Stripping Her Defenses (6 page)

The initial investigation had involved contacting Laura’s only living relative, her sister Jessica Moore. They’d had to notify her of Laura’s death while also trying to find out whatever she might know about her sister’s life here in Miami. Unfortunately, Jessica could only give us a few details about Laura, due to her sister’s vagabond lifestyle. She had been able to point us in the direction of the strip clubs. It wasn’t a lot, but it had been better than nothing.

Watching Jaxon drop the paperwork he’d had rolled up in his hand on the table, I noted that he seemed on edge, as if ready to spring into action. Hopefully this meant whatever new intelligence he had was going to lead us to the fuckers we were all anxious to bury eight feet deep.

“And the reason I was given the green light by Uncle Sam is because last night Lucas received a call from one of his former teammates with the first credible tip we’ve received in months. Apparently, Lucas has some very interesting friends.”

Picking up the black duffle bag up off the floor, Jaxon dropped it on top of the table in front of him and then undid the zipper. Reaching in he pulled out what looked to be black leather, unfolding the material in front of us until we were looking at the back of what resembled a vest with different patches sewn on. The biggest patch was in the middle of the back and was an insignia of an eagle with a sword held in its talons and two small letters “MC” off to the side. Above that was a curved patch that said “REGULATORS” and below the eagle was another curved patch that said “FLORIDA”, all in red letters.

While I didn’t ride motorcycles, or grow up anywhere near that sub culture, I’d been around the world enough to know that was a cut to a motorcycle club. Just what, exactly, were we getting’ into here?

"Boys, Young took it upon himself to do some digging. While I don't usually condone that sort of lone wolf behavior-" Jaxon paused to give Lucas a glare, "BECAUSE WE'RE A TEAM – this time I have to admit that it paid off. Apparently, one of Young's old teammates joined a group of bikers when he got out of the Army. They're known as the Regulators. Young's contact, Ethan 'Hammer' McCoy, is the motorcycle club's Sergeant At Arms. Young asked him if they knew anything about missing women in Florida and it turns out they've got their finger on that pulse for personal reasons. The women going missing are strippers. Apparently, they own a strip club. So, the minute they heard about the second stripper going missing in the south Florida area, they did their best to lock their girls down. That hasn't stopped them from being worried about them, or the situation, though. Hammer spoke with his club president and they've invited us down to their turf to run an undercover operation to look into the matter."

"What's our cover?" I asked as the wheels started to turn in my head. I was ready for a mission to keep my mind occupied. Hell, I was ready for this mission. More than ready to give Baker's woman some piece of mind. To say I was eager to get my ass to Florida and shut these sadistic motherfuckers selling women was an understatement. Taking these assholes out and finally closing this mission wouldn't only give Annabelle peace, but it would also give me an outlet. I'd been dreaming of Kara again every night. I was tired. I was fucking restless. And because of that I was anxious and ready to work the anxiety out one way or another. I couldn't bring myself to touch another woman when Kara was all I could see in my head. And unless I wanted to become an alcoholic in the span of a week, I didn't dare try and drown my fuckin’ sorrows. So bashing some heads and dumpin’ bodies sounded like the perfect way to keep myself occupied.

Jaxon's smirk brought me out of my head and caught me off guard. If he was smiling like that I knew we were in for some crazy shit.

Holding the black leather cut, loaded with patches, up again for a few seconds for all of us to see, he then threw it in my direction.

"Welcome to the world of outlaw bikers Sullivan. I've been assured we're in for one helluva a ride."

Chapter

6

Riley

After Midnight.
The glow of those blue, neon words were shining brightly from the large sign over the front of the large brick building. It wasn’t a subtle sign to promote the premier gentlemen’s club, it was advertising. Instead, it was a strong, almost proud, visual statement that said ‘
This is where it’s at.
’ It was a hell of a lot better than those bright and obnoxious ‘Girls Girls Girls’ signs we’d seen at many of the other places we’d already scouted out in the area.

