Above & Below: Mountain Misfits MC Prologue Read online

  “Gavin, you are giving me second-hand embarrassment with this nonsense. Don’t you have a dirty bird to pluck? Why are you so obsessed with Sloan?”

  Sure, my reputation precedes me. I could throw a stone and hit at least three women I’ve nailed, but not since that night. Since that night, I’ve basically taken a vow of celibacy, but I’m beginning to wonder why.

  “She has been asking about you, by the way. Nonstop. It’s getting fucking old. I tried to tell her your dick fell off in some sort of syphilis incident and she told me she’s a surgeon and she could sew it back on.”

  “Why don’t you just give me her number?”

  “No way, boss.”

  “Then just tell her to call me.”

  “I’m not playing middleman in this shit. She needs to stay out of trouble and focus on finishing up school. After that, you are more than welcome to throw her over your shoulder and drag her up that mountain of yours to do whatever it is you think you’re going to do.”

  “She’s a grown woman, Olive. I think she can be responsible for herself. What are you, like her mother or something?”

  “No, her mother died a long time ago. Listen, I’ve known Sloan my whole life. I’ve watched her damn near throw her entire life away before because I was too busy being Miss Nice Best Friend. I’m not doing that again. If you want her bad enough, I’m sure you’ll find a way, but if you’re doing all this for a one-night stand, you’re off your rocker. Now, I have customers to wait on and money to make for you.”

  “Stop.” I grab her by the arm and she stares me down defiantly. She’s a real ballbuster. “If you think this is just some random hump and dump thing, you’re mistaken. I’m gonna make her my old lady and I don’t care what you say about it. You might think you’re being cute running interference here, but this has nothing to do with you.”

  “Well, obviously it has something to do with me. I just called you a syphilitic man-whore and instead of firing me, you just gave me a five dollar an hour raise for telling you where Sloan’s apartment is.”

  “I did no such thing.” She slips out of my grip and shoots me a wink. “Wait a minute…”

  “Sorry, I can’t hear you,” she yells from across the bar. “Super busy!”

  All I can do is shake my head and laugh. She got me again. I take a long swig from my glass and look around the bar with great pride. This was my grandfather’s dream, and seeing it come to life feels nothing short of amazing. Maybe my life hasn’t exactly turned out as planned, or maybe I was just too young and stubborn to understand what the plan really was up until now.

  The notorious Morgan, queen of the birdies, bellies up to the bar next to me. She’s looking particularly sluttastic tonight in her sequined black dress that just barely contains her overflowing cleavage. I look her body up and down, but it does absolutely nothing for me.

  “This seat taken?” she asks, motioning to the stool next to me.

  “It’s all yours, sweetie.”

  She sits down. I get up.

  If I have to spend the next year of my life with my dick taped to my leg, so be it.

  “What the fuck?” she whines.

  I just smile and make my way over to the pool table where my brothers are hanging out. I might not have my woman, yet, but I have my family, my club, my misfits by side.

  Never Coming Down

  Mountain Misfits MC Book 1

  Coming August 13

  Available for preorder on Amazon now!

  A little tease of what’s to come in Book 1:

  Chapter 5 Excerpt

  Gavin:

  There she is, just like I remember her, except she’s standing face-to-face with the last person I wanted her to ever meet, and she doesn’t exactly look thrilled. I’m completely horrified and I’m sure he’s putting her through the ringer. She seems to be holding up perfectly fine, though, hands on her hips, chest puffed out as she gets right in his face.

  “Listen,” she’s shouting. “I’m not authorized to do that. I’m trying to help you, and if you would just shut up for two minutes and let me get a word in, I’ll tell you what you need to do.”

  “Hey,” I say, slinking into the room, uncertain of how I should be interacting in this exact moment. I catch her eye, and instantly, her face softens and she shoots me a knowing smile. It’s like my very presence just flipped some sort of switch on her demeanor.

  I’m not going to lie; the way she’s going at it with my father is kind of a turn-on. There’s something sexy about her little burst of authority. She’s swimming in her baggy scrubs, and it’s obvious she’s the type of girl who is too chronically busy to remember to eat. Even behind her cool scowl, she’s beautiful.

  Nothing like a club slut.

  Not even the kind of cute but uppity chick who dates you to piss off her parents and tries to turn you into a golfer.

  She looks like the kind of woman that makes you want to rip yourself open and bare every dirty disgusting inch of your being to. The kind that keeps you up all night pacing around in circles, worrying that they’re going to leave you because you know you’re not good enough. The kind that you have to push far far away or you’ll suffocate them to death with your need to be intertwined with every ounce of their soul. You make them think it’s their fault. You spend the next few years dead inside, banging random strippers and pretending like you made the right choice.

  I’ve seen many men fall victim to these kind of women. It’s kind of the Mountain Misfit Curse.

