The wisdom of solomon, p.1
Just for You (Rocktown Ink #6), page 1
JUST FOR YOU
ROCKTOWN INK, BOOK 6
SHERILEE GRAY
Copyright © 2022 by Sherilee Gray
All rights reserved.
Editor: Karen Grove
Proofreading: Marla at Proofing with Style & Shelley Charlton
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Just For You - Sherilee Gray - 1st ed
ISBN
Epub: 978-0-473-63240-3
Print: 978-0-473-63239-7
CONTENTS
About
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Sherilee Gray
ABOUT
After one hot night together, I thought Addison Belle was finally mine. I was wrong.
* * *
She’s made it clear she’s not interested in more. Until a night out drinking has her revealing her true feelings. Addie still wants me. Only something’s holding her back. I should leave her alone. She’s too young, too sweet, but I can’t give her up.
* * *
So when she passes out drunk in my truck, I do what I have to. I take her home with me to the mountains. She knows the inked-up biker, but she doesn’t know the mountain man—or the part of me capable of fulfilling every raw and dirty fantasy she’s ever had.
* * *
I see the pain in her gorgeous eyes, her need to escape. Addie’s silently begging for someone to hold her down, to stop her spinning out of control—and I’m the man to do it, whatever it takes.
* * *
Content Warning: Grief, Parental/sibling death (historical), PTSD, explicit sex
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PROLOGUE
ADDIE
I cheered as Lila blew out the candles on her cake, and a room full of bikers and her closest friends sang “Happy Birthday.” Lila beamed. My sweet, little librarian bestie somehow fit right into this badass biker world, and it still shocked the hell out of me. But her husband Grifter, or Riff, as he was more often called, had made sure she fit in. In his eyes, she came first, always.
Ly had arrived straight from the library and was still in her work clothes, her usual pencil skirt, button-up blouse, and heels, but as soon as she’d walked through the door, Riff had slipped the leather vest with his property patch on it over his wife’s shoulders.
Property of Grifter was now emblazoned across her back for all to see.
Something else I’d had trouble getting my head around at first, until she’d educated us all about what it meant. A property patch was a sign of respect, not ownership, and the equivalent of a wedding ring in the biker world, though Lila had one of those as well. It was Riff telling his brothers, his club, any club, that Lila was protected. And if anyone tried to harm her, that person wouldn’t just answer to Riff, he’d answer to every single member of the Ramblers.
My stomach gripped tight. The idea of that kind of commitment made me want to run for the hills and not stop.
Once congratulations were over, the music returned to full volume, and I was more than ready to hit the dance floor again, to lose myself to the music.
“Come on, beautiful, you know you want to,” the guy beside me said, moving so he was standing in front of me, picking up right where he’d left off before the cake came out. He’d been trying to get close to me while I’d danced with my girls and had been using his shitty lines on me most of the night. He was young, a new recruit for the Ramblers MC, and cocky as hell.
“Let me take you for a ride on my bike.”
“I’m good, thanks,” I said again.
I started toward Eves and Trix, who were already dancing again, but he grabbed my hand, stopping me, and winked. “Come on, I promise you’ll like it.”
“Nope.” I tried to pull my hand free, but he wasn’t letting go.
“Nope,” he said in a high voice, imitating me, I assumed, then laughed and tried to get me moving in the opposite direction by pulling on my hand again. “Come on, babe, let’s get out of here.”
“I said, no.” I yanked on his hold harder.
A massive shadow eclipsed us a moment before a meaty fist gripped the back of the younger guy’s shirt and he was hauled backward.
The kid looked up and all color drained from his face.
“The fuck you think you’re doing, boy?” Manic growled like a fucked-off grizzly.
“I was just…I thought…”
“You don’t get to think, that’s not your job. You watch the fucking bikes and keep your mouth shut. You don’t come inside and you sure as fuck don’t put your hands on any of the women here. You think they want your scrawny ass anywhere near them? And if you haven’t learned what no means yet, you got no place in this club.” Manic shoved him away. “Get the fuck outside. I’ll deal with you in the morning.”
The new recruit got the hell out of there, and Manic watched him leave, his expression like thunder, that bearded jaw tight as hell.
I stared at him in shock. “Thanks, but you didn’t need to do that. I could handle it.”
His brown eyes sliced to me. “We don’t force ourselves on women. That little fuck needs to learn and he will.” His gaze flicked down, taking me in from head to toe. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I fought not to blush. I never blushed. I was an extrovert through and through. At least that was the side I showed most. But this guy, the way this hulking, tattooed biker looked at me, I blushed every damn time, and the big bastard loved it. Maybe it was because he was eleven years older than me? Manic was thirty-six. He’d been there and done that and was utterly comfortable in his own skin. He knew who he was, what he wanted, and that kind of confidence—well, it seriously did something to me.
