Exquisite Redemption (Iron Horse MC Book 3) (28 page)

By the time we made it outside, I had Hustler and Hulk with me. We’d met Hulk on our quest for “the chick with the weed” and he’d given me a big hug that felt nice, even though Hustler kept complaining Beach was going to cut his dick off for letting Hulk touch me.

Hulk had merely laughed at Hustler’s warnings and I’d told them all to calm their panties. In a weird way, Hulk, in all of his massive-black-man gloriousness, felt like an old friend and I needed that right now. It seemed as if it was taking Beach forever to get done with his meeting. I mean, I understood he was an important man with life or death matters to decide, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t missing him, and uncomfortable without him here. I just hid it well by not barfing every time I witnessed some icky sexual act between two icky people.

I’d seen more than one dude standing around getting a blow job like it was no biggie, talking with his buddies who were also getting sucked off. I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, I loved a good orgy and had participated in a few, but they were loving orgies. I know that sounds bizarre, but at the hippie commune my friend Indigo had grown up in on my dad’s property, orgies were a regular thing, though they didn’t call them that. They believed in free love, in sex being natural, and all that fun swinger stuff. While I didn’t have sex with anyone other than whoever I was dating at the time, I’d enjoyed watching everyone get all caught up in a big puppy pile of lust and affection from a safe distance. 

Big happy piles of affectionate sex were not what was happening here.

The majority of the sexual acts going down around me were so beyond casual it seemed like there was no emotional connection. It was truly just sex, and as I noted some guy screwing a woman doggy style in a shadowy corner of the yard, I wondered if either of them actually found it gratifying.

We walked past the couple grunting in the shadows, but unfortunately it was still bright enough that I noticed the guy pumping away had a really hair ass. Like really hair. Yeti hairy.

“It’s like watching a bear hump a blow-up doll,” Hulk muttered.

Unable to help myself, I burst out laughing as I turned away to smack Hulk’s solid arm. “Oh, that’s so fucking wrong.”

We reached the side of the building and as soon as we did, Hulk yelled out, “Yo, Poppy!”

A very pretty Hispanic woman in a long, flowing pink dress glided over to us with a smile. She looked as out of place as a debutant at a biker rally but didn’t seem bothered in the least by the hard partying going on around us. Behind her lurked two big white dudes with dark beards wearing black bandanas on their heads and leather cuts that noted them as Treasurer and a guy named Crabs. My mind went to nasty places right away with that name and I pitied the guy for having it. I mean I realize his nickname probably wasn’t referring to crotch lice, but at the same time, I had to fight a frown of distaste. 

They scanned the area while the lovely dark haired woman in her early thirties closed the distance between us. She smelled like patchouli and marijuana, an oddly comforting combination that I associated with Indigo’s people. I took in the flower tattoos on her wrists, the swaying silver moon earrings, the bright smile, then noted the lack of a patch covering her slender shoulders. There had been quite a few women wearing patches similar to mine here tonight, but they’d been mostly outside, away from the shit going down in the clubhouse. This woman, with her perfectly tanned skin and wavy black hair, for sure wasn’t a sweet butt, so I was curious as to what her role was within the MC.

“Are you Sarah?” she asked with a light Hispanic accent.

“I am.”

“Oh, it’s so nice to meet you. My name is Poppy and I work with your old man.” At some point the parking lot and exterior building lights had been turned on and as she turned her head, I could make out a piercing winking in the side of her nostril. “By the way, you have my pity. He can be a real pain in the ass.”

I couldn’t disagree with her about him being a pain in the ass, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about her expressing pity for me. “Pardon me?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Beach is a great guy, but he’s intense. I know lots of women would kill their BFF for a chance to win Beach’s heart, but I have a feeling he’s one of those consuming lovers.” She gave a mock shiver. “I have no room in my life for a man who thinks he can run it.”

