Free BLAZE by Jessica Coulter Smith

Chapter One

    Lucas “Blaze” Thompson inhaled a lungful of nicotine before tossing the butt on the ground and putting it out under his Harley Davidson boots. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, he braced his arms on the porch railing and stared off into the night. Behind him, the raucous sounds of laughter and revelry could be heard as his brothers celebrated their latest score. They’d managed to steal ten kilos of cocaine from the Stingers M.C. and had turned around and sold it for $250,000. It wouldn’t last long, not with the rate they went through booze and marijuana, and the occasional score of heroin, but it would add to the coffers for a little while.
    Truthfully, selling drugs left a bad taste in his mouth, but he supposed it could be worse. There were clubs known for prostitution and human trafficking, and he definitely wasn’t down with that shit. At least the party girls who came to their clubhouse were there of their own free will, even if half of them were hoping to become someone’s old lady. Not that Blaze was about to take sloppy seconds as his old lady, not when the party girls fucked everyone in the club, sometimes more than one at a time.
    He didn’t kid himself and think his mate would be virginal, but as far as he was concerned, the party girls were just one step up from whores. He had absolutely no respect for them, and when he took a mate, he was going to respect the hell out of her.
    He reached for another cigarette but paused as he felt a small hand slide up his back and under his cut, the long nails slightly scraping him through his tee. Blaze didn’t know how the female had gotten the drop on him, but it wasn’t like him to be so careless. At the very least, his grizzly should have alerted him to the woman’s presence, especially since one whiff told him it was the one female he wanted to avoid.
    “I’m not in the mood, Celia.”
    “That wasn’t what you said last week, when you were fucking me against the
    hallway wall. As I recall, you didn’t say much, but you sure worked me over with that monster cock of yours.” Her hand snaked around his waist and groped him.
    Blaze pried her hand away, careful not to hurt her, even though he’d have loved nothing more than to crush every bone in her body at that particular moment. The woman was downright lethal—not in a sexy way—and he knew she was trouble for the club…and him. But she sucked cock like a pro, so his brothers were ignoring his warnings. He’d caught her in the Pres’ office snooping around, but she claimed to have gotten lost on the way to the bathroom. He didn’t buy her bullshit for a moment. She was either working for someone, or looking to score. Either way, she had no business hanging around the Steel Riders, and he’d love nothing more than to boot her out on her ass.
    “I fucked you,” he admitted. “Once. It’s never going to happen again.”
    Fire lit her eyes for a flash of a second and then she was all syrupy smiles and simpering coos as she rubbed his chest. “You know you don’t mean that. We had a good time. It can happen again, whenever you want. However you want.”
    He growled, the sound rumbling from his chest, as he bared his teeth at her. He felt his bear rise up inside of him. “I will never want you, Celia. And if you think I’m going to claim you, you couldn’t be more mistaken. I’d never take a whore like you as my mate.”
    Her lips tightened and anger brightened her eyes. “So I’m not good enough for
    you? Good enough to fuck but not to claim?”
    “You’re here to scratch an itch. Nothing more. If you want a white picket fence, you need to look elsewhere. No one in this club is going to be stupid enough to sign on to a life sentence with you.”
    She drew her hand back and let it fly, but he caught it in a bruising grip before it could make contact with his cheek. He squeezed, not hard enough to break bones, but enough to get his point across. Blaze didn’t let go until she