Page 6 of Desert Loyalties

SKYE

Correction: I’m in his bed. With Mandrake. And his face is... yeah, definitely nuzzled into my chest like it’s the world’s best memory foam.

I freeze for half a second, blinking up at the ceiling for guidance.

Not because I’m embarrassed about last night’s trauma-dump though, yes, I did spill my life story between fries and almost-tears, but because I’m expecting a delivery this morning.

Apart from bartending, I’m also in charge of keeping the clubhouse in stock.

I start to ease out from under him, slowly, carefully. I’m halfway off the bed when a rough hand snakes around my waist and yanks me back into a furnace of muscle and sleep-warmed skin. My back hits his chest and he buries his face against my neck.

“Where are you goin’?” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep but way too clear to fool me. He’s been awake. Probably the second I moved.

“I’ve got a delivery coming,” I whisper, wiggling a little against his arm. “Need to sign for it. Let me go.”

His arms loosen, but instead of letting me leave, he shifts, fast and flips me onto my back like I weigh nothing.

Now he’s hovering above me, all heat and tattoos and bed-head, staring down with a look that makes my heart bang against my ribs. His forearms cage me in. His leg slides between mine.

“Delivery can wait,” he says, voice lower now. Rougher. Eyes locked on mine. “You were in my bed. You’re in my shirt. You think I’m lettin’ you sneak out before you say good morning?”

I open my mouth. Maybe to argue, maybe to say something sarcastic. But all that comes out is a soft, stupid breath. Because right now, with his weight pressing into the mattress, his hair a mess, and that look in his eyes... I forget every damn reason I had to leave this bed.

Just for a second.

“You’re ridiculous,” I mutter, trying not to smile.

“Yeah,” he says, brushing my hair off my face with a surprising gentleness. “And you’re stuck with me now, sweetheart.”

I squint up at him. “Well, you’re not kissing me until I brush my teeth.”

He just stares down at me, and something shifts in his eyes. That heat? Yeah, it dials up to ten. “That so?” he says, voice low and deliberate.

Before I can blink, he leans down.

I try to clamp my lips shut, turning my head like that’ll stop him, but he’s persistent. His mouth moves against mine, coaxing, teasing, until he slips past my defences with a low growl and—

Mint.

The little bastard popped a mint. His tongue sweeps against mine, cool and tingling, and I feel it, the damn mint pushed into my mouth. Our tongues tangle, and now I’m not resisting, I’m melting.

He doesn’t kiss like a man tasting something for the first time. He kisses like he’s staking a claim .

By the time he pulls away, I’m breathless. Chest rising and falling like I just ran a marathon.

His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing over my jaw, but it’s his voice that really knocks the air out of me.

“Don’t ever tell me I can’t have what’s mine.”

For a second, something dark flares in his eyes. Possessive. Intense. Almost... dangerous .

It should scare me.

And maybe it does. But it also lights something low in my belly.

Then he smirks, full-on cocky bastard smirk, and adds, “There’s mint in the bedside drawer.”

I blink. “You planned that?”

His smirk only widens. “Darlin’, I plan everything. Just like I planned to delay the delivery to ten,” he says hovering over me, voice all smug satisfaction, “so you could sleep in.”

I blink at him. “You what ?”

His thumb brushing across my cheek again. “Figured you’d need the rest. Called the courier last night.”

I smile without meaning to. It slips in before I can stop it, this soft curl of surprise and warmth. No one’s ever done something like that for me. Ever.

His thumb lingers at the corner of my mouth. “You’re beautiful when you smile.”

I grin wider. “What about when I don’t?” I ask, fully fishing now.

He doesn’t hesitate. “Then you’re fuckable. Makes me wanna fuck the attitude right out of you.”

My mouth drops open and then he’s on me again, kissing like he can’t help it. And God, he’s good at it.

When he finally pulls back, I’m dazed.

He brushes a hand through my hair and asks, “When do you get off tonight?”

