Biker’s Property: Property of Steel (Rebel Barbarians MC #5)

Chapter 23 – JOSLIN

Chapter Twenty-Three

JOSLIN

R yder kisses me. His grip on my face tightens and he runs his thumbs over my cheekbones as his warm lips part mine and I try to calm my heart. It’s pounding like I’m a prey animal as I wonder if I’ve truly lost it. I can’t blame heatstroke and the desert for my choices around Ryder anymore. He wants to protect me. I believe it. And for some strange reason, I want to let him, just when I thought I would have to grow cactus thorns to protect myself.

How did this happen? Ryder pulls away from me and his pupils are still wide and covering those pretty green eyes.

“I don’t want to get to business,” he says.

I shake my head. As much as this man wants to drag me off into his bed, what he uncovered is important. More important than our choices in the bedroom. I turn towards the documents I organized, but Ryder grabs my forearm and pulls me back against his chest with a serious look on his face.

“Hey,” he says. “I mean it when I say I want to marry you, church girl. I’ll keep my dick away from your pussy until that day… and before that I’ll get you a nice big ring for that finger… and a tattoo right here…”

He touches the top of my right breast, pushing gently into the soft flesh as he fingers out some design that seems awfully specific in his mind, but escapes my awareness. Tattoo? I missed the update to marriage contracts that included a tattoo.

Maybe a normal woman would be focused on a ring or a wedding dress, but after my first marriage, I have a different set of priorities…

“I don’t remember agreeing to a tattoo.”

I scan Ryder’s face for any type of acceptance that I’m not letting him tattoo me, but he keeps running his finger along that spot, clearly fantasizing about inking me up. I shudder as he keeps staring.

“You did when you agreed to marry me.”

“I did not.”

“If I don’t tattoo you, how will I know you belong to me.”

“I’m not your property, so you won’t know…”

He laughs and grips my hips, preventing me from wriggling away and putting distance between us to show him that I mean business. He means business and considering the size difference between us, Ryder means much bigger business. He’s enormous. It’s like laying up next to a whole ass horse. If he rests his arm over me, I’m pinned there like a moth dipped in ether.

Ryder enjoys it too.

“You will be my property,” he says. “According to the rules of my club.”

“Those aren’t the rules I follow.”

“If I don’t ink up your pretty brown skin, I won’t be doing my job protecting you.”

“I firmly disagree,” I say, giving this man a serious look. It’s not exactly the direction I want to go in, but I try to look intimidating so he knows that if I can put one husband in the ground… I’m not above putting a second one there too if he thinks he can hook me in a trap.

“Women without tattoos in my world are considered free women. Any man wearing a cut will feel perfectly entitled to drag you into a bar bathroom and fuck your ass or pussy until you bleed. If I don’t tattoo you, I won’t get a second of peace when you’re out of my sight… and I don’t want to keep you in yet another cage.”

I hate that he’s oddly poetic. I came to the conclusion that it’s because of his time in prison. Men start writing a lot when they go to prison. Look at Nelson Mandela. I mean, Ryder couldn’t be any further from Nelson Mandela. I’m just saying they were doing some writing in prison.

“Tattoos are painful and what if you don’t want me anymore? What am I going to do with that?”

“Everything fades, Joslin. If you don’t want me anymore, get it covered up. I promise you, there won’t be a single day I exist on this earth where I won’t want you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough. I know you’re strong as fuck. Sexy. Smaller than most women. And you need a man who can handle every last inch of your skinny, murderous ass.”

“I am not murderous.”

“But you do have a great ass…” he whispers. “So maybe we can make our first compromise and I’ll tattoo you there…”

Is this Ryder’s idea of a good deal? I squirm as he gets a firmer grip on my ass and the way he looks at me sends that pulse between my legs deeper into my core. He’s so warm. So big and strong.

“I don’t want a tattoo.”

“Okay,” he whispers, leaning down for a kiss. “I’ll give you one right on your ass.”

He isn’t listening, and to cement that, he finally turns his attention towards the documents on the table. Apparently our discussion is over.

“What did you find?” he asks, immediately ruining my organization, but beelining instinctively towards the most important stack. The pictures.

“He was selling people. They were selling people. I think one of the men involved might be part of the Midnight SS, but they didn’t wear their real names on their cut.”

“You didn’t know about this?”

“I was his prisoner, not his co-conspirator.”

I don’t mean to sound snappy with him. Just when I expect Ryder to respond negatively, he puts his arm around me, drawing me close to him. I can’t tell if it’s protective or possessive. I just know this stuff scares the crap out of me, and I don’t know how deep it gets or how I got in this deep myself.

“I’m just asking questions,” he says. “I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone unless you had to.”

He can’t know that. But maybe he senses something in me the way I sense something unidentifiable in him that makes me want him when I shouldn’t.

“I never saw anything like this. He went to work like a normal man.”

“If he could hurt you, he wasn’t normal,” Ryder says defensively and my indecisive emotions flip back to wanting him. To telling myself that he was my real escape plan – or at least God’s escape plan for me.

“Thank you,” I say to Ryder. Then I go through the bank statements and what I interpreted from the information in front of me.

“Children cost less than adults. They sell some women as virgins. They have a number code for that. Number code for kids too. The identification papers match the sales receipts but the pictures don’t make any sense to me. They’re labeled, but the names on the back don’t match any of the documents.”

“Let me see,” Ryder says.

His expression sharpens as he focuses on the first picture. The teenager in it could be white, Hispanic, or Indian. I can’t tell. Her hair is in a bun and she has a black eye. There’s nothing else I can tell about her, except that her eyebrows were very on trend for 2017.

I can’t even give her a name in my head since I don’t even know her heritage. Being mixed race doesn’t give me racial identification superpowers unfortunately. All it does is open my mind to more potential backstories for these victims – if they even are victims.

He flips the picture over to see what’s written on the back of the image… and his face changes as he clearly recognizes the name.