TRIGGER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel Read online

  My juices would run down my thighs as I squirmed, one hand tight on the sheets, my hips working as though he were actually there, and I was just waiting, deliciously waiting, for him to enter me all the way, to fill me the way only he’d been able to do, plunging himself down into me and immediately finding the places inside me that most ached for him.

  While my finger worked my clit, I’d imagine his hands coming back to my hips, holding me tight in place, not letting me thrust against him the way my body craved to, taking control of me, defining the pace of my pleasure, sliding in and out almost leisurely, but forceful enough that each thrust made the flames on my face jump and lick, my thighs clenching and quivering as my muscles tensed to the point of rubber bands stretched to their limits.

  I’d imagine one of his hands coming up to my shoulder, as it always would, pulling me even further onto his cock, his pace quickening as his own pleasure took control, our needs aligning as he began to slam into me with force, his hips hitting my ass hard enough to almost leave a bruise, until finally his body would shudder and release behind me, filling me with his cum, and only then I’d let myself go, biting even harder against the pillow to stifle my moans as my juices released in a flood and my clit exploded in a frenzy of indefinable pleasure.

  And then the fantasy would end, and I’d be left with wet fingers in a bed that felt cold despite Brock’s warm body so close by. My body would spark and shake slightly as the last of my climax waned away, and rolling over I’d fold my hands between my knees, curled up slightly, and try not to cry. Try to be grateful for the memory that still allowed me this rare and spectacular pleasure, hollow as it might be.

  “Did someone tell you that we are patient men?”

  “Did someone tell you that we are quick to forgive?”

  “Did someone tell you we go easy on people who make mistakes?”

  The three men spoke one after another, standing in front of Mikey with their hands behind their backs. The tallest of the three men, wearing an olive green suit that looked straight out of the 40’s, finished out the round with a sickening smile.

  “If someone told you those things, friend, they were lying.”

  Mikey was sweating profusely, even though the room was cold. The room itself was like something from Guantanamo Bay; dimly lit, gray concrete floor, a single bulb swinging from a chain. There was no furniture except for the chair he currently occupied. Unwillingly occupied, as it were; his ankles and wrists were tied to the chair’s limbs.

  His heart was beating faster than a racehorse. He wasn’t sure he was going to get out of here alive. He wasn’t sure he’d want to get out of here alive, after the hulking men who stood behind the three kingpins were done with him.

  He cursed, for a billionth time, the horse whose leg had broken in the last turn around the track. His horse. His stupid, useless, fucking horse. Mad Hatter’s Tea Party should have won. Everything was in place for it to win. Mikey’s friend, a stable hand at the dinky track, had slipped low doses of tranquilizers to the rest of the horses. Not enough to make them too tired to run, but definitely slowing them enough to make an easy win for Mikey – and the three men who were placing their bets on Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, a third-stringer if there ever was one.

  The track itself was no place for high-rollers; it was tucked behind an impoverished town in Upstate New York. But that was how these men operated; they knew that the smaller and less official the gamble, the more chance they had to reap a tidy profit. They were supposed to come out of that race $20,000 up. Instead, Mad Hatter’s Tea Party had taken a tumble in the last lap. All in all, the men weren’t out more than $5,000. Mikey didn’t see how $5,000 dollars was enough for all this fuss.

  Of course, ‘all this fuss’ meant a lot more pain and agony for Mikey than it did for the three men before him.

  “Your horse broke its leg,” the second man in the row said. He looked down at his fingernails thoughtfully. “Will you be keeping the horse alive? I suppose not. From what I understand, a horse with a broken leg isn’t useful for much besides dog food.”

  “No, sir,” Mikey said. “He’ll be put down.”

  “Not much of a horse to start with, was he?” the third man said. All three men were clean-shaven, with brown eyes and brown hair. They could have been brothers – it wouldn’t have surprised Mikey in the slightest. The glimmer of sheer inhumanity in their eyes suggested some sort of genetic abnormality that caused them to be born devoid of souls.

  “No, sir,” Mikey agreed. “That’s why…”

  “We know that’s why,” the first man interrupted. “We know our business far better than you do, Mikey. You came to us, remember? With your stable hand friend and sedative gel? Do you recall?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mikey said. Every second that passed was an hour. He was torturously aware that these would be the last pain-free moments of his life for some time.

  “Well, at any rate, all of this is just delaying the inevitable. We prefer punishments which fit the crimes,” the second man said, beckoning to one of the thugs behind him. A huge, burly man stepped into the circle of light and, crouching down, untied one of Mikey’s ankles. His heart raced. Sweat trickled down the side of his face.

  “Please,” he spit, panic taking over now. “Please don’t do this. It wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t have known, I couldn’t possibly have known!”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” A second man stepped forward and grabbed Mikey’s kicking foot, holding it tight and still no matter how Mikey struggled to free himself. The man moved backwards a few paces, stretching out Mikey’s leg until it was straight.