I groan. “You know last call happens when last call happens.”

“Fuck that.” He’s already standing, stretching, every inch of him delicious and irritating. “I’ll assign a prospect to cover the bar. Tell him it’s club orders.”

I lean up on my elbows, raising an eyebrow. “And why , exactly?”

He leans down, palm flat on the bed, hovering over me. His lips brush mine, slow and sweet, then deepen until I’m breathless again.

“Just trust me,” he murmurs, voice low and promising.

Then he straightens and walks off toward the bathroom.

I stare after him. “ You can’t keep using kisses to make me stupid, you know! ” I yell.

He laughs from inside the bathroom. “Sure I can.”

Cocky bastard.

And yet… I can’t stop smiling.

I’ve got to head back to my place to get dressed.

The clubhouse is massive, like, really massive. A big-ass compound carved into the Nevada desert about an hour out from Vegas. From the outside, it just looks like a fortress made of steel, bikes, and testosterone. But inside? It’s its own little chaotic kingdom.

The ground floor’s an open layout: huge living room, a bar that’s always stocked, kitchen big enough to feed an army (or a biker club, which might be worse), and a few closed-off offices for the important shit, church meetings, club business, Ranger’s throne room, all of it.

Upstairs is more… flexible. The first floor is basically a free-for-all. Open bedrooms by which I mean rooms with doors, not privacy. People go up there when they want to screw without giving the audience a show. No one really “lives” there. It’s more of a... temporary use kind of deal.

Top two floors are sacred. Assigned rooms for patched-in members only.

The top-most is for the officers. No one goes up there unless they’ve earned the right.

Not prospects, not hangarounds. And definitely not someone like me unless, of course, they’re somebody’s old lady.

Then they get a pass. Guess I’m one of those now. Still getting used to the idea.

Out back are the guesthouses, they are smaller, cozier.

That’s where I live. It’s for employees, hangarounds, family, citizen relationships and people like me.

My job at the club covers rent and food.

I make extra cash running side hustles like cooking when they need it, driving them around since most of them hate cars.

They call ‘em cages. Like being surrounded by four doors makes you weak or something.

So yeah, I drive. Haul stuff, pick things up. It's not glamorous but it's steady, and it's mine .

There’s also a basement in the clubhouse.

I used to think it was a gym or maybe a game room, until I found out there’s an actual gym in one of the guesthouses.

After that, I stopped asking questions. The basement’s off-limits.

Always locked. I’m smart enough to know what that means: whatever’s down there, it’s not my business.

And then there’s… well, my unofficial role. I’m what some might call a therapist-slash-life-coach. These men, they’re used to screwing every woman who looks at them sideways, so when they want to talk about something real, something not club-related, I’m the one they come to. Lucky me, right?

Some days I hate it. Some days I don’t mind. Depends on how deep the scars are and how much whiskey I’ve had to pour.

Having to listen to Caine complain about how he was trapped by a woman he could have loved right before he fucked a clubwhore on the pool table was not fun.

I get the club rules, how a woman cannot become an old lady unless she goes through the Ceremony, something to do with ensuring their loyalty.

But it’s barbaric and outdated. No wonder none of the guys’ wives have chosen that, which gives their husbands free rein to cheat.

Because in the biker world, the only person you have to be loyal to is the club, and old ladies, wives don’t measure.

I’ll have to go through it, there is no way I’m leaving the club. I don’t exactly know what happens in it, but it has to be bad if every woman that came before said no.

Right now? All I can think about is the temperature.

It’s hot as hell. Being in the clubhouse, in the air conditioning, I could ignore it.

Nevada in July is as hot as Satan’s balls.

Sweat sticks to everything. My tank top clings in all the wrong places, and I can already tell I’m going to need another shower before I even finish changing.

And the only thing my cozy guesthouse doesn’t have, an AC.

Still... something about the heat, the desert, the dust clinging to the boots on my porch, it feels more like home than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

Here I matter, I have friends. A home. A life. Drake.