Anyone passing me on the street probably thought I was just another biker from the club, smoking a cigarette and wasting time. The truth of the matter was, I was observing the high-dollar strip club. My recon involved looking for trouble and watching the bouncers as they did their job with absolutely no trouble from their patrons.

Since we’d been pulling outside surveillance on this club and several others for almost a week, we’d learned that here, at After Midnight, this level of calmness seemed the norm. It more than likely meant that the club had a reputation for not putting up with shit. I wasn’t one to frequent strip clubs, so I had to admit I absolutely dreaded going inside. If the boys on the team knew this was what was running through my head, they’d take my man card from me.

On the outside, I always portrayed a quiet façade, which was in direct opposition of the truth. My brain was always going at what usually felt like a million miles an hour. If I wasn’t mentally running over the specifics of our current mission, then nine times out of ten, my brain was somewhere buried in the past, drifting between the good times and the bad. Focused on the one person who’d ever hurt me and whom I’d hurt irreparably in return. My wife, Kara. Or, as my brother Declan liked to remind me all too often, my
ex-wife
.

Too bad the heart in my chest never seemed to agree with Dec’s correction. To it, she would always be wife, no
ex
in front of her title. Maybe that was why I couldn’t seem to work up the motivation to move on with life. Who wanted to live life to the fullest when you felt like half of yourself was off somewhere in the world, missing from your side?

Taking one last drag off my Marlboro, I pinched the red hot cherry off the end, stomped it out with my new black leather motorcycle boot, and then stuck the leftover filter in my pocket. It was a habit I’d started to keep Kara from bitching at me for littering my cigarette butts all over the place when we’d still been together. Wasn’t it funny how a relationship could die a tragic death, but old habits were still hard to break?

Shifting the gears of my thoughts, I moved my focus off the past and back to the strip club. Scanning over the building, I watched as a leggy, bottle blonde walked out of the alley in an outfit so tiny it should have been illegal. Her large, fake breasts were close to popping out of the thinly stretched top, and I doubted she’d be able to bend forward, three inches without flashing the whole world her ass. The logical part of my brain informed me that she was one hot woman, the perfect candidate to end the self-imposed celibacy I’d put myself through these last couple of months. My less than enthusiastic dick told me to forget about it. Nothing was happening down there, as usual.

After eight years, you’d think I’d be a bit more enthusiastic about getting off. Unfortunately, unless liquor was involved, it was almost impossible to get hard for a woman. That didn’t even count how the emotional side of me would feel after another attempted hook up with someone who wasn’t the woman I really wanted underneath me. Sometimes, tying your heart and soul to one person seriously fucking sucked.

The leggy blonde walked through the large double doors in the front of After Midnigh
t
that were constantly closed, as per protocol. Bouncers were stationed both on the inside and outside of those doors. And although there were dozens of large windows dotting both floors of the tall building, no one would be able to see inside because they were all mirror tinted. It allowed patrons on the inside of the club to see out; however, allowing those inside the ultimate privacy because no one on the outside of the club would be able to see in. Dec liked to call them “
wdw
s” or “Wife Detector Windows.” He’d informed me they were the ultimate warning system for any miserable, married bastard to use in case the old ball in chain tried to sneak up on him. My opinion from that little lesson was that my brother spent entirely too much time in strip clubs.

As the last rays of sunlight slipped below the horizon, I breathed a small sigh of relief that we’d finally be moving on to the next stage of the mission—meeting Young’s contact in the club.

Pulling out another cigarette and lighting it, I spotted my teammate, Lucas Young, walking with Dec, slipping down one of the alleys next to the club to do some more reconnaissance. In a different neighborhood, their unusual walk around the club might seem suspicious; but, at this club, it would seem the norm.

All three of us were wearing the leather cuts of the Regulators MC, who owned After Midnigh
t
. So three bikers walking around their own building would look like business as usual.

Returning my focus to the front doors, I watched as a group of business men approached. One pointed to the oversized, lighted poster before making a comment that caused laughter among his colleges. The bouncer smiled at the men and opened the door for them, which they entered, allowing rowdy shouts to filter out from the club.

