Page 8

Havoc

T onight marked my first real meeting with Riley. Our initial meeting had been a bust, but today was another day—or rather, another night. I checked my watch and saw that it was coming up on seven. Unless I missed my guess, Riley was the kind of woman who showed up on time.

She’d told me to think over my goals. Unfortunately, all I’d been able to think about was her and her lovely, long red hair. It was a beautiful—a cascade of coppery goodness. Her green eyes were stunning. And there was the barest smattering of freckles across her face. I swore, she was the most fucking gorgeous woman I’d ever laid eyes on.

If it wasn’t for that uptight, rigid, superior attitude of hers, I’d have been honing in on her for a potential old lady. But since she was all those things, I wasn’t interested in pursuing her seriously. Flirting and having a little fun might be in the cards if she relaxed a bit. And, of course, if she wanted me.

I sat there at the table with a non-alcoholic beer in one hand, half-listening to the music on the jukebox as I thought over what that would even look like. I had to admit, I liked the thoughts running through my head. In fact, I let my imagination run away with me a bit. Riley was a good, strong woman. Quality in every way. I’d fucking love to make it past all those professional walls she’d built—for one night, anyway. I was so caught up in my own fantasy that I almost didn’t notice when she walked in.

Looking up just in time, I saw her walk through the front door, and I motioned her over to my table. She crossed the bar area to get to me. The place was dimly lit, and the music pouring out of the jukebox was hard rock with a steady thump of bass. As she hesitated near the front entrance, I picked up on several things at once.

There was a hint of nervousness about her. Barely perceptible—but there, nonetheless. I could tell by the way she anxiously glanced at one of the pool tables after the too-loud crack of balls was followed by raucous laughter from several of my club brothers.

As she weaved through the throng of brothers dancing with their old ladies, I noticed she didn’t really fit in here at the Dark Slayers clubhouse. She was the only woman wearing a cute little pantsuit, along with high heels and fucking pearl earrings. She looked polished, like she was on her way to an office gig. Not one hair was out of place. Too well-groomed in general. Among all the club girls in sequined belly shirts and the old ladies wearing property cuts, she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Her nostrils flared when she was halfway across the dance floor, no doubt catching the scent of beer, sweat, and leather. Although she was good at schooling her expression, I caught the barest flicker of repugnance for a split second. Ah, I guessed bikers were an acquired taste—especially for a prim and proper young lady like Riley Dalton.

When she reached my table, I saw that she was carrying that planner she’d had with her before. It was a brutal reminder that she had her life nicely organized and was here to fix mine. Something about that ticked me off.

“I thought the plan was for you to blend in and acquaint yourself with club life, so you can be of use to me.”

She laid her planner down on the table and put her hands on her hips, that classic power pose women used when they wanted us to fall in line. “I’m here, on time, and ready to work.”

Plucking the beer out of my loose grip, she set it aside. “Wish I could say the same for you.” Gesturing at the half-empty glass, she asked, “How many of these have you had already?”

I grabbed my near beer and downed the rest in one drink before growling, “It’s none of your damn business. Have a seat. We need to talk.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line as she sat across from me. “That’s why I came here tonight.”

I frowned at her. “Really? I thought you came here to embarrass the fuck out of me.”

Her expression turned bewildered in a heartbeat. “Say what now?”

I gestured around the room. “Do you see any other women around dressed for corporate success? I look like I’m meeting with my goddamn probation officer or something.”

“I’m dressed to work. They’re dressed to recreate. That’s the difference.”

“I thought we had an understanding. We were going to meet up so you could learn about club life, and we would work on goals.”

“I don’t need to dress like a whore to help you with your goals.”

I leaned over the table and told her sternly, “No, but you’re going to anyway, ‘cause living is learning, sweetheart.” When she opened her mouth to tell me off, I cut her off. “And just so you know, we don’t call them club whores because that’s disrespectful.”

She glanced around anxiously again before apologizing. “Sorry about that. I was certain bikers called the girls who hung around the clubhouse whores.”

