Draven Read online

  “Sounds to me like we’re sticking our necks out for someone we barely know,” Blade said with a yawn. “And from the sound of things, the money is going to go back to paying this back, then what? We just get to pat ourselves on the back for a good deed done and move on with life? How is this going to help us in the long run? Especially, since you brought this up in reference to the cocaine money we’ve lost in leaps and bounds?”

  He looked sidelong at Jett as he spoke, but Jett didn’t say anything. Although he had been the one to push for us to be done with the cocaine in the first place, that didn’t change the fact that they were both feeling the loss of the money.

  Sure, they both had old ladies in their lives who had been more than happy to see the end of the drugs, but we were still trying to make the same ends meet without the income. We had other venues, but that still didn’t take away the sting from losing what we had already.

  “You’re close, but not quite there,” I told him. “Let me explain. You see, we’re going to be giving the loan, yes, and that’s going to be the incentive we need to get her to get on board with this idea in the first place. But what I’m talking about is her paying back the loan with interest.”

  “With the pills?” Jett asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, we’re going to decide what percentage of the money we get from the pills is going to go to the principle of the loan. The rest is going to be profit for the club, and she’s going to keep this up until she pays us back. You know she’s going to be a little reluctant to do this at first, but when she sees how fast and easy it is to make the money, she’s going to be all in.”

  “And, you trust her?” Jett looked back to the bar with raised eyebrows. I was glad Jade was too busy staring down into her drink to pay any attention to what we were doing. She was clearly intimidated by the group, and while I was glad for that, I also hoped it wasn’t going to scare her off from doing the job in the first place. She was able to do it, I knew she was. She might be a good girl, but every good girl had their dark side. I just had to bring hers to the light.

  She would pick up on the trick easily, and I knew with her innocent outlook on life and the way she dealt with the other customers at her job, no one was going to give her a second glance. As long as no one even suspected her of running the pills for us, then it wasn’t going to be a problem, at all.

  It was just a matter of getting everyone on the same page.

  “What do you think, Blade?” Jett asked.

  “I think it sounds like a good idea, in theory,” Blade said with a nod. “The only trick here is whether we can trust her and whether we know she’s going to come through with her end of the bargain. I don’t want to get our noses stuck in this only to have the authorities up our asses because she gets cold feet and does something stupid.”

  “She’s not going to do that,” I assured him. “If I thought there was a chance of her doing us dirty, I never would have thought to do this in the first place. Really, you’ve got to see this as a benefit to all of us. She’s going to get what she wants with her dad, and we’re going to get more money. I know we can charge a high dollar per pill on the street, and that’s really going to take the sting out of the lack of funds we’ve had from the drugs.”

  “And, you know we can afford to give her the money without shorting ourselves up front?” Jett asked. “I’m not going to put myself in a position with this girl that’s going to do anything bad to the MC.”

  “Again, if there was a chance things could go south, I wouldn’t have brought this up in the first place. It’s been the solution to our problem all along, but before, I didn’t think I was going to be able to convince her it was a good idea to work with us. Now that she has reason to need the money herself, then she’s going to be a lot more willing to go along with it,” I said as I drained my beer.

  Though Jett and Blade once more exchanged a look with each other, I knew they were thinking the same thing: they both wanted more money. It had been an issue since we had gotten out of the cocaine world, and this was a good way to make that happen.

  Hell, if we played our cards right along the way, we could get enough more money this way than we ever had with the cocaine. There was a greater market for pills and a much cheaper supply. It was just a matter of doing things right. And, with the best men on the job, I knew it was going to be a piece of cake.

  “Let’s put it to a vote,” Jett said.

  “Do you think we should bring in more of the committee?” Blade asked.

  Jett shook his head. “If all three of us are in agreement, then I think we can pass. You know Roman would be for this if he was here, I can tell you that right now. He’s been feeling the sting of the finances for a while now, and he’s really wanted an answer.”

  “All in favor,” Blade said, and the three of us raised our hands. We knew this was a good option, and if Jett knew Roman would be on board, there wasn’t any need to delay. After all, the sooner we got this going, the better. We were at a standstill with a few things in the club as it was, and I knew we were all eager to get back on track.

  “I’ll call around and let everyone know what’s going on,” Jett said. “I want you to get going with this girl right away. Let’s get the pills sooner, rather than later. I want that money.”

  “On it,” I said with a smile.

  “Let’s figure out how much money we’re going to give her and how much we’re going to need to sell to pay it back,” Blade said. “So when we get everyone on board, we have something to tell them.”

  “Way ahead of you,” I said as I settled back in my seat. I had already planned how much we were going to give her, as well as what we would sell the pills for. It was going to work out in our favor just as much as it would help her, I made sure of that from the beginning.

