Black Dogs Motorcycle Club: Full Series Box Set (33 page)

Jase shook his head and
stared down into what was left of his beer. “Dude, I can’t even imagine the
pain you’re feeling about what happened. I get that. But how is this the MC’s
fault? You got your retribution—”

“Did I?” said Will,
startled by the loudness of his own voice. “You know what real retribution
would be? Taking down every single one of the fuckers who had anything to do
with that fire, and then severing ties forever with that piece of shit cartel.
Instead, Henry asks me to smile and shake their hands as they drive through my
fucking town every day.”

“Will…”

“No, shut the fuck up,
Jase,” said Will. “You wanted to know what my problem was, so now you’re going
to hear it.”

Surprisingly, Jase
remained silent, but his expression darkened.

Will leaned down close to
Jase’s face. “You didn’t feel the heat of that fire on my skin as it burned
everything I’ve ever loved down,” Will whispered bitterly. “You didn’t feel the
emptiness that was supposed to be relief when I blew away the men who set that
fire. And you didn’t feel the betrayal when the other family in my life asked
me to put down my sword and swallow my pain.”

Will thought he saw Jase’s
eyes growing wet, but the look on his face was pure anger. Somehow, though, it
wasn’t at Will.

“I’ve given the club
everything I had, and in the end it meant nothing.” Will could barely believe
the venom in his own voice. He turned away from Jase and stared at the bottles
lining the bar wall, trying to quiet the adrenaline rushing through his veins.

“It didn’t mean nothing,”
said Jase. “And it’s shitty of you to blame all of this on Henry. We all tried
to do what we thought was best for everyone—for the town.”

“We were all fucking
wrong.”

“You voted for diplomacy
too, Will, plenty of times,” said Jase. “You backed Henry’s decision every step
of the way, or do you not remember that?”

Will felt a new darkness
erupt from his gut. He turned to Jase with fire in his eyes. “Are you about to
deliver the most ill-advised
I told you so
in history?”

“What am I, a fucking
fortune-teller? I don’t know what would have worked. I’m only saying it’s
bullshit for you to play this solo martyr act when the club followed the plan
you yourself propped up all along. Blame the club, fine—but you were a part of
it too, Will. You can’t just make us villains in your personal story.”

“Oh, don’t you fucking
worry, Jase, I have plenty of blame for the club and myself,” said Will. “We
can all burn together.”

Jase stood up from his
stool in an angry huff. “You know what? Fuck this. I’m so goddamn tired of
trying to pull you up out of the gutter and getting stabbed for my effort.” He
pulled a handful of crimped dollar bills from his pocket and threw them
carelessly on the bar. “You are on thin ice with Henry. You need to figure out
what the fuck you want to do—man up and do something useful with your pain, or
sit here and drink yourself to death on top of your grandmother’s funeral pyre.
It’s your call.”

“Get the fuck out of
here,” Will growled.

Jase didn’t say another
word to him, only grumbled underneath his breath and pulled his sunglasses from
his cut. He stalked out of the bar, and Will heard the reckless revving of
Jase’s bike as he pulled onto the highway.

Will stared down at his
bruised and cut hands sitting on the bar, surprised to see them trembling with
adrenaline. He thought he felt a panic rising in his throat.

Taking a long and
steadying breath, he looked up to see Eva, standing and staring at him,
half-out from behind the back room wall. The look on her face told him that his
conversation with Jase wasn’t quite as private as he would have preferred. But
exactly how much did she overhear?

~ TEN ~

Eva sighed heavily and tossed onto her back on the
lumpy mattress. White lace curtains drifted in the cool night breeze, dancing
in the dark.

I don’t even know why I
came to bed
, she thought to herself as she stared at the ceiling.
I’m not even
tired.
The last couple days had been nothing but an adrenaline rush,
something Eva had very little experience with. She also felt a lustful stirring
that was unlike anything she had ever experienced, either. Together, the two
sensations did an outstanding job of keeping her tossing and turning until she
finally gave up and threw her feet over the side of the bed.

After that tall,
dark-haired man in the biker vest had left the bar earlier in the day, Will had
become very distant. She knew he sent her to the back room to keep her from
hearing too much, but Eva couldn’t help herself and tried to listen anyway. She
told herself it was practical—after all, Will clearly had secrets he wasn’t
telling her. They didn’t know him at all, despite his offer to help them in a dangerous
situation, an act which was suspicious itself. She still felt guilty, though.
Especially when she saw the look on his face at spotting her.

He avoided her the entire
rest of the afternoon.