“For starters, all kinds of women hang around our clubhouse. They ain’t all whores.” I took a moment to break it down for her real quick. “First, a lot of the brothers have old ladies—women they’re in a relationship with. They might be living together or even married. You can easily pick them out of the crowd. They’re the only women wearing property cuts with their old man’s name on the back.”

“I know all about that. Zoe and Ali wear property cuts.”

“I’m glad you got that squared away. Now, like you said, we have club whores. We call them club bunnies for obvious reasons.”

“Again, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed based on what I’ve seen in the media.”

“It’s fine. But you should also know we have women who visit our club as guests. They’re often invited by a brother or an old lady. They tend to dress a little more conservatively, like the old ladies. Lots of jeans and t-shirts.” Gesturing to her, I added, “You can wear a suit to the clubhouse if you want, but it’s not very respectful of biker culture.”

Confusion jumped back onto her face. “Are you being serious right now? I can’t tell.”

Suddenly, I was done trying to talk to Riley Dalton about biker culture. She could learn it all at the school of hard knocks for all I cared. “Never mind, you can wear what the hell you want.”

She shot forward in her seat. “There’s no need to take that attitude.”

I let out a sigh and gestured to her planner. “Okay, back to business. Let’s go ahead and get started. I wanna get this over with.”

I’d managed to rattle her, and I wasn’t even sorry. She seemed to scramble as she opened her planner and pulled out a pen.

“Okay, let’s see—our last conversation was about you accidentally triggering the fire suppressant system here at the clubhouse.”

“Yeah, we had a nice long talk that led to nowhere,” I grumbled.

Her eyes lifted to mine. She pointed at the notes section of her planner. “That wasn’t my takeaway from the situation. I thought we decided that operating outside your area of expertise, poor communication, and starting work without a clear plan of action contributed to that situation.”

I was taken aback—but not by much. I remembered us discussing those points, though not quite so succinctly during our conversation. “Yeah, we talked about that. To be honest, Storm, Celt, and I talked about it the night of the incident, so it wasn’t new information.”

She nodded. “Whether the information is new or not, it’s still valuable. But only if you use it to inform your future decision-making.”

I held up my beer, and the bartender gave me a thumbs up. I put my glass back down with a hollow thunk and asked Riley, “Can you please speak fuckin’ English?”

“Remember not to make those mistakes again.”

“Got it,” I told her. I honestly felt like this meeting was getting off to a bad start. “That’s the problem I’m having in a nutshell. It’s easy to look back and see what went wrong and even easier to remember not to do that again. The problem is, there’s always some new situation that pops up—and a new lesson to be learned. Do ya get what I’m laying down?”

Her face lit up and she said excitedly, “The problem is extrapolating lessons learned from one situation to another.”

Thankfully, the prospect tending bar brought my drink. I grabbed it and sucked down half of it in one drink. “Sure, that sounds about right,” I said, assuming her pompous turn of phrase just meant taking the lessons I’d learned and applying them to new situations. Gawd, this woman could be annoying at times. “Truth be told, I’m fucking tired of talking about the watery mess I made of the clubhouse. Maybe we could talk about something else for a while.”

She froze for a second and then shifted gears. “Of course. Tell me about the goals you came up with.” She had a smile on her pretty face, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Why don’t we take a break for a bit? Maybe you could grab yourself a drink while I knock back another.”

Her body relaxed. Until I saw her shoulders sag, I hadn’t realized how much tension she’d been carrying. I felt guilty for being difficult.

She immediately agreed. “Sure. We can take a break and regroup.”

Since the beer I drank didn’t get me drunk, I decided to have another. A quick signal to the prospect behind the bar was all it took for him to start pulling me another near beer from the tap. I watched Riley make her way to the bar. If I was being honest, she looked a little defeated. Guilt burned in my gut because she was just a good woman trying to do the job she was hired to do. It’s a shame that she wound up with an idiot like me for a client. The more I paid attention to how she moved and interacted, the more I could tell that being pretentious wasn’t an act. Riley probably wasn’t trying to be superior. Like I’d told Storm, she just was superior to the rest of us mortals who walked, talked, and fucked up sometimes. Maybe that was what my real problem was—I didn’t like feeling inferior.

