Page 32 of Reckless Pawn

"Sasha, good to see you again. You should come to the clubhouse tonight. Tell Eva I requested you leave early."

I watched my new friend's face light up at the request. "I'd love to," she said, dipping her head.

JD turned his attention back to me. "You need anything at all, you let the prospect know and he'll take care of it."

"Was Houston here last night?" I blurted.

"He was. He had club business."

"What does that mean?"

Sasha grabbed my arm and shook her head, warning me to shut the hell up.

"It means it was club business."

"Is he still here?"

"Sasha, if she's yours now, you need to educate her on club business. You feel me? I thought Patty had taken care of that."

"I feel you, JD. I'll take care of it."

"Good girl. I'll see you later." He winked, and then turned back to me. "Don't worry about tonight. I'll have eyes on you and the club. You'll be one hundred percent safe."

"Okay," I muttered, not at all happy that he wouldn't answer my question. Or that Sasha seemed to go along with him.

After JD left, I turned to Sasha and raised my eyebrows this time, just barely resisting the urge to slap my hand onmyhip. "What in the world was that all about?"

A huge grin spread across her face. "You, Izzy, are now my official good luck charm. I've been hoping to get back in his bed for so long. Hell, I don't even know what this means." She gulped the rest of her coffee and placed her mug in my sink. "This most definitely calls for a spa day."

"But I just told you I can't leave."

"Oh I heard you." She scooped up her cell phone and started tapping on the screen again, this time lightning fast. "If you can't go to the spa, then we bring the spa to you. This is perfect actually. It will give us more time to have fun."

Things were happening way too fast for my fog filled brain. Sasha and her optimism. JD and his evasions. And I still didn't know for sure if my fragmented dreams from the night before were real or not. "You're not going to grill me on why I can't leave?"

She looked up from her flying fingers. "Nope. Club business is not my business. And it's not yours either."

"And you just accept that?"

Sasha put her phone down on the counter and placed her arm around my shoulder, steering me toward my couch. "Rule number one around here is that club business means just that and if you're not in the club then it's not your business. The sooner you learn and accept that the better off you'll be. It’s something you absolutely can't fight."

"Problem is, I lived my whole life like that under my father's regime and I'm tired of it. I don't want to walk around and be someone's decoration or plaything. There has got to be more to life than that."

She turned and met me eye-to-eye. "The only way that happens around here is if you become a club member's old lady. That's as close as you can get to having a say in anything. The rest of us, we can either accept our roles or leave. No one is forcing us to stay."

"Except I don't have that option," I whispered. To my surprise Sasha didn't even question why that might be.

"Then I suggest you work on becoming an old lady. Then maybe you'll have the freedoms you're looking for."

I let my head fall, hanging low so I stared at the ground. I didn't want to accept defeat. "I'm tired of feeling like this, Sasha. I want to be more than the girl who can't let go of the past."

"Then do something about it. The men around here may be stubborn and archaic, but they aren't immune to us either. They need us. And for more than our pussies. We are their hearts whether they know it or not. Without us they are nothing more than savages."

"Is that what you are to JD?" I asked.

"What?"

"His heart."

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