“We couldn’t prove it,” Greeley reminded him gruffly.
But Uptown was glaring at Roscoe. “I never wanted to lie about what happened to Whale. I own that shit, one hundred percent. I’d put the same bullet through that asshole today with a song in my heart. But here it is months later, the club thinks he ran away, and that means I’m still a liar.”
Chaser watched the new additions to their little circle closely, but while Butler and Tick exchanged a look at what had to be news to them about Whale, they didn’t otherwise react. Proving, he thought, that they were good additions to this little revolution inside their club.
“Shit is different now,” Roscoe said, his voice clipped and hard. Different than it had been hours ago when Chaser had found him in the clubhouse. Different for good, he thought. Because everything was different after tonight. “Now we know.”
Chew had been a talker. Once he got going, it poured out of him. Digger and Fat Irish’s friendship, which went back at least the last few years and included access to all parts of the Devil’s Keepers business. Their runs. Their protection money. Their cartel contacts.
Everything. Just as they’d feared.
The way Chew told it, Digger was setting the DKMC up for a major takedown. Maybe even a hostile patch-over, which was wishful thinking on his part. Because Chaser would shoot himself in the face rather than disgrace himself and everything he believed by wearing a Black Dogs patch. He doubted very much that he was alone on that. Devil’s Keepers First, Devil’s Keepers Forever, just like it said on his cut.
Worse, these plans weren’t drunken blathering, they were real. They were in the works. Digger hadn’t been in the wind the last three months—he’d been in Little Rock with Fat Irish, putting everything in motion. The only thing Chew didn’t seem to know was when it was going down.
But Digger would be the cartel king over Chaser’s dead body. He knew that much. And he knew the men standing with him now agreed. Completely.
“It could happen anytime,” Butler pointed out, his hands in huge fists at his sides. “We have to be ready.”
“Believe me, we’ll be ready,” Roscoe grated out, sounding more Cajun than usual. Which normally spelled murder and mayhem.
“Nobody wants an all-out war,” Greeley said then, his voice cold. “But there’s no way out of this that doesn’t end in blood. Everyone needs to get their heads clear on that.”
They all took a minute to let the reality sink in, but Chaser knew they all already knew what this meant. Brother against brother. Death and destruction inside their own ranks. Some clubs never recovered from civil wars, and this was a lot more serious than a jostling over position and patches.
“Are you ready for what’s coming?” Chaser asked Roscoe. “I get that you haven’t wanted to make the wrong move here. But when Digger goes down, the brothers will be looking to you.”
Roscoe shoved his shaggy hair back from his face, his usually deceptively calm blue eyes dark and mean.
“The man helped raise me,” he said. “He’s our president. And my friend. There was no way I was stepping to him without proof. Not suspicions, not coincidences, not a dumbfuck like Whale shooting off his mouth one night. Real proof.”
“Now we have more proof than we need,” Greeley muttered.
Because Chew wasn’t just the hapless boyfriend of a junkie. He wasn’t even one of Destiny’s preferred party buddies. He’d been Whale’s contact in the Black Dogs, sent down to nose around and see if he could figure out where the hell Whale had gone these last few months. And if he could use Destiny to distract Chaser, one of the DKMC’s most feared enforcers? That was just a little bonus side project to amuse Chew and Fat Irish. Unless it messed with Chaser enough to interfere with his work, in which case they’d declare themselves geniuses.
Better than that, Chew had a laptop. And a trail that led straight back to Whale and Digger.
As proof went, it was about as ironclad as it got.
“We can’t just move against Digger tonight,” Roscoe said, a kind of ruthlessness making his voice sound like steel. Chaser eyed the man with a new respect, because it was happening. Roscoe was stepping up to the situation. He was claiming the club. “We have to do it smart. No taking him down and explaining it later, when everyone thinks it’s a power grab and aren’t likely to listen to reason. We need to turn the brothers against him first, one by one, so the takedown is a foregone conclusion.”
“And so we have more than just the six of us to handle the fallout,” Chaser added.
“No more dicking around,” Uptown said, no trace of his trademark smile on his face.
“We can’t afford any bullshit,” Tick agreed. “The motherfuckers could be coming for us tomorrow.”
