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  Kuttes and alliances and crime aside, this was the real fucking reason for his enjoyment in the MC lifestyle. Riding all day with his brothers and calling it his job; perfection.

  His old man had apparently been in an MC, but Ma never really discussed the man. Fritter suspected his mother had been a random one-nighter, but Fritter hoped she was at least a woman in his father’s Oklahoma port who warranted a regular visit. He loved his mother but he didn’t have illusions of her sainthood. She’d been a single mom raising him best she could, but she’d also been a woman who wanted companionship. His long parade of “uncles” who spent the night never bothered him as long as they were good to her.

  Markham town limits welcomed them home just as the rain started, but it was just a light shower. The streets were barely damp as the club assembled their bikes in an orderly line in front of Buck and Gertie’s house. For all his devotion to his wife, Fritter knew Buck felt no guilt for the club handing her old man over to mobsters who obviously intended to kill him.

  And Fritter didn’t feel one way or the other about it. Okay, that wasn’t true. He was fucking glad the prick was dead. Anyone who left his daughter to what Dénise had ... Well, that was a shit father. Fritter didn’t need one of his own to know that.

  Fritter hung out at the back of the group as they moved to the front door. Buck’s long legs and determination got him there first, and as the door opened Gertie was in his arms, pressing her face into the side of his neck. Ah, shit. She was crying. He couldn’t handle crying women.

  Under the overhang of the house they were out of the rain. Buck wrangled Gertie back inside, Tank and Mickey right behind them. Knuckles and Tiny stayed outside with him, Knuckles lighting up a cigarette.

  There was a blue Ford Escape outside the house, which meant Jolene was here. And a low-riding Impala was at the curb on the opposite side of the street, and Fritter was pretty sure it belonged to the tattooist the club used, Brady-something. Gertie was well supported.

  “Any reason to stick around?” Fritter asked.

  “Not really.” That came from Tiny.

  “I’ll go in and see her after this,” Knuckles said, holding up his smoke. Right, he was Gertie’s sponsor or something like that. Yeah, he was necessary. The rest of them, not so much.

  “I’m heading back to Ma’s then,” he decided. “Grab some sleep. If anything happens—”

  “We’ll find you,” Knuckles finished.

  “I’ll get back to the clubhouse,” Tiny mumbled with his deep voice, clasping fists with Knuckles as a farewell.

  With similar goodbyes Fritter and Tiny parted ways at the curb, his bikes rumbling to life as Tiny gave the semi horn a blow, then they peeled off in different directions down the quiet Markham street. His Ma lived outside of the town limits on the side closest to Hazeldale, so before long he could open up the throttle and throw the wind and rain in his hair. It was still a light rain, but it paid to be somewhat careful. For example, he obeyed the posted speed limit.

  The two-bed, two-bath bungalow sat quiet, not a sign of life. She must have had a shift at the hospital where she did laundry. That guaranteed him a good nap for a couple hours, assuming she hadn’t left a list of chores to do. He may have been overpaying the mortgage for her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still running the household.

  He pulled his bike all the way up to the back of the detached garage, wiped the raindrops from it, and shut the door before heading around to the backdoor off the porch. Inside on the kitchen table he found a tented note reading, Mow the lawn if you’re home before it rains.

  He smiled, moving past the instruction. “Just made it in time,” he mumbled, shedding his kutte and pulling the T-shirt off over his head. The shirt he threw in the laundry basket at the end of the hall, his jeans and socks joining it. The kutte was placed on its own hook in his room behind the door. He took a long hot shower, then returned to his room while toweling the water from his hair. His phone was chirping away that someone had left him a message, so he dug it out of his kutte. Man, he hoped everything with Gertie was okay—

  Markham Manor. 210. 6pm.

  He checked his alarm clock. It was two-thirty now, plenty of time to get some rest. Fritter had never mastered texting, so his reply was a lame OK.

  Then he set the phone on his nightstand and crawled into fresh sheets, smiling.

