Taking a Dare Read online

  Jesus, sweet relief! "I'll take you up on it but you know Blaze is coming too, right?"

  "Yeah, I do. And yeah, I'll be working that man over but good." Lock's voice held a hungry note thinking about the Spokane biker who'd gotten his name due to his long dark-red curls. "I didn't say you'd get any sleep. I just said you were welcome to stay with me."

  I laughed out loud at my friend's addendum to her offer. "Slut."

  "Better a slut than a mutt, I always say," came the giggled reply. "So I'll see you Saturday and I'll get a key made so we're not fuckin' joined at the hip."

  "Great! Looking forward to seeing you again, girlie."

  "Who are you kidding? I know who you really want to see," Lock teased and my heart started knocking around in my chest. "You aren't fooling me, girlfriend. It's been what? Ten years since you two last laid eyes on each other?"

  Damn. My bestie had hit it in one. "Yeah, there 'bouts," I hedged. Actually it had been nine years, seven months, 2 weeks and 5 days. But I wasn't gonna correct her. "Sorry to make this short but I've got lots to do before we leave."

  Liar! my mind screamed.

  "Yeah, I'll bet," came the soft spoken reply as if my girl somehow knew she'd gone too far with her joking. "Can't wait for you to get here."

  I tried to inject some enthusiasm into my goodbye but I hunched my head between my shoulders as soon as Lock was off the phone. As I did, my eyes caught on the ring sitting front and center on my desk.

  Goddamn. What the hell was I going to do?

  Chapter Three

  Dare was just hanging up the phone when he heard boots running on the floor of the warehouse and heard Brand's voice roar, "Trey's office now!" Jumping up from his desk, Dare almost crashed into Bish as he barreled out his office door and turned to the president's office on the other side of the huge hall.

  Neither one of the big men said a word as they jogged the few yards, finding they were the last ones to enter.

  "Catch the door, Dare, yeah?" Trey asked before sliding his brown gaze around the room. "Donny just reported seeing four Czars entering the Big Bear Café."

  "Da fuck?" Bishop questioned, straightening from his slumped position against the wall next to Trey's desk. The other men's faces held just as much confusion as the IT manager's although he'd been the only one to voice it.

  "No prior approval was asked nor given for them to be on Hellion acreage," Trey continued, his lowered eyebrows giving emphasis to his hard tone. "I placed a call to Ham Bank's phone, the shithead who holds the Czar gavel, but it went to fucking voicemail."

  Dare looked at his brothers and wondered how this was going to play out. They'd had a couple of run-ins with the club who thought they controlled Livingston, Bozeman and Belgrade which included a thirty-six mile stretch of the 90 freeway. And had made it pretty fuckin' clear that Hellions were not welcomed to even blow through unless they had prior approval to do so.

  For the Czars to show up in Missoula unannounced was a motherfuckin' bitch-slap of the worst kind.

  "Thoughts?" Trey asked, his eyes again roaming around his men, his inner circle, in the room.

  "Kick ass and take fuckin' names later," Huff immediately responded. The big blonde's face was red with rage.

  "I'm with you, brother," Bishop threw out as he crossed his arms and widened his stance. "Send them home with a message that can't be misunderstood."

  "Hold up," Silo offered with a raised palm. "I get that we need to do something 'cause this shit's too stupid for words but…hmm. When we were told to get out of Livingston, it was done respectful-like. True, they kept us fuckin' waitin' for damn hours on the ride back for approval to go through their territory. But…"

  "I am with Si," Brand said with a head nod. "If we use force, how will it read going forward?"

  "Should we pick them up? Hold 'em or some shit?" Dare asked. He got what Silo and Brand were suggesting and why but in his mind, the Czar's play was an insult. "How about we hold their motherfuckin' hands and sing 'kum-bah-ya' as we escort the fuckers to our city limits?"

  Even Trey's face creased into a smile at the youngest council member's sarcastic idea. "How about we do both? Let's get a team of four down to the café and keep them there for awhile or until I can chew Ham a new asshole. Since I have two that want blood and two that want to play nice-nice, I use one from each. That'll be Huff and Silo. Choose two other brothers that have their CC's and hold the fucking Czar's asses at the Big Bear until you hear from me."

