Hostage (Predators MC #3) (8 page)

Hennessy dropped his hand from her arm. “Let’s go. I’ll take the lead. When she sees Striker, tap me on my back.”

“Will do.” Jackal pulled her closer to his side.

As they began skirting the outer edge of the bar, Penni inspected each face for the one she was looking for. They were all either young or old, and some were downright scary. Penni pushed closer to Jackal until she wound her arm through his.

“Scared?”

“What do you think? Some of these men would terrify their own mothers.” She shuddered when a biker with a Mohawk caught her eye. Not wanting him to think she was staring at him because he was ugly, Penni forced a trembling smile to her lips.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Uh … uh…” She didn’t know if she should answer, but politeness won out. “Penni.”

“Wanna dance?” The biker drew closer.

“Keep going,” Jackal cautioned her.

Penni swallowed hard as the friendly biker tried to keep up with their trek through the crowd.

“There isn’t any music.”

“I don’t need music to dance with you.”

This man might have been the first charming biker she had ever met.

“Quit talking to him.” Jackal used his shoulder to force the smooth-talking biker back.

“Cunt, you talking to me?”

Penni’s mouth dropped open when her charming biker became a raving maniac. The biker took the bottle he was holding and crashed it on top of Jackal’s skull.

She reacted without thinking, wanting Hennessy and his men to help Jackal, but they were so busy trying to find Striker that they hadn’t noticed the attack taking place on the side of the bar. Trying to find their attention, Penni reached out to tap Hennessy on his back.

Hennessy turned around. “Where is he…?”

Penni screamed as another biker who had been standing close when the lothario decided to butt in crashed a stool into Hennessy’s chest before he could finish turning around.

Penni began to fall back, pushed by the building momentum of the fighting between the Road Kingz, who were trying to protect their stunned president, and the other men in the bar.

Penni saw the floor rushing toward her, and then her vision unexpectedly cleared to see Ice’s cold face as he hauled her to her feet.

“You have her?” Jackal asked, hurrying to their side.

“I have her.”

Jackal’s forehead had blood running from his scalp. Penni reached out to wipe it away yet received a glare for her effort. After securing her to him again, she found herself pinned against a wall with Jackal blocking her from the massive fight that had spread from where they were to encompass the whole bar.

Jackal hit anyone who came near her. Hennessy was taking on two men who nearly equaled him in size. Penni saw Max tear one away, punching him in the nose. She felt bile rising in her throat as blood sprayed from those unfortunate enough to be fighting close to him.

Penni couldn’t help herself; she moved to help the man.

“Don’t you fucking move.”

She froze when Jackal spoke, not taking his eyes off the fight.

“Ice, the one on your left!” Jackal yelled out as a biker fighting Cruz began flashing a knife.

Ice moved in behind the man who was about to gut Cruz. As he held the man from behind, Ice snapped his hand down on the man’s wrist, breaking his hold on the knife.

“The bartender has a gun,” Ice grunted out as he kicked away the knife that had fallen to the floor.

Shots were fired toward the ceiling.

“Son of a bitch! He’ll cause a shootout!” Jackal reacted before the second shot hit the ceiling.

Penni found herself thrown over Jackal’s shoulder as he and the Road Kingz ran out a door with an exit sign. She pounded on his back as she tried to throw herself from his shoulder.

“Why are you running? The cops are here.” Penni saw her escape slipping away as they continued to run, not stopping until they barreled into their hotel room.

She sat up on the bed where Jackal had dumped her as the Predators and Road Kingz crowded into their room.

Jackal opened the connecting door, giving them breathing room. They needed it. Hennessy and Max were bent over, gasping for breath. Evidently, the two men’s exercising routine didn’t include running.

“What in the fuck happened?” Hennessy was finally able to gasp out.

Jackal frowned at Penni. She sensed his hesitation to admit her involvement.

“It was my fault,” she confessed. “A biker asked me to dance, but to be fair, it wasn’t all my fault.”

Jackal stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “Yes, it was. If you had just kept walking—”

“Was I just supposed to let him beat you up? If I hadn’t tapped on Hennessy’s back, he would have—” A startled scream escaped Penni as Hennessy lunged at her.

“So help me God, I’m going to strangle her with her own tongue.”

“Jackal, lock her in the bathroom until Hennessy and I talk. It’ll give him time to cool down.”

Before she could object, she found herself pushed into the bathroom. Penni considered banging on the door then changed her mind. She didn’t want to talk to them, either. The assholes were blaming her! They were the ones who had kidnaped her!

She slid down the closed door, sitting on the bathroom floor. Her hands mimicked a series of snapping motions that she had seen Jackal use on anyone who had come too close during the fight.

Bravely, she yelled out, “My brother would have whipped all their asses!”

