Breaking It All: A Hellfire Riders MC Romance (The Motorcycle Clubs) (10 page)

My elegant mother apparently intimidates the hell out of the big, tattooed biker.

“I see.” Done torturing the poor guy, she slips her fingers from mine. “Well, I’ll leave you young ones to discuss your types.”

A brief silence falls as she moves away. As soon as she’s out of earshot, Picasso declares, “A goddess type. Like this one woman we ran into a few months ago. Blonde, long legs, tits out to here.”

He cups his hands in front of his chest to illustrate. I look down at my chest, then over at Jenny, who has a little more than me but is definitely not in the range he’s suggesting. She catches my gaze.

“I think we’re lowly mortals,” she tells me.

Picasso shakes his head. “Everyone is lowly in comparison. This was one of those women who is everyone’s type. Am I right?” He looks to Spiral, who’s nodding, then to Gunner. “You remember. At the Pendleton rally. She came up to you first.”

Gunner narrows his eyes, as if thinking about that. Abruptly he nods. “I remember. And you’re right.”

So she was ridiculously gorgeous. Like he is.

But Gunner’s thinking of someone else. “She was like Zoomie,” he adds.

Our friend Lily Burns—the only female member of the Hellfire Riders. And, yeah. That makes sense. Lily is stunning. Like, crazily so. Not just because she’s tall and blonde with cheekbones that could cut glass and lips that could sell collagen injections by the thousands, but because she looks at the world like she’s going to own it. That attitude is sexy as hell.

Yet she’s not quite like the woman Picasso described.

“Lily doesn’t have tits out to here.” I hold my hands out in front of me like I’m carrying two giant watermelons, then give them a bounce for good measure.

Gunner’s grin sends my heart bouncing, too. Up, so far up.

But it’ll come down. It always does.

And shatters when it lands.

His smile fades as I drop my imaginary breasts and wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to hold in the ache. His pale gaze searches my face but I force myself to look away, to pay attention to Picasso.

“Not like Zoomie
physically
,” he’s saying. “She wasn’t quite that tall and probably couldn’t kick ass. By ‘everyone’s type,’ I mean she was the kind of woman who could tempt gay men for a night and make straight girls cross over.”

All at once, Jenny’s pale cheeks have a little pink in them. Probably because she
did
cross over with Lily. Kind of.

The rasp in Gunner’s voice is more pronounced when he adds quietly, “But the question with this woman was: Would two straight guys cross over for
her
?”

I blink, trying to work that one out. “What?”

Spiral’s laughing at Gunner. “So you do remember her.”

“I remember you telling me how it crashed and burned.”

“How?” Jenny asks.

Picasso’s wearing his cheesy grin, a lopsided smile that almost evens out his features. “She comes up to Spiral and then looks over at me when she asks him, ‘So are you together?’ And I’m thanking God, because even though Spiral’s prettier than me, my dick’s bigger than his so I’ll come out ahead—”

“What the— The hell it is!” Spiral sputters, trying to edge in, but Picasso’s still going.

“—so I tell her ‘Yes’ before he can get a word in. The she says to me, ‘I want to watch you guys go at it.’”

That wasn’t what I expected. On a startled laugh, I glance at Gunner. He’s smiling again, though it’s more subdued. Just a slight curve of his firm lips, and a brooding weight to his gaze as he watches me.

Picasso’s
still
going. “So I look to Spiral and I think, ‘If she stays around after, doing him might be worth it.’ Then I slam my beer down on the table and tell him, ‘C’mon, man. Let’s go for it! Right here!’”

Oh my god. My hand flies up to cover my mouth when my laugh shoots out. I have zero doubt he really did say that. Jenny’s giggling and wiping her eyes. Probably because she can imagine Picasso saying it, too.

Though he’s been shaking his head since the comment regarding his dick size, Spiral adds now, “So I tell him that I’d have to be a lot more drunk, or he’d have to be a lot prettier. Like SA here.” He gestures to Gunner.

“Prettier?” Picasso scoffs. “Let me point out—again—that if I’m drilling your ass, you don’t have to see my face. And thank fuck I wouldn’t have to see yours.”

“And I told you I’d be giving, not receiving, because I’m a generous man.” Spiral looks to Jenny again. “So that’s why the goddess moved on and he struck out. She left while we were arguing over who gets to be on top.”

