Sanctum: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (7 page)

“
Well, I
am
on the run, so that typically comes with the territory, yeah,
”
said Maggie, drudging up a bit of acid from her tired
soul.

“
I wouldn’t know. I’ve
never run from anything.
”

Before, at the clubhouse, Maggie had felt
scared. Her empathy for Jase overflowed in that moment their eyes met in the
den. Ridden with guilt for having to come back and interrupt his life again
after what she did, she couldn’t find room to be angry with him for being so
cold in front of the other Black Dogs. But the mental pressure of the past few
hours had worn her down. Drowning in emotions she neither understood nor
controlled, she felt like little more than a tired, cornered animal.

Jase had every right to be hurt by her
presence, and she would never argue that. But right there, at that moment, in
the dark of night outside Hot Tamales, she wasn’t going to take anything she
didn’t deserve. She had never asked him to follow her. She hadn’t begged Henry
for Jase as her detail. And she wasn’t about to take the shit for its
consequences.

“
Paragon of virtue, Mister
Jase Campbell, everyone,
”
said
Maggie to the imaginary audience around them. She even mustered up a sarcastic
little curtsey to top it off with.

Jase blew out his cigarette smoke in a
mean scoff.
“You
’
re
still a fucking piece of work, I see. You come crawling back here asking for
help and you
’
re gonna give me
this attitude?
”

“
I came back to ask for
Henry
’
s
help,”
said Maggie, her voice an angry hiss.
“It
’
s
not my fault he put you on bitch duty.
”

“
You can say that again,
”
said Jase.

Maggie rolled her eyes. Already she felt
that tiny hope for a restful evening spinning out of control.
“
Look,
I just came here to get a fucking drink. So why don’t you and your brooding
just stay the hell out of my way and let me get one in peace. I
’
m
sure you can do your job from across the room.
”

“
What would you know about
my
‘job
’
?”
said Jase. He threw the cigarette butt to the ground
near her feet and used it as an excuse to come a few steps closer as he snuffed
it out with his boot. Now he was a mere foot away from her, and she had to
crane her neck to look up at him. He smelled like musk and gasoline.
“
What
would you know about a fucking thing around here, Maggie?
”

Maggie
’
s
heart pounded, and it wasn’t just from her anger. It was the sudden shock of
having Jase so close to her, of smelling his distinctive musk once again. It
flooded her emotions in slow, fat waves, until she felt nearly consumed by a
distant longing. Her feet wouldn’t move, rooted in place. She tried to draw
strength from that knowledge, because she neither wanted to move away from him,
nor did she want to move closer. She wanted both. She wanted neither.

She must have been lost in her thoughts
for longer than a moment, because through the muffled sound of blood crashing
in her ears, she heard him ask if she was ignoring him.

“No,”
she responded, coming
back to herself. She centered the moment by holding on to her anger.
“
Just
stay the hell away from me, Jase.
”

Before he could respond, Maggie stormed
around his big frame and headed for the roadhouse. The silence in the gravel behind
her betrayed that Jase didn’t follow right away. Maggie was glad for it.

By the time she got the bartender to serve
her, Maggie
’
s anger had died a
bit. The roadhouse jumped with line dancers, dart-throwers, mechanical
bull-riders, and a crowd of frat boys celebrating something or other with
endless pitchers of cheap draft beer. They co-mingled with bikers from at least
three MCs that Maggie could recognize, including a few Black Dogs from a
chapter north of Howlett. The room was a smoky, noisy mess, and perfect for the
restless part of Maggie
’
s
soul that needed care now more than ever. She loved the way she could melt
anonymously into a place like this. She downed her first shot of whiskey and
pint of beer in a rush, and then ordered another pair immediately.

Maggie tried her damnedest
to get lost in the moment and mood of the bar, but as hard as she tried, she
couldn’t sink into it. She hoped Jase had decided to stay outside to attend to
his guard duties, even though she could feel his eyes on her back as she sat at
the bar. This was such a fucked-up development. She laughed coldly to herself
when she wondered how Henry would feel after her bodyguard killed her before
her hunters got the chance.

Jase would never hurt me
.
The thought came out of nowhere from the quiet part of her mind, but it made
Maggie roll her eyes at her own naivety and order another shot. Drake wasn’t
the only one who had never seen Jase as angry as he had been that moment at the
den. Maggie would never admit to anyone how truly scared she had been when he
stepped up to her.

Still, his anger felt so unfair. Was she
the first woman to break a man
’
s
heart? Or the first restless teenage girl, torn between two different longings?
Didn’t he know that she had broken her own heart, too? She was barely 19 when
she left, practically still a kid. Jase wasn’t much older. Kids make mistakes.
God
knows I’ve made more than my fair share.

He wasn’t there to see the long and
torturous nights those first few months in Eagleton. He didn’t hear the
neighbors knocking on her apartment door to check on her because her
heartbroken sobbing was loud enough to penetrate the walls. He never had to feel
the deep loneliness of being in a new place, without so much as a friend to
call on the phone for
familiar comfort.

