Man of the House: A Dark Bad Boy Romance(129)

I left the clubhouse and found my car. I drove a little Mustang Shelby GT, a beautiful old car that Larkin gave to me when I turned twenty. I fired up the engine and headed home.

I lived alone in a little apartment just outside downtown Austin. It was a fun area, full of young people, although I didn’t feel like I belonged. They were all college kids, and I never went to college. I graduated high school, but mostly because Larkin forced me to.

Otherwise, I took care of myself. I didn’t need school and didn’t much care about it. I had a job and I had the club. So far, that had been enough for me.

I was just like everyone else involved with the Demons. The club was my life, and my life was the club.

I tossed my keys onto my kitchen table as I walked into my little apartment and smiled at its familiar smallness.

“Club before everything else,” I whispered to myself and headed to bed.





4





Clutch





A phone rang early, too damn early.

I woke up, my head foggy, and grunted.

The phone just kept ringing.

“Shut that thing off,” I said to the girl in my bed.

She shook her head. “It’s yours, baby.”

“Oh shit,” I said, realizing she was right. I quickly grabbed my phone and flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“Clutch.” I recognized the voice instantly: our club president, Larkin. “I need you to come in early.”

“Okay, prez,” I said. “How early?”

“Now.”

“Okay,” I said, getting up. “Be there in ten.” I hung up the phone.

The girl looked up at me. I couldn’t remember her name, and I really didn’t give a shit. In the cold light of morning I realized how empty the night before had been, picking her up at the f*cking bar, bringing her back to my little apartment, and f*cking her brains out. She smiled at me.

“Got time for another round, baby?” she asked. “I’m still sore from last night, but in a good way.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m leaving. Don’t be here when I get back.”

She made a face. “No need to be an *.”

I got dressed and ignored her. I tossed on some jeans, a T-shirt, and my vest with the Demons patch. I strapped on my gun, assuming I was going to need it. The girl just watched me from the bed, her eyes dripping sex.

I paused at the door before I left. “If you steal anything, I’ll kill you. Got it?”

“Fuck you,” she said.

I grinned at her. “You’d like that.” I turned and left.

I didn’t need to be an * to her, but it didn’t matter. Women liked me, always had. I didn’t have trouble finding one woman after the next to bring home and f*ck. I was good at it and always left them wanting more, but I never gave it to them.

That just wasn’t my style. I lived a fast, hard life and didn’t have the time or space to let anyone inside it. They were a warm body for a night, a hard, intense f*ck, and then they were gone.

I couldn’t be nice the next morning. I’d let too many dumb girls think I was going to call them again by doing that. No, it was better for both of us if I was a dick. It just hammered home the truth that I was never going to bring her home again, if we ever even saw each other.

I got outside my beat-up place and found my bike. I hopped on and took a second to look around. I lived in a shit neighborhood in a shit apartment building, and it suited me just fine. I was barely there anyway. I mostly just used it to sleep and shower. Otherwise, my life was at the club.

I fired up my bike and rode out, the wind whipping through my hair.

I got to the clubhouse in ten minutes. I parked the bike and hopped off. There weren’t many bikes parked out there; I recognized Larkin’s and a few other council members’, but that was it.

Probably too early for most of the boys to show up, let alone wake up. We were a hard drinking bunch, and as such we tended not to be a morning crowd.

I pushed in through the front door and immediately spotted Larkin sitting at the bar. He had a plate of food in front of him and was sipping a big mug of coffee.

Larkin was a scary man: intense, powerful, and a great leader. He’d singlehandedly taken the Demons from a minor gang to one of the biggest in the country. It was because of him that we had so much power.

I’d been a part of it. Maybe not those early wars, but a lot of the stuff later on. Some guys claimed seniority, but I didn’t give a shit about that. The club was my home, and that was all.

“Morning, boss,” I said to him.

“Morning. Take a seat.”

I pulled out the stool next to him and sat down.

“Coffee?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Larkin nodded at TomTom, the pledge who was working behind the bar that morning. He returned with another mug of hot coffee, which I drank gratefully.

“Bet you’re wondering why I called you in so early,” Larkin said.

“Yeah,” I said, “I am.”

“You have fun last night?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Went to another place with a few boys. Nothing special.”

He nodded thoughtfully and took another bite of food. I watched him chew and swallow, the silence deafening.