Chasing Down Changes (Moroad Motorcycle Club) (10 page)

He'd had her many times before his incarceration, but damn she made him feel like everything was new, touchable, and out of reach at the same time.

"Stand up." He handed her a beer and took her place in the chair. "Now, sit back down."

"I'll just get one of the other empty chairs." She pointed.

He patted his thigh. "Sit."

She sat on his knees, holding her unopened bottle. He cracked the cap off his drink and drank half the contents. One false move and she'd tumble off his lap.

"Are you going to sit like that all night?" he asked.

She ducked her chin. "We're not together."

"We're together."

She shook her head. "You need to deal with what's going on within your club, get your bearings back, and realize you can't say something and expect it to be true."

"Is it true you used to be my girl?"

Her back relaxed. "Yes."

"Is it true that I spent the last fifteen years in prison?"

Her mouth hardened and the tiny line between her brows deepened. "Yes."

"Did I tell you that you're Moroad property?"

"Yes, but you—"

"Did I tell you that you're Moroad property?" He leveraged his finger under her chin and turned her face toward him.

"Yes," she whispered.

He stroked his thumb along her cheek. "Do you want to slip away from the fire and give me a blow job?"

She hesitated, staring at him with wide eyes. From the reflection of the fire, her pupils dilated. "That's not fair to ask me that."

"Just seeing if you were paying attention and if you were going to say yes." He let go of her face and chugged the rest of his beer. "You used to say yes."

"I used to say yes to a lot of things I wouldn't do anymore," she mumbled.

"Remember that time by the river." He chucked the empty bottle toward the fire and watched it roll to a stop. "I forgot to turn the lever off on my bike, and it wouldn't start. I ended up calling Merk to bring me some gas."

Tiff caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He rubbed her back, enjoying the pleasure that swept through her. She remembered.

"I was too drunk to be embarrassed that he caught us in the middle of having sex." She laughed.

"His damn headlight blinded me and my boot got caught in my jeans," he said.

She leaned into him. "You fell smack on your ass."

"With you on top of me." He cupped the back of her head, pulled her to him, and kissed her temple. "Good times, baby."

"Yeah," she said on an exhale. "We were so young."

He removed the bottle from her hands, twisted the cap, and offered her a drink. Her head tilted back. He gazed at her slim neck. His cock hardened. Under the moonlight, the heat from the fire warming the front of him, he could almost forget about the years he was away.

Almost.

He had no time to win Tiff back, to force her to remember what they had when they were together, and she'd believed in him. She had to either embrace her obligations or he'd force his hand.

"What's stopping you from walking back to the motel room with me and having sex?" He took the bottle from her and drank. "Don't give me any bullshit about changing or how you think too many years have gone by or throw out your hang up with Lola at me. What's stopping you?"

She sucked in a breath. "I'm not one of the Moroad women."

"That's no reason. I know who you are and your position in my life."

"Fine. The truth is sex with you would be a one-time thing." Her lips puckered, and she stared at his chest. "We have too much history for me not to get hurt when it's over, so I can't have sex with you."

"What if it doesn't end?"

She heaved a sigh. "It has to. I run Silver Girls now. Moroad obviously knows I'm running illegal prostitution upstairs since you found out, and I know Cam. He'll use my occupation against me. He's never liked me. If I give him one excuse to come after me, he'll call the Feds. I'll lose everything and end up in prison. We...I've worked too hard to lose it all."

"What if I promise you that I can guarantee Cam will soon have no say in what Moroad does?"

Her gaze snapped to him, and her expressions rapidly changed as his words sunk in and she met his eyes with guarded confusion. "What are you talking about? Cam's the president. He's your father."

"We've been talking for the last couple of years. Los Li has kept their distance inside and out. Blues and Reds have no power against Moroad. While I was in prison, I..." He gazed out at his MC brothers. His hand tightened around the bottle, and he put it down on the ground without drinking. "Baby, I can't talk about it all out here. We can go in the room, or I can take you for a ride, but we're going to talk."

