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  “As I was saying, Red,” I emphasize ‘Red’ so she knows she hasn’t gotten under my skin. But I’d definitely like to be under her as she rides me, nice and hard. Moving those delicious small hips in circles as I lay back and watch her tits swing. Fuck, what I’d give just to suck on a nipple until she screams for me to pull her long red mane and fuck her ‘til she can’t breathe.

  “Stop looking at me like you want to have sex with me,” she half-yells at me.

  “Well, I do. So unless you’re gonna get on your knees and wrap those pretty lips around my cock, I’ll imagine you any way I damn well want.”

  The look on her face is one I’ve seen many times before–horror I actually said that aloud.

  “You really are a dick. And you should learn to shut your mouth.”

  “Why? Maybe you’re one of those girls who gets wet when someone like me tells them what to do. Or maybe you pretend to be offended, but still get wet over it. Or maybe you’re nothing like those girls and actually do think I’m a dick. Either way, I’ve got a sixty-six percent chance you’ll fall to your knees and suck me off and only a thirty-three percent chance you won’t. No skin off my nose, ‘cause I’ll just go in town and find a sixty-six percent girl and have her suck me off.”

  “Do you even hear yourself? Are you truly so conceited you believe women, not girls, but women are like that?” Her eyebrows shoot up and she tilts her head to the side.

  “I’ve got a clubhouse full of ‘women’ who are like that,” I air quote “women”, almost teasing her, as I respond.

  “Then I’m amazed you still have a cock and clam chowder hasn’t claimed it yet.”

  “I might like to fuck, but I’m not an idiot. I wrap it so I don’t get anything those sluts might have,” I say angrily. “Anyway, what the hell do I call you seeing as you don’t like Red?”

  I see her chest heave out a huge breath as she knits her eyebrows together and does this strange, yet fucking sexy thing with her mouth. She sort of screws it up, trying to look all tough girl, oops, tough woman toward me, but it looks more like a sexy snarl. One I definitely can’t wait to have wrapped around my…

  “You’re truly demented. You’re sitting there getting a damn hard-on.” She points to my crotch, “and all I want to do is throw you and your stupid little gang out of here so I can figure out what to do.”

  “You don’t have to figure out anything, Red. All you have to do is get in that truck and come back to my clubhouse.”

  “I’m not going to do that, and if you insist on addressing me, call me Phoenix.”

  “But your name is Dillon, why the hell would I call you Phoenix?”

  “Because I hate Dillon and I’ve been called Phoenix, or Nix, ever since I can remember.” She’s still holding the gun, although now it’s more casually, just against her thigh.

  Progress?

  At least she’s not pointing that thing at me, wanting to kill me. For now I’ll call it progress.

  “Look, Phoenix,” I accentuate the name she prefers to be called. “The Crowes are a serious MC; we’ve had dealings with them in the past. But your dad has put this farm in hock to me, to the Crowes, and God only knows who else. You can’t handle this on your own. And besides, it’s no longer your farm. It belongs to me now.” I sit back on the springy sofa and bring the ankle of my left leg up to sit on my right knee.

  “Like hell this belongs to you! I’ve worked the damned land, looked after all the cattle until Dad sold them off, and did it all on my own. I’ve been killing myself to get some money together so I can pay the bank.”

  “Taken care of,” I say as I flick a hand in the air, dismissing the entire notion of the bank.

  “What? You just got here. How can that be taken care of?”

  “I’ll take care of it when the bank opens in the morning.”

  “Why?” she asks, leaning up against the wood-paneled wall.

  “Because I want to.”

  Phoenix lowers her gaze, suddenly a very humbled and apologetic look flashed across her face.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she murmurs, but her eyes continue to look toward the ground.

  I stand and walk over to her. Slowly, I take the gun from her and tuck it in the back of my jeans waistband. With a measured, delicate touch, I put my hands on her hips. She snaps her eyes up to mine and puts a hand to my chest.

  With the light pressure, she pushes me away. Her push is so weak it’s almost non-existent.

