REAPER'S KISS (2 page)

chapter four

(jace)

*THEN*

I was just a rider with a black
leather cut. I was cruising along the riverbed, taking the turns too fast,
testing the limits of my motorcycle. My hair was long and kicked out the back
of my helmet. I used to not wear a helmet but Sid told me if I ever wanted to
get patched in I’d need all the brains I could muster.

We had come off a great score and I
was given the thumbs up to be the getaway driver. It was a huge step forward
into becoming a real patched in member. Shit, riding with those guys from the
Bitter Aces MC made life worth living. It took all the wild bad shit and tossed
it aside.

I had no choice but to bolt from
home when I was sixteen. I hung around here and there, battling my way into
finding something that made sense. That was working on cars and motorcycles.
The pay was shit, most of my bosses were dicks, and I couldn’t hold a job for
more than two weeks. Most of the time it was my fault. The last job I had I
fucked the boss’s wife. Too be fair, we were drunk, she was lonely, and she all
but begged for it.

I took a wrench to the jaw for that
one, but I did get my final paycheck.

But that was months ago.

I met Sid at a bar, gave him some
advice on his motorcycle, and then he told me to meet him at the clubhouse for
a chat. That chat ended up with me getting beat up by the patched in members of
the MC and offered a chance to be a prospect. I told Sid I would only do it for
a month or two. I was made to ride outlaw. With a full cut. With my brothers
around me.

He agreed.

I cut around the next bend,
throttling my ride. I felt my back tire bounce a little and I thought I was
going to lose it.

“Fuck!” I screamed and hurried to
save the motorcycle.

I pulled off a fucking miracle and
slammed on the brakes. I brought my motorcycle to a complete stop and threw my
arms in the air, like a fucking champion. I cheered to the birds and squirrels.

My life was starting to finally
come together and make fucking sense.

There was only one little problem.

The rumble of my motorcycle didn’t
let me hear the SUV as it came up on me.

I felt a presence and managed to
turn my head just in time to see the barreling vehicle smash into the back of
my motorcycle.

chapter five

(ava)

*NOW*

I worked the register on another
slow day. The only people that consistently came into the store were the
regular older people who enjoyed the small town feel of a store. They’d stand
at the counter and recount every memory they had of Bishop. All the places that
were opened and closed. The way the town changed. Who owned what building. And
then of course the fresh round of people who had died in the last week.

It was early afternoon when Dad
came rushing from the back of the store. He rushed around the register and
punched it open. He took all the twenties, tens, and fives. He held them in his
hand as it shook furiously.

“Ava, don’t move,” he whispered to
me. “You stay put. If I scream, you run.”

“What?” I asked.

I grabbed for him and he looked
ready to burst into tears. He waved his other hand at me. “You heard my words.
This will not happen again to me. I cannot lose you. But you might lose me. I’ll
always care for you.”

“What’s happening right now?”

Dad looked to the back door and
shook his head. “You have to stay right here. Right here. You do not move. I
will figure out something for you, my sweet Ava.” Dad touched my cheek. “Oh,
you look like your mother. Just so beautiful. Always beautiful. From the day
you were born.”

Tears glistened in his eyes as he
spoke.

He moved away and I took a step
toward him. He put a hand out and shook his head.

Dad turned and hustled away as
someone came into the store. Of course this lady wanted to buy almost
everything in the store. A damn near week’s worth of groceries and supplies. I
had to ring her up, one item at a time, then haggle over an expired coupon. I
kept looking to my right, wondering what was happening in the back of the
store.

The woman asked me to help her to
her car. So I threw a smile on my face and helped her. I loaded up her trunk,
declined a one dollar gratuity, and then rushed back into the store. I paced up
and down the aisles, wondering what to do.

Who could be in the back? Is
someone hurting Dad? Are there more people outside? Am I in trouble? Is someone
going to hurt me?

I walked back to behind the counter
and figured I would take a chance. I would call for the police. Even if it
resulted in Dad getting into trouble, at least he’d survive. I knew a lot of
what Dad did was illegal but I couldn’t stand the lose another parent.

I reached for the phone and someone
walked into the store.

I dropped the phone and stepped
back.

He turned his head and looked at
me.

Black hair, piercing green eyes,
everything about him screaming
wrong, bad,
and
outlaw
.

I swallowed hard.

I wasn
’t going to make
out of today alive.

