Page 5 of Playing for Keeps

“I know a lot of guys, Duke.”

My father rolls his eyes. “So I’ve heard.”

Panic shoots through me.Was I just handed a gift or a curse?

The upside is obvious. Val Mercer is gorgeous and funny. We could have so much fun together. I’ll have access to his impeccable body. The sex will most definitely be perfection. Our kids are bound to be gorgeous.

However, I’m a McGraw. We don’t get the love-and-hearts part of marriage. Best case scenario, we’re friendly with our spouses, and the sex is great. Worse case, the marriage is like a prison, where we suffer until we’ve served our time and won our release.

I can’t imagine marriage to Val feeling that way. But I don’t know him. Sure, I wake up every day thinking about the sexy bastard who made me laugh and nearly come in my jeans. No other man has interested me since Val marked me with his hot kisses. This arranged marriage seems perfect.

Yet, I’m scared. I know I’ll fall hard for Val. Can he ever truly fall for me, though? Of course not.We’re doomed to fail.If a gross guy did his time with me, I’d be fine when he walked away. With Val Mercer, I doubt I’ll ever recover.

VALOR “CLAWS” MERCER, AKA THE LUCKY ADONIS

From the moment I was born to Emmett and Poppy, I’ve been lucky. I entered the world to find I had a great family and a perfect future waiting for me.

My childhood was aces. Not a complaint there. I grew into a fabulously handsome bastard. I’m built thick and menacing like my pa, but my face got its shiny, beautiful features from my ma.

I’m smart enough to know how things work and when to ask for help when shit gets too complicated. I throw a mean punch and can take down two guys at the same time.

I’m just overall impressive. That’s why becoming the future Rawkfist Motorcycle Club’s VP never made sense. My older brother West is assumed to be a shoo-in for the president spot. While he’s nothing to sneeze at, the bastard doesn’t have anything on me.

But that was still the plan. West and I would be the Adonis twins, running the club when not breaking hearts.

Recently, West met his dream girl and stopped wooing other women. The ginger clown is quite the looker and sweeter than sugar. I’m a big fan of my sister-in-law.

With commitment becoming all the rage at my family’s twenty-acre homestead, I figured maybe I’d find a cool babe and make a baby Adonis.

Except my little sister got her dream guy first. Bouncy, blonde, and big-mouthed, Tuesday stopped wasting time with losers, weirdos, and whatever the hell that troll from Wheeling was. She married a forty-four-year-old hitman named Burke “Bullet Train” Sabian, who came with a great head of hair, a slick car, and a teenage daughter.

Not long after the love bomb detonated on my family tree, I met my dream girl. Lola McGraw is the older daughter of a man I’ve heard about for most of my life but never spoken two words to in that time.

Oh, boy, did I hit the jackpot with Lola! She’s a dark-haired goddess with plump lips begging for kissing. Her dark blue eyes shine like jewels whenever she laughs. We have the same sense of humor, like when we both snorted at the sight of a bar pervert tripping over his own feet and landing wrong, likely breaking his balls.

That magic happened the night we met. The pervert had been hounding her. She shoved him off in that bitchy way my sister does with losers. I could tell Lola was about to lose her temper, meaning her playful “just fuck off” mood would soon turn genuinely hostile.

I slid into the scene, playing hero by being big and scary. Many women claim I’m too damn sexy to be intimidating. Fortunately, men don’t suffer from the same delusion. The pervert got scared, backed away, tripped, and crunched his nads.

Lola’s resulting laughter wrapped around my heart and claimed it. I knew she was mine right then. The way she bit her bottom lip and gave me a playful wink said she was feeling the same way.

We ended up in her truck, and our magic hit a fevered pitch. I knew Lola was mine. I saw a long life stretched out before us.

Yet, my dream girl switched gears from hot to cold. That night, after we had our make-out session, I asked to see her again, preferably as soon as possible. I was ready to bring her home and meet the family. We were going to be together forever.

Except she said no. I assumed Lola’s behavior was related to how her dad ran a rival club. None of that mattered to me. Duke McGraw wasn’t my enemy. Besides, Tuesday briefly dated a member of the Blood-Red Suns. No one blew a gasket over mybaby sister getting porked by Cubby, so why would anyone care if I handed my heart to Lola?

Being sensible, I attempted many commonly-used techniques utilized by men to win a woman’s attention—sending flowers, pretending to give her space, stalking, writing a poem I mostly stole from shit online, throwing a fit when she kept saying no, pretending I might cry, giving her space for real before giving up and just stalking her again. Yet, somehow, none of these seductively obnoxious moves worked.Lola McGraw remained out of reach.

A guy like me shouldn’t lose the girl. Why hadn’t my natural good luck kicked in to hand me everything I wanted?

Cue to today when Duke McGraw asked Uncle Court to patch over the Blood-Red Suns and make it a chapter of the Rawkfist Motorcycle Club.

Court Bayer’s been our president since I was a kid. He’s always plotting a few steps ahead of every problem. He knows the Charleston club might try to ride into our small town—Tumbling Rock—and McGraw’s—Basin Rock—to claim our territory. Rawkfist is filled to the brim with smart guys pushing middle age. The Blood-Red Suns are packed with muscled meatheads. Only McGraw owns a brain, and he’s worried about what happens if he’s gone.

That’s how I got my shot to be president. Duke McGraw can mentor me to be his heir apparent.

More importantly, McGraw wants the future president to marry his daughter. Family makes better bonds and all that jazz.

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