”
I grunted and shook my head, already reaching for my key to turn my bike back on. “Not happening, lady. We don’t do charity shit, and we certainly don’t ride in parades.” And it wasn’t because we were heartless assholes. We had too much going on right then, and I wouldn’t put it past the Lockheart MC to come after us while innocent bystanders were around.
Only family got dragged into this shit. No one else andcertainlynot innocent civilians.
“You—” The rest of whatever she was going to say was cut off as I revved my engine and headed through the gate Carver had just opened. He quickly slid it back shut, officially putting a divider between me and the pretty brunette standing outside the gates. When I turned to look at her, I couldn’t help smirking.
Because she was fuming, and there was no mistaking her lips when she said, “You’re all a bunch of spineless fucking assholes,” before storming to the driver’s side door of her car. She slung gravel behind her as she peeled onto the road.
“The fuck was that about?” Carver asked as I parked my bike and turned it off.
“I’ll let everyone know in the chapel when Carter gets back,” I told him. I slid off my bike and unstrapped my helmet. “I’m going to get a shower. Carter should be back by then.”
With that, I headed inside, not that Carver would have expected any less from me. I was tired and didn’t want to deal with any of this shit, but I knew Blink would want to know she’d had the audacity to ride up to the clubhouse, and to prevent having to repeat myself three fucking times, I’d just do it all at once,theneat and crash.
Hopefully.
2
Grit
Iwas just a man, screw me. And I wasn’t even that good of a man, to be honest. I liked pussy just as much as the next straight man, and I appreciated a good-looking woman just as much. And a woman like the one who’d been at the gate, waiting for one of us to ride in or out so she could ambush one of us?Fuuuck, I couldn’t get her out of my head. Her standing there waiting had been a ballsy move.
Even now, as I shuttled my fist over my cock, my balls already drawing up tight, I was picturing her in my head. Imagining what she looked like beneath all those clothes. I could just picture her on her knees for me, those dark curls fisted in my hand as I drove my cock down her pretty throat. She’d gag and choke but egg me on because she loved me fucking her face so much.