  “Because,” I start saying as I lean in to her to run my cheek against hers. Phoenix’s breath catches as my skin touches her warm shin. She’s breathing rapidly and moves the lower half of her body closer to mine.

  Fuck, yeah. I push my hips into hers more. She can definitely feel my rock hard cock straining against my jeans as I push into her further.

  “Because,” I say again as I smell her hair. God, it’s just as fantastic as I thought it would be. I bring my right hand up to weave in her wild red curls, and hold her by the nape of the neck with my fingers entwined in her softness. My thumb just skims the supple skin beneath the hairline. “I now own this farm,” I say as I lean in to kiss her.

  Phoenix brings both hands up to my chest and pushes me away with all her might. Damn, that girl is strong. I take a step back and hold my hands up to her. “Not gonna hurt you, Phoenix.”

  “You arrogant asshole, get out!” she shouts at me.

  “Jaeger, got a problem,” Sarge says as he comes to front door.

  “What?” Phoenix and I both say at the same time.

  “The boyfriend’s on his way,” Sarge answers.

  “Whose boyfriend?” Phoenix asks, looking between Sarge and me.

  “Yours, Nix,” I reply, knowing the cop is on his way down the driveway.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she says, frowning.

  “No fucking wonder, ‘cause you’re a ball-buster. The cop, he’s on his way.” I turn to see Sarge is gone.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, and I’m not a ball-buster,” she yells, clearly pissed I called her a ball-buster.

  “When he pulled us over earlier today and you drove by, he said you were probably on your way home to make him a feast for dinner.”

  “What the hell is he talking about?”

  “Hey, baby.”

  Phoenix and I turn to the door to see Officer Arrogant standing tall, looking all protective as he sweeps his eyes over me and frowns.

  “Don’t you ‘baby’ me, Liam. Who the hell do you think you are, telling him you’re my boyfriend?” Phoenix says as she points to me.

  She is a firecracker. I take a step back and let her deal with the cop. It doesn’t look like she needs me to save her ass with him. She’s already made him step back onto the verandah.

  “Baby, come on. Don’t be like that,” he says, though his voice wavers with a zap of fear.

  “Where the hell did you put my gun?” she asks me as she turns to look at the table. I throw my shoulders up and shrug at her. I’m not giving her a loaded weapon. She’d damn well use it, then there would be cops everywhere.

  “Nix, can I come inside?” the cop asks.

  “No! And for being a jerk, you can call me Dillon. Now get back in your car and leave.”

  “But you hate being called Dillon,” he says, confused.

  “And at this moment I hate you, too. Leave! And don’t come back!”

  He turns hot on his heels and steps off the verandah.

  Pussy.

  I’d stay here and fight it out with her.

  As a matter of fact, seems like a good plan.

  “You too,” she says as she turns to me.

  “No can do, Nix. I’m here to stay,” I say as I give her a smug smile.

  I know what I’m doing. I’m irritating the fuck out of her, and having a ball doing it.

  “Fine, stay. You can sleep out in the barn. There’s a room in there with a bed. Just get out of my home.”

  I chuckle at her as she turns to go towa
rd the back of the tiny house.

  “What’s funny?” she asks with her hands on hips while gritting her teeth.

  “I ain’t sleeping out there, and I ain’t sleeping on that.” I point to the barn and then the uncomfortable sofa.

  She’s fighting with herself, I can see it. Her face flushes red enough to match her hair. Her shoulders tense up and she’s grinding her jaws together hard.

  “Fine,” she spits toward me. “You can sleep in Dad’s room,” she says through clenched teeth.

  Oh yeah, this is gonna be fun.

  Grit: Chapter 6

  Phoenix

  Lying in bed, all I can hear is that arrogant ass sleeping in the room next to me, or should I say snoring in the room next to me, and damned loudly too.

  What the hell am I going to do?

  The bank is about to foreclose on my farm, and I have people–or should I say thugs–that are after it. And if they can’t get it, then they’ll take me as payment instead.

