Beauty and the Reaper (Reapers of Sorrow MC), page 1
By Celia Loren
Copyright © 2016 Hearts Collective
All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the author. The ideas, characters, and situations presented in this story are strictly fictional, and any unintentional likeness to real people or real situations is completely coincidental.
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BEAUTY AND THE REAPER
Reapers of Sorrow MC
By Celia Loren
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
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Prologue
October 1st, Reapers of Sorrow MC
Arya
They cry like a mob. Might as well be wielding pitchforks. Might as well be drinking blood. Savages, I think, my body turning electric with fury and hate.
The Soul Stealers ain’t anyone’s idea of a picnic, but at least we keep our private affairs in private rooms. I cross my arms over my traitorous chest, and blow a strand of honey-colored hair out of my face.
Roan tries to smile, like the rat bastard he is. I wrench myself away from him and toward the wall, trying not to get too hung up in those slightly endearing baby blue eyes of his. It’s neither the time nor place for me to mirror that sneaky smile, spreading across those full pink lips...
Okay, okay, so my new “husband” is attractive. Doesn’t mean I need to sell my soul to the devil. Let him take it from me, as his barbarian brothers all but demand.
“Arya,” he says, shooting an eye in Peyton’s direction. The big thug actually seems to be snoozing in the doorway. “Arya, listen. They like to act tough, but it’s really just a ceremony. I swear to God I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”
I feel his heat come toward me on the little bench. His body radiates a warmth like Jeremiah’s never did. You want to get closer to it, like a bonfire on a cold night. Still, I hunch my shoulders. Floor of dignity. Floor of dignity, I murmur to myself. I try to imagine what my mother would do, were she in my place.
“Is that actually true?” I spit, delighting when the droplets fall on his lightly stubbled cheeks. His fledgling beard, like the thick mane covering his head, is a deep mahogany brown; and in this light, his mane looks dark as Texas night. “Y’all are in the ‘ceremony’ business now? So if I go out there and scream bloody murder when you touch me, everyone will just slink off like deer? You’ll get down on one knee and apologize before you send me on my merry way?”
He flinches at ‘bloody murder,’ so I say it again all dramatic. Let him feel it. “Bloody murder. You think you’re so tough, trapping a woman into marrying you. You apes and your ‘code.’ Well guess what, tough guy? I don’t care what you do to me.” It feels like freedom, even saying these words. My shoulders lift, suddenly light. “You can kill me, for all I care. But you’re not taking my honor away in front of a hundred Neanderthals. Fuck that noise.”
“Oh come off it, baby.” He’s gotten even closer, and that impish smile remains. “You know your honor’s up and gone for years now.”
This slick-nosed bastard.
I wheel to face him, prepping my hand for a slap, but something in his eyes stops me. I’m reminded of something Tisha liked to say, when she was mouthing off her sermons about the “nature of man.” You can always tell an honest face, she liked to say.
Fuck me if Roan Steer doesn’t have an honest face.
He reads something in my hesitation, and moves his hand toward my raised one. Slow. Like a cowboy might handle an unbroken stallion. He checks in with me before wrapping his fingers around my wrist. When I nod slightly, in spite of my stupid self, he grabs hold of my fingers. We hold hands.
“You know this world, too,” he murmurs, bending his head low, so our foreheads touch. His is soft, if slightly sweaty. He smells like leather, hard-earned sweat and a trace of good cologne—something minty and slightly harsh. “We have our codes, or we have nothing. And as God is my witness, I’m gonna treat you right as your man. I’ll pledge that on my father’s grave.”
“But how can I trust you? You’re a murderer,” I spit. Roan doesn’t respond to this, just hangs his shaggy, dark head. His hair, his hair, his fucking Prince Eric hair... it calls to my fingers. In spite of everything.
The thing is, I tell my floor of dignity, I actually never have been touched by a man who looks like this. When Jeremiah used to grunt his way through our unions, I would place my mind and soul on the ceiling above us, like a fly. That man made me want to leave my body, and I’ll be damned if this sonofabitch doesn’t call me to stay. Roan squeezes my palm and my stomach does a little backflip, which I hate to admit is encouraged by the sound of the throng waiting outside.
“I’ll never be able to repay what I did to you,” Roan says, finally releasing my gaze. “But I can promise to protect you. I promise I’ll never lie.”
It’s this moment that Peyton chooses to lurch back to life with a snort. His red-rimmed eyes zero in on us like spotlights. “You scared, woman?” he crows to me, through a mouth of broken teeth.
I could laugh, but instinct tells me this won’t be the way to win them over. Roan remains close to me, his palm snug and somehow comforting.
