Page 18 of Lockout (The Vikings MC: Tucson Chapter #11)

Keely

T he next couple of nights, I dreamt of flying. And that almost kiss afterward. It had been the most exhilarating thing I’d ever done. I could see why Lock loved it so much.

The party was happening tonight and everyone was excited for that. I’d offered to help plan it, but Toxic had just winked and said they had it under control.

Most of the women had been working all week, and the guys were out building an extension on Billie’s farmhouse. It left me here, mostly alone and bored. Well, not alone. Lock and Priest were almost always here, but they were busy with their own things.

Lock hadn’t put us on lockdown yet, which I was grateful for.

He’d told me to stick close to the clubhouse for now.

It wasn’t worth giving the LoS an opportunity to snatch me up while I was out running around.

Just because Hangman wasn’t here in Arizona yet, didn’t mean he didn’t have his Phoenix Chapter here watching.

I was grateful for the freedom because of the other women and kids. The last thing I wanted was them needing to take time off work and take kids out of school because of me. It was going to happen eventually, but the longer we held off, the better.

I was spending my days updating my résumé and checking around to see how badly Joe was disparaging my name. It was bad. The jerk was talking to everyone he knew. He was being beyond petty.

Walking downstairs with my coffee cup, I smiled and went to sit next to Daryl.

Toxic’s dad was a real sweetheart. He was staying in Toxic’s apartment at the clubhouse while the guys built the addition on the house.

I knew both Billie and Toxic were hoping he would stay down here in Tucson permanently.

Toxic was living out on the ranch with Billie, but he still had his place here, too, and I couldn’t see Lock ever kicking him out. Operating the ranch meant that he and B would live out there more often than not, but I just hoped they’d end up here in their downtime.

“Morning, Darlin’,” Daryl said, smiling at me.

“Morning,” I said, setting my coffee cup down. I couldn’t help a small blush, who could? The girls warned me about Daryl, how sweet he was. He set his newspaper aside. “You enjoying the Tucson winter?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, beats the three feet of snow we have back home.” He studied me as I leaned back in my chair. “You doing alright? Boone told me you ran into a bit of trouble.”

My heart melted. If I wasn’t half his age, and maybe already falling for a biker, I’d marry Daryl.

Like, right now. That would come with the added benefit of being Toxic’s stepmother.

And oh the things I could do to torment him if I was.

But…that wasn’t going to happen, so instead, I just settled for loving Daryl to pieces in a different way.

“I’m okay,” I told him. “Promise.”

“Yeah, something tells me Lockout’s not going to allow anything to happen to you.

But,” he said, ignoring my shocked face, “if you decide you need to go anywhere over the next couple weeks, you let me know. We’ll go together.

Not like Boone will let me fucking help out at that ranch.

Doesn’t matter that I ran a ranch for over twenty years.

Treats me like I’m decrepit,” he muttered, shaking his head.

I arched my brows at him. “Are you offering out of the goodness of your heart, or because Lockout asked you to keep an eye on me?”

Daryl snorted. “Lock was nice enough to ask. That damn son of mine just gave me my marching orders. But even if they hadn’t,” he added, “I’d have made the offer.”

I reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you. You’re the sweetest.”

His eyes flicked to something behind me and he grinned. “Rough morning?”

Glancing over my shoulder, I gasped as I saw Isla walk into the clubhouse. There were streaks of blood all over her clothes, skin, and in her long blond hair.

“Target was a hell of a lot feistier than I thought he’d be,” Isla said as she came over and sat down.

“Then you could probably use a cup of coffee,” Daryl said, getting up and going over to the bar to pour her one from the coffee pot the guys kept behind the counter.

“Or a shower,” I said, horrified. I gagged a little as the coppery smell of blood hit me. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“What?” she asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“The smell, Isla,” I told her, scooting my chair away a little.

She sniffed at herself and then shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“I don’t even want to know what you were doing,” I told her before she could offer the information up.

“That’s fine because you and I have other things to discuss,” she said.

I blinked at that. “We do?”

“Yeah,” she said, giving Daryl a grateful smile as she took a coffee mug from his hands while he sat back down.

“Like what?”

“Like what?” she parroted. “It’s been a week since you agreed to fuck Lockout-”

Daryl choked on the sip of coffee he’d just taken. Isla reached over and pounded him on the back so hard I was afraid the man’s lungs were going to fly out of his mouth and onto our table.

“Isla,” I hissed, looking around. Lockout was like a damn ghost in this place. He moved as quiet as one anyway and he was always just…around.

“He’s in his office,” she said with a wave of her hand once Daryl had moved out of reach of her ‘help’.

“How do you know?” I asked.

She just gave me a creepy smile. “What’s the hold up?” she countered, ignoring my question completely.

“Hang on,” Daryl said, raising his hand a little. “Catch me up.”

“Keely wants Lock’s dick,” Isla said, obliging him and ignoring my horrified squawk.

“Lock wants Keely, but for some reason neither of them are doing anything about it. So, I had the great idea for them to just bang anyway.” She tilted her head as Daryl nodded in amusement.

