“Yeah, you do. All the fucking girls do.” He huffs like a child, arms folded around his chest.
What is it with men, they’re as bad as women when it comes to jealousy. Each guy wants to be better than the next. Each one wants to be the damn Alpha of the pack, the one all the girls want.
“I don’t know about other girls, Ice. Maybe you’re just seeing what isn’t there. Stryker is quiet, brooding, it’s appealing to a woman. Don’t ask me why. You’re loud and outspoken, and that’s attractive too, you know?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I parrot back with a chuckle. “Find a girl you’re really interested in, and believe me, what she thinks she feels for someone else – if she feels anything for anyone else – will soon fade when she sees how wonderful you are.”
“You think so?” He’s like a pubescent teenager with stubble. He’s kinda cute in his own way. I don’t know how old he is, but I don’t think he’s much past twenty-three or four. He might look older what with all the scars and such, but I can tell by his eyes that he's not. The eyes never lie.
“I know so, Ice. I’d like us to be friends, but that’s all we can be.”
“Because of Stryker?”
“No,” I laugh. That isn’t the reason why. “We don’t have that kind of chemistry. Do we?” He smiles and shakes his head.
See, even big bad outlaw bikers can be spoken to reasonably. Some don’t listen, too far up their own asses to listen, but some do. This band of misfits is a whole different breed.
“Thanks, Coral.”
“Anytime, Ice.”
“It’s probably a good thing nothing happened between us.”
“Why’s that?”
“Shepard warned us all what he’d do to us if we so much as propositioned you. He’d fuckin’ kill me and then some if he knew what I’d said to you tonight.”
I am mortified! Okay, I understand why Shepard would say that to his men, but God! I am never going to find any man I’ll be able to have a relationship with, Shepard would murder anyone I wanted to be with.
He’s not my father! Even my father doesn’t have the right to tell me whom I can and can’t date!
This is my life! It should be my choice whom I date, but I guess that explains why Stryker ignores me the way he does. He doesn't want to go against Shepard.
But does that mean he feels what I feel, and he’s just trying not to?
“Need a ride home?” Ice asks while following me around the side of the building. I’ve been standing in the shadows long enough.
Besides, Ice said he was the only one out here, so I’m guessing Denise managed to talk Stryker into taking her somewhere. I just hope it wasn’t back to her place. I do not want to walk in on them having sex.
“No, thank you,”
“You sure?”
I nod and look up at him.
Yes, I have to look up, he’s a few inches taller than I am. He’s not looking at me, though. I follow his eye line. There in front of us stands a very tall, well-built, pissed off Stryker.
Why the hell is he pissed off?
“Stryker,” Ice addresses him. “Everything all right?”
“Where’s Denise?” I interrupt before Stryker can answer. He doesn't answer me, just points toward the clubhouse. He’s finished with her, and now he’s sent her back in there to his friends? What the hell?
“You sent her back in there to fuck your friends after she’s been with you?” My hands are on my hips. I don’t care who he thinks he is, Denise is my friend, and he used her, tossed her aside and then passed her to his friends!
“Coral,”
“Fuck off, Ice! Don’t you dare stand there and defend him!” A hand grabs my elbow, dragging me towards them. “What the fuck are you doing? Get off me!”
“Ice, check on her friend. Make sure she gets home safely.”
“Sure.”
“Get off me, jackass!” Who does this pig think he is? Dragging me around like I'm his property! He stops beside his bike, grabs a helmet and slams it into my hands. “I am not getting on that bike with you, Stryker.”
He says nothing just straddles his bike, turns on the ignition and waits for me to give in and get on the damn thing. Which, I might add, I do.
Why?
I have no fucking clue. I must be losing my mind!
Chapter Five
Stryker
When I saw her walking around the side of the clubhouse with Ice, my blood started to boil. She’s too good to be giving herself to an asshole like him. I wanted to break his fucking neck for even thinking about her the way he has since she arrived here, but seeing the evidence that he got her when I couldn’t, has driven me to the point of murder.
I’d never kill one of my own, but I’m close. Trust me.
Not that I’ll have to kill him, once Shepard finds out about this, Ice is a dead man. Shepard warned all of us what he’d do should we touch her, and to find out he fucked her against the side of the clubhouse? Well, let’s just say, I don’t envy Ice. Shepard will tear the silly fucker limb from limb.
But that’s Ice all over, he never thinks of the consequences of his actions. Coral is a beautiful woman, but is she worth dying for? Is any woman?
Coral was pissed off about me being with Denise. Is that why she slept with Ice? Because she was pissed off with her friend and me? If that's the case, she must like me more than I first thought.
Don’t get me wrong I’m no kid whining about the girl sleeping with my younger friend, but I am the man who’s had fuck all in his life worth anything, apart from the Snakes and the Anderson’s. I know I can’t have Coral, but in my dreams – literally – she’s the girl who is worth everything to me. Sounds fucking stupid, but it’s true. However, that’s all it is, a dream. It’s all it can ever be.
All I’ve got is this club. They took me in when I thought I’d end up in prison or dead. It was BlackJack who found me, took me in, introduced me to the club. Apollo, our previous Prez, was the one who told me I could be anything in this life as long as I tried and never gave up.
I was nineteen, came from a terrible childhood, one I never have and will never talk about. I was fig
hting any man that so much as looked at me, lying, stealing to survive. Hell, I was living on the damn streets of Tennessee until BlackJack found me. Like I said before, I tried to rob him. I knew even then it was suicide to try and steal from a member of the Snakes Henchmen. In broad fuckin’ daylight while he was still straddling his bike? Yeah, I was desperate.
He was older than me, a lot wiser. Grabbed my dirty shirt in his fists and pinned my then skinny ass against the wall. Told me he’d kill me then and there. Who the hell was I to try and rob him? Did I know who he was?
Most would have been scared.
Most would have begged for their lives.
I didn’t.
See, the thing was, I had nothing left to live for, my life was empty. I’d seen more violence in my nineteen years than most bikers do in their lifetime. I wasn’t scared of what he’d do to me, in fact, I welcomed it, prayed for it. Practically begged him for it like a damn junkie begging for heroin.
BlackJack looked at me like I’d lost my ever-loving mind. Asked me if I was actually waiting for death. Told him the truth, ‘Ain’t like I got anything to live for, old man.’ Not that he was an old man, not even ten years my senior. He shook his head and let go of me. Then he ordered me onto the back of his bike.
Who in their right mind would get on the back of a bike with a crazy biker? Any man who wants to die, and at that point, death was all I had to look forward to.
I thought he was taking me somewhere to kill me. Ain’t like he’d off me in the middle of town. Not even a biker is that stupid. However, as he kept riding through the streets and toward the better part of town, where all the nicer houses and neighborhoods are, I began to wonder just where the hell he was taking me.
We pulled up outside a two-story house, couple kids playing in the front yard, beautiful woman sitting watching them. His wife, I realized when she came running over to him and kissed him as though her life depended on it. Her name was Taylor. Tall and graceful, slender with big brown eyes, and mocha skin. Ain’t gonna lie she was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen up until that moment. I was embarrassed to look at her in case I got a damn hard on. Oh come on, I’m a man, any man who looked at Taylor would need to fight the urge to want to fuck her.