Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (8 page)

Oh. My. God.

Back with my two feet on the ground, I somehow managed to shake my head.

“No? Too bad. Maybe another time, then.” She raised her shoulder in a casual shrug. Then still naked and still on the bed, Cherry went back to checking the messages on her cell.

This was just so many shades of wrong.

And the wrong was mostly directed at me. Because who was I kidding? I was no better than she was.

I wasn’t.

Had I lost my mind?

How had I gotten so caught up at seeing Reno again that I had let myself go wildly orgasmic, not fifteen feet away from her? Not fifteen lousy feet away from the woman who Reno surely would have been nine inches deep in had I not come stumbling into the room.

And even though we had been in the shadows, and I knew that Reno had been careful to shield my body from view with his own, the fact remained that we were all in that same room. No getting around that. And even if she couldn’t quite see, she sure as hell could hear.

Yep, while I was getting off with Reno’s hand down my pants, Cherry was on his bed watching.

The whole time.

That reality hit me like a bucket of cold, dirty wash water.

Slut,
I hissed to myself.

Reno watched me carefully, and when I put my hands against his chest to push him from me, he was ready.

He countered with a push of his own, trapping me back in again.

His face moved to the side of mine. “It’s just me and you, Babe,” he said into my hair. “I want you. You want me. I think we just proved that. You know it, I know it. No more waiting, no more doubts. We are in this. But this time, you’re going to stay, Claire. If I have to handcuff, blindfold, and tie you to my bed, baby, this time you’re going to stay.”

Wow.

Despite the way I had just beaten myself up about being weak when it came to this man, I flushed again with a deep yearning. My insides were still dewy and pulsing from his touch. I had missed him so very much. Being handcuffed, blindfolded, and tied to Reno’s bed wasn’t the worst thing I could think of.

Oh, boy.

Slut
, I hissed again to myself. But this time with a little less conviction.

Just then Cherry’s phone began to vibrate, and as she moved to get it her perfect breasts swayed provocatively against the rumpled sheets. She caught my eye and winked.

And that did it.

Reno followed my gaze and then he looked back at me. Waiting.

I stared into his eyes, fighting my way back from the haze of love that, maybe, was blinding me.

Reno saw that shift. Reno recognized that shift. And because sooner or later we always seemed to find ourselves at this messed-up familiar place, Reno shifted right along with it.

Then he said this. And he shouldn’t have.

Because despite it all, despite everything we had been through together, there was still a part of me that remained optimistic. I had somehow managed to maintain this ridiculous, tiny shred of hope that Reno and I might still have a fighting chance at something good. Maybe it was insane, but there it was.

What Reno said next ruined everything.

“Or, you can take Cherry here up on her offer. She’s right. Her and me, we’ve taken a ride on the three-way freeway before. And it’s always a good time. Yeah, baby, Cherry and I can sure as shit show you a real good time.”

I felt Reno’s whole body tense. He leaned in, his eyes glittered, and his mouth was drawn into a hard line.

“Then when you’ve had enough play, Claire, you can do what you always do. You can run away and hide. You can leave
again
. Sneak out in the middle of the night
again
. No worries. She’ll keep your place warm for you. Cherry and me, we’ll just wait, keeping each other occupied and ready until the next time you feel the need to play your own little fucked-up version of Now You See Me, Now You Don’t.” He roared that last part.

I felt the blood drain from my face and my legs give way under me.

Months.

I had waited for Reno to come back for months.

Between the nightmares and the fear, I had cried in my pillow missing him.

I had spent countless days imagining him roaring up the hill to the lake house on that damn bike of his. I had spent countless nights sitting out on the dock, looking up at the stars and wondering if he would ever come home or if he ever thought of me. I dreamed about what I would say to him, how he would look, what it would feel like to be in his arms again. I had spent months anticipating a reunion with Reno McCabe.

I had dreamed of it.

But in my dreams it was never like this.

My wildest imaginings didn’t even come close to include being propositioned by a naked stripper in his bed. Nor did they include
me clawing my way to a wild orgasm within easy earshot of that same stripper.

But maybe they should have.

How could something that had felt so right go so wrong? And so fast? Months of agony had turned into minutes of pleasure then back to agony again.