  It made Dare feel a little better to know that the Hellions who were going to be babysitting the other club's members would be carrying concealed weapons and wouldn't hesitate to use them if things went south.

  "Can we all live with that?" Trey asked, looking around the room. One of the best aspects of Trey's leadership was that his rule was not of the dictator kind. It allowed for the free exchange of ideas and suggestions within both his council and the whole of his club. A practice that hadn't been carried out by very many of the previous presidents of the Missoula chapter. At the all the 'yeps, okays and sures', Trey nodded. "Just keep me in the loop."

  "You left that Ham asshole a voicemail, right?" Dare asked, his mind mulling over the next step in the best way to build a fire under the other pres's ass. At Trey's nod, Dare continued. "Send him a fuckin' text. A strong one that hints at goddamn retaliation without fuckin' spelling anything out."

  "And has a lot of cuss words that the predictive text shit don't like," Silo added with a laugh that cut a lot of the tension in the room.

  Trey handed Si his cell with a, "have at it, brother."

  As his man thumbed the phone, Trey spoke again. "Everyone knows Spokane's coming, yeah? Before they get here, think we need to work out where the next Hellion branch is going to land."

  It had been an ongoing conversation between the six of them. With the Missoula club now at sixty-five members, which included four recruits, the club was too big and needed to split. The biggest decision had been trying to figure out which direction to go although they'd all agreed that they'd keep it in Montana. "Dare, use your truck and hit Billings with Burleson and Pagan. Brand, Bish want you two to hit Great Falls with Maury. This is a turn-around trip, boys, so no fucking around. Scope it out and report back. You know what we're looking for and what the club needs."

  "When do you want us to leave?" Brand asked.

  "As soon as the Czar's doing is resolved," Trey rumbled, accepting his phone back from Silo and reading before throwing back his head with a laugh. "Fucking perfect, amigo!" He turned his face to the rest of the group and read aloud from the small screen. "Hell 2 pay if Czars dont get food shit 2 go & get gone from Hellion terrain. Quid pro quo, mothrfuckr, dig?"

  *.*.*.*.*

  There was no way around it, I needed to stop by the clubhouse before going home in order to see which other Honeys were going to be rolling into Montana. I only hoped March wasn't there. Otherwise, my little quick trip was going to turn into a lot longer stay.

  I pushed my little sporty Ford Fusion through her paces, happy that I'd made the decision to make my car the ride of choice that morning. Otherwise, it would've been another setback and a much longer trip.

  I pulled into the driveway of the Hellion compound and followed it around towards the back. Spokane's place was laid out differently than Missoula's in that Hellion Construction was in the front of the property and blocked the street's view of the clubhouse that was tucked up behind it. And because the whole of it was in the middle of what essentially a 9 to 5 business park, we could play our music as loud as we wanted to—and frequently did—without any complaints.

  "Rye!" I heard Vegas call from her place behind the bar, her platinum blonde hair gleaming in the overhead lights. "What's doin', girlfriend?"

  I'd already seen March's ride in the parking lot so I didn't care that she'd called out my name at my entry. Vegas was one of the few of the fifteen or so Honeys that I considered a friend.

  "Came to see who else is hitting Misso
ula," I replied, tucking my purse and messenger bag behind the bar and pulling myself a draft from the working side of the long bar top.

  "Of the Honeys or the brothers?"

  "Honeys," I replied after a deep drink. Damn, too bad it was a week night 'cause I was primed to lose some of the straight edges of the day and coping a buzz would've been just the ticket in doing just that.

  "Think there's only six. Me, Cyn, Tara, Milk, Wanton and you," she said, ticking off each of the names with a finger. I ran down the roster in my head. I approved of all but Wanton, mainly because she was a piece of work of the worst order. The kind of woman whose picture was in the dictionary when you looked up the phrase 'cock tease' and had incited more than one set of beat downs between our own men. I didn't want her to stir up trouble with the other club's brothers.

