Page 51 of Fighting Dirty

Perking up, excitement jumped onto her new friend’s face. “I think I’d like that. I’m really glad Ryder found you. He was one of the sweetest of the bunch. I always felt so relieved when he chose me.”

Tiffany jolted in her seat. “You’ve had sex with Ryder?” Why did that even surprise her? Feeling like an immediate idiot for even asking, she wasn’t all that surprised by Alyssa’s rather earnest reply.

“Well, most women here have. We’re whores, after all.”

“I don’t really approve of that word.” Then again, Tiffany didn’t approve of every woman in the room having been intimate with the man she loved either.

Shrugging, Alyssa replied with a touch of pain in her voice. “It’s a lot better than what some of the guys call us.” Alyssa searched her face for something. “You’re upset to hear I’ve been with Ryder, aren’t you?”

Looking down at her folded hands, Tiffany tried to work out her own feelings on the matter. Avoiding Alyssa’s eyes, she grabbed Lily’s nonalcoholic drink. Taking a sip, she had to admit it was good. Silence hung in the air as Alyssa waited for her to sound off about her unexpected disclosure.

Suddenly, Tiffany’s mind filled with a half dozen unwanted questions. Had Ryder slept with the really belligerent whore she met the day Ace got shot? How about the one that kept throwing herself at Ven that same day? Was it socially acceptable in this alternate reality the brothers inhabited to sleep with the same whore your father had enjoyed? Did the brothers share whores, like in porno flicks? Had Ryder really slept with all of them over the years? How many more absolute skanks had he slept with on the road? Did he even use protection? Would he even have been sober enough to remember to practice safe sex?

The more she thought about it, the queasier she felt. It was overwhelming and simply too much on top of everything else going on at the moment.

Finally, she spat out hoarsely, “If I do have a problem, it’s mine and not yours. I’m going to get one of the prospects to take me home. I don’t feel very well.”

Alyssa’s voice turned sad as if she’d just lost her best friend. “Darkness said we’re all to stay here.”

Well, Tiffany was anything but sad. “Fuck Darkness, Ryder, and this whole place.” Yep, she was downright angry. It didn’t make sense to be angry at Alyssa or at Ryder, though. Neither of them was responsible for what went on before Ryder had ever met her, yet the undisputable fact was, Tiffany was mad as hell at the moment.

Grabbing her purse, she headed for the door. Peb stepped in front of her, right before she made it across the threshold. “We’re on lockdown. You’re new so you might not understand exactly what that means. By order of the club president, everyone stays put, and we don’t let anyone else in.”

Lying through her pearly white teeth, Tiffany groaned, “Ryder said if I started feeling sick, one of you could drive me home. My SUV is outside.”

Uncertainty stamped on every square inch of his face, Peb stated, “I’ll have to text him and make sure.”

“What am I, like five? Move out of my way. I’m not a prisoner. You know that, right?”

Jerking back as if he’d been slapped, Peb stated cautiously, “I never said you were. Look, just let me check and make sure it’s okay. I can’t abandon my post without permission, and I can’t let an old lady leave unprotected, especially during a lockdown.”

Backing up a scant inch, she nodded. “Fine. Make it quick. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

Heading for the bar, Peb pulled out his cell phone. The moment his back was turned, Tiffany bolted out the door. There was no way in hell Ryder would approve of her leaving the security of the clubhouse, not with Stuart or his cronies lurking around. The problem was, she couldn’t stand to be in the clubhouse one minute more. Her mind was screaming run, flee, get away, and think this thing through.

Sprinting to her SUV, she unlocked it and climbed behind the wheel. Feeling herself panic, Tiffany started the motor and headed for the back gate, which she suspected was the weak link in the chain. Sure enough, the new prospect allowed her through when she gave him the sob story about being sick. It felt shitty lying to the poor man, and she worried his bad decision would impede his quest to get patched, but she needed out more than she needed her next breath.

Driving to Ryder’s place, she tried to work out why she was so hot to get the hell out of the clubhouse. It definitely wasn’t because Ryder had slept with Alyssa. If she’d had her head screwed on straight, she’d have realized that by how casual and overly friendly they were with each other. She could see clear as day that they were former lovers that it made her wonder how she’d ever missed that simple fact. It explained a lot about how Ryder interacted with all the women there. Feeling her blood chill in her veins, she realized how much that actually bothered her.

This whole evening had been a total mindfuck. Learning that Ryder had gone out with a bunch of his club brothers to brawl with another club seemed reckless and unnecessary. Learning that this was not the first time they’d gone toe to toe with a rival club shouldn’t have come as the shock that it did. Maybe it was hearing they were capable of killing multiple people in a gigantic throw down that soured her mood. The killing was kind of a deal breaker for her, especially killing regularly and in numbers. How had she ever thought this was okay? She’d stupidly thought that the disagreement between Ryder and Ace had been some kind of one-off thing. It was becoming increasingly clear it was a lifestyle choice for these men.

All that was tough enough to swallow, but coming to the realization that he’d slept with all the women that she was now expected to be friends with was beyond the pale. Even though Darkness had purged out the women prone to stay drunk, as well as the more mouthy and abrasive ones, that still left a small number of Ryder’s former lovers for her to deal with on a regular basis.

Her phone rang shrilly, making her jump. She recognized the ringtone as the one Ryder selected for her. Taking a deep breath, she picked up her cell phone. Just holding the phone and knowing he was on the line sent goose bumps skittering across her skin. Thinking it over, she knew that she allowed her life to spiral out of control for too long. Slowly lowering it back to the passenger seat, she let it roll to voicemail.

Having barely scratched the surface of her feelings on tonight’s revelations, Tiffany hadn’t organized her thoughts enough to have a meaningful conversation with Ryder about anything. The last thing she wanted was to continue to present as the hapless victim or the bitch ruthlessly judging his personal choices while ignoring her own clusterfuck of a life. Unwilling to continue meekly accepting crumbs of affection from the random men she collided with while on the run, Tiffany knew she desperately needed to figure out what she really wanted out of life. It was better to put off the conversation until she engaged in intelligent discourse.

Her phone rang again a few minutes later, but it wasn’t Ryder’s ringtone. Snatching her phone from the seat again, she saw that it was Lily. She didn’t have the heart not to talk to the woman who’d been so nice to her.

Trying to keep the angst out of her voice, she answered. “Hello, Lily. Sorry I broke the lockdown rules.”

“Alyssa told me why you left. I’m sorry things are the way they are at the club. It’s a lot for a woman to deal with.”

“I honestly don’t know how to walk around the clubhouse knowing he’s been with all the women there, except you.”

Lily laughed nervously. “I’m his mother, and I don’t appreciate that he has loose morals any more than you do. Come back and let’s talk about this. Please.”

“It’s not just that piece. I’ve been doing a lot of introspecting about my ex. I’m not sure how fair it is to drag your son or his club brothers into that situation.”

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