  Chapter Three

  A day off spent on paperwork was no day off. Even if the paperwork was to save your job.

  Sharon had spent the entire day filling out her paperwork for the upcoming sheriff’s elections for Markham County, although County was a misnomer. It was a small slip of property that neither Kern nor Kings County seemed to want, in danger of being absorbed. Or at least that’s what Sharon thought. The people that lived here seemed oblivious to how insignificant this town and the few tiny, surrounding communities were.

  Markham was the central population of the county, and the town was only named after the county was established. This was where a steel mill had been built, and the town sprang up around it.

  As sheriff her department was responsible for the municipal law enforcement in Markham, Hazeldale, and all other tiny communities. Their beat also included clusters of homes and businesses whose addresses were still, for all intents and purposes, Markham. Her staff in Markham itself was made up of four full time and two part-time officers. The part-time positions were vacant at the moment, after a prisoner was nearly beaten to death under their watch. They had two dispatch operators and a casual to cover their holidays. That was it, but that was actually a lot for the town size. All in all, Markham was home to only fifty thousand souls, tops.

  Her department was obsessive about enforcing bylaws, since the paid fines made up nearly half their operating budget. Without that money they’d really have to cut back.

  She’d been in this position for eight years. She had always run uncontested, until this year. The questions on the forms seemed more loaded this time around, and even if she was secure in her ability to do her job, there was a lingering doubt that she’d be allowed to. And for some reason getting the required signatures to back up her nomination seemed harder than she remembered the first time she ran.

  It was stress, that was probably what made her send Fritter that text message. Stress and doubt and a day spent alone with her own thoughts. She needed distraction. That’s why she’d booked the motel room on her way to file her papers. She’d sent the message as she was leaving Town Hall. She was out of uniform, driving her own car since it was on her own time. She was tucking away her phone as she headed down the concrete stairs to the parking lot, and when she saw the man starting up the stairs at the opposite end she had to pause.

  Archie Turnbull stopped when he saw her too, and the slimy smile he gave had nothing to do with the fact he was a car salesman. This was the asshole trying to take her job.

  The predictable anger was a flash of heat behind her breastbone, an increase in her pulse. Such bullshit. She went to cop college, she paid her dues working a shitty beat in Pasadena then Bakersfield giving out parking tickets and letting junkies spit on her and call her all kinds of terrible things.

  What had this ass ever done? He ran a car dealership his father had handed him when he retired. Such fucking bullshit.

  “Sheriff Downey,” he bellowed, starting up the stairs. Two steps in and he was already huffing and puffing. Jesus Christ. “Always a pleasure.”

  “Mister Turnbull,” she replied, not agreeing with him. “Warm day.”

  “Hot as balls,” he agreed with absolutely zero charm. She fought back the expression of disgust that almost overcame her. “Don’t tell me you’re working overtime, pretty lady like you. You should get out, find something fulfilling to do with your spare time.”

  “Being a sheriff is more than a full time job. It’s a lifelong job.” She put her sunglasses on and mustered up a bright grin. “But you’re not going to need to worry about that. You’ll still be taking your month-
long holidays to Acapulco. I wouldn’t worry.”

  Turnbull’s smile lessened, just a fraction of a percentage but she caught it anyway. “We’ll see about that, Miss Downey.”

  “That’s still Sheriff Downey,” she corrected. “I wouldn’t get out of the habit of using that term.”

  Without another word she pushed her way past the fat ass and made for her car. He didn’t reply either, and she wasn’t looking back to see if he was pissed or laughing at her. She didn’t care.

  As she started the car her phone pinged back at her. She pulled it out of her jeans pocket, and when she saw the simple OK sent back from Fritter she sighed. Thank God.

  This illicit dalliance wasn’t going anywhere, she knew that. As it was, if they met once a month that was a lot. This whole thing had started ... twenty months ago? Twenty-one? It didn’t matter. She just needed the bit of male companionship every now and then. It was once said if a women went out looking to get laid she would, no problem. That might be true for any women other than a sheriff. She couldn’t go out bar hopping, looking for a one-night stand. And any man who’d shown interest was most likely interested in the handcuffs, uniform and bragging rights.

