REIGN: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (11 page)

“I’m glad to see you,” I stuttered, immediately blushing and cursing
myself for not coming up with something better to say to him. He didn’t seem to
share my thoughts on the matter, though, and smiled broadly at me. Holding his
hand before my face, I was relieved to see my car keys dangling from one
finger.

“I moved your car to…” he started to say, but I interrupted him,
grabbing the dangling keys from his hand as though they were the antidote to a
poison coursing through my veins. Just holding them made me feel a million
times better; I was in control again. No one could keep me from leaving. No one
but myself, of course.

“I saw, thanks,” I said, pocketing the keys and keeping my eyes well
away from his. Every time I looked at him I felt the same urge to reach out and
touch him, felt my heart pounding in my throat, wanted to believe every word that
dripped from his perfect lips. But I couldn’t let my guard down like that. No
matter how helpful he seemed, both in practical terms and in
less-than-practical terms, it would do me no good to stick around longer than I
needed to.

“Still planning on going to Mexico all by your lonesome?” He asked,
and I detected a hint of disappointment in his voice. I’d thought that all our
talk in the bedroom had been just that – silly bedroom talk – and that he’d be
through with me. But now it certainly seemed like he wanted to make good on his
promises – or at least stall me from leaving.

“I am,” I said simply, my tone terse.

“Tonight?”

“Well…” I said, my eyes darting around the bar. Honey had turned back
to her flirty friend; no one seemed to be watching Reign and I talk. I hadn’t
really decided whether or not to leave that night. For one thing, if I drove
all through the night, my sleep schedule would wind up off track and I’d have
to find someplace to spend the day. Then again, it might be safer to travel at
night. But then again, with less people on the roads at night I’d stick out
like a sore thumb. But then again…

“I get that you’re anxious to leave,” Reign said, picking up on my
hesitation. “But if you stick around, I’m pretty sure I can get you into a new
car tomorrow. Well, not a new car, but a different car. Clean plates,
registration, all that, no problem.”

I bit my lip, still avoiding Reign’s gaze. I knew damn well that I
wanted to stay for another night. If only to feel those feelings one more
time…assuming he still wanted me, of course. And a car would be an immense
help, would take a huge load off my shoulders.

“Come here, sit down for a bit,” Reign said, finally, after a few
moments had passed. He reached out and placed his hand gently on my lower back,
steering me towards an empty table in the corner of the bar.

His hand on me made my brain blink out of commission. I looked back as
Reign guided me; Honey was watching once more, her eyebrows raised in interest.
I wondered what she was thinking, why she was so interested in what was going
on between Reign and I. I hoped I wasn’t stepping on her territory in some way;
but she seemed to be perfectly happy with the girl beside her.

“You know, Honey is kind of like a mother around here,” Reign said, once
more picking up on my thoughts. “I mean, not really, she’s more like a…like a
wife, or something, to everyone. Keeps an eye on us, out for us. Takes care of
her boys. She’s got this sixth sense for trouble, you know? So she takes some
warming up to, that’s all.”

“Oh,” I said, taking a seat, somewhat relieved to be free of Reign’s
gently pressing hand, which had all but eradicated my ability to think or
function.

“She’s a good woman, Honey,” he continued. “A lot like you, actually.”

“How’s that?” I asked, no longer able to keep my eyes away from Reign
as he took his seat across from me. God damn, I still couldn’t believe a fat
girl like me had spent the night with an Adonis like him…not just spent the
night, but the whole damn morning, too.

“Just similar,” he said, clamming up on the subject. I got the feeling
he didn’t quite want to go further out of a sense of propriety; I supposed that
gossip wasn’t something he was comfortable with.

“I don’t think she likes me much,” I said. Reign chuckled.

“She doesn’t like many strangers much. We certainly don’t call her
Honey ‘cause she’s so sweet,” he said.

“What’s her real name?” I asked, suddenly curious about how everyone
around here got their nicknames. I’d heard enough strange names being thrown
around, and I didn’t know the first thing about MC culture.

“I don’t know, don’t care. She’s Honey to us, and that’s all that
matters,” Reign said.

And what’s your real name, Reign? How’d you get
such a regal nickname? Where did you even come from…
I found myself getting lost in my thoughts. Being
around him…I just wanted to know more. Everything. I wanted to read his
autobiography.

“So…the car…” I said, feeling a bit more stable now that my mind and
body had gotten used to being around him again.
That initial shock is a killer,
I thought, marveling at how
dumbstruck he’d made me. And how, even now that I’d calmed down, there was
really nothing that I wanted more than to be closer to him.

“Yeah, so, we got a dealer here in town, actually just a ways out of
town. He’s a good guy, he’ll do an easy trade-in for you, on the spot. He’s
legit, but he knows how to keep his mouth shut under pressure,” Reign said,
leaning back, one arm draped over the side of the chair and the other laying
across the table.
  