I was tired of dreaming and hoping that Reno and I would find our way.

Screw the wishbone.

“I think I’ll pass on the threesome, Reno. But you go right ahead. I am sure you will find a ton of willing women just waiting for the chance. Have. At. It,” I said, punctuating every word. “And if not, I’m guessing Miss Two Shows a Night is probably up to giving you a good enough time all on her own.”

I crossed my arms and glared.

So we’re back there again, Claire?
Reno’s amber eyes glittered angrily.

Apparently so, Reno.
My eyes narrowed back at him.

For a moment, I saw something that might have been frustration and disappointment cross his face, but it was gone just as quickly, and then it was replaced with something primal and undefined.

He took one longer, sweeping look at me. Then he took up the challenge.

Game on then, Claire
.

Reno glanced over his shoulder.

“You a stripper, darling?” he called to the mostly naked woman texting from his bed.

“Exotic dancer.” She looked up with a proud smile.

“See?” Reno leaned in again and smirked at me. “Not a stripper.”

Asshole.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize there was a difference.” I glared at him. Then I turned to go. “I’ll leave you to it, Reno. Knock yourself out.”

But he was not done.

“Not so fast, baby. You’re the one came bursting in on a closed door.” Reno hooked his finger under the band of the jeans that sat low on my hips and pulled me toward him. “Whose ink you sporting, Claire?”

CHAPTER 15

W
hat?” I asked him, looking down at the fingers that he had trapped in my jeans.

“The ink, Claire. Whose mark were you so hot to have on your belly that you got it like a minute after I left?”

“What?” My dazed mind could not focus on what he was saying.

“
The ink,
” he pulled away from me and roared.

Evidently, he couldn’t see well enough to answer his own stupid question, because Reno moved me away from the darkness of the alcove and into the light of the hallway. Then, to further illustrate his very messed up point, he tugged my pants downward almost to the tops of my thighs.

So now, courtesy of Reno, I was pinned under a light in the clubhouse hallway, while he raved on and on and pointed to the tattoo that peeked out from the top of my very small panties.

Yep. Right there in the public passageway of the Hells Saints MC clubhouse.

Me and my pubic bone.

Really?
Really?

“Damn it, Reno.” I pushed at his thickly muscled shoulders with my palms.

Jules appeared from out of nowhere.

“Brother, you are solidly going to regret this in the morning.” Jules leaned in and around him. He grabbed me by the arm, and
led me away from Reno and that bright light. I hitched up my pants and shot a look of thanks at Jules. Then I glared at his brother.

Reno’s bloodshot eyes met mine. He stood a little straighter and blocked our way.

“Stay out of this, Jules.” Reno turned and growled at him. “I got a right to know.”

“Yeah, Brother? And what exactly is it that you think you got a right to know? What the hell is wrong with you, man? You don’t push Prosper’s own out here in the hallway, giving every degenerate in this clubhouse a free pass to eye-fuck her. I thought she was yours? And even if she ain’t that anymore, you have got to respect that shit for what it was,” Jules growled right back at him.

Reno moved in on him, and tried to reach around to grab back at me. Jules placed himself solidly in front of me.

“Reno, you stupid sonofabitch. Take a minute before this takes you somewhere you sure as shit do not want to go. Last time, I am telling you. Right now it’s between you and her. One more minute of this bullshit, and it’s going to be between you and me. Let it fucking go. Conversation for another time, Brother.”

Reno faced off with Jules, but he didn’t move toward me again.

“Fuck you,
Brother
. You’d do the same thing. Bitch spent her whole life ink-free. I come back to my brothers, to my club, and find my girl is bearing someone else’s mark? You tellin’ me that if the situation was reversed and it was Glory sporting that ink that you’d be down with that? Bullshit you would. Conversation is gonna happen right fucking now if I have to go through you to have it. And that’s the last fucking time I am telling
you
.”

Did he just call me a bitch? His girl? Someone else’s mark? Just another prime example of why my relationship with Reno was so confusing, infuriating and . . . basically messed up.

The last thing I wanted, the very last thing I needed, was these two apes fighting over this. Over me. A short time ago I was having
one of the nicest, most uncomplicated and peaceful nights that I had had in a very long time and now this. How did this happen? Typical. So typical.

