But this time…

It was day four of prison by Hell’s Horsemen association and there wasn’t anywhere else on earth that I wanted to be other than right there, locked up in a crowded, overheated building…with Ripper.

Seated at the U-shaped bar, my elbows on the counter, chin propped in my hands, I was watching Ripper move across the room. He was shirtless, barefoot, wearing only his half-buttoned leathers and his cut. His blond hair was pulled back mid-skull in a messy ponytail and a cigarette dangled from his lips. My gaze traveled down his big body, lingering on the trail of blond hair that disappeared inside his pants, and my heart started beating faster.

I’d never been so intensely attracted to a man before, never felt so aroused in all of my life, and it wasn’t just when he was touching me, it was all the time. All I had to do was think about being with him, and I was crossing my legs and squeezing my thighs together.

He was an incredibly beautiful man. The scars just forced you to look a little harder to see what was still there, and what was still there was the squared, strong bone structure of a Greek god, the heavily muscled stature of a boxer, and a deviously sexy smile.

We’d spent the past three days sneaking off together, deftly avoiding the club security cameras, and finding secret places to be together. The kitchen pantry, the communal showers, the shed behind the clubhouse…

I was waiting for Ripper’s signal, eagerly anticipating day four of being together.

“This sucks,” Tegen pouted, walking up next to me and folding her arms across her chest. Startled out of my Ripper stare-a-thon, I glanced over at her and winced.

Even her attempt at dressing like a girl had somehow gone hideously wrong. Her plain black sundress hung loosely on her, the straps had fallen off her shoulders revealing two white bra straps, she’d spilled something on the skirt of the dress earlier and hadn’t bothered to wipe it off, and…I looked down at her feet. She was wearing flip-flops. Not cute, stylish ones but a plain pair of black foam flip-flops that I wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing, not even at the beach.

“What does he see in those fucking sluts?” Tegen hissed.

Knowing she was talking about Cage, I started rolling my eyes until I saw where she was looking. It wasn’t just Cage talking to a pair of club whores, it was Cage and Ripper. I shot into an upright position. He wasn’t giving me the signal because he was too busy talking to…those whores?

Jealousy swamped me, followed closely by panic. He’d lied. He was still interested in other women and here I was forced to sit and watch it happen right in front of me, just like Dorothy had to watch Jase with his wife while she pined for him from afar. Oh god, I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be an old lady or, even worse, a secret old lady that no one knew about.

Without warning he glanced my way, a small smile on his face that instantly fell the minute we locked eyes. I bit down on my bottom lip and attempted to school my expression, hoping my inner turmoil wasn’t showing through.

I knew I’d failed when his eyes narrowed.

The next thing I knew Ripper was crossing the room, heading toward the bar, toward me. Taking the space to the left of me, he leaned forward, placing his forearms on the counter top. I went rigid, suddenly completely at a loss as to what I should be doing with myself, where I should be looking. God, I didn’t even know what to do with my hands or how I should be sitting. He’d made a point to never be less than twenty feet away from me, and this new development had caught me completely off guard.

“Yo,” he said, nodding at ZZ who, as usual, was playing bartender while he kept an eye on the security monitors.

ZZ lifted his chin. “Tequila?”

“Naw, dude, gimme a brew.”

Nodding, ZZ reached below the bar and pulled a bottle of beer from one of the small refrigerators underneath. Popping the cap off on the bar, he handed it to Ripper, who took a prolonged swallow during which I moved my hands from the bar to my lap and back to the bar again. Twice.

“Uh, are you okay?” Tegen asked, eyeing me queerly. The expression on her face clearly showed that she thought I’d completely lost my mind.

I nodded jerkily. “Yes.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, sure. So, you’re suddenly acting like you have Tourette’s for no good reason?”

I glared at her. Just because I wasn’t dressed like a secondhand clothing reject who’d had her hair done by an electrical socket, and didn’t pout in corners staring at a guy who’d never give me a second glance, didn’t mean she had to hate on me.

“I’m fine,” I gritted out.

“Right,” she muttered. “Fine, whatever, no need to give me your prissy angry face.”

I gaped at her, furious, Ripper’s close vicinity instantly forgotten. Who did she think she was?