"The room." She slid off his lap.

Good fucking choice. He grabbed her hand and walked her through the crowd. After the talk, after he tore apart her reasons for distancing herself from him, after he let her know club business and made her feel secure again, he'd bury himself so far in her, she'd have no doubt of her place in his life.

J
eremy flipped the light on in the motel room. Tiff stood inside, watching Jeremy closely as he placed the only chair in the room in front of the bed. The seriousness of the conversation outside by the fire put her on edge.

He'd always taken a more relaxed, non-judgement stance with the club, never questioning or showing any emotion one way or another toward their activities. Loyal to a fault, he backed every decision Cam made for him. Goosebumps broke out on her arms under her hoody. Never had Jeremy talked about overpowering Cam in any decision. Far as she knew, nobody ever tried to go against the president of Moroad Motorcycle Club.

She sat in the chair, shoved her hands between her thighs, and leaned forward. Jeremy sat on the bed, his legs encompassing hers, trapping her in place. She couldn't get up if she wanted to.

He pulled her hands loose and held on to them. "You can't tell anyone what I'm going to tell you."

"Okay," she whispered, too curious to deny herself the information.

"Serious, baby. You leak the information, and you'll end up dead." Jeremy held her attention.

Her throat closed. She remembered the threats about going against the club, talking about what happened at the parties at Cam's house, and how each of the women who belonged to the club had the fear of Moroad planted firmly in them. The same fear titillated each of them and gave them something to hold on to that made them feel special. Wanted. Needed.

Out of practice from hanging around the club, she wondered if she even had the ability to hold Moroad's actions to herself. She puckered her lips and exhaled slowly. Who was she to question them when she ran an illegal prostitution ring?

"I promise, I won't talk," she said.

Jeremy's gaze hardened. "That includes talking to the Sheriff."

Colby had turned into her confidant. She went to him with her problems, both in business and in her personal life. Through working with him, she also knew without a doubt that Moroad's activities were not the same as what the Sheriff dabbled in.

"Okay." She squeezed his hands.

A part of her grasped the dangling diamond in front of her to know more about Jeremy. She wanted the closeness she'd had with Jeremy years ago, even though her head told her to step away and distance herself.

"A few years back, Cam brought up the subject of stepping down as president with the intentions of putting me as the head of Moroad Motorcycle Club." Jeremy put one rough hand on the back of the chair and kept the other on her thigh, efficiently trapping her in place. "It only took me about a year in prison to realize I wanted control of the club, and I spent my time on the inside becoming the man I needed to be to see me through the transition. So, by the time Dad approached me with his idea, I expected the news. I was ready."

"Shit," she whispered. "You got inside your dad's head and figured out how he keeps the largest group of felons under his control?"

He nodded.

She pushed up on the arms of the chair, but Jeremy forced her to stay seated. Her thoughts whirled. She never imagined Jeremy would go in the direction of running Moroad, of putting himself so deep into the organization he practically signed his death warrant.

She'd always known he was smart. Her head pounded, and she pressed her hand against her forehead. The shock of his news freaked her the hell out.

"Oh my God." She leaned forward. What did his plan mean for Red Light? For her?

For all her fear of dealing with Cam, he gave her space and the freedom to run Red Light and Silver Girls on her own since she'd bought the Sterling Building. He'd turned a blind eye toward her other business running the bordello, and so far she was safe.

Jeremy was different. He was on a personal mission to hold on to her.

He'd do anything to make sure she had no other option than to rely on him.

She had nothing, absolutely nothing, to protect herself against him if he was in control of Moroad Motorcycle Club.

Her body vibrated for him. She reached out and cupped his bearded face taking the initiation for the first time. The impact of what he planned was bigger than anything he'd shared with her. If the Moroad members had no idea change was coming to the club, and only Jeremy, Cam, and her knew what was going to happen, he'd put her solidly in his life, right after the club. Exactly where she wanted to be fifteen years ago.

