Bad Apple (The Uncertain Saints MC #4) (8 page)

I let him have his illusions, though, and tightened my hold on his belly.

It was uncomfortable with his gun there, so I lowered my hands until they were resting on his lap, leaning so far forward that I practically lay against him.

When he didn’t protest, I stayed where I was and squealed slightly when he started off.

He laughed and motored in the direction of the interstate.

I looked to the back of me only once to see Ridley, and he lifted his hand in acknowledgement.

I blew him a kiss, one in which I knew he could see due to the headlight shining in my eyes.

I could practically feel the eye roll he sent my way.

Turning back around, I pressed myself closer to Apple and settled in to enjoy my ride.

In fact, I enjoyed it for a long time…until I didn’t.

I hadn’t realized that riding for such long periods of time would make me feel so sore, but by the time we’d stopped for the last time at a hotel about six hours from Arizona, I was near exhausted.

In fact, I was definitely at the stage of ‘never wanting to get on that bike again.’

Annie, Mig’s wife, looked over at me in commiseration as I finally put both feet on the ground for the first time in hours.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” she asked, rubbing her sore backside.

I laughed shortly.

“You could say that,” I said as I walked bowlegged, completely ignoring the fact that I had a bag and a purse in Apple’s saddle bags.

As much as I enjoyed being pressed up against him for the whole day, I decided that the next time we went out together, I’d make sure it was a shorter ride than twelve hours.

“Where are you going?” Ridley called as I continued past the front door of the hotel we were staying at.

“On a walk to work out some of my stiffness,” I said, but most of the explanation was lost on the wind.

I didn’t bother to repeat myself, though.

Instead, I kept walking until I hit the back of the building, stopping when I saw a super pool on steroids.

It was beautiful, too.

It was about the size of a public pool that most would find in their communities, such as the one we had in Kilgore.

This one, though, wasn’t a boring square one like the one we had at home.

No, this one was exotic or something, that’s all I could think to say about it.

Maybe one that’d be found in the middle of Hawaii.

It had a beach entry from the back of the building that led into a lagoon colored pool which fanned out on the sides.

At the far back wall was a massive cliff made of rocks the size of a small car, and a young woman with a bikini—about the size of a doll’s—jumped off the cliff into the pool.

Her man, or who I assumed was her man, sat at the edge of the pool with a beer in his hand, talking on his phone.

Wasn’t he worried about it falling in, or getting accidentally splashed?

And why wasn’t he playing with his girlfriend instead of talking on his phone?

Seemed to me that people were too busy playing or talking on their phones instead of enjoying the life that was passing them by.

“Wow!” Annie gasped from behind me. “This is
awesome!
”

I nodded in agreement.

“Wish I’d have brought my suit,” I said bemusedly.

“I have one you can borrow,” Lenore, Griffin’s old lady, said.

I turned to her, eyed her petite frame, and immediately shook my head.

“Honey,” I said softly. “You’re beautiful, but your suit would never fit my ass.”

She laughed.

“Well, I have bottoms you can wear,” Annie said. “And I know my sister brought extra.”

“Brought extra what?” Tasha, another member’s old lady, asked as she, too, joined the group.

She crowded in between me and the building, though, putting her extremely close to me.

I couldn’t back up, or I’d risk backing into one of them, so I chose to stay there.

I wasn’t used to having this kind of a conversation.

I had friends, of course, but none of them really did anything with me outside of school or work.

These ladies were obviously very friendly with each other, and I’d longed to be a part of their group for a long time now.

However, now that I was here with them, I wasn’t sure what to do or say.

“Let Kitt borrow one of your tops,” she ordered, touching Tasha’s boob.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “I only brought one.”

“What?” Annie asked in
surprise. “Why?”

Tasha’s lip curled up.

“Because my man thought I didn’t need more than one,” she said stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well then,
you can wear one of my bottoms, and one of Lenore’s tops!” Annie
clapped. “Problem solved.”

So that was how I ended up in a pool with all the women.

The men were all still in their jeans, boots, t-shirts, and leather cuts.

They were crowded around a table with beers in their hands or on the table.

All except Apple.

He didn’t have anything.

And his eyes were on me.

Or my boobs.

I couldn’t really tell.

I blushed and turned my head back to Alison, Peek’s wife, and smiled.

“Yeah, I think I like him,” I admitted.

Alison grinned and brought her margarita up to her mouth to take a long sip.

“Thought so,” she winked conspiringly. “He suits you.”

I grimaced.

“I might actually have a chance with him, for once,” I told her. “My brother’s a real shithead with people that he deems as ‘outsiders’,” I explained.

“Alison, what are you doing?” Peek yelled out.

Alison turned to survey her husband, her brows furrowed in confusion.

“Swimming, why?” She called back.

Peek’s eyebrow rose.

“Is that right?” He asked. “Come ‘ere.”

I loved Peek’s accent.

It was absolutely intoxicating to listen to him speak in that Irish accent of his.

I just bet it sounded sexy as hell to hear him whispering dirty things in her ear while they were having sex, which was why I completely missed the fact that my brother had stripped down to swim trunks somewhere in between my ogling another woman’s man, and then.

“Cannon ball!” Ridley screamed.

I was instantly drenched, even my hair that I’d hadn’t planned on getting wet.

“You fucker!” I hissed at my brother, launching myself at him.

Ridley was a fast cocksucker, though.

He got away from me before I could even reach out and touch him.

One second he was next to me, and the next he was all the way across the pool.

I narrowed my eyes, then did the only thing that I knew would get him over there.

I let the tears loose.

See, I had a
gift
.

One that had served me well over the last twenty-six and a half years.

I let my lip quiver, followed quickly by a lone tear.

I also held my arm across my chest, pulling it in tight and crossing my other arm over it to make it look like he’d hurt me when he’d done it.