Zoe came up to her at the bar and they had an animated conversation, with Riley waving her arms around and then gesturing towards me. Zoe looked over at me and rolled her eyes. Then she grabbed my new life coach by the arm and dragged her upstairs.

I guessed that was the end of the whole ‘unfuck Havoc’ project that Storm and his old lady had concocted. It was a shame that a nice woman like Riley had to get steamrolled in the process, but I was gonna call this a win for Team Havoc. I was a smart guy. Now that I knew how seriously my club was taking this issue, I’d just double down and fix it myself.

I swirled the last sip of near beer around in the bottom of my glass and drank it up because I saw the bartender coming with my refill. Charlotte intercepted him, took the beer from him, and headed straight for my table with a big smile on her face. I was much less enthusiastic about this latest turn of events.

When she got to my table, she set the beer down in front of me with a flourish. “Where did your new friend go?”

“She went upstairs with our club president’s wife. Didn’t you see?”

She shoved her hands into the front pocket of her jeans and wiggled her body slightly, showing off her curves. I swore these club girls never gave up. Charlotte was wearing a belly shirt that showed off her belly button piercing. Clearly, she was trying to draw my attention to it.

She told me, “I knew she wasn’t gonna be able to handle a rough and ready biker like you. The girls from the outside never can. If you want an old lady, you should be looking inside the club. Outsiders never understand the brothers.”

Staring up at Charlotte, I realized she was saying all the stupid things I’d been thinking. It pissed me off because it drove home how ridiculous my internal dialogue had been. Sure, it would be nice if Riley was serious about learning more about my world, but if I cooperated with her, we’d get the job done without her having to go that far. I got lost in trying to figure out exactly why that had been so important to me.

It slowly dawned on me—it was because I wanted her in my world. I wanted Riley at my side, looking up at me with those big green eyes, maybe enjoying my company. My eagerness to get to know her better was overruling every other consideration right now.

Charlotte’s voice got louder, and I became vaguely aware that she was still standing there vying for my attention. “Hey, I was talking to you, Havoc.”

My head snapped around and up to look at her. Before I could speak, she did. “Aren’t you gonna thank me for bringing your beer?” Gesturing towards the extra chair, she added, “Maybe, ask me to have a seat and keep you company?”

I was shaking my head before she even finished her sentence because this woman didn’t interest me—not at all. “Thanks for walking my beer the fifteen feet from the bar to my table, but I don’t want your company tonight.”

Her hands balled into fists at her sides, and she asked, “Well, why not? You’re all alone. I’m surely better than no one.”

Just then I saw Riley walking back down the steps with Zoe. My mouth dropped open and my eyes lit up when I realized she’d traded out her cute business suit for black frilly mini-skirt and a black biker t-shirt that hugged every curve like she’d been sewn into it. My gaze traveled from her glorious red hair down to the black knee boots and high-thigh black stockings she was wearing. Gone were the pearls, and her hair had been thrown up into a messy updo. My mouth went dry, and my heart skipped a beat as I watched her walk to the bar, that pretty skirt swaying back and forth. She picked up her own drink and came back to me.

Maybe I hadn’t driven her away after all. She was dressed for my world, and I liked that mark of respect way more than I should. My head filled with all sorts of inappropriate thoughts—especially since she was here to help me, not for any kind of shenanigans.

“Go away, Charlotte, and don’t approach me again. If I want you, I’ll come to you.”

When Riley stood in front of me, I swallowed thickly. “I thought you ran out on me.”

She gave me a genuine smile. “Not ever. I don’t give up on people.”

I stared into her eyes, grateful that she was meeting me halfway. “Even the really stubborn ones?”

She reached across the table and put her hand on mine. “That’s the thing we have in common. Being stubborn is the reason I won’t give up on someone. They have to fire me. I’ve always been that way.”

Her answer hit me in the chest like a fucking punch I didn’t see coming.

She said yes.

