Uncontrollable Temptations (The Tempted Series Book 3) (9 page)

“Not your business, Blackie,” I hissed, watching as he leaned over the bar and snatched a bottle of whiskey. He took a swig, flinching a little as the burning liquid worked its way down his throat.

“I don’t recall asking your opinion,” I added.

He looked over his shoulder at me and remained silent for a moment before passing the whiskey my way. I reached for the bottle, took a gulp to numb the pain in my face.

“You got me running around, looking for a way to get close to Jimmy Gold, so you can have your revenge. You don’t give a shit, by doing so you’re setting this club up for heat we don’t fucking need,” he said roughly. “Now, I’m the man that stands beside you, has your back before anyone else and my job is to warn you when you’re in over your head,” he shook his head as he sighed. “That girl don’t have what it takes to handle you, man,” he continued, his voice barely a whisper. He seized back the bottle and took another healthy swig, shaking off the burn like a champ. “I’m telling you because I was one of the men that stood beside you when you went down that dark fucking path. You get in with the likes of a woman like that, you’re setting yourself up for all sorts of drama. You’re paving the way to that road again. Don’t want that for you. Not now. Not ever.”

“Appreciate the concern but it’s not like that,” I bit back. “She’s nobody.”

“Oh she’s somebody,” he confirmed, as he peered at me hugging his bottle. “And we’re all fucked once you realize that.”

There was no sense arguing with Blackie, no point in telling him that Reina was just some broad who served me coffee. I was the fucking president of these men, this was my club, my territory and they answered to me.

“You think I don’t know what you say behind my back?” He asked, his eyes roaming around the clubhouse. “What you all truly think about me? You pity the sucker I am for grieving over a woman who you all think doesn’t deserve my grief. You judge me because I fell for a woman, got fucked over by her and then lost myself when I lost her. She wasn’t always a junkie and the only reason she ever became one was because of me and the life I exposed her too. She looked as pure and as innocent as the doe-eyed woman that came here to deliver you a goddamn pie.”

“I don’t pity you any more than you pity me,” I insisted. I knew Blackie’s concern came from a good place, and he was right, he had seen me through a lot of dark days. The man had my back when my boy died. He stood up and defended me when my illness came to light. He made sure my daughter was cared for when I had to do a bid for a weapons charge. Blackie was closer to me than my real brother.

“You’re wrong. None of us judge what you feel. You’re entitled, and like you’re concerned for me, every one of us here is concerned that you love that bottle as much as your woman loved the needle.” He reared his hand back, fire in his eyes at the mention of his wife. I twisted my cheek, offered it up to him. “Go ahead, if it makes you feel something, anything other than the shit you feel every day.”

I like to think I had returned the favor; that I was there for him when his wife died. But like I depended on my meds he depended on his liquor.

“That woman you saw tonight is nobody, you hear me? But you’re right, she isn’t made for this life, not meant to be part of this club.”

“Then she’s not meant for you because
your
life
is
this club,” Blackie interjected.

I stared at him for a moment, allowing his words to stir before I tipped my chin toward him.

“I think we’re about done here,” I stated, sucking in a breath.

“Then I guess we are,” he agreed, bringing his hand to his forehead in mock salute of me.

“Go easy on that shit,” I said, before turning around and stalking through my club, straight out the door.

Defiance.

It was the one thing in life I excelled at.

So I did what I did best, I defied the truth, defied the facts and instead I did whatever the fuck I wanted. And right now I wanted Reina.

It didn’t take me long to ride to her complex, keeping with the mantra and defying speed limits. I turned off my bike and threw my leg over, lifting my head staring at the building she lived in. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing anymore. One minute I was looking for a way to kill Jimmy and make him pay for what he did to Danny. The next I was chasing after his fucking girl. I should listen to Blackie, get my head together and steer clear of Reina but all that goodness she radiated was something I wanted to taste.

I rapped my knuckles against her door before roughly threading my fingers through my hair. The door opened, and I lifted my head to stare into her shocked eyes. She was wearing make-up, and miles of blonde hair sat on the top of her head in a messy bun, pulling it away from her face. My eyes roamed the length of her, taking in the tight jeans that molded her legs and clung to her hips. The black tank top she wore was also tight and form fitting, giving me the first real chance to check out her tits. The desire to rip her shirt to shreds washed over me. I heard myself growl and instantly lifted my eyes to hers as she tried to close the door.

I stuck my boot in the doorway preventing her from pushing me away and stared at her like an animal seeking its prey.

“Give it up, sunshine,” I rasped. “I came here for a fucking reason and I’m not leaving until I get it.”

And I decided right then, the reason I showed up at her place was to get a taste of the goodness that was Reina.

Her eyes peered into mine, scared and uncertain. Damn if that didn’t set something off inside of me. I was a twisted fuck, torn between hating the idea that I scared her and getting off on it just as much.

“Jack,” she whispered, gripping the door, knuckles fading to white as she stared down at my boot.

“Like the way you say my name, Sunshine,” I ground out, placing my hand on the doorknob and throwing my weight into it as it fell open and she stumbled back. Her gasp excited me, the perfect O her lips formed had my dick stirring to life and encouraged me to keep at her. I kicked the door closed with the heel of my boot. For every step I took, she took one away from me. I took two long strides toward her, caging her in once her back hit the wall.

“Don’t,” she ordered, her voice struggling to sound stern. “You come any closer and I will scream,” she said, through clenched teeth as she brushed away the tendrils of hair that fell into her eyes.