  It was just a crude plan I put together on the way over to the bar, but by the time I was ready to talk to Jade, we had everything down to the penny. She was still at the bar, but I knew it wasn’t going to take long to convince her to come with me to look at the numbers.

  Then, I would take her out for her first lesson.

  After all, stealing pills wasn’t that hard, but it was something that had to be done right or she could get herself caught, and we didn’t want that. As long as I presented this to her the right way, I knew she would be on board for it.

  And as I sat down next to her at the bar, I could see the glimmer of alcohol in her eye.

  Yes, this would be quite simple after all.

  Chapter 9

  Jade

  I wasn’t on board with the idea. Not at first. I had always walked such a straight and narrow path, the thought of ever doing anything different made me feel like I was wrong. I couldn’t be the one who succumbed to the temptation of trafficking pills.

  That just wasn’t me.

  But, the more time I spent with Draven, the more I started to question who I really was. Maybe I was wrong to think that this wasn’t me. Maybe I had been mistaken the entire time. Maybe this really was me, and I had just been looking at my life through the eyes of someone else.

  I hadn’t ever broken a rule because I didn’t want my father to be mad at me. He had gone through so much losing my mother, and I didn’t want him to have to worry about something happening to me, too.

  The best way I could make sure nothing ever happened to me was to be in control over my life. And to me, that had meant making sure I never did anything wrong. I was always following the rules down to the letter, so if anyone ever questioned anything I had been doing, I was always ready with an answer.

  Draven, however, had convinced me that true freedom was in doing what I wanted to do. I didn’t have to be afraid of getting caught because I was good enough to not get caught. I didn’t have to worry I was doing the wrong thing, because I was just bending the rules for the right reason.

  I was going to save my father, and that’s what really mattered.

  So, the very next day, I set to work. I went through the pres
cription pad, hiding it from the camera just enough so anyone who saw it didn’t see me adding prescriptions. They saw Draven come in, of course, and they saw me check his ID as I always did, but what they didn’t see was that I slipped in the extra prescriptions with the rest.

  I was nervous at first. I was worried Drew was checking the security footage, though I knew deep down inside he almost never did that. He hadn’t touched it since I started working there; he knew this wasn’t the kind of person I was, and I would never do anything that would jeopardize the pharmacy.

  “Everything’s here,” I whispered as I slid the extra pills over to Draven. He took them with all the natural ease that he always had. Anyone who saw any footage of our interaction wouldn’t have thought a single thing was out of the ordinary. Hell, it was so natural, I almost questioned whether I had done it right myself.

  He took the pills with a nod and didn’t hang around long. Sure, that was one thing that was different than usual, but he didn’t want to be caught in the lobby with more pills than he normally had, either.

  Drew always watched him like a hawk, and I was glad there hadn’t ever been any reason for him to suspect that Draven was doing something he shouldn’t be. It was nice to be able to work together on this and know we were getting away with something.

  Hell, it was a little too nice.

  I’d never thought of myself as doing something like this in the past. That just wasn’t the kind of girl I was. But, the more I was doing this, the more natural it felt. Draven did that to me. He opened up a new side of me that I didn’t even know existed, and I had to admit, I liked a lot.

  There was something about the kind of girl he brought out of me that felt like she could handle anything life threw her way. She was able to take care of it. Because she was capable. She wasn’t the scared girl who was a victim of circumstance. No, she was the one who was in control over her life.

  And, she wanted to save her father.

  I took the money the club had given me and went right to work. I used it to apply for new coverage, then I used the money I didn’t need for that to secure a prescription for Dad. It felt good to pay for that up front, knowing he was going to use it right away.

  I was grateful that he didn’t question where the money had come from. I merely brought home the pills and told him the pharmacy had accepted the new insurance, pleased he let me take care of those things and never checked up on any of it.

  With him taken care of, I was able to throw myself into the work with the MC. Dad didn’t need to know about any of it, as far as I was concerned. I was happy with what I was doing, and I could push back any of the second thoughts that threatened to rise up in the back of my mind.

  As long as I was doing this for the greater good, then it really couldn’t be that bad, could it? At least, that’s the way Draven had presented the idea to me, and he was right.

  After all, when he supplied the pills to the people on the streets, we knew they weren’t being given anything that was laced with something that would kill them. Not that I approved of what he was doing, but as he put it, that didn’t have anything to do with me.

  They did what they did with the pills, I was to worry about just my part – and that was to get them the pills without them getting caught.

  It was exhilarating, I had to admit. I got a rush when I got off work from another successful day of sending out the prescriptions along with the usual number he picked up.

  It was all going so smoothly, I wondered why I had been so afraid of doing this before. After all, since I was the one who was in charge of ordering from the companies, then I was the one who dealt with the questions they had when we got an increase in painkillers.

  Nothing ever crossed Drew’s desk, and unless he went through my own records to see what I was doing, then there wasn’t a chance he was even going to have a second thought about any of it. This whole thing was so easy, it was scary to think that I had almost let my father suffer even more because I didn’t want to go through with it.