Eva could barely keep her
thoughts away from him: his gorgeous face, his lean and taut body. He was
unlike any man she had ever met. Even though she knew deep down he was
dangerous, more dangerous even than Rick had been, she also felt a strange
intuition that the sharpened teeth Will bared were not truly his own. The
softness in his eyes when he looked at her betrayed as much, and she felt drawn
to it. And she couldn’t stop thinking about the way he had touched her in the
kitchen.

Eva stood up and stretched
her back as she looked out the bedroom window and into the meadow. Trees
rustled lightly in the night air. Across the way, she could see a faint yellow
light glowing in the blocky shadows of the bar. Will offered to take the night
shift at the bar—to “keep watch,” he’d said. She thought about him in there,
probably drinking by himself and staring at the wall, and her heart ached.

Eva grabbed her short
bathrobe from the back of the bedroom door and threw it over her silk nightie
before stepping into her slippers and creeping her way through the dark house.
Charlie was snoring away in the smaller bedroom, but she had no wish to wake
him and face his questions.

Outside, the night brushed
the skin on her legs and face with dewy kisses. The smell on the air was divine
and alive with singing crickets and the faraway rumble of bullfrogs near the
river in the deep forest.

She picked her way slowly
through the forest meadow path, her arms wrapped around her waist.

What are you doing, girly?
You’re going to check on this man your nightie? You skank.
The voice in her head
sounded very much like Laura.

“Hush,” she muttered to
herself as she approached the back door of the bar. Will had propped it open
with a heavy round rock, so she moved soundlessly through the doorway. From the
barroom she could hear the aching, lo-fi voice of Muddy Waters playing on the
jukebox. A hazy veil of cigarette smoke floated softly through the air, parting
around her as she passed.

Eva came slowly around the
back room wall. Will sat at the bar, a bottle of whiskey near his right hand,
and a cigarette burning over an ashtray in his left. His head was bent, hanging
over one of her books that he had spread on the counter in front of him.

She watched him silently
for a few minutes. There wasn’t a shred of hardness to him in that moment; just
a painfully handsome man, enjoying a book and a drink like he didn’t have a
care in the world. He seemed lost in it, the way he didn’t even hear her
approach. She understood that feeling well.

Will jolted when he
realized she was there, his eyes widening, but his smooth face barely
registered the surprise. “I...” His words got caught in his mouth as he ran his
gaze up and down her body, lingering at the bare skin on her thighs exposed by
the short robe. Eva flushed. “It’s a good book,” he said instead, his voice
cracking just a bit. He closed the hard cover as if he was self-conscious and
took a drink of whiskey.

“I can leave you alone, if
you’d prefer to read,” she said, thumbing toward the back door.

Will shook his head
immediately and took a drag from his smoke. Eva could see his gaze devouring
her body, like he couldn’t help himself. She felt warmth and wetness building
between her legs, wondering what he was thinking about.

“It’s your place,” he
said.

Eva nodded and walked
behind the bar. She grabbed a glass and poured herself a double-shot of
whiskey. Will watched her drink it down, interested. “Can’t sleep?”

“Happens sometimes,” she
said. “Especially considering the situation.”

Will took the bottle and
poured her another drink. “It will pass, once this is over.”

Eva drank the second pour
a little slower. Sitting at the bar reminded her of the bits of conversation
she’d heard earlier, when Will was speaking to his friend. She wanted to broach
the topic with him, try and dig at him a little bit. She wanted to understand
her attraction to him. Eva wasn’t typically interested in men who seemed so
violent, who acted so gruff. Especially after Rick. But she couldn’t stop
herself from being drawn to Will. Why? It was driving her crazy.

She thought about playing
nice, but just decided to come right out with it. “You wanna tell me what that
was, earlier?”

“What?” asked Will, his
voice low, half somewhere else.

“That ugly conversation
you got into with your friend,” she said.

Will didn’t answer. He
took a long drag of his cigarette and blew out the smoke. “That was private.”

“You almost had your hands
on my ass this morning,” she shot back. Eva felt surprised by herself.

Will looked up with a
glint in his eye and a smile on his full, soft lips. “Touché.”

A bit of pride radiated
out into her blood. She shrugged. “So, talk,” she said.

“My friend and I are in a
bit of a… rough patch,” he said carefully, pouring himself another whiskey. “He
was coming here to give me a hard time.”

“Sounded like he was
worried about you,” she said.

Will drank the whiskey
down in one gulp without wincing like Eva did when she drank it. “He can worry
all he wants, so long as he does it somewhere far away from me.”