Curiosity caused me to shift my gaze back to the poster. And what my eyes landed on was enough to cause my breath to catch. The woman in profile gracing it was the spitting image of some of the wilder fantasies I’d had of my wife.

A gold mask covered the upper half of the woman’s face, making her full, pouty lips that looked to be parted on a sigh much more noticeable. Her head was thrown back as if in ecstasy, thrusting her overly large breasts, covered in a tiny bikini top, out in front. Her skin glowed in the same light natural tan with subtle red undertones that Kara had. That tan skin looked downright lick-able. I couldn’t help wondering if her nipples would be the same dusky brown color that Kara’s had been, as well.

Instead of my wife’s shorter, sensible haircut, this beauty had long, tousled locks of dark brown hair that spilled over her shoulders and breasts, hanging all the way down till the tips were touching what I imagined were the dimples that I’d always loved above my wife’s ass. My overactive memory kicked in, reminding me of Kara’s subtle red tints, laced through her perfectly styled hair when she’d stood in the sun. Those highlights would look fucking amazing in all of that hair on the woman in the poster.

One thing this woman was that my wife was not, was confident. She also appeared to have the wild streak Kara had never had. Which was made evident by the hint of a tiger tattoo on the top of her upper thigh right before the picture cut off her bottom half. Kara sure as hell would have never done anything as drastic as a tattoo, not that I didn’t think my wife was strong enough to take the pain. On that score, Kara was one of the strongest people I knew. She’d probably sit through a tattoo session like a champ. No, it was because of that stupid fucking June Cleaver vibe she’d tried to immolate that she would never mark up her body.

Kara had been sweet, meek, and practical. Therefore, the long, sexy hair and tattoo were big giveaways that this wasn’t the woman I’d married. Nor would she have let herself gain enough weight to be the fuller, curvier, pin-up girl body that this dancer showed off with pride.

As I kept staring at that picture, it made me wish I had some time with the erotically posed dancer. I hadn’t seen pink lips that pretty since before Kara had packed up and left. The similarities between the dancer on the poster and my wife were staggering, yet there were also enough differences to know there was no way in hell that could be her. While my mind would always stray to Kara, right now, for the first time since high school, it wasn’t my wife I wanted to think about. It was the mysterious stripper.

Her whole image on the poster silently begged for me to come in and take a peek at her goods, which at the moment, I’d be happy to do. At the top of the poster, bright red words announced that ‘Kitty’ was back for one night to celebrate the club’s anniversary. The next line announced that for this special event ‘The mask was finally coming off.’ I guess it was a big deal that this chick was willing to take that mask of hers off. Funny, I wouldn’t have cared if she kept the mask on as long as she took everything else off. Slowly. While shaking those huge breasts of hers in my face. Damn, my dick hadn’t been this hard in eight long years.

No, this voluptuous woman was not my wife at all, but perhaps she would be the first lover I could honestly lose myself in and not think about Kara. If my brother could hear my train of thoughts right now, he’d probably give me a lecture to end all lectures on how ridiculously sad it was that the first woman I actually
wanted
to fuck was practically the spitting image of my wife. Only seriously upgraded. Hopefully kinky, too. Perhaps I couldn’t quite be sure if this unknown stripper’s startling resemblance to my wife would help me or hurt me as I finally tried to move on with my life, but either way, for the first time in years, I was willing to find out.

And if I was going to try to move on in the woman department, it might be a good idea to do my best not to think about my wife anymore. For multiple reasons.

First of all, I was supposed to be here tracking down leads in the Ex Ops Team’s investigation of the black market slave trade.

The second reason I needed to stop thinking about Kara was because I was damn tired of my brother and Grandpa Pat lecturing me. If Declan wasn’t telling me that it was time to get over the heartache and move on, Grandpa was preaching about how I needed to ‘Get my head out of my ass’ and track my wife down to work it out.

As much as I wished I could fix things with my beautiful Kara, I’d given up hope long ago. After being divorced for eight years, I liked to think I’d moved past my warring emotions of anger, hurt, and guilt over our problems. Hell, I’d even figured out all of the mistakes I’d made during our six year marriage, which had caused me to long for that chance to go back in time and make everything right.