Twisted Steel: An MC Anthology: Second Edition by Elizabeth Knox (top 5 ebook reader txt) 📕

rich inky hair fluttering around her face, some strands stuck to the new tears that decorated her cheeks. “I can hold my own, you know.”

“I know.”

“I’ve been doing it since my parents kicked me out halfway through my senior year because I got knocked up. I’ve been doing it for years in that shit-box strip club.” She rambled on, and the more she spoke, the closer I pulled her to me. She’d lit the fire that burned deep in my belly, and it was now determined to scorch every fucking thing around us that could hurt her. “Shaking my fucking ass for dollars, getting groped and grabbed, doing whatever the fuck I had to so Kadey could have some kind of normal life. I did it all so I wouldn’t have to tell her we couldn’t eat tonight or that we couldn’t watch her favorite cartoons because the power had been turned off.”

“Baby, I fucking hear you,” I rasped, enjoying the way her lips fell open. Like she wanted to tell me she fucking hated when I called her that, but she knew it would be a damn lie. “You’re doing it. You’re fucking raising that kid on your own, and it’s about time you stop letting that asshole use her to fucking hurt you because he knows that her happiness is your weakness.”

Our bodies were pressed against each other now, neither pulling away in a hurry. Her eyes drifting down to where I was holding her, and I saw the second she noticed the scar that wound itself around my arm. I forgot it was there sometimes. The barbed wire I’d had tattooed over the top of it often made people think it was some kind of illusion.

But when you looked at it closely, you could see the way the skin stretched and was deformed, where they’d had to remove a strip of flesh that it was too late to save.

I expected her to pull back.

I was waiting for the disgusted cringe.

But instead, she looked back up at me and rolled her eyes. “I hate being called baby.”

I couldn’t help but smirk at the lackluster protest.

“Can’t fucking help it,” I answered, lowering my head, so my lips brushed her ear. “Ever since you walked up to the clubhouse the other weekend, I can’t help but fucking wonder what would happen if someone tried to back you into a corner.”

Her head shook just slightly, though she didn’t pull away. “I didn’t take you as a Dirty Dancing fan.”

“Swayze is a king.”

“Mama! Come see me slide!” Kadey’s voice echoed over the playground of children, the kid definitely not shy when it comes to crowds. “Mama!”

Missy took a step back, one foot after another until she slipped from my hold. “So full of surprises. I’m gonna need to keep my eyes on you,” she teased, the tearful look now gone, and in its place, this playful smile I knew I’d do almost fucking anything to light up her eyes again. “See you on Saturday, Swayze.”

I couldn’t fucking take my eyes off her. Not as she gathered my sister in her arms and said thank you, or as she caught Kadey at the bottom of the slide and threw her into the air, the both of them throwing their heads back in laughter.

“I like her. She’d be good for you,” Grace announced, leaning into me to take some of the pressure off her pregnant body. “You should stay.”

I shook my head. “I promised you today,” I responded, hooking my arm over her shoulder. “I can see them whenever. You, my darling sister, are much harder to pin down.”

6 MISSY

“Thanks, Leigh!” I called over the music. The beautiful blonde club girl tending the bar grinned and waved a bottle of tequila in response before tipping it upside down and filling ten shot glasses.

I wiggled the tray of drinks to the edge of the bar and found the balance with my hand before hefting it up to my shoulder. The drinks barely rattled, even as I dipped and dived around the clubhouse full of club members, construction workers, and from what I understood, staff for their new sports bar.

It opened Tuesday, and tonight, they were celebrating.

And celebrating hard.

“The boys here are hot,” Gem shouted as we passed by each other, not even giving me a chance to reply, so I just laughed. She wasn’t wrong. At least eighty percent of the men wearing club colors were sexy as hell. The muscles, the tattoos, the attitudes—the bad boys that every fucking woman craved, including me.

I’d thought Jared was one of them at some point.

My seventeen-year-old self seeing the fast car, the smoking, and the overbearing confidence as something I needed to fill that rebellious craving.

Oh, how fucking naive I was thinking there was any comparison between Jared and his jobless, drug-addicted ass, and these men who didn’t need to yell and scream at women to make themselves feel like a fucking man.

My first stop was the corner booth, the table where Hawk sat beside an older man with a president patch over his heart and a couple of other guys who looked important. I eased up to where they were seated, bending at my knees to slip the tray onto the table before standing back up and placing my hands on the wooden surface.

Hawk was the first one to look up, a smirk forming as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back into the booth seats. “Hey, baby.”

“Swayze,” I threw back, confusing every other man at the fucking table.

“Boys, this is Missy,” he announced, surprising me for a second, given I was only meant to be there to serve drinks and dance.

But he continued to introduce me to the boys at the table--Bishop, the club’s president, Blue and Cain, Sergeant-at-Arms and Road Captain, respectively.

Blue took a new beer, the rest looking for something a little harder. “I’ll get rid of these, then be back with a bottle and some glasses for