Temper: Road Roses MC Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

  TEMPER copyright 2016 by Ada Stone. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Don’t stop now! Keep reading for a sneak preview of my MC romance, CHAINED TO THE OUTLAW

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Other Works by Ada Stone

  Spear

  Chained to the Outlaw

  Bound to the Beast

  Wed to the Devil

  Chapter One

  Luke

  Wicked Rose was a narrow shop that was set up like a foyer with a hallway at the end stuck onto the back as an afterthought. There was more to it than that, but you wouldn’t know it if you didn’t have the inside scoop. The walls had been painted black, but were half covered by prints and photos with examples of our work on them. Roses were the theme, of course, but there were skulls, crosses, Celtic crap, and even photo realistic faces. We did just about anything and the best of it was on display.

  The business was legit, but the people who ran it, myself included, weren’t. At least, not always. We needed a place to run the money through, clean it up before it made the rounds. Having a legitimate business in place helped out with that. Most of what we did was legal, but there wasn’t a soul out there dumb enough to believe that we didn’t get a little side cash, too.

  “That punk ass doesn’t have a peg leg to stand on,” Garrison growled, folding his arms over his broad chest. He was wearing only a leather vest, no shirt beneath, and looked the part of a Mad Max road warrior. He was my right hand because he was loyal and intimidating as hell.

  I valued that in my lieutenants.

  We were seated in the very back of the Wicked Rose, our chairs anything from milk crates to old tattoo chairs. I’d chosen to stand because I wanted people to know that I was in charge. That was what this meeting was all about, authority. It seemed stupid to have to have a pissing contest as a grown man with a bunch of other grown men, but ultimately that was part of the deal. I ran a business that depended on the loyalty of my men. And if that meant I had to stomp around a little bit and make some noise so they remembered who was in charge, I didn’t have a problem with that.

  And when they still didn’t listen? I’d bust some heads.

  “Armand doesn’t need a peg leg,” countered Sorenson from my right.

  He was seated on one of the adjustable stools, straddling it like a little kid. He was the youngest of my lieutenants at only eighteen years old. He’d be nineteen at the end of the year, and if he’d still been in high school, I probably wouldn’t have kept him around. But he was a hard kid already and he’d attached himself to me like a cold sore. Even if I got rid of him once, he’d come back at the first, most inconvenient moment he could.

  Garrison growled at Sorenson, but the kid ignored him like he wasn’t afraid, which was pretty impressive since Garrison was about five inches taller and looked like a pro wrestler. “Armand just needs to be convincing, and since god didn’t see fit to bless him with good looks, he gave him the gift of fucking others in the ass. Otherwise known as being a sneaky but convincing bastard.”

  Across the way, Delano was leaning back against the tattoo chair, the old one that he’d spray painted with neon colors that made it look like a piece of modern art—or trash. Either way. With his arms folded behind his head, he wore a lazy smile on his mustached face, like he wasn’t interested or concerned about any of this. Which was a load of bullshit, but he never liked to appear too invested in anything.

  “Let him weasel his way into whoever’s bed he wants,” Delano told the group easily, tone light. “He can whisper them sweet nothings until he’s blue in the face. I say let him go so that we can find the rats and out them. Anyone who ain’t with us, ain’t a Rose.”

  I was inclined to agree with Delano, which was a rarity. The Road Roses were mine and I ruled them with an iron fist. I had to after the retirement of Old Man Jones. He’d been a good leader, for the most part, but he’d been sloppy. Too loose with the boys, too lenient when they stepped out of line. It had led to dissention in the ranks, to factions within that left me with half the club poised to overthrow me, while the other half cowered in fear of what I would do if they didn’t listen.

  It was a hard way to do business. “We need the numbers. And we need the loyalty,” I finally told the group.

  Carson was the only one who hadn’t tossed his two cents in and I knew that he was waiting on something. He was a big man, but quiet. It meant that when he did spoke, he meant every word and you’d best listen, because he was probably bestowing worthwhile pearls of wisdom on you.

  The group fell silent, mulling over the situation. I didn’t like the sense that I was losing a grip on my boys, but I didn’t know what else to do about it. I’d started as many fights as I’d broken up, and I was about ready to kill that little snake Armand if I didn’t think I’d have to take half my men on to do it.

  Finally, Carson leaned forward on his milk crate and fixed me with a piercing stare. “You gotta be the boss, boss,” he told me seriously.