  “Please, have mercy, please! It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault! I’ll do anything, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll make up the money, somehow, I’ll get your money back! I swear!” The first burly man who’d come forth raised himself and, reaching around his back, pulled a large, shiny hammer from his belt.

  “Oh God, what are you gonna do? Please, please don’t, please have mercy, please don’t do this!” The man with the hammer raised it high over his head. Mikey struggled and fought, trying to kick his leg free. His balls curled up into his body, sweat pouring down his sides.

  “I’ll do anything, anything, I swear, I swear!” The man with the hammer looked at his bosses. In unison, they nodded. With a roar, he swung the hammer downwards.

  Mikey’s screams filled the room, leaking out the sides of the door, only to die, unheard, in the empty cellar.

  Trigger

  The kid was sneering at me, and I didn’t know why.

  He was young, maybe 24, buzz cut, military tattoos mingling with more traditional biker tattoos. I knew him, well. We’d never got along. He had himself a good dose of PTSD, and try as I might to joke around with him, his temperament ran towards the overly violent – always looking for a fight.

  We called him Puck, after his old man, a true blue Black Smoke of days gone by who had an inexplicable love for hockey, hard to come by in a desert. Puck’s place in the club was largely cemented by these misplaced affections towards his pop. I don’t think Reign was too keen on the boy’s tradition of silence and begrudging attitude. I always wondered why he ever took on the cut in the first place, if he was going to be so sour about it all the time.

  But up until that night, I’d never had reason to make trouble with him. Or, so I thought, him with me. Besides, when you’re a family, like us, you didn’t fight your brothers. And when you’re our type of family, particularly, everyone else in the world is so damn eager to fight you in the first place that your efforts are much better served protecting your brothers.

  But from the second I walked into the bar that night, I knew Puck was itching to hash something out with me.

  It wasn’t until I saw the broad he’d been entertaining that I figured out what it was.

  “Sup?” Endo asked, leaning across the bar, dirty rag hanging out of his back pocket. He must have heard the deep groan that I’d unwittingly let loose, because his eyes on me were w
ary.

  “Puck,” I said over the top of my pint glass. Tomorrow was the day we’d light out for Reno, for my first-ever not-so-prize fight. I’d spent the month sparring with Knicker, who was still pretty spry for an older guy, and learning the ins and outs of taking a fall from Youtube videos and fighting forums.

  Endo’s eyes followed mine. That damn redhead was leaning on the kid’s arm like she had a bum knee, whispering something into his ear. The kid’s eyes flitted back and forth from her to me.

  “What’d ya do to him,” Endo asked, a smile on his face. “Rub his head for good luck?”

  I shot him a sour glance.

  “How long’s he been with that lollipop?” I asked. Endo shrugged.

  “He’s been buying her drinks for…oh, I don’t know, two weeks now? Seems a bit infatuated if you ask me. Why do you ask? Got designs on her? Wanna see if she can pull your, uh, trigger?” When I slammed my pint down on the bar, Endo laughed and backed away with his palms up. “Sorry ‘bout the pun. Just can’t help myself.”

  “She’s crazy,” I said. “Tried to use her heel as a sewing machine with my face as the fabric. After I went down on her and offered to give her a ride home and everything.”

  Endo’s face darkened slightly as he watched the couple, who were now both making eyes at me. He could sense the same heat they were throwing as much as I could, and I could see that it didn’t make him comfortable. Endo is a real Kumbaya kind of motherfucker.

  “Well, leave the kid and his ladyfriend be, right?” he said, now throwing that worried glance my way. “We ain’t had a fight in here for three months now, and I aim to keep it that way.”

  “A fight?” Honey came out of nowhere, throwing one of her arms around me. She was running food and drinks out to the tables – it was a busy night at the bar, everyone gearing up for the next day’s trip down to Reno. “Who’s gonna fight? Who’d wanna fight on a night like this?”

  Endo nodded at Puck and the redhead, and Honey’s head swiveled in their direction.

  “Puck and Bella? Aw, naw, they ain’t fightin’, they’re in loooooove,” she said. “Damn good thing, too. Poor kid’s got some heart on him, but it’s all buried in sand.”

  “Honey, you see the best in everyone,” Endo said with a fond smile. “Puck’s making the eyes at Trigger here ‘cause Trigger made it with the girl and she tried to give him a lobotomy.”

  “Ooooh,” Honey said, her eyes focusing a bit more now. “Well, I think I can take care of that right quick. C’mon, babycakes, let’s make this family feud disappear, shall we?”

  Before I could protest, Honey was dragging me across the bar, still with one arm around my neck like a headlock. Of course, it was a bit like getting a headlock from Tinkerbell, but all the same she had some leverage on me. And, I figured, it was either sit around getting death stares from Puck all night or let Honey put it to rest between us.

  Once we got within spitting distance, I separated myself from Honey and stood with my arms crossed. I nodded at Puck, who nodded back. Honey plopped herself down at the table, much to Bella’s obvious disgust. Ignoring the daggers being thrown in her direction, she pulled Puck close.