“I’ve never been scared of anything,” I say, steeling my gaze. The very walls of the grubby little holding room seem to quiver with anticipation. Peyton, bastard gatekeeper, rubs sleep from his eyes and slaps his meaty thighs; Roan pats my thigh. And it’s then that I truly make my choice.
We stand. It’s time.
The Reapers sit around the little makeshift stage space, but they jump to standing as Roan leads me into their midst. They hoot and holler like zoo animals, and I’m surprised again when it doesn’t bother me none. I keep my eyes on Roan’s rippling back, the way his muscles shift and stretch beneath the black tee. His arms are muscular like Jeremiah’s, but not bulked out to scary size. He can more than lower his arms.
He can lower his arms on me anytime, some perverse part of me thinks.
“Lookit that! Your woman is blushing!” caws some hefty old timer. He’s flanked on either side by two women who look strung out on something, but vaguely pleased to be here. They clap as if to music they hear in their heads.
“Is here okay?” Roan murmurs to me, between his teeth so the men won’t see. When I meet his gaze this time, I think I spy a kind of fire boiling behind those baby blues. I nod, heart racing. All these people. All these furious freaks. I’ve never had a man outside before, let alone in front of an entire crowd. Yet Roan’s words of encouragement rattle in my anxious head, and I continue to weigh the consequences. I can do this, I can play their game. Let them know I’m not afraid of their barbaric custom. This way, I have at least some power.
I begin to lower myself to the ground. This was how Jeremiah always did it: missionary, with me on my back.
Roan’s eyes crinkle with surprise and something like a challenge. He smiles with half his mouth, and I try to ignore the way his full pink lips seem to bloom with good humor. “Not so fast. I want you over here, wife,” he says, this time loud enough for the other men to hear. They roar. They cat-call. My blood begins to roil in my ears, half-excitement, half-dread.
I mose y toward the place he indicates—up against the backside of a ratty old building. He handles me like a bike part, carefully placing me so my back is flush with the smooth plastic siding.
Roan looks in my eyes once more, as if asking: is it okay? It’s strange how I feel like I can read him, even when he says nothing. I can even picture him saying other words of comfort. Things like, just give me the signal and we’ll skip this town. I’ll fight these men. You won’t ever be anyone’s property again.
“You want to fuck me, honey? Then fuck me.” The line shakes in my mouth, but I resolve to keep my cool. No sooner have I spoke the words than I feel my stomach drop, the way it used to whenever I went over ramps on the back of Snake Eyes’ ride. The crowd clamors before us, wanting blood. I press my body against the cool material, I abase myself before him. This rugged biker, the very man who plucked me from my homestead and dragged me here his prisoner, brings his grinning face close. Then closer. Closer, till the tips of our noses touch. I want to bust out laughing, but before the impulse fully strikes I feel his hips press gently into mine. Through the leather casing, I can feel the girth of him, straining, wanting what I have to give. I let myself smile. And for a single moment, it’s like all the other riders around us fade away.
“Alright, Mama Steer,” he grumbles. His voice has taken on an animal quality—it is deeper and more serious than the way he spoke moments before, in the house. Before I can make some witty comeback, his mouth frames mine, and my head is tilting to accommodate a kiss that I want to ride like a mechanical bull. He presses himself into my lips, then circles the rooms of my mouth, already getting me raw and dizzy. My eyes slide closed. I push a hand through the thick hank of his hair, tugging him lightly from the crown.
The crowd won’t be sated with just kissing, though. And that wanton part of me is somehow monitoring their reactions, hungry to perform. Roan seems turned on by the onlookers also. When they roar their approval, he presses further into me.
When we come up for air, he bends and speaks into my ear. The whisper of his voice tickles the nape of my neck, sending a jolt straight to my tailbone.
“I want to take you from behind, wifey,” he murmurs. “But first...” I sink further against the wall, suddenly weak in the knees—just as the cliché says. He takes his rough rider’s hands and grabs my hips, hoisting me so I hover a few feet above the ground. I wrap my legs around him, surprised at my own ability to follow his instincts. It just feels so damn easy with him.
Now that I’m higher up, his eyes are level with my breasts. Traitors that they are, I can see my nipples perking up to greet him through my thin tee. Hungry as plants for light. He tilts his chin and gazes up at me, and I break into a smile again. I can’t help it. I hate that.
(But I love that.)
His shaggy head burrows between my breasts. He takes the fabric of my shirt in his teeth and yanks it from me, like a hound dog. The boys love this. “Get her good!” someone yells. “Make that woman moan!” In answer to this, I suddenly feel a sharp pressure between my legs. Roan has shifted one hand so his fingers can dance across my opening. I’m wearing jeans, but it still occurs that I could soak through the fabric…straight onto his hands.
I am that fucking turned on.