  I frowned at him. “I am the boss.” My tone was cool, challenging.

  He held up his scarred hands, showing he meant no offense. “Yes, you’re the boss, but you’re not Old Man Jones.”

  For a moment, it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. All of my lieutenants seemed to be holding their breath, waiting to see what I was going to do or say. A big part of me wanted to walk over to Carson and punch him until he bled out on the black-and-white checkered floor. I didn’t take insolence well, and my first reaction was always violence. It was quick and effective; nobody argued with violence.

  But I resisted the urge because this was Carson and he
was telling me what everyone else was too scared to tell me. It made me respect him enough to keep my temper in check.

  Just barely.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  The room seemed to ease a little now that they’d all realized I wasn’t going to start a vicious fight with one of their ranks. Even Carson’s shoulders relaxed fractionally, telling me that he’d been half expecting it.

  “I mean that the Old Man was a certain kind of man,” Carson explained carefully, clearly picking his words to give the most impact and the least insult. “Maybe he was a little soft on the boys, but he was also a good man, a family man.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “A family man?” I snorted. “What? Are you telling me I need to go out and knock some chick up and start a family for the boys to accept me?”

  Carson shrugged his shoulders, then offered me a crooked smile. “Kind of. At least the knocking her up part would be fun.”

  The others laughed a little at that, though still clearly nervous. I cracked a smile, but it was forced. A family? Was he nuts? Sure, I’d considered it. Not in the context of the club, but in my own personal sphere of existence. A pretty little wife waiting for me at home, someone to bang every night and kiss on the cheek every morning. Maybe a kid or two who I could teach about baseball and motorcycles and whatever else I thought was important. Hell, maybe we’d even get a damn dog.

  But the problem with all of that was that I wasn’t the kind of man who could do that crap. I was Luke Canter, leader of the Road Roses, known for my ruthlessness, my iron grip, and my temper. What sort of asshole thought a man like that should have a white picket fence and a bun in the oven?

  “You’re out of your mind, Carson,” I finally said, and the laughter died. I glanced around the semi-circle of men, their faces all wearing matching expressions that were grim and unfortunate. It wasn’t until I looked at each of them in quick succession that I realized that these men were in agreement on this crazy proclamation. I looked down at Sorenson and found that even he seemed to think so. “Seriously?” I asked him, disbelieving.

  He winced a little at being singled out, then shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I mean, the man’s got a point. The Old Man had that cute little girl with the pigtails—the guys were crazy about her! You see all these big, burly bikers, tougher than nails, and then this little girl asks them for a tea party and you know they’ll all sit there with her damn teddy bears and play pretend with her anyway. That’s loyalty there.”

  They others chuckled at that, but I considered what he’d just said seriously. It was true. Jones’s little girl, Clara, had been an angelic little monster that made grown men dressed in leather and covered with tattoos crumple beneath her big blue eyes. It had been both adorable and terrifying.

  Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to rule through my daughter’s whim. Violence had always been effective for me.

  “So you’re saying I need a six-year-old little girl to run this club?”

  It was Delano who spoke up next, shocking us all by sitting up and waving off my words like they were annoying mosquitos. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one wants you to go and adopt some orphaned girl. But they’re saying that they want you to show that you’ve got a softer side. That you’ve got some consistency, some roots. They want you to be their boss and their dad.” He shrugged, then grinned at me. “Apparently riders all have daddy issues.”

  I let out a sigh and shook my head. It was one thing to have Carson or any single lieutenant tell me that I should settle down, but when everyone was going over the same idea like it was the best one they’d heard all night? That was different. That gave more weight to Carson’s suggestion.

  “So I’m supposed to settle down,” I said evenly, keeping my temper in check because I knew it wasn’t going to win me any ground tonight.

  The others considered it, then one by one ended up nodding their heads in agreement. Even Garrison, which was surprising. He wasn’t a big family man himself and I wouldn’t have pegged him as appreciating one in charge. Still, despite his bulky, body guard type frame, he wasn’t an idiot. He thought things through better than most.

  Sorenson looked up at me and said, “Maybe if you just found some hot chick, you know? One you could stick with and have at home. One you could show off at barbecues and shit like that.” He shrugged. “You know, give you the look of someone who’s got things in order.”