Okay, she definitely wasn’t one of the old ladies or the sweet butts. They all talked about Beach as if he was a God slumming among mortals on earth. I swear grown women were reduced to giggling teenage girls by the mere mention of his name. It was disconcerting to hear the guy I’d pledged my troth to was viewed as a deity, to say the least, so having someone treat Beach like he was human was refreshing.

“Poppy, I think you and I are going to be friends.”

“She leads the research and development branch of our medicinal marijuana division up in Colorado,” Hulk supplied helpfully from next to me. “Ms. Poppy has a green thumb like you wouldn’t believe.”

Poppy gave me a wink before shaking her head at Hulk. “Actually, I hold degrees in agriculture and biotechnology. I’m doing research and development for Iron Horse because they let me do pretty much whatever I want and pay me well to do it, better than I’d make in the public sector, for sure.”

“She’s growing designer weed,” Hulk clarified, earning another frown from Poppy while Hustler went to grab some beers.

“It’s not just stuff to get you high,” she huffed. “I’m also working on medicinal strains and ones with as little THC as possible. I specialize in strains for people going through chemo. And I’m developing a killer plant that will solely combat the effects of nausea. That can sometimes be the worst, ya know? The constant feeling like you’re going to barf every minute of every day. Makes doing anything other than lying there and praying for sleep impossible.”

Her eyes gleamed as she said this and I studied her more closely. “Have you gone through chemo?”

“Yeah, twice.” She got quiet and I stumbled for something to say, hating that I’d made her remember a hard time in her life that took the happy sparkle out of her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She gave herself a physical shake. “Really, I’m good now, thanks in part to the research I’ve been doing with medicinal plants. If you ever come up to Denver again you’ll have to come visit me on my farm. I’ve got a massive greenhouse with some of the rarest plants in the world.”

“I’d love to.”

“Can I come along?” Hustler strolled up, two beers in his hand and the force of his most flirtatious smile aimed directly at Poppy. “Poppy grows the best damned weed this side of the Mississippi. Won the Cannabis Growers Cup for the last two years out in Amsterdam.”

“Wow, that’s really impressive.”

Hulk gave Poppy his panty dropping smile, “You have any with you?”

She flung her hand out dramatically, the small silver bells on her bracelets chiming. “Hello? Have we met? Of course I do.”

Hustler smiled even bigger as he handed her a beer. “You gonna share with the rest of the class?”

Her gaze bounced back to me and she took a step closer, her soft brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Oh, I’ve got something you’re going to love.”

“That sounds ominous.”

She giggled, then looped her arm through mine and pulled me away from the building and over to the now roaring bonfire where the picnic tables were. The men who were watching over Poppy cleared a picnic table for us and even cleaned it off…kind of. By cleaned I mean they threw away the empties and removed the ashtrays. Still, it was a place to sit down and even though we were the focus of a lot of attention, I ignored everyone in favor of Poppy.

She was a little odd, but I liked odd people.

Plus, she didn’t take any shit from the guys.

“Hustler,” Poppy snapped, “you better keep your eyes off Sarah’s ass or I’ll tell Beach.”

One of the men she’d come with snickered, the one with the vest that said “Treasurer”, and she glared at him. “You want me to tell the Prez you were letting a man openly eye fuck her?”

The big guy shuffled and I had to bite back a laugh as I reassured her, “It’s okay, I’m used to it.”

“Of course you are. You’re insanely beautiful so even I took a moment to admire the view, but a quick glance is one thing, memorizing every curve of your ass for jack-off material is going to lead to an ass kicking if Beach catches him doing it.”

“Okay.” I licked my lips, wondering if everyone in Beach’s world was a little odd.

“Anyways,” she huffed out and dug into the pocket of her dress, “I have two different kinds with me I think you’ll like. One that’s good for mellowing out, and the other that’s good for sex.”

All at once, every guy around us was watching us with such an intense focus, I had to resist the urge to squirm. “Ummm, let’s go with mellow.”

“Right, but I’ll give you a couple joints of the other one to try.”

