Tainted Desire Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Tainted Desire copyright @ 2019 by Brook Wilder and Scholae Palatina Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

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  BOOKS IN THE ROUGH JESTERS MC SERIES

  BOOK 1: SAVAGE ANGEL

  BOOK 2: BROKEN BEAUTY

  BOOK 3: CORRUPT HONOR

  BOOK 4: RUINED MERCY

  BOOK 5: SINFUL HAVEN

  BOOK 6: TAINTED DESIRE

  BOOK 7: OUTLAW VIRTUE

  BOOK 8: WICKED LEGACY

  BOOK 9: SHATTERED GRACE

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TAINTED DESIRE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  TAINTED DESIRE

  Chapter 1

  Siren

  I was hungry.

  My ankle was hurting from the rub of my boot on the delicate skin.

  I needed to wash my hair.

  The list went on and on in my head and no matter how hard I tried to keep my mind focused, honestly, I wasn’t.

  Maybe I wasn’t cut out for these sort of demands from the club. Normally I had the wind in my hair and the rest of the Hell’s Bitches club members at my back, chasing after the cartel.

  Not stuck trailing the same guy for two damn months.

  Sighing, I propped my leg on the rail and tipped my chair back, attempting to look like I was enjoying the bikes that passed by below. While I had stuck closely to the seedy motels and even spent a few nights in a sleeping bag for most of my trip, I had splurged on an actual nice hotel room, complete with balcony, for the past two nights.

  There was a chill in the air, a sign that fall was rapidly approaching in Nebraska and while I missed the dry heat of Texas, I had to admit that the scenery was really pretty. The lush landscapes, the endless stretch of prairies that cleansed your soul as you rode through them.

  And I had ridden through them. Widow Maker, our president, would be ashamed to know that I hadn’t exactly tailed our mark all day long.

  He was, well, boring.

  There was no way to sugarcoat it. This badass CIA agent that had tried to blackmail both clubs had a surprisingly boring routine every single day.

  Same coffee shop in the morning, where he ordered a plain bagel (who orders a plain bagel?) and coffee, black.

  An hour workout in the gym, followed by the longest shower known to man.

  A meeting or two with guys I had way too many photos of.

  Lunch (the man ate constantly).

  Afternoon could be a bike ride or target shooting at the gun range.

  Dinner, of course.

  I knew more about the guy than he did about his daily interactions. Normally, I would have killed him and moved on, but that wasn’t my directive.

  My directive was to tail him until the clubs could decide what to do with him.

  The answer couldn’t come soon enough.

  Even now, he was hanging out across the street, his arms casually draped over the railing in front of the coffee shop he frequented, a beer in his hands. I didn’t know if he was thinking or just watching the beginnings of the bike rally, but either way, his expression was hidden by the aviator sunglasses he preferred.

  That and his ratty ball cap he always wore, this time flipped backwards indicating he would be taking a ride soon. His dark T-shirt was tight around his bicep area, with a visible tattoo on his inner arm.

  I hadn’t gotten close enough to make out the tattoo.

  No, I had stayed well away, not liking the fact that I was actually looking forward to his stupid routine day in and day out. Call it boredom, but I did enjoy seeing him alive at the start of each morning.

  If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.

  Shifting in my seat, I watched his motions through the dark tint of my own sunglasses. I literally knew everything about the CIA agent they called Voodoo. I knew his ticks; the way he ground his jaw when he saw a woman attempting to get his attention.

  I knew the subtle slide of his grin, coming on as easy as the sun rose, whenever he was trying to get in someone’s good graces.

  I knew the beer he preferred, the way he shot pool, even down to the stance he chose when he was attempting to look laid-back.

  Gah, I sounded like a stalker but that was what I was. I had stalked Voodoo for going on two months. Pretty darn well, in fact. He hadn’t once approached me or even glanced in my direction which meant he hadn’t noticed me tailing him.

  If I was him, I would have felt my eyes boring into his head constantly.

  The first month had been interesting, learning a little bit more about him every day. I had reveled in my work, carefully learning bit by bit what made Voodoo tick, waiting for my moment in the sun where I would take him down and eliminate the threat to both the Rough Jesters and Hell’s Bitches.

