Page 14 of Lockout (The Vikings MC: Tucson Chapter #11)

Keely

G roaning, I shoved my knuckles into my eyes. All the girls had shown up yesterday and we’d spent our time drinking wine and talking late into the night. Now my head was about to explode. My eyes were going to go first.

I pressed into them and hoped that would hold them inside my skull as it throbbed and ached. After a couple minutes, I eased off the pressure and looked around my bedroom. I was pretty sure most of us had passed out in the little living room.

There was no doubt that at some point, a horde of muscled bikers had entered my apartment—not for my benefit—and hauled their respective women back home in their beefcake arms. I grinned at the thought.

Who would have thought that men like this would have brought us together and made us all a family?

I would have taken one look at these guys a few years ago and assumed that at some point I would be representing them for one reason or another.

I would’ve been wrong on multiple fronts.

One, they weren’t common criminals. I wouldn’t be representing them for DUI’s or bar fights, they were more vigilantes than anything.

Sure, they broke the law, but they did it to help others.

I had so much respect for them because of that.

And the other way I would’ve been wrong was because they weren’t sloppy enough to get caught.

Lock had them running like a well-oiled machine.

It would take a lot for them to end up in prison.

And I would do my best to make sure that never happened.

These men were like dark avenging angels.

I could see in my mind the face Lockout would make if I ever uttered those words out loud.

He wouldn’t be flattered by that description, but it was so true.

They helped people who needed it. People who couldn’t be helped by the police for one reason or another. They kept Tucson a safer place.

Sitting up in bed, I looked around at my tangled sheets and sighed. I was in a t-shirt and panties. Which meant that Smoke hadn’t put me to bed, otherwise I’d have just been dumped on top of the covers in what I’d been wearing.

I crawled out, taking my time to make sure my brain didn’t leak out of my ears, and pulled on a pair of leggings.

I didn’t bother to do anything with my bed head, other than run my fingers through my hair a couple of times.

There was no way I could deal with a brush, pony tail, or bun this morning.

I hoped the others weren’t feeling as shitty as I was.

They’d been kind enough to ply me with copious amounts of wine, Chinese food, and chocolate. They didn’t deserve this fresh hell.

Padding down the stairs in my socks, I took the turn down the hallway and opened Lock’s office without knocking.

I wouldn’t normally be so rude, but just the thought of rapping on the wood set my teeth on edge.

I gave him a wan smile as I walked across the room and sat in the chair across his desk.

I pulled my feet underneath me and got comfortable.

His gorgeous hazel eyes were studying me and I knew he wasn’t missing a single detail. Not that I knew exactly what he was cataloging away in his brain. But it was something.

“Good morning.”

“Is it?” I countered, wincing a little as my voice came out scratchy.

He chuckled and the sound didn’t annoy me nearly as much as it should since he was laughing at my misfortune. Sure, I’d done it to myself. Well, with a little help from my friends. But that didn’t change the fact that he was amused at my current state.

“I take it you girls had fun last night?”

I nodded and scratched at my arm. “Did you put me to bed last night?”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding hesitant. “Didn’t want to leave you sleeping like that on the floor. I figured you’d end up feeling even worse this morning.”

“My back thanks you,” I said with a wry smile. “And so do I. If it had been Smoke that had undressed me, we were going to have a problem.”

“He’d have a lot of problems if he undressed you,” Lock muttered.

“What?” I asked, even though I’d heard him. I wanted to see if he’d repeat it. Instead, a slow, devious smile spread over his face, making my heart stall out in my chest. It really wasn’t fair that he was so damn handsome.

“I like your panties.”

Blinking at him, I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. What was a girl supposed to say to that? Also…what did that even mean?

“I think I like you being speechless, too,” he added, tilting his head to the side as he continued to study me.

Heat crept up my neck and over my cheeks. “I’m not even sure what you mean,” I managed to sputter out.

He arched a brow at me. “Choose your own adventure?”

I gasped out loud, eyes widening. I hadn’t even remembered that I’d changed into more comfortable underwear once I got out of my lawyer clothes.

The Cheshire Cat grin on the front of them was super cute and the phrase on the butt of the panties had made me laugh and buy them immediately.

No one but Dani had ever seen them before though. “Oh my-”

Pointing my finger at him, I growled, “Don’t even say another word.

” Because he’d opened his mouth to do just that and who the hell knew what was going to come out of it?

I wasn’t up to the task of seducing him today.

I was barely up to the task of being awake.

Though maybe I needed to wear the panties again if he really did like them that much.

His lips twitched upward almost into a smile. “How are you feeling?” When I narrowed my eyes at him, because it was obvious I felt like hell, he added, “About yesterday.”

I sighed as the reminder sank in. I’d quit my job. Quit the task force. “I’m unemployed,” I said in disbelief. I shook my head. “I haven’t been unemployed since I took senior year off to focus on graduating.”

