Sniper Read online

  I raise my hands in the air and holler to my brothers, “Hey, attention, listen, everyone. This is Avery. She is with me… she’s mine. No one touches her. She is under the protection of the club.”

  As I talk, I can see the surprised look on some of their faces, but everyone nods their heads in agreement. No one here will defy me. But that’s not what has me worried. It’s the fact that I’ve only known this woman a few minutes, and I’m already claiming her.

  She smiles up at me before she takes a bite of her burger. I don’t think she realizes what just went down. I don’t think she realizes that I just claimed her before my club, which is a huge fucking deal in this world.

  I look around the room as she finishes her sandwich and everyone‘s eyes are still on us, but in a different way. They are no longer looking at her with heat; curiosity is the only thing on their faces. Which they are fuckin’ lucky. I don’t want to have to kill one of my brothers.

  Chapter 4

  Avery

  “What do you mean I’m staying in your room tonight?” I ask him.

  He fed me and then rushed me off to his bedroom. I thought I would have a room to myself, but apparently that’s not the case.

  He pulls one of his T-shirts out of a drawer and hands it to me. “Sorry, honey, but space is limited for a few days. But don’t worry, you’re safe with me.”

  “I’m safe… in a biker’s bed… that I just met?” I ask him snarkily.

  “I promise to stay on my side of the bed. Go ahead and get cleaned up. We need to talk.”

  I merely nod at him and walk toward the bathroom door where he is pointing. When I walk in, I close the door and look at myself in the mirror. I gasp at my reflection. I have dark circles under my eyes and my hair is sticking up everywhere. The bruises on my face and lip make me look like someone I don’t even know.

  I turn on the shower and wait for it to heat up. I strip down and jump in and stand under the hot spray, allowing it to loosen my sore muscles. I use the manly smelling soap and as I rub it across my body, I think about how it smells just like him.

  I clean off quickly, washing my hair, and then dry myself off and get dressed in his T-shirt and my underwear from earlier. I definitely need to figure out something about clothes. I use his toothpaste and finger-brush my teeth before I walk back into his room.

  He’s sprawled out on the bed and even though the bed is massive, he still takes up more than half of it. He has sweat pants on but his chest is bare. His body is covered in tattoos.

  He lifts his head to look at me. “C’mon, there’s plenty of room.”

  “If you want to go back to the party, I’ll be fine in here by myself,” I tell him as I walk over to the bed and climb up until I’m between him and the wall. Sliding under the covers, I scoot as far against the wall as I can. He reaches over and turns the light off by the bed and the room is bathed in darkness.

  We lie there, neither of us talking, until he finally breaks the silence. “I asked Brick. He said you didn’t have any bags with you.”

  The light is out, but my eyes are finally adjusting. I can see the steady rise and fall of his chest. “No bags. I didn’t have time to pack anything. But don’t worry about it. I’m going to go look for a job and a place to stay tomorrow.”

  “You’ll stay here until I take care of your husband. And I can put you to work,” he says quietly.

  I jerk up on my elbows. “I won’t be one of your strippers, dancers, whores or whatever you call them. I don’t do that.”

  “It would be over my dead body, honey. No one here will see you like that. And by the way, we call them sweet butts. And no one forces them to do it. They want to, and they're treated kindly by the club, but no, you won’t be one of them. I thought I could have you work in the office for a while. I could use some help getting organized.”

  “I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I’ve never had a job before. I figured I could waitress or something. But I’ll make sure I earn my keep. And I won’t be in your way long.”

  He’s been staring at the ceiling but now he rolls to his side and faces me. I gasp at how wide his shoulders are. I can’t see the other wall now; all I can see is him. “You’re not ‘in my way.’”

  “Oh yeah? How come when I walked in here there were five other women looking at me as if I’ve kicked them out of their bed for the night… by the way, are these sheets clean?”

  He outright laughs at my question. “They’re clean.”

  I open my mouth to ask him again about the women, but then slam it shut. It’s none of my business. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

  “And I haven’t had a twinkie in here – or anywhere else – in a long while.”

  I don’t respond to him and instead of looking at him across the pillow, I close my eyes. The silence is comfortable. That is until he asks me the question I’ve been dreading.

  “Tell me about your husband.”

  I don’t open my eyes. With them closed, I feel a sense of security and I need that more than anything when I talk about him.

  “We got married when I was eighteen. The first year was okay, but somewhere along the line, he got mixed up with drugs and the wrong people. He started beating me. He beat me more times than I could count. We live in a small town and people at the hospital even looked the other way when it was obvious he was beating me. Nobody goes against Cameron. Well, anyway, he had created a pattern. He would beat me, usually until I passed out, and then he would leave the house and be gone for hours. I guess he thought I wasn’t able to go anywhere so he never worried about me leaving. Those were the only times I was ever alone. Anytime else, he was with me, or had someone with me. So, this last time, I forced myself to get up. I stole one of his cars, drove two towns over and got on a bus for here.”

  He asks me a few more questions about his name, his work and the name of the town. I answer him truthfully, but I also worry about him getting involved.