  Dad died and left me with no life insurance and a farm that’s in more debt to the bank than it’s worth. And I only have two thousand dollars in the bank, the little that’s left of my college fund.

  I stare up at the ceiling and listen to the familiar sounds of the land. The crickets singing outside, the wind as it moves branches to tap on my window, the stream that runs a half a mile away.

  All these sounds are incredibly hypnotic, and usually lull even the most alert person into a comforting sleep.

  But I’m far past being alert, I’m incredibly stressed and I’m truly at a loss for what to do.

  There’s no one I know who I can ask for help. Milina, my best friend, is the only person who knows the bank is going to take the farm. But now there are other problems to add to the mix, and I just have no idea what to do.

  I turn over and lie on my side looking at the door, wondering what made Dad bet the farm. Why would he leave me in this situation?

  I have no one to turn to, and now it appears, once the bank takes over I’ll have nowhere to go.

  I could call Uncle Patrick for help, but I know he likes to bet on the races, too. What if he’s in debt as bad as Dad was? He took me to an underground fight all those years ago. I was staying with him when Dad asked me to give him some time alone after Mom died. That was horrific. I freaked out when those two guys started fighting, and almost passed out. I made him take me home.

  The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced Uncle Patrick is in it as bad as Dad was. He won’t be any help to me.

  Then there’s Liam. He’s been after me for as long as I can remember. We went out on a date once back in high school, and that was nothing more than me fighting him off. Now he’s a damned cop, and I still have to fight him off.

  Though now he does keep his hands to himself, he’s forever showing up here wanting to eat dinner with me. And when Dad died, he was here every moment of the day trying to get me to ‘cry on his shoulder’. But I don’t want his shoulder to cry on.

  Jaeger rode in on his damned motorcycle, and from the moment I opened the door I knew I was in trouble.

  He looked at me with those molten brown eyes; his shaggy light brown hair that flopped over one of his eyes before he shook his head and moved it away, and that’s all it took. His body…wow, his body. His six-foot frame has the most delicious, broad shoulders I’ve seen. His shirt hugged his chest, highlighting his taut, strong pecs and the muscles that strained the arms of it.

  But then he opened his mouth. And damned if he’s not the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. Asking me if I shave or wax my sex…how rude! The more he spoke, the angrier I got.

  And then he almost kissed me. If he hadn’t opened his mouth I think I would’ve let him too. Thankfully, though, he did speak, and it saved me from making the worst mistake of my life.

  I turn over again and face the wall. I tuck my hands under the pillow and close my eyes, trying to find some peace after this crazy day.

  My mind begins to drift, slowly shutting down. I decide not to worry about tomorrow, what it may bring, what might happen, or who else may turn up.

  Slowly my body gets heavier and everything relaxes, letting me get that desperately needed rest.

  The roar of the bikes wakes me as I hear them barreling down the dirt driveway.

  “Phoenix, get up. Now,” Jaeger yells as he bursts through my bedroom door and comes straight for the bed, ripping the covers off me and grabbing me by the shoulders.

  “What the hell?” I say as he pulls me up and I try to steady myself on my feet.

  “Now. We need to get out, now,” he says in a low, but urgent voice.

  “What’s happening?” I ask as I grab a jacket and try to slip into my jeans.

  “No time for that, grab it and let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ve got to get us out of here. Is there another way out?” he asks as he’s pulling me out the door and toward his bike.

  “Down by the barn, follow it straight out and it’ll take you to the highway.”

  “Us. Now put the helmet on.” He hands me a black helmet.

  “I’m not going,” I stubbornly say.

  He grabs me by the shoulders and tightens his grip on them, shaking me. It’s hurting me, but I think that’s his point. “Listen to me. If you stay, you will either die or you become a club whore. And that’s not gonna happen. Get your bony little ass on the bike, and for the love of God, shut the fuck up.”

  Jaeger swings his leg over his bike, starts it, and then reaches for my hand to help me on.

  “I know how to get on,” I say to him as I pull my hand away from his.

