MC BIKER ROMANCE: Bad Boy Romance: BETRAYED: (New Adult Motorcycle Club Navy SEAL Romance) (Contemporary Military Romance Thriller) (8 page)

Chapter Fifteen: Peach

I tried not to smile when I saw how screwed up Bulldog was when I got back from Reno. Part of the reason that I’d used Dish to get under his skin was because I knew that a guy, even a guy like Bulldog, couldn’t help but feel guilty after screwing his girlfriend’s best friend. Even if his guilt and remorse wouldn’t last long, I was sure that along with a rumor that he was being set up, he would overreact. There was no way of knowing for sure, so I had set up another plan to push Bulldog’s buttons a little bit more.

Officer Sal O’Neal had been receiving kickbacks from Bulldog and his predecessor to look the other way for more than a decade. I’d gone with Bulldog for a meet with the dirty cop, seen money and information change hands and also noticed the way that Officer Sal leered at me. I was pretty sure that with the right amount of persuasion, I could get Sal to do a couple of favors for me too.

When I’d left Reno, I’d dressed in my tightest-fitting jeans and hot pink chaps, which matched my brain bucket, for the ride back home. Though the tight jeans were uncomfortable on the ride, they and the leather jacket with nothing on underneath were part of my next move. I left the Hot Hound, stuffing the cash that I’d received from Bulldog in the pocket on the inside of my jacket, exited the parking lot and started in the opposite direction from home. I knew exactly where to find Sal O’Neal at that time of day.

He was right where I knew he’d be, watching cheerleading practice at the junior college. The horny bastard loved to keep an eye on the girls. My guess was that the little sluts enjoyed putting on a show for the pervert too. As I turned the corner and saw his car sitting across the street from the practice field, I pulled the zipper on my jacket almost down to my navel. That would give him plenty of skin to look at.

“Hi, Sal,” I said pulling up beside his car, cocking my head to the side and leaning forward as I looked in at him.

“Jesus, Peach, you get hotter every time I see you.” Without Bulldog there, he was a little bolder than normal.

“Can I talk to you?” I grinned, ignoring his comment.

“Sure, what about?” His eyes were already telling me that he had gotten a good look at what was under my jacket and would have liked to see more.

“Not here,” I said with a wink. “We need some privacy.”

There was no doubt that he was already letting the swelling in his pants do his thinking. That was exactly what I wanted him to do. “Where to, then?”

“I’ll lead the way.”

He waved a hand for me to proceed.

One of the great things about the soft-tail on my Fat Boy was that it gave whoever was riding behind me a great view of my behind. With the pink chaps outlining the curves of the tight jeans, I leaned forward slightly and arched my back to enhance the image for his benefit. I wanted him thinking almost entirely with his Johnson and next to none with his big brain. I made him follow me through several turns, working on building up his anticipation and then pulled into the parking lot of an old K-Mart that hadn’t seen a car parked in it, at least not for legal purposes, in several years.

I shut off the motor, dropped the kickstand and leaned against the seat as I waited for him to get out of his car and approach.

“So, Peach,” he purred, “what you got on your mind?”

“Well, you’ve been on my mind for a couple of days now,” I drew a circle with the toe of my boot on the crumbling pavement, leaned forward slightly, looking at the ground and acting shy. My jacket had fallen open, giving him a view of nearly all of my right breast.

“I think about you quite a bit too,” he muttered. “You not with Bulldog anymore?”

“Well, yeah, sort of,” I replied. I sighed heavily. “It’s a little complicated.”

“I’d heard that you two were getting pretty serious.”

“I guess so,” I said. “I’m getting pretty serious, but I don’t think he is. He screws around on me a lot whenever I’m out of town.” I looked up at him, allowing my blue eyes to become a little bit misty. It wasn’t the first time I’d used the technique.

“Who the hell would screw around on you?”

That was the second time I’d heard that in the past 24 hours. It ought to have registered with me before, but it hadn’t until the moment I heard it from Sal. He was right. I was a damned good girlfriend and a damned good person. I wasn’t someone who ought to have to put up with a man who was screwing around behind my back. My mind started to wander off with that thought, but I pulled it back to focus on my plan. The pause, though I hadn’t planned it, had an enormous effect.