  No, she needed a man who could show up, do what was needed, and then keep his fucking mouth shut. In a place like Markham that was hard to find, but a member of the Red Rebels fit the bill perfectly. He probably wouldn’t go spreading it out around he was bedding the sheriff; contrary to what most people thought of bikers, there was some pussy that could get him in deep trouble with the club. Like hers, for example. So he wasn’t saying anything, and she sure as shit wasn’t talking.

  They spoke of nothing. Not her work, not the club. It had to be that way. She just wished she’d been smarter that first time she’d all but blackmailed him into bed.

  He’d come to her eagerly, that wasn’t the point. She’d tried to make it seem as though he could walk away, but maybe it wasn’t as clear as she’d intended. He hadn’t minded, however, and obviously their arrangement still worked just fine.

  Her not-so-subtle ruse aside, she’d done something even dumber that first time. She’d let him kiss her. That was stupid, so stupid.

  Mark Horton was an amazing kisser. Not just proficient, like insanely talented at it. And he smelled really good close up. She could have lived without knowing that, because that was close, intimate boyfriend type shit. She didn’t want to zone out halfway through her day, remembering how good he tasted or how amazing that tongue had felt in her mouth.

  No. Just ... no. That didn’t happen anymore.

  Luckily he was sweet but not swift. He didn’t notice when she avoided kissing, touching, close contact. As long as she was mostly naked when he showed up she was guaranteed sex without any of those lingering feelings.

  No, she went home sore and exhausted and weak in the legs. The quickest their tumbles had ever been was forty-five minutes. He wasn’t a teenager but he was younger than her, and his stamina was ... She didn’t know if it was normal for anyone to be able to hold out like that. So maybe that was what she was addicted to. There wasn’t a single meeting where she didn’t leave satisfied to the point of exhaustion. Not that she’d let him know that; she would just say thanks and leave, every time.

  There was no promise of exclusivity needed. He had women flung at him on a regular basis, and he partook. She knew that, she was fine with it. As for her ... her other man was battery operated and named Jack Frost. He was no slouch in the bedroom, either.

  Her home was a two-level, wartime house in the older but “good” part of Markham. The neighborhood was made up of families about to lose their last-born child to university. They were all older than her, but not by much in the grand scheme of things. The rooms of the house were small by today’s standards but she loved the house. The living room was off the front door, small dining room beyond and the kitchen next to it off to the left. A half-bath was off the living room, leading to a small hallway that held a storage closet and the stairs leading up to two bedrooms and a full washroom. The ceilings upstairs were gabled, adding even more charm. A garage had been added in the backyard so her driveway led all the way to the back, under the kitchen window. That was the closest she felt to a neighbor; all the other windows seemed to have views of tree branches.

  She unlocked the front door and grinned as her mutt of a dog, Earp, came bounding to greet her. The top of his head came up nearly to her hip and he almost resembled a Shepherd but his ears were floppy and the hair of his tail was short. He looked like seven dogs patched together. She’d found him at the summer fair when the ASPCA had set up a booth to get their pets adopted. No one wanted him; he was too ugly. But he greeted every spectator so enthusiastically she couldn’t walk away without him.

  “What were you up to without me?” she asked, scratching at his huge ears. He gave a loud groan, eyes rolling back in his head, and she had to laugh. “You are such a goofball.”

  She fed Earp and sent him out to run around the yard, unusually large for the age of the house. It had been one of the reasons she’d gotten Earp: that big yard needed a dog. And she felt safer with him in the house, especially at night.

  She headed upstairs to have a bath and shave her legs. No matter the nature of her dealings with Fritter, she wasn’t going in hairy and smelling terrible.

