Lock and Key (29 page)

“But at least I’ll know when he fucks you tonight, I got in there first, and you’ll be thinking of me.”

I slapped his face hard. My hand burned.

He only nodded and pushed back from the wall, his lips pulled in a firm line, his eyes down. He walked away from me, his heavy footfalls echoed in the dark.

I stumbled to my room and went right to Jake who remained in a full, deep sleep. I furiously washed my hands and face, brushed my teeth, reapplied my makeup, dark and smoky around the eyes this time. I ripped off my jeans, tore off my damp panties, cleaned up, and put on a fresh pair, and then pulled up my jeans again.

I charged back out to the party, found Butler, and put my arm around his middle.

“Hey, beautiful, there you are.”

I grinned up at him. He handed me his beer, and I finished the rest of it in one swallow.

“I wanted to take you out for a ride tonight, but with you on lockdown it ain’t gonna happen.” He kissed me. My fingers curled into his leather jacket.

Someone whistled behind us and Butler laughed and hooked his arm around my neck. I leaned into his solid body.

The party went on full blast for another couple of hours. Butler lit a joint and handed it to me, and I took a long drag. He winked at me, a wink full of heat and wicked promise. I let the smoke burn in my lungs then turned my head to the side to let out it out, and my gaze found Lock.

He sat on one of the wooden picnic tables. That black-haired beauty danced to the music in between his open legs and had pulled down her halter top to expose her large, firm breasts. He laughed at something she said, drained his beer bottle then tossed it into the nearby garbage can with barely a look.

“Hey, Butler. Who’s that woman with Lock? Didn’t she come with you?”

“Who?” Butler turned and a smile curled his lips. “Yeah, that’s Iris. She’s been hanging with us for almost a year now.”

Lock leaned forward, grabbed her ass and pulled her into his body. With her arms wrapped around his neck, she gyrated to the music against his body, her long hair swinging across her bare back.

“That’s quite a show,” I said.

Butler chuckled. “That’s nothing for Iris, baby. Nothing. She’s just getting started.”

I clenched my jaw and reached for the joint in Butler’s fingers once again and took another drag. What had Lock said?
It’s better this way.
Sure is. No mess, no muck, no worries.

No connection.

The night carried on. Butler and I laughed at Boner’s crazy jokes and Dawes’s shy come-on’s to the girls. Clip got busy not with one, but two women on a picnic table. Dee, Alicia, and I gabbed about exercise dvd’s over more tequila shots. Then we held onto each other and stood on a table and sang to some vintage Grateful Dead tunes that blared over the speakers and laughed and laughed. It felt good not to have a care in the world.

Or at least pretend I didn’t.

Butler whooped and whistled loudly. “Get down here, Joan Jett!”

Warm hands wrapped around my waist. Butler swept me off the table, and I let out a loud yelp. My girlfriends cheered and clapped.

Butler’s lips nuzzled my neck. “Fuck me, you’re something else.”

I giggled and his blue eyes shined back at me. He kissed me. Butler gently put me back on my feet, took my hand, and led me into the clubhouse. We peeked in on Jake who slept soundly, and then Butler took me down the opposite hallway to his guest room. He locked the door, and in a tequila, beer and weed-induced haze laced with plenty of anti-Lock bitterness, I got naked with Butler in the dark.

“Fuck, look at you. Get on my face now, I want up in that pussy at long fucking last,” he said in the shadows, his voice rough.

“Who could resist that invitation?” I asked.

He roared with laughter. I did as requested. All I wanted was to be swept away into something far, far away. Butler’s pierced tongue danced through me. His hands groped my ass.

“Always wanted you, baby.”

“I know…” I moaned.

“You wanted me too, smartass” He let out a growl and smacked my rear. Harsh bites of pleasure burst through me like fiery needles. I fell back onto the mattress against his body.

Butler reached over to his nightstand and ripped a condom packet between his teeth. He smoothed the rubber over his cock.

My heart thudded in my chest. I was really going to do this.

Just like Lock was going to have Iris and maybe even the pink-blondie. Both of them begging him for it, begging for his mouth, begging for his…

Butler’s hand slid up my thigh. “Come here, babe.”

He rolled on top of me and his hands stroked my breasts. He kissed me. Waves of dizziness filled my head. He raised himself up and pushed into me.

He let out a groan. “You’re killing me.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I said through gritted teeth. I battled with memories of Lock’s hands on me, his tongue teasing my skin, the warmth of his hand curled around my smaller one. The memory of the heat of his dark eyes in the hallway burned in my chest.

That huge cup of ice.

Iris’s half-naked body grinding into his.

“You’ll be thinking of me.”

Son of a bitch.

Butler let out a laugh, and his hands went to my hips and gripped them tightly. “I’ve always been an asshole baby, but that’s one of things you liked about me.”

That was true. Twenty years ago, I had found his Nordic good looks, sweet charm, and volatile edge to be a fascinating package. Back then I had a faraway girly crush on this blonde, blue-eyed Viking, but it was like having a crush on your brother-in-law… totally off limits, simply not done. Or like having a crush on a celebrity… impossible to come true, but fun to fantasize about. Butler had been my bad boy fantasy crush like the one I had on Axl Rose back in the day. That was the thrill and the extent of it for me, the fantasy. Until that night in the woods. That spooked me out of the crush and made me realize that this was not a harmless fantasy.

