Page 36 of Biker's Collar: Property of Scrap

My face is serious. Intense. I mean what I say.

“I’m here for my daughter, Vickie. Not Kaylee-Marie. Once Waverly is safe… You and I have unfinished business.”

“You can always let me go,” she says. “Any point in time.”

She doesn’t betray a hint of enthusiasm about the potential future between us. Rage burns through me. She can’t deny what she feels for me. I’m sick of her denial. Her feigned reluctance. It pisses me off. She didn’t go with me that night for money. I don’t know why the hell she drugged me and ran off. I just know that I won’t let it happen again.

“That won’t be happening,” I tell her. “Get through the next hour or so with Kaylee-Marie, get Waverly back tonight and then… I’m going to tattoo your ass and take you to my place.”

“Back to that damp ass cabin?” Vickie says, incapable of hiding her disgust, even if she had the nicest guest room and the only one to never have a rattlesnake infestation.

“No. To my real house,” I tell her. “I want you somewhere private where I can ensure your obedience and get the answers I want without… outside trouble.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I want to know the truth. What prompted you to drug me and run off like that and why the fuck do you still pretend I don’t get your pussy wet.”

Vickie glares. “Someone kidnapped your daughter. You need to focus on something other than my pussy.”

“Trust me, Vickie, I can balance multiple thoughts at once. Before the sun comes up tomorrow, everyone involved withlaying a finger on my daughter will be dead. That’s how the Shaws handle things.”

She shivers, but I sense this strange sense of yearning from her when I say something that would scare most women off. Vickie has a problematic attraction to my dark side. Her efforts to deny that attraction do absolutely nothing to curb the intensity of her sensitivity towards me. I can feel it when I touch her. When I look at her.

If she really didn’t want me to collar her… she would have found a way out of it. It takes everything not to wrap my hands around her throat now and reaffirm my control over her.

“How are you going to explain my presence to… everyone?”

I scowl. “Obviously… I’ll tell them that you’re Waverly’s new… nanny.”

“The daughter you don’t have custody of?”

“I have Thanksgiving and Easter.”

“Wow. You must have acted like a complete asshole in court.”

“I don’t need you judging me,” I snap at her, the smirk playing across Vickie’s lips revealing this was a direct effort to get under my skin. I hate giving her even an inch of victory over me. “I need you inside and quiet or I’ll bend you over the couch and fuck you until they get here.”

“Don’t be disgusting.”

“Door.”

Vickie walks ahead of me, giving me a rare view of her ass. She’s right. I shouldn’t think about her ass right now. My daughter is missing. My ex-girlfriend wants to kill me (which is normal), and after we get Waverly back, Wyatt won’t be able to help himself. He’ll rip me a new one for being a “degenerate gambler”, even if I know this doesn’t have a damn thing to do with my gambling.

Just because I don’t make a big deal of things doesn’t mean I haven’t — at least partly — changed my ways. I know that I’ll need to be a better person if I want my daughter to give a crap about me. I haven’t done anything reckless enough to get her kidnapped. Sure, I bet on a hockey game here and there, but never like what happened in Vegas.

I unlock the door and walk inside Kaylee-Marie’s house, mortified by the scene in front of us when the door opens. Trash. Everywhere. Clothes. Food. Two roaches scuttle across the floor, causing Vickie to shriek and stomp on them hard. My stomach sinks.

Is this where Waverly has been living?

What the fuck?

“The last time I came here, it didn’t look like this.”

“There has to be a reasonable explanation,” Vickie says. “Being a single mom is tough.”

“She doesn’t have to be a single mom,” I remind her, but I take her hand and pull her close to me. “Come on… I’ll get you a glass of water if I can find a clean cup and see what I can get done before my brothers bring her back.”

“Do you want me to help you clean?”

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