“What is wrong with you?” I demanded. “Why can’t you ever just be…normal?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Normal?” she asked, her tone scathing. “What the fuck is normal, Danny? This? The club? My mom crying in the corner, staring at Jase and Chrissy? Or Adriana over there,” she said gesturing to where Mick’s wife was sitting. “She’s talking to her husband’s favorite club whore and she doesn’t even know it. Is that normal?”

Whether Tegen actually cared about the virtueless bikers and the lack of morality that went on inside the club was debatable. Her bad moods, as often as they were, nine times out of ten were usually related to only one biker. My brother. If she wasn’t angry, which was rare, she was just outright sad.

“Girls.”

Ripper’s voice was low but harsh and both our heads swiveled toward him. Using his bottle of beer, he gestured between us. “Lockdown’s wearin’ on everyone, yeah?”

Tegen sighed noisily. “If by wearing on us you mean driving us all to the brink of insanity from having to watch you all drink yourselves into oblivion, belch and fart and whore it up with whatever walks by, then yes, I’m a little worn.”

Both ZZ and Ripper burst out laughing. Leaning over the bar to ruffle her hair, ZZ grinned at her. “You’re one badass little motherfucker, you know that?”

She swatted at his arm, trying to duck away from his hand. “Piss off!” she yelled, throwing a stack of bar coasters across the bar, missing ZZ by several feet.

“Danny.”

Swallowing hard, I glanced over at Ripper.

“You’re thinkin’ again,” he said quietly. “And whatever you’re thinkin’ you really ain’t likin’.”

“I’m not,” I protested. “I’m totally, completely, one hundred percent fine.”

“You’re not,” he said. “You’re readin’ into shit you shouldn’t and makin’ up all sorts of crazy inside that head of yours.”

Damn him.

“Fine,” I hissed, slapping my hand down on the bar. “You want to know what I’m thinking about, I’ll tell you. I don’t like being a secret, that’s what. I don’t like that those stupid sluts can just walk up to you, thinking they can touch you. If they knew about me, that wouldn’t happen when I was around.”

Realizing what I’d just said, and that I’d said it not so quietly in a room full of people who would undoubtedly be interested to know why I was having such a personal conversation with Ripper, I slapped my hand over my mouth and shut my eyes in dismay.

When I braved looking up again, I found the club exactly as I’d left it. No one was paying me any attention, Tegen was still yelling at ZZ, Ripper was still beside me, still leaning over the bar, still looking right at me. Smiling.

“You tryin’ to tell me you’re my old lady, Danny?”

Yes.

“No,” I whispered and watched his smile turn into a full-fledged grin.

“Liar,” he whispered back.

“I hate you.”

“Liar.”

“Now I really hate you.”

Standing up straight, he slid his empty bottle across the bar toward ZZ, using the action to lean into me. “Five minutes,” he breathed over the top of my head. “Your room.”

Then he left me sitting there, staring after him, feeling like a complete moron for freaking out.

For the next five minutes I stayed where I was, my stomach fluttering with anticipation, watching the clock on the wall. After the longest five minutes of my entire life had gone by, I slid slowly out of my seat and began navigating through the groups of people. Once I’d cleared the hallway, filled with exhilaration and anticipation, I started running to where I knew he’d be waiting. My bedroom. I don’t know how he did it—avoid the cameras, somehow knowing where to step and how to time it so his entrance to my room wouldn’t be recorded—and I didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was there in my room waiting for me and I was—

I burst through my door and nearly crashed into him. Grabbing my arm, he swung me further inside and kicked the door shut with his boot, locking it quickly.

“Why do you do this shit?” he demanded, looking me up and down as he walked me backward.

“Do what?” I asked, playing dumb.

“You know what,” he muttered, shoving me backward, already unzipping his leathers.

I scooted backward over my bed, bunching my skirt up around my waist, then quickly wiggling out of my underwear.

“Shirt off,” he growled, staring at the bared lower half of my body, slowly stroking himself. I watched him touch himself, growing harder as he continued to gaze at what I was freely offering him, turning myself on by doing so.

Once my camisole was gone, Ripper took a long, leisurely look up and down my naked body, further propelling my hormones into overdrive.

“Don’t know why you’re thinkin’ I want club ass when I got all this waitin’ on me.”