“Hello, this is Estelle,” says an elderly female voice. “I don’t recognize this number. Are you calling to schedule services with one of our escorts?”
Ice fills my veins.
An escort service?
Mase has the number to an escort service in his phone? Does he go to them?
Fresh tears well in my eyes at the thought of his hands on anyone else. I mean, he’s a virile thirty-eight-year-old man. I never assumed he was celibate, but the proof that he’s been with other woman sets off a landslide in my chest.
But I’m not a quitter. My mother always says I’d make an excellent chess player because I think three moves ahead of everyone else. I prove that when I say, “Actually, I’m calling about scheduling a job interview.”
When Mase reenters the room a few minutes later, I hold the phone out to him with an innocent smile. He looks at me suspiciously for a moment, his eyes sweeping me with a wealth of hunger and regret, before he curses gutturally, turns and stalks back out.
With a new plan giving me purpose, I spring off the bed and call my best friend, Alana.
“Hey, are you home? I have an idea.”
Alana groans, well used to me and my schemes. “Uh oh.”
3
Mase
I throw a wrench down into my toolbox with more force than is necessary.
My plan to focus on building the new custom bike order to distract myself isn’t helping. I’ve been in one hell of a mood since yesterday. No amount of work or whiskey can blur the memory of Ripley spreading her thighs and inviting me between them. I might have Motorhead turned up to ten decibels on the garage stereo, but all I hear is her breathy, little whine.
I don’t want to wait anymore to be filled up. I need it now.
Reaching down, I adjust my miserable dick, once again reminding myself of all the reasons I can’t return to my brother’s house, lock Ripley in her pretty pink bedroom and bang her brains out.
Number one is always the same.
She deserves better than some low-down murderer like me.
Murder isn’t what got me sent to prison, but I was a member of the local MC for five in my early twenties and these hands ended plenty of lives. Rival club members. Hell, anyone who got in my way. I was a ruthless son of a bitch. A lost cause—and I still am. But none of the offenses I’ve committed in my life would compare to locking down my perfect, bright, mischievous Ripley.
My possessiveness of her is already a hair’s breadth from running wild. If I let this attraction grow into something real, I’d ruin her. I’d get her pregnant immediately, do bodily harm to any man who breathed in her direction and I’d never want her out of my sight. My obsession would make her miserable. Instead of going to college, making friends and having a normal life like she should, she’d spent it with a man with a prison record and a temper.
I’m not going to let that happen.
The sound of motorcycle engines pulling up outside my shop brings my head up. Wiping my hands on a grease rag, I go to investigate, although I already suspect who is stopping by for a visit. My suspicions are confirmed when I look through the glass of the front entrance and find two members of the Mountain Men MC climbing off their bikes.
I push open the door with my elbow with a grunt. “The bike isn’t ready yet.”
Chavez strolls toward the shop adjusting his leather cut. “Thought we’d stop by and check on the progress,” he drawls.
We lean in and slap each other on the back.
Clint moves in and does the same, all while laughing at my skeptical expression. “Ah, this man isn’t stupid, Chavez. He knows we’re here to lure him back to the club. Again.”
Already shaking my head, I head back into my work area, both men laughing in my wake. “Not happening.”
When I got out of prison, it was a given that I would rejoin the club. The men who rode alongside me were my family. My life. They had my loyalty.
Then I went to my brother’s house to visit him after a decade in the slammer.
And everything changed in the blink of an eye.
She changed everything with one smile.
It’s not easy getting out of an MC. Once you’re in, it’s a lifetime commitment. You’ve seen too much, known too much. If you’re not sinning alongside them, you’re nothing but a liability. A potential witness to all the ways they ignore the law and live by their own.
When you take the fall for the club president and spend ten years locked up for your trouble, though, certain exceptions are made.
“We need your kind of loyalty around the table, Mase,” Chavez calls over the loud music, but he quiets his voice when I turn down the volume. “These fucking newbies wouldn’t understand commitment if it bit them in the ass.”