He had a cocky strut about him as
he grabbed a bottle of soda. As he walked toward the counter, I watched as he
looked around the store. His hand then shot out and grabbed a bag of chips.
Then he came to the counter. Next he grabbed a pack of gum and put his hands on
the counter, grinning at me.

He was dangerously beautiful.
Wearing a black leather cut, I knew he was a member of the motorcycle club in
town. They were all bad guys, no matter how you looked at it. They hurt people.
They stole. They strong-armed the police into doing what they wanted.

I reached for the chips with my
hand shaking.

“Hey, you okay?” the outlaw asked
me. He touched my hand. “You’re shaking like crazy.”

“Don’t hurt me,” I blurted out.

My face turned red.

“Hurt you? Why would I hurt you?”

“Where’s the rest of your guys?” I
asked. “Is that what this is?”

“Sweetie, I’m trying to buy a soda
and chips.” He reached for his leather cut and slowly opened it. He took out
some money and tossed it to the counter. “Look. Okay?”

I rang up the items and couldn’t
help myself as I was stuck between fear and attraction. He was so fucking good
looking it was ridiculous.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he
asked, leaning forward.

I grabbed a bag and he grabbed my
wrist.

That’s when the world stopped.

I just stared at him. Those eyes ripping
into me.

I shook my head.

“Something’s wrong here?” he asked
me.

I nodded.

“You can’t say though?”

I didn’t move.

He reached back and pulled out a
gun. I jumped back and let out a whimper.

Suddenly, he was in hunting mode.
Looking all around the store. He rushed around the counter, coming at me, gun
in hand. I slid into a corner and sat down on an old stool where Dad used to
perch himself for hours. The outlaw was taller than me to begin with, but with
my sitting, he was like a giant towering over me.

“You sit here and don’t fucking
move,” he said to me.

I swallowed hard. “That’s what my
father said…”

“Your father? Is he in trouble?”

I slowly nodded.

The outlaw curled his lip and
looked over his shoulder.

I saw an opening and I stupidly
took it.

I lifted my foot and kicked forward
at his balls as hard as I could.

My mind had only one thing
screaming at itself.

Run.

chapter six

(jace)

*NOW*

Her foot connected a centimeter
away from my balls. I jumped back, caught myself swinging the gun in self
defense, but I held back. Christ, the last thing I needed on my conscious was
hitting a woman with a gun. I stumbled back and into the counter. I knocked
over a display of gum.

The woman jumped and lunged at the
counter.

She was freaking beautiful. From
the second I walked into the store I picked up on the vibe that something was
very wrong. At first I thought it was just because someone so pretty was
working at a shit hole store.

She was on the counter, crawling
across it. The back of her shirt lifted up, showing some skin. She was also
showing me a pink set of panties that were clung to her body as her jeans
pulled down a little.

I hurried to tuck my gun away and
move to the counter. I slipped my hand around her waist and grabbed her. My
face was damn near pressing against her ass as I pulled her off the counter.
She threw an elbow and cracked me in the side of the head. I walked backwards
and put my other hand around her chest, securing her arms. Shit, if anyone
walked in and saw the scene it would look like I was hurting this beautiful
woman.

But I didn’t want to hurt her. I
wanted to know what the fuck was going on.

My forearm pressed against her
tits. They were fucking full and soft. Fuck, was I really going to get hard
while holding some random chick back from hurting herself?

I twisted to the side and leaned
against the wall of cigarettes.

“Hey,” I growled. “I’m not going to
fucking hurt you, sweetie. You can’t run right now. You need to tell me what’s
going on.”

Slowly, she succumbed to me.

When her body relaxed, she eased
against me. My front against her back. My arms still around her. I moved my
hands one a time and inched back. My cock was slithering down the inside of my
jeans. I ran a hand through my hair and watched as she turned around.

“What the hell was that, sweetie?” I
asked.

“You’re one of them,” she said. “The
bad guys. The outlaws.”

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Then why are you here?”

I bit my tongue a little. I wasn’t
there for anything good. But I wasn’t going to give up club business to her.

“What’s happening in the back right
now?”

Her lips shivered. She was damn
terrified.

I gritted my teeth. “Look, I have a
gun, which you saw. I’m going to take it out and I’m going to walk to the back.
If something happens to me, sweetie, my crew is going to be here and really
fuck things up. And if you’re holding back on information I need to survive…”

“He’s in trouble,” she said. “My
father. I don’t know what’s going on. He told me to stay here. He took all the
cash from the register and went to the back. I don’t know how many are there.”

