Chapter Four

THE DUCHESS

I’d barely been back at the party long enough to light a joint when the roar of motorbikes pulling up outside disturbed my peace.

I swore under my breath, rounding up Karma and Fishnet before heading out into the courtyard, gun in my right hand, joint in my left. The telltale sound of the safety being taken off a gun on either side of me told me that they were just as ready for a firefight as I was.

“Wait a minute,” my voice was low. “I recognise that bike.”

I stepped towards the leader of the group who had come a good ten metres closer than the rest of them; a tall gentleman, slim. Bright yellow stripes on his bike. Matching helmet. The London charter of the Henchmen.

“Rogue, good to see you. I didn’t expect you to be in the area?”

“Wasn’t planned, Duchess, I promise,” he replied, pulling his helmet off and giving me a smile that would have melted the pants off a lot of other women.

“I hope you’re not here to try to get Blaze out of here, Rogue.”

“Of course not. His shit is his own shit, I’m not getting involved.”

“Good, I'd hate for something to happen that violated our treaty. Are you boys just here for the party then?”

“Absolutely,” he grinned.

“Both need and want weed?”

“Of course. We can talk about my gun order too.”

I grinned.

“Do you all need rooms for the night?”

“Please,” he replied.

I tucked my gun back into my dress, motioning for the girls to do the same. “Come along then, Rogue. Let’s go get drunk.”

On the way back in, I sent Karma a quick text.

DUCHESS: I want extra security in the basement. I trust Rogue because he'd be an idiot to break our treaty, but I don't trust him that much.

KARMA: On it, boss lady.

DUCHESS: I promise as long as nothing else goes wrong, I won't cockblock you again tonight.

Karma and I were leading the way back to the bar, Fishnet was behind us talking shop with Rogue.

“Fishnet, we're not talking shop tonight!” I shouted her way as we walked back inside. “Think fast.” She laughed as I threw a bottle of tequila her way… she missed, but Rogue caught it.

Rogue sunk into the barstool by my left at the bar, and he didn't fail to notice the looks he was getting from the Valkyrie and all the twitchy trigger fingers.

“Hey, Duchess… What's going on tonight? The atmosphere is… tense.”

“Well… just about everyone in this room pulled a gun on Blaze earlier tonight because he tried to drag me after him.”

He snorted. “What a fucking idiot.”

I nodded, downing another tequila shot.

“Have you met my second yet, Duchess?”

“I met Shade, but not since then. Sorry for your loss there, by the way. Shade was a good guy.”

He nodded, a sad expression playing around his face. He motioned behind me, waving someone over.

“Duchess, this is my second, Ghost.”

I turned to look at the guy, and nearly choked on my tequila. “Neil fucking Whitlock.” I'd known him for a long time… the kind of ‘had a fling with him in university’ kind of knew him.

He'd been a good looking guy in university, but now he was all grown up, he'd filled out more, had muscles for days, his dark blonde hair was just begging me to run my fingers through it… yup. He was still very definitely my type.

“Alexandra Madden. This is definitely not how I expected to ever run into you again.” He smirked, a proper ‘soaked pants’ smirk.

“How do you two know each other?” Rogue had one eyebrow raised, his eyes flicking between our faces.

“University,” I replied. 

“We fucked,” Ghost laughed at exactly the same time.

“Blunt, but accurate,” I murmured under my breath.

“Whitlock!” Karma suddenly shouted across the bar.

“You didn't have a threesome with the boss and second of one of our closest allies when you were in university, did you Ghost?”

I snorted. “He wishes he did.” Once Karma reached us, I reintroduced the pair of them, road name style.

“Karma now, huh?” Ghost smirked. “Fitting name, even back in the day.”

“Could say the same about you, Ghost.” She giggled, before turning back and winking at me. “Good to see you again, Ghost. Pleasure as always, Rogue. And now, boss, please tell me I'm off the clock…” she gave me begging eyes, watching someone over my shoulder.

Yup. The guy behind me was very definitely her type.

I rolled my eyes at her. “I promised I wouldn't cockblock you again, Karma. Have fun. Don't be too loud, you're next door to me!”

“Is he one of yours, Rogue?”

He nodded. “Gunner. My Sergeant at Arms.”

I snorted. “Appropriate.” It worked for us that my second was also my Sergeant at Arms, but that wasn't the case everywhere. Apparently it wasn't for Rogue’s Henchmen since I was seriously thinking about jumping Ghost and Karma was about to roll around with Gunner.

“I'm gonna leave you two to catch up,” Rogue smirked. “I'm gonna go find someone to keep me company tonight.”

He clapped Ghost on the back on the way past. He definitely thought about doing the same to me, but stopped when he remembered how the entire bar pulled guns for me earlier…

“I can't believe you're the Duchess,” Ghost started, watching me over his beer.

I shrugged. “And you're the second in command for a charter of the Henchmen that I happen to sell a lot of guns to.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, that about covers it. How did you get here?”

“My parents ran a club back home. Old school. Sexist. Usual MC shit. I couldn't stand being shut out on account of having a vagina, and I definitely wasn't the club princess they thought I should be. Especially since I could do a better job than all of them combined. So, I moved here, Karma came with me, and we set up the Valkyrie.”

“No special man back home?”

I shook my head. “Nope. I swore I'd never even hook up with any of the boys back home, most of them were either patched or prospects. I was not going to have some shithead think he had the right to decide for me that I was his, and I absolutely was not going to have a property patch.”

“Fair play,” he replied. “So you wouldn't wear mine?” he smirked. Ohhh his smirk was hot. He definitely knew I was appreciating the view too.

“If you like your dick being attached to your body, you wouldn't fucking dare try.”

“I'd wear yours, baby girl.”

I scowled. “Two things. One, we don't do the property patch shit around here. People that don't respect boundaries or treat people either like shit or like property get their asses handed to them, very publicly. Two. I hated you calling me baby girl in university, that hasn't changed.”

“So it's not you being mine that's the problem?” he whispered in my ear, his breath sending shivers down my spine.

“Fuck no. I’ve missed you all these years.”

I turned to face him, ending up with my lips just an inch or so away from his. He looked down, his eyes watching intently as I licked my bottom lip and tugged it with my teeth.

Did I want him? Fuck yeah I did.

I tangled my fingers in his hair, tugging his eyes back up to meet mine, my lips still hovering over his.  

He grinned, capturing my lips in a passionate kiss as if we'd not been apart for nine years and eight months. Not that I was counting. I never expected that I’d be this hung up over a university boyfriend, but hey. What can you do?

I pulled away from him at the sound of a wolf whistle behind me. Rogue and Karma. Because of course they were wolf whistling. I gave them both the finger, before grabbing Ghost's hand and pulling him with me.