Eva paused a beat, took a
sip of her own whiskey, then said, “What did he mean when he mentioned the pain
you’d been through?”

Will seemed to hold his
breath after she asked the question. When he didn’t respond, she continued.
“Earlier, when we were talking about
Coriolanus
, you said your grandpa
read to you while your grandma baked.” She licked her lips. “My uncle told me
the place that used to be here before was a bakery. It was completely torn down
two years ago. He got the land at a steal.”

With every word she said,
she watched Will’s face get tighter, harder to read. The cigarette burned
forgotten in the ash tray.

“Do you know anything
about that?” she asked.

He seemed like he was
wrestling with his own thoughts for a moment before he responded. His voice was
almost too quiet to hear. “It was her bakery. There was a fire… she died in
it.”

Eva felt her heart break.
She had had her suspicions, but to hear them confirmed was both a
disappointment and a relief. “Christ, Will… I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “It
was years ago.” He picked up the cigarette, took a final drag, then tamped it
out in the ash tray.

There was silence as the
jukebox switched between songs in the Muddy Waters catalogue. Eva got the
sensation she had prodded at him more than enough for the moment, so she
changed the subject. “Did you pick this?”

“Either that, or you have
some blues-loving ghosts around here.”

“Always loved this music,”
she said with a dreamy smile. “Something about it always makes me feel safe.”

Will laughed, but it was
more from amusement than anything mean. “You’re an interesting woman, Eva.”

She shrugged, blushing.
“Thanks, I guess.”

“You got to ask me a
question. Is it my turn now?” Will straightened in his stool, fire sparking in
his eyes. Eva’s breathing came in tighter bursts.

“Sure.” She shrugged again
and laughed to hide her nervousness. “Actually, I’m not sure at all, but… I
need to be more adventurous.”

Will quirked an eyebrow at
her as he slipped off his stool. “Oh?”

Eva nodded, surprised at
her own admission. Something about Will made her want to spill all her secrets
to him. She poured herself another whiskey, drinking it down in one quick
swallow this time and immediately regretting it as the burn traveled down her
throat. She
was
starting to feel a little fuzzy and warm on the edges,
though. “Yes. I’ve been a little too… vanilla… lately.”

Will slowly moved around
the end of the bar, coming toward her. His gaze ran up and down her body with
abandon. He wasn’t even trying to hide it as he licked his lips, drinking her
in. Her knees felt suddenly weaker than they should.
Must be the whiskey,
she reasoned, but it wasn’t even a believable lie in her half-drunk state.

“And you want to be a
little wild, is that it?” said Will in a gruff half-whisper, his voice thick
with desire. He stepped toward her until he hovered in front of her face, the
warmth of his body nearly pressed against hers.

Eva took a deep breath,
staring into his eyes. “Maybe.”

“I’ll ask you my question,
then, and we’ll see,” said Will. He moved down until his lips were inches from
hers. “Deal?”

“Deal,” she whispered.

Will wrapped one strong
arm around her waist and pulled her hips into his. The other came around her
shoulders. His lips brushed against her gently as they formed the words: “Do
you taste as good as you look?”

Eva let out a breathless
gasp against his lips that then melted and reformed into a passionate kiss as
she hungrily connected with them. Will answered by crushing her body with his,
and she could feel the hardness of his erect cock pressing through the denim of
his pants. Their kiss deepened, a moan escaping her mouth into his.

Strong, manly hands roamed
up and down her body for the first time in what felt like ages and she didn’t
shy away from them, even as he ripped open her terrycloth bathrobe and shoved
it roughly from her shoulders. As soon as it hit the floor, Will’s pulled away
and leaned back to devour the sight of her tiny silk nighty. The soft fabric
was her favorite shade of tiffany blue, and barely covered the length of her
ass.

Holding her head steady,
he kissed her again, this time only starting at her lips. The next one hit her
chin before forging a hot trail down her neck and chest. Each pause against her
heated skin was followed by a suck, lick, or gentle bite. Before Eva knew it,
Will was on his knees in front of her and, hands on her ass, pulling her body
against his face. His rust-colored scruff scratched against the silk before he
nuzzled his way underneath the hem, landing right above her panty covered
pussy.

Eva gasped and grabbed Will’s
hair in surprise, but he swung her around in response, maneuvering her until
she was leaning back against the bar. He held her body close to his face,
rubbing his scruff against her panties right before ducking down between her
legs to run his tongue along the outside of the silk. Already she was wet
enough to have soaked through them, and the feel of his tongue even against the
fabric on her pussy lips made her moan. Her fingers grasped and clutched at the
long curls on his head.