Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC (22 page)

I'm hanging out with Lily, tonight
, it said.
Gran's at the casino in Laketown with LuAnn. She said don't wait up for her and don't call! Love you and see you in the morning!

Madi

Lily being LuAnn's daughter and LuAnn, being one of the more established club whores for the last fifteen or so years. Lily was the product of Lu's time spent with Tiny during the days she was angling to become his official Old Lady, but it was something that no one ever really discussed much outside of the club once he unconsciously denounced her. Lily seemed to have more of a relationship with River, Blue and the other members than she ever seemed to have with her own old man. But they often reminded her that it was on him, not her to make a constant effort in being more than just a motherfucker who sent checks every goddamn week to 'show just how fucking much he cared'.

River grabbed his beer and slammed the door shut. He popped the cap and tossed it into the garbage beneath the sink. He leaned back on the counter, wrapped an arm around his chest and took a single breath in. Compared to Tiny, he was probably father of the goddamn year. But in general, he knew that he could've done better by his baby girl, even if it meant just being around more; the problem was that he just never fucking knew how. But he loved her more than his own goddamn, worthless life, would've done absolutely anything to make her happy, even if he was left feeling miserable as fuck inside as a result. And outside of his mother, and maybe Verna, she was the only other woman in his life that he treated with any modicum of respect.

He drank back some of his beer and thought about how different things would be for him once she was finally gone. How the hell was he going to get along in being without her while she was off to school in another goddamn state? Who would he talk to about personal shit aside from his mother? Who would make him laugh and give him advice he knew damn well he needed but never asked for? Who would be there to force him to smile even when he felt like throwing a fist through someone’s face, or hold his hand to keep it from shaking when bad shit went down at the club that he couldn't control? Who would look into his eyes and call him a hero? Who would think that despite himself and all the bad shit that he'd ever done in his life and to the people around him, that he was still worth not only being around, but worthy of being loved completely, fully, and with every single bit of their entire goddamn heart and soul? He didn't know, and he didn't want to think about it even though he couldn't help himself. Shit like this was why he hated being alone. Thoughts creeped inside his head that he couldn't get rid of, feelings overtook his body that he couldn't shake. It was like being trapped inside a tornado or a hurricane all at once; you had no other fucking place to go but where the wind or water took you.

The only thing that seemed to calm his nerves was shifting his thoughts over to Mia, thinking about how she and her daughter needed him now, about the way she looked up at him when she smiled and told him how thankful she was for his help. It wasn't the same. He knew it and there was no way in hell that it could've or even should've been, but shit, it was something. It was something better than what he knew he wouldn't have once his baby girl was gone off and living her life and that would be absolutely nothing, nothing at all.

When the doorbell rang, he arched his brows, then pulled them together and stared out into the living room. Most people who wanted to see him after hours would leave word for him at the club. No motherfucker in their right mind ever showed up to his house uninvited unless they were crazy as fuck or looking for a goddamn beat down of some kind.

He placed his beer on the counter and reached into the pocket of his cut for his gun. He flipped the safety and slowly approached the door, then moved to the side to peek out from the corner of the curtain. When he saw exactly who was standing there, in short-shorts and a hot pink tube top with matching pink tennis shoes, he dropped his head and cursed to himself.

"
Christ
."

"River?" the soft, perky voice belted out from the other side. She knocked again and tried peeking in through a window off to the side.

"Fuck." He turned the safety back on, then lifted his shirt and slid his gun behind the rim of his pants. He wiped his hand down his face in a load of frustration, then reached for the handle on the door and yanked it back. What stood before him was a sight for a pair of sore eyes like his, and he in no way saw that phrase as a compliment, especially when it came to her. "Courtney," he said, his eyes falling as he got a good look at her face again. She was wearing make-up this time. Not too much but enough to be noticed. It didn't help.

She fell against the frame and winked up at him. "Hi."

"What the fuck are you doin' here?" He peeked out into the yard and his driveway, which aside from his bike was completely clear, and scrunched his face. "And how the fuck did you find out where I lived?"

She slid her finger up and down against the wood. "I've got my ways." Her eyes went from his face straight down to his flaccid cock. River narrowed his eyes and took a step over the threshold, startling her. She quickly dropped her hand from his door and stood straight. "Alright, fine," she told him. "I went back to the club and asked one of those prospects, the bald one."

River frowned. "Styx?" She nodded. "
Shit.
Son of a fuckin' bitch. What'd you do, offer him a goddamn hand job instead?"

"I just flashed him my tits and let him hold onto them for a while."

He shook his head. "How long where you there?"

"Not too long. Since you weren't there, I didn't see any reason for sticking around after I let him feel me up."

"How the fuck did you get back to Crescent Beach?"

"Who says I ever left?" She moved into his space and stared up into his eyes, watching as they grew intensely dark while staring down at her. "Can I come in?"

"What in the fuck are you doin' here?"

"You've asked me that question twice already?"

"Yeah, and I'm still seekin' a goddamn answer from it."

She lifted her shoulders and slid her tongue between her lips. "I want more of what you gave me this morning, and last night."

He rolled his eyes and threw his hand against the wall, annoyed as all fucking get out that she had not only shown up, but was now invading his personal space and time alone. Even if he didn't want the latter all that much, he sure as fuck didn't want to spend any time outside of his head with her. "Jesus."

"And that’s exactly what I want you to have me screaming all over again tonight, River." She wrapped her hand around the center of his shirt and lifted up to her toes.

He pulled his head back. "This is the same house I share with my mother and my kid. You've got no goddamn clue as to what the fuck you just stepped into."