  It wasn't that Wanton freely spread her charms with numerous brothers. As a Honey, that was a given. But it was the way she would pit brother against brother as she worked them both up—getting off on the fact she'd made two men fight over her, inciting a competition and offering herself up as the prize.

  "Wait! Before you say it, and I know you're gonna," Vegas said, holding up a long taloned hand. "I tried to talk the girl out of it. When I couldn't, I gave her some ground rules."

  "And those were?" I asked, coming up out of my glass for air before pulling on the heavy handle and doing a reload of the cold beer.

  "Pick your guy for the night and stick with him. No two-sies or even three-sies. That the activities heretofore alluded to include hand jobs, blow jobs, straight fucking and anal." I watched the other woman, who seemed to hide her natural beauty behind a shitload of makeup, drum her nails on the wood of the counter as she thought. "Oh yeah, and no Honey hello kiss with a dick-rub as a side treat. That's what I told her, Rye. Straight up."

  "You did good, honey," I admitted. "And saved me from having to do it. Let's just hope someone catches her eye before Saturday and she'll back out."

  "Hellcat! Over here!" I heard March's yell even over the loud music that had some asshole wailing about how he was such a bad dude. Dammit! As if I didn't have enough of that alpha shit in my life already, I had to hear its soundtrack, too?

  As I glanced at Vegas, I saw her dip her chin and shrug one shoulder. She knew I hated March's little nickname for me and had, in fact, been in the clubhouse when he and I'd had exchanged a lot of loud, nasty words about it. But that hadn't stopped him from its continued use. Grabbing my glass, I tried not to stomp as I made my way towards his table. If my dad hadn't been in attendance along with my brother, Leif, I wouldn't have even have acknowledged March's voice.

  In my opinion, if my fiancé had something to say to me, he could've gotten his skinny ass off out of his seat and come to me, not vice versa.

  "Hey, March. 'S up?" I asked, stopping to stand by his chair. He was giving me a look that meant he was going to be trying something; something he knew I wouldn't like and wouldn't put up with if my family hadn't been in attendance. Sure enough, the man grabbed the back of my jean clad knee and began to stroke upward.

  "Just wanted to say hey, baby. How about greeting your man proper?" His dark blue eyes held a sly look as his palm continued to move up, and I raised an eyebrow before dropping my eyes to my nearly full Pilsner glass and looking at him again. It was my nonverbal warning and was the only one I was gonna give. As for a 'proper greeting', I knew he what he wanted and was, in effect, demanding.

  A full on tonsil-swabbing kiss. One that I always felt was given for exhibitionistic purposes only since it was never sought or given when we were alone. And when done, left me vaguely sick to my stomach.

  No, that was definitely not going to happen. Not in front of a roomful of men that seemed to be perpetually horny. .

  I felt his hand stop just below the cheek of my ass and saw his eyes glance to where my dad and brother sat. March should've considered himself fortunate they were looking our way because if his hand had moved another damn inch, he'd been receiving a beer shower. But I knew he wouldn't even try it if their eyes were turned our way. He'd already been given the lecture about how to treat me, especially in public. Embarrassing as shit at the time, but that talk had given me plenty of causes to be thankful for it having been said.

  "Sorry. No can do." I faked a cough that was so realistic, it scratched at the back of my throat. "Think I'm coming down with something. Don't want you to get it."

  It was his turn to lift an eyebrow. I didn't care if he didn't buy it, I just wanted to do my duty and go home. "Think I'm going to head out. Take some meds and hit the hay early." I took a step back, disengaging my leg from his touch with only a small yank when I'd felt his fingers grip me harder.

  "Yeah, you do that. Hope you feel better," he said, sliding a finger over the wispy blonde mustache he wore that matched the thin, blonde strands on his head as his eyes held mine. He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but shut it after glancing again towards my family's table. "See you, baby."

  "Yeah. Later, March," I mumbled and wove through the tables to say hi and goodbye to the kinsmen that had just saved me from another unpleasant episode in the March and Ryley show. Something that seemed to happen with great regularity and became even more virulent in the brother's and Honey's retellings.