“Who is it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.
Guys in suits.”

Fuck.

That’s why Sid sent me. This must
have been a spot where the gambling shit went down. I was supposed to scope the
place out and bolt. Whatever the fuck was happening right then wasn't my
business. It wasn’t MC business either. If someone was getting tagged because
he was fucking around with some underground gambling shit, then so be it.

But I looked into the woman’s eyes
and I couldn’t just walk the fuck away.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” I
asked.

“Ava.”

Goddammit.

“Ava,” I said, her name rolling off
my tongue with ease. I’d love to spell out her name a hundred times with my
tongue as I was buried between her legs. “My name is Jace, sweetie. I’m part of
the Bitter Aces MC. And I’m not here to hurt you. You’re going to sit your
pretty ass down in that chair again and stay there.”

“Don’t hurt my father,” Ava said.

“I’m going to figure out what the
hell is going on here.”

I turned and crept toward the back
door of the store. I assumed it led to the back room storage. I held my gun and
couldn’t believe what I was about to do. Putting my ass on the line for some
random woman and her father.

But maybe it would benefit the MC.

Something big was going down.

I just had no fucking idea how
big it actually was
…

I snuck through the door without
much of a sound. The bottom flap scratched the floor but it didn’t echo. A
second later I heard a voice, followed by another. I waited and didn’t hear
anything else.

As far as I knew there was only two
people in the back. And one of them was Ava’s father.

I took a few more steps and turned
to the right.

That’s where the floor was wide
open. The back room had the perfect setting and aura for nothing but trouble.

On the floor was an older man, on
his knees, holding up cash. The man in front of him wore a nice suit, no tie,
and had a set of knuckles on. The old man’s face was fucked up. He had
definitely taken a few hits already.

“You see, Jake,” the suit said, “this
doesn’t work for me. I’m not going to stop by and clear out your register. I
don’t want that filthy cash. I want clean cash. The good cash. You know how
this works.”

“This is all I have,” Ava’s old man
- Jake - said. “We had a bad turnout, okay? Ava was home, sick. You know that.
You were here, Frank. You saw…”

The suit - Frank - swung the
knuckle and smacked Jake hard. He fell to the floor, dropping the cash. Frank
then started to kick Jake. Shit, it looked like a scene out of a mafia movie.
Right here in my fucking town?

I stepped around a giant storage
shelf and walked slowly, positioning myself behind Frank. I moved forward and
took my fate into my hands. I smacked my gun to the base of Frank’s skull. He
instantly fell forward, grabbing for his head. He tripped over Jake and went
down to the ground.

He quickly turned and grabbed for a
weapon. I jumped forward and dropped to one knee, putting my gun to his
forehead.

“Touch the gun and I’ll spray your
brains all over this back room,” I warned.

“Who the fuck are you?” Frank
growled at me.

“You’re worst nightmare. Now tell
me what the fuck is happening here.”

“Business,” he said. “And you
better fuck off real soon before it gets bad.”

I looked over and Jake as he was
climbing to his feet. His face was bleeding everywhere. Even his crumbled up
cash had blood all over it.

“Looks like it already is bad,” I
said. “Stand the fuck up.”

I dragged Frank to his feet and
threw him against a wall.

“You have no idea,” Frank said. “You
know who I am?”

“Do you know who I am?” I asked. “You’re
in my town doing what?”

Jake stumbled to his right and
leaned on a shelf. “Go away, Frank. You’ve done enough here. I have no money
for you.”

“Now you get a set of balls?” Frank
asked. “Tell you what, Jake, let’s keep it simple. I’ll call it even if you let
me take your daughter for a few nights. I’ll bring her back in one piece, I
swear.”

“Ava?” I asked.

Frank looked at me. “You know her?”

“What the fuck do you want with
Ava? What does she have to do with this?”

“Nice tits and a round ass,” Frank
said. “I’d fuck every hole…”

I threw my head forward and smashed
it against Frank’s face. He started to crumble and I let him fall. I then
started to throw my knee forward against his face over and over. The rage was
white hot as it burned inside me. I couldn’t believe the feeling…
jealousy.

“Stop!” Jake’s voice yelled. “You’ll
kill him!”