“And it’s only marijuana, right? Not laced with anything?”

“Absolutely. I don’t need to taint my babies with any bullshit chemicals to give you an amazing high.”

I couldn’t help but arch a brow. “I don’t know. I’ve smoked some pretty good shit.”

Her smile was smug as she pulled a pre-rolled joint from a neat silver cigarette case, perfectly done up like a cigarette with a filter and all, then passed it off to me. “Enjoy. It’s a nice, really mellow buzz.”

Hulk handed me a lighter and I took a hit, then passed it back to her but she held her hands up. “I’m good. I have some business to do tonight that I’ll need to be feisty for. Some of these guys hate dealing with women as equals but because I’m the best at what I do, I don’t have to put up with their crap and they know it.”

I nodded, my anxiety lessening as I held the smoke in before passing the joint off to Hulk with the warning, “You can take a hit—but not one else. Especially Sir STD Lips over there.”

I’d lifted my chin in Hustler’s direction and he got this righteous look on his face. “I do not have STDs.”

“Dude, I saw you kiss at least six of those sweet butts with tongue as we were in the clubhouse. Yuck. Any one of them could have had some random hairy-assed guy’s spooge on her tongue.”

Hustler turned a little pale while everyone roared with laughter. “They wouldn’t do that.”

“Right, because all women like to see you tongue it up with any slut who flutters her lashes at you.” I took a deep inhale of the joint after Hulk passed it back to me.

Looking disturbed, Hustler rubbed at his mouth, then laughed. “Nah, every woman I’m with leaves my bed satisfied. They know if they want more they’re gonna have to be on my good side.”

We bullshitted for a little longer, laughing together as my anxiety disappeared with the fabulous high I got off of Poppy’s weed. I had no idea how much money she was being paid to grow this shit, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. This was by far some of the strongest marijuana I’d ever had, but I didn’t feel out of control, only happy. It was actually really nice out here if you ignored the random sexing, and the men who stopped by to introduce themselves to me were all cool guys.

I shifted on the bench as my full bladder made itself known and asked Poppy, “I need to use the ladies’ room, do you know where one is?”

“Of course, but we don’t want to use the one down here. We’ll go up to the officer’s floor.”

“The what?”

“Sarah, that leather vest of yours is like a key to the executive bathroom. We don’t have to pee where all the skanks and brothers squat—trust me, it’s foul. We get to go upstairs to Beach’s private rooms. Bet you Beach’s bathroom is sick.”

Hulk must have overheard us, because he and Hustler were at our side before I could blink as I stood.

“Where you goin’?”

“Bathroom.”

Poppy looped her arm through mine. “Don’t worry, I’m taking her up to Beach’s room.”

The men looked at each other and nodded, as if they had any say in the matter.

“I have to pee, so move.”

Giggling, Poppy and I slowly made our way through the crowd. It was way too packed to just barge through to get to the stairs leading to the upper levels, and we got stopped constantly by people who wanted to meet me. By the time we’d made it halfway, I was close to doing the potty dance but we were blocked by a wall of dudes. Evidently someone was having sex with someone else nearby, ’cause these guys were cheering them on and shouting suggestions.

Lifting her lip in disgust, Poppy tried to lead me around them, but we ended up blocked again. The crowd moved our way and Hulk, along with Hustler, pushed them back, but we were still getting squished and jostled around.

Someone shoved into me and I looked over my shoulder, seeing two skanky brunettes looking at me with hate in their gazes.

Nothing new here, so I glared at them, but got distracted when Poppy pulled me. “Come on, I see a break in the crowd past the two bitches eating each other out.”

Wrinkling my nose, I followed her until we reached the stairs. Two big guys—one black, one Hispanic—guarded the bottom of the stairs. They let us past as soon as we reached them and we were a few steps up the stairs before Hulk said.

“Oh shit.”

Pausing, I turned around to look at him a couple steps below me. “Oh shit what?”