A fist pounded on the door at her outburst.

Tilting her head to the side, she tried to listen to what was going on in the other room. The sound of shuffling had her rising to lock the door. Then Penni lifted her chin to rest on her bent knees.

“Big brother, where are you when I need you?”

J
ackal pushed his plate away
. “So now I’m getting the silent treatment?”

Hennessy had found a hole-in-the-wall café to feed them lunch.

Penni’s silence was unexpectedly pissing him off. Other than her lips tightening, she didn’t respond.

Hennessy mocked him from the next table, lifting his coffee cup to salute him.

He should fucking get on his bike and leave Ice to deal with the mess Penni had created. After all, Hennessy had boasted last night that he didn’t need his or the Predators’ help. So fuck it!

The waitress laid the check in front of him. Snatching it up, he was about to slide out of the booth when Penni looked up from her untouched plate.

“I’m sorry I screwed up.” Her subdued apology was a fireball to his nuts.

“It’s okay. We’ll find Striker.”

What the hell? What crap had just come out of his mouth? It would be a fucking miracle if Striker were still in town.

“I’ll do whatever you tell me to do from now on. No more screw-ups, I promise.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Even he had trouble swallowing that load of bullshit, but if it took that miserable expression off her face, then it would be worth the muted “pussy-whipped” that Hennessy mumbled as he stood.

“We’re going to walk around town. You’re going to keep your eyes open and your mouth closed. There’s going to be a poker run then a wet short contest. If that doesn’t make you horny, they’re having a tattoo contest. The groupies get to count them. They collected money from them to buy a limited edition Gold Desert Eagle. Any man who has a dick will be there tonight, and so will we.”

“Free pussy and guns. That’s asking for trouble.” Penni’s anxious features had the men coming to a stop outside the café.

“You worried we can’t protect you?”

Her expression cleared at Hennessy’s wounded pride. “No.”

“I didn’t doubt you could. You all proved that last night.”

Jackal smiled, taking the compliment the way it was intended. The massive fight in the bar hadn’t left him with a hair out of place. That was more than one of Hennessy’s men couldn’t say the same.

They walked back to the hotel to their bikes. Penni’s searching the crowd as they began walking down the street had Jackal thinking she was finally taking the predicament she was in seriously. She at last had realized that finding Striker was a matter of life and death.

Hennessy chose two men to ride on the poker run as they remained in the hotel parking lot. Jackal knew he was hoping they would hear of someone who had a large supply of coke for sale. It wasn’t likely they would catch a break, but the longer Striker held on to the cache of drugs, the greater his chances of having them stolen or a cheese sniffer ratting him out.

Jackal was proud of Penni for sitting on the seat of his bike as the men stood there, talking with other clubs staying in the hotel. He could see the influence he’d had on her when she didn’t interrupt the conversations, despite the crude language they were using as women began mingling with the bikers.

It wasn’t the first rally he had gone to. With as experienced as he was, he was able to recognize which women were there for a good time or to fish for a new back to hang on to. The bikers at this rally were mostly there for fun and games, but if trouble showed up, they were ready for that, too.

“She yours?” One biker talking to Cruz nodded to Penni sitting sedately behind him.

“Yeah,” Jackal answered, waiting for a smart-ass comment from Penni. He wanted to kiss her when she remained silent. He didn’t count the snort he heard at his back. No one but him heard it.

“Lucky man.”

“I tell her that all the time.” Jackal knew he was egging her on, but he couldn’t help himself. Part of Penni’s attraction to him was her unwillingness to take any shit from him, unlike the whores who were beginning to outnumber the bikers.

“I lost my woman on the way here. She wouldn’t stop whining about missing the kids, so I dropped her off at a truck stop.”

“Mine knows better.” Jackal turned to see her about to break her vow of behaving.

Taking her hand so she could stand, Jackal sat down on the motorcycle seat. Breaking the taboo in his own code, he sat her down in front of him, his arm snaking around her waist, flattening his palms across her tummy.

“A smart man would patch her.”

“Jackal likes to keep his options open.” Penni circled her hands around his wrists yet didn’t twist away from his touch.

“Options are good.” A woman wearing a dress that was meant to be a beach cover-up smiled at him seductively. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Jackal could easily see her breasts and the naked pussy that was within easy reach.

Jackal felt Penni tense, and he lowered his chin to her shoulder.

“A man doesn’t need options when he has Penni. She’s a handful.” He tightened his arms around her. “She doesn’t need a patch; Penni knows who she belongs to.”

“What about them?” The biker nodded to the large group of bikers gathered around the parking lot.

“I can protect what’s mine.” Jackal stared at the biker who was measuring him up before his greedy gaze traveled down Penni’s body to where Jackal’s hands possessively rested on her belly. “We gonna have a problem?”