I didn’t play it cool like I should’ve. I just stood there for a second, blinking at her like I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. Riley, the planner-toting, power-suit-wearing, life-coaching professional, just agreed to hop on the back of my bike.

I realized I was still holding her hand, so I gave it a gentle squeeze and released it. “Alright then,” I said, trying like hell to keep my voice level. “Let’s get you geared up.”

We made our way out to the garage at the side of the clubhouse. I flipped on the light and walked over to the row of cubbies where we kept spare helmets and riding jackets. Most of the old ladies had their own by now, but we kept a couple extras for visitors or, in rare cases like this, life coaches who were about to get a crash course in MC life.

I handed her a black helmet. “This one should fit. It’s adjustable.”

She took it without complaint, her fingers brushing mine briefly. There was that spark again, low in my gut, burning steady. She ran her hands over the shell of the helmet like it was some kind of artifact.

“You alright?” I asked, watching her closely.

Riley nodded slowly. “I’ve just never done this before.”

“Well,” I said with a small grin, “you’re about to lose your biker virginity.”

She huffed a laugh, rolling her eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You’ll learn,” I muttered under my breath, turning back to my bike.

It was parked in the corner, gleaming despite the dust from the last few days. A lot of my brothers took their bikes out for a spin every night, but not me lately. I’d been too wrapped up in the fallout from the sprinkler fiasco and my so-called intervention. I swung a leg over and settled in, motioning for her to climb on.

“Put your arms around my waist,” I told her, once she was perched behind me. “Keep your feet on the pegs, lean with me in the turns, and whatever you do, don’t let go.”

She hesitated only a second before I felt her arms wrap around my middle. A perfect fit. Warm. Real.

I fired up the engine, and it roared to life, a sound that always made me feel like everything was right in the world. I guided us out of the garage and onto the winding road that led away from the clubhouse. The night air rushed over us, cool and crisp.

We rode in silence for a while. I didn’t take her far—just out past the edge of town where the streetlights faded, and the stars started to show up. The kind of road where the only sound was the engine purring beneath us and the occasional long horn honk of acknowledgement of a trucker in his big rig saying ‘hi’.

When I finally pulled over and cut the engine, Riley didn’t let go right away.

“Wow,” she said against my back, her voice a little breathless. “That was...”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s like nothing else.”

She slid off the bike and pulled off her helmet, her hair a little mussed now, and her cheeks pink from the wind.

“You alright?” I asked again, softer this time.

She looked at me with something different in her expression—like she wasn’t just seeing a client anymore. Maybe not even a project. Maybe just a man.

“I get it now,” she said.

“Get what?”

“What this place means to you. The freedom. The brotherhood. Why you keep your life so wrapped around this club. Riding like that... it’s the kind of peace I’ve only found in meditation or silence. It’s... honest.”

Her words hit me harder than they should’ve.

“You know,” I said slowly, “for someone who wears pearls and quotes decision-making models, you’re not half bad.”

Her eyes sparkled. “And for someone who calls people girl when they’re being difficult, you’re not half bad either.”

I got off my bike and we walked out to the scenic overlook together with helmets in hand.

There was a long concrete sidewalk, affording one of the best views of the surrounding landscape to be had in this area. It ran along a ridgeline with a drop off on one side and lush greenery on the other. As we strolled along, it felt a bit like walking the boardwalk only without the water. We finally stopped at one particularly nice spot, and I put my helmet down on the waist high stone wall that had been erected for safety.

We stood there, gazing out at the landscape. With almost a full moon shining down from above we could see for what seemed like miles. It was a breathtaking sight, almost as amazing as the sight of Riley’s innocent wind-kissed face. I could tell by her expression that this was all new to her, riding on the back of a motorcycle, late night rides just for fun and most of all, spending time with a guy like me. When she glanced up to find me looking at her, our gazes collided. We stood transfixed, staring at each other for a beat too long. This was the moment I knew that I wanted her with a desperation like no other.

“I truly like you, Riley. You don’t play games, say what’s on your mind and aren’t afraid to admit when you’re wrong.” Reaching out to slide one finger around a lock of her long red hair, I added, “And you’re fucking beautiful to boot.”