Sneaking a glance from my head lowered position, I noticed that Ridley had lost his smile.

“Aw shit,” he swam towards me.

“I’m sorry, Kitt,” Ridley apologized as he moved towards me. “Did I hurt you?”

Everyone around us had gone quiet, and I smiled, knowing all of them would be witness to the smack I was about to lay down.

Luckily, my wet hair was hiding most of my face from everyone’s gaze, meaning no one, not even Ridley, could see the smile that twisted up further and further the closer he got.

“Kitt?” Ridley
murmured once he got close, his arm coming out to rest on my shoulder.

I waited until he was in perfect striking distance, then launched my entire body at him, hitting him in the belly like a battering ram.

“Ooof,” he grunted as he went down, my body on top.

I gasped a full breath of air before I followed him down into the water, then immediately wrapped my arms around his head.

He started struggling then, but I held on like a fucking tick, even going as far as to wrap my legs high around his chest.

He burst from the surface of the water, gasping for breath and trying to shake me off at the same time.

I held on, being sure to dig my fingernails into the side of his head as I did.

“Owww!” He yelled, thrashing to get me off him without hurting himself further. “Get off me, you fat cow!”

I snickered as Ridley started to use every dirty name in the book on me.

Once he got too close to the edge and the rocks, I planted my feet in his back and shoved off him, swimming frantically to the side of the pool.

He was fast. Luckily, I had the advantage of necessity.

I was nearly at the far wall, and climbing up the steps, when he caught me.

I screamed and held on for dear life.

“Let me go, you accident!” I yelled.

The insult made sense to no one but me, and I snickered as he cursed at me.

“You know damn well and good I was planned,” he snapped. “You were the accident.”

“I may have been an accident, but I wasn’t the reason our parents got married. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been born in a castle like I deserve,” I teased.

A thick, callused hand reached out and wrapped around my bicep, causing me to look up in surprise.

Then I grinned and latched onto his shirt and pulled.

Wisely, Ridley didn’t continue to pull, otherwise my suit would’ve gone right along with him.

“Thanks,” I gasped, smiling at Apple.

Apple winked and walked back to his seat, the whole front of his shirt covered in water.

I walked with Apple to the table that they were all crowded around, and would’ve taken my brother’s vacant seat but he decided to come out of the water as well, leaving me with nowhere to sit.

But it didn’t stay that way for long, because Apple caught a towel from the lounge behind him and opened his arms.

I smiled and went to him, intending to take it from him.

He had different ideas, though, and pulled me down onto his lap before he wrapped the towel around my body and pulled me in close to his chest.

“Thanks,” I said softly.

He rumbled a ‘welcome’ and went back to his conversation.

“What are you saying? You know who did it?” Apple asked. “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

“Because I just remembered,” Mig said shortly.

Apple’s eyes narrowed.

“This is a bald eagle nest. This is so far out of the realm of being okay to forget,” he argued, moving his hands to form air quotes. “It’s not even funny. What’s the guy look like that you saw coming in?”

I watched the group continue the conversation, move on to others, and laugh occasionally for another forty-five minutes, at least, before I got uncomfortable.

Ridley was talking to Mig and Casten periodically about their office and a case they were working on, meaning they weren’t paying that much attention to me and Apple.

Something I was grateful for, moments later, when I turned and repositioned myself.

I also exposed myself at the same time.

Luckily, the towel hid most of the flash from everyone but Apple.

The one who I thought wasn’t paying any attention to me, seeing as he hadn’t said a thing to me in nearly half an hour.

He was speaking to Griffin about goats, for some reason, but the moment my breast became revealed under my towel, he shifted the towel up so it covered me head to toe.

I would’ve said he hadn’t even realized he’d done it, but his cock started to harden underneath me, telling me he most definitely
did
catch the slip.

I moved experimentally, shifting my ass on his lap and closing my eyes as I did.

If I accidentally made eye contact with anyone at the table, I might blush and reveal that I was having naughty thoughts.

I reached my hand down, letting it trail along his chest and abs, stopping when I reached the buckle of his belt.

He’d lost the gun that’d been there all during the trip sometime in between us changing and coming down here.

Meaning, I was thankful because it gave me access to his belt buckle once I managed to move the towel out from under our two bodies, bunching it up to the side so I could make it happen.

He didn’t show any outward signs that he liked what I was doing, but boy was his cock hard.

So hard that I was scared to unzip his jeans for fear that I’d catch his cock on the zipper.

Just when I finally found the courage to unzip the zipper, he abruptly stood.

“Let’s go get you into your hotel room and changed,” he said. “I have some things I need to talk about tonight, and I want to make sure you’re settled.”

The abruptness of the whole scene had me standing and grasping at the towel that was still in Apple’s grasp.

He held onto it, though, meaning I either let go or play tug o’ war with him.

Needless to say, I knew when I was beat.

I didn’t fight for something that I knew I wouldn’t win, and that towel wasn’t one of them.

So I let it go and started shuffling to my room.

But he didn’t follow me up to my room.

He stopped me about halfway up the steps, grabbed a hold of my hand, and pulled me to a stop just inside of the stairwell.

“Stop,” he said softly.

I stopped and turned to find him at the bottom step, me four steps above him.

“You’re not coming?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

He ran his hands through his hair and looked down at his feet.

“I have to tell the guys something, and I’ll come back to the room and talk to you about it once I’m done. I thought about it the whole way over here, and I just have to get it off my chest before we take this even further,” he said softly, looking up at me with sadness in his eyes.

I nodded mutely.

“Y
ou remember the room number?” H
e hoped.

I nodded again.

“Good,” he uttered. “I may be a little later, but if I’m not there by nine, come get me.”

“Where will y’all be?” I asked.