Page 49 of Beyond the Cut
Arianne put two fingers in her mouth and whistled, quieting the room. She winked at Jagger and his face softened. Secret joke that wasn’t much of a secret. Arianne had saved Jagger’s life with that whistle not so long ago.
“As you all know,” Jagger shouted. “Cade has an announcement for us.” Jagger looked over at Cade and winked. Club tradition said that when a brother took an old lady, he had to make a formal declaration to the club. Usually the brothers brought it up in church, but Jagger wanted the word to get out. The Brethren had to believe it was true, and what better way than to invite a bunch of support clubs and support wannabes, splash the cash, and send them out to spread the word that the “Sinner of Sinners” had finally been tamed.
Now he had to make a damn speech when all he really wanted was to get on his bike and ride until he ran out of gas.
After refilling his glass from a bottle on the bar, he searched the crowd and spotted Dawn deep in conversation with Tanya. She looked up and met his gaze, her expression wary. Mustering all the charm he’d relied on to woo women into his bed, he smiled and held out a hand, indicating for her to join him.
“Finally found a woman who lit my fire,” he said, raising his bottle. “Sweet, sassy, and sexy and a bit of a sinner like all of us. She may look soft, but she’s got a core of steel. Sweet butts, dry your eyes. She’s got my heart, my wings, my protection, and my patch. I’m taking Dawn as my old lady and if anyone has a problem with that, I’ll shoot them between the fucking eyes.”
Everyone cheered. Dawn gave a cool smile and, after a nudge from Tanya, joined him in the center of the room, her fuck-me stilettos tapping lightly on the wooden floor. Her gold dress shimmered in the light, hugging every curve of her beautiful body, and her hair fell in soft golden curls past her shoulders. Damn. Why did she have to dress like that? He was hard just looking at her. Every damn brother in the room would be panting after her…
But they couldn’t touch. Dawn belonged to him now and no one touched a biker’s old lady.
Mine. He felt no small amount of satisfaction when he took the new cut from Jagger and slid it over her shoulders. Dawn spun around to show off thePROPERTY OF CADEpatch on the back: the skull and stars in the center and his personal rocker on top, and Cade thought he might burst from pride. His cut. His woman. A more beautiful sight he had never seen.
Too bad it wasn’t real.
After the cheers died down, he clasped Dawn’s hand and wove his way through the crowded bar, forcing a smile as he endured the congratulations, handshakes, and pats on the back, counting the minutes until they could be free.
“Hey Cade.” One of the few non-board-members who knew about the ruse, Arianne greeted him warmly when he reached the bar. “Nice speech. All I got from Jagger was a cut wrapped up in brown paper withPROPERTY OF JAGGERwritten on the back and suddenly I was his old lady.”
“That’s ’cause you were his old lady the second he laid eyes on you. Just took you both a while to realize it.” That and Jagger almost dying in a ditch after rescuing Arianne from her Black Jack family.
“Never seen anyone scowl so much about getting hitched.” Jagger leaned against the bar beside him after Arianne took Dawn to meet her new family. “People are starting to talk. Totally defeats the purpose of what you were trying to do here. Go dance with her, kiss her, make out—something to make it seem legit. Or are you having second thoughts?”
“She’s not fully on board with the plan. Took a lot of convincing.” He finished his beer in one swallow. “I get that she had a bad experience with the Brethren. And Mad Dog… every time I think about him, my blood fucking boils, but we’re not them, and I’m not him. Why can’t she see the difference?”
A shadow crossed Jagger’s face and he glanced over at Arianne and Dawn. “She’s fought hard to get away from the Brethren and make a life for herself, so it’s gonna be hard for her to trust us or give up her independence. You can’t run around swinging your club. I know about strong women, brother. You need a subtle touch.”
Subtle. Sure. He could do subtle.
Cade pushed his way through the sea of brothers, parting the group of women now crowded around Dawn with a scowl.
“Thought it was time I had a dance with the old lady.” He held out his hand, his heart pounding as if he were sixteen and back in high school wondering if the girl with the biggest tits in middle school would shoot him down. He’d always had a thing for big tits, and Dawn… damn she looked fine.
Dawn paled and for a moment he thought she’d refuse him, but she rallied and took his hand. “Of course. Can’t let the old man dance alone.”
He led her to the dance floor where a few brothers and their girls were making out on the pretext of dancing, but that was because the DJ was playing some shit boy-band pop crap. Cade caught the loser’s eye and shouted. “Put on some real music or I’ll rip off your balls.”
“Nice.” Dawn put her hands around Cade’s neck. “Our first dance and you threaten to rip off the DJ’s balls. If I had any illusions about being back in the biker world, they have now been well and truly dispelled.”
“My woman doesn’t dance to shit music,” he muttered. God she smelled good, like the flowers his mothers had planted every spring, no matter how disparaging his father was about her choices.
“Sounds like your woman now has to dance to the Forest Rangers’ ‘House of the Rising Sun.’” Dawn snorted a laugh after the DJ changed the tune. “Why do civilians think every bike gang is like the ones on TV?”
“’Cause if they knew what we were really like, we’d all be locked up for our own protection.”
Her hips swayed gently to the music and he slid his hands around her waist, pulling her close, molding her soft, lush body to his own.
“You watch biker shows on TV?”
Dawn’s face flushed a delightful pink. “Yeah, I like them, although they’re so far removed from reality sometimes I laugh the whole way through. I also like watching boxing and MMA, and…” Her voice trailed off.
His interest piqued, Cade gave her a nudge. “She gives me a hard time, but she likes her violence. What else?”
“Survival shows. Whenever I’m feeling down or having regrets about the past, I watch survival shows and think about how I’m a survivor and how hard I fought to get where I am.”
“Damn right you should.” His heart warmed with pride. “And you’re still fighting, but now you got me by your side.”
