Page 17 of Preacher Man

“Maybe he misses your pretty face,” smirked Rider and Preacher guffawed. “Not the green, he's happy about that. It's some bullshit with Genty. You know he'll only deal with you. Seriously though, if you’d rather not, I know the heat was bad with Red Light, I had hoped after all this time shit would have leveled off for the brother. I could do with him down here.”

“Nah, Prez. I can handle him. I’ll head out next week, see what H needs me for this time. There’s potential of more than just the bike shop, but he might need seed money. That city has riches just waiting for an outlaw to snatch it up for himself. Gotta say though, Ri. His crew … some of ‘em, waste of fucking good spunk. Lazy motherfuckers. Just as well you have Red Light there, when I got there he was doing most of the build shit himself. He might be best kicking around there for a while instead of heading back to Kansas.”

“Yeah, H said much of the same a while back. But it’s up to him to clean his own fuckin’ house. We have the anniversary this summer, I’ll see for myself what jokers he has patched in.” Being the president of the mother chapter meant he not only had the interests of his own club to think about, but every chapter throughout the US that siphoned off his own, slowly, surely, the club as a whole was getting back to its feet after Rex ran it into the ground, and this year was the fiftieth anniversary of its birth. Every chapter was heading to Armado Springs for a blow-out party to end all parties.

“How’s our wandering sociopath, you heard anything from Hawk lately?” joked Preacher.

Rider smirked a little retelling the last time he’d spoke to Hawk a couple days ago. “He was ready to move on, apparently, NOLA is not for him.”

“Tennessee wasn’t for him, either was it? What was it, too many alligators? Fuck, no croc would dare come near that crazy shit. Can’t believe I’m missing his surly ass.”

“He’s gonna run out of chapters to lie low in.”

“The brother needs to get home. We would have heard something from the FEDs if they were looking our way.”

Rider ruminated a low hum in his throat. He thought the same. But still. “Best to keep him away for now. Even if he bitches more than my sister does. I’m gonna head home for a while, see how Zara is.”

“Z-girl still sick?”

“Fuck knows. She’s sick then she’s not sick. She’s puking then she feels great. Eating like a horse, then she can’t stand the smell of my steak.”

Preacher laughed then rubbed his mouth, Rider glared. Bastard thought it was funny his old lady felt ill? He’d punch the beard off his goddamn face. “What?”

“Nothing, Prez,“ the smile grew bigger and wider. “Absolutely nothing. Give a big juicy kiss to the queen from me.”

“Fuck you.” Rider laughed and strode off.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Desire came knocking. And brought Preacher with it. Dammit." – Ruby

Well, wasn’t this just some unbelievable shit? You give a woman your number, she usually blasts day and night with messages and calls. Preacher watched Rider head off in the opposite direction, he finished his bottle of water, ditching the empty into the trash can and followed at a slower pace heading back to the shop, stopping to pull his phone out of his pocket again and glared darkly at the thing. Still no messages from Ruby.

She was fucking brutal on his ego.

Their kiss had been amazing.

Lust and irritation banded together to make the blood boil in his veins.

He still had the taste of her tongue in his mouth from the other night and she was unaffected by their hot kiss. Not one message.Damn, tiny dancer. Brutal.

He’d thought about Ruby and that kiss all day under her car, the piece of shit was serious toast, he was working hard to get it back into some kind of running order, he could see she didn’t even want him to fix it and that usually meant a person didn’t have the funds to pay for a repair job. It stung his chest.

Such an independent little thing Ruby was, he didn’t feel bad steamrolling her into taking the heap of junk into the shop.

In the background of Preacher growling and muttering to himself about crazy bitches he was aware of what was going on around him, he heard Coop, one of the club’s prospects running off to grab some stuff for Snake, that guy always worked the prospects the hardest, then there was Grinder switching radio stations to that rock junk he liked, which started a whole argument with Lawless swearing out a hit on him if he didn’t switch it back.

He slid out from under the rust bucket, stretched his spine until each bone cracked, he’d been under there near an hour and finally could diagnose the problem. Mainly all-of-fucking-it.

“What’s the verdict?” The corroded voice belonged to Lawless. That maniac rarely worked on the bikes, he preferred to get his hands dirty with blood and death, but he liked the company and noise of the shop he said, so most days he came over and just parked himself somewhere with a book. A straight up no-nonsense-killer who got off on literature and anything digital, go figure, there were layers to Lawless, not even the brothers had seen yet, but Preacher liked the guy. It was better to have him on your side than against you.

Preacher recalled a time when Lawless had been out of control. Bad times.

“Put it this way, if it was a person we’d be at the wake now sinking a bottle of my granddaddy's moonshine.” He took a minute to call through to the parts shop to order what he needed for a patch job. It wouldn’t last Ruby long, but hopefully long enough for her to replace the car. He hung up, not much else he could do until the FEDEX guy came in a couple hours.

“You’re still gonna put it together? Interesting,” simpered Lawless. His blue eyes were kinda fucking creepy as hell when he looked at you in that way. Preacher scowled in return. He turned to grab his coffee, hated drinking it cold but downed it like a shot. “I mean, the car is dead, and you’re still gonna pump life into it. She must be some pussy, Preach. Some real crazy and juicy pussy.”

Preacher rounded and for a second he thought about going toe to toe with Lawless. Sucking in a breath, realizing too late he was being played, he scoffed, letting his tightened shoulders drop from around his ears.