Torched: Afterburn (Iron Serpents Motorcycle Club Book 2) (13 page)

Torch slowed down but kept lapping me up, prolonging my release for as long as he could. Never mind all the other shit, he’d keep me hooked for life through his sexual generosity alone. By the time the throbbing in my core subsided, my legs felt weak and unstable.

He guided me down to his lap and grinned. “You liked that, huh?”

“How can you tell?” I laughed, wiping the glistening evidence off his beard.

“Your body’s not as big of a mystery as your brain,” he quipped. “I can tell you’ve been drinking that fucking pineapple juice too.”

“Oh yeah?” I leaned over and kissed him.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “You taste how sweet you are on my lips?”

“You know what would really taste sweet?”

“What’s that?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

I stood up and held out my hand. “Your cock. In bed.”

He took it and bolted to his feet. “Lead the way, baby.”

: 10 :

| LIVIA |

With my heart and mind heavy from lying awake most of the night thinking about Buddha, I’d almost forgotten Nadia was supposed to start her new job at the hardware store that morning. Torch had left for the clubhouse early and it wasn’t until I’d hit the snooze button for the third time that I remembered I had somewhere to be.

I showered and hauled ass, pulling up to the store about ten minutes before it opened. Spotting Nadia patiently sitting on a bench in front, I sized her up and approached.

She looked
way
better than a few days earlier. The circles under her eyes had disappeared, her hair was neatly pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and it looked like she’d taken the couple hundred in cash I’d left her to buy some new clothes and makeup.

“Wow, you look great,” I said, pulling her in for a hug.

She beamed at me. “I haven’t slept this good in months. Thank you, Liv. I can’t say it enough.”

“Oh, knock it off. You ready to put in the work?”

She nodded enthusiastically, like a little girl going to meet Santa for the first time. “I think Beanie’s in there already, but I wasn’t sure if he knew I was starting.”

“He does, come on.” I held the door open for her and walked over to the counter, where Beanie was counting the register.

“Ladies,” he greeted us with a warm smile.

I leaned across the counter and kissed him on the cheek. “Hey, Beanster. You the only one here?”

“Yeah, just me today. Malice is doing some club shit and our cashier called in, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Mornings are slow, I’ll get her trained.”

“Thanks, honey.” I turned back to Nadia. “We need to take care of something first, come on.”

She nodded and followed me into the bathroom, where I pulled a drug test kit I’d picked up at the pharmacy out of my messenger bag. I handed it to her and turned my back so she could do her thing. As soon as I heard her flush and pull up her pants, I took the cup from her and dipped the test stick into it. As expected, it only came up positive for weed, which I’d told her was okay. Everything else was negative.

I smiled at her. “Looks like you passed the first hurdle.”

“I’m not going back to that stuff, I made you a promise.”

“Good, I’m holding you to it. I can’t be here every morning so one of the guys is gonna have to do it from now on, okay?”

She shrugged. “It’s not like they haven’t seen it all before.”

I snickered and shook my head. “Alright, let’s get you a name tag and Beanie can take it from there.”

I got her settled in and gave Beanie the rest of the cups and test strips. After a few words of encouragement, I checked the time and walked out the door, intending to swing by the clubhouse to see if there was anything I could help with. I doubted it, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to offer.

As I walked to my bike with my head down, rummaging through my bag for my keys, I ran smack into another body.

Startled, I took a step back and saw Dana staring me down.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

“Excuse me?”

“You got Nadia a job? What the fuck, Liv?”

Goddamn it, club women and their fucking drama
.
“Why is that a problem?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because we don’t need more skanks ogling our men around the clubhouse? They got rid of her and you bring the bitch back?”

“You can’t be serious right now,” I groaned.

“Do I look like I’m
not
?”

“You look like a fire-breathing banshee, honestly,” I replied dryly, in no fucking mood for this conversation. She probably didn’t know what was going on with Buddha and I wasn’t about to tell her, but damn, it wasn’t even ten yet. Could a bitch get some coffee in her before the claws came out?

She put her hands on her hips and scowled. “She used to fuck Torch. You know that, right? What are you, some kind of masochist?”

Gritting my teeth, I stared her down and wondered where the hell she was getting all this nerve. “Don’t be salty, Dana. First of all, she’s working at the store, not the clubhouse. Second, my husband’s past is none of your fucking concern. Obviously, I’m not insecure about it so don’t project your own issues on me. I don’t understand where you’re coming from. There’s
always
a plethora of women around the guys, it’s not like Nadia would tip the scale.”

“What happened to the sisterhood?” she seethed. “We’re the old ladies, your loyalty should be to
us
. She’s just a fucking junkie stripper.”

“My best friend was a stripper,” I hurled back, almost tasting the acid on my tongue. “Fuck you, Dana, this is exactly why women can’t get any respect. We’re too busy trying to tear each other down instead of working together. You have no idea what sisterhood really means if you think that’s okay. Maybe you should look into going back to college, I’m sure there’s some Alpha Delta
Bitch
sorority you’d fit right in with.”

Her jaw dropped and she stuck a finger in my face. “You’re unbelievable. Fuck
you
, Liv, you’ve been here for like five minutes!”

I grabbed that damn finger and twisted her hand away, eliciting a shriek.

“Whoa… whoa,” Beanie barked, as he rushed out of the store and stuck an arm out between us. “If you’re gonna get all crazy, bring that shit inside. There’s people watching.”

