Dirty Like Jude: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 5) Read online

Jude

  Maggie once asked me why I rarely wrote anything down. I told her, Old habits die hard.

  Maggie was young at the time. She was new to the Dirty team, eager, smart, but innocent. When she asked me what I meant by that, I told her my older brother had taught me not to write things down and the lesson had stuck. I also told her he was teaching me to steal cars at the time.

  She never asked again.

  Maggie was a quick study like that. You never had to tell her shit twice.

  As I stared at the text message on my phone, I realized I was gonna have to make myself a little clearer to one of the newest members of our team.

  Lex: Just arrived at Miss Webber’s.

  I sat up with an annoyed groan. Served me right for checking messages before I was fucking vertical.

  I deleted the text and dragged my ass out of bed, rubbing the sleep away. I cleaned up and got dressed in my workout clothes, tossed some jeans and a T-shirt into my gym bag. Made myself a massive breakfast smoothie and drank the entire thing before I let myself deal with Lex.

  It was Saturday. And fuck, this week was moving slow.

  All week, it had been Miss Webber with this guy. No V, like I’d told him to call her over text message. No Wild Card in casual conversation, like a lot of the other guys I knew called her. No Veronica, like I sometimes called her. No Roni even, like everyone else in the world called her.

  Miss Webber just arrived home.

  Miss Webber is having lunch with Miss Mayes.

  Pretty sure he assumed I had a thing for Miss Webber, and he thought he was gonna get extra points for being polite.

  He was half-wrong.

  Lex—Lexington, that was his actual name, I couldn’t possibly make this shit up—had recently joined my security crew. Lexington Miller Davenport. Dude had the name of an investment company. Or maybe a villain on a soap opera—which was exactly what he looked like, from a distance, if maybe you were drunk. But then maybe you sobered up when he grinned and you glimpsed, on either side of his perfect white porcelain veneers, the shiny platinum canines that told you you’d misjudged him. Badly.

  I kinda prayed if Roni noticed him, he didn’t try to put her at ease by smiling at her.

  Luckily, Roni didn’t scare too easily.

  And anyway, if Lex knew one thing it was how to disappear.

  Like so many others, Lex was a good man with a dark past and a need to make a living. Enter my brother, Piper, who’d recruited him to the West Coast Kings MC, the most powerful outlaw motorcycle club in the Pacific Northwest.

  Like many men on the Kings’ crew, Lex was hungry for legit, legal work to supplement his other endeavors. Plus, he didn’t have a record and was cleared to travel. And so, just like I’d done with several other Kings, I’d gotten Lex legit work—on Dirty’s security payroll. As personal bodyguard to Dirty’s lead singer, Zane Traynor.

  Which had lasted about two nanoseconds. Frankly, Lex irritated the shit out of Zane, which meant I had to reassign him elsewhere.

  Granted, most of my guys irritated Zane.

  I sighed and threw on my hoodie, ready to get on with this fucking day. Then I dialed Lex. “Call her V,” I told him the second he picked up. I hated having to repeat myself. “No more of this Miss Webber shit. All you gotta say when you text me is V. Think of it as a code and quit writin’ me novels. All. You. Need. Is. One. Letter. Fucking V. Memorize it.”

  “Sorry, brother. Thought you’d wanna know I just saw Mr. Murphy leaving Miss Webber’s building. V’s building. Shit. Do I call her V over the phone?”

  “Call her whatever the fuck you want over the phone, as long as no one hears you.”

  “He’s, uh, on his bike. I haven’t seen her leave the building yet. You want me to follow?”

  Right. Because this surveillance gig would undoubtedly get a hell of a lot more interesting—for him—if he tailed that bike. But no, I did not want him to follow. I wanted him right the fuck where he was, which was as close to Roni as he could get without her noticing him.

  “No. Just let me know where she’s at. V, coffee shop. V, hair salon. V, fuckin’ bible study. Whatever.”

  “Uh, I don’t think she’s a bible study sorta girl, brother.”