“Well, I mean, that sounds…that sounds fine?” I said, torn between
desire to stay, the logic of what Reign was saying, my instinctual urge to
leave as soon as possible, and suspicion over the happy coincidences that had
led me to this perfect situation. The phrase “too good to be true” came to
mind.

“What you really ought to get is a bike,” Reign said, suddenly, a
glint in his eye, his smile spreading wider. I scoffed.

“Are you kidding me? I’m trying to keep a low profile, not announce
myself to every town I go through. Besides, I’ve never even ridden on the back
of a motorcycle before,” I said. I knew he wasn’t being serious, but the idea
drove a thrill of fear through me. I was telling the truth; I’d never been on a
motorcycle, they’d always scared me. The thought of being exposed and moving so
quickly…it wasn’t for me.

“Bikes are easy to ditch when you need to. And people are less likely
to mess with you. And, damn but it feels good, girl. You don’t know what you’re
missing,” he replied, the smile now planted firmly on his face. He looked me up
and down, almost as though he was judging whether or not I was worthy of a
motorcycle. Clearly, it was his whole life; you don’t go around joining biker
gangs if you don’t have some love for bikes. But it wasn’t a love I could share
with him. Not at all. I shook my head.

“Really, though, you’ve never been on a motorcycle before?” he asked,
the smile fading slightly as he looked at me, a more serious expression in his
eyes.

“Nope, never have and hopefully never will,” I said, starting to get a
bad feeling from the way he was looking at me.

“Don’t be too confident about that,” he said. “We’re taking you out
tonight.
”

“Oh, no, really, I don’t….” I started to say, panic fluttering into my
chest as I imagined myself riding on the back of a Harley. Not my cup of tea. I
didn’t care how damn charming this guy was, and how much he was promising to
help me, I’d be damned if I let him coax me onto a death machine.

“How can you know you don’t like it if you’ve never tried?” He asked,
entirely serious now. He had a point, of course, but you could say the same
thing about a lot of things. I’ve never tried raw, rotten tuna, but I don’t
have to try it to know it’s not something I want. I told him as much, but it
didn’t sway him.

“Baby, you just
gotta
understand. It’s not
scary. It’s…it’s freedom. Pure, absolute, unfettered freedom. You got the road
in front of you, the wind at your back, you’re like a bird,” he said, now
leaning in close across the table.

I jumped in my seat as I felt his hand land on my knee and pulse,
sending a shockwave through my body. I could remember, all too well, what he
could do with those hands. His palm slid upwards slightly, rubbing my thigh
through my jeans. I wanted to remain focused on our discussion of how I was
going to get over the border, but he was making it very,
very
hard.

“You get that engine between your legs and you feel so powerful. You
feel like the whole damn world just opens up for you. Like you are doing
exactly what God put you on this earth to do. You can’t imagine how good it
feels…” he said, his hand now moving even further up my thigh. My heart sped
up. I could hear his voice in my ear as he leaned closer and closer, tugging me
towards him like a rope across the table, making me lean in farther. He could
have been reciting the dictionary and I would have been enthralled.

“The night sky above you, all the stars, the cool air, baby, you’re
gonna
love it, I promise, you won’t believe how much you’re
gonna
love it,” he whispered, his face now only
inches away from mine. He closed the gap slowly, my eyes half-closing as I let
myself be lulled by his voice and by his hand rubbing me.

Our lips met, parted slightly, and I tasted him like a fine wine,
sipping him slowly, our tongues coming together in a gentle waltz. Oh, God, but
he was a good kisser. I felt like my head was lifting off my shoulders, that my
whole body was full of warm lava, slow-moving pleasure rippling through me. He
broke away, the smile returning to his face.

“I can’t,” I said, slurring my words slightly, intoxicated by him.

“I want you to,” he said in return, his voice inviting no arguments. I
didn’t have any. As much as I tried to fight it, he had me wrapped around his
finger. I would have jumped from the roof of the bar if he’d asked me to. I
just wanted to be close to him again, to wrap my arms around him, feel him fill
me up in that wonderful way, the heat of his skin against mine making us sweaty
and sticking us together as we twirled, naked, across a bed…

His hand moved from my thigh to my hand, grasping it firmly.

“Trust me,” he said.

I nodded, felt almost like I was outside of my body, watching myself
agree to do this crazy thing that was so “not me”. But, deep down, some part of
me wondered if I really even knew who “me” was. Maybe the “me” that I
should
have been all those years with
Jeremy was the sort of girl who would accept motorcycle rides from sexy men.
Maybe that “me” wouldn’t have found herself in this situation in the first
place.

~
13
~

From across the crowded bar, he watched them. No one noticed him.
People rarely did. He was very good at going unnoticed. Just another rough
looking dude in the lawless desert, someone you wouldn’t ask for credentials.
Tough enough to blend in, with a pocketful of lies to cover his tracks if
anyone started getting nosey.

