Bounty:Fury Riders MC(6)

"So it's really like that? Turf stuff, I mean?"



He wrinkled his nose. "You make it sound like a kids' game. Let me set you straight. It's not a game."



"No, you already showed me that earlier." I shuddered without meaning  to. In my head, I could still hear the sound of a nose breaking.



"Yeah, you got an eyeful. So you should know better than to insult the club, or what we do."



"I wasn't trying to be insulting." I heard the volume of my voice rising  and saw Vince's face darkening. I pulled it back, fast. "I'm sorry. I  just don't know the lingo. I was clumsy."



He assessed me, saw that I was sincere, and nodded. "Now, to make it even, who are you?"



I debated on giving him my real name. My brain raced, trying to come up  with a fake one. All I could think of were names from TV characters. My  luck, I'd pick his favorite show.         

     



 



"What's wrong? Forget your name? Or trying to come up with a new one?"



I blushed again. Damn it! I had to learn how to control that, somehow.



Instead, I lifted my chin. "So what? Why should I give you my name?"



He scowled. "Stop acting like a fucking baby. If you didn't act like a  baby, you wouldn't have been out tonight, and you wouldn't have gotten  yourself into trouble. Now you're afraid to give me your name when you  weren't afraid of what you were going to get into earlier. That makes a  lot of sense."



My chin quivered. "Thanks, asshole."



"It's true. You're just mad because it's true." He turned to the wall,  brooding. I got the feeling he didn't like seeing emotion. He was about  to see and hear a lot of it because I was on the verge of a breakdown.  Everything I had seen and felt that night came rushing at me like a  speeding train.



"I'm not used to this!" It was all I could get out before the dam burst,  and I held my face in my hands as I sobbed. I shook from head to toe,  heartbroken sobs ripping from my chest. I cried for what I saw him do,  for what might have happened to me. I had been so afraid, so sure my  life was over. I cried at the memory of my last thoughts, about my  parents and how I'd let this happen to myself and how much they would  suffer because of it. Yes, in that last moment, I had known it was all  my fault. Vince had called it, and that pissed me off, too.



"Calm down," he muttered. I looked at him through my fingers and saw him  push a box of tissues toward me. "You don't have to cry."



"Dude, this has been a pretty big night for me, okay? I've never had to run away from a guy with a knife before."



"Next time, stay where you belong."



"Gladly." I blew my nose. I sure didn't belong there, with him, or  anyone in his club. I remembered the way they'd leered at me as Vince  dragged me back to the office.



"You never did tell me your name."



He caught me off guard, and I had to laugh out of surprise. "Erica."



"I wish we had met under nicer circumstances, Erica." He looked a little  sad, sort of wistful. I found myself wishing the same thing when our  eyes locked.





Chapter Five




Vince





She had a lot going for her.



First was that body, which I knew she was trying to cover up in her  baggy clothes. I would have bet my bike there was a tight ass and perky  tits under her jeans and sweatshirt. I'd felt those tits pressing up  against my back when we rode to the clubhouse. I knew her waist was  small from when I grabbed her in the lounge.



She was fucking gorgeous, too. Big blue eyes, wheat colored hair. Full,  pouty lips. She tried to disguise herself when she was out in the hood,  but she hadn't done a good job of it.



On top of that, she was smart, even if she didn't have much common  sense. If I were her, looking the way she did and being as small as she  was, I wouldn't have stepped foot in that neighborhood. It was a bad  move, and she was damn lucky I came along when I did. But she was book  smart. And she had a sharp wit, which I appreciated. One thing I didn't  get a lot of in my world was wit.



She had guts, too. She stood up to me and mouthed off, even when I could  tell she was scared shitless by the way her hands shook. She couldn't  meet my eyes. I thought of a rabbit in a trap, or a little bird. She  needed protection. Even so, she put it aside when someone pissed her  off. Then she was beyond gorgeous. She was fierce and feisty, and I got a  little hard when I wondered how that translated in bed.



If she were any other woman in the world, especially the kind I was  usually around, I would have tested that curiosity. I would have put on  the charm and worked my way into her panties by the end of the night.  I'd done it dozens of times before, if not more.



But not her. She was different. Not just a princess, which I was still  sure she was. She wasn't just stuck up. She had class. She was a really  quality person. She didn't only pretend to be, the way other people did  when they came from richer neighborhoods.



She finally stopped crying, which was a relief. I hated seeing women  cry. It was one of my only weaknesses. Maybe because of the way my mom  cried when my dad died. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the  night when I was a kid and hear her crying in her room. She never cried  in front of us. She was stronger than that. But at night, when she was  alone, and the rest of us were sleeping, she would let it out. My room  was next to hers, the walls thin as paper. She would cry for hours  sometimes, and I always wanted to go in and comfort her. I didn't. I  knew she would hate it if I did. It would mean I knew she was falling  apart.



"So if you're ready to talk, I really would like it if you would tell me  what you were doing out there. What was he after you for?" I didn't  need to tell the girl who I meant.



She took a deep breath. "I was taking pictures."



"Pictures?" I knew the look on my face was probably priceless. "Who the  hell goes down there to take pictures? Jesus Christ. Do you have a death  wish?"         

     



 



She bristled, and the color rose in her cheeks. She was prettier that way. "No, I don't."



"So why'd you do it?"



"Because I'm trying to get pieces together for an exhibit. I'm a photographer."



I should have known. Only rich girls like her did stupid shit like that.  Sort of like people who went to the ghetto thinking they could help  people and wound up getting robbed and having their car stolen. It was  what they got for being condescending pricks, as far as I was concerned.  She was one of them.



"What were you taking pics of? Poor, lost souls?" I didn't care that the  sarcasm dripped from my voice. I was beyond irritated that this rich  little snot thought she could walk around down there and take pictures,  and then wonder why some bad guy chased her. He probably tried to steal  her camera. Now I remembered seeing it on the ground, and the way she  picked it up. They were probably fighting over it before she fell. It  would be just like her to fight for it, too, instead of handing it over  like anyone with half a brain would do.



"No." She stiffened, sitting up straighter. "I was trying to find raw,  gritty photos to get my name out there. I've always wanted to be a  street photographer."



"A what?"



"A street photographer. Like, getting photos of people in their daily  lives. I got some really great shots tonight." I smirked. "Hey-I can  only take so many pics of kids smiling and eating ice cream," she said  with a shrug.



"I can see that. But there? Why there? I mean, the daytime is still  shitty down there. You could have gone in the daytime, at least."



She bit her thumbnail, looking at her lap. "I know that."



I rolled my eyes. "Great. So you were there to get an exhibit together or whatever. How did you meet the Vicious Wolf?"



"A good name for him."



"True."



She looked at me, and somehow I knew her well enough already to know she  was deciding whether she should tell me the truth. Just like I knew  before that she was trying to come up with a fake name to give me. Her  face gave away everything she was thinking. Erica didn't know it, but  she caught me on a night when I had plenty of time on my hands. I could  wait forever.



"I saw something. I don't know whether telling you about it is the right  thing to do because it might get you into trouble somehow."



My ears perked up. I'd been sitting with my feet crossed on the desk, but her words made me sit up straight. "Tell me."



"Are you sure?"



"Yeah, I'm sure. Did he do something wrong?"



She nodded and looked miserable.



"Hey, you can tell me," I said. "We have no friendship with them, trust  me on that. So it's not like I'll go back to them and say you ratted."



"Ratted?" I watched her shiver.