Prologue
Santana Rogers ducked to avoid the water balloon and laughed. "You'll have to do better than that, Tiny!" She dashed behind the Kings of Bedlam Motorcycle Club garage and waited for another attack. Club picnics were the best. With tons of food, all the soda they could drink and little adult supervision, it was heaven for a girl of fourteen. Unlike most kids her age, the constant sound of gunfire in the background was comforting because it meant the men of the club were still busy proving who the best shot was. The competition was a staple of any club gathering and usually happened before the men had too much to drink. Unfortunately, her father had been banned from the contest several years earlier when he'd gotten drunk and had taken a shot at one of the prospects.
"Santana!" her friend, Jaycee, called.
Santana narrowed her eyes and kept her mouth shut. It was just like Tiny to recruit Jaycee to draw her out of hiding. She looked around for somewhere else to hide. Shit. With only one option available, she slowly opened the back door of the garage and snuck inside. If her dad, Smash, caught her in the bike shop, he'd no doubt blister her ass, but Smash was busy drinking and playing horseshoes with his best friend Stake.
She dug a rumpled pack of cigarettes out of her pocket as Jaycee continued to call for her outside. Smoking wasn't something she'd ever tried, but her mom, Ellie, had lost the pack during one of her drunken stupors three nights earlier, and Santana had snatched them up.
"It's just me," Jaycee said through the door. "Let me in."
Santana quickly beckoned her best friend inside. "Where's Tiny?"
Jaycee laughed. "He went to get more balloons." Her eyes rounded when she spotted the cigarette in Santana's hand. "Are you smoking?"
Santana shrugged. "I thought I'd try it."
Jaycee wrinkled her nose. "Gross. No one's gonna want to kiss you with ashtray breath."
Stake was the only man Santana wanted a kiss from, but he still saw her as a child. She'd worn her shortest pair of denim cut-offs and a skimpy halter top, which showed off her tits to perfection, and he still hadn't looked at her like a real woman. "I think I have a few years before I need to worry about being kissed."
Jaycee snorted. "Then you're blind because I've caught Tiny and Gill staring at your boobs today. You could have either one of them with a snap of your fingers."
Santana pulled out a book of matches and lit the cigarette. She coughed several times after her first inhale and shook her head. "Must take some getting used to." She took a deep breath in an attempt to clear her lungs of the burning smoke before addressing Jaycee's comment. "I don't want Tiny or Gill, and you know that. Besides, I know you like Tiny, and I'd never do that to a friend."
Jaycee got all dreamy-eyed. "I do like him. I keep telling myself he's out of my league, but he's so sexy."
Santana concentrated on the cigarette burning in her hand. She refused to point out that Tiny was the only fifteen-year-old she'd ever seen who already sported a beard. She cringed. She hated beards, especially on a guy only a year older. It was wrong on so many levels, but then Tiny's dad's beard reached almost to his belt buckle. Gross. It looked like long pubic hair attached to his face. "You know I love Tiny, but you need to be careful. That boy's aching to get into someone's pants."
A loud click signaled trouble. "Let's get outta here," Santana said as the big garage door at the front of the building started to go up. She dropped her cigarette and smashed it under her flip flop, hoping she hadn't melted the cheap rubber.
With Jaycee right behind her, Santana ran around the back of the garage to the side. She'd just turned the corner when a big, red water-filled balloon hit her in the chest, drenching her. "Dammit, Tiny!"
Laughing, Tiny got cocky and tossed another balloon up and down in his hand. "I have one more." Before he had a chance to throw it, Gill ran up from behind and nailed Tiny on the back of the head with a yellow balloon.
"Sonofabitch!" Tiny whirled around and threw his remaining weapon at Gill, missing him by a mile.
Gill was Santana's height, which meant he was at least six inches shorter than Tiny. He danced around the yard like a boxer, readying for a fight.