  Some months ago, Voodoo had tried to blackmail one of the Rough Jesters, Machine Gun, into doing the CIA’s bidding. It had nearly gotten him, and a host of others, killed.

  The aftermath had been horrendous. There were talks of hunting down Voodoo and killing him, but he was nowhere to be found. The talks had gone on for weeks.

  Finally, Chains had ended the conversation, stating that he couldn’t put any more resources toward tracking down one lone CIA agent. Machine Gun had improved, and attention had turned to other things.

  But Widow Maker hadn’t dropped it, so I had been pulled in and put on special assignment. Chains had been furious, but Widow Maker had told him that he didn’t run the Bitches and she could very well do what she wanted to with her club. I had been sent out to find him and track Voodoo’s movements.

  It hadn’t been hard to find him either. I mean the guy was gorgeous and not the type that hung out in biker bars. The tracker that Machine Gun had installed months ago had disappeared a week into the hunt and I had spent a good deal of my time trying to chase him down again. A few discreet conversations and a lot of twenties, and I had tracked him here, to Nebraska.

  Why, I wasn’t sure. He hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, sticking to his boring schedule and not showing any signs that he was working.

  That is, when I was awake. I mean I couldn’t be awake twenty-four hours a day. If he was slipping out after he went to the hotel he was renting by the month (which I had found out by some snooping and flashing my smile), then I really didn’t know what he was into.

  A lone blonde hair blew across my face and I pushed it aside. I used my looks whenever I needed to, but only up to a certain point. I wasn’t the typical biker. I had one tattoo, on my wrist. My blonde hair was my normal color and I preferred not to wear makeup
if I could help it. About the only thing I had in common with the rest of the club was that I rode a motorcycle and could fire a gun while screaming down the road.

  That I did very well.

  My club name, Siren, was somewhat of a mockery. It stood for the way that mermaids could lure in the fishermen in the open seas with their beauty and their singing voices.

  Then, they struck with fangs and tails. Of course, I didn’t have either of those, but I could carry a very good note, especially during karaoke nights at the clubhouse.

  And my looks had drawn attention from the local cops lately. I had tried to stay in the shadows, only revealing myself when the need arose, but for some reason, the last two weeks I had found more cops following me discreetly.

  I didn’t wear my vest out or promote the fact that I was part of the bike club that was in hot water with the government, but I was sure they had looked me up and figured it out for themselves. So, I went out and purchased a police scanner, using my free time to make sure that my name hadn’t popped up.

  Even now, the endless chatter made me long for the warmth of the clubhouse, the Hell’s Bitches one that is. While the relationship between the Bitches and the Jesters had been going on for a few years, I missed the days where we were independent. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really, and if Widow Maker hadn’t partnered with her husband, we would likely all be dead by now.

  But there were times when I wished it was back the way it had been, especially now that we had uncovered the fact that the government was behind the cartel money accounts. That hadn’t boded well for anyone and now we all were on pins and needles about what would happen next. I had no doubt in my mind that the government would be coming after us soon. What we had uncovered could cripple the CIA and other organizations, but right now, we were content with holding the information to ourselves.

  I didn’t expect that to last long, hence the reason I was trailing one of their top agents. Widow Maker had given me specific instructions: make sure to keep both clubs safe. So far, Voodoo hadn’t threatened either one that I could tell.

  And no matter how seriously sexy he was, I wouldn’t hesitate to protect my family. That was what the club was to me. Family. I had parents, yes, but the club had given me protection and helped heal parts of me that I didn’t know were broken.

  I would lay down my life for this club.

  The wind picked up and I breathed in the clean, crisp air, forgetting for a moment what I was doing here. This was really a lovely place, but I did prefer a more tropical destination. I loved the sun, the sand, the saltiness of the air.

  Hell, maybe I was part mermaid.

  Either way, that was my plan for the future. I wanted to move near the ocean—where, I didn’t care—and open my own little coffee shop where I would greet the locals every day. While others aspired to run the club themselves one day, I really didn’t. Sure, the club would always be a part of me, and I had a lot still to give back for everything they had given me, but one day I was going to walk away.

  When, well, that was still up in the air.

  “Dispatch, come in.”