My lips quirked, “That’s the plan, baby.” I bit my lip and shook my head, drowning in visions of Reina throwing her head back and screaming out for me to fuck her hard. Her tongue sneaked out of her mouth, running along the seam her perfect lips. My dick liked that subtle move—liked it a lot. I reached down, cupped my erection through my jeans and moaned, never tearing my eyes from hers.

“You’re disgusting,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing, dipping to my crotch before snapping back to my face. Something snapped in those brown eyes of hers, something so fucking amazing to watch—like life was reborn in them in that second. She pushed off the wall, closing the distance between us, and poked her finger into my hard chest.

“I get you’re this badass biker who throws his weight around and gets people to follow your every command, but you don’t get to come into my home and demand shit from me. I can’t control who comes into the diner but I have a say in who comes into my apartment and into my life—you don’t make the cut…
Bulldog
,” she whispered. My road name sounding as if it was venom on her tongue.

I thought I was a goner when she called my God given name, but hearing my road name come from her mouth took everything to another level. Nothing else seemed to exist other than this woman before me and the unexplainable need to have her say my name over and over again.

“There you go riding on that high horse of yours again. Why don’t you do us both a favor and step off? I promise I’ll give you something better to ride,” I suggested, crossing my arms against my chest.

She glanced down, those electric eyes of hers zeroing in on my dick and then again she lifted them to mine, her lips curled in disgust.

“I’m not interested.”

I laughed, leaning in, feeling her breath on my lips. “Liar.”

I reached out, my fingertips tracing the length of her neck, twitching and begging to wrap around her neck and give her a little squeeze. Just a little one. Tiny. Miniscule.

I cupped the back of her neck, jerked her head back and forced her to look at me.

“Bet the house that pussy of yours is drenched for me,” I growled.

“I saw you,” she blurted, reaching behind her to brush away my hand but I tightened my grip on her. “I went to that place, that despicable warehouse of yours and I saw
you
,” she stressed her last word, driving the stake deep through the skin, slicing through the demented exterior of my resolve.

She wrenched my fingers from her neck and took a retreating step backward.

“I convinced myself that I owed you an apology, that, maybe I had misjudged you. But I was on point the other night—actually, I wasn’t,” she corrected herself, shaking her head. “I thought you were just this guy who ran in the wrong circles but you’re much worse. I’m sure people gravitate to you, people who crave the high you give with your dirty mouth and your filthy ways. I’m not one of those people,” she sneered, glancing toward the door. “Now, I believe I’ve made myself perfectly clear so if you would just see yourself out we could forget you ever walked into Dee’s diner and that our paths ever crossed.”

She swallowed, took a deep breath and her hands trembled as she turned around to walk into her tiny kitchen, dismissing me.

No one dismissed Jack Parrish. No one. Certainly not some pretty little blonde with a golden cunt and a smart mouth.

She thought she knew me? Thought ten minutes in my compound gave her insight into who I was—she had no fucking idea. I’d make her head spin with what the last thirty-eight years on this earth consisted of for Jack Parrish. Then and only then, could this bitch judge me.

I stalked into her kitchen and watched her throw dishes into her sink, her hands still shaking.

“You don’t know me,” I ground out, causing her to turn around startled.

“I thought I asked you to leave,” she whispered, taking a deep breath as she gripped the edge of the counter and stared at me.

“I grew up with a mother who fucking hated me. I spent my teenage years running around doing fucked up shit, just to get her attention. It didn’t matter if it was negative attention or that it made her hate me more, all I knew was she noticed me whenever I did the bad shit. I got high on it, kept doing it, all the while trying to keep her interested in me. And then she and my father died because all the bad shit caught up with me and landed me in trouble. On their way to bail my ass out they were killed in a car crash.”

She stared at me quietly and for some reason I looked into her eyes and kept going, introducing her to the real Jack Parrish, leaving myself bare for her judgements.

“I had responsibilities I needed to take care of…got my girl pregnant, married her, and she gave me my daughter and my son. The club, those men, they became my family, provided me a way to take care of my responsibilities, to give my family a good life. Connie was never about the club life,” I said, cocking my head and staring at her. “Like you, the ugliness blinded her and she was too jaded to see the brotherhood. Lost her and thought I lost a part of myself but realized I never truly would feel loss until I held my lifeless baby boy in my arms in the middle of the street with my little girl sobbing at the curb. I prayed to any fucking God that would listen to a no good bastard like me. I prayed for a miracle that would breathe life back into the two-year old that I had lost and had died on my watch.”

“You ever lose somebody, Reina?” I questioned, stepping toward her, high on that scared look that reappeared in her eyes. “Ever lose someone you created? Someone you loved more than anything? I doubt it, because a bitch like you wouldn’t survive it. It changes you. I was fucked from birth, but losing my son, fucked me harder. And that glimpse of the Satan’s Knight’s you saw tonight, that family you frowned upon, they pulled me out of the darkness before it consumed me and swallowed me whole. They are the reason I’m standing here in front of you because I would have taken purchase next to my son, right there in the cold earth for all of eternity, beside the boy I created,” I growled with a ragged breath. “So bitch, don’t look at me with those judgmental eyes because you wouldn’t survive all the shit I have.”

“You think you know me? You think you have me all figured out? You don’t know a goddamn thing. I know loss, maybe not as deeply as you. I never lost a child, never had one to lose, but I lost myself,” she cried, tears escaping from the corners of her eyes. “I survived,” she shouted through her tears. “I survived,” she repeated, this time the words a whisper. She wiped angrily at the tears that stained her cheeks but the words that came next were soft. “And I learned that surviving is worse than dying. It’s hell in its purest form.”

Her words twisted inside me and for the first time in thirteen years someone got it, someone got me. Her words were my truth.