Dangerous Affiliations (Knights of War MC Book 1) Page 4

  “If you have quarters it does.”

  “Let me see.” She reached for her wallet.

  “I’m kidding. You just press the button underneath for credits. Do you want to play?”

  “I do.”

  Without the bar separating them, Holly wasn’t sure she trusted herself. His cell phone rang.

  “Yeah?” he answered it and reached under the pinball machine. “Go for it.”

  The machine dinged and the lights spelled out KISS above the painted faces of the band members. She smiled and pulled the plunger to send the silver ball into the game. Then it rolled straight down the middle. The flippers missed it entirely.

  “Fuck.” Another ball dropped into the chute, and she sent it out. It bounced off the bumpers. The machine dinged more, and the lights blinked on and off. This time she was able to smack the ball with the flipper. “Yes!”

  “I’ll catch you later,” Hunter said before tucking the phone back into his pocket. He stood beside the machine and looked at her. “Have you ever played pinball before?”

  “No. Everything’s digital now.” Her concentration was interrupted when he moved in behind her. The ball went straight down again. “Damn it.”

  “Here.” Hunter inched up closer and put his hands over hers. “Let me show you something.” He pulled the plunger and used her fingers to press the buttons for the flippers. When the ball rolled down the center again, he jerked the machine a little to the left and hit the right flipper. The ball careened back up into the game and bounced off the bumpers.

  “If you do that too hard, you’ll tilt the machine. Not hard enough and it won’t do anything.”

  The ball slid into one of the outer alleys and the game ended.

  Holly turned around to face him. “So, it takes finesse?”

  “Yep.” He stared down at her. “Wanna play again?”

  “No.”

  “If you’re not writing an article, what kind of experience were you looking for tonight?” His tongue swiped over his bottom lip.

  Before she could answer, the sound of an engine revving outside caused him to turn toward the bank of windows at the front of the club. The wood shutters splintered and exploded, and it sounded like someone lit a package of firecrackers.

  Hunter grabbed her by the arm and threw her on the ground. She screamed, and he covered her mouth. The ring on his pinkie cut into her chin. “Shhh,” he hissed. He covered her body with his as bullets whistled above them. The glass on the pinball machine shattered, and small shards bounced off the wood floor.

  Holly’s mouth went dry. She flinched with every pop sound. The metallic-sulfur scent of burnt gunpowder made her nose itch and tingle.

  Hunter wrapped his arm around her waist and dragged her like a rag doll toward the double doors of the chapel. He opened one and pushed her inside. She stumbled and landed hard on her ass. A shock of pain shot up her spine, and she sneezed.

  “Lock this door and get under the table. Don’t come out until I tell you to. Understand?”

  The lump in her throat blocked her voice, but she nodded in agreement. When he slammed the door, she threw the bolt and lay flat on her belly to slide under the table. She squeezed her eyes shut. This wasn’t quite the experience she had in mind when she’d agreed to meet him.

  There was more gunfire, more glass breaking. She trembled and scratched her nails against the floor and inhaled the lemony scent of the polish. What would she do if he didn’t come back? What if whoever was shooting at them found her? Suddenly, there was silence.

  “Motherfucker!”

  She thought it was Hunter’s voice, but she didn’t trust her senses at the moment. Her ears were ringing, and her heart beat so hard she could hear it in her head.

  Someone pounded on the door. “Open up.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “No. Go away.”

  “Holly. It’s Hunter. Unlock the door.”

  Her body wasn’t cooperating with her brain, and she was afraid she might pee herself. “Take a deep breath. Slide yourself out. Open the door.” She talked herself through it until she stood in front of the door.

  “Holly?”

  Her hand shook as she turned the bolt.

  Hunter grabbed her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter SIX

  Hunter

  The cops came and went like they always did. It was common knowledge that the club settled its own debts. Their standard response to investigators was, “I didn’t see anything.”