"Well are they here?"

He groaned. "No."

"Then I know
exactly
what I’ve just stepped into." She threw her arms around his neck and pouted her lips. "Don't you wanna feel something good tonight, baby? Something that maybe loosens up all that anger and tension you've got building up inside that perfect, masculine chest of yours?"

He thought for a minute about what she said. Did he wanna feel something good, something to help loosen up that anger? Shit yeah, he did. She just wasn't the something he was looking for, not this time. But, she was there.

"Shit." He wrapped a hand around her waist, then dropped it down to her ass and squeezed tight. She yelped. "Once we're done tonight, I want you gone, you hear me? I don't care how the fuck you get home, just as long as you're not still here when I rollover--"

"Okay," she said. "Okay." She crawled her fingers up into his hair and he dipped his head to kiss her. And as their lips touched and her tongue slipped inside his mouth to mingle and twist with his, he felt a spark of... absolutely nothing at all, mixed in with a little bit of nausea and a whole hell of a lot of goddamned regret.

"
Shit,
" he mumbled between her lips. He dropped his hand from her ass and pulled back despite her eagerness and desperation to keep him close. "My dick's not up for this shit with you tonight, darlin'."

"Not up for it,
yet
." She dropped her hand inside his pants and stroked him, and a few minutes after he closed his eyes, he went stiff against her palm.

But she wouldn’t realize that it wasn’t because of what she was doing to him, or how he was feeling about it. It was because once he had erased her face from his mind, it went right back to all things Mia, and what he felt when he first saw her again that morning. It went back to her face, her hair, her tits, her long ass legs in that short ass skirt and pretty brown skin that shined like diamonds in the goddamn sun; it went back to the way her ass looked when her skirt fall back after he put her inside that car, it went back to her lush mouth and the shit that came out of it the first moment she spoke; it went back to the feeling he got when she wrapped her hands around his neck as he carried her into her house, a feeling that built up inside his chest all over again when she placed her hand on top of his heart earlier that night at the club.

The minute Courtney removed her hand from around him, his eyes flew open and he stared down at her, and his goddamn cock started going soft again.

"Fuck." He pulled her into the house and grunted as he closed the door. "You don't say another goddamn word to me for the rest of the night," he told her. "Alright?"

She slowly nodded her head, knowing all too well that she was being used, knowing that her body was being put in place of the one he really wanted beneath him that night. But she wasn't willing to pass up the opportunity to be with him again, even if it meant that aside from his dick, in no way shape or form would he be receiving any actual pleasure outside of whatever the hell he had planned to create for himself inside his own goddamn head.

River pointed toward the back of his house. Courtney looked behind herself, then took off running right into his bedroom and fell on top of the bed the minute she pushed his door open. He waited a few seconds before joining her and turned his head up toward the ceiling.

"If there
is
a God up there like she says," he said to himself. "This sure is one helluva fuckin' time to leave a motherfucker like me hangin' from a goddamn piece of thread in the meantime.”

He trudged back through his living room, straight down the hall and into his bedroom, and slammed the door. Neither one of them came out again until the next morning.

Chapter Thirteen

I woke up to the smell of burning bacon and fried eggs that, from what my nose was telling me, had been mixed with cheese and a heaping amount of green, white and red onions. Though the combination of it all wasn't exactly the best smell in the world, it was for certain a hell of a lot more pleasant than the one I remembered walking into the night or even the morning before.

I flipped over on my back and outstretched my arms and legs and reached out to pat the other side of the bed, expecting to feel Avery's tiny warm body curled up in a ball with the pillow tucked between her cheek and shoulder. Instead what I got beneath my fingers was the sheet that covered the mattress, and the edge of the pillow which was hanging off the side of the bed.

"Avery?" I sat up quick and looked around the room. "Avery?" I called out again. My first instinct was to panic when she didn't answer, but then I thought it was highly possible that she could've been spending time with Verna or River or Styx or any of the other members of the club.

Any other members of the club. Like Snake. Or Meathead. Or Shiver, or even worse, Tiny.

"Shit." I jumped from bed and hustled over to the corner of the room, quickly ripped off my pajamas and replaced them with a pair of fitted jeans and a white tank from the bottom of my suitcase. I slipped on a pair of black ballerina flats and after checking my face and hair in the mirror to make sure that I didn't scare anyone the minute I encountered them, least of all myself, I headed out of the room and down the hallway leading to the kitchen. "Avery?" I yelled out. Just as I was about to round another corner, I was startled by Blue poking his head around the wall and jumping out at me like a wild-haired Jack in the Box.

"BOO!" he said. I dropped back and smiled as wide and as hard as I could to hide the fact that I actually wanted to slug him in the mouth for nearly making me piss myself. He was holding a mug of what smelled like black coffee mixed with cognac and rum, and brought the rim of it up to his lips and took a long, long sip. "Mornin', sunshine." His eyes went straight down to my breasts and he leered. "Sleep well in that closet back there?"

I folded my arms over my chest to force his attention back up to my eyes, and nodded. "Yeah," I said. "It was okay compared to what I was thinking it might've been. Better than a pine box."

"Good deal, darlin', good deal." He leaned against the wall and widened his smile.

"
Yeah
-- Have you seen Avery running around here at all? I was hoping to keep her out of certain parts of the club while we were here. No offense."

"None taken, darlin'. None taken." He nodded behind him. "Saw her when I came in just a few minutes ago. She's in the kitchen watchin' Verna cook more food for the rest of the crew."