  “Anything more eventful than that,” I said, ignoring that observation, “you pick up the phone. And Lex?”

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “Call him Mr. Murphy again and I’m gonna shoot you in the ass.”

  “Alright, then.” I heard the smile in his voice as he cracked his gum. It wasn’t that Lex was stupid. He was just trying too damn hard.

  I hung up on him.

  I wondered at what point he was gonna decide that what I had him doing—running surveillance on a woman, for her “protection,” when she didn’t even know it was happening—was dirty as fuck, and tell me to go fuck myself.

  So far, hadn’t happened. I’d probably never know why. Like most of my crew, even though I knew every detail there was to know about Lexington Miller Davenport on paper—and other details that would never be written down any-fucking-where—I’d never truly know what made him tick or the exact reasons for his loyalty.

  As long as he remained loyal, I didn’t give one fuck.

  I picked up my keys; my fingers were fucking vibrating. My nerves were twitching, muscles tense, heart slamming blood through every tissue in my body—adrenalin response.

  I stood just inside my front door and took a deep, slow breath.

  And wondered what the fuck Roni was doing.

  And why she was still doing it.

  Fucking Mr. Murphy.

  Roni’s fuck buddy of the month—well, the year—Tyler “Taze” Murphy, was leaving her place at seven in the morning. Again.

  Which meant he’d spent the night.

  In Roni’s bed.

  Again.

  With her hot-as-fuck body wrapped around him. With her hands on him. With those jade-green eyes of hers and that thick black hair, and her smell… all over him. And no doubt, her throaty, horny, sweet-ass voice telling him what to do to her.

  Because no way that kid knew how to satisfy Roni Webber on his own.

  I grabbed my gym bag and slammed out the door, tossing the fucking morning paper aside on my way to the driveway. I had no use for newspapers or the entire “news” reporting industry. When you’d seen the bullshit they printed, the shit they got wrong, over and again, about people and things you knew, you knew better than to subscribe.

  Some previous tenant had subscribed, and the papers just kept coming.

  I kept tossing them into the neighbor’s yard, and my neighbor kept leaving apples and figs from the trees along her back lane or bread from the bakery up the street on my porch in return. Once, she’d even voluntarily baked a pie for me.

  Pretty sure she was hoping I was gonna fuck her, but that was never happening. Way too close to home.

  I was rabid-protective of my privacy.

  Too bad for other people, I didn’t always feel the same about theirs.

  I knew a lot about my neighbors, but not because I was interested or looking. I just knew how to read the clues without looking very hard.

  When I was interested, I looked harder.

  I knew, technically, that Taze was Roni’s “boyfriend.” Meaning they had some kind of fucked-up relationship where they regularly had sex, held hands in public and, presumably, he pretended he wasn’t fucking anyone else and she pretended to believe him.

  Not my idea of love, but each to their fucking own, right?

  I also knew what Taze looked like naked, which was un-fucking-fortunate. Had a vivid mental image of him—and his piece-of-shit friend—fucking Roni at the same time, permanently branded into my gray matter.

  If you asked me, Roni Webber deserved better than some twenty-three-year-old blond pretty boy wannabe-thug who’d share her with who-the-fuck-ever at a club party and cheat on her on a weekly basis.

  But no one had asked me.

  I got into the B
entley and peeled out of the driveway, and just like pretty much every morning, I headed west, toward Jesse’s place.

  Day-to-day, I was personal bodyguard to Jesse Mayes, shit-hot rock star, Dirty’s lead guitarist—and my best friend. In general, I went where he went. Every morning, whenever possible, we started the day together with a jog or a workout. After that I’d take him wherever he needed to be, or we’d split and meet up later; whatever his schedule demanded.

  Which was why he’d bought me this car after we came home from the last Dirty tour and he realized I’d driven the Range Rover into the ground. I tended to do that to cars, and no way Jesse was riding bitch on one of my bikes. So here I was.

  This was the only moment of my day that was kinda-sorta my own, early in the morning, before I got to Jesse’s.