  But Hunter did see something. After he pushed Holly into the Chapel, he had unloaded a fifteen round mag into an inky black Cadillac with tinted windows. The dude in the ski mask hanging out of the passenger side window had failed to pull his sleeve down. Tattoos were great identifiers.

  Not only had the prick shot up the clubhouse, but he had just elevated Holly’s liability level. She was a reporter with one hell of a firsthand account. Even worse, if they had taken down her license plate, they could likely find her just as easily as Hem had.

  Hunter didn’t have to ask her to lie to the police, she had nothing to tell. She hadn’t seen the car. Most of the Knights of War crew arrived within minutes but had been made to wait outside the gates while the Dallas PD worked their magic on the scene. Bullets and shell casings from a gun that had never been registered in the states would net them little to go on. The rain didn’t help their cause either.

  An emergency meeting was called, and the men filed into the chapel for the second time that day. One of the prospects was tasked with keeping an eye on Holly while the patch holders went behind closed doors. The two other prospects were on security detail, watching the front gate in case the douche bags decided to come back.

  Paul sat at the head of the table and rubbed a hand over his bald head. “What do we know?”

  Hem tapped away on his laptop. “I’m checking our gate security to see how they accessed it.”

  “You didn’t hear them drive in?” Paul looked at Hunter.

  “No. I didn’t see or hear anything until they started shooting.”

  “What about Vicki Vale out there? She saw anything we need to be worried about?”

  “Nah. As soon as the blasting started, I covered her.”

  “And what exactly is she doing here?” Paul asked. He was somewhere in his fifties but worked out like a beast. The sleeves of his T-shirt strained around his biceps.

  “Damage control,” Hunter replied.

  “Well, now you have more damage control to do.”

  “I talked to her before the cops got here. She didn’t see anything.”

  Paul leaned forward. “You know, she could be an asset to this club.”

  Hem looked up over the screen of his computer and raised an eyebrow.

  Hunter tapped his fingers on the table. “How so?”

  “A favorable mention in her column occasionally. Might do some good for our rep in the community.”

  “You think a couple of lines on the third page of the entertainment section is going to clean up thirty years of dirty?” Hunter laughed.

  “No. But couldn’t hurt.”

  “I’ll handle Holly. What are we going to do about this attack?”

  Hem put his hand up. “They bypassed our security by tricking the vehicle detection exit loop.”

  “Come again?” Paul said and squinted his eyes.

  “You know you have to enter a passcode to open the gate from the outside. Well, there’s a sensor under the concrete just inside the gate that detects when a car is leaving. That’s why we don’t have to enter a code to leave. They likely slid a piece of metal under the gate until they triggered the edge of that sensor and the gate opened.”

  “It’s that fucking easy to bypass our security?” Sin asked.

  “Yep.” Hem tucked a strand of black hair behind his ear and winked. “If you’re smart enough to know how.”

  “Can you work on tightening that security
up?” Paul asked Hem.

  “Sure thing, and we’ll have a contractor out here tomorrow morning to fix the damage in the clubhouse.”

  “Good,” Paul said. He turned toward Hunter. “You’re sure about the tattoo you saw?”

  “Yeah. Green dragon with the ruby.” That specific tattoo was unique to a group of Russians who trafficked and dealt heroin and smack in the Houston area. “My question is, what the hell are they doing in Dallas?”

  Sin scooted his chair back. “Heroin. Money.”

  The Knights of War didn’t deal, but they sure as fuck trafficked narcotics. It was a complicated web, and Hem filtered the cash through the welding business. Tricky shit.

  Paul twisted the gold ring on his middle finger. “Hem, find out whatever you can about the Russians setting up shop in Dallas. The rest of you guys, be back here early tomorrow morning. We need to iron this out before work.”

  A much calmer Holly stood at the bar with a bottle of water in her hand. “I need to get home, but you have my keys.”

  Hunter moved in close and brushed her hair away from her ear. “Let me drive you home.” The adrenaline still lingered in his body along with frustration and anger for the events of the night. Had the Russians not crashed his party, he was sure he would have fucked her on top of that pinball machine.

