Steele: Into Your Heart (Carolina Bad Boys #3 (8 page)

After I did a mental high five—which came way-the-fuck-after I remembered how to breathe—I withdrew from Ashe. She was spent, sprawled out on the bed.
Sweet
. We were still sticky, but fuck if I cared. I took off the condom, tied it, tossed it into the trashcan. Then I folded myself around her.

The smell of our sex was a goddamn aphrodisiac alone.

Ashe didn’t snooze long. Maybe it was her police instincts.

“Brodie?”

“
Mmm
?”

She flipped onto her side, her hand slipping down my chest. “What did you say to that little boy’s parents?”

Ah, fuck.

I rolled onto my back, covering my face with my arm. “Nuthin’.”

“Bullshit.” She tweaked my nipple until I swatted her hand away.

I kept my eyes cast down. “Gave them the Chrome and Steele business card. Wrote my cell number on the back. Told them to get in touch if he got in a bad way and to bring him to me when he needed a break. I’d set him up with a ride. Take his mind off the crap he has to deal with everyday.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” I scooped Ashe to me with both arms around her back. “Yeah. He got to me.”

****

So date night on our last night happened a few hours later than planned. Who cared?

“Big Daddy’s.” I ushered Ashe into the rustic looking restaurant that smelled of mouthwatering South Carolina smokehouse barbeque.

Ashe inspected the waitresses’ tight black T-shirts. “
Home of the biggest racks in town
, huh?”

“I think you got that covered on your own.” Did she ever.

She rolled her eyes. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

I linked my fingers through hers. “Better be careful. I’m beginning to think you like me.”

“Buy me a rack of ribs and I’m all yours, Brodie.”

Bullshit
.

She wasn’t one damn bit mine, just on loan for the week. A week about to end.

Ashe ordered her baby back ribs, shrimp on a skewer, and a fully loaded baked potato. She cleaned her plate and helped herself to a couple bites of my prime rib, too.

After she sat back with one hand folded over her tummy, I scanned the empty plates between us.

“Damn, girl. You’re gonna eat through my bank account.”

“Broderick Steele! That is not the way to speak to a lady.” Her cheeks heated and her eyes blazed.

Who the fuck was she kidding? She’d ridden me backward, forward, and practically upside down all week long. A lady she was not, at least not with me.

“Especially if you want to see me again once we get home,” she added.

“I thought you said one week only.” I wanted more.

“Oh yeah. That’s right. So I did.” A wicked gleam shined in her silver eyes.

Damn her.

****

The slow press of Ashe’s back against my chest as she held my hands against her nipples.

The feel of her fingers skimming down my cock and back again to the tip. She twirled the tips of her fingers around the engorged head before aiming me inside.

I tucked my face to her neck and held on for the ride of my life.

Spooned together, we moved slowly. My dick ached with every rub inside her cunt.

“So sweet.” I scooped her hair aside, kissing the skin of her shoulder up to her neck until she met my lips.

“Keep going?”

“I can do you all night, babe.”

Truth
.

We draped around each other, the slow fuck building to hot fire.

When we came together it was with my hands curled around hers, so close I wanted to be part of her skin. She panted, cried out, clutched down. I pulled her to me, losing myself in her body.

****

The next morning we stopped at the Suck, Bang, Blow, aiming south. Home. Same old. And no chance of a do-over,
said Ashe
.

I’d lost so many people from my life I wasn’t sure I was ready to let her go. A week of a fucking lot of fucking. Going on runs. Messing around, hanging out. Ashe was easy on the eye, easy company, a career cop with her head on straight even as she screwed with
my
head.

The Retribution crew motored up to us, throttling their engines.

“So this is where we say goodbye.” I cut off my bike, took off my helmet, and slunk toward Ashe.

She unbuckled her helmet and laid it aside. “One week only, remember?”

“
Uh huh
.” I squinted down at her, rubbing my jaw. I was so not fooled by any of her shit.

“Brodie!” she gasped when I pulled her into my arms. “Bike week’s over.”

“Yup. No more nookie after this, I got it.” I oh-so-innocently agreed.

