Hart Read online

  I grinned at her. “Aw. Don’t you like to live on the edge?”

  “No,” she said defiantly. “I’ve done that enough, growing up. I’m happy with what I do. And I want Jojo to be happy, too. He’s a smart, good kid. I don’t know why he thinks he needs to hang out with the likes of you.”

  “The likes of me?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. You and your macho bullshit. Toting guns around, acting like hot shit. Your testosterone is showing. No one’s impressed.”

  I started to laugh again but stifled it quickly because she was still close enough to deliver Armageddon two-point-oh on my balls.

  I sucked in a breath and studied her for a minute. “All right. Well. Honestly? It’s nothing. We’re just acquaintances through the two clubs. We went out last night, had some fun, and his phone died.”

  She crossed her arms. “And you didn’t let him use your phone because . . .”

  I shrugged. “My phone died, too.”

  “Oh, what a terrible night for technology,” she said sarcastically, lifting her chin. She looked back over at him and sighed. “I don’t want to hear this happening to him again.”

  I gave her a nod and said, “Okay mama. I promise we won’t do it again. We’ll charge our phone fully before we go anywhere.”

  She tossed her ponytail, still in a huff. “No. Don’t you get it? You’re not going to see him again. If I hear about that, I swear, I’ll rearrange your face.”

  She held up a tiny, pale fist that was about the size of a doll’s. Then she whirled around and nearly collided face-first with her brother, who’d come out to see me.

  “What are you—I said get inside!” she barked at him, pointing forcefully toward the apartment complex. How’d that tiny little thing get such a big voice?

  “Yeah, but . . .” he looked at me. “You going?”

  I guess he was wondering if he had permission to go. He might have been awkward, couldn’t ride or shoot worth a fuck, but at least he was good at following directions. He had balls, too; doing what Scar had said without question, alone. Maybe he would make a good patched member one day.

  I yawned. It didn’t matter what I did, now. The tracker I’d put in his phone would check him and make sure he stayed in line. “Yeah. But listen.”

  His eyes snapped up to mine, ensuring I had his full attention. So the kid was learning.

  “You can’t let the Fury know we talked. If the Fury try to get in touch with you, or if you promised them you’d be there, just go along like everything’s the same. We’ll get together tonight, understand? I got your number from your phone before it died. Keep your phone charged. I text you, you come. Okay?”

  He nodded, his head hanging.

  “If you don’t check in, kid, we’ll find you.”

  He nodded, agreeing. My eyes flitted up to his sister, who was watching us, eyes slowly filling with rage. Not long before that dam burst.

  I took it as my cue to leave.

  I stepped off the curb and grabbed my helmet. Not fast enough. Suddenly she was in front of the bike. “What do you mean, get together tonight? I just told you! He’s not seeing you at all! In my house it’s my rules! You can go fuck yourself!”

  I smiled down at her as I fastened on my helmet. I didn’t say a word. I was already learning that my silent routine did something very interesting to her. It made her furious. Which made her look even hotter. She was shaking, out of control.

  Luckily, my bike was between us, so my balls were protected.

  She leaned forward and put her hands on my handlebars. “Would you speak?”

  I straddled my bike. “All right,” I said, settling in. “Get off my bike so I can leave, baby.”

  I put my hands on the handlebars, right next to hers, and rose up on my bike like I was going to jump on the kickstart. I thought that might’ve scared her away but not this girl. She met my eyes with defiance. “No. Not until you tell me you’re going to leave Jojo alone.”

  Behind her, Joel called out, “Hey, Char—”

  “Stay out of this, Jojo! You’re in enough trouble already!” she snapped, not looking in his direction. To me, she said, “I don’t want you texting him. I don’t want him seeing you, ever again. Do you hear me?”

  I gave her a smirk. “Well. Mama has spoken.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  I mock-saluted her. “It’s a yes ma’am.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You promise?”

  Holy shit, this girl was unbelievable. I had a feeling she’d be even more unbelievable, bouncing on my cock. “You want me to fucking pinky-swear?”

