Authors: K.A. Merikan
One Step Too Close - Coffin Nails MC Louisiana (Gay Biker Stepbrother Romance) (Sex & Mayhem Book 6)
One Step Too Close
Sex & Mayhem #6
K.A. Merikan
Acerbi & Villani ltd
One Step Too Close
K.A. Merikan
--- One love. One motorcycle club. Two
stepbrothers. ---
Ryder.
Controlling. Ambitious.
Protective.
Jed.
Self-destructive. Trapped. Lonely.
Their love?
Forbidden. Taboo.
All-consuming.
For Jed, the Coffin Nails Motorcycle Club is
family. With them, he learned how to think, what to enjoy, and how to fight,
but there is one thing he knows his friends can’t find out about. They would
never accept him as gay, and so his life is a constant struggle with desires
that fill him with despair. Only there is a much darker secret lurking in Jed’s
heart. His feelings for his stepbrother, Ryder, go far beyond brotherly.
Trapped with a yearning that can never be fulfilled, Jed spirals out of control
and unwillingly puts the love of his life in danger.
Ryder is climbing up the ranks. Recently
promoted to Sergeant-at-arms, he has it all: drive, respect, and the love of
his biker family. When his stepbrother gets into trouble with the law, Ryder
decides to take the blame and save him from a long sentence. Deep inside, he
knows there is nothing he wouldn’t do for Jed, but through a desperate attempt
to suppress his own hidden desires, he might irreversibly break the man he
secretly loves.
But finding out what they feel for each other
will test their loyalty to the Coffin Nails MC and put their love to the test.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS:
Themes:
Outlaw motorcycle club, criminal
activity, forbidden love, stepbrothers, blackmail, homophobia
Genre:
M/M erotic romance, suspense,
drama
Length:
135, 000 (standalone novel)
WARNING:
Adult content that might be
considered taboo. Explicit gay sex, strong language, violence. Reader
discretion advised.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of
characters to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, events, places or names
is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or
transferred in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the
publisher. Uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any
other means without a permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by
law.
Text copyright © 2015 K.A. Merikan
All Rights Reserved
Cover design by
Natasha Snow
Table of contents
A little note: We know someone
going to jail would have to get rid of their piercings, but... let's just call
it poetic licence that they don't.
Kat & Agnes Merikan
If Jed believed in God,
he’d consider Ryder the most tempting mortal sin, just waiting to be committed.
It was for the better that Ryder was straight, because Jed could safely ogle
him without feeling like it was a gateway drug to fucking. Even waking up from
wet dreams about Ryder had guilt choking Jed and sent him straight for a cold
shower. They could be stepbrothers and best friends, but if Ryder knew just how
depraved Jed was, even their platonic closeness could end. Still, Jed’s gaze
trailed over the firm thighs and tight butt in the dark gray jeans, then
followed the sway of the chain hanging off Ryder’s belt. And higher, to the
broad shoulders.
Jed sat on a grimy bench
outside the Coffin Nails MC clubhouse, beer in one hand, cigarette in the
other. His stepbrother was celebrating the sergeant-at-arms patch that had been
newly added to his cut, and now swayed to the music with his girlfriend, Jess.
Jealousy was making its way down Jed’s throat, but it was hard to look away
from Ryder’s thick, tan arms covered in dark hairs, or the smile amidst dark
stubble. If only that grin were for Jed… He would do anything to get more of
Ryder’s attention.
When Ryder started
kissing Jess though, Jed had to look away. She was so small that she only made
Ryder seem bigger, like he wasn’t already a six foot three hunk of pure
tattooed muscle. Why couldn’t Jed like girls too? They could go on double dates
with Ryder, talk about straight shit without Jed making stuff up. At least with
the way Ryder made him feel, Jed was sure he’d never fall for any other guy.
Ryder was safe. Jed could fantasize about pulling the hairband off Ryder’s
barely-there black ponytail, feeling the scratch of his stubble, seeing an
intensity in his eyes that would speak of bottomless lust. Nothing would come
of it, and no one needed to know who Jed thought about late at night when he
couldn’t sleep.
Cars were passing the
club-owned compound like streaks of light in the darkness, hypnotizing Jed to
look past the wire fence and into the black void stretching past the glow of
the one working lamp over Jed’s head. There were two more of them in the
courtyard, but the bulbs had given up long ago, and no one bothered to change
them. There were fewer chairs in the clubhouse every year for the same reason.
The music was much
quieter outside, and Jed liked it well enough as beer clouded his brain and
opened Jed up to thoughts that were normally deeply hidden. He sighed,
marveling at the way Ryder held Jess up, carrying her like a baby while she fed
him liquor straight from the bottle. Ryder’s hair was so shiny and thick Jed
couldn’t help but think about how it would feel in his hands. He would never
know, of course, because it would be too weird to ask for permission to touch
it.