  I get on the bike and he turns his neck to give me that smug smirk, “Hold on, Nix, we’re getting out of here fast.”

  I wrap my arms around his waist and he bends his arm around to my back and pulls me forward, so my chest is flat against his back. “That’s better,” he says as he takes off down past the old red barn.

  Looking back at my home, I see in the distance a group of small headlights coming up quickly. I keep trying to look when I hear the gun shots. A spray of them, most likely toward my home, destroying the last hope I have of dealing with this on my own.

  I rest my head on Jaeger’s back and I can feel tears welling behind my closed eyelids. How did I end up in this situation? I’m twenty-two and should be living life, not living in fear of what my father’s gambling has gotten me involved in.

  I feel one of his warm hands close over mine as he navigates down the dirt track in the direction of the highway. He gently squeezes my hand as I quietly take these minutes to cry.

  I don’t want him to see me as a typical, feminine, blubbering damsel who falls apart when shit gets difficult. He doesn’t need to see what a wreck I am right now.

  Damn it to hell, what am I going to do now?

  Grit: Chapter 7

  Fuck. I hate it when chicks cry, unless it’s after great sex. Nah, not even then, ‘cause they start to get all mushy and emotional and shit, wanting to share feelings and all that crap.

  How many times have I rolled my eyes and gotten up to leave them and their tears while I go and trash the condom? I’d take way too long in the bathroom, hoping they’d either be asleep or gone by the time I got out.

  But this chick, there’s something about the way her body is trembling against mine, and how she has her arms tightly clasped around my waist. All I want to do is get off this bike, kiss her and tell her everything’s going to be okay. I can feel her tremors as she cries as quietly as she can.

  Once we make it out onto the highway, the roar of the bike drowns out her noises, but the quivers coming from her body, and the fact she’s leaning her body against mine speaks volumes.

  I have to say, I do feel sorry for her. She’s been dealt a fucked-up hand, but hey, I’m just a guest at this table. I didn’t orchestrate the circumstances; I’m merely playing the game someone else has arranged.

  I knew the Crowes were going to cause
a problem, but I wasn’t expecting them back as quickly as tonight. But what the prospects said when they called to warn us was the entire MC was there. We wouldn’t have escaped; they would’ve killed all of us.

  “Where are we going?” Phoenix asks as she moves her mouth closer to my ear so I can hear her.

  Damn, she feels so good wrapped around me.

  “Back to the clubhouse,” I say, hoping she doesn’t totally freak out.

  I feel her take a huge breath in as her tits push against me, then she exhales and her warm breath only just touches the side of my neck. She does though, remain quiet for a distance.

  We cross the state line back into Nebraska without much of an issue. Riding back toward the clubhouse, I feel Phoenix become too heavy against me.

  I pull the bike over and peg it up, hold onto Nix’s hand as I turn to look at her.

  “Hey,” I say loudly enough I wake her.

  “What?” she answers, all grumbly.

  “You can’t go to sleep. I’m doing sixty-five. If you fall off, it’ll kill you.”

  “Who cares?” she mumbles so low I’m sure she didn’t mean for me to hear.

  “Hey, this self-pity bullshit doesn’t fly with me. Get over yourself. I told you, I own the farm now, so don’t worry that pretty little head of yours.”

  “Fuck you,” she shouts at me as she gets off the Harley and starts walking away.

  Well, that woke her up.

  “Where are you goin’?” I call as I watch her walk down the road.

  “I don’t know,” she says. There’s definite wrath in her sharp voice.

  “Get back here,” I command. What the hell is she doing? We’re still a good two and a half hours away from the clubhouse. ”Get back here now before I throw you over my shoulder and carry you back.”

  She swings around and looks at me, “Again, fuck off,” she yells as she puts her hands on her hips and flares her arms out.

  What a sight, a hilarious one at that. Dressed in nothing more than a skimpy pajama short set thing, a jacket and a pair of cowboy boots, she’s taken off down the road. She’s bound to get herself into trouble walking along the road like that in the middle of the night.