  -oOo-

  Her cobalt blue Ford Focus was pulled around the inside of the motel complex, like always. The room she got always overlooked the pool in the center of the four-sided motel complex.

  And like always she was there twenty minutes ahead of the time she’d asked him to meet. She pulled the comforter to the foot of the bed. Sheets got cleaned regularly but you could never count on the comforter getting the same treatment. She left her shoes near the door, peeled off her jeans and left them on a chair in the corner. She removed her bra from under her T-shirt and put it with the jeans, then headed into the washroom to check her hair again.

  It was loose, hanging over her shoulders. She was finding more gray hairs, but luckily she was blonde so they didn’t show. The lines at the sides of her mouth were getting more pronounced, which was starting to bother her. So far her forehead had remained smooth. Other than that she wasn’t anything special to look at, at least, she didn’t think so. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed was a bit of a cliché for California. She tended to blend in with the crowd.

  Out of a strange curiosity she lifted the T-shirt. Her tits still looked pretty good. One child raised and breast fed, and while they were a bit lower than they used to be she couldn’t complain about their efforts thwarting gravity so far. Underneath her stomach was flat, and that was just from diet and exercise. She’d always eaten well, never been chubby in her entire life. And what else was there to do for a single woman except exercise? Three hours of cardio and five weight-lifting sessions per week kept her where she was. Sharon knew she was physically stronger than most women. She could bench press two hundred pounds, and every time someone caught her curling forty-pound dumbbells it drew rude stares.

  Muscle was just practical for her work. She had to wrestle and get physical from time to time.

  The motel door opened, and she dropped her shirt, looking at her face again, running a hand through her hair to give it a bit more lift. What was she doing?

  With a flick the bathroom light was off and she returned to the motel room, leaning against the doorjamb.

  Fritter Horton was shrugging out of his kutte and pulled his T-shirt off before he saw her. She withheld a sigh. He was a sight, to be sure. The physique of a fighter; broad shoulders, narrow waist, well-developed arms and chest. His arms both sported black and grey sleeves, a mixture of tribal symbols and the Red Rebels fist worked in here and there. There was a quote on his chest too, written out in a decorative script. The club’s insignia spanned his wide back.

  When his eyes fell on her the heat seeped up from her belly into her chest, neck and face. She hated being this attracted to him. It was ridiculous. He was just a man
, for Christ’s sake.

  His hands pulled at his belt and she realized he’d caught her staring. With a self-satisfied smile he nodded to the bed. “What does the Sheriff need tonight?”

  His accent, good Lord and fuck that accent was a whole different level.

  “No talking,” she requested. “That’s what the Sheriff needs.”

  He cocked on eyebrow but the smile stayed put. “Yes ma’am.”

  Only he could make the word ma’am hot.

  She crossed the room and pulled her shirt off. His eyes were on her as she did it, and as he dropped his jeans the sight of his erection set off a female surge of triumph. In her panties she climbed onto the bed, pulling her hair over her shoulder as she went up on all fours.

  His hands were on her hips, pulling her underwear down to her knees but not off. His rough palms skimmed along the backs of her thighs, then one of them ran up the center of her back and pushed down between her shoulder blades. She lowered her chest to the bed, the anticipation heady. One might think she craved control in this situation, but it wasn’t true. She really preferred to just be fucked by someone who knew how to do it right. He never begged her to handcuff him to the bed, or ride him wearing her uniform shirt. No, in bed she was just another woman. And that was fine with her.

  His other hand slid between her legs, along her wet opening. She gasped, burying her face in the sheets. Her heart was hammering with want.

  “So wet,” he mumbled, fingers rubbing into her with great skill. She bit her lip so as not to whimper. “Is that for me?”

  His finger slipped down to her clit, circling it, slick and warm. She closed her eyes, refusing to make noise.

  “Must be,” he was saying as she heard him rustling in his clothes. Then there was the sound of a foil package tearing, and still that finger circled her, agonizingly tender. “You’re one naughty bitch, Sharon.”