  She stared at me for almost a full minute, before slowly getting off the front end of my bike.

  I started my bike, and as it roared to life under me, she winced in disgust. She whirled and as I pulled out of the space, I could already see her wagging her finger threateningly at her little brother.

  Wow, she was something else.

  But it was a win for me. Unless, the Cobras were involved, I rarely kept my promises, anyway. And I might not have cared too much about the brother, but I sure as hell wanted to see Charlotte again.

  Chapter Eight

  Charlotte

  I was well aware that I didn’t have the healthiest view of sex in the world.

  I’d lost my virginity to one of my foster brothers when I was thirteen and he was eighteen. Then, I’d been raped by one of my foster fathers at the age of fifteen. We switched around from school to school, so I never fit in with anyone and was always the outcast. I never had an actual, normal boyfriend, who’d take me on dates and talk to me and treat me like a normal human being.

  When I was eighteen and working at the grocery store to make ends meet so I could support Jojo and go to school, a few of the managers there indicated to me that I could make extra money by helping them out.

  At first, I’d thought it was just stocking shelves overnight, but I soon learned they had something else in mind. I became pretty famous there, giving blow jobs to the male employees by the dumpsters for fifty dollars a pop. Once, I’d had sex with the produce manager for a hundred, and then he invited me to a party with his friends, where I was shared by all the men for a thousand dollars.

  That gave me enough to pay the rent for two months. I felt rich. And by then, I had already lost any dignity I might have had. All I was focused on was survival, on creating the best life possible for Jojo and me.

  And we survived.

  After that, I got my Associates and then a friend of mine from school had a vet father who was looking for a new vet tech. The pay was amazing, compared to what I’d been making. I jumped on the job, and we’ve been living in the lap of luxury ever since.

  Well, sort of. I didn’t have to go through the bruised and broken bin at the supermarket to put together our dinner, and the days of blowjobs for money were long behind me.

  Jojo didn’t know about any of that. Maybe if he did, he wouldn’t have treated me the way he did when I climbed the stairs to the apartment.

  For one, he’d locked the goddamn door on me.

  I banged on the door with my fist. Again, neighbors tilted their blinds to look at me.

  When he opened the door, he avoided my eyes and just sauntered to the couch, plopped himself down, and picked up a bowl of cereal he’d poured himself.

  I stalked to the center of the room in an I-mean-business kind of way. All the animals at my feet jumped to attention, but the asshole on the sofa just shoveled Cheerios into his mouth, staring like a zombie at the television set. Some football game.

  “Hello?” I waved my hand in front of his face.

  He blinked. “Yeah?” Okay, that was it. I was tired of his shit. I stalked over to the TV and turned it off.

  “Hey!” he jumped up and reached for the remote, but I snatched it from the coffee table before he could.

  “You really think you’re going to come in here after being MIA without calling me ,and I’m just going to let it blow over?” I demanded, cr
ossing my arms in front of me.

  He raised an eyebrow at me in a kind of surly way that reminded me of the jerk I’d just met outside. “I was hoping.”

  “Well you hoped wrong, mister,” I said. I was vaguely aware I sounded like a middle-aged mom from a television sit-com, but I couldn’t help it. “Who was that guy?”

  He shrugged. Oh hell no. I wanted more info than that. Actually, I was kind of desperate for it. Because for all the run-ins I’d ever had with men, I’d never met one that made me feel whatever was coursing through my bloodstream right then. Sure, I was angry, but also . . . excited.

  He was hot. Hot and sexual and probably fucked a lot, given the way women flocked to those bad-boy types. He clearly thought a lot of himself.

  And now here I was, thinking a lot of him, as well.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” I probed deeper. “Who is he? He’s in a different club than you are? Why are you with him? What is he—”

  “Fuck!” he yelled, finally meeting my eyes. “Geez, Char. Give it a rest. He’s just some guy from a different club who dropped me off. That’s it.”

