Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1) by Susan Fanetti Page A

adult life on the road and had met people of every stripe and creed. He thought the makeup of his club was pretty cool.
     
    “Where’s Roe?”
     
    “Doing his Zen thing. He found a rock off across the way”—J.R. waved his bottle toward the other side of the staging area—“and he’s sitting there staring at a tumbleweed or something. You know him.”
     
    Muse did. Ronin was one of the older members, in his early fifties. He’d been riding and doing stunts longer than he’d been wearing a patch. Real stunts, not this bullshit. But he was getting old for a lot of the higher-profile work.
     
    He was an odd bird. Muse wasn’t a big talker, but in comparison with Roe, who tended to speak only when addressed directly and then in one or two word sentences, he was a chatterbox.
     
    Ronin had gotten his road name for his samurai ways—his silence, his tendency to seek solitude, and his deft work with a blade. During their outlaw days, Roe had gone into any fray armed with a katana and several small blades. He did not trust firearms.
     
    And he barely availed himself of club pussy—maybe two or three times a month. Not that Muse kept track of his brothers’ dick usage, but the girls talked about it, and gossip got around an MC clubhouse like washday down at the river. It was apparently some kind of chick badge of honor to get attention from the mysterious Ronin Drago.
     
    J.R. got called back to the set for what Muse hoped was the last take. As he walked off, Muse’s personal cell buzzed in his pocket. He fished it out but didn’t recognize the number. Only a few people he knew used his personal cell. Expecting a telemarketer or bill collector, he almost disregarded the call, but he didn’t have anything better to do, so he answered.
     
    “Yeah.”
     
    A sweet, recently familiar voice sashayed into his ear. “Muse? It’s…um, Sid. Sidonie.”
     
    He smiled. “Hey, hon.” It had been five days since he’d dropped her off at her pink box of a car; frankly, he’d expected to hear from her before now. “You lonely?”
     
    “No—or yeah. Maybe.” She sighed. “Can I see you?”
     
    He got hard at the mere thought of getting between those slim, golden thighs again. “You can. I’m on a job out in the desert, but I should be done here in an hour or so. When I get back, I’ll have some shit to do. I can come by around nine or so.”
     
    “Okay. I could…cook?”
     
    She was offering to cook for him? Well, wasn’t that sweet. “Sure. Don’t need nothin’ fancy, though. What do you drink?” He was broke, but he’d lift something from the behind the bar in the Hall and replace it when he could. This Friday was payout day—and, hopefully, some better payouts were on the horizon, if— when —they voted in the new job from Wade Ferguson.
     
    “I have wine here. If you drink something else, you could bring that.”
     
    His mood had improved dramatically, and his patience with the commercial people behind him had crashed. He chuckled into the phone. “Hey, Sid—you just ask me on a date?”
     
    “What?! No! Just…no. A meal.”
     
    “That all? Just a meal?”
     
    He could almost hear her blush. “Fuck. This was a mistake.”
     
    “No, hon. I’m glad you called. I’ll see you around nine.”
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    After yet another take in the desert, then a trip home for a shower and to hang out for a minute or two with Cliff after they’d gotten the bikes back and he’d shared a beer with his brothers, it was closer to nine-thirty when Muse pulled his Knuckle up next to her cotton-candy car. He dismounted and took a bottle of Cuervo Silver and one of Jack from a saddlebag. As he came up her walk, she opened the front door and stepped out onto her porch.
     
    He almost stopped in his tracks. She was just so fucking beautiful. She wore a long, white cotton skirt that skimmed her ankles, and a snug little pink beater, under which, it was readily apparent, she wore no bra. Her