  To his surprise, Holly didn’t protest but just nodded. She laced her fingers with his, and they walked out.

  The Honda smelled like there was one of those little canned air fresheners under the seat. Orange. Or some kind of citrus. The radio was on low, tuned to a local country station. Holly looked like an upper-class country girl who had probably competed in horseback riding or was a cheerleader in high school.

  She was stiff in the passenger seat, her shoulders kind of bunched up.

  Rain splattered on the windshield, and he flipped the lever to turn on the wipers. “Is your chin okay?” he asked, breaking the silence.

  “Yeah.” There was an almost indiscernible tremor in her hand as she touched her jaw. “It’s fine.”

  “I didn’t mean to drop you that hard.”

  “I know that. A tuck to the chin is better than a bullet in the head though.” Holly looked out the window. “You probably saved my life.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” Red lights flashed brightly in front of the car, and he checked the mirror before moving into the left lane.

  “How do you live like that?” she asked.

  “You think drive-by shootings are an everyday occurrence?” He laughed. “I can’t tell you when something like that has happened at the clubhouse before. Maybe you’re bad luck, Holly.”

  “I probably am.”

  Hunter patted her leg. “Hey, I’m kidding.”

  “It’s okay.” She put her hand on top of his and squeezed. “I’ve never been in a drive-by before.”

  “Hopefully, this was the first and last time.”

  “Not the first time for you?”

  “I’ve been through worse.”

  She trailed her thumb over his rings, pausing on the Operation Iraqi Freedom one.

  All the guys in his unit had the same ring. Thick silver with an eagle in the center. He’d spent more time in Iraq and Afghanistan than he cared to recall. Both were shitholes full of sand, sweat, and blood.

  Holly looked up at him. “You were in the war?”

  “Yeah. One tour in Afghanistan and two in Iraq.”

  “Did you see combat?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You could say that.”

  With her being a reporter, he braced himself for a barrage of questions. The most common one was how many people did you kill? He never answered that question. Not even to his family. Part of why he ended up with the Knights of War was because they all had dead bodies under their belts. They all knew what it felt like to pull a tour of duty. They’d all been in combat in one form or another. They were a family.

  “I’m sorry. No one should have to see that,” Holly whispered. “I’m sure it was awful.”

  To her credit, she didn’t pry.

  After the hour-long drive, Hunter pulled her car into the driveway. She reached across him to open the garage.

  The door opened into a brightly lit kitchen with shiny stainless steel appliances. The house was probably a graduation present from her parents. He followed her into the living room. A brown suede couch sat in the center of the room facing a flat screen television mounted above a brick fireplace. An intricate area rug covered the polished hardwood floor.

  “Nice place,” he offered.

  “Thanks.” Holly slipped her shoes off and set them on the tiled foyer floor beside the front door. “Wine?”

  Wine wasn’t his drink of choice, but he wouldn’t turn it down. “Sure. Yeah.”

  Wrought iron hooks were lined up on the wall, and she hung her coat and purse on them. “You can hang your vest up there if you want to.”

  Hunter shrugged out of his cut and hung it beside her soft leather jacket. He jammed his hands into his pockets and followed her back into the kitchen. What he thought was a dishwasher turned out to be a built-in wine refrigerator. Holly bent over and perused the selection before pulling a bottle out. She filled two glasses half full and held one out to him.

  He sniffed it. Dry white. He could tolerate that, but not the sweet stuff. A woman he dated years ago would buy that cheap screw-top wine that tasted like bubbly candy. Made him want to hurl. The bottle Holly opened had a cork and a fancy label. She was classier than most women he hung around.

  She raised her glass. “Here’s to an exciting night.” After a small sip, she set the glass on the counter.

  “Not quite the experience you were looking for,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Holly laughed, and her grin dug dimples into both cheeks. “Not exactly.”