  I lowered my voice. The last thing I needed was him running out on me again. “And your phone died?”

  “Yeah.” He rolled his eyes. “We went over all this before. What else do you want from me?”

  I sighed and sat down on the couch next to him. I reached out to him but he flinched away. “I want you to be honest with me. I’m not the enemy, here. I want you to be safe.”

  He stared into his cereal bowl. “I can take care of myself.”

  That was a load of bull. Yes, maybe he thought he could, and maybe I should be letting him make those mistakes, but with the people he was running with? One mistake wouldn’t just get him in trouble. It would get him killed. “I would think so, if you hadn’t gotten involved with those guys. What’s the allure, Jojo?”

  He sighed. “For the last time, don’t call me that!”

  “Sorry,” I said. He’d always been fine with the nickname, up until a few months ago. That was when all of this started. When he changed from my sweet brother to a total asshole. “Joel.”

  The word felt foreign on my lips. I’d never called him that. He didn’t speak to answer my question, so I ventured more. “I mean, what about your medication? Did you take it?”

  He shook his head. “It’s bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit, Joj—Joel. It’s keeping you alive. You have asthma. You need to take it every day. I bet you don’t even have your inhaler with you.”

  He stared at the ground. That was the answer to that. Well, great. Those tough men in leather jackets had such an allure to him that he was willing to die to hang out with them. I doubted they’d even care if he had an asthma attack and collapsed at their feet. They’d probably walk away and let him die. When did my smart brother abandon all sanity for this craziness?

  I couldn’t get it through my head. But talking to him was like pulling teeth, like I was just having a conversation with myself. I wanted desperately to understand, so I tried again.

  “Is it because you’re looking for friends? You did have friends before, remember? Chris, and Vin, and–”

  “They went to college.”

  I blinked. I hadn’t known that. “But you had a lot of friends. Surely, not all of them—”

  “They’re all fuckin’ pussies.” He snorted. “You don’t get it, Char. You never will. These men are more like me. More like what I want to be.”

  I stared at him in horror. After everything I’d done to keep him out of trouble and raise him up with a good head on his shoulders? “No, I guess I don’t get it. You want to be a biker?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Well, where’d the gun come from, then?”

  “One of the guys let me have it. I didn’t . . . it was just to—”

  “To run around with a gun shooting people and getting arrested? What? Do they sell drugs? Is that what you want? Have a rap sheet so that you’ll never have a chance at a decent job again? Because I’ll tell you, even Jack in the Box won’t hire someone with a criminal record. You’re throwing your life away for a bunch of hoodlums who like to parade around town, thinking they’re tough shit, terrorizing innocent people. What kind of life is that?”

  “That’s not it. That’s not what they do,” he muttered.

  I threw up my hands, exasperated. “Well, what do they do? Tell me so I can understand.”

  He shook his head and let out one of those surly laughs, just like the man at the curb. I hated that he was rubbing off on my little brother like that. “Forget it.”

  “No, I’m not just going to –”

  “—Holy shit, Char!” he exploded suddenly, dropping his bowl and standing up. “I’m old enough to do stuff on my own and decide who I want to roll with. You don’t have any say in it so just butt the fuck out!”

  Then he stalked to his room and slammed the door.

  I stared at Bert, my little mutt, who’d put his white paws up on my thigh. I stroked his little head, thinking. My body was trembling. As I sat there, I heard Jojo bitching to himself about how I’d gone through his room. God forbid I’d actually try to give him clean clothes.

  I mean, hell. All I was trying to do was help him. Why was I suddenly the enemy? Anger pulsing through my veins, I got up and went to my bedroom, then threw myself down on my bed. I hadn’t slept at all last night.

  I rolled over and looked at the ceiling, thinking of that man in the parking lot. He was HOT, in all capital letters, no doubt about it. I cursed myself for dwelling on him, even if I knew why. I hadn’t had sex in years. Not since that gang-bang when I worked at the store. And though I’d gotten plenty of guys off, it hadn’t exactly been all that fulfilling for me. Except for the money.