Complete and utter bullshit.

Ashe yammered on about rules and
bla bla bla
. I played with her hair and nipped the soft skin of her neck.

At the end of her speech, I spread my thighs, hauled her between them, and said, “C’mere. Gimme your lips.”

Busted

I GAVE ASHE ONE hell of a kiss that went on and on. She didn’t resist. Not one bit. The searing kiss was just a little something to remember me by if she planned on following through with her “only at Bike Week” BS.

After she left me in the roadhouse parking lot with a stupid ass grin on my face, the guys started right in.

“Nice one. Keeping the po-leece in your back pocket.”

“Don’t think it was Brodie’s back pocket she was in.”

“Yeah, but the real question is did she use the cuffs?”

“Or the nightstick?”

Heckle heckle
.

“Come to think of it, he was walkin’ a little funny the other day.” Tail tossed his black hair back with a laugh.

I leveled Tail, Handsome, Probie whatshisface, and even Tuck with a glare that silenced them. “You do not talk shit about Ashe. You don’t even
think
about Ashe. You keep your traps shut about her, the MPPD, and her and me. And you do
not
mention this to Boomer when we get home. Got it?”

Talk about a total change in attitude concerning the woman. Hated her sight unseen a week ago. Went absolutely rabid when anyone talked smack about her five days later.

Like the schmucks they were, the four dudes stared at me with straight faces while they mimed zipping their lips shut.

I gave a double middle finger salute and a grin. “C’mon, dickheads. Let’s roll. Keep it shiny side up.”

It was another pristine day. Our motorcycles ran beautifully. We rode in loose formation with Probie as the tail gunner. We weren’t the only club returning to real life as we took route 17 through Pawley’s Island and Georgetown. The road rumbled with bikers shouting to each other, nodding, giving the thumbs up.

A perfect run but instead of the usual blank-slate state of mind riding usually gave me, I couldn’t get Ashe Kingston out of my head. Her smile. Her laugh. Her lips wrapped around my dick. The way she’d put my boys in their place, not to mention Leta.

One by one, we parted ways from the outskirts of McClellanville into Mt. Pleasant until the road belonged solely to me. And my thoughts.

As fate would have it, the Steele family house stood in the center of the Old Village, about a freakin’
stone’s
throw away from Josh and Leelee Stone. Ours was a rambling cottage style house with a sweet deep water dock on the Cooper River. Boomer and I kept the place up—the siding pressure washed twice a year, the lawn mowed, flowers fucking pruned.

Man, I still remembered the summers Boom, Cat, and I ran around the Old Village with our gang of friends. We’d had it so damn easy.

It was hard to sneak in while riding a twin-cam Harley, especially in an otherwise quiet neighborhood. Cutting off the engine, I rolled up the brick-laid driveway and past my old school ’83 Chevy pickup. I’d bought the black beast in high school, when I used to tinker on it with my dad. Over the years I’d made a few modifications—setting it lower to the ground, tinting the windows, revving up the engine. I’d always imagined one day passing it onto a kid of my own.

I stopped at the white wooden clapboard garage, unlocked the doors, and pulled them open. The welcome smell of grease and gasoline filled my nostrils. This structure must’ve stood on the spot since sometime in the 1800s. The windows were original, small squares of leaded glass. We stowed the garden shit on one side, our motorcycles on the other. Speaking of, there was no sign of Boomer’s bike. Good. Didn’t want to see him anyway. I had to get my game face on first. The man was like a goddamn bloodhound. He could always sniff out lies. I didn’t want him to find out about Ashe and me; I wasn’t sure how he’d react.

I closed the garage down and slipped up the side porch and into the house. No one home. Excellent. Emptying my bags in the middle of the kitchen floor, I did the single man’s laundry sorting: dirty, really dirty, should be burned. All of it went into two mismatched piles and I started the first load on hot. Make that super hot with an extra scoop of detergent.

Kicking off my boots, I suddenly found myself swarmed by cats, two of them. They butted their heads against me like they were goats. They arched their backs, purring and rubbing.