  “I don’t like it when my boys fight,” she said. “Now, a girl is a girl…”

  “Shut up, Honey,” Puck’s voice was deep for his age – and his stature. I towered over him easily. He was big, bulky, but shorter than me. Still, his voice had the rough rumble of a man of many years. Honey’s face snapped towards his, her expression pure hurt. I felt the first kindling of anger in my chest. I liked Honey. Everyone did. She only ever tried to make things nice. Snapping at her was uncalled for.

  “Listen,” I said, stepping forward as Honey leaned away from Puck with a sour look on her face. She wasn’t used to be talked to like that, either, and I knew she could let loose a torrent that would beat a man down even faster than my fists. I kind of wanted to save her the trouble. “I don’t know what you got in your mind to be staring me down like that, but…”

  “Oh, I tell you what he’s got in his mind,” Bella said, her voice high and shrill. “He’s got it in his mind that I’m gonna be his old lady, and you disrespected me, and that calls for some correcting.”

  Puck’s eyes flinched slightly as he looked at her, but I could see the desire there anyway. He wanted something from this girl, that was sure. But what it was…now, that much I couldn’t tell.

  “Right?” Bella nudged, fixing Puck in a glare that meant business. He nodded, then, and turned to me with the scowl on his face once more.

  “I heard you were a right dick,” he said. “And I don’t like people being right dicks to women, especially not women I happen to have some affection for.”

  “Sorry, man,” I said through gritted teeth. “But this happened before you two got together, and I don’t think it’s any of your business what happens in my own damn bedroom. And for the record,” I knew I was going too far but couldn’t help myself, “if you’d been between those sheets with us, you would know I treated her damn fine.”

  A clatter as the table overturned and the sour trickle of beer spilling over as Puck advanced towards me, fists in the air. For one wild moment, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to test out what it would feel like to throw a fight, to try out those moves I’d been practicing with Knicker. But before I could even stop myself, my hand shot forward, digging into the soft fleshy mass of Puck’s neck even as his left fist landed between my ear and my scalp, the distant ringing of pain mitigated by my own adrenaline.

  His other fist fell square on my left eye, and I moved forward with all my force, holding him by the neck while my free hand balled up and shot into his stomach. This was the kind of fighting I did; dirty, no-holds-barred scuffles. And it was the kind of fighting I loved to do.

  Puck’s face was reddening even as I folded my body into his, releasing his neck only to grab him around the chest. Screaming had erupted in the bar all around us, male and female, some seeming to egg us on while other voices chanted for mercy. But one voice rose above all the others, making my body sag around Puck’s.

  He took the opportunity to land one great elbow shot to my jaw; as my teeth clattered together, I tasted bright metallic blood, and it drew me back to my body, to the struggling form I still held in my tight grip. I threw him down to the ground, satisfaction in the sound of chairs tumbling around him as he flailed trying not to land face-down on the dirty ground. The effort was in vain, and the kid got a good taste of old beer and cigarette ash.

  “The fuck is this shit,” Reign’s voice came in a fervent bellow across the room. “We don’t fuckin’ fight our own. Get the fuck over here, boys.”

  The crowd ooh’d like we were kids in high school about to get sent down to the principle. I spat out a glob of blood, felt around my mouth; no teeth missing, thank God. In prison I’d spit out plenty of my own pearly whites, but they give you the best damn dentistry in the clink, you wouldn’t believe it.

  Looking down on the kid, I felt my own shoulders heaving, felt bad for putting him out so viciously. In front of his chick. Even if she was bat shit crazy. As he turned, I considered putting my hand down to help him up, then thought better. He’d just swat it away, anyway. The few punches he’d managed to land had been solid, but I already knew they weren’t gonna leave bruises.

  Just as I was going to make my way towards Reign and take whatever stupid criticism he’d have to dole out, I was stopped in my tracks by a red blur. Like a spider monkey on crack, Bella launched herself at me, and wrapping her legs around my waist began to pound on my back.

  “Fuck’n dick! How fuck’n dare you!” she screamed, amidst a slew of other sounds that were more like Nine Inch Nails being played through a tin can than anything else. Baffled, I fell backwards, the whole bar erupting in laughter. Her frail, boney frame was nothing, but the inch-long press-on nails she was wearing were doing a number on my back, even through my shirt.

  “Someone get this crazy bitch off me!”
I screamed, my ass hitting the floor just as I felt her weight relieved, strong arms closing around her waist and shoulders and prying her off me. Her shoes, more of those killer spikes, kicked at the air, one making a jabbing contact with my shin that had me jerking around like a sick cat, all my muscle nothing compared to a gash like that.

  “Fuck!” I roared, clutching my injured shin as I tried to make sense of what had just happened in the past moments. Laughter erupted around me as I was helped back up to my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Honey dragging a much-protesting Bella across the bar towards the door, her mouth moving quickly; I couldn’t hear the dressing-down she was doling out over the din, but from the look on her face it was a royal one. Bella’s face was still turned to me, screaming nonsense.