  Before the clock started ticking in my head.

  Before I’d answered whatever messages were already waiting on my phone; Lex’s was the only one I’d bothered responding to yet.

  Everyone else could wait while I had my morning drive.

  I put on Soundgarden, “Rusty Cage,” and gunned it.

  As I drove across the city, I did my usual mental inventory. While I watched Jesse’s back, I also managed security for the entire band. Right now, while Dirty was recording an album, that was easier to do on weekdays, when they were all in one place—in the studio. But even on the weekend or if they were scattered across the globe, I knew where they all were. I always knew where they were and what they were doing. Every member of the band—Jesse, Zane, Elle, Seth and Dylan—and my security crew, as well as band management—Brody and Maggie.

  I’d checked in with Maggie last night, as usual, before going to sleep, before I could turn off the mental clock.

  You need anything?

  Her response was brief and the same as it had been all week: More men.

  Maggie knew better than to write me a fucking novel.

  She also knew I was working on the men. We needed a few more solid guys to work security on the upcoming tour, on salary. I also needed to round up a few more bodies, whoever was in town over the holidays, for the New Year’s Eve event, if that was happening.

  NYE? I’d texted her back.

  Her response: ?

  Meaning she didn’t have the first clue what was happening on New Year’s Eve yet. I knew she’d let me know when she knew more.

  Until then, I deleted the conversation.

  Throughout the day, every day, I’d check in with her, with Brody, with every single guy on my security crew, or they’d check in with me, keeping me posted on wherever they were at, whatever was going on.

  And then, of course, there was my other crew. The Kings.

  They were always in contact, too.

  And then there was my special project. My secret, admittedly fucked up project. Lex, paid out of my own pocket to run surveillance on Roni Webber.

  Because ever since I’d fucked her at Jesse and Katie’s wedding, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Couldn’t get her out of my mind.

  I’d asked her, right after we fucked: You feelin’ me, V? Looked her in the eye and asked her, straight up.

  Her answer? No.

  I’d told her that was good, that she and I weren’t going down that road together.

  Same as I’d told her when we were young.

  And she’d seemed perfectly fucking fine with that.

  Problem was—I wasn’t.

  I told myself nothing had changed between us, that there was no use digging around in the past.

  But I wasn’t even sure if that was true.

  The fact was, I had some kind of lingering, unresolved attraction to this girl that just didn’t seem to want to fade the fuck away. And fucking her had just thrown a bucket load of fuel on that long-neglected fire.

  After that night, I’d run a security check on her—because old fucking habits. I knew exactly what I’d find: that she was fucking someone else. I thought it would turn me off, I’d stop thinking about her, end of story.

  Not fucking so.

  When I discovered she was fucking a biker—some kid with the Sinners MC, of all fucking bikers—I couldn’t let my morbid curiosity about it go. Morbid, because hearing about a woman you wanted to fuck fucking someone else could only inspire fantasies of that dude’s untimely death.

  Which meant that in order to avoid resorting to murder, I’d become mildly obsessed with waiting for her to ditch his ass. As if when that happened, I could finally let the obsession go. Because the obsession wasn’t about her, right?

  It was about the fact that she was sleeping with the fucking enemy.

  And then that night. The night I received a distress call from Jesse’s sister, Jessa—from a fucking Sinners party. I’d immediately called Brody and my brother and flew there on my bike. I knew Roni would be in the middle of it.

  I did not expect to find her in the middle of a fucking three-way with Taze and another Sinner.

  The door was open on the bedroom where it was happening, and I’d walked right in. I’d just stood there staring for a long, long moment, trying to absorb what I was looking at, not really believing my own eyes…

  This is what it is.

  This is what she is.

  … And not really wanting to believe myself. Even though I knew.

  I’d always known.

  I stared at her until she suddenly met my eyes. Then she shoved both guys—who hadn’t even noticed my presence—off of her, grabbed her clothes and stalked right past me, out of the room.