"Really?" Santana sighed. Tiny and Gill were best friends, but lately, whenever they got around girls, there was some weird competition thing going on with them. She chalked it up to raging hormones. Although, it didn't appear to her that Gill had gone through puberty, yet.
"Is the food ready?" Santana asked, hoping to ward off the impending wrestling match.
Gill stopped and nodded. "Yeah, that's what I was coming to tell you guys, but I saw the opportunity and had to take it."
"And you'll pay for it," Tiny warned, smoothing his wet, collar-length blond hair into place.
Santana wrapped her arm around Gill's neck and headed toward the food. "Why do you do that?"
"What? Fuck with Tiny?" Gill shrugged. "'Cuz no one else will, I guess."
Despite their teasing and roaming eyes, Santana loved her friends. A lot of it had to do with growing up with them, but it was also nice to have other people her age from similar backgrounds. She might be the only one with a drunk for a mother, but they all had badass bikers for fathers. It helped, and she was grateful she had them.
The grouping of picnic tables sat under the cool shade of four tall trees. In south Texas, any shade was good shade, and as she stepped up to the food table, she felt the temperature drop dramatically. She spotted her mom passed out in a lawn chair and shook her head. It wasn't even one in the afternoon, which didn't bode well for the rest of the day.
A large hand grabbed her upper arm and spun her around. "What the hell happened to you?" her dad asked, indicating the wet top she wore.
She glanced down at herself. She hadn't realized the fabric was clinging to her breasts. At least the material was red so it wasn't transparent when wet. "Sorry, water balloon fight."
"I won't have a whore for a daughter," Smash growled in her face. He shoved her toward the parking lot. "I brought a sweater for your mom to wear later, go get it and put it on."
"It's too hot, Daddy," she pleaded. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could suck them back in. She started to duck but wasn't quick enough to avoid the meaty palm that slammed against her cheek.
"Don't you fuckin' ever talk back to me, bitch," he said, spittle dotting her face. "Go get that fuckin' shirt," he slurred. Obviously, her mom wasn't the only one who'd overindulged in the beer cooler.
Embarrassed, Santana covered her stinging cheek with her hand and took off toward the parking lot. Although she always hated her mom, it was only when he was drinking that she felt the same way about her dad. It sucked to love someone and fear them at the same time.
As she passed by other bikers and their families, she tried to avoid eye contact, but she couldn't miss the pity on their faces. She kept telling herself that she only had four more years before she graduated and could move as far away from Broken Ridge, Texas as she could get.
Rounding the front of the clubhouse, she stopped short at the sight in front of her. Stake was leaning against his Harley with a bleached blonde kneeling at his feet, her lips wrapped around the biggest cock Santana had ever seen.
His hands were buried in the woman's hair as he fucked her mouth, heedless of the fact that the gravel under the woman's knees had to hurt.
Blowjobs at the club were nothing new, and it wasn't the first time Santana had caught one of the members taking his pleasure, but it was the first time she'd seen Stake use a woman.
His head snapped up, and he roughly pushed the blonde back, away from his cock. "What're you doing here, lady bug?"
Still holding her cheek, she pointed to the old Plymouth that barely ran. "Tiny got me wet, so Dad sent me to put on Mom's sweater."
He turned his back on Santana and stuffed his big dick back into his faded jeans as the blonde-haired woman protested. "Get in your car, and get the fuck out of here," he told her.
Santana tried to walk around the pair to retrieve the sweater before her dad came looking for her, but Stake stopped her.
"What happened to your face?" he asked, leaving the blonde behind.
She shook her head. "I told Dad it was too hot to wear a sweater." She closed her eyes. "I know it was stupid, you don't have to tell me that."
He sighed and pulled her hand away from her cheek. He ran a finger over the stinging flesh and sighed again. "Bug, you have to be careful around him when he drinks. You know that."
"Yeah, I know," she mumbled. She'd never figure out why Stake and her father were such good friends. What did Stake see in Smash that she'd missed?