Jed flinched when the
door of the clubhouse burst open next to him, and Axe, one of the patched
members, rushed outside pulling along two girls, one of whom was intently
stroking his bright red mane. With his hands on two perky asses, Axe strolled
over to Ryder and gave him a strong pat on the back.
“Have a drink,
Sheriff
,”
he chuckled drunkenly. “We need one more night of freedom until you put collars
on us all.”
Ryder laughed in that
sharp baritone that never failed to raise the hairs on Jed’s forearms.
“Indulge. That’s your last chance.”
“Oh, I intend to,” said
Axe, and he must have pinched one of the girls, as she got to her toes with a
yelp, before playfully elbowing him in the ribs. They exchanged a kiss, and
soon enough Axe and his two partners stumbled toward the garage where the Nails
repaired their bikes. Jed suspected Axe would be taking the girls farther, to a
bunker-turned-warehouse where the club kept their assets, including Axe’s babies,
a tank and a helicopter.
Jed inhaled a big drag
of smoke but almost choked on it when Dana, the bane of his existence, sat down
next to him. Just what he needed. She smiled at him with her fake white teeth
and flipped back the blonde extensions.
“Aren’t you drinking a
bit too much,
honey
?” Her voice was so sweet he almost gagged.
Like she cared if he drank
himself to death. “None of your business,” he grumbled, and hated the way she
squinted at him.
“You won’t be of much
use like this.” She lowered her voice, and when he got up, caught his wrist in
a grip much too strong for a woman her size.
He shrugged off her hand
so violently a few people turned heads. “I don’t care!” He pushed back the long
hair falling into his face and made a point of downing his beer before walking
off. Six months with this witch from hell would be enough to push anyone to the
edge of sanity.
He walked past Brain,
who played a drunken game of chess against Tower, who worked at the club-owned
gym in town. He was constantly pulling on his gray sideburns and didn’t even
notice Jed passing by. Brain was dealing with their papers and taxes, as he was
the only one out of them who’d ever done any college courses, and it was a bit
baffling to see him on the losing side of the game.
Jed spotted Ryder again
and tried to catch his gaze, but when he didn’t manage, he threw the bottle
into a trash can and walked into the clubhouse lounge. It was bursting with
people, almost like the only nightclub in the area on a Saturday night, but
here, in the Coffin Nails MC compound, it was hard rock and metal, not R&B
that filled what empty space was left between tightly pressed bodies.
Dark was already
completely besotted and slept on a chair in the corner with a red-haired woman
draped across his lap. His long black hair obscured his face, and Jed knew the
man would be out till morning. Close-by, Bert, their oldest member, was still
up and running, the burning end of his cigar swinging as he ground his hips
against the ass of his old lady. The man’s stamina was admirable, and Jed
secretly hoped to be as lively in his sixties.
Grease, their prospect,
was stinking up the lounge with the scent of hot oil as the trays next to him
filled with pieces of fried chicken. Mikey, the new enforcer, was standing
there with some girl and munched on a piece of the meat put between two slices of
toast. Every time he closed his mouth, his large ears twitched against his bald
head.
Jed briefly saw Ripper,
their club president, kissing a skinny blonde girl with shorts so tiny, they
covered only half of her buttocks. Jed nodded at Ripper, and the old man
grinned back, gently pushing the girl to her knees in front of him. That Jed
definitely didn’t want to witness, and so be pushed behind the counter of the
kitchenette and maneuvered his way between pieces of broken bottles, all the
way to the safety of the small restroom hidden away behind the two giant
fridges.
He switched on the light
and opened his zipper, happy to empty his bladder in relative peace. He closed
his eyes, listening to the clear sound of the stream of liquid hitting
porcelain, with the background of muffled music.
“Did you not hear what I
said?” asked Dana.
Jed yelped and startled
so hard he pissed over the toilet seat. Not that it had been clean in the first
place. “Get the fuck out,” he hissed, looking over his shoulder to a face that
was devoid of the fake smile Dana sported in public. It was now as blank as a
new sheet. Jed could swear someone should make a modern day retelling of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde, and cast her as the main character. Words got trapped in his
mouth when her long-fingered hand held up Jed’s old phone. He didn’t need to
look at the screen to know what was playing. He knew that recording so well he
could rewatch it in his mind in each painstaking detail.
A pretty, boyish face in
front of his cock and Jed’s own voice telling him to suck it. The boy had not
been keen to be a porn star, and as a result of a struggle, the phone had
fallen to the floor, catching Jed’s face on camera. That had been Jed’s one and
only attempt at getting it on with a guy. A nightmare that would haunt him
forever. He should have kept his dick in his pants. Then again, how was he supposed
to know this vid would get into the hands of a spy?