“Let them come,” Roscoe said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter, igniting it with a flip of his thumb. Then he tossed the whole thing toward the gas-soaked trailer in a bright arc against the last of the night. There was a second, a pause, then the flames burst to life. “Let them all come.” The fire danced behind him, already reaching high against the walls of the trailer. “Digger wants the easy way out. He wants to weaken the club so he can hand it over to Fat Irish without a fight.”
“He thinks he’ll patch everyone over,” Greeley said in disgust. “He really thinks we’ll suck Black Dog dick.”
Chaser’s smile felt feral. “All hail the traitor king.”
They all registered their opinions of that insult. That bullshit. Tick even spit on the ground.
“Fuck the easy way,” Roscoe said, looking at each of them in turn. “Let’s give the man a war.”
—
It still wasn’t full light by the time Chaser made it home. He cut the bike’s engine beside his house and heard the wail of the fire trucks in the distance, headed out toward the trailer in the swamp.
He let himself into the house, surprised to find it quiet for a change. No blaring reality shows. No suspicious music to cover any shenanigans. That was either a good sign that he’d made an impression on his wayward family last night—or a reason for pure terror.
He glanced into the den as he moved through the living room, shaking his head when he found Liz passed out on the couch. She slept noisily, a shotgun within reach. He went over and eased it from her grip, then moved it across the room, so she wouldn’t take anyone’s head off before she was fully awake. Then he took the stairs two at a time, wanting nothing more than a long, hot shower to wash the brutal night off him.
When he got to the second floor landing and turned toward his bedroom, he heard a creak from behind him. A sound he knew well. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Kaylee standing in her doorway, looking uncertain and scared.
“Your mother is fine,” he told her, as matter-of-factly as he could. “Whatever the hell that means for a junkie. I told her she can call you. You don’t have to talk to her if you don’t want to, though. Let’s make sure that’s clear.”
Kaylee’s face fell, and Chaser thought she didn’t seem surprised by that news. He wasn’t sure how to interpret that.
“Dad,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
“You got nothing to apologize for,” he told her gruffly, and then she was diving at him, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest. He ruffled her hair and held her close, pressing his chin against the top of her head. “She’s your mother. And I made it impossible for you to tell me she was here and bothering you. That won’t happen again.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you,” she cried into his chest.
And it was so tempting to let the fury bite at him again. To let himself go down too many dark paths in his head. This was what Destiny wanted to take from him. Again. This little girl who was already too grown up, who was holding on to him the way she had when he’d rescued her from that hellhole in Kansas.
But Destiny and all her junkie lies couldn’t take anything from him if he didn’t give her an in.
“You won’t do
shit like that again,” he told Kaylee. “Neither will I. That’s what matters.”
And after a while she stopped crying and pulled away from him. He wiped her face with the edge of his T-shirt the way he had when she was small, until she was laughing in that sniffly way of hers that told him the crisis was over. He waited there in her doorway, watching while she climbed back into her bed.
“I love you, Dad,” Kaylee said, a little wide-eyed, as if she thought he doubted that. “I wanted to see what she was like, I never wanted…”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he told her. “You said you were sorry. That’s the end of the conversation around here. I should have known she’d turn up in your life again. But now I do. It won’t be like this the next time it happens.”
Kaylee pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. “I think I can wait awhile for the next time, actually.”
“You and me both,” he agreed. He tapped the doorjamb with his hand. “Sleep in, kid. It’s Sunday.”
Then he walked down the hall, stripping off his cut and T-shirt as he went. He pushed through his door and kicked it shut behind him—and then stopped dead.
Because Lara was in his bed.
She sat up as he stood there, his heart drumming at him and his cock taking notice, and she was still the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. She looked even littler in his big, wide bed, her blue eyes sleepy and a soft smile on her face. But more than that, she looked like she belonged right there. Chaser could imagine it all too easily. Coming home from work exactly like this, to find her curled up here, waiting for him.
He didn’t know which part of him ached more then, his chest or his cock.
“Oh, baby,” he said, low and dark and thick with all the things he wanted to do to that lithe little body of hers. “You are well and truly fucked now.”
He stalked toward her, not taking his eyes from hers as he hit the bed and started crawling up the length of it. Not even when he was pinning her beneath him, exactly the way he wanted her.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” she whispered.