He was aware of everything going on around him, but his focus was
trained on the couple – or at least, they looked like a couple – in the corner.
The woman, dark-haired, tan, and shyly smiling; the man, tall and lean and
bold. They were speaking close, like lovers, but something about their body
language told him that she was being talked into something she wasn’t wholly
sure of. But that wasn’t important; what was important was the way the man was
looking at her, the way he leaned into her, the way you could almost feel his
desire to reach out and stroke her cheek.

He was the man to get to, and it looked like she was the way to get
him. The stranger watched as the girl nodded, agreeing to whatever deal they’d
struck. Reign, the man’s target, was clearly pleased as he fairly leapt from
his chair.

A moment later, he was talking to the female bartender, someone the
man had earlier pegged as a potential tool in his game. But it was clear that
while Honey had some place in the club, and in Reign’s affections, she was
neither as compelling or easy a target as this Latina-looking newcomer. The man
watched as Honey smiled and laughed and disappeared behind the bar,
re-appearing with a helmet and jacket.

Going for a little ride,
the man thought, taking a sip of his beer. It was
skunked. The bar was shit. It was a wonder that this club was still around, if
their bar was any indication of their ability to keep their shit together. He’d
been casing the place for a week already and hadn’t been served a single drink
that didn’t taste like the glasses were washed in nail polish remover. But,
despite their crappy bar-running skills, the club had managed to spark the
interest – or ire – of the man’s employer.

From what he knew, which wasn’t much, the Black Smoke Motorcycle Club
had recently moved into his employer’s territory with their trafficking
business. The man didn’t care much about the details. They didn’t matter. He
was a hired gun, that was all. He didn’t care a whit about trafficking, human
or otherwise.

He knew, from his own research, that the club he was currently working
for – the Immortal
Soulz
– had a reputation for
roughing up their “passengers”, and were even involved in the sort of
trafficking that put fourteen-year-old girls in especially nasty situations. As
far as he knew, the Black Smokes were a little more humane in their treatment
of illegal immigrants. But he didn’t care about who was the good guy. He was
gonna
make a lot of money by screwing with the Black
Smokes, and that was all that mattered.

He had to find out more about that girl. Judging by the bruise on her
face, and the strange way she’d hugged that duffel bag to her body when she
first came into the bar (he was a very observant man), she was running from
something pretty gnarly. And anyone running from something gnarly had a
weakness that could be exploited. And if he could exploit her weakness, he
could exploit Reign’s weakness. It would have been foolish to go straight for
the club’s aging president; he could do just as much damage going after the
front-runner.

He knew her room number, and he had a lock-picking kit burning a hole
in his pocket. Not that the locks here would cause him much trouble. Most
likely they were as crappy as the beer.

He finished his drink just as the girl and her beau left the bar; he
counted the seconds as they passed. One minute, two minutes, three. Outside, a
bike engine kicked up, hummed in neutral for a while, and then roared off. He
stood and slipped away, inviting not a single curious glance on his way out.

If he’d had a conscious, he’d have felt bad about what he was doing.
He would have thought twice before picking the lock to her room, perfectly, so
smoothly that no one would ever know he’d done it. He’d have felt bad rummaging
through her things to look for a wallet, some identifying information. He’d
have felt bad once he found the wallet and her ID and memorized the information
on it. He’d have felt bad breaking into the safe, pulling down the duffel bag,
and seeing what was inside. He’d have felt bad putting it back, putting
everything back where it belonged, and leaving without a trace.

He would have felt bad about all those things, but he didn’t. He just
felt confident that he was about to come into a lot of money. If not from the
Immortal
Soulz
, at least from that jackpot the girl
was hiding in her room. She certainly didn’t come by it honestly – and even if
she had, who cared? Girls who hid huge bundles of cash in duffel bags in hotel
safes weren’t, generally, very interested in going to the cops to report missing
money. Maybe he’d leave her a wad, if he was feeling generous. Maybe he should
just take it now and hit the road…

But no, he knew it would be better to wait. If he played things right,
he could get his pay from the Immortal
Soulz
and
the girl’s money. Then he’d be
sitting real pretty.

In the meantime, he had her name and address. That was a good place to
start. Hell, it was a great place to start. He hummed a little tune as he left
the room, clicking the door softly behind him, and headed to his truck. He
didn’t know why it had suddenly come into his head, but he liked it.

“You
ain’t
goin
’
nowhere,” he sang softly to himself as he eased into the driver’s seat and
turned the key. He had a lot of digging to do that night.

As he headed down the town’s only road and back towards the shack that
was passing for his basecamp until the job was done, he kept an eye out for the
telltale glint of a bike pulled off to the side of the road. He had a feeling
that Reign had taken his sweetheart out on a little ride, and from the
chemistry between the two he figured that ride was going to take quite an
interesting turn once the girl had that engine between her knees…