Dana sighed loudly, like
an actress on stage, and her fingers scratched Jed’s back. “Are you forgetting
yourself again?” she asked, and he wanted nothing more than to squash her
throat with his bare hands. She’d probably put up a good struggle, being an
apprentice to a mafia assassin and all that, but Jed was pretty sure he could
take out a hundred-pound woman if it wasn’t for the fact that... he couldn’t.
She had copies of the video stored somewhere, and they would go live online if
she didn’t enter some sort of code on a regular basis. That was her way of
protecting herself against Jed’s aggression. He was trapped for as long as she
needed his help. He was a victim of his own stupidity and the lust that had clouded
his judgement that one fucking time.
“Can’t you fucking see
I’m pissing?” he muttered, tense and slightly dizzy. “Turn it off.”
Dana harrumphed and
paused the video but still stood uncomfortably close. “I will delete it forever
when I finally meet the lovely Man from Colombia.”
Jed would rather eat her
pussy every day for a month than hear about this ever again. The truth about
him was an embarrassment to his family, to his club, but talking to an outsider
about Coffin Nails’ business was a whole new level of betrayal that he didn’t
want to reach. He was already scraping the bottom of the moral barrel as it
was, lusting for his stepbrother.
“Yeah, sure, I’d love to
help, but I don’t really know a fucking thing about him,” he whispered, paranoid
that someone could overhear this conversation. If anyone knew he was not
reporting her as a spy, he’d be fucked. If he actually disclosed intel to her,
and someone found out, Jed was as good as dead. For the last few months, he’d
juggled her curiosity by giving her scraps that wouldn’t get her anywhere and
even hinting at false information, but what she really wanted at this point was
a chance to talk to a big arms dealer everyone in the club referred to as
the Man from Colombia
. Jed was lucky not to know that much about him, but
he’d already overstepped boundaries when she threatened to send the video to
Ryder. Fortunately, Dana didn’t find anything of value to her in Ripper’s
computer, but it could have ended in something much worse. Being gay was one
thing, being a rat quite another.
A few months on, and she
was starting to be restless, hungry for any information she could get. Jed was
testing her patience, but there wasn’t much he could do without outing himself.
He was trapped.
It was a waiting game,
as he knew Dana’s boss had told her to stay here for a year. All it would take
to get rid of her was a few more months evading questions and pretending he was
a total fuckup, who had no way to get intel from club bigwigs.
Dana turned Jed to face
her as soon as he finished pissing, and she pushed him at the wall. “You can
coax something out of your brother now that he’s risen in the ranks. He will
tell you what he knows,” she said, chewing on her plump lip. She had to get
fillers to have a mouth like that. A lot of guys envied Jed a girl like Dana.
He was twenty-five, she was probably around that age as well. Blonde, fit,
sported denim hot pants that didn’t go with her personality, and presented
herself to others as a bubbly, cheerful person. Too bad she was nothing like
that behind closed doors.
“I will try then,” he
lied, and a tiny twitch of her eyebrow told him she knew he wasn’t being
sincere. Even at home he wasn’t at ease since she moved in as if it were her
godgiven right to invade his personal space.
“Do it for me,
baby,
”
she whispered, and it was just as if cold slime slid all the way down Jed’s
back. He didn’t answer when she patted his ass and left without another word.
So she’d chased him out of his own bedroom, and now this?
Jed couldn’t betray
Ryder. He’d rather die than do that. He took a deep breath that smelled of piss
and didn’t help him clear his head at all. There had to be a way out of this
mess with Dana, and he would find it even if it killed him.
A loud knock on the door
startled him, but knowing Dana wouldn’t announce herself, he looked out into
the lounge, only to meet Tom, a hangaround he was friendly with. The guy played
electric guitar in a local band and sometimes hung out with Jed in his garage.
With his slightly crooked nose and lanky body, he wasn’t a threat to the
barriers that contained Jed’s lust. Then again, after the consequences Jed was
suffering for his one and only attempt at gay sex, he was pretty sure he’d been
deterred for life. Those Jesus anti-gay camps should be using Dana as a counselor.
She’d be called Dr. Celibacy.
“That was quick,” yelled
Tom into Jed’s ear to be heard despite the music. “Did you get her off too, or
are you holding back ‘til you’re both home?”
Jed laughed. One thing
Dana was good for—being his beard. “Me? Wait? Nah, a quickie over the toilet,
you know? She’s full of spunk now,” he said, feeling like the lamest person on
Earth.
Tom wiggled his
eyebrows. “My ex wouldn’t be caught dead fucking outside the bed. You’re a
lucky man.”
“Hell yeah. She’s got a
tight pussy. Milks you out of all the man-juices.” Jed reached to the massive
fridge and got himself and Tom some beers. He felt a shudder go down his spine
when Tom grabbed his nape and pulled himself up to whisper straight into Jed’s
ear.