"I...I'm happy for you." She closed her eyes an extra beat and looked at him again.

He'd changed in appearance, grew bigger, harder, scarier, but when he gazed in her eyes, she saw the young man she loved with everything she had. The one desperate to find his place in the world.

"Baby, I need you by my side for everything to fall into place," he whispered.

Everything she wanted sat right in front of her. She curled her fingers into her palms and dropped her hands to her lap. She hated that the years were stripped from them being together. The unknown obstacles in their path overwhelmed her.

"I don't think I can," she said.

"You don't have a choice, baby. You've always belonged to me, and I'm not going to let you go." He picked her up out of the chair as if she weighed nothing.

"I have a life—"

"Don't you see what you've done?" Jeremy pressed his forehead against hers. "You ran from me, thinking you were separating yourself from Moroad."

"I did," she said, breathless.

"No, baby. You jumped neck-deep into the criminal lifestyle that I live." He exhaled. "You need me."

She moaned in confusion. Everything he said made sense. In her rebellion to prove herself independent and capable of surviving without him, she'd gone down the same path. The thrill of running prostitutes in a small town, the danger of living a secret life, the satisfaction of helping the women gave meaning to her life.

"You want this, too. Nothing is stopping you from taking what you want. You gave yourself to me. I've had fifteen years without you and only my hand. Give me what I need."

She'd betrayed him.

When she hit her lowest and was ready to leave town, throw everything away, and start over, she'd gotten drunk. The tourist she threw herself at comforted her and she'd taken all the attention he gave her, needing the physical release, the push to put Jeremy behind her. In the end, she broke herself. She'd sunk lower than she could pull herself up.

Then her mom had died. Death played with her thoughts. She dwelled on her fucked up life and mourned for the perfect life that never came her way. She'd taken a miner to bed and woke up alone. That last time changed her, and she fought back from the blackness suffocating her.

She learned women had the ability to separate love from sex, until touching another person masked the hurt inside. For a little while, sex numbed the emotions that were ready to rip her apart. She never slept with any of the customers that visited Red Light, but there were a few times she'd numbed the pain of missing Jeremy with one of the regular customers who came into Silver Girls.

The pain never stopped. Her love for Jeremy remained.

"Don't ask me to give up Silver Girls or how I run Red Light." She laid her head in the crook of his neck and inhaled the scent of him that always reminded her of the outdoors when the wind kicked up.

"What you do works for me. Desiree owns a bar in town and her life has never come between Merk and Moroad." Jeremy's hand wandered over her hip. He kneaded her ass. "Bantorus Motorcycle Club has relaxed on holding on to their boundaries. Trouble associated with Moroad has stayed away from Federal. I have the gangs inside the penitentiary contained so that I can control the outside. There's nothing that stops you from running your business."

"Except the danger of running an illegal bordello," she said against his skin. "Give me the worst case scenario if we try and make this work."

God, what was she thinking? The situation was impossible.

"We will make this work," he said.

She needed more. She needed convinced. She needed Jeremy to make everything right. "Just tell me the worst thing that can happen with us being together."

She'd ruin his life. Already a felon and carrying a reputation as a killer, he wouldn't stand a chance if the Feds linked him to her for illegally running girls.

Jeremy's mouth found her neck. "The Feds discover what you're doing, because they have their ears and eyes on me, and I risk losing my baby. That's the worst thing that could happen, and you'll have to trust me that it won't go that far. I will shield you with my life. I will do everything in my power to keep you protected and safe. It's damn time Moroad had your back, and you can't turn away. You're mine."

She closed her eyes. He had her. If she doubted him and his intentions before, he'd proven himself by thinking of her first. His only concern was her and not about him going back to prison or losing his freedom.

"I'm scared," she whispered.

"I'll take care of you."

She raised her head. "Can you start now before I change my mind?

He stood with her in his arms, turned, and placed her on the bed. In the past, they'd circle each other. One pulling. One pushing. They'd fight and make-up, stimulating each other until they came together and exploded, growing closer than ever.