I had started this and I had to end it.

“It’s no one’s mark, Reno. Stop this. No one has marked me.” I put my hand on the arm that was barring my way out. His bicep knotted and tensed.

Reno didn’t move. Not one bit.

Jules sighed deeply and ran his hand through his hair.

“It’s a tree, man,” he surprised me by answering. “Her sister’s got one too.”

“What kind of a fucking tree?” Reno eyed him with suspicion.

A movement caught my eye through the doorway to Reno’s room. Apparently Cherry was done with her text messages and had gotten tired of the wait. When I glanced her way, she had already gotten halfway across the room. She was naked except for a candy-apple-red thong, two nipple rings shaped like fire, and a pair of six-inch ruby-sequined stilettos.

I had no intention of sticking around for a closer look.

“Willow.” I turned my attention back to him and answered quickly.

“What are you talking about, Claire?” Reno’s eyes moved up from the intricately inked tattoo on my stomach.

“It’s a willow tree,” I said. “In honor of the baby. Tree of life. Baby Willow . . . get it? Willow. Tree.”

My heart clattered against my rib cage, and blood pounded in my ears. I felt dizzy and light-headed. I needed to get out of there.

Enough.

As he stood in front of me, looking big and bad and barring me from the only way out, I could see it. I watched Reno’s face as he fought through the haze of the booze and the reefer and the anger to make sense out of what I was telling him.

Having no other choice, I crossed my arms, willed my heart to stop racing, and waited for the light of understanding to dawn behind his bloodshot eyes.

One . . . two . . . three . . . and there it was.

“Shit.” Reno looked at me.

Humph.

“Claire, baby, I’m . . .” He frowned.

Reno lifted his hand to touch my face, but I pulled away so fast my head slammed against the wall.

I felt so dirty and crazy and unsteady.

The lights were suddenly too bright, the riot of color they cast against the wall was making me sick.

I needed out.

Now.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Jules grab the quickly approaching Cherry, throw something over her naked shoulders, and drag her off.

It was too late to matter.

“Get out of my way, Reno.” I fought to stay on my feet.

“No.”

“No? Jesus. Just let me go.” I needed to leave, like right now.

“No. Babe, you’re not going anywhere,” he said with solemnness. The look on my face had sobered him up fast.

“Not a request, Reno. Get out of my way. I’m going home.”

“Not when you look like that, baby.” His eyes skimmed me.

I looked down to see the remnants of small shards of glass and big wet spots of red wine soaked through my pants like spiderwebs of glittering blood. Funny, I didn’t feel a thing.

Reno followed my gaze.

“I don’t mean your clothes, Claire. I mean the look on your face. I know that look. You always look like that just before you do something extreme.”

Something extreme? Was he kidding? My whole life had been an experiment in the extreme.

I was so very, very tired. Bone tired. I felt like I had never been so tired in my whole life. But I had been, I had been this kind of tired lots and lots of times before. And every time I felt myself reaching this
extreme
level, it took a little more from me. The only place,
the only place
I wanted to be was someplace that was not here.

Having years of experience with this particular kind of weariness, I waited for that familiar surge of contradictory power to course through my veins: fight or flight, the sympathetic nervous system’s inherent response to danger. My body released adrenaline in such large quantities I could probably bottle it and sell it.

Escape when threatened.

Fight when cornered.

Really, it would be better for everyone if Reno just got the hell out of my way.

I tried one more time to move past him and when he stopped me, I let him have it.

“Extreme? Yeah. Well, that’s me, Reno. Miss Extreme. I
always
do something extreme. Jesus, from the time I was four years old I have found myself in situations where I have had to do something
extreme.
And you know what? I’ve survived those things. All of them. Every single last one of them. And you know what else I survived? I survived you walking out on me. Yeah, I said it.
You
walked out on
me,
Reno, and why? Because I needed a minute? If I hadn’t gone back to you that very same day and practically begged for you to understand, I wouldn’t blame you. But you took everything I said, everything I gave, and you left anyway. So get away from me, Reno. Just get away from me, I don’t need you anymore. I don’t want you anymore.”