  When I finally made it home, I made a beeline for the bathroom to light candles and start the tub filling. Breezing into the kitchen, I looked through the fridge until I located a half-bottle of wine. I even found a partially smoked joint in a cough lozenge box in the back of my kitchen's junk drawer.

  Yay! No more straight edges, I told myself as I took my pile of stuff into the bathroom before stripping and easing down into the water. Oh, yeah. Just what the doctor ordered. I could almost feel my muscles release their tension and let go of the day. Although my mind couldn't release one portion, one small bit when I thought of Missoula.

  Not that I'd been wanting to think of it. No, I kept shoving those memories back and away. I didn't know if it was the pot or the wine or just the fact that I was going there again on the upcoming run, but I couldn't seem to let it go.

  Getting out of the tub, I dried myself off and slipped into the sleeper set I had on the back of the bathroom door. Without even thinking about it, I shuffled into my room and lifted the mattress until I could snag the large clasp envelope I hid there. Holding it to my chest as if it held the most precious of diamonds—which it did, at least to me—I righted the mattress and sat down on the edge before turning on the little bedside light.

  I touched the metal of the clasp and tried to remember the last time I'd opened it. But it really didn't matter when it had been. My heart still knew, had memorized, everything it contained.

  Two scrawled notes.

  One birthday card.

  And one lone snapshot of two kids, both of the teenaged boy's arms entwined around the girl's shoulders, wrapped over her upper chest. He was caught laughing into the camera and she was laughing with him, her face pointed up at him. Their young love was so blatant, so freaking evident in what was captured between the two of them that it made me cry every time I'd looked at it.

  So don't fucking look!, my mind yelled.

  That time, I didn't ignore the voice in my head but simply laid back on the mattress and held my treasure against my heart.

  Chapter Four

  "More coffee, hon?" Dare glanced up at the cute waitress standing next to the table with the carafe poised over his cup. Wiping his mouth and fingers with the napkin, he nodded and sat back in the booth, his eyes drifting back to the man he'd been watching for the last fifteen minutes.

  "We've seen four properties, but only two are gonna fuckin' work," Pagan began fiddling with his cellphone. "According to Bish, the other two are out of the equation due to legal shit."

  "From the condition of the buildings, I didn't like the one up on Dexter. We'd have to start fuckin' fresh. If we gotta do that, I vote for the one off of Garden," Burleson added just as he should've
done. He was the only civilian they'd brought on this trip and only due to his expertise in ground surveys and building codes in the Billings area.

  Taking his eyes off the man he couldn't seem to look away from, Dare glanced around the table at Burleson and Pagan. "There's two more I want to look at before we get the hell out of here. But for the mo', I fuckin' agree with Burleson. If the Hellions are going to have a motherfuckin' presence in Billings, both as a business and as a club, the one off Garden is the fuckin' ace so far."

  How do I know this guy? Dare thought, turning his gaze back to the man sitting at the table for two with a pale blonde chick. He looked to be tall, his shoulders broad, filling out the sports coat he was wearing over a pair of crisply ironed jeans. There was a cowboy hat sitting on the seat next to him and from his vantage point, Dare could see the man wore a pair of kick-ass cowboy boots.

  Dare didn't know any cowboys even of the fancy variety.

  And this cowboy caused ice to grow in the bottom of Dare's now full stomach.

  Maybe it was the guy's air of authority, something Dare had been able to spot from a distance since he was fourteen. From the set of the man's spine, he was obviously ex-military but Dare knew there was more to it than that. There was something in the way the guy moved that spoke of someone who was used to being obeyed.

  Although, he didn't seem to need that with the little blonde he was sitting across from. She was all perky smiles and trilling giggles as she ate her lunch. And her look never strayed from her companion as if she, like Dare, couldn't look away from him.

  Dare saw the man pick up the check and study it before reaching into his inside coat pocket and bringing out a wallet. Handing the blonde woman both the check and the money, the man leaned over the table speaking low before reaching for his hat. As he stood, Dare could see his estimation was right about the guy's height but as he turned towards the table of bikers, he saw the man was leaner than he'd first guessed although just as broad.