Wild Like the Wind by Kristen Ashley
It was that they all hated his guts and were happy to see the back of him, would have burned the Chaos emblem off his back if he’d done that first thing to earn it, and since then, even if I wasn’t deep into the Club, I’d had an informant named Beverly, and I hadn’t heard his name mentioned once.
We’d obviously never had the conversation, but I didn’t have to have it with Hound to know where he fell on the scale of how deeply he hated Chew’s guts.
But even if that was in question, his reaction to me mentioning Chew would have told me the depths of his hatred rang the bell at the top with a very loud clang.
Hound straightened from his plate but did it turning his body toward me and putting his forearm and elbow on the table in a way that put him right in my space.
“Why’d you mention Chew?” he asked.
“Your phone call,” I answered.
“What about my phone call made you mention Chew?”
“You said the name Turnbull.”
Oh shit.
I could actually see the muscles in his neck, shoulders and chest getting tight, making him look like he was growing, expanding, filling the space physically and not just with his enraged vibe.
“Explain,” he gritted between his teeth.
“It was . . . I . . .” I began.
And then I remembered why he wouldn’t remember.
It was also dawning on me just how important this was.
I leaned into him, cupping my hand over the top of his fist on the table and holding on tight.
“Do you remember when Crank was pulling that shit, wanting to show the world a different face of Chaos, pretend out there, but especially to the cops, that Chaos wasn’t what he was making you?” I asked.
“No,” he bit off.
No, he wouldn’t. Because, like most of the boys, he didn’t buy into Crank’s bullshit. He just ignored it.
“Well, he did. He signed the Club up to do some stuff at the schools with kids. Road safety. Awareness of your surroundings. How to deal if a stranger approached. The people at the schools thought it was great when bikers volunteered. Thought the kids would listen to bikers. But when it came down to actually doing it, mostly it was the old ladies getting tricked out in biker bitch gear and heading over. Except Black, Dog, Tack and Hop were all in. And . . .” I squeezed his hand. “Chew.”
“And?” he practically barked.
I nodded and continued swiftly. “I figured out why Chew came when I noticed him flirting and playing with some of the moms, especially the single ones. And he got tight with one. I know he took her out because Black and I saw them together at The Blue Bonnet. She had a little girl. Kind of a handful. Lots of attitude. Her name was—”
“Camilla.”
At the way he said that name, and the fact he knew it, I shut up.
Hound’s hand was gone from mine and his chair was scraping against the floor as he threw it back while rising from it, tagging his phone from the table.
I tipped my head back as he bent to me, pressed his lips to mine hard and pulled away saying, “Gotta go.”
“Chew’s back, isn’t he?” I worried. “And it’s not good.”
He grabbed me at the back of my head and got in my face.
“You do not worry,” he growled. “Now I gotta go.” He touched his mouth to mine and then muttered, “Love you.”
And with that, putting thumb to his phone and then his phone to his ear, he snatched his cut off the back of the chair closest to the door where he’d put it the night before, and he was gone.
“Okay,” I said, staring at the door. I took a deep breath and finished, “Shit.”
That evening, I was in my closet, making room and finding places to put Hound’s clothes, when he walked in.
His eyes went direct from me, to me hanging a pair of his jeans on a section of closet that was two bars, high and low.
There were several of these sections around. But the bar atop where I was putting his jeans held my stuff (as did all the other ones). The bar under it had ten pairs of faded jeans, a black, long-sleeved shirt with bib panel that was so hot I wanted to ask Hound to try it on for me, and four plaid flannel shirts all in the dizzying arrays of grays mixed with black, or black mixed with grays.
His attention came back to me.
“This is your section of the closet,” I shared, pointing at it. I moved to the space beside it, indicating a set of drawers, primarily the third one down. “Underwear, socks and wife beaters. The one under that, your tees.”
His now-expressive face changed but I quickly lifted a hand, palm out his way.
“Before you fuck me on the floor of the closet to thank me for putting your clothes away and what that means, first, bring the rest of them. Second, if you’re blowing off the apartment, there’s no reason to blow money paying rent there, so we’ll get the boys over here to get rid of the shit in the basement and move your new shit down there. That can be your biker sanctuary. Third, we will be talking about Jean, and soon, baby, because you’re worrying me. And last, Tad and Bev are coming over for dinner on Sunday night so one of us needs to text the boys to get their asses here.”
He didn’t move.
“I’m done,” I informed him. “So now you can fuck me.”
He studied me closely.
Very closely.
So closely, I got a little freaked.
But I understood why he did it when he began speaking.
“The man behind kidnapping Millie is a guy called Benito Valenzuela,” he declared.
I pulled in breath.
It was happening already.
Hound was going to trust me.
Right there in my closet, I was officially becoming his old lady.
I felt a tingle of happiness even as I braced.
He kept going.
“He’s a lunatic. Psychopath. Sociopath. I don’t know the difference but he’s probably both. He makes pornos, runs girls and deals drugs. He wanted Denver and Chaos is in Denver so he was pushing to take our patch. We been rubbing each other the wrong way for a long time. Not long after he kidnapped Millie, he disappeared. And a woman, his woman, or we thought he was banging her, but whatever she was doin’ with him, she had a place in his operations. Now she’s taken his place. And her name is Camilla Turnbull.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Hound ignored my whisper and kept talking.