“It’s fine, Bean. We’re done here.” Still gripping her contorted hand and squeezing hard, I glared at Dana and sneered. “Tell you what, sweetheart… I actually have things to do today, so why don’t you run along and worry about yourself? Let me know when you get tired of riding that high horse and have to walk in the same dirt as the rest of us peasants. And stay the fuck out of Nadia’s face or we’ll have bigger problems than your snotty attitude. Trust me, I only need
one
minute to kick your ass.”

With that, I let her go, turned on my heels, and walked away. I couldn’t keep dealing with these estrogen-fueled shit shows, I’d lose my goddamn mind. It seemed like stupid drama got these bitches off, but all I got out of it was unnecessary anxiety. Sick or not, there was no way in hell Buddha was sticking me with the responsibility of keeping these crazy women in line unless he wanted me to get locked up again.

I sat down on my bike, pulled out my phone, and dialed Silas.

“Good morning, Styx,” he cheerfully greeted. “It’s about time you called.”

“I’m in,” I declared. “Send me the information.”

: : : :

| TORCH |

After a tense and emotionally-draining morning at the clubhouse, Torch took a swig from his bottle of whiskey and lit a cigarette. He watched as Gauge and Mace pulled out the old motorcycles from his garage to load up on the flatbed, his personal contribution to the Cora fund. He and the other brothers who worked in the shop would be putting in long hours to get them restored. Between his numerous reseller contacts and it being peak riding season, buyers were plentiful and they were hoping to get them fixed up and flipped in a few days. By offering them for two or three grand under value, they figured the bikes would go quick and they could pull in almost half of what they now owed Cora. Buddha had talked him into giving them two weeks, but—just as he’d predicted—it came with an extra twenty-five thousand in interest, bringing the total up to two hundred grand.

Before church that morning, Torch and his president had sat down and held their own private meeting in his office. Despite Buddha’s insistence that he should completely retire for the good of the club, Torch refused to give him the vote he’d need to go out in good standing. Most decisions only called for a majority, but patching in or leaving the MC required a unanimous vote. Between the twenty-plus years Buddha had spent at the head of the table, three decades as a member, he would’ve cut off his own head before walking away without the cut he’d fought and bled for.

It was a bluff, Torch would never deny him retirement or a club burial if it came to it, but he wasn’t about to give Buddha a reason to quit fighting for his life. The fact that he was talking about retiring instead of just stepping down from his post and going back to being a regular patch holder spoke volumes, it was nothing but self-sacrificial bullshit coming from an emotional standpoint. And emotions had no fucking place in decisions affecting the entire MC.

They’d come to a compromise. Buddha would step away from the table indefinitely to focus on his treatment and hand over the reins to Torch, who now also held his proxy vote for every decision going forward until the diagnosis became more… certain.

The announcement had been made in church a few hours earlier, probably the most somber meeting he could remember in his entire time as VP. Buddha took his leave immediately after filling everybody else in, leaving Torch to lead the Cora discussion while his chair sat empty.

Thankfully, all of the guys had sided with him when it came to a gun deal with Largo Scully being a last resort. Muling, extortion, robbery, anything that could start even more problems they didn’t need were all off the table for now. They’d worked their asses off for years to keep their noses clean and the club running legit, two hundred grand wasn’t worth dismantling all that progress and potentially bringing down fresh heat from the law.

Unfortunately, aside from Zed, none of them wanted to entertain the idea of asking Liv for the money either. Torch had pushed it, willing to swallow his pride to avoid bringing down the torrential wrath of Cora on top of everything else, but his brothers felt that sticking their hands out would go against everything they believed in. They wanted to do this on their own, not keep running to his old lady for help. Squid also pointed out that she’d ask too many questions and they’d just be transferring the loan. Torch countered that she’d give them way more time to pay it back, and they could spend the next two weeks looking for the assholes who robbed them instead of slaving away to appease a blood-thirsty loan shark. There was also the matter of Buddha’s medical bills—the whole reason they were in this goddamn mess in the first place—but the boys wanted to wait to worry about that too.

Needless to say, shit hadn’t panned out his way. After a vote where Torch’s conscience forced him to use Buddha’s proxy to go against himself—Pres had privately made his stance abundantly clear one last time before stepping away—the idea landed dead in the water. He would respect the democratic process, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

So, for now, Zed was scrambling to drum up extra repo and protection jobs, Squid was combing through their books to figure out if they could put off any bills or sell some assets, and Biff had been tasked with scouring internet auctions, classifieds, and coin store websites to watch for Double Eagles suddenly popping up. Torch was convinced the latter was just a huge fucking waste of time, but the table had also spoken when it came to divvying up responsibilities and Buddha hadn’t given him the proxy to abuse it for his own gain.

They were spreading themselves thin, too thin for comfort. But again, it wasn’t his personal call to make.

After the boys got the last bike on the truck and Mace went to work fastening them down, Gauge walked over and joined him for a smoke. “What’s on your mind, brother?”

“Fucking everything. This shit’s just—”

“A total clusterfuck?” Gauge finished for him with a smirk.

“Yeah.”

“You pissed about the Liv vote?”

Torch flicked his cigarette butt and rubbed his beard. “I wouldn’t say pissed, I just think we’re making this a lot harder on ourselves than it has to be. And I still can’t help thinking this was a Cora set-up and we’re making ourselves look like fucking idiots anyway.”

They’d talked about the possibility of Cora being behind the ambush, essentially setting himself up to collect almost double—three hundred and fifty grand to be exact—but most of them had written it off as not being the guy’s style. Torch wasn’t so sure.

Gauge blew out a lungful of smoke and frowned. “An ambush would be up Cora’s alley, but when’s he ever hidden behind masks and shit? He hasn’t built a brutal reputation by lurking in the shadows. I mean, he stands to gain, but the guy’s got millions.”