“Of course it took Sloane pointing out that fucking each other would take the pressure off them both”—she snorted out a laugh at her little pun— “and maybe then they could form a relationship that otherwise might not happen.”

“Something tells me that’s not exactly how Sloane phrased it,” Daryl said, “but it makes sense.”

“So this one,” Isla said, pointing at me with her thumb, “is supposed to be seducing him.” She glared over at me. “But no one is seeing any seducing happening.”

“How would you even know if I was?” I asked. “Or, why are you so sure I’m not?”

“Have you seen his face?” Isla asked as if that answered my question and no clarification was needed.

“Uhhh…”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s so uptight and stressed out if you shoved coal up his ass we’d be swimming in diamonds.”

Daryl and I both cracked up laughing at that.

“I highly doubt he’d be wound so tight if you’d spent last night rocking his world,” she declared. She picked up her coffee mug, then looked over at me in horror. “Unless you’re so inexperienced that you suck at sex.”

I gasped and scowled at her. “I’m not bad at sex,” I said, defending myself.

“You sure?” she asked.

“No one has ever complained before,” I said, trying not to let the little worm of doubt crawl its way into my brain. I wasn’t bad at sex.

“I’m sure you’re just fine at it, Honey,” Daryl said, trying to comfort me.

“This is the strangest conversation I think I’ve ever had,” I said out loud.

Daryl chuckled. “Stick around, you’ll hear worse. I promise you.”

“What’s taking so long?” Isla asked, getting us back on track. She was like a dog with a bone.

“I-” Looking between their eager faces, my own got warm as I admitted, “I’m finding it a bit hard to…go for it.”

Isla sighed. “Just unzip his pants and-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Daryl said, patting her on the shoulder. “Maybe you should let me handle this one.”

Isla shrugged. “You’re a guy. Tell her how easy it is to get your species revved up.”

“We’re not a different species,” he said with a laugh.

“Says you,” she countered.

“Fair enough. Be that as it may, you don’t want to,” he searched for a polite way of saying his next words, “go in guns blazing. Not if you eventually hope to have a relationship.”

“Huh,” Isla said after she swallowed some of the coffee. “I thought being willing to do what other women wouldn’t, was a good way to hook a guy.”

Daryl blinked at her. “Well, yeah, I guess it can be,” he said. “But if you start out with stuff like that, he’s going to only think of you as a good fuck.”

I sighed because he wasn’t bothering to censor his words anymore. What was the point with Isla sitting here? In fact, censoring your words would probably only confuse her. Much like how being blunt would confuse Sloane.

“You want him to obsess over you in a different way,” Daryl continued.

“To be unable to get you out of his mind. To fall in love with you. Commit to you. Then,” he said with a grin over in Isla’s direction.

“You hit him with all that other stuff. That man will be devoted to you until the end of time.”

They were grinning at each other like lunatics. “What kind of stuff are we even talking about?” I asked, suspicious.

“Do you have a gag reflex?” Isla asked.

“Not that, ” he said to her. To me he said “Don’t you worry about that right now, Lock will lead you in the right direction when the time comes.”

“Or you can come to me and I’ll give you some suggestions,” Isla said with a smug look, poking her tongue into her cheek.

“I’m not sure I even want to know what kind of kinky, weird ass shit you and Butcher do,” I told her.

She threw her head back and laughed at that. “Too bad. We’re friends now, right?”

“Right,” I said after a slight pause.

“Then you’ll find out. The article I read said sharing things with girlfriends was an important part of bonding.” She stood up, took her mug, and headed toward the stairs.

“I don’t think they meant sharing your sex dungeon stories,” I pointed out.

“No, that would be Boone,” Daryl said. “These two would probably be having sex on a dead body.”

Isla paused, eyes narrowing on Daryl as if she was trying to figure out if he was guessing or knew for sure. Which meant they probably had…

“Oh my God,” I said, shaking my head. “No, no, no, I need brain bleach now.”

She pointed her finger at me. “You need to get your cute little butt moving.” She snapped at me. “Chop, chop lawyer girl.” With that she walked upstairs.

“Lawyer girl,” I said with a laugh. “She’s fun.”

“She’s a delight,” Daryl said. He stood up as well, picking up his coffee and his newspaper. “She’s also right.” He stared at me, giving me a sympathetic look. “All you have to do is show you’re interested and Lock will take it from there. Trust me.”

“I kissed him the other day,” I admitted. “And…nothing. I mean I thought maybe once we got back to the clubhouse…” If anything it seemed like he was avoiding me. Not a huge confidence booster.

“Listen to me, Darlin’,” Daryl said, “he’s been spending so much time denying himself the things he wants, it’s like second nature.

You’re going to have to be completely upfront and honest with him.

Tell him what you want. Then kiss him. It’ll work,” he reassured me, then walked off whistling a jaunty little tune.

That was easy for those two to say. It wasn’t up to them to seduce Lockout. Sighing, I settled in with my now cold coffee to overanalyze everything that had happened the other day with Lockout.