  “Not now, Gavin.” My inner alarm bells ring. “You’re here for your brother.”

  “Close the door,” they both urge simultaneously in a whispered yell, and I almost feel like an outsider in their weird argument.

  “Is he ok?” I ask. Seeing his barely breathing body there, hooked up to all those machines and tubes instantly snaps me out of any sort of deluded fantasy I had of how this day was going to go. It’s not as easy as grabbing my woman, grabbing my brother, going up the mountain and never coming down.

  This is serious shit.

  “He’s going to be alright. He’s a lucky guy. He has a tibial fracture and a torn ACL, which we repaired. He’s going to need to be in a cast for at least six weeks, then intensive physical therapy after that,” she says calmly. “He should be awake here shortly.”

  I watch his chest rise and fall, stealing glimpses of her as my father paces the room dramatically. I don’t know what he expected out of me when I got here, but I’m sure the fact that I’m not up in Sloan’s face bullying her like he was is not making him happy.

  “We need him outta here before the cops show, son. He’s not safe here. They don’t know his condition.”

  I don’t want to fight with him in front of her, and I’m sure his ‘condition’ is obvious. He’s a straight-up junkie, and we’re his enablers.

  “This bitch here, she’s basically useless. Won’t get me discharge papers, won’t suck my dick, I don’t even know what she’s doing here.”

  My blood is boiling. Sloan’s not just some random hole. She shouldn’t have to take his verbal abuse.

  “Knock it off, Moses,” I hiss. “If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t even know Goob was missing to begin with.”

  His lips turn to an evil sneer as he runs his hand through his beard.

  “You fucking her? What’sa matter boy? You getting bored with all that mountain pussy?”

  I’m speechless. If I had any chance with her, this asshole is doing everything in his power to ruin it, and I don’t even have words to make it right. I could punch him, but I don’t think that would do anything to help the situation.

  “Listen,” she says sternly, “I can’t get you discharge papers. Nobody here is going to give you fucking discharge papers. It’s a liability case waiting to happen. What I can tell you is that there’s no law against leaving on your own accord. You get him out that door, he’s not our problem anymore. I obviously think it’s a terrible idea, but you gotta do what you gotta do.”
<
br />   She pulls out a bag from her pocket and tosses it to me.

  “This fell out of his pants when I was digging through the pockets once Olive tipped me off. I didn’t find anything else, and I don’t know if it will help in the case with the cops, but you probably want to get rid of it.”

  I know what the waxy little bag is without looking. I slip it into my jeans and nod in appreciation.

  She gets right in my father’s face, standing on her tiptoes so she can stare him right in the eyes. “Before you call me ‘basically useless’ I want you to remember I set his fucking bones, I stitched him back up, I made sure you guys knew he was here, and I tampered with evidence. So you can suck your own dick.”

  The look on my father’s face is frightening. He’s grinning from ear to ear, just shaking his head at her. You know he’s about to attack when the smile is all teeth.

  Instead, his phone rings. He looks down at it and heads for the door.

  “If ya’ll will excuse me,” he says.

  She puts her head in her hands and lets out a long sigh.

  “Sloan,” I say, approaching her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, hugging her into me. “I’m so sorry. He’s really fucking terrible. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.”

  She’s cold, stiff as a board, and she looks up at me, her face spattered with tears, red and puffy.

  “I gotta go,” she says softly, but she doesn’t move, just stands there while I hold her, studying my face. It’s becoming painfully obvious why Olive has been so protective of her. She’s been back in my life for less than fifteen minutes and she’s already crying.

  And it’s all my fault.

  Not because of what I said or did, but because of who I am—a Mountain Misfit, just like my father.

  “I understand,” I say, holding her shoulders in my hands, looking her up and down. I never want to let her go. I want to bring her closer, have her, keep her, protect her from anyone who would ever hurt her like this, but obviously I can’t.

  I’m the one responsible for the hurting.

  And then everything changes….

  HIT THAT ONE CLICK! Also available in Kindle Unlimited.

  Shout Outs!

  Thank you to my amazing cover designer Melinda from Pixel Perfect Publishing - I basically hand her a shoebox of trash and she turns it into something pretty.

  Thank you to my editor Marty at Picky Cat Editing. Without him, these books would be a million times worse.

  Thank you to the rag tag band of indie authors who have kept me sane, made me laugh, and taught me so much about this craft while helping through the process of publishing my first “real” book.

  And obviously my husband, for putting up with my shit. :)

  Get in Touch!

  Thank you so much for reading my book. I would really appreciate it if you took the time to leave a review to let me know what you think.

  I have a mailing list, if you’d like to stay up to date on my future releases. You can join it here. I also send out pictures of my Rottweilers and the occasional steamy story that’s banging around in my brain, so hopefully that sweetens the pot a little.

  I have a blog. How often it gets updated is questionable. :)

  Feel free to hit me up on social media!