“I sort of want to get even with him, if you know what I mean?”

I could tell that his mind leapt to screwing around with him: revenge sex. That’s exactly where I wanted his mind to go. “I’m married, you know,” he lowered his tone. “We’d have to keep things pretty discreet. I can’t get caught. It would end my career.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, looking up at him.

“You said you wanted to get even with him,” he stumbled.

“You mean sex? Cheat on Bulldog to get even? With you?”

He didn’t respond. I let him sweat for a few minutes. I acted like I suddenly realized that my jacket was open and that my tits were exposed. I pulled the zipper up and then looked up at him. “You’re married, you know. I never thought of that. I don’t want to do that to your wife.”

“She doesn’t have to know,” he responded.

“Hmmm,” I smiled. Part of what made a fishing lure so appealing to a fish was the way that it bobbed up and down, drawing every bit of the fish’s attention.

“So, how did you want to get even with him?”

That was the question that I was waiting for. “Well, I wanted to make him sweat a little bit.”

“Okay, how?” he asked.

“I want him to think that he’s the subject of a murder investigation in Salt Lake.”

“Is he?” Sal asked.

“Of course not,” I giggled. “But I’d like you to sort of sweat him a little bit.”

“I don’t know,” Sal said. “Bulldog and I have worked pretty well together…”

“I can make it worth your while.” I cocked my head to the side and unzipped my jacket again. When I unzipped it, I reached in and drew out the six $100 bills that Bulldog had given to me earlier. I placed them in his hand and let my fingers linger a little longer than they needed to.

It took him a second to move his eyes from my exposed breast to the cash in his hand. “Just to make him sweat a little?” he asked. His eyes left the cash and went back to my breast.

“Yeah. Sweat him a little while and then tell him that he’s been cleared. No big deal, just sort of a practical joke.”

“That’s a lot of cash for a practical joke. But what if he doesn’t take the joke well?”

“Oh, he doesn’t ever have to know that it’s a joke.” I zipped my jacket up, pushed the kickstand up and straddled my bike. I started the motor and let it grumble for a few moments and then turned back toward him.

“When I notice that he’s sweating, I’ll pay you the rest.”

“The rest? How much is the rest?”

I laughed. “The rest will be something that your wife will never have to hear about.” I finished the last comment, winked and then turned the throttle and roared across the parking lot away from him.

Chapter Sixteen: TNT

I’d been enjoying the sweet memories of the night that Leila and I had just spent together. I’d seen that Bulldog had called several times, but I didn’t answer the calls, and I was not in any hurry to return them. I had a twinge of guilt about having just spent the night with his girlfriend. Yeah, maybe he screwed around on her, and maybe it was okay, and maybe he’d never find out, but I still had a conscience and it was harassing me. I wasn’t quite ready to talk to him.

Leila—I’d decided to call her by name instead of “Peach”—had turned me inside out. I’d been with a lot of hot women in my time, but there was something about her that had gone beyond all of my other experiences. She was gorgeous, there was no doubt about that. Her body was put together in perfect proportion, and every curve was as if it had been shaped there by a master sculptor. But that wasn’t what had gotten to me. There was something else about her that I was having a hard time putting my finger on.

After she left, I’d taken a shower, wrapped a towel around my waist and collapsed in the recliner with a cold beer, trying to figure out what it was that she’d done to my head; I knew what she’d done to my body. From the physical aspects of our night, I was drained, but inside I felt like I had more energy than I’d ever had. There were parts of me that had started to drift away, just like they do with everybody as their lives begin to become a routine; Leila had drawn those parts back to me.

My cell phone rang again. I got up from the recliner, went into the bedroom, scooped it up off of the dresser, saw that it was Bulldog, turned it off and tossed it back on the dresser. There wasn’t any point in dealing with that yet. I propped my head up with a couple of pillows, turned on the television and started to flip through channels. There wasn’t a lot on, but I finally settled on a cage fight that featured two guys that looked like they could really go at it.

