Chapter 3

Twenty Years Later

Harley

A large callused hand grasps the nape of my neck, the familiar smell of leather, weed, and whiskey wafting around me. That smell should be put in a candle, it’d sell a shit load the way it eases the anxiety in one’s chest.

A hard, warm body presses up against my back, and my eyes nearly roll into the back of my head.

“Benji.” The name falls from my tongue like a moan midst ecstasy. He feels so good against my body, my mind nearly loses its reality.

His lips brush against my ear. His hands slowly, lazily, slip down the back of my jeans, and his fingers brush against my sex. Tingles of pleasure surround my wetness, the notion to forget what is right and wrong nearly a breath in the wind with his hands on me.

“I want to bite this ass, trail my tongue down your supple cheeks until I dive my tongue deep inside this hot cunt of yours,” he mutters.

I grit my teeth with temptation. I want to wrap my legs around his neck while he licks every drop of my wetness. My body clenching around his tongue as I release what I’ve been denying myself into his mouth. I want to let him mouth fuck me into another world where it’s just him and I… but that would be selfish of me. A fucking mess.

I could lose him.

I grab him by the wrist and pull his hand out from my bottoms, his finger leaving a trail of wetness behind it.

“You can’t say my name like that, and deny me that tight ass, Harley,” he growls into the back of my ear.

“We can’t do this, you know that.” I clear my throat and shake my head.

There’s no denying that Benji is a catch. Tall, dangerous, and smoldering eyes that make you want to throw the idea of wearing panties into a fire.

But, I’m not capable of having a traditional relationship. I’m not saying that to be that teasing bitch everyone knows. I’m just the kind of girl that doesn’t get to experience the glamorous kind of love. No, my heart comes with a little bloodshed and a shot of insanity on the side. That’s the biker’s way of life, after all, and that alone makes me bad at this thing called love. I can’t promise I won’t break his heart. If I did lose him as my best friend, it’d be the first thing I’d never forgive myself for. Even if I did tease him, you couldn’t blame me. Benjamin Daxton is the sexiest man in this club.

I’m not mentally stable to love Benji.

My eyes water as I think about the first time I realized I’d never be good enough for Benji.

Waking up in an uncomfortable position, I sit up. My vision blurred, my head pounds and my mouth is dry. I notice I am in the backseat of some truck I’ve never seen before. The smell of stale beer and Old Spice deodorant making me want to vomit. The material of the black dress I didn’t know I even owned, makes my skin itch and sweat, and I pull at it impatiently as I try to figure out how I got in that truck. The sound of someone heaving in the front seat has me sitting forward. Looking over the vinyl blue bench seat, I find a young man with tattoos all over his back throwing up in the floorboard. I’ve never seen him before. How did I get here? Did we do anything sexual? God, I hope not.

“Why am I here?” I ask with a shaky voice. Scared of what he’s going to say. My heart flutters with the words about to fall from his dry lips.

He coughs, wiping his face with his forearm. His face is pale and his eyes are hooded like he’s smoked too much.

“I was going to show you a good time, but I got sick, babe.” He shakes his head with embarrassment.

Rage sobers me instantly. My eyes filling with tears as I jerk the door open and slam it shut.

There’s no way I would let this happen. He’s not even cute!

“Hey, let me get your number!” the boy’s who name I don’t even know, suggests. He doesn’t know who I am or he wouldn’t be asking me so bluntly. He has no idea I’m the president’s daughter. It’s refreshing but dangerous.

“HARLEY!” I hear Benji yell from the clubhouse. Looking at the boy in the truck, I furrow my brows. My heart beating a mile a minute.

“You better leave. Now!” If Benji finds him, he’ll kill him. He will drag him out of his truck, and pound his fist in this boy’s face over and over again. Then my dad will take the back tire to his Harley across his face.

I see the passion in Benji’s eyes, I know he wants to be with me. To see me with someone else… it would kill him.

Benji groans as if I just took his dick from him and slammed it in a drawer, grabbing me from the trip down memory lane. A memory I remember often, because it’s permanent tattoo of why I can’t be with him.

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as split personality. It ruins my life in some ways, such as having a real relationship with anyone. So, when Benji looks at me like I’m the only girl in his world… there’s really more. Harley, which is my front personality and then my alter that calls herself Farrah. Farrah has been a part of my life ever since I can remember. She’s the other half of me. When she comes forward, she’s always altering my appearance to something sweet and innocent, though she’s anything but. She’s a slut in a flower dress, and I can’t stand it when she puts me in clothing that reveals so much of my skin. I don’t know anything she does when she comes to the front, I just black out. It’s like swimming through a dark abyss as I wait to come to the front in a different place, in different clothes, confused as fuck.

Benji pulls away from me, and I turn to face him. My face flushed and I place my hands on the dresser behind me in attempt to keep them from grabbing at Benji’s hard body.

“What are you guys talking about today? Are you going on a run? Do you need some help?” I fire a series of questions at him. The club is about to have a meeting and I want to go so bad, I’ve wanted to go since I was a little girl. I’m the Shadow Keepers’ MC princess, and my crown is my helmet. I want to be a part of the club so bad. When I was younger, Benji and I would hide under the wooden table from time to time, but we eventually got bigger, and got caught. My dad made it a habit of checking under the table after that, and I haven’t been back in there since. Benji has been in there since though because my dad patched him in.

He steps in where needed, the club muscle if you will. The size of Benji’s shoulders and arms, it’s a no-brainer to make him the Shadow Keepers’ enforcer.

Benji’s shoulders are wide and built with muscle, his arms tattooed and thick. He’s the king of pain and it’s scary what his charming smile can hide. You’d never know he was a murderer if he wore a suit and tie. That’s how handsome and dangerous he really is.

“You can’t come and you know that.” Benji slides my blonde hair behind my ear. His touch soft but firm.

His ocean eyes bore into mine, searing me where I stand as if I’m the only girl in the world. The feeling is warm and fuzzy, and a façade. I’m not the only girl in his world. If I was, maybe things would be different between us.

My eyes fall along his sharp face. The dark stubble on his chin causes my fingers to twitch with the urge to run both of my palms over it just to feel the scratch of it on my fingers. His shaggy black hair falls in his eyes when he looks at me. Trundles that are lighter in color from riding in the sun too much curl around the tops of his ears.

He notices my lingering stare and flicks his nose with his thumb, his tongue sliding along his bottom lip as he looks at me with hooded eyes. His smoldering blue orbs too intense to look at, my eyes fall to the scar on the bridge of his nose. It’s lighter than the rest of his tanned skin demonstrating even though he’s beautiful, he’s an unpredictable man. I remember the day he got that scar. A club passing through stopped at the Shadow Keepers go to spot for whiskey. The Rolling Barrels Pub. The other club disrespected our club’s colors, and Benji got heated and got in his face. The man from the opposing club punched Benji right in the face and broke his sunglasses; slicing his nose wide open. Benji broke the man’s right arm after that, and there’s no pain for a biker like not riding their motorcycle.

It was one of the few times I got to leave the club, and I witnessed the whole club fight that night. I’ll never forget how much Benji looked like a monster and less like a man.