He walks over and leans against my bike, close enough that I can smell leather and that cologne he’s worn since I was fifteen and stupid enough to develop a crush on my brother’s best friend. Him and his two closest MC brothers—Ghost and Titan. Three men I had no business thinking about the way I did, but teenage hormones don’t give a shit about logic.
“Your dad’s making a mistake,” Ash says quietly.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“So why aren’t you fighting it?”
“Fighting it won’t change anything.” I finally look at him. “The club’s bleeding money and members. Dad’s desperate. And I’m the only card he has left to play.”
“There’s always another way.”
“Not one that keeps everyone alive.”
“Come on,” he says, straightening up. “You look like you need a drink.”
“I need about ten drinks.”
“That can be arranged.” He walks back to his bike, throws one leg over. “Let’s head to Rusty’s. Ghost and Titan are probably already there getting into trouble.”
The mention of them sends an unwelcome flutter through my chest. Stupid crush that never went away, just got buried under layers of reality and responsibility. Ghost with his quiet intensity and those hands that can kill or heal depending on what’s needed. Titan, who’s built like a mountain and fights like he’s got nothing to lose.
Three men I’ve wanted since I was old enough to understand what wanting men meant.
Three men who’ve never looked at me as anything more than Jackal’s little sister.
2
BONNIE
Gravel crunches under our tires as we pull into Rusty’s parking lot. Two dozen motorcycles are already lined up outside, chrome catching the last of the daylight. This is where everyone comes when they need to forget something.
Ash holds the door open, and I walk past him into the dim interior, eyes adjusting to the low light. Neon signs advertise brands of whiskey, casting blue and red shadows across scarred wooden tables and a floor that’s probably sticky with decades of spilled alcohol.
It’s early enough that the place is mostly empty. A few regulars hunched over the bar nursing drinks, some college kids playing pool in the back corner, and—there. Two familiar figures occupy a booth near the far wall.
Ghost and Titan. Of course they’re already here.
Jacob “Ghost” Miller sits with his back to the wall, scanning the room in that way he never quite turned off after leaving the military. He’s been with the club for five years now, joined right after his discharge when the VA couldn’t do shit for his PTSD and he needed a brotherhood that understood what it meant to kill for your family.
He taught me the move where you hit fast and end it before they know what’s happening. But I’ve touched myself more times than I can count while thinking about those hands doing entirely different things to me.
Titan’s harder to miss. Nate Brooks, all six-foot-six of him, crammed into a booth meant for normal-sized humans. Sergeant at arms, the club’s main enforcer, the guy who sheds blood so the rest of us don’t have to.
I’ve known him since I was twelve, back when he first patched in and started treating me like an annoying little sister he couldn’t shake.
I’ve also spent countless nights wondering if he’s as rough in bed as he is in a fight, imagining what it would feel like to have all that power focused on making me scream his name.
They’re Jackal’s closest friends, which makes them the most forbidden men I could possibly want. But I do want them—these three men who’ve starred in every dirty fantasy I’ve ever had.
Ghost sees us first. His head turns slightly, dark eyes tracking our movement across the room. He doesn’t wave or smile, just watches with that unnerving stillness that earned him his nickname.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Titan calls out as we approach, that trademark grin spreading across his face, a beer in one hand and his phone in the other. “Didn’t expect to see you here, princess.”
I slide into the booth across from them, Ash settling in beside me. “Don’t call me that.”
“Touchy tonight.” Titan sets his phone down, studying my face with more attention than he usually bothers with. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