Rolling my eyes, I reached down to do the chin scratch. One was an orange tom, the other a gray tabby cat. A boy and a girl. I knew what they wanted. They liked to cling to my legs and make walking impossible until I fed them. I scooped out their food, replenished their water.

“There. Eat that and shut it.” I patted both their rumps, and they jerked their tails back and forth.

Sherlock was the tomcat, Watson the chick tabby. We liked to call them Shitlock and Twatson. Stray cats. Just couldn’t let them starve on my doorstep when they’d shown up within two months of each other last year. Mangy, scrawny, starving for affection things, but they’d filled out. Their fur shined now. We’d gotten them neutered, bathed the crap out of them with flea shampoo, put up with their yowling. Worse than kids, the pair of them. And somehow they both always ended up on my bed at night.

I didn’t have the heart to boot them out.

I hit the stairs, taking a moment to straighten the silver anniversary photograph of my mom and dad. Such a good-looking couple—Dad a little imposing with his blond hair like mine until he smiled and his eyes had crinkled in mischievousness. Mom the dark haired beauty Cat had taken after. They’d been awesome parents, the best a kid could ask for. Stern and strict when necessary, loving and giving in every other way. They’d pretty much adored each other. We’d always known that. This house used to be filled with all the good stuff. Now it was just me, Boomer, and a couple of cats.

Continuing upstairs more slowly, I ran my fingertips across the framed pictures. Boomer at football, the massive linebacker. Me at a skater park, wearing a cocky grin as I flashed the “rock on” sign. Cat during a ballet recital with pigtails, of all the damn things.

We’d had it good.

Maybe I still could.

In the shower, I washed away the road dust and the grimy grit. Water rained over me as I rub-a-dub-dubbed. I tried to banish Ashe from my thoughts. Didn’t work. We’d shared several showers in Myrtle Beach, all of them ending with me inside her one way or the other. Slick and wet, her sleek body had never looked hotter.

And now I was hard. Again. Fucking stupid cock. I wasn’t doing the beat-my-meat in the shower routine like a horny teen so I ignored the deep throbbing ache in my groin and went about my business. Quick dry off. Fingers through hair. Goatee trim and tidy. I exited the steamy room into my bedroom.
Aaand
Twatson curled up in the middle of my pillow, purring like a freight train. After I pulled on a pair of shorts, I hauled the fur bundle onto my lap and flopped back on my bed.

This was my boyhood bedroom, the same room I’d been in since we’d moved here when I was five years old.

Maybe it was time to move on.

I’d revamped my room. Gotten rid of the posters of busty babes waxing their tits on cars, painted over the Lego blue walls with a dark slate gray. Funny. That was the color of Ashe’s eyes I now realized. The only pictures hanging on the walls were black and whites of the Chrome and Steele storefront with Mom and Dad stood out front, Boomer with his President patch when he started the MC, one of the whole family on the front steps the summer before shit went sour, and me beside my first bike when I turned seventeen.

Our folks had left the house to the three of us, along with their life insurance payout and the Chrome and Steele business. Cat hadn’t ever moved back in. Boomer and I hadn’t been able to sell the family homestead. Not yet. Not even five years later.

Mom and Dad’s bedroom was down the hallway and around the corner. Clothes donated. Jewelry given to Cat, but she didn’t wear it. As far as I knew she’d stored the few special rings, earrings, necklaces in a safe deposit box at her bank. She still wore the mantle of guilt and blame for their deaths.

I’d saved Dad’s watch. It was nothing but a stretchy banded Timex. Nothing fancy. But he’d worn it everyday. My folks were smart and frugal, and they’d brought us up to be the same no matter how flush the bank accounts were. Life could cut you down in an instant. And didn’t we know it?

Boomer saved several pairs of our dad’s cufflinks, not that he ever wore a suit. That was all we kept. We didn’t need anything to remember them by. They were in our hearts every day.

The front door banged open downstairs followed by Boomer’s heavy footfalls on the stairs. He crashed into my room and loomed for a second before crossing inside to plunk down on my bed. Twatson jumped into his lap. Fickle female feline.

