Jekyll and Hyde Series

JAMIE

I was getting addicted to my new friendship with HD. We talked, not because I was trying to discover his secrets, but because we wanted to get to know each other. When we couldn’t talk, we texted like teenagers, and even started swapping ridiculous memes.

My days seemed so much fuller than before. In the mornings, after hanging out with Cain and doing house chores, I’d run errands while texting HD. Afternoons, I’d meet up with Angel for some time on the court. Sometimes, HD would join us. Afterward, I would head over to The Shop and spend the night tattooing and planning my next Dr. Jekyll job.

My target was Jayden Cohen, a brilliant stockbroker who specialized in risky short-term stocks. Underneath the fancy accounting, he was embezzling money from 401K funds. Jayden’s art collection was to die for—and I was going to relieve him of it.

When I was with Angel, I didn’t give a thought to the likes of Jayden Cohen. That girl marched to her own drum and didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone else thought about her. She was naturally athletic, and with a few pointers here and there, she was making good progress.

While I always enjoyed blowing off some steam with Cain with a little one-on-one, I wasn’t anything close to a coach. So, after a couple of days, we enlisted the help of Ballistic and Keno, who both used to play in high school.

At first, I also got HD to join us, but he was surprisingly horrible at basketball and soon got tired of me making fun of him.

By the end of the week, our pickup game had become a known thing and some of the other brothers came out to watch. Wherever the brothers went, the club whores followed. Before we knew it, our quiet practice sessions had become the premier social event of the day.

Rogue was always around, and I started to fully understand the extent of his power. Anything Rogue said was law, and people fawned over him wherever he went.

He continued to do his Mr. Powerful soul-staring thing, and I remained in a constant state of horniness. HD’s dirty jokes, combined with playing basketball with hot and sweaty men every day, were not helping my overactive sex drive.

I would need to find a way to scratch this itch, and I would have to do it soon.

With this in mind, when HD invited me to the club party on Friday, I agreed to go.

Meandering into the fray, I was silently impressed that these people could pull off this level of partying every week. Within five minutes, I saw Pyro chugging a bottle of tequila, a sweetbutt doing a line of coke off another girl’s cleavage, Keno smoking the largest roll I had ever seen, and a girl giving Abyss a blowjob while Tank railed her from behind.

I was walking around with wide eyes when HD found me and swung me around like a little girl. I was only an inch away from kicking some chick in the head.

HD got me a drink, and then we headed to a corner of the room. HD was practically vibrating, and I could tell he was having a hard time holding himself back from fully indulging in the party. Somehow, without offending him, I needed to let him know that I didn’t expect to monopolize his time.

I leaned in and asked, “So, who here gives the best head? Questioning minds want to know.”

HD snapped round and gave me a searching look before letting out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god. I didn’t know how you would react to all this. I’ve been celibate for a week and my balls are blue.”

Woah. He had abstained for my sake? Maybe this friendship was as important to him as it was to me.

He leaned in and kissed my forehead before scanning the crowd and pointing to a leggy blonde. “That one.”

This could be a fun game. I went down the list, asking him who was the best kisser, the best at foreplay, and the best lay.

It turned out that the best lay was the younger sister of the best blow job, and I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. Maybe being talented at pleasing a man was in their genes.

Once I caught my breath, I decided to ask the question that was holding me back from finding my own happy ending tonight.

“Would me hooking up with one of the guys mess things up between us?” I hoped my tone conveyed that if he had a problem with me being with one of his brothers, I would choose him.

He considered my question with complete seriousness.

“It’s your body and you can do anything you want with it,” he said after a while. “But I am telling you now that if someone hurts you, brother or not, I am not going to react well.”

His words warmed my soul. I never thought anyone would care that deeply for me, other than Cain. HD lived and breathed the Souls of Silence. He had dedicated his life to them—yet if there was conflict, he was promising to take my side.

Tears welled in my eyes, and I turned to bury my head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me and we shared a moment that would forever link us.

When the intensity of my emotions threatened to overwhelm me, I got up and started walking away backward, facing HD. As I went, I grabbed a shot of tequila out of the hand of some drunk chick.

When I was standing right in front of the sexy sisters, I raised the small glass to toast my new bestie. After receiving the Christmas-morning smile, I downed the shot—then turned to direct the sisters to HD.