I can’t even answer that because I’m imagining them wrestling for the top spot, then desperately trying not to imagine it, and giggling helplessly all the way through.

“Generous, my ass.” Picasso manages to sound both haughty and offended. “When I said you should always cover my back, I didn’t mean that.”

“If that’s what covering each other’s backs meant, we’d have an entirely different sort of club,” Gunner says.

“Or not so different. A lot of you guys already wear leather chaps,” I point out, and Jenny covers her face, her shoulders shaking. Gunner grins at me, sending my heart spinning dizzily upward again, but Spiral holds up his hands as if to stop us right there.

Smirk firmly in place, he looks to Gunner. “If you were in that club, it’d answer a hell of a lot of questions about
your
type.”

Gunner tilts his head as if considering that, then nods. “I guess it would.” He glances at me. “But it might raise new questions about Stone.”

I snicker and shake my head. No, there’s no question about my brother. Or Gunner, really. But it is funny watching these guys try to figure him out.

At least I’m not the only one trying to.

“Sheeeit, man,” Picasso drawls. “You ain’t fooling anyone. We know your type and she doesn’t have a dick. She’s brown haired, sassy, and can pour a dozen shots faster than—”

Abruptly Picasso goes quiet. My cheeks hot, I lock eyes with Jenny, who’s stopped laughing. She’s absolutely still now, watching my face, waiting for a cue from me—to shrug it off, to turn it into a joke, or to pretend we have no clue who he’s talking about. But I don’t know what cue to give. I hear this a lot—that Gunner’s hung up on me. Usually I let whoever says it continue thinking it because A) it’s not so terrible if people believe a big, sexy biker is crazy about me and B) what else am I supposed to do? Point out that I threw myself at him a couple of times and he turned me down? Not to mention, C) on the occasions when I
have
said that Gunner isn’t into me, they don’t believe it, anyway.

But they never say anything to me
in front
of him. This is the first time. And, Jesus. I have no idea what to do or say now.

I steal a glance at Gunner. He’s not looking at me. Eyes glacial, he’s staring Picasso down.

The other biker backs up a step. “Hold up, SA. You know I don’t—”

“So you’re spreading the old ladies’ gossip about your brothers instead of dealing in facts?” Gunner’s voice is soft. Dangerous. “Because I’ve never said a fucking word about being interested in anyone.”

Especially me.
That’s what I want to add, tossing the response out with a careless shrug and a flip of my hair, but a painful lump blocks my throat and I’m frozen in place.

“True. You never
said
a word,” Spiral says and the lift of his brows suggests that Gunner didn’t need to say a word because his actions have been talking for him.

If he’d seen Gunner shoot me down, he’d have seen words
and
actions.

Jaw clenched, Gunner turns that lethal gaze on Spiral. “You got something to say, brother?”

Spiral holds that gaze for a long second before flicking a glance at me. “I guess I don’t.”

“Good thing. Because I do and you’d best fucking listen. The next time it crosses your minds to shoot your mouths off, just consider who the fuck you’re talking about. Consider whose sister she is, and how you’re disrespecting her by talking about me climbing between her legs and by making bets about when I’m going to do it.” Each word snaps like ice, his face a rigid mask. “You hear that shit going around again, you better put a stop to it.”

“Will do,” Spiral promises and reaches out to bump Gunner’s fist. Picasso does the same. Just like that, buddy buddies again.

And me, I’m praying for a meteor to hit the house. Because, Jesus.
That shit going around
is Gunner being hung up on me. It’s him getting between my legs.
That shit
is what I wanted for years. That
shit
.

Shit
sums up how that feels.

I know Jenny’s looking at me in concern but I can’t crawl away now. I can’t hide. The only thing I can do is suck it up and keep my chin high when Gunner looks to me and says,

“Just don’t pay attention to these fuckers.”

Suck it up. Don’t show a goddamn thing.
“I won’t.”

Not glacial now but warm, his crystalline gaze searches my face. “You all right? You don’t let this shit get to you?”

This shit.
“Of course not. We both know it’s all nothing,” I say and add a shrug, as if it really doesn’t matter.

Gunner frowns at me, studying my expression for so long that I’m sure he realized how fake my shrug was. But if he was going to call me out on it, he loses his chance.