I loved Dig, and my husband and I were dedicated to keeping each other happy. (Not to mention how fooling around with another brother is a totally evil thing to do to the brotherhood, and I was not that woman.) I had been thrilled when Butler and Caitlyn had gotten close and she wore his property patch, and then he had put a ring on her finger. They had been genuinely happy together. Eventually things had settled down, and the four of us had made for great company and good times.

But now, here I was, getting my taste of Butler.

Careful what you wish for.

“Sister… damn.” Butler wrapped a hand around my left thigh and pulled it higher against his hip. “We’ve got all night to make up for years of wondering about it.”

Club slut.

That would be me.

My head pounded, and I deserved it. I deserved a baseball bat to the brain, in fact. And to the pelvis. Were chastity belts available? I should get one, lock it on myself, and throw away the damned key.

I think my lifelong good girl status had just been officially flushed down the toilet. At my age, too. My sudden lack of impulse control since I had crossed the border into South Dakota astounded me. What the hell was in the water?

I clambered off the bed and scrounged around for my clothes. I got dressed in the half dark; the light in the bathroom had been left on. I leaned over Butler’s immobile body on the bed. My hand found his wrist, and I angled it to get a look at the dial of the large sports watch he wore.

“Thank God,” I muttered. It was 4:34 in the morning. I let go of Butler’s wrist, and his arm plopped on the mattress. I went into the bathroom. My eyes widened.

Three lines of white powder lay on the small bathroom counter by his keys, and an open plastic zippy bag full of what I assumed was a stash of coke. A hell of a lot of coke.

No wonder he had the exuberance of a bull last night even after all the booze and weed. No wonder he couldn’t come. He had tried valiantly, but then he had dozed off much to my relief.

I took care of my business and washed my hands carefully in order not to get any water on his pricey stash. I got the hell out of his room.

At this hour everyone should be passed out. No worries about a walk of shame. Unfortunately, I still had to cross through the main clubroom to get to where I was sharing a room with Jake. Bodies were strewn over the couches, and a half-naked couple was in a tangle on one of the pool tables. Snores rose from another corner of the room. I watched where I stepped as there were bottles, cups, and smashed cigarette butts strewn everywhere.

“Little Sister!”

I froze.

Oh, hell no—who was that? I turned my head in the direction of the voice.

Jump leaned against the door of his office and motioned for me to come in. His face was grim. I tiptoed over a smattering of crushed potato chips and a puddle of yeasty beer on the floor and entered his dimly lit inner sanctum. He closed the door behind me.

“Is something wrong?” I asked. “Did something happen?”

“You tell me.”

“What?”

“Did you fuck him?”

“Excuse me?”

“Butler—did you fuck Butler?” Jump asked.

“Jump—what…?”

His eyes glinted at me. “Answer the goddamn question, Sister!”

“Yes! Alright? Yes.”

“Good,” he said.

“What?”

“We got a problem.”

“Jump, it’s just after four in the morning, my head is pounding, and I’m having a hard time putting two and two together here after a very, very long night.”

“I got a problem with Butler, and I need your help. You just made our lives a hell of a lot easier without me even having to ask. Have a seat.”

I dropped my boots to the floor and slumped in the armchair in front of his desk. My eyes grazed over the photos of past presidents of the One-Eyed Jacks. Each face more dour than the next, a few of them cocky and defiant. All of them dead and gone, some by natural causes, most of them by the hand of another or at the mercy of a road machine.

“You need my help?”

“I need you to get close to that fucker.”

“Are we talking about Butler?” I asked. My fingers rubbed at my sore eyes.

“Yeah, Sister, keep up,” Jump said. “He’s been getting sloppy the past couple of years. Getting into scrapes with local law instead of keeping them happy. He’s been dipping into the profits for himself and reaching out to gangs he shouldn’t be. He’s more erratic than he’s ever been, and that’s saying something. He’s strung out half the time, and it ain’t only the green he’s dipping into.”

I leaned closer to Jump who was sitting on the edge of his desk. “Well, he’s got quite a snowy mountain stash in his bathroom right now.”

A bitter grin split Jump’s face in two. “After years of this shit, I’m surprised he can still get it up. Hell, I’m surprised he’s got a nose left,” Jump said.

I sighed and crossed my arms and legs.

“I think he’s working with Vig,” Jump said. “Vig’s been wanting us to patch in for a while. He wants our territory badly for his expanding drug empire and whatever the fuck else he’s into these days. And he likes our contacts out west. He’s hooked up with big, national clubs to compete with the crime organizations that have moved in up north. Drugs, whores, and guns are big business up there.”

I’d been aware for sometime how the FBI, the ATF, even Canadian authorities were all over the Bakken now dealing with the higher crime rates. With the influx of tens of thousands of workers camped all over the shale oil reserve region that bridged North Dakota, Montana and Canada, Vig had his work cut out for him.

“Vig wants us in to swallow us up,” Jump said. “But we ain’t interested in being a part of his racket, his way. We got our own thing going, it’s low on the radar, and it does well. I ain’t got no mega-watt aspirations with the big outlaw clubs. We’re good with our own network that we’ve built up over the years. I don’t need to extend our reach that way. Shit’s good now. Got it the way Dig and I always saw it—lean, independent.”

“Okay,” I murmured.

“Butler always wanted to take it bigger, higher. Plus he’s a hothead. Hotter than Dig.”

“Yeah, he is.”