The sisters did the predictable thing. I grabbed another drink and watched as they fawned all over HD. When I started glimpsing parts of him I had no interest in ever seeing, I turned away. Didn’t these guys know the meaning of getting a room?

I hung out for a while and played a game of pool with Ballistic before leaning against a wall and quietly surveying the room.

It was clear to me that wild partying was as much a part of the Souls culture as the Saturday family barbecues were. They were a dichotomy of decadent excesses and community togetherness that you had to see to believe.

I had been propped up against my wall for about ten minutes when, suddenly, a large presence hovered near my left side. I hadn’t seen or heard Rogue approach me, and as a girl in the thieving business, I was duly impressed with his ninja skills.

I forced myself not to react to him, allowing my eyes to continue their perusal of the party. Soon enough, he leaned in and growled in my ear, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Gauging intoxication levels,” I purred.

“Why?” Rogue’s gravelly, pissed-off voice turned me on like a light switch, as usual.

“A girl’s got needs, and I’m looking for the perfect balance of tipsy enough to be easy but not wasted enough that he can’t keep it up. I am definitely going to need someone who can keep it up for a good long time.” I was still refusing to meet his eyes.

I was about to start teasing him with specific names when all of a sudden I was pinned to the wall by Rogue’s hips. He snaked a hand up into my hair and none too gently pulled back until our eyes met. What I saw was a deep, barely controlled hunger that made me weak at the knees.

“Does Breaker know you’re looking at his brothers like an all-you-can-eat buffet?” he growled while not so gently thrusting his hips into mine.

The move not only demonstrated his physical control over me, but also made sure I knew what I was missing. And let me tell you, I was missing a whole hell of a lot. Fucking shit, no wonder this man was king.

But starting something with Rogue was a bad idea. He was the power center of this entire county, and I was rather enjoying my foray into his world. I didn’t want to fuck things up with either HD or Angel just because I couldn’t keep my lady bits in check.

Yes, he was just about the hottest thing I had ever seen and I definitely wanted to discover more about what he was packing, but Rogue was far from my only choice here. Someone like Keno or Tank would be much less risky.

I wanted to come back with some witty remark that would not only show my loyalty to HD, but also how unaffected I was by Rogue—but that shit just wasn’t going to happen right now. So I went with the truth.

“Yeah, we talked it out. Breaker might be one handsome devil, but he’s definitely more like a brother than anything else.”

Rogue did his Mr. Powerful stare for a full ten seconds while I tried to keep my breathing even. If he thought I was playing Breaker, I had no doubt I would find myself in a world of trouble.

After what felt like an eternity, Rogue tore his heated gaze away from me and looked across the room to where HD was still mingling with the sexy sisters. Pursing his lips, he let out a short whistle that got HD’s attention. I could tell from here that HD would ditch the sisters in a heartbeat if Rogue even hinted that he needed his boy for something.

A nonverbal conversation across the packed room ensued.

First, Rogue shook his head slightly. No, I don’t need you right now—you can stay where you are.

Then HD furrowed his brow. What, then, boss?

A slight incline of Rogue’s head toward me, still pinned to the wall with his hips. Are you really okay with her fucking other guys?

HD’s chin lift. Yes, it’s open season on Jamie.

Okay, so I was making this shit up, but I think I got the gist and it totally pissed me off. First, that Rogue didn’t trust me enough to take me at my word. And second, that Rogue had just asked permission to make a move on me like I was HD’s property, to be loaned out at his will.

Fuck this shit—I belonged to no one but myself.

Using a simple judo move, I slipped out of Rogue’s hold and weaved into the crowd for cover as I headed toward the door.

I was suddenly completely done with this party.

A glance over my shoulder told me that Rogue was indeed following me, but he was too popular to slip through the crowd like I was.

As I made for my car, I thought I was in the clear, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being hunted. Which was ridiculous. I was no one’s prey.

I was five feet from the car when I felt him coming toward me fast. I reached under my belt, drew out my switchblade, and flipped it open.

A second before he closed in on me, I slipped out of his grasp and reversed our positions. I didn’t have the height or weight to keep him pinned against my car, but I was pretty sure that my switchblade resting dangerously close to his dick would keep him in place.

It looked like I had a tiger by the tail.