  I felt the intense urge to roll my eyes at his suggestion. Having an eighteen-year-old boy tell me that I should settle down with some chick for the sake of appearances was a little ridiculous. But the fact of the matter was that I was starting to think he and the rest of them were right.

  But it was a more complicated suggestion than they realized.

  Who the hell was I supposed to settle down with? Most of the women in the club, by nature of the club, were already attached to riders. Our policy on females in the group was more lenient than most clubs out there, but fact was that I needed to know that any woman in the group could hold her own, and I didn’t have faith in most of them.

  Which meant that the three around who were available were Caroline, Sarah, and Vivian. None of which I had any interest in cuddling up with.

  Caroline slept with anything she could wrap her legs around. Sarah was a lesbian. And Vivian…well, Vivian was such a bitch that I only called on her when I wanted to pick a fight with someone.

  No, not exactly candidates to make me look more like a family man.

  I could, of course, look beyond the confines of the club. There were women out there who liked to be attached to a bad boy, but most of them weren’t really interested in lingering—and most of them I didn’t want to stay anyhow. Finding a girl I wanted to fuck and whose company didn’t drive me up the walls was a feat that I’d yet to accomplish.

  Frustrated, I ran my hand through my hair. I was tired of thinking about this crap. I needed to let out a little steam. I needed time to think this over—and to come up with an alternate plan, because I had a feeling this one wasn’t going to work.

  I wasn’t the settling down type, whatever fleeting fantasies I might have had.

  I was the kind of man fathers warned their daughters about. I was the kind of man who slipped between the sheets and rocked a woman’s world, then left her in the morning. I was the kind of man who took what he wanted and fuck all the rest.

  Not the kind of man any woman wanted to settle down with.

  Letting out a whoosh of air, I finally glanced around at my men—my lieutenants and, for the most part, my friends. “Alright. I’ll consider it. And while I’m considering it, I think we all need to go and have a couple of beers.”

  The others agreed instantly, including Sorenson. But it was fine. Where we were going, no one was going to card him.

  We left Wicked Rose through the backdoor, heading into the small fenced-in parking lot that was for employees only. Which actually meant members of the Road Roses motorcycle club. I mounted my Harley and revved it up. When the other bikes joined in the sound, I took off, leading the way towards the outskirts of Mount Rose where the seedy little bar known as Off Limits clung to the edge of society by the skin of its teeth and the generosity of assholes like us.

  …

  Off Limits was crowded. It was a Friday, so no surprise. Most of the less than wholesome characters in Mount Rose partied at Off Limits on the weekend. It was when they got to strip off their work suits, put up their good boy pants, and trade them in for the leather and roughness that wasn’t appreciated in the everyday lives of good, honest, god fearing townsfolk. A big joke. Mount Rose, like any other town—growing quickly to the title of city—had its underbelly, despite the dear mayor’s best attempts.

  The bar was settled along a backwoods road that only had one measly sign half faded and scraped off. The bar itself looked almost like a log cabin on the outside with plain wooden panels for the walls and a porch with railing that was always knocked off and usually left in a pile off
to the side when the owners got tired of putting it back up. The place looked ready to fall apart at any minute, but it was one of the few places in Mount Rose that allowed for drinking until three and fighting at all hours.

  So long as you took it outside.

  The bouncer tonight was Fat Freddie who had about three hundred pounds too much on his tall frame and liked to sit by the door like he didn’t give a fuck what was happening.

  Which everyone believed until the first time he stepped between two assholes trying to pummel each other and lifted them up like they were made of papier-mâché. He tossed them outside and told them to get along inside or duke it out outside. He didn’t care which.

  After that, people made sure to be extra polite to Fat Freddie.

  I gave him a nod, which he returned, then led my boys inside to a table next to the bar and along the wall. It was as rickety as the rest of the place and half sticky with spilled alcohol, but you just accepted that about this place. The girls who worked here did their best to keep it picked up, but they were also fending off rowdy, drunk assholes and trying to keep their asses out of the hands of those they didn’t want.

  I’d never had one brush my hand away before.

  A pretty redheaded waitress stopped by, one I’d seen before and had a roll in the hay with. She took our orders, then winked at me. I considered taking her to bed with me, though I didn’t like going back to the same woman more than a time or two. It got them to thinking we were a more permanent establishment than we were, and I was an asshole, but I wasn’t a dick. I didn’t like leading anyone on about anything.