Jerk: Delinquent Rebels MC

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Jerk copyright @ 2016 by Evelyn Glass. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

To receive a free copy of an exclusive short, join my mailing list by clicking on the banner above or on this link:

http://eepurl.com/TwZLT

And check out my LATEST RELEASES BELOW

All available for FREE on Kindle Unlimited

VIPER

PLAY DIRTY

DAMNED

AT HIS MERCY

WRECK ME

ALEJANDRO

FORCE

MINE

PROLOGUE

“Wow…. That was amazing.” April closed her eyes slowly, as Brent stretched out beside her. Both naked beneath the covers, she took a deep breath, counting down the minutes until she could make up some excuse to get out of his bed. The mattress dipped, as he snuggled closer. “
You
were amazing.”

“Yeah,” she muttered, clearing her throat and glancing up at him when she sensed a pause. He always wanted to cuddle after sex. April, meanwhile, thought of nothing but escape, her body numb with mediocrity. “Yeah, that was fun.”

He bit his lower lip, studying her face. The guy had been dying to ask her out—she could see it in his eyes—but she had been firm about their relationship. Brent was for fun. There was too much riding on her grades this semester—the final one of her university career—to screw it up by taking on a boyfriend. Her future depended on her graduating with an honors degree in business, and there was nobody here worth sacrificing that for—definitely not Brent. Brent was for late-night booty calls and study breaks. He lived two floors below her in their student residence; occasionally, they had half-decent sex. For the most part, he was a distraction, something to take her mind off exams and grades and work.

The sex tonight, which had started with her showing up at his front door with two bottles of beer, was middle-of-the-road for her. Not good. Not bad. Just… blah. She’d even
almost
climaxed. It didn’t matter. He’d served his purpose, for now, and April planned to finish herself off in her own bed in exactly ten minutes: five minutes to loll around in bed, three to argue about her leaving, and two to get back to her apartment upstairs.

A part of her felt bad. Brent was a good guy. Sweet. Pleasant. Sometimes he made her laugh so hard her sides ached. When all this was over, she knew he’d be a better friend than a boyfriend. She’d never admit it out loud, but he was convenience—an attractive guy who lived in her building and hopped into bed with her whenever she wanted. It worked.
This
worked. No need to make it complicated.

“Want to move this to the shower?” he purred, sliding his lips up her neck and nibbling her earlobe. It should have excited her to have a guy kissing her neck—but with Brent, it didn’t. All she could think about was getting out—now.

Because the longer she stayed with him, the more she thought about their average sex life—which reminded her that the best sex of her life had been in
high school
of all places. It was a shame she hadn’t realized at the time—because she definitely would have enjoyed it more. She might have even stuck around afterward instead of sneaking off from Van Palmer’s guest house on his family’s property.

She remembered it, clear as day, even after almost four years had crawled by. Van had hosted the prom after-party. It made sense, given his dad’s sprawling estate on the north end of Cascade Falls. Even back then, everyone knew his dad had such a huge house and massive property because he was a shady guy, running a motorcycle club
and
whatever else he could under the law to fund his lavish lifestyle.

But back then, no one had complained; they wanted to party at the Palmer place. Just about every girl in her class had wanted the honor of screwing bad boy Van Palmer too; yet, she was the one to snag him that night. It had started innocently—as these things always did—with some too-close dancing on the porch under twinkling lights then moving to the grounds for a private tour. They’d barely made it to the guest house before they were tearing each other’s clothes off. From there, the rest was history. She’d been almost a virgin at the time, and they spent hours together.

April had never considered herself naïve. Back then, she knew Van’s reputation going in. While she had a few drunken fumblings with classmates under her belt, Van had helped himself to half the girls in her class
and
those at their rival school one town over. So, before he could ditch her, she’d gathered her clothes, her mind foggy and body tingling from her first-ever earth-shattering orgasm, and disappeared into the night.

That weekend, she left for college. Van hadn’t tried to contact her, and while it stung, April had held her head up high, fully expecting that college boys would be different. Better. Too mature to be womanizers.

How wrong she was. She’d seen plenty of Vans in her four years, and she avoided them like the plague. Van’s dismissal of her after their night together had been fresh in her mind every time she spoke to some bronzed rich boy—and there were
plenty
of those in her business classes—who clearly just wanted to fuck her then hit the bars with his friends. Never again.

And that was why she kept Brent in her life. Just because she had no time for romance didn’t mean she needed to be a sexless blob. He was always kind to her—though their sex life left much to be desired.

So, rather than snippily shooting down his request to join him in the shower, April merely smiled and kissed his cheek. She apologized, switching up her words so that it wouldn’t sound like the same speech she gave last time. Then, she grabbed her things and disappeared. She’d promised to text him in the morning, as she shut his front door, because April—unlike womanizing creeps like Van—wasn’t cruel. She wouldn’t date Brent, but she wasn’t heartless either.

She’d banished heartlessness from her life years ago, which included Van’s type. There was no room in her life to be used, abused, and tossed aside. So, for now, Brent would have to do.

Brent and her vibrator, that is. 

CHAPTER ONE

Call me the second you get this. ASAP. Please. – Mom

April tossed her phone into the passenger’s seat of her car then pinched the bridge of her nose. The last thing she needed after a stressful day of boutique retail was to deal with one of her mom’s classic freak-outs over nothing. In fact, she could think of nothing
worse
to end the day with than listening to her mom rant about the gossip harpies of Cascade Falls, or about how men weren’t gentlemen anymore, or… well, whatever other infinite problems the woman could find to bitch and moan about.