His close-cropped black hair hugged his head. The two scars on his face were silent reminders of the past. He squinted at me with eyes the same color we all shared—pale blue, Siberian blue. He looked like one helluva forbidding dude. No wonder the two of us together had made Nick Loveland shit his britches when he’d started dating our sis.

Now it was my turn to evade the Great Inquisition of 2014.

“So?” Boom asked.

“Awesome week.”

“Babes?” He furrowed his fingers into Watson’s fur right behind her ears.

“A’plenty.” I propped up on my elbows. “You shoulda come with us.”

“Not everyone can just take off for the week.”

“Bullshit. You could do with taking the broom handle out of your ass for a change and lightening up some, Boomer.”

“Business to run.” His expression shuttered closed as he concentrated on the pussycat in his lap.

“You’re not the only one running it, and it wouldn’t be run into the ground if you let Lucy handle shit for a week.” Sure, our office manager smacked gum, texted all the damn time, and wore a hella lot of make-up, but she knew the ropes inside and out and probably in her sleep. She’d also gotten me hooked on friggin’ Candy Crush.

Boomer stilled for a moment from the cat-scratching that had Twatson switching her tail back and forth before aiming his
I’ll kill you dead
grin at me. Funny when he did that shit to Nick, now not so much. “I think you’re deflecting. I might need to have a word with Tuck.”

“Tuck don’t know fuck.”

Such a liar.

Tucker knew every damn thing about Boomer, Cat, the MC, and my family and me. Start to finish.

“Something happen up there in Myrtle Beach I need to hear about?” Boomer scraped a hand across his dark-stubbled jaw as he arrowed me with another knowing stare.

“Knocking boots and ridin’ hard, that’s all.”

“No lady in particular?”

“Not Leta, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Yeah. I sure hope not, little bro. She was your most recent mistake.” His lips tilted in a small smile. It highlighted the half moon white scar on his square jaw.

“I’m changing my ways. Class not trash.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

His eyes rounded. “
Realllly
? And there’s nothing I need to know?”

“Guess what? It ain’t a secret love child like Nick wrote in that first book of his.” I grinned.

Boomer’s laugh
boomed
throughout the room. It even startled Twatson. “Nice one, bro.”

Dodged a bullet.

With one more hard look, he left. Bullet dodged? Maybe not so much. He had the brain of a freakin’ elephant. Boomer stepped into the hall and paused outside my doorway. His gaze slid down the corridor toward our parents’ room. Twatson roamed around his ankles, purring loudly.

The big dude bent over and scooped her gently into his arms, murmuring as he walked downstairs, “Hey, li’l momma. What’s that? You think you deserve treats? Yeah, maybe we can do that.”

I sat on the edge of my bed, rubbing my palms against my thighs. Shit, now I knew how Cat felt when we’d dogged her about Nick, the romance writer who’d romanced her off her feet. I was sure he’d done more than just romance her, but I wasn’t going there. He’d definitely fucked it all up a time or two but somehow managed to make it all better. In fact, I’d only had to intervene once between them because they were too goddamn stupid in love to figure shit out on their own.

Just call me Cupid.

They’d returned from their southwest road trip last winter engaged. Now she lived with him and his cat-eating Rottweiler. She still worked the accounts at our business, but she also taught dance on the side to little boys and girls. She’d always loved dancing. The very thing that had gotten her into trouble in the first place was now a dream come true. She didn’t even hide her awesome inked sleeves anymore, and if anyone saw the track marks they hid, she had a stiff middle finger for any and all gawkers.

Cat had survived her past, overcoming all the odds. She owned her life. She was in love.

She’d done good.

I went outside to wash and wax my bike, trying to get out of my head. Nuthin’ doing no matter how much I
waxed on, waxed off
. Inside, Boomer made supper. Christ, we were like an old married couple. Man, I needed a change a of pace, maybe place too.

Rock bottom, we’d all hit it. I’d been the one to tell Cat about our folks. They died on their way to meet us at the rehab center. I still heard Cat’s screams. Some days, on the bad ones, they punctuated every single second of the day.