  There wasn’t anything wrong with getting him the help that he needed, and I was proud to be able to provide for him after all he had done for me. I was sure there were times when he had bent the rules to take care of me. After all, he had been a struggling single parent, and there was likely a time when he had to get creative to make ends meet.

  As long as I could focus on that, I didn’t have to worry about anything.

  And, best of all, Draven was happy with me. He made it clear he was proud of me and the work I was doing, and I was more than a little proud to climb onto the back of his bike after my shift and let him take me for a ride before I headed home for the night.

  “This was the biggest day yet,” he said over his shoulder as we slowed to take a back road. “We made more money than I thought possible in one day with this stuff.”

  “I would say that has more to do with your skills, rather than mine,” I said modestly, but he laughed as he pulled the bike off the road and grabbed my hand.

  “I think this has more to do with teamwork. I never thought I’d be able to find someone who could pull this off so easily – and yet be such a good fit in my world.”

  His words made my heart skip a beat, and I smiled mischievously as his hands started to explore my body. It wasn’t as intense as it had been the first night we had hooked up, but I was hoping that things would head in that direction once more.

  I wanted more from him. I didn’t just want to work for him, I wanted to be with him. Perhaps it wasn’t possible for him to have a relationship in the sort of life he lived, but I wasn’t looking for that sort of thing, either. There was something deeper about the connection we had going on. Something that was so much more intense than just two people who were hooking up.

  He kissed me, his tongue dancing teasingly around in my mouth. I grew wet almost immediately, needing to have him, wanting him to take me. I ran my hands over his body, stopping only when I had them over his dick. He was rock hard, ready to take me, and I pressed against him, begging him without saying a word.

  He told me this is where he would take me if I were to get too close, and he was right. I wanted him. I would beg him to give his cock to me.

  I turned, bending over the bike and spreading my legs as he lifted my skirt. I was happy to wear short skirts around him. It made it a lot easier to take him any time the mood struck.

  He pushed into me, his cock sliding deep within my pussy. I moaned, spreading my legs further and taking him as much as I could. There was something about him that was so intense. Everything about him radiated confidence, and I couldn’t get enough of him.

  I lived to have his dick inside me, and I moaned as he continued to fill me. He made me cum hard, as always, before he filled me with his load, giving me all he had in him, taking me for his own.

  I clutched the side of the bike, taking all of him, smiling as he pulled himself out of me and I was left with the warm stream of him running down my thighs. This is what my life had become. Something I never thought it would, but I was happy.

  This is what I knew I was meant to do. It might have taken someone I never thought would give me a second glance to pull this out of me, but that was okay, too. This is what I wanted, and I was proud to be his.

  I wanted to please him. I wanted more of him, and I was sure this is what was meant to be.

  And for the first time in a long time, I was happy. Fully, genuinely, entirely happy.

  Nothing could take that away from me.

  Chapter 10

  Draven

  “Come on, it’s a Friday night. Most women in their twenties do like to be out and hanging around with the public on a Friday night,” I told Jade.

  “I’ve just never been one who’s hung out at the bars a lot,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, I hate to come off as a prude, but you know what I mean.”

  “Come on,” I said again. “You’re no prude, I can tell you that much.”

  The way I looked at her told her exa
ctly what was on my mind, and she blushed. She was getting used to the wild ways we’d have each other in the bedroom. Well, the wild ways I’d take her, anyway. She always gave herself to me so fully, and I enjoyed that.

  I wanted a woman who would give herself to me, and I was glad Jade was that woman. I’d had my eye on her since the day I walked into the pharmacy and she was there. But, I didn’t think I would ever let myself have her. I was glad I had crossed that line, even if it was a line I wasn’t going to ever uncross.

  She was mine. I had laid claim to her long before I made it official, and now that it was, I would make it known to the world.

  So, that meant I would take her with me when I went to Echo Mori. Sure, she spent a lot of her time at work, and we spent a fair share of our time at my place having sex, too. But, there was still time for her to be out at the bar with me.

  There were several reasons to do this. For starters, I wanted to show off the catch I’d made to the rest of the guys. Jett and Blade had already met her, but there was a lot more of the MC I wanted to flaunt her to. And, besides that, I wanted her to get used to the guys.

  I had no intention of this coming to an end when we had finished with the loan. In fact, I already planned on convincing her to keep getting us the pills as long as she could. If we played our cards right, she would be able to keep this up for years.

  She was good at it, a lot better at it than most who had just started, and I was proud of her. I was proud to call her my own. Even if we hadn’t talked about what we were doing or where this was headed, I considered her mine. After all, this woman was so different than any other I’d ever known.

  I knew from the beginning there was something about her I really enjoyed, and now that I was getting to know her better, I knew I was right.