“Chew is either behind Valenzuela’s maneuvers or he’s behind Turnbull pushin’ her way in, getting close and then taking him out so Chew can take over. One way or another, it’s Chew who wants Chaos. And if Valenzuela got dead after the Millie shit, it would make sense because only Chew would retaliate for one of his men doin’ something that stupid and doin’ it to an old lady. But mostly, doin’ it to Millie.”
He was right. Chew had loved Millie. In fact, I thought back in the day that Chew had loved Millie. It was just that she was High’s in a way that she was High’s and that would never change, this being proved because even when that did change, it never actually did and they were back.
“So what does this all mean?” I asked.
“Either Valenzuela knows he fucked up, the big man is pissed, that big man bein’ Chew, and he’s on the run, or they made their move and he’s dead. That only matters if he’s on the run and he finds himself the firepower to come back. What matters now is that our real enemy knows us in a way he knows us. Most a’ the shit we did, the statute of limitation is long past. Some of it doesn’t have a statute of limitation, and if he doesn’t know where the bodies are buried, he can guess.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed, understanding what that meant, particularly for my man. The happy tingle was long gone and the only way I could express the very different tingle that took its place was to whisper, “Hound.”
“Tack’s dealin’ with that tonight with me and some brothers. The recruits won’t touch this, ’specially Dutch and Jag will not be layin’ hands on the bones of the men who took out
A chill slid over me.
“God. Hound.”
“I need you solid with this, Keely, ’cause ghosts are rising and I finally got you, I am not fuckin’ losin’ you to more of Crank’s fuckin’ shit.”
He wasn’t ever going to lose me.
But right now I could tell he was losing it.
So I went to him immediately.
I curled my arms around him in his cut, pressed myself close and tipped my head back to look in his eyes.
“You won’t lose me,” I assured him.
“We all put bullets in him and the man still won’t die.”
I slid my hands under his cut and started to stroke his back over his tee soothingly, murmuring, “Honey. This is not Crank. Crank is gone. This is Chew.”
“He was Crank’s boy. Like a fuckin’ lapdog. Pantin’. The deeper Crank pulled us under, the more the rest of us choked on shit, but for Chew, it made him freer to breathe.”
“It’s over,” I reminded him.
“It’s not over,” he bit out. “Evidenced by the fact I gotta meet up with Tack, Dog, Brick, Boz, High and Hop and go dig up his motherfuckin’ bones and take them somewhere to put lye on ’em.”
I beat back a shudder and fisted my fingers in the back of his tee. “We’re talking Chew here. Remember that,” I urged strongly. “That man cannot take on Chaos. He can’t outthink Tack Allen. You got this.”
“He’s managed to dick with us for a really long time without a single one of us knowin’ shit, Keely.”
That seemed to be true.
I pressed my lips together.
I unpressed them to say, “You all . . .” I yanked his shirt out then pushed it back, digging my fists into his back, “have this.”
He finally lifted his hand, put it on my crown and slid it down the length of my hair before he went back up and cupped the back of my neck.
“The good part, we know what we’re dealin’ with,” he said. “We didn’t before. Tack has what he needs now to do his thing. And that came from you.”
I nodded.
“But I had to lie about how I got that shit,” he told me.
“Yeah, probably not the time to tell them I gave you this info over breakfast, or your second breakfast because your first one was eating me.”
Finally, some of the ferocity went out of his face and his mouth softened.
“Can I ask why you didn’t put lye on them before?” I requested curiously.
“Brother vote, they rot slow in deep graves, forgotten.”
That seemed a perfectly sound decision to me.
Too bad circumstances circumvented it.
I pressed closer. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this tonight.”
His eyes drifted to his rail of clothes and back to me. “Yeah, my woman moves me in, other ways I’d like to spend the night.”
I smiled up at him. “Later. Now get this done.”
He nodded. Bent. Touched his lips to mine.
“Later.”
I gave him a squeeze and let him go.
He took his time untangling his fingers from strands of my hair that didn’t want to let him go, and then he started out of the closet.
“Baby?” I called before he disappeared.
He turned back.
“Are Dog and Brick back?” I asked.
He nodded. “Dog, yeah. He and Sheila are back and stayin’ back. Brick, no. He’s back to help us see the end to this shit but he’s got a woman on the western slope. Her name is Stella. Apparently, she’s the shit and treats him like gold. Dog likes her. Sheila thinks the world of her. Brick’s finally found it, Keekee. He’ll go back to her. They’re gettin’ hitched the end of the summer.”
That made me happy. Brick had a soft heart but got it trampled way too often by women who took advantage of it. If Dog liked her, this was good. This meant she was worth having Brick.
“See?” I asked quietly. “It’s all good. It’s all gonna work out. All the brothers are finding their way to happy.”
He studied me a second, did it intently, I weathered it easily, enjoying what was working behind his eyes, especially since it was working there at a time when he was going to walk out of my house to do what he had to do that night.