The biker got his message, shaking his head. “No problem. Like I said, you’re a lucky man.” He stepped away, unfortunately not taking the whore with him.

“My name’s Misty.”

“Jackal.”

“My name is Penni.”

Misty ignored her, her fingers tracing down the sleeve of his leather jacket. “I’ve heard of the Predators.” She dropped her hand down to his thigh. “Let’s go for a ride.”

Jackal pushed her hand away. “No.”

She pouted. “We could have a good time.”

“Fuck off.”

Her face fell. “Could have been fun.”

Jackal didn’t watch as she disappeared.

“Don’t let me stop you from having
fun
.”

“I am having fun; can’t you tell?”

Her infectious giggle had him smiling down at her.

“Smiling isn’t your best feature,” she commented.

“Max says that all time, but I tell him he’s just jealous.”

“I don’t think Casey would agree.”

Seeing Penni loosen up had him wanting to carry her into the hotel and lock the door. Jackal would rather be fucking her than forced to sit next to her while Hennessy and the Road Kingz tried to find out if anyone was hustling in large amounts of coke. Jackal thought they stood a better chance of getting arrested from an undercover cop.

The bikers became more boisterous as the day dragged on. When it began to get dark, Jackal walked with Penni into the park where a stage had been set up. There were at least thirty women waiting for the wet short contest.

“Want to join in?” He joked at her wide-eyed stare. Jackal knew it wasn’t the mostly shirtless male bikers crowding around the stage that had her attention. The women even made him look.

He ran a hand across the back of his neck. Jesus, it looked like a tit-fest.

“I thought it was a wet ‘short’ contest.”

“It is. That’s why they can’t wear anything else.”

“I didn’t know a thong is considered a pair of shorts.” Penni stared at him accusingly.

Jackal held his hands up. “Hey, it wasn’t my idea.”

“Most of those women look drunk. You’re gonna watch, though, aren’t you?”

He turned his head to where the women were waiting for their turn. “Damn straight.”

Laughing, he dodged the fist that was aimed at his shoulder.

“Don’t worry; none of them can hold a candle to you.”

She quit hitting him. “Like you’re ever going to see my boobs.”

Jackal watched her cross her arms in front of her chest.

“Afraid you can’t measure up to the competition?”

“Good things come in tiny packages,” she said stiffly.

“Yes, they do. Don’t worry; I saw the picture Casey sent Max. Believe me; you have more than enough for me. If you were up there, you would win my vote.” Jackal’s attempt to placate Penni backfired when Hennessy looked her over critically.

“He’s right; you should do it.”

“Not in a million years.” Penni glared at Hennessy with a mask of resolution.

“You would be able to see up there. You could spot Striker and tell Jackal where he is.”

“No!”

“We’re never going to be able to spot him in this crowd.”

Jackal had to admit Hennessy was right.

“Penni …?” He stared back at her, letting her have the chance to let the truth sink in. She was going to have to do it.

“I’m not going to take off my top and show my breasts to hundreds of people! I don’t even have on shorts.”

“You’re wearing a thong,” Jackal reminded her.

“I’m not going out there in a damn thong!” She began walking away from them. The Road Kingz closed their ranks around her, not letting her go anywhere.

With remorse, he saw her angry eyes flick toward his. She expected him to put a stop to Hennessy’s order.

“Most of the men here are so drunk they won’t remember …” Jackal realized he wasn’t helping. “I’ll make sure no one touches you.”

“Don’t do me any favors.” She turned to face Hennessy. “Any of you assholes have a knife?”

Did she seriously expect him to give her a weapon she could use against them?

“As much as I want to use it on you, I want to cut off my jeans,” she explained.

Hennessy didn’t trust her, but he took out his knife.

Jackal took out his own knife. “I’ll do it.”

Bending down, he began cutting away the legs of her jeans. When he would have stopped at the middle of her thigh, she demanded, “Higher.” When Jackal would have stopped at the middle of her thigh, Penni pointed the top of her leg.

“No.”

“Either you do, or I get Hennessy to do it.”

Jackal tightened his jaw. The son of a bitch would do it, and if Hennessy touched where she was indicating, they would have to call the cops.

After cutting her jeans to the tops of her thighs, he stepped back. Swallowing, he watched her fold the top of her jeans down then tuck the frayed ends of her makeshift shorts.

Everyone in the audience would be able to see the intimate flesh she was exposing. There wasn’t a hair on her pussy visible.
Fuck me.

As if reading his thoughts, Penni turned her back on him. He followed stiffly as she got in the long line of women waiting their turn.

“You didn’t have to cut them that short,” he said hoarsely.

“I always say go big or go home.” She turned her cold eyes on him. “I’m going home.”