I knew no other bikers, and as I sucked in a deep breath, the fire in my belly morphed to a different kind—the kind that soothed and settled me, flooding my veins with a calm I’d only found in recent years with him.
Closing my eyes, I accepted the call, and the rush of peace as the certainty that it was my biker friend settled in my black soul. “You took your time.”
A low laugh answered me, as deep and throaty as when the man had come so hard inside me. “All right, mate. Fancy a drink?”
4
Cam
Whitness, North Devon
I wasn’t really asking him for a drink, and we both knew it. He’d already told menobefore he’d passed me his digits, but I’d been a joker once upon a time, and I hadn’t got where I was in life without trying my luck.
My reward came in the form of the dry laugh that had been on my mind since I’d crawled from his bed this morning. It was close to midnight now, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he might’ve been sleeping. I got the sense that my dude was a night owl, just like me, if he slept at all. He didn’t seem like a man who needed much.
“No drink.” His lush voice broke into my thoughts. “I told you what you could call this number for. Do you have a financial problem?”
I had more than one, but I wasn’t about to admit that so early in our beautiful friendship. I leaned back in the crappy seat that had once belonged to my father and kicked my feet onto the ancient table. “If I did, would you be willing to help me?”
“I’d be willing to consider it. Would you care to elaborate?”
The smooth English accent he’d carried across the pub was firmly back in place, no hint of the Russian edge that had etched itself indelibly into my brain. “My books are a mess. The bloke who used to keep them died a few years ago. His old lady took over, but she was shit at it and I didn’t realise until recently.”
“It took you a few years to realise your company accounts were a mess? What kind of businessman are you?”
“A busy one. And too trusting, perhaps, but Magda is family, man. I didn’t check up on her as much as I should’ve.”
“That is sweet.”
“Is that your way of calling me stupid?”
“Perhaps. But what I think of you isn’t important. Tell me about your business.”
“It’s a builder’s yard—a merchant, a store, whatever you want to call it. We sell construction materials and tools. Hire out machinery. Fix and service equipment. That kind of thing.”
“What else?”
I sat up a little. “Um... clothes? Hard hats? That’s about it on top of what I’ve already said.”
The beat of silence that answered me was pregnant. Loaded. I closed my eyes and pictured Teddy on his pristine white bed, his pretty face twisted into a shrewd frown.He doesn’t believe me. And he was right not to in most circumstances, but as far as Kings Building Ltd went, I was telling the truth. It was a legitimate business. One that would sink if I didn’t get help fast.
Trouble was, my reputation preceded me round these parts. There weren’t many high street accountants who’d let me darken their doorstep. Legitimate or not, I needed help from someone who understood my world, or at least someone who didn’t give a fuck.
Instinct told me Teddy was the latter.Why would he help you, then? What’s in it for him?
I had no fucking clue, but at this point, I didn’t care. If he laughed and hung up, at least I’d got the chance to hear his voice again. If not for the ache in my muscles and the scratches on my skin, I’d have been half convinced I’d dreamt him. Real life sex was never that good.
Beyond good.
Beyondfuckingalmost. And hell, if I hadn’t needed that out-of-body experience.
“You intrigue me,” Teddy said eventually. “And I have some time this week. Text me an address and I will come and look at your books. Thursday. In the morning. Nine o’clock. Don’t be late.”
He hung up. It didn’t surprise me. I’d already figured out that communicating with this bloke was gonna be a fucking theme park. I lowered my phone from my ear, grinning like an idiot, just in time for the door to the chapel to bang open and my council to swagger in. Nash, Rubi, and Mateo. After them came old man Cracker John and Father Embry.
The last one made me laugh. The club’s chaplain—loose term: he wasn’t tied to religion any more than me—was twenty-five years old. He wore the same dark jeans, plain tee, and leather cut as the rest of us and had a face decades too young to be anyone’s parent, spiritual or otherwise.
He had the heart, though. Make no fucking mistake. Sometimes I wondered if I’d still be here without him, and I channelled that in the brief eye contact we shared as the boys took their seats at the table, thankful that he always knew how to divert my attention from the simmering presence who appeared like a ghost to my right.