In other words, standing there solid for my man, I gave him some calm before he had to hit the storm.
Finally, he said, “Yeah.”
“Love you, Hound.”
He dipped his chin to acknowledge that.
It was what was in his eyes that gave that back.
Then he disappeared.
It was late when Hound returning to bed woke me up.
I turned into him and nuzzled his throat with my face, murmuring, “All good?”
“Yeah, baby. But I’m wiped. Go back to sleep.”
“’Kay,” I mumbled, nuzzling all the rest of him with all the rest of me.
I fell asleep pressed tight to his side, Hound on his back, one of my legs tangled in both of his, feeling his hand flat and warm on the small of my back.
Hound
Hound did not fall asleep.
Hound held his Keely to his side and stared at the dark ceiling.
He did this because Hound, Tack, Hop, High, Boz, Brick and Dog went right to where the bones were buried.
They’d dug them up.
The problem with that was . . .
Those bones were gone.
Their Blood Runs Chaos
Keely
“Oh my God!” I snapped. “If you don’t quit eating that, Jagger, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
I barely finished saying that before Hound strolled up, reached between me and Jagger, nabbed a chicken tender off the mound on the plate beside me at the stove and bit off half of it.
“Seriously?” I asked my man.
He gave me a closed-mouth grin while chewing and swallowing, before saying, “Babe, you bought four packets of chicken tenders. Each pack had to have four breasts in it. There’s six of us eatin’. You’ve been fryin’ chicken for almost an hour. Unless this guy is a Saskatchewan, he’s not gonna eat twelve chicken breasts worth of chicken tenders. So, chill.”
Needless to say, it was Sunday evening.
Time for dinner with Beverly and her guy.
I squinted my eyes at Hound. “If you don’t quit telling me to chill after you’ve annoyed me, Shepherd Ironside, you’ll be wearing this chicken and we’ll have to serve Safeway stuff to Bev and Tad.”
“I still can’t believe Aunt Bev’s man’s name is Tad,” Jagger said under his breath, getting my attention.
“He probably can’t believe your name is Jagger,” I shot back.
“Yeah, but I’m named after a Rock God and he’s named a word that means,” he smirked, “little bit.”
“Fitting,” Dutch mumbled, joining us, reaching in and grabbing his own tender.
I made to smack his hand with the tongs I was holding, missed, but did this seeing the error of my ways that I announced Tad had a little dick in the Compound.
Shit.
I pointed the tongs at each of my boys. “Not a one of you mentions his member.”
“Or lack of,” Jagger joked.
I skewered him with a glare.
“Christ, woman, we’re not gonna talk to the man about his cock, not the first time we meet him, not ever,” Hound declared.
“Ma, unwind,” Dutch said. “Aunt Bev is the shit. We love her. We got her back. Tonight’s gonna go awesome.”
Dutch would be awesome.
Jagger loved his Aunt Beverly and would try to be awesome, he also might fail.
I had never been with Hound in a social situation that didn’t involve pool tables, a hog turning on a spit, copious drinking and at least fifty other people. He loved me. I loved him. He gave amazing orgasms. He could be sweet. He could be funny. He made great eggs.
But he could also be a lunatic.
A knock came at the front door.
Shit.
&nb
Not my first choice.
“Jag!” I called. He stopped and turned around. I did the thing with the tongs again between all of them and said, “All of you. Button up the badass. We’re just your normal, average family of mechanics and a truancy officer, the mechanics working at a custom car and bike garage with auto supply store that happens to belong to a motorcycle club made up of vigilante bikers. Hide that last part.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jag said, lips twitching and also again moving to the front door.
“You think Aunt Bev is as whacked out as you right now?” Dutch asked.
I turned to the skillet to flip chicken. “I think your Aunt Bev is right now quaking in her boots.”
“Keekee,” Hound murmured, drifting his fingers across my shirt at the small of my back in a way that sent a shiver up my spine. “We’ve got this. For Bev.”
I caught his eyes over my shoulder, saw he was serious and finally relaxed.
I nodded. “Thanks, babe.”
Dutch nabbed another tender.
I looked to the ceiling.
“Uh, they’re here,” Jagger said, weirdly tentatively.
I turned to the door to the kitchen to see Jagger moving in, Bev moving in behind him, and then my mouth dropped open when Tad moved in.
Tad was not what most minds would conjure up when you were told of a man named Tad.
Tad had to be six foot four (at least) and I wasn’t sure Tad’s shoulders could fit through the doorway to my kitchen, and it was a double-wide door. Tad also had a thick shock of black hair with little flecks of gray in it that was flowing back from his forehead in a way that had to be styled at the same time it looked natural. His tree trunk legs were encased in faded jeans. His broad chest was covered in a vintage AC/DC T-shirt. And his face was the chiseled magnificence that occupied every breathing woman’s wet dreams.
I now understood why Bev didn’t care he had a little cock.
He also had incredibly long fingers on beautiful hands that he could be taught to use in amazing ways, but regardless, I could just look at him and have an orgasm.
“You might wanna shut your mouth, baby,” Hound whispered in my ear.
I started.