Exhaling deeply, she slipped out of her heels and into her comfy driving flats. Then, she tossed her work shoes in the backseat. It wasn’t fair to ignore her mom; the woman worked a lot, and she had no one to go home to at the end of a hard day. Neither did April, mind you, but it had been a difficult couple of years since her dad died. She’d really made the effort to talk more with her mom while she was in college, but now that she was out, her mom seemed to think she did nothing with her life and demanded her attention at all hours of the day.

Just because she worked part-time didn’t mean she wasn’t busy. She would call back—of course. She always did. If the text message didn’t sound frazzled enough, the eight missed calls waiting for her on her phone were a surefire sign that the proverbial shit had hit the proverbial fan.

She’d decided that she’d call once she was home. Work had been chaotic today, and just sitting in the parking lot in front of the specialty makeup store where she was a part-time assistant manager was fueling the lingering rage from a harrowing day of sick calls from associates and disgruntled whining from customers. She needed to get home, get out of her tight clothes, and open a bottle of wine before she tackled whatever was bothering her mom.

And April did exactly that. She whizzed through the late-night traffic, dodging slow drivers and daredevil cyclists, straight back to her modest one-bedroom apartment in the heart of downtown. Three times the size of her childhood town, Cascade Falls, Bowmansville was a veritable metropolis by comparison. Full of ad execs and starving students alike, she’d lived there since she graduated from the university there, taking the first job she could find in retail that had promises of advancement.

Well, here she was, three years later, twenty-five and a part-time assistant manager. Fat load of good her fancy business degree was doing her.

Once home, April shed her work clothes and dove into a pair of comfy yoga pants. While she’d initially only wanted a glass of wine, she opted to uncork the whole bottle and take that with her instead. After all, her crummy work hours meant she had a whole two days off before she was needed back at the store. She could stand to get a little tipsy while watching her late-night thrillers on TV. After she dealt with her mom though.

Grumbling, she plopped down on the sofa and dialed her mom’s number, the wine bottle cradled to her chest. Springtime had finally rolled in, and she’d left her windows open all day to make the most of it. However, now that the sun was down, she was freezing. More grumbling ensued, as she tried to cover herself with her fuzzy green blanket, her phone pressed to her ear by her shoulder.

“Darling!” Her mom’s thunderous voice answered on the fourth ring, and April winced. “How
are
you? I was getting worried! Do you know how late it is?”

“I had to close the store,” April argued, shuffling around to get more comfortable, her wine sloshing in the bottle. “You know how it is. I just got home.”

Her mom ought to know exactly how it was; the woman had run a high-end fashion boutique—now in three locations around Cascade Falls and the surrounding townships—ever since April was a girl. If anyone knew the struggles of a retail worker’s timetable, it was her mom.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, darling,” her mom trilled, as April reached for the remote on the dusty coffee table. “I have wonderful news!”

“Really?” She set the remote back down, surprised.

“No need to sound so stunned, April.”

“I’m not,” she insisted before taking a small swig of her wine. “Tell me everything.”

There was a brief pause, as if the woman was drawing a breath, before she announced, “I’m engaged!”

It took a few seconds for the news to sink in, and when she was finally ready to speak again, April found her mouth dry, her throat a little tight. “E-Engaged?”

“Yes!” April wasn’t even aware her mom was seeing anyone, let alone doing anything serious. This was the first she’d heard of it in… well,
ever
. “I wanted to keep it quiet because I wasn’t sure if we were going to go anywhere, and then all of a sudden he’s flying me to Cuba—”
What
?! “—and booking me spa days! You know how desperately I need the time off, what with the business and all.”

“Right.” April sat up and set her wine aside, deciding this conversation needed absolute focus. “So… Who is he, exactly?”

“James Palmer,” her mother squealed, and in that moment, April’s heart plummeted right down to the pit of her stomach. Her body went numb, and flashbacks to her night with his son
Van
Palmer raced through her mind. “Oh, honey, you remember him… I think you went to school with his son—”

“James Palmer, as in the guy who runs a motorcycle gang?”

“
Club
,” her mom stressed, and April could almost see her rolling her eyes. “He
owns
a motorcycle
club.
”

To April, it was all the same. Semantics didn’t really matter when her mom was marrying the town’s resident rich scumbag, whose son April had had an unforgettable night with after prom. Her face flushed with embarrassment, and she tried to find an appropriate response to give to the news. She was supposed to be happy. Her mom was always happiest when she was with a man, but this… was difficult to stomach.

“Mom…”

“I know this a lot to process,” her mom said gently, and suddenly her stomach had started to cramp. Was she going to be sick? Was that nausea she was feeling? “It was unfair of me to just… spring it on you over the phone. Why don’t you take some time off from that little job of yours to come down and meet him? He really wants to get to know you before the wedding.”

As desperately as she tried to fight it, in the end, April agreed to take a month off to go back to Cascade Falls. After all, her mom planned on selling her trendy three-bedroom apartment to move in with James Palmer—
ugh—
and she needed help with the renovations. Plus, without really saying it, she insisted April meet her soon-to-be stepdad. There wasn’t much room to wriggle out of it, as hard as she tried.

In one week, she’d be back in Cascade Falls, awaiting an uncomfortable reunion with the womanizer,
Van Palmer
—of all people—who would, by the end of the summer, be her stepbrother.

At this point, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but she was damn glad she’d opted for the whole bottle of wine over a single glass.

She was going to need it.