I jumped back away and collected
myself. I was almost out of breath. Frank fell to the side and curled up in the
fetal position. He was making noise and I couldn’t tell if he was crying or
trying to talk.

I was done with him for now. I
turned and set my sights to Jake.

I went right after him, no matter
how old he was. I grabbed his shirt and slammed him against a storage shelf.
Boxes toppled off the top and back, slamming to the floor with a heavy echo.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Personal.”

I shook him. “Don’t fuck with me,
man.”

“Don’t hurt me,” Jake said.

“Hurt you? I could have killed your
daughter. But I didn’t. I could make one phone call right now and have the
entire MC here. You know who I am, right?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “God, yes.”

“So if I wanted you hurt or dead,
it would have happened by now.”

Jake nodded. “I run business back
here. Okay?”

“Games? Drugs? Hookers?”

Jake slowly nodded.

“Fuck,” I whispered. “And your
daughter?”

Why the fuck did you ask that?
What does it matter if she gambles, snorts coke, or sucks dick for cash?

I felt that little ping on jealousy
again.

“What about her?” Jake asked.

“She work this too?”

“Yes.”

I shoved back and stepped away.

I walked to Frank and grabbed him.
I brought him to his feet. “You drive here, asshole?”

“Yeah,” he said. His nose looked
like a smushed meatball.

“Get the fuck out of here right
now,” I ordered. “The town of Bishop is run by us. Find somewhere else to
conduct your business and your fucking shakedowns. I see you come within
spitting distance of Ava and I’ll gut you.”

“You don’t get…”

I threw my head forward again and
hit his nose a second time. His head flew back and hit the wall. I dragged
Frank to the back door of the store and opened it. I shoved him back and
outside.

“Get out of here, asshole.”

I watched as Frank stumbled to his
car and sped away.

I shut the door and turned to look
at Jake.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “I didn’t expect
that.”

I looked around and saw a stack of
paper towels. I ripped open a package and tossed a roll to Jake.

“Clean yourself up,” I said. “Your
daughter is out there terrified.”

I started to walk and Jake ran
after me. He grabbed my arm. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why… this? Frank is a powerful
man. His group…”

“I don’t give a shit who he is,” I
said. “He’s in my town causing problems.”

“That still doesn’t answer why.”

“You don’t need to know why,” I
said. I shook Jake away. “Whatever the fuck you’re doing here, Jake, you better
really reconsider.”

I wanted to walk away as a tough
guy. As someone who did a favor to a stranger. That was something I never did
though.

But Jake couldn't just fucking
listen.

He ran after me again.

He grabbed my leather cut. “My wife
was killed in this store.”

I looked back at him. “What?”

“Someone killed my wife. A long
time ago. But this was our place together. All we had was this store and our
daughter. I’ll do anything to keep both. If you need to call your thugs and
come kill me, then do it. Just don’t hurt my daughter.”

“Thugs?” I asked. “Trust me, Jake,
we’re not thugs. We’re your only hope.”

I walked to the front of the store
and found Ava right where I left her.

She jumped up. “Is he alive?”

“He’s fine,” I said. “Whatever the
hell is going on here… you all need to reel it in and quick.”

“I’ve told…”

I put a hand up. “Not my problem,
sweetie. I just came in to grab a little snack.”

And to snoop around your store.
I found everything I need. You better skip town, and soon, sweetie, because
when Prez gives the order, we
’ll take the store down.

Ava reached up and touched my
cheek. “You saved my life. You saved my father. You…”

I gently touched her wrist and
moved it away from me. I shook my head. “You have no idea what I did here, sweetie.”

I walked around the counter and
grabbed my soda and chips. I’d paid for them and I planned on taking them with
me.

Just before I turned away, Ava dove
across the counter again at me. She put her right hand on the counter and she
grabbed my leather cut with her left hand. I had a one second view of her
cleavage and I took full advantage of it.

Christ, her tits were fucking
delicious looking.

She then forced herself forward and
planted a kiss on my cheek. If that was her way of thanking me she could have
spared the nonsense and just dropped to her knees and sucked my dick.

I pulled away from the counter and
walked out of the store.

I touched my cheek and growled
under my breath.

I shouldn’t have gotten involved in
that bullshit.

I shouldn’t have saved Ava or her
old man.

That was a mistake.

And that mistake was going to
fucking follow me.