“There’s no backing out now, Lara.” He had his mouth against her neck and his hands on her body, delighted to find she’d crawled into his bed naked. His cock was practically crawling its way out of his pants. And she tasted like sleep and vanilla and warm, hot woman. His. “You should have taken the white picket fence.”
“I like Harleys better.” She laughed, then turned it into a moan when he found one of her cute little tits with his mouth. He sucked deep and she made a small noise, then laughed again. “Didn’t you hear? I’m a biker bitch down deep where it counts. I have a tramp stamp and everything.”
He moved one hand over the jut of her hipbone, then smoothed his way to her cunt. She was already plump and wet, so ready for him that he had to get a taste of all that creamy sweetness. Now. He shifted her, reveling yet again in how tight and lush her small body was, and how easy she was to move around where he wanted her. Jesus Christ, she was the hottest thing he’d ever touched. She was burning him alive.
And he loved every minute of it.
Chaser settled himself between her legs, breathing her in deep as he spread her thighs wide.
“This is how it’s gonna go, Lara.” His voice was gravelly, and he played with her pussy as he talked, dragging his fingers through her folds and pinching her proud little clit. She jerked against him, then raised her hips toward him for more. Always more. “I told you to run, but you came back. So you’re mine. I feel sorry for you, I really do.”
But she only laughed. “I think I’ll muddle through. Somehow.”
He sucked on her clit for a minute until she was squirming all around him, her thighs trembling and her cunt getting wetter. Damn, she was perfect.
Chaser got back to business. “First I’m gonna eat you ’til you scream,” he told her. “Then I’m gonna fuck you until we’re both blind and happy. It might need a few rounds to take the edge off. Then later today, after I sleep awhile and fuck you some more, I’m gonna take you to my tattoo guy to talk about how we’re gonna handle that tattoo.”
“Let me guess,” she said, her voice husky with need. “Your name is going to figure prominently.”
“Something like that.” He couldn’t hold back then, and bent down to taste her, savoring the tang and cream that was all Lara. And all his. “Just so long as we’re clear that sooner or later, I want to take you from behind and come all over that tat. Then rub it into my name, my club. Not some douchebags out in California. My tramp, my stamp.”
“I can probably do that,” she said, laughter threaded through her voice. She stretched her arms up above her like a cat in a long, sweet stretch. And Chaser wondered how it was possible to want anything or anyone this much. How he’d survive it. Then she circled her hips, and he stopped caring. He’d figure it out. Because he’d tried to let her go and she’d come back. That meant he was keeping her. “I have to say, for a life I don’t deserve and that’s filled with doom and gloom, that sounds like a pretty great Sunday.”
He pinched her clit for that smart little remark, and liked it when she jolted. Then liked it even more when she got that much hotter, that much wetter, like her dirty little pussy was begging for his mouth.
“I’m just getting started.” He moved closer, hooking her knees over his shoulders so her legs hung down his back. “If I were you, baby, I’d hold on.”
Lara reached down and buried her hands in his hair, smiling at him down the length of her body. Lighting up the world. War, the club—what did any of that matter when he had this to come home to?
“That’s the plan,” she told him, forever shining bright in her sweet blue eyes, her pussy hot and open to him, and everything he’d ever wanted right here in this bed. And in his heart, too, that battered old thing. “I might never let go.”
“You better not,” he growled at her. “Ever.”
And then Chaser bent his head and got to work, writing her the love poetry she deserved the only way he knew how. Telling her how much he loved her and how much he needed her in the words he knew best.
One filthy lick after the next.
BY MEGAN CRANE
Make You Burn
Devil’s Honor
Devil’s Mark
Devil’s Own
PHOTO: COURTNEY LINDBERG PHOTOGRAPHY
USA Today bestselling, RITA-nominated, and critically acclaimed author MEGAN CRANE has written nearly seventy books. She’s won fans with her women’s fiction, chick lit, and work-for-hire young adult novels as well as with the Harlequin Presents she writes as Caitlin Crews. These days her focus is on contemporary romance from small-town heat to international glamour, cowboys to bikers, and beyond—including her take on futuristic Vikings. She sometimes teaches creative writing classes both online at Mediabistro and at UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, where she finally utilizes the MA and PhD in English Literature she received from the University of York in York, England. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with a husband who draws comics and animation storyboards, and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
megancrane.com
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Megan Crane, Devil's Own
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