One of the Riders’ prospects comes up on his left—Bottlecap, who was assigned to help manage parking. With dark hair plastered to his skull and his black shirt soaked, he looks like a drowned puppy. A thin, lanky drowned puppy.

Only his kutte is dry, but I’m guessing he probably took care to wipe down the leather as soon as he came inside. Now he hesitates slightly, looking from me to Jenny. Not because he’s worried about talking club business in front of us, I realize—but because he’s torn between acknowledging the ladies first or greeting Gunner, a club officer. Politeness versus the risk of having his ass kicked.

He opts for politeness, and considering where we are—and Jenny’s relationship to the club’s president—that probably saved him an ass kicking from another direction.

“Miss Jenny,” he says, “I’m real sorry about Red. You know he brought me in”—he gestures to his kutte—“and gave me a chance. I’ll never forget that. Or let him down.”

At the mention of her dad, Jenny’s eyes dim a little but she still has a smile for him. “He thought you were worth that chance. And thank you.”

He nods, then glances to me. “Miss Anna.”

God, that ‘miss’ kills me. So respectful. So quaint. And such bullshit. Like many of the Riders, he’s gotten into the habit of calling the girls who hang around the patchholders ‘sweet butts’ and ‘club pussy’—it doesn’t matter if those girls are screwing the bikers or not. Jenny and I aren’t any different from those women. Bottlecap’s just afraid Saxon or Stone—or Gunner—will tear him a new one if he treats Jenny or me like he does the other women. He respects the men, not us.

But I just smile back, because after six years of working the bar at the Den, I’ve learned to accept respect by proxy. It beats the alternative. And honestly, Bottlecap isn’t so bad. He might say some stupid shit, but I’ve never heard of him being a dick to a woman.

I can’t say that about every Rider.

“Prospect, you had something else to tell us?” Gunner prods.

“Reverend Powers is getting ready to go, and your bikes are between the reverend’s Buick and the driveway,” Bottlecap says to Picasso and Spiral. “I didn’t want to move your rides without asking, so—“

“We’ll get them,” Picasso says, which isn’t a surprise, because he’d be more likely to let another man screw his girlfriend—if he had one—than push his motorcycle a few feet. He and Spiral start to head off, then he turns around, pointing at me. “About the ride home last night. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to say it again.”

“I was so damn drunk I couldn’t remember if I said it the first time.” He snaps his fingers before looking to Gunner. “And speaking of drunk—don’t forget the kegs.”

That’s like a magic word to Jenny, whose brewery is located in a renovated barn a few minutes’ drive from the house. As Spiral and Picasso take off, her gaze zeroes in on Gunner. “Kegs?”

He nods. “The brothers have food here, some booze, and no reason to go. So I figure it’ll be easier to round them up and get them out of your hair if we promise to have enough beer at the clubhouse to get them shitfaced by midnight.”

She frowns. “I don’t care if they stay here.”

“Maybe so, but it’s my responsibility to see they stay in line,” Gunner says evenly. “And I don’t want to explain to the prez why I let a brother get drunk enough to break a window or to piss in a houseplant, or let one start a fight that scares the shit out of the good civilians here. Because with the brothers’ emotions running high, you know it’ll happen.”

He’s right. Jenny glances at me, as if looking for someone to help her be sweet and generous enough to leave her house open to fifty bikers and their old ladies all night. My wide eyes and a shake of my head tell her I’m not that person.

She sighs and nods, then scans the crowd. “Have you seen Hashtag?”

Who has been working with her at the brewery. I scan, too. I don’t remember seeing the Riders’ newest member in the house, but I know he didn’t miss the funeral.

“Widowmaker sent him home sick.” Gunner solves that mystery. “The kid was supposed to take care of this for us, but he could barely stand through the service. Picked up some flu going around.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know if I can leave…” As Jenny glances around the crowded room again, uncertainty flickers over her face, followed by resolve. “It’s okay. I’ll head out to the barn and—”

I stop her. “I’ll do it.”

“But—”

“I know where all the stuff is.” I’ve helped her out in the brewery’s storefront plenty of times. But she’s already looking guilty, so I add, “I’d actually like to go, because a little fresh air sounds really good right now. I’ll take your truck, so I can load the kegs up in the back.”

My body stiffens when Gunner says, “I’ll go as muscle.”