“If you don’t call in twenty-four hours, we move in.”
“If I don’t call in twenty-four hours, tell Hobs I love him. And burn everything in my beside table drawer before anyone gets a look at what’s in there.” She winks, turns, and sashays away.
Heavy balls his fists.
“Where’s she going?” I whisper to Forty.
“She’s going to have a conversation with Knocker Johnson.”
I blink. I’m not sure what surprises me more—Harper has apparently volunteered for a suicide mission or Forty told me club business like it was nothing.
“She’s our Mata Hari,” he adds.
We watch Harper disappear into the crowd.
“You know they shot Mata Hari, right?” I whisper under my breath.
“You. Nevaeh,” Heavy barks. I startle. I was wondering what Harper Ruth keeps in her bedside table. “Come on. I got to show you something.”
He’s beckons me to follow him and ambles off toward a back room, the one where they hold church. I’ve never been in there. Back in the day, I never would have dared. That’s where Slip and his officers did club business. They were terrifying guys, very old school. Except for Boots, I don’t think one of them knew my name. And I’m not sure about Boots.
Forty follows me. The room is dominated by a granite or marble conference table and fancy leather office chairs. The furniture makes the room look like a high-class law office on TV, but the walls totally ruin the effect.
It’s so much; I can’t take it all in. There are flags. American, POW-MIA, Army, Marine Corp. There are dozens of framed pictures. None of the frames match. Police blotter clippings and mug shots. There’s Cue, the flash reflecting off his bald head. There’s a whole row of Charge. His beard and hair get longer and shorter and longer again, but his ridiculously gorgeous smile remains the same.
Then there’s the pictures of bikes. And naked women on bikes. Is that Shirlene? That’s Shirlene. Whoa, she had perky tits.
There are engine parts mounted like in a faux-country restaurant, vintage motorcycle license plates, a display with old striped medals and patches. Maybe war medals from Vietnam and Korea? A lot of brothers have served.
I’m getting a high from these walls. I’m already touching, running my fingers along the smooth edge of frames. My eyes skate to Forty every so often. Does he see what I’m seeing? His lips curve. His body’s tense; it always is when we leave home, but even so, it’s clear he’s proud of this place. That it’s home to him.
My heart plinks. I don’t want Forty to be torn between this home and ours.
Oh, wow. There’s a funeral card next to a blurry photo of a shaggy haired man on a bike, arms high on his ape hangers. It’s Twitch. He’s my age in the picture and handsome as hell. The arms wrapped around him must be Shirlene’s.
This is amazing. I almost forget Heavy’s looming in the doorway. I startle when he speaks.
“Look over the head of the table. On the far wall.”
Holy crap. There’s a human bone hanging there. Whoa. That’s a whole leg from the knee down. Tibia. Fibula. Toe bones.
“Is that Boots’ amputated leg?”
“Yup,” Forty answers. He’s come up behind me. He gently tilts my chin down a hair. “Look right underneath.”
There is a bullet mounted on a shiny wooden plaque.
“Is that my bullet?” I kept thinking I should ask Larry where it went, but then I’d forget.
“Yeah.” Heavy stomps over until he’s standing beside us. Forty winds his arms tight around my middle.
Whoever made the plaque carved pretty vines and flowers around the edges. It’s sweet. And creepy.
“Who made the plaque?”
“I did.” My gaze flies up to Heavy. He raises his bushy, black eyebrows.
“You do woodworking, too?”
“I do whatever needs to be done for this family. Go look at it closer. Get up on a chair.”
Okay. I roll one over and climb on up. It’s not until I’m inches away that I see it. My name—Nevaeh—written out in curling vines.
I trace it with the tip of my index finger.
“If it’s up there, it don’t come down.” Heavy sniffs. “You’re in, Heaven Backwards. If you’ll have us. Anyone gives you any shit, punch ‘em in the face.”
“That was my plan.”
Heavy chuckles, deep and rumbly.
“Hey, Heavy?” I can’t tear my eyes away from the plaque.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry I tempted you with my hot body when we were kids. I was trying to make Forty jealous.”
Heavy stiffens. I swear, the temperature in the room drops. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have noticed how long it took him to ask me to cover up when I flashed him back in the day.
Maybe in Heavy’s mind, he wasn’t supposed to be the kind of guy who struggled for a minute to do the right thing.
“I’m sorry I came between you and your brother,” I say, quiet. “I won’t do it again.”
Heavy dips his chin in acknowledgement, and then his eyes start twinkling. “I wouldn’t rule out anything yet. Shit do get weird around here late on a Saturday night.”
Forty growls, and Heavy laughs.
“I’ll be in the commons.” Heavy slaps Forty’s back and heads out.
Forty has eyes only for me.
“You’re gonna fall off that chair, aren’t you?”
“It’s really unsteady.” I rock my hips, get it to roll back and forth, squatting like I’m on a surf board. “Would you catch me?”
“Yes.” His brown eyes sparkle, following me as I sway, entranced. A smile plays on his lips. “Would you fall on purpose?”
“You’re onto me.” I wind my arms around his neck and wrap my legs around his waist, hooking them at the ankles. He carries me the few steps to the conference table.
He lays me down gently, ass at the edge, and pulls down my leggings, somehow working them over my boots. Then he draws up my knees. “Does that hurt?”
“Nope. The stretch feels good.”
He unbuckles his belt. “Do you like your bullet?”
“Yeah. Was it your idea?”
“Nope.”
Forty unzips his jeans and shoves them down. His thick, red cock springs free. My pussy gushes hot while the marble table freezes my bare ass. Ah, sensation.
“It was Boots’ idea. They were trying to figure out how to get you to come around. Boots figured no woman can resist—” He gestures to the bullet on the wall.
“That man understands women.”
“Only one of us who does.” Forty smiles, intertwining his fingers with mine, and slides home, filling me up, stoking a fire that smolders in me every waking hour.
He lightly touches his nose to mine.
“Bet I can make you cum in twenty strokes.”
“I’ll take that action.”
We get distracted, though. In the end, I don’t know how long we’re there, exploring each other, the most familiar strangers, newly in love for the second time, the world and everything else ahead of us.
Have you read Charge? Click here to start at the beginning of the Steel Bones saga.