Rough Justice (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #1)(61)

“Most of the other sweet butts want to be a biker’s old lady.” Tanya gave her a shy smile. “Me? I’m just happy to be safe. No way will my ex be able to touch me now. And the guys here are fun and good to us. Suits me fine.”

“How about you, Jill? Did you—?” She turned to Jill, but cut herself off when Jill’s eyes teared and she looked away.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” Arianne reached out and squeezed Jill’s hand. Tanya leaned in, scooting closer.

“She just can’t talk about it. Jagger found her beat up in an alley outside a bar one night. Took her to the hospital, but she wouldn’t go in ’cause she had no insurance. He got the club doctor to look after her and found out she had no place to go and no one to look after her.” Tanya put an arm around Jill’s shoulders. “So, here she is. Our little stray.”

Jill laughed and wiped away a tear. “I’m not a stray.”

“You looked like one that night he brought you in.” Tanya winked, and the tension between them eased. Arianne smiled. The Jacks’ sweet butts were constantly in-fighting, trying to show each other up. But Tanya and Jill clearly had a close friendship, one that warmed Arianne’s heart.

Gunner showed up with a van full of women, and they all headed inside to join the party. Arianne had never socialized with the Black Jacks, never chatted with the house mamas or sweet butts, never been accepted as a member of the club. But the Sinner’s Tribe welcomed her as one of their own. Gunner introduced her around as the “girl who saved Bandit’s ass,” T-Rex kept her glass refilled, and Wheels shadowed her wherever she went.

Not that she needed a minder. As far as the Sinners were concerned, she belonged to Jagger, and that was enough to ensure they kept their distance. So she wasn’t pinched or petted or stroked. No one joked with her or made suggestive remarks. Wheels even urged her to put on his hoodie when she stripped down to a T-shirt because of the heat. Having had no respect in the Jacks’ clubhouse, she found their deference stifling, and she almost wished someone would slap her ass just so she wouldn’t feel like a pariah.

Still, she’d never really felt like she had a family after her mother died. Certainly not with the Jacks and not with Viper and Jeff. The bonds of brotherhood that held the Sinners together meant they were never alone. They were there for each other through thick and thin. “Club first” meant brothers first.

And that was the problem.

Although the Sinners were a different breed of biker than the Jacks, in their attitude toward women, they were all the same. Women were house mamas, sweet butts, hood rats, lays, or old ladies. Not equals. And when she had imagined her life outside Conundrum, equality had always been part of her dream.





FOURTEEN

Do as you say or walk away.

An angel in the darkness.

Jagger slowed his steps as he approached the clubhouse, his resolve to release Arianne from his claim waning when he saw her on the porch.

Leaning against a pillar at the top of the steps, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Max’s head in her lap, she hadn’t noticed his approach. From his vantage point in the shadows, he could see her face clearly in the moonlight, soft, unguarded, vulnerable.

Arianne without the armor. So beautiful, he was transfixed, an agony of desire coursing through his body.

Ever alert, Max looked up and Jagger was sure the damn dog smiled when she stroked his head. He couldn’t begrudge Max her touch, but his hackles rose just the same. Until that moment, he had never realized how desperately he longed for that easy intimacy—the unguarded softness she tried so desperately to hide.

Gravel crunched under his feet as he drew near, barely audible as The Sheepdogs’ “Feeling Good” blasted through the windows. The party was going strong. So why was Arianne outside?

Her head lifted and her lips pressed together as he approached. He could almost see the walls slamming into place, her vulnerability hidden behind an iron fortress.

“You’re back.”

He sat down beside her. “You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll get cold.”

“Max is keeping me warm, and I’m partied out. I should have paced myself. I didn’t realize the Sinner celebration would go on all night.”

“An ice house for a clubhouse. And justice is always worth celebrating.”

“I thought I was the price for your clubhouse.”

The skin on the back of his neck prickled in warning. “You’re the price for Cole. A life for a life.”

“So you have my life,” she said, her voice deceptively mild. “What are you planning to do with it?” She toyed with a piece of paper in her hand—the paper Bunny had given her. It was everything he could do not to snatch it from her hand.

Jagger’s pulse kicked up a notch. Give him a shoot-out or a fistfight any day, but trying to figure out where she was going with this conversation was like walking through a maze of thorns. She didn’t seem angry or resigned, merely curious.

“Treasure it.” He lifted her hand and kissed her palm. He should tell her now he wasn’t going to do anything except let her go, but selfish bastard that he was, he couldn’t do it. Arianne was no victim. And knowing she would never go down without a fight just made him want her even more.

“Is that your way of being evasive?” She leaned over and ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, then dipped it into his mouth. His cock stiffened and he fisted her hair. Fuck. He wanted her so bad, he didn’t know if he could actually let her go.