Leila’s face hovering over me with that look in her eyes and that smile that made me weak came into my head instantly. I drifted off to sleep thinking about her and completely ignoring the two guys that were laying into each other in the cage. It was an infomercial at about three times the volume that was necessary for any program on television that awakened me several hours later. I thought of my phone and went to retrieve it.

I’d no sooner turned the phone on and made note of the 15 times that Bulldog had called me that morning than the phone rang again.
Might as well find out what he wants, or he’ll call me all damned day.

His tone reminded me of my mother giving me shit about not taking out the trash, not cleaning my room, not cutting the grass and every other teenage sin that I’d ever committed. Worse yet, however, was when he started accusing me of ratting him out the cops in Salt Lake. Why the hell would I even do that? Anything I tried to pin on him would come right back on my ass, and vice versa. I tried to stay cool, but the combination of his attitude, his threats and my own little bit of guilt for what Leila and I had done drove me over the edge. When I hung up with him, I was ready to punch something. I went and took another shower. I had rounds to make and cash to collect, even if Bulldog was pitching a bitch fit.

I was rumbling down the street on my way to pick up a payment when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. It was probably just Bulldog again, but there was also the chance that it might be Leila. I pulled it out and looked at the number. It was Leila. I pulled to the side of the road and answered the call.

“Hey, beautiful,” I said as way of greeting.

“Hey, beautiful, yourself,” she countered. “I think I hear the rumble of a Road King.”

“You’re pretty smart for a girl,” I answered.

“A girl can’t do what I did to you last night,” she giggled.

“I’ll give you that,” I laughed. “I assume you made it home alright.”

“I think that ride gets longer every time I take it,” she moaned. “A shower never felt so good when I finally got here.”

“I know exactly what you’re saying. I feel the same way whenever I have to go to Salt Lake.”

“I don’t envy you that ride. Right around Salt Lake isn’t bad, but northern Nevada is the armpit of hell.”

“I’ve always called it the Dry Heaves of Nevada,” I answered.

“Sick imagery,” she laughed. “But it does capture the essence. Where you headed now?”

“I’m just going to do a couple of pickups locally. I don’t have enough energy to head out of town. Besides, it’s kind of late for that.”

“You whining about not getting enough sleep, Marine?” She had a pretty good grasp on the master sergeant impersonation, though the pitch of her voice was a little high.

“You should know,” I answered. I was trying to decide the best way to discuss the phone call that I’d gotten from Bulldog. I thought I’d fire a few probing rounds in her direction. “How was Bulldog when you got in?”

“Jesus! I don’t know what his problem was, but he acted like he had a stick up his ass. Why?”

“He called me and started accusing me of shit.”

“Seriously?” her voice rose in pitch. “Me too. He acted like my mother after I’d been out drinking and come in late.”

“He talked the same way to me,” I responded. It was interesting that we both had the same feeling.

“I don’t know what his problem is,” she said. “Maybe he found out what we did last night.”

“Let’s hope not,” I laughed, catching her quick attempt at lightening the conversation again.

“What was he accusing you of?” she asked.

“He’s saying some bullshit about me turning him in to the cops in Salt Lake. Shit, why would I do that? Anything that was connected to him would come straight back to me. He must be high on some bad acid or something.”

“He didn’t say anything to me about it,” she replied. “I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it soon enough, though.”

“He coming over?” My heart sank as I realized that in a few hours she might be banging Bulldog again, and I felt a jealous wave surge up inside of me. Logic told me that she had to act normal, but that’s not where my heart went.

“Hell no! I’m not letting him anywhere near me until he gets on his knees and does some serious apologizing for the way he acted this afternoon.”

I felt a flood of relief come to me. I’d have to get a handle on the fact that Leila was with Bulldog and I’d just gotten a little taste of his treat. Pushing her out of my head wasn’t going to be easy, though.

“Well,” she said after a pause. “Dish and I are going to eat something and then I’m headed to bed. You?”

“I took a nap already,” I confessed. “I’m going to do those pickups and then head to the house myself.” I didn’t really feel like going to the casinos. The money could wait until tomorrow.

“Not to sound like your mother or anything,” she laughed, making a play on our earlier conversation, “but don’t stay out too late.”

“I won’t,” I laughed. “Take care. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Ciao for now,” she responded, ending the call.