  “Look, Jeremy, I don’t want you to do anything. That’s not what this is about. I just need somewhere to stay until I can get on my feet again. That’s all. He doesn’t know anything about you and he won’t come here.”

  Sniper

  I can hear it in her voice that she honestly believes that. Maybe that’s good though. I want her to feel safe, and as long as she’s here, she will be.

  She doesn’t realize that a man like him, one that beats women, is not going to be okay with her running from him. It would be easy to trace where she went on a bus. And this town is small too, not that a lot of people would go against the Exiled Guardians. But there’s still a possibility he will be able to find her.

  When the silence is weighing on me, I realize I don’t want her to go to sleep talking about her husband. “So, in here, or just the two of us, I’m Jeremy. Out there, I’m Sniper.”

  “Oh.” She pulls the covers up farther across her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I can call you Sniper all the time.”

  “No. No, I like when you call me Jeremy,” I admit to her. I can’t remember the last time I heard my birth name before she called me that earlier today. But from her, it just sounds right.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t know a lot about motorcycle gangs,” she starts.

  “Clubs. We’re not a gang. It’s a club.”

  “Oh, okay, so I don’t know a lot about motorcycle clubs. Earlier when you told your club that I was yours and under club protection, well, that seemed pretty heavy. Not only to me, but by the looks on some of their faces, them too. What does that mean?”

  Fuck, I should have known she wouldn’t miss that. And although I’m still working out how I feel, I’m not good at putting feelings into words. I’ve never had to before. My longest relationship has been when I let a woman sleep in my bed overnight. And even that hardly ever happened.

  All I know is that I’ve never felt this territorial before. I’ve never claimed a woman be
fore and she’s right: surprise was on their faces. I just knew that I wasn’t going to stand by and wait for someone else to claim her. Ever since I saw her curvy body in Brick’s arms, I wanted her. But it’s a different kind of want. It makes my heart pound in my ears and blood throb in my veins.

  But do I tell her all that? She’s here, under my protection, and I don’t want to scare her off. I shrug my shoulders in the dark room. “You’ve been through enough. You don’t need the men, even though they’re good men, fighting over you. I declared you as mine. You’re off limits now. You can heal… take time and get better.”

  “Oh,” she mumbles.

  I try to look at her face, but the shadows have it hidden from me. Was that disappointment I heard in her voice?

  “Get some sleep. I’ll be here in the morning. We have church, so if you can’t find me that’s where I’ll be.”

  She stretches her arms over her head and yawns. When she’s settled again, she asks, “Is tomorrow Sunday? I thought it was Friday. How long was I out for?”

  I chuckle. I swear I’ve laughed more with her in one day than I have in months. “Church is just a club meeting. It’s in the big room next to my office. It’s patched members only, but if you need me someone can get me for you.”

  “Okay.” She yawns again. “Good night.”

  “Night.”

  Chapter 5

  Avery

  I slept better last night than I have in a lifetime. At one point in the middle of the night, I rolled over and wrapped myself around Jeremy. He seems to have slept through it, but the heat and safety of his arms almost has me wishing I would have stayed there. Once I moved away, I felt a cold chill the rest of the night.

  I stretch and rise up on the bed, looking around the bare room. Besides the large bed and dresser, there’s not much else to it. There are some shopping bags on the dresser with a note attached. I get out of bed and the chill hits me so I wrap the blanket around me and pad over to the dresser.

  Picking up the note, I read, “I had one of the twinkies get you some clothes. I’ll take you shopping later for more and whatever else you need. Don’t leave the clubhouse.”

  I roll my eyes thinking really, where the hell am I going to go?

  I pull the tags off my new clothes and thank goodness there’s even a new package of underwear. There’s a bra, but I guess they were being cute and bought me a 36A, knowing good and well that that’s not what I wear. I put on my bra from yesterday, and then pull the shirt out of the bag. It’s a T-shirt with a cat on the front of it. Really? Who picked this shit out? Oh well, at least it fits. Next I pull out the new pair of jeans and when I see the size fourteen on the tag, I wad them up and throw them back in the bag. I walk over to my clothes I had on yesterday and slip on my size eighteen jeans. At least they put in a toothbrush. After taking care of business in the bathroom, I slide on my sandals and open the door to hopefully get something to eat and maybe see Jeremy.

  As soon as I open the door, I see a man standing there with his arms across his chest. “Hey, I’m Rancher.”

  “Uh, I’m Avery.” I look up at him with his cowboy hat and the tattoos up and down his arms. Okay, he’s a cowboy in a motorcycle club. Maybe that’s normal, what do I know? “Did you need something?”

  “Nope.”

  I nod at him and start walking toward the kitchen but stop when I see he’s following me. “Uh, what are you doing?”

  The corners of his lips curve up just slightly, but just as quickly they flatten out. “Sniper told me to keep an eye on you. Make sure no one bothered you.”

  I nod my head at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be at church?”

  He lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “He made an exception.”

  My stomach growls then and Rancher’s face breaks out into a big smile. “We better get you fed.”

  My face heats, but I simply follow him to the kitchen.

  Sniper

  “Okay, so does everyone have it? Brick, you’re going lead on this. Me, Rancher, and Rider will go with you. I want him finished along with anyone that gets in our way.”