“Rare that a kid will start working at fourteen,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

“I wanted to save up for a car. Mom and Dad could have bought it, but I wanted to-” I paused, my eyes darting up to him. “Wait a minute. How did you know I got a job at fourteen?”

“Dani must have mentioned it,” he said, voice smooth and even.

He was lying to me. I was very good at spotting when someone was lying. It helped me a lot in my profession. “Lock. Did you have Riptide do a background check on me?”

He shrugged those massive shoulders. But his eyes remained steady and passive on mine. He wasn’t fooling me.

“Lockout, that’s a serious breach of privacy. Not to mention illegal-”

“It’s not illegal to run a background check,” he said, interrupting me.

“It is the way Riptide does it,” I shot back. He looked amused again, but didn’t argue with me.

He leaned forward, his forearms on the desk. “We’ll figure out the job situation after all this is over, Keely.”

“That’s so sweet of you,” I said with a little shake of my head. “We’ll worry about it then.” What I wasn’t saying was that I didn’t know if there was anything to be done. Joe wasn’t kidding around. He was going to do his best to get me blacklisted. But I didn’t want to think about that right now.

“In the meantime, if you need anything,” Lock said, “just let me know.”

“Okay,” I told him with a soft smile. He was so nice. It was shocking that he didn’t have a flock of women hounding him to make them his. Hell, he could probably have multiple women if he wanted to.

“I mean it, Keely,” he warned. “Money? No problem. If anyone starts hassling you, let me know. Anything.”

“Who’s going to hassle me while I’m living here?

” I asked. I didn’t comment about the money.

I had a pretty good savings tucked away, just in case something like this ever happened.

I’d always been the type to save and prepare for the worst. It was going to benefit me now.

But even if I didn’t, I wasn’t about to take Lockout’s money.

“Those dickhead bosses of yours,” he suggested. “The FBI. Whoever.”

“Okay, Lock,” I said with a grin. He was going into full-blown protection mode.

I could tell because he always got this sexy tic in his jaw whenever he started to get worked up about something.

And every time he did, it always made this twisted little piece of me want to poke at him.

He was so easy to rile up in this state.

Normally, he had the patience of a saint.

Living with Butcher and Toxic and no one being murdered—well at least not the guys living here—was a testament to that.

But the few times I’d seen him spooled up, I’d taken the opportunity to make things worse for him.

Which was kind of a jerk move, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

His heavy sigh pulled me out of my thoughts. “I’m serious, Woman.”

“And I’m agreeing, Man,” I shot back, but I was fighting to keep from grinning again.

He raised his hand, pointing his finger at me. “If you think this is-” He was interrupted by the phone on his desk.

I bit the insides of my lips because if I kept laughing at him he was going to lose his shit. I watched as he lifted the phone, then hit the speaker button.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Boss. That new toy just came in.”

“That toy,” he said as he scowled down at the phone, “is a Sikorsky S-76, Matt.”

“It’s a beaut. Where did you find it? I’m going to assume you didn’t pay the seven-to-ten-million-dollar price tag for it?”

I nearly swallowed my tongue. My jaw was hanging open because while I knew Lock had a business outside of what the club did, I never even thought about what his net worth might be.

But holy crap!

“Paid a bit less than that,” he said, his tone amused. “You just need to know where to look.”

“Yeah, sure. You going to come test it out?”

He was back to studying me. I motioned toward the door and mouthed, I can go.

“I’ll be there in a couple hours to take it for a spin,” he told him.

As soon as he hung up the phone, I asked, “What’s a Sikorsky S-76?” Not that it was any of my business, but I was curious and I’d left my phone upstairs so I couldn’t look it up myself.

“It’s a helicopter.”

“Don’t you already have a helicopter?” I asked.

“Yeah. This one is going to be used for tours of the Grand Canyon. It’s bigger than the one I have.”

“What do you do with the one you have?” He grinned at me and my insides fluttered a bit.

“That’s just for me. For when I’m feeling a bit too…caged in.”

Flying was his release. Anytime he spoke about it, which wasn’t often really, he just lit up. I was glad he had something that gave him some peace. A man like him needed that. Otherwise he’d end up snapping like a stretched out rubber band. And who knew what would happen then?

“Want to go with me?”

I frowned at him. “Go with you where?”

“Over to my place.”

“You want me to go to your business?” I asked, excitement growing.

“Sure. You can help me test out my new toy.”

My eyes widened. “You want to take me flying?” His nod had me biting back a squeal of delight. I wasn’t afraid of heights and I’d always wanted to go up in a helicopter. Skydiving and bungee jumping were on my bucket list as well. “Yes!” I gasped. “Just let me go put something else on.”

His eyes slid over me as I stood up. “You look good in that.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not dressing up, but I slept in this and I’d like to put on clean clothes.”

He shrugged. “Meet me outside in ten minutes.”

Hangover forgotten, I bolted out the door and upstairs. How often did you have the opportunity to check off a bucket list item? Especially when you had your very own sexy pilot to fly you?