“No,” I said, shaking my head, “we can’t.”
“Listen, you leave, take Janine home. I’ll stay around, make sure nothing happens.”
“What about Caralee?”
He shrugged. “She’s fine. She’s heading out herself soon anyway.”
I nodded. “All right.”
I turned back away from him and walked over to the table. “Janine,” I said. She looked up at me. “We got to leave.”
“What?” she asked.
“We got to head out,” I said. “It’s not safe here right now.”
She laughed, not sure if I was serious. “This is our clubhouse.”
“And we’re outnumbered by Rebels right now. Listen, Janine, don’t fight me on this.”
She opened her mouth, about to say something, but suddenly she stopped and took a deep breath. She stood up instead. “Okay,” she said.
“Is everything okay?” Caralee asked.
“They’re fine, babe,” Ford said. “You should get going soon too.”
“Okay,” she said, frowning.
“Good to see you,” I said to Caralee.
“Bye, guys.”
Janine just waved as we walked off and pushed through the front door.
As we headed toward my bike, Janine walked next to me. “You going to tell me what that was all about?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Clutch, I’m a part of this,” she said, getting angry again. “You can’t keep me in the dark.”
“Back at your place,” I said, and she stopped pressing.
We got onto my bike. I kicked it into gear, slowly backed out, and then rode off into traffic.
I hated leaving Ford there to deal with that shit alone, but he was right. I had to get Janine away from there, just in case. I wasn’t sure any shit was going to go down, but it felt like a strong possibility at the time. Janine was my responsibility and was still an important part of this whole fucking deal.
It didn’t matter that I felt like a coward. I had to put that behind me.
I had to do what was best for the club and for Janine. I didn’t matter.
We headed back toward her apartment, moving through traffic. I parked the bike out front in the usual spot and kept her behind me as we moved back toward her apartment. I had my piece out, ready for whatever was coming.
But there was nothing. We got into her apartment and I cleared it with no problem. She walked inside and tossed her keys onto the kitchen table, sprawling out on the couch.
“Well?” she asked.
“Well what?” I grunted.
“Tell me what happened.”
I leaned up against the wall and crossed my arms. “Maybe I don’t feel like it.”
“Don’t play games, Clutch.”
“I’m not playing shit,” I said. “Maybe I want to make you work for it, like get you on your hands and knees work for it.”
“That isn’t happening,” she said.
“Maybe not, but I think we both want it to.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Nowhere,” I said. “Just was thinking about you earlier.”
“During your job?”
“Yeah, during the job.”
“Why did we have to leave the clubhouse?”
I sighed. “Fine. You want to know? Shit’s not going well with the Rebels. Something bad happened this morning. One of their guys got killed, and they think I did it.”
She stared at me. “Did you?”
“No,” I said simply. “But the fact that they’d accuse me is bad. Things aren’t exactly good between us and the Rebels right now.”
“Caralee said the same thing.”
I nodded. “It’s obvious. We never liked the Rebels and they never liked us. You start pushing us together, well, shit happens.”
“My marriage was supposed to fix that.”
“It’s not.”
She stared at me. “What am I supposed to do?”
I pushed off the wall and moved toward her. “You want me to tell you what to do?”
“Sure,” she said softly. “You’re good at it.”
“You don’t want that,” I said. “I might tell you to do something fucking stupid.”
“Maybe you would.”
I stopped in front of her and stared down at her. “I might tell you to feel how fucking hard my cock is right now just thinking about your dripping pussy.”
She stared up at me, her mouth hanging slightly open, and then reached her hand out.
She found my cock, hard as fuck in my jeans, and slowly began to stroke it.
“What else?” she asked.
“I might tell you to unbuckle my belt.”
She did as she was told, slowly sliding the leather out from the metal. She pulled it gently, tugging it off the loops, and tossed it aside.