As his lips mangle my t-shirt, dragging the V-neck down to afford a better look at my titties, I let my head fall back against the faux-brick siding with a clatter. I close my eyes. Jeremiah never made me feel like this, not once in a hundred awkward evenings. If this is being married to a Steer, my brainless brain thinks, then maybe there are worse things.
His words are still rattling, echoing in my ear. I want to take you from behind... Suddenly, I’m struck by the urge to feel the whole of his pleasure. I want him to fuck me against this wall, so my bare chest feels the cool plastic and my pussy feels every inch of his heat. But Roan keeps sucking on my breasts like he knows what I want, and is planning to keep me in suspense. A moan escapes my lips.
“Yeah,” a rider growls. “Make her come for you, Roan! Get that bitch hot!” He presses his fingers up into my sodden secret. The moan I let out this time is louder. Less lady-like.
“Oh, God,” I say, turning back toward him. I watch Roan’s tongue flick back and forth over the tanned expanse of my chest, struggling whenever he encounters fabric. Fuck it, I don’t-think, as I reach down to peel off my top in one neat flick. And the boys go wild. When they see my naked breasts, it’s like all hell breaks loose.
“You’re so fucking hot,” Roan is grunting, as his mouth moves rapidly between each breast. I place my hand on the back of his head, drawing him further in. Sweat is collecting in the hollow of my sternum. I can feel the back of my neck getting sticky. I begin to press up against his torso, his hands, letting him know that my dignity might be MIA but my body is ready to play. “Fuck me,” I say, experimentally. Stronger, next time: “Please. Fuck me.”
With a slight clatter, he drops me back to earth. I slide down his taut frame, and he slides himself in between my legs. With an impish grin, he suddenly drops to his knees, fingers shimmying down my body from my breasts to my belt buckle.
“Wait,” Roan says, every inch of that sweet, good man from before having flown the coop. “I’m gonna taste you first. I’m gonna make you howl. And when you can’t take it anymore? When you’re shaking all over? That’s when I’ll fuck you.”
The breath leaves my body, and the noisy world falls away. Oh. My. God, I think. Who is this man? And what has he done with my good sense?
Chapter One
September 6, Reapers of Sorrow MC
Roan
I could hear the bed rocking through the paper-thin walls. Esther was in fine form that night. “Yes, yes, yes!” she cried, like a naughty skipping record.
And there went Flood, too, grunting away like he was trying to lift a refrigerator by himself. They were only two minutes in when I decided I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Hey lovebirds!” I hollered, kicking my boot at the partition. “Save some of that for the morning. Some of us have to sleep.” At this, Esther giggled, and Flood kicked his boot right back my way. “Don’t get too jealous, brother,” he managed, in between thrusts. “Just cause you ain’t gettin no honey.”
A month ago, I’d’ve put a hole in a man’s face for talking to me that way, brother be damned. A month ago, I’d’ve challenged Flood to a race, winner take his precious Esther. The gymnastic redhead wasn’t technically a member of his patch—she belonged to Pilot, who was serving his country in Kabul—but the counsel turned a blind eye because Flood said what he and Esther had was ‘love.’ Flood doted on his woman, treatin’ her right every night, buying her things, voicing all her lady complaints at council meetings. She was all he talked about. But in an MC where every man was judged on the quantity of his company, as opposed to the quality, my brother’s actions were a little bit outside the box. Folks couldn’t mess with him though, because he was a Steer, and our father was legend. We may have worn that name like a crown, but we also used it like a pass.
I fumed in silence until they finished, until the walls of our camper gave over to country silence. Then I tried to direct all my remaining, insomniac- energy toward not thinking about Leesi. Just like my brother, I’d gone and “fallen too far in the honey pot,” as the old man liked to say, letting my patch plans go to seed while I chased after a dainty half-Indian girl with big grey eyes that held you like hands. But Leesi had turned out to be the worst kind of turncoat there was: an undercover reporter, looking to make a bust on another outlaw club. We got tipped to her cover during one of my woman’s mysterious “weekends away,” and obviously I hadn’t seen her since. But the whole experience, from falling to fucking to fighting, had rattled my faith in just about everything: woman, MC, patch. Love.
I couldn’t sleep. It just wasn’t happening. So instead, I peeled back the scratchy cover and stretched my hands over my head. Soon, it would be dawn, marking another brand new day as a Reaper. There’d be deals to make and ground to cover and drinking, and women, and drugs. This was the only life I’d ever known, and yet...since Leesi’d flown the coop, I was looking at it different. And to be honest, when I tried to imagine how a reporter would see my world, I felt...well, I felt a little weird about the whole thing. I was no fucking dummy. I knew—know—this ain’t how normal folks live.