His gaze didn’t shift, and the silence stretched taut between us as he just looked at me.
Goose bumps prickled my arms, and my belly did this curl and tighten thing it did a lot when Manic looked at me. “Are you enjoying yourself?” I asked, breaking the stare-a-thon because he’d win. He always won.
“Oh yeah.” His eyes caught mine again. “Been watching this wild, sexy-as-fuck girl dance all night.”
Heat curled through me. “You have, huh?”
“Always enjoy the show, cupcake.”
My pulse raced. He had been watching me, and I’d played up to it. I always did, and tonight he’d obviously decided to call me out on it. “Good to know.”
These bikers were cocky with a capital C, and they sure as heck weren’t backward in coming forward. And though I pretended to be clueless, Manic and I had most definitely been dancing around each other for months. Okay, I’d done the dancing—dancing away—and Manic had followed like a hungry wolf stalking his prey. And there was no sign of him giving up.
But despite my nightly fantasies of finally getting caught by the guy, I’d resisted. Mainly because he scared the ever-living hell out of me. Alarm bells went off when he was around, not because I thought he’d hurt me or anything, but because I wanted him. I wanted him so bad I ached. And if I had him, I’d keep on wanting him, I knew that without doubt.
“Love to watch, but you know what would make it even better?” His gaze had not faltered; those eyes were on me, and they were intense.
Manic called me wild, and maybe it was kind of true, at least on the surface. I liked to dance, and I could be loud and talkative. To anyone looking, I appeared confident, in control. It was easier to be that girl. I’d learned quickly that people didn’t generally expect more from loud, confident girls. Most didn’t bother to look deeper. And I was self-aware enough to know I used it to protect myself, to keep people at a distance.
Not that I was in any danger from Manic in that regard. He wasn’t looking for serious or deep. He didn’t do exclusive. I’d seen the way the women that hung around the club followed him like lost sheep, and if he was in the mood, which seemed to be a lot, he’d pluck one of the flock and take them to his wolf’s den to devour.
That was MC life, though. I sure as hell was not one to judge. I enjoyed their parties, but sharing wasn’t my thing. I didn’t do casual. I also didn’t do love or relationships.
So much so that I hadn’t had sex in five years. After my high school boyfriend took my virginity, there’d been a few others, but nothing serious. Then I’d avoided sex altogether. It was easier that way.
Which meant I sho
I’d started having panic attacks again, something that I’d been managing well on my own since I moved to Rocktown a few years ago. I didn’t know what to do about it, and I’d been running from it, the pain, afraid to stop, to slow down, scared what would happen if I did.
I slammed the brakes on those thoughts. Hard.
“What would make it better?” I asked, the words just kind of slipping out instead of ignoring what he’d said and bidding him good night. God, my voice was so husky, I didn’t even sound like me.
Manic obviously heard this as well, and being the man he was, he took full advantage.
He pushed away from the wall and stood in front of me, blocking my view of the rest of the room. All I could see was him. His handsome face and gorgeous brown eyes holding me captive. One of his hands lifted to the wall beside my head, the other holding his beer in a casual grip, but there was nothing casual about him. He’d seen the opening I’d given him in a moment of weakness, and being the wolf he was, he’d pounced.
Move. Walk away.
This was crazy. “I should…” I tried to step away.
“Don’t,” he bit out. “Don’t you fucking move, Addison.”
I froze at the demand, the order, the look in his eyes. A shiver raced down my spine, and I stayed right where I was because, obviously, I’d lost my damn mind. Or maybe I knew Manic was the only person who could give me the escape I was desperate for.
Temporary insanity, maybe? I mean, I’d literally just mentally recited all the reasons I couldn’t do this with him. But dammit, I wanted him, just once. Levi “Manic” Smith was the kind of guy you needed to experience once in your life. That, I was absolutely sure of. And tonight, I couldn’t bring myself to dance away. I didn’t want to pretend I didn’t want him when I did so freaking badly.
Life was short. I’d learned that lesson repeatedly.
One moment you were here, the next you were taken in a horrific house fire and the people left behind were rocked to their foundations, or you fell sick and died a slow, painful death.
When I lost Macy, I realized I’d been walking around in a cloud of grief for so damn long, feeling out of control, scared, alone. Today was the anniversary of the worst day of my life. A house fire that not only took my parents but my two younger brothers from me as well. I’d been only twelve years old, and even with Macy to take me in, I’d felt so incredibly alone.