  Brick stands up. “Got it, Pres. Widowmaker in effect. After seeing Avery yesterday, this is an easy order to enforce. We ride out in one hour.”

  “Church dismissed,” I call out and watch as everyone stands to leave. “Hey, Brick, if Avery’s up, have Rancher bring her here for me.”

  “Got it,” he calls out.

  I watch as everyone files out of the room. I didn’t talk to Avery about any of this, and I don’t know if I will. I did what I thought needed done. I’m not used to answering to anyone. Having her in my bed all night, I barely slept. At one point she curled up against me and I had to fight hard to not wrap my arms around her and pull her into me. It would have been so easy to pull her up on top of me. But I stopped myself. When it happens, and hell yeah, it’s going to happen, I don’t want anything, namely her husband, hanging over her head.

  Rancher walks in a while later and Avery is following behind. She has two plates in her hands. She smiles up at Rancher and thanks him before he shuts the door.

  She walks over to the table and sets a plate of bacon, eggs and toast down in front of me. She takes the seat across from me. “I asked Keeper and he didn’t know if you ate or not, so I fixed you a plate.”

  I smile at her. “Thanks, honey. Nice shirt.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Beggars can’t be choosers, right?”

  “I was going to take you shopping but I have to take a trip. I’ll only be gone a day – two max – but if you order some stuff online just overnight it.”

  “I’ll just wash my clothes. I’m fine. Where are you going?”

  I shake my head at her. “That’s not how this works, honey. I tell you to do something and you do it.”

  She laughs. Literally laughs at me. Fuck, I’m going to have to get used to this. So she doesn’t like to be told what to do. Okay.

  I open my laptop and carry it around the table. I sit down next to her, opening a website to a shopping site. “I have to get on the road soon. Pick out some damn clothes.”

  She eats a piece of bacon, then wipes her hands off before going through and picking a few things. Once she’s done, I add a few different styles of what she picked out and add quantity to the jeans. “What about shoes? You can’t live in flip flops.”

  She punches a few buttons and adds a pair to the cart. I go in after her and add a few more.

  “Okay, what about underwear, bathroom stuff, anything like that?”

  She adds a few things and then I look at the cart, adding some more before hitting buy it now.

  “Sniper, no, I’ll never be able to repay you,” she complains at the price.

  I grip her chin softly and turn her face toward me and away from the computer. “What happened to calling me Jeremy?” I like her calling me by my given name.

  “Sorry, everyone was calling you Sniper all morning. It just came out.”

  I nod. “Okay, well, you don’t owe me a thing. I told you I was going to take care of things and I am. But while I’m gone I need you to stay at the clubhouse. I have everything laid out in my office, and if you feel like it, I would appreciate you filing and cleaning up a little in there.” I thought about it all night and I know she’s the type that has to stay busy. That’s the only way I’m going to keep her here at this point… at least until I get back. I locked up all the files that didn’t need to be seen; everything else she can sort and go through.

  She takes another bite of her food. “Sure, no problem. But you never answered me.”

  I finish eating mine and push the plate away from me. “It’s club business,” I tell her. Which is the truth: after church this morning, it became club business.

  “So does club business mean you can’t tell me about it?”

  I shake my head. This one is going to test me for sure. “Club business means I can’t talk about it. It means the less you know the better.”

  In a small voic
e, she asks me, “Does it mean it’s dangerous? Are you coming back?”

  I slide her chair around so she’s facing me. She looks at me briefly then looks away. I can see the fear on her face and I wish I could wipe it away. “It’s not dangerous. Not this time. And yes, I’m coming back.”

  Her shoulders drop and she takes a deep breath. “Okay, can you tell me if this has anything to do with me?”

  I cup her cheek with my hand. Her bruises are already fading, but I still can’t get the image of her bloodied lip and bruised eyes out of my head. “I’m not playing the guessing game with you. All you need to know is that I’m taking care of things. I will be safe while doing it and I am always going to come back to you.”

  “Always?” she asks as her eyes fly up to mine.

  I lean my forehead against hers. “Always. When I get back, we have some things to talk about. But I need to know you’re safe. No running off. And I want you in my bed at night. Tats is going to keep an eye on you until I’m back.”

  A knock sounds on the door, and I hear Brick holler, “Ready, Pres?”

  I pull away from Avery and stand up. “Be right there,” I tell him. “Be good while I’m gone,” I say to Avery and stride over to the door.

  “Wait,” she says and runs across the room to me. Her arms go around my waist and she squeezes me tight. “Will you kiss me before you go, Jeremy?”

  I grip on to her shoulders and look down into her darkened green eyes. I bend down and when my lips touch hers it’s like a force binds us together. My hands slide down her back and pull her tighter against me. Her mouth, soft and nimble under mine, opens wider and I increase the pressure of my tongue stroking her mouth. The more I give her, the more she takes, until we’re both breathing heavily and I have to force myself to pull away from her.

  “I’ll be back, I promise.” I kiss her briefly one more time and leave. I don’t look back, don’t let myself, because I know if I do, I won’t be able to walk out the door.