“Make me,” I murmur seductively while I stare down at her.
“Okay, can we focus?” Alto, like the leader he is, puts a stop to all the fun. “We need to have a serious conversation about a few things.”
“Okay? I don’t like that tone. Is everything okay? Is it Daddy?” she asks, plopping down on the couch.
“He’s fine. Kind of. He’s pissing me off, but he’s fine.” Alto gets sidetracked with his annoyance with our friend. He takes her hand and sighs.
Bane pokes his head out of the curtain to look out the window and I double-check to make sure I have my gun.
“Grim is working with your father’s brother. I followed him and saw them meet. They talked about you, Harlow. Grim isn’t here to have a relationship with you. He’s here to trick you, then to give you to Grizzly’s brother. We think the rival MC has something to do with the drugs around town. Women have gone missing. Some have ended up dead. I think that’s what they have planned for you, and your dad is having a tough time believing me.”
“He doesn’t think you’re telling the truth?”
Alto exhales so loud an entire lifetime of regret leaves him. “I think he feels dumb and put on the spot. He wants more evidence, but he’s aware and that’s what matters. Things are icy at the clubhouse right now, so I need you stay away from it, okay? We have a lot of planning to do.”
She chews on her bottom lip while she thinks. “Well, I can be used as bait. Go with Grim’s plan, you guys attack, take my horrible uncle out, and we can all be hap-py?” She breaks the last word in two when she takes turns looking at the three of us and how pissed we are. “So that’s a no?”
“A fuck no. We aren’t putting you at risk. That isn’t an option.”
“Another thing we need to consider is when we’re going to be honest with him about this relationship. It needs to be soon or he will find out in a way we don’t want him to. I think we should rip the bandage off. He’ll get over it. He’s mad now so he might as well stay mad, right?”
“Or he could kick us out of the club being so angry, “ Bane glooms.
“That’s a gamble either way depending on his mood,” I say.
“I’d rather tell him when he’s calm than when he’s pissed and already stressed about his daughter. Everything he’ll feel will be emphasized,” Alto explains.
“Maybe after this thing blows over. We agreed to that, right?” Harlow asks, rounding her big green eyes.
“I don’t know if I can wait,” Bane says. “The urge to protect you right now, to have you near me, it’s too hard,” he admits, his voice low and regretful as if he was disappointing her.
“Me too,” Alto agrees. “It’s hard, sweetheart. Pretending I don’t want to pull you into my arms when I see you at the clubhouse. I can’t pretend you don’t mean everything to me. It does a disservice to how I really feel about you.”
“And how is it?” She gulps, twisting her fingers together. “How you feel about me?”
“If you only knew,” I singsong.
“Maybe it’s time we show her.”
I couldn’t agree more.
20
HARLOW
I’ve never felt more like prey in my entire life. These huge, hulking men looking at me cause me to feel small. They could break me if they wanted. They could hurt me with their strength, their bulk, the violence that seems to live within them.
But they only ever touch me with tenderness. They are careful. Yes, they can be rough and I love it when they are rough, I love it when they lose control because I make them feel so good. It’s the biggest turn-on.
They all reach for me at the same time. I lose all sense of who’s who and whose hands are where. My shirt is tugged free and more hands are grabbing me, ripping my bra free. A mouth finds mine and I feel the ridges of the scars. I know it’s Bane.
I open my eyes, not realizing I closed them, but I need to see him.
I need to see all of them.
And that’s when I realize that in the last three minutes when I’ve been blissed out of my mind, one of them carried me to the room.
Alto takes off his shirt, showing built muscles and defined lines. God, he’s gorgeous. I want to lick every shadow that’s cast onto the divots of his body.