  But that man—with his intense eyes and his muscular body and his blatantly sexual way of moving-- had awakened something in me. Lust. Need.

  And I was horny.

  Horny beyond all belief.

  I sat up and decided I needed to take a shower. Right away. I needed to get myself off and then cool myself down.

  Because the guy I wanted Jojo to stay as far away from as possible?

  I wanted him all over me.

  Chapter Nine

  Hart

  I headed back to my apartment to get some sleep, still thinking about that girl. Charlotte. She was so angry. Her brother was right—she was wound tight as a drum, probably didn’t know a thing about fun. I smiled, wondering what she looked like when she smiled. Wondering when she’d smiled last.

  I stopped at the Circle K to get some gas, and my phone buzzed. I lifted it to my ear. “Yeah?” Zain on the other end.

  “Hey, Hart.” His voice sounded strained and far away. That wasn’t good. Zain was about the most calm and relaxed dude I knew.

  I covered my other ear so the traffic from the highway wouldn’t interfere and hunched over. “What’s up?”

  “I’m in the alley behind the old ribbon factory, off of Sunset. You know where that is?”

  “Yeah. What’s going on?”

  “I was boosting that S-Class. You know, the white one we’d talked about?”

  I did. I’d given Jet the tracker to put on it so Zain could make the pick-up, but I thought Cullen was going to have us wait on that one. He’d boosted it in broad daylight? That took some balls. “What’s happening?”

  “Two guys from the Fury spotted me, and I had to back up. I’m in the alley now, waiting for the coast to clear, but the guys ain’t budging. I’m fucked. No way out.”

  Shit. I thought of what Joel had said about the Fury, keeping a close tail on us. If they had been doing that for some time, this was the first time they’d actually gotten in our way. It made me wonder just what they knew regarding Slade.

  “I’ll be there in five.”

  I finished pumping my gas and hopped on my bike, speeding to the old factory. When I got close, I cut the engine and coasted toward the intersection, w
here I edged in between two cars and saw the two guys from the Fury, parked in front of an alley.

  Backing up, I rolled until I was a safe distance away and went around the block, entering the alley from the back way. I saw the problem immediately. The back of the alley was only wide enough to fit my bike. My shoulders nearly scraped the brick building. I rolled through to where the alley widened and saw Zain, sitting in the car, just as cool as could be, smoking a cigarette.

  I squinted to the end of the alley. In the sunlight, I could see a couple of shapes, but nothing definitive. They were a long way off.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said to him, giving him a fist bump through the open window.

  “Yeah. They’re out there, right?”

  I nodded. “What happened?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I boosted the car. Business as usual. Then these two assholes ended up on my tail. I thought I could lose them by going down this alley. Didn’t know it was a dead end. Tried to back out and they started shooting at me. So I shot back.”

  I scrubbed my jaw, assessing the situation. He couldn’t back out. If he did, they’d start shooting, and probably destroy the car, possibly killing him. Couldn’t go forward. The alley was too narrow.

  Yeah, this was a problem.

  “So. What the fuck do we do?”

  My first thought: Leave the car. We were already fucked. There was no way out without going through those fuckers, and any time we spent with this car was time for the police to be alerted that the ride was missing and put a bulletin out for it. “We’ve got to go. Without the ride.”

  Zain nodded in agreement. “Fuck!” he muttered, banging his hand on the steering wheel. “Cullen ain’t gonna like this.”

  “He’ll understand.”

  Zain got out of the car and walked to the back of the car, where I’d parked my bike. He looked back at the S-Class and shook his head. “Damn shame. Nice car. Our client was looking out for that exact model.”

  I shrugged at him, “What can you do?” Our lives were more important. Plus, Aveline Bay was a wealthy coastal town and had no shortage of douchebags driving S-Classes. We’d get another chance. I led the bike out to the L-intersection, where I was able to turn it around.