Reaper's Stand (Reapers MC, #4)(28)

I stilled.

“You think she wasn’t really pregnant?”

“Does it matter?” he asked, taking another drink. “At least I’m rid of the bitch, so I guess that’s something. And tonight I’ll get laid, so life is good.”

I nodded slowly, knowing life was anything but good for my club brother. He missed the hell out of his old lady. We all did. She’d been solid the entire time he was gone, stood by him when he went down in the first place and then worked day and night to bring him home again. Women like that weren’t easy to find.

“You wanna come with me?” Bolt asked. “Get laid. Clear your brain.”

“Yeah.” Bolt was right—The Line was a great place to find no-strings snatch, which was exactly what I needed. If I spent one more night jerking off while imagining London, I’d have to shoot myself. Couldn’t stop thinkin’ of those tits, the way she’d melted under my touch.

Did she have pink nipples or brown?

Maybe Evans was sucking on them right now. Fucker wasn’t working this weekend. Already checked, even tried to get Bud to call him in, but the bastard had taken personal leave and not even the sheriff could cancel that. Not without a state of emergency.

Probably spending that time with London. Comforting her.

Maybe even f*ckin’ her right at this minute.

I imagined slowly strangling the man, watching his face turn purple and his eyes bulge while his legs kicked and bucked in desperation. Nothin’ f*cked up about that, right?

Christ, but I wanted inside that woman.

Knew from the minute I’d seen her six months ago she’d be the end of me. Put her off bounds that same night, although I’d been hell-bent on staying away from her. Women like that were trouble—definitely not club whore material, which meant she’d probably get all pissy about a one-night stand, and not in the market to be an old lady, either. Nope, women like her wanted picket fences and nine-to-five husbands so *-whipped they forgot their own names.

Add in the fact that she was the first reliable cleaner we’d found in nearly three years? Recipe for disaster.

Now I’d hit uncharted territory, because I’d tasted her and the taste wasn’t going away—time to face reality. Sooner or later I’d take her, and that f*ckwad of a boyfriend wasn’t going to get in my way. Hell, if she knew all the games he was playing, she’d get down on her knees and beg me to step in.

The image of her down on her knees . . . now that was a thing of beauty.

Maybe I should blow off The Line, track her down. Evans was the biggest problem—so far as she knew, he was still Prince Charming. I’d planted the seed, but now I had to step back, wait for him to f*ck things up.

He would, of course.

Man like that could only pretend for so long. London needed to see his shit for herself, otherwise she’d always wonder, which would be damned inconvenient for me.

Fuck me . . . Why should I give a shit about her regrets?

Losing my damned mind.

“I’ll hit the strip club with you,” I told Bolt. “See if the brothers want to join us. Been a while since we all went out.”

Bolt grunted and we climbed into the truck, big diesel engine roaring to life. I felt the weight of the trailer tug at the rig as I started cautiously down the mountain. By the time we hit the halfway mark my phone came to life, pinging as the messages and texts I’d gotten while we were out of range downloaded.

“Shit, sounds like Grand Central,” Bolt said, raising a brow. “You think we got a problem?”

I slowed the truck to a stop in the center of the narrow logging road, grabbing the phone for a quick look. First up was a text from Horse saying we needed to talk—maybe news from the south? Seemed like we heard new stories about the cartel every day now. They were plowing through the Devil’s Jacks’ territory way too fast, which was very bad news for the Reapers. The Jacks were our buffer zone, the first line of defense against the southern gangs.

But Horse’s message wasn’t what really caught my attention.

Nope.

The fact that London Armstrong had called three times and left two voice mails stopped me dead in my tracks. I hit the button.

“Hello, Mr. Hayes,” she said, voice strained but still full of that strange formality she used to distance herself. Fuckin’ ridiculous—I’d sucked on her lips and dug my fingers into her ass. Time to start using first names. Instead of pissing me off, though, it kind of turned me on. ’Course everything she did turned me on.

“It’s London. I have a favor to ask—do you think you could ask around about Jessica? See if maybe she’s gotten in touch with anyone in your club? She was pretty angry Friday night after you left. In fact, she took off. I thought she’d come back by now, but she hasn’t.”

She hesitated, then spoke again, her voice shaking. “I’m starting to get worried.”

Fucking great. Not enough that the little brat got herself into constant trouble—now she had to go running off, too? I seriously doubted that she’d talked to anyone at the club. They all knew she was hands off, not than anyone gave a shit. Girls like her came and went, and nobody paid much attention. If one disappeared, there was always another to take her place.

London was in a different class and I didn’t like the idea of her worrying. Woman had enough shit to deal with already. I hit play on the second message, which she’d only left about half an hour ago. This time she dropped the pretense of formality.