I remember sitting on the porch with Macy, after I’d moved in with her, and she’d said, “Grab hold of the things that make you feel good, the things that bring you joy. Regrets are the biggest tragedy a person can have in life, Addie.”
And I’d most definitely regret not spending the night with Manic. I knew that much.
But I was kind of spiraling, my mind all over the place, and I didn’t have the words. I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed, not from Manic, not without making myself feel way too vulnerable, so I stared up at him and silently begged him to just know, to know what I needed.
His gaze dipped to my mouth, then lifted, and when I still didn’t walk away from him, that hot stare darkened, and his nostrils flared. “Your place or mine, cupcake?”
I liked that about Manic, he didn’t play games. “Yours.”
He shoved his beer at one of his club brothers, took my hand, and led me from the room. He carried on out to his bike, threw a leg over the seat, started it, then held out his hand, asking without words if this was what I really wanted.
I refused to overthink it, took his hand, and climbed on behind him, my skirt hitching high enough to flash my undies if I didn’t have my legs around Manic’s hips. I wrapped my arms around his waist and, resting my cheek against the cool leather of his jacket, hung on as he walked the bike back.
Then he roared out onto the street, and there was no holding in my laughter. Yes, I needed this. An escape. To be the wild girl Manic saw me as—to let him take away the pain for a little while.
He lived in the apartment above Rocktown Ink when he was in town. He’d been spending his time between Rocktown and Black Stone lately, working in both tattoo shops, and my nerves increased when we finally arrived and he led me inside.
This was probably a terrible idea, but there was no turning back, not with Macy’s words in the front of my mind as he led me through the main shop and up the stairs. I gripped his hand tighter, and the horrible, empty feeling in my chest didn’t hurt quite as much.
He opened the door to the large studio apartment, holding it open for me. I walked in and it was as I’d imagined, not exactly clean, but not a total mess. I shoved my clammy hands in my pockets and looked around. There were sketches on the kitchen table, tattoo designs he was obviously working on for his clients. A few dishes were stacked by the sink, and the leather couch had some of his clothes tossed over it.
My gaze slid to the big bed against the wall. It was unmade, the covers haphazardly pulled up.
“Drink?” Manic asked and strode to the fridge.
“Um, yeah, okay.”
He grabbed two beers, set them on the coffee table, then sat on the couch, thighs wide, one muscled arm along the back.
I didn’t move.
As much as I wanted to be the wild, super confident girl he saw me as, for some reason, Manic made me incredibly nervous.
He watched me stand there and fidget for several seconds, and I did the same, watching him, because no matter how nervous I was, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
“Come here, Addison,” he finally said into the quiet room.
His voice was low, full of grit, and he wasn’t asking. I shivered at the hot demand. He knew I wanted to get closer to him, and he was making it easier on me.
Pull it together.
I could act like a frightened deer, or I could make the most of this—of him. “I’m nervous,” I said, and saying it out loud made it lessen somehow.
He stayed where he was, sprawled on the couch, all big and muscled and tattooed and glorious. “Why?”
I took a calming breath and walked toward him. He followed my every move. “Because we’ve been dancing around this thing between us for months now, and I’ve had time to…to think about it.”
“You been imagining what it’ll be like when I finally fuck you, Adds?”
My mouth went dry, but I refused to shy away from any part of this. “Yes.”
“You do that with your fingers in your pussy?” he asked with a lot more growl in his voice, but his expression remained unchanged.
Oh god. Butterflies exploded in my belly, and the throb deep inside intensified. “Yes,” I whispered.
“You want a know how many nights I’ve thought of you with my fist wrapped around my dick?”
His eyes were burning so hot I was positive I could feel his gaze moving over my skin. I licked my lips and nodded, my heart going crazy in my chest.
“Try every fucking night since you danced up on me at Mase’s welcome-home party. I wanted you that night, but you weren’t feeling it. What’s changed?”
I was right in front of him now. He spread his thighs wider, making room for me. All I had to do was step forward. “I was feeling it, but you’re kind of intimidating, Manic.”
“Levi,” he said. “Call me Levi when I’m about to kiss that hot fucking mouth for the first time.”
Holy shit. “Okay…Levi.”
He moved, and it was quick. One moment I was standing there, and the next, he’d gripped my hips and lifted me onto his lap, forcing me to straddle his thighs. I was panting now and sucked in a breath when his fingers flexed against my hips. “Been waiting a long fucking time for a taste of you, Addie.”