  Hunter downed the wine in his glass and set it beside hers. “Do you still want that experience?” Maybe it would be better this way. Sex on the pinball machine would have been hot but didn’t seem quite right with her.

  “I wouldn’t have let you bring me home if I didn’t.” She leaned against the counter and stared at him.

  With her jacket off, he got a better look at the curve of her body. No question she was compact but damn … the blue shirt hugged tight across her chest and jeans sat low on her hips. Dirt smudged the sleeve.

  In three strides, he closed the gap between them and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I won’t read about this in the paper tomorrow, right?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not a reporter tonight.”

  He smiled and rubbed his hands on her shoulders.

  Holly flinched. “Ow.”

  “Are you hurt?” Hunter pulled at the wide collar of her shirt to look at her shoulder. The soft skin was abraded and dark red.

  “I guess I did hit the floor pretty hard, but I’m fine.” She rotated her arm. “Nothing’s broken.”

  There was a light red mark on her chin, and he touched it with his thumb. “I’d never hurt you, I hope you know that.”

  She kept eye contact while she pulled the hem of her shirt out of her jeans and slipped the top over her head.

  The scrape on her arm extended down past her shoulder. Hunter slid her bra strap off her arm and pressed his lips to the wound. “I’m sorry.” It was puzzling how sharing a violent experience sometimes brought people closer together. She didn’t feel like a stranger.

  “I’m not made of glass, Hunter.”

  “I know.” Maybe it was her size or the soft blue of her eyes, but she felt fragile like he should handle her with care.

  He turned her around and moved her hair to unfasten the snap at her back. The lacy pink bra gave way, and she pulled it off, letting it drop to the floor. The harsh lights in the kitchen illuminated the darkening bruise.

  Hunter put his hands on her hips and moved his fingers slowly up her sides. Holly lifted her arms and let them fall back on his shoulders. His thumbs grazed the outer edges of her breasts. He fla
ttened his palms and rubbed down over her ribs. The calluses on his hands scratched over the soft flesh of her belly.

  Looking down over her shoulder, he watched her breasts rise and fall in time with her breathing. Her pink nipples had hardened to pebbles and goosebumps rose on her skin. His cock strained against his fly. If it had been anyone else, he would have yanked her jeans down, bent her over the stove and impaled her right there. Instead, he busied the button at the waist of her jeans and tugged the zipper down. He peeled the denim off her hips and pushed them low enough that he could fit his hand between her legs.

  Holly sighed and closed her eyes. Her head lolled to the side, and she parted her lips.

  Hunter kissed the back of her neck as he slipped his hand under the elastic of her panties. He brought his other hand up to cup her breast. Her respiration accelerated, and she stepped her feet apart. He rolled her nipple between his thumb and finger while his other hand covered her mound. Little tremors shot through her limbs and feeling her tremble against him made his dick even harder.

  His blood rushed, and his heart pounded while his erection pressed against her lower back. He resisted the urge to move his hips. A hard dick in the lower spine probably wouldn’t feel all that good. He slipped a finger between her folds and slid it slowly back and forth. She was already wet, and she moaned when he circled her clit. That was the sweet spot, and he rubbed it with feather-soft strokes.

  “Oh, my God.” Holly panted and grabbed a hold of his T-shirt.

  He tipped her head up to kiss her while he alternated playing with her clit and finger fucking her. Jesus, her pussy was hot and tight.

  She moaned in his mouth, and her pussy contracted in rhythmic little squeezes.

  That alone almost made him come, and his dick wasn’t even out of his pants yet. “Take me to your room,” he growled in her ear.

  She pushed her pants down and stepped out of them. A light shade of pink colored her cheeks as she took his hand and covered her breasts with her other arm.

  Hunter followed her down a dark hallway to a room at the rear of the house. Holly flipped a switch outside the door, and a dim light filled the corridor and spilled into the bedroom. A cream-colored comforter covered a four-poster bed. At the doorway, he stopped and pulled her back.