  After she left, Taze got in my face a bit. He had no idea who I was other than some dude with a Kings cut on my back; no idea I was in that room because of Roni. But when he realized the Vice President of the West Coast Kings—my brother—was there with me and we were making nice—we were outnumbered fucking ten-to-one, so not much choice on that—he backed down.

  I didn’t back down. Not with Roni.

  I found her in the backyard, where she was smoking up with some chick, and dragged her aside. I asked her what the fuck she was doing. And I warned her about the Sinners.

  I explained to her, very calmly, that there were good men who became bikers, bad men who became bikers, and seriously bad men who became bikers. In my experience, men recruited to the Sinners MC fell somewhere in the realm of seriously fucking bad.

  She laughed in my face.

  And I tried not to be so bothered by it.

  I already knew shit about her new boyfriend she would not want to know, no matter how tough she thought she was—offering herself up for gang bangs and all—but I wouldn’t go there. Judging from the attitude she was giving me, she probably wouldn’t have believed a word I had to say about Taze anyway.

  But I was bothered as fuck by what I’d just seen, the world she was dabbling in, the risks she was taking. And by her—acting like she didn’t give a shit what I thought about any of it.

  I told myself to put her out of my mind right then.

  Just forget about her.

  Not so easy to do.

  A few nights later I saw her again, at a Dirty show at the Back Door. I couldn’t even tell if she saw me, but she definitely avoided me like fuck. I had no idea if she was pissed at me or totally over me—if she’d been over me for years and I was fucking kidding myself there was anything left between us to salvage.

  If she still wanted me or hated me.

  If she just didn’t give a damn.

  I kept telling myself to leave it alone, to stay away. Just like I did back then, all those years ago.

  And just like I did, all over again, when I saw her exactly six days ago at Brody and Jessa’s meet-the-baby party—and she brought fucking Taze with her.

  It. Pissed. Me. Off.

  She basically told me to go fuck myself when I warned her, again, what a piece of shit her boyfriend was.

  But even while she did that, I was sucked the hell in by my attraction to her. Again.

  Always.

  That overwhelming
chemistry between us. Pheromones and fireworks and all that shit. That fucking electric spark that always seemed to end up burning me in the ass.

  When I’d left that party early, Taze had followed me out to the driveway. Apparently, he recognized me from that night at the Sinner’s party, and he was finally starting to connect the dots in his head. What a coincidence, huh? he said to me. Running into you again… But then Roni had come outside, and he took her by the hand and the two of them left.

  After that, I put Lex on her. Every day this week. Without her knowing.

  Because telling me to mind my own business about something I’d already decided was my business? Fucking futile.

  When I’d found Roni in the baby’s room at that party, alone, and pretty much cornered her so I could look her in the eyes without Taze in the room, stood mere fucking inches from her and felt what it was to be close to her again… Then I’d looked her piece-of-shit boyfriend in the eyes and saw what there was to see there, too… I’d definitely decided Roni Webber was my business.

  Maybe I was doing what I could to keep her safe from Taze and all his ugly shit, but I was also looking for a way to get her away from Taze. Trying to figure out some way to make her leave him.

  I’d totally fucking sworn to myself that when that happened, when she ditched his ass, I’d let it go, for good.

  Let her go.

  Thing about that was, I still wasn’t sure if I believed myself.

  I wove in and out of residential neighborhoods, avoiding traffic. It was about thirty-five minutes from my place in East Vancouver to Jesse’s in Point Grey at this time of morning, less if I avoided the main roads. Watching the backs of people who had targets on them—both rock stars and outlaws—for the past fifteen years had made me cynical, paranoid, and sharp. So I alternated my routes.

  Today, it was seventeen minutes to Nudge, Katie’s sister’s coffee shop. Six minutes to get Katie’s coffee—there was a bit of a lineup. Becca probably would’ve let me cut to the front, but I wasn’t that kind of douche.

  Coffee in hand, another fourteen minutes would get me to Jesse and Katie’s house.

  Then I’d turn up my phone.

  And the clock would start ticking.