Maggie felt all that pain rushing back,
but it was mixed with a strange sensation, a pull to turn and see the man she
had been missing for so many years, who was finally in the same room with her
again. She missed Jase. She had always missed Jase.

This can’t
keep up
, she realized. Jase as her bodyguard was
only going to end in pure agony. She had to find a way to get rid of him. His
loyalty to the MC was obviously strong enough to override his hatred of Maggie,
but if his anger reached a tipping point, maybe he would demand a different
duty from Henry himself.

Maggie looked down both sides of the huge
oak bar. The few faces she could see were not ideal for her needs. She picked
up her beer and took a walkabout into the dark edges of the roadhouse, sliding
around tables and pushing through groups of drunk, happy people. On the dance
floor, people were lit up like little disco balls from the pulsing lights
above. She couldn’t see Jase, but she knew he was watching her, stalking her
like a hawk. She was counting on it.

Maggie headed over to the corner filled
with drunk frat boys. She ignored the drinking games and bad karaoke and
chugging contests and walked over to one who was leaning against a wall,
eyeballing the girls on the dance floor. He was blonde and tan and had probably
never touched an engine or a gun in his short, dull life. He was Jase
’
s
opposite. 

“Hey,”
said Maggie as she walked
up within a foot of him. At first, he seemed surprised, but that melted quickly
into a seductive warmness when he saw the look in her eyes.

“
Hi there,
”
he said.

“
Looking for something?
”
she nodded her head back towards the dance floor, then
put one hand on his chest as the other tipped the rest of her beer into her
mouth.

“
I think I just found it,
”
he said with a grin. His hands snaked around her waist
and one wasted no time getting a good handful of her ample ass and thighs.  She
tipped her head up to him and he obliged her with a deep but sloppy French
kiss. Already she could feel his growing hardness as he pressed her against his
body.

She had obviously found the horniest frat
boy in the group; within seconds he was practically groping her right out in
the middle of the bar. She stopped him just before he tried to sneak a peek
down her shirt, slowed him down a bit with some sensual kisses that ended with
his lip between her teeth. Once she was certain her point had been made to
anyone who may have been watching them, she took the frat boy
’
s
hand and led him through the maze of the roadhouse, heading for the bathrooms
at the back. She could’ve just stopped the charade there and sent him on his
way, but Maggie figured she deserved a good fuck after a day like today.

Maggie and the frat boy stumbled into the
handicapped stall at the end of the row, making out along the way. She managed
to lock the stall door before he tugged her shirt over her head and began
greedily cupping her breasts, sticking a hand into her bra. The feel of his
mouth and tongue on her neck was too much pleasure, and Maggie moaned out loud,
eliciting giggles from someone in another stall. She reached down and wrapped
her hand around a hard, thick erection begging to be released from the board
shorts it was trapped in.

When his hand appeared between her legs,
rubbing, Maggie felt like she might come right then and there. It had been so
long since she was touched that way
—
with
actual longing and desire. She closed her eyes and got lost in the moment until
she heard the front door of the bathroom pushed open hard enough to hit the
wall. A woman
’
s protests went
ignored. The hand between her legs was rubbing, making her wet. It was all she
wanted to think about. But what was wrong? What
—

“
Maggie!
”
Jase
’
s voice echoed through
the bathroom. Before she could react, the stall door exploded inward with
enough force to bend the latch beyond repair. She and the frat boy both let out
a surprised cry, and he did his best to shield her from the shrapnel that came flying
in.

Jase stood in the doorway, a hulking
figure of rage and jealousy. He was twice the size of the college kid who
didn’t put up an ounce of resistance when Jase reached in and grabbed him by
his polo collar. He growled in his face to get the fuck out, and then pushed
him hard towards the bathroom door. The frat boy hesitated just a minute as he
looked at Maggie before he fled. A woman with golden hair watched the whole
thing as she huddled in a corner near the sink, then
boldly
told Jase she was going to get the manager before she
fled.

They stood there staring at each other for
what felt like an eternity. Maggie didn’t even remember that she was shirtless,
standing in front of her ex in just a bra and jeans, trying to slow down her
heart and her breathing.

She had figured Jase would seethe quietly
to himself all night at the bar and demand a transfer from Henry in the
morning. She looked at the dangling, broken latch, realizing she had misjudged
the hell out of the situation.

“
What the fuck do you
think you’re doing?”
she
said with deep anger.

“
I could ask you the same
thing! Some assholes are hunting you and your bright idea is to fuck some rando
at the roadhouse? Do you care about your own life or not?
”

“
Oh please!
”
said Maggie, finally noticing her shirt on the floor
and trying to act casual as she bent to gather it up.
“Don’t
act like this is some concern for my safety, Saint Jase. You could have waited
at the fucking door. We both know you tossed that kid out of here because you
don’t want anyone else down my pants.
”