  I sat up straighter as the scanner crackled to life, the first time in thirty minutes. It was probably a license plate check or some disturbance from the rally going on below. There wasn’t much going on today in terms of mischief.

  “Copy.”

  “We have a missing girl, fourteen years old, who did not come home from school today. Brown hair, green eyes. Last seen wearing a red shirt and blue jeans, carrying a pink backpack. Call an Amber Alert.”

  “Copy.”

  A missing child. My heart immediately went out to the parents, who were likely frantic about their daughter. Being only a day or two’s ride from Mexico, human trafficking was a real issue in these cities. The younger the better and we had put out more human trafficking rings over the last few years than I cared to admit. Most of the time, we could recover the young girls or the women they had snatched and take them back to their families.

  However, we couldn’t erase the lost looks in their eyes or the scars on their souls that would remain for the rest of their lives. Every time we found a dead person instead, my heart broke just a little more. There was evilness out there in the world and for a child to have to experience that wasn’t right.

  Pushing out of my chair, I walked back into my hotel room, reaching under the mattress for the revolver that I kept there whenever it wasn’t strapped to my hip. While the police would be looking one way, I would trace the familiar trails for trafficking that we had raided years ago. Something told me they were still up and running again and if I could save one child today from the horrors that awaited them in Mexico, I would consider my job done.

  My mind briefly went back to the real reason I was here, and I shrugged it off. I could track Voodoo anytime. He wasn’t going anywhere, especially now that I had installed another tracker on his bike in the first week I had tracked him down. I could track him anywhere now.

  No, he could wait. A child missing was way more important and Widow Maker would understand my need to at least see if I could help.

  Chapter 2

  Voodoo

  Minutes before

  I breathed in the clean scent of the air, letting the crispness burn my lungs before blowing out a breath. The normally quiet section of town was alive with the bike rally and I found that I was missing the solitude that this place had brought over the last month or so.

  But the bike rally was a good way to hopefully provide a lead tonight for my real reason for being here.

  Hopefully.

  My eyes strayed to the hotel that was across the street, smirking as I caught a glimpse of her sitting on the balcony, pretending not to look at me. I guess she still thought she was slick, that I didn’t know that she was tailing me.

  I had known since the moment that she had showed up in that smoky bar on the edge of Texas, where I was trying to get some valuable information on Justin Polanco, the man I was attempting to find. He hadn’t been worth the aggravation he had caused me, but I had to see it through.

  I had to make sure he was dead.

  It was my fault that he was alive in the first place. I should have manned up and killed him myself, but I had enlisted the help of the Rough Jesters bike club instead.

  Okay, ‘enlisted’ was not the right word. I had threatened one of their members, Machine Gun, and bullied him into taking the job for the CIA. The first one had gone off with more trouble than good and I should have stopped it right then and there.

  But pressure from the inside made me continue and I had sent him after Polanco after threatening the life of his girl.

  He had nearly died as a result. I would never forget for the rest of my days how I felt watching him nearly bleed out that night, resulting in months of intensive therapy for him to heal.

  It had reminded me of the battlefield, watching guys I had fought next to die as a result of a sudden attack that had wiped out half of them. I had been sick to my fucking stomach and while I had attempted to make peace with them, I knew that the Jesters and the Bitches both were interested in having my head on a silver platter.

  I didn’t blame them. I didn’t like myself that much either.

  So, I ran. At the advice of the good ole U.S. government, I left Texas in search of the mark that Machine Gun hadn’t killed. That would be my retribution for nearly getting him killed and some sort of olive branch to the Jesters.

  I doubted it would work, but hey, it was worth a shot.

  But it seemed they didn’t trust me. I mean, who would after what I had threatened?

  Hence the reason for my tail.

  She was interesting and in my personal opinion, a damn fine tail. She didn’t look like a biker and to the normal person, she was just another partygoer in the crowd. She was blonde, a bit curvy around the edges, and had a winning smile that could suck the life outta you.

  She definitely lived up to her name. Siren.

  So, I let her ta
il me, pretending not to notice the tracker on my bike or the fact that she seemed to show up everywhere I was. I allowed her to think she had me, that I was in a fog and not seeing that she was keeping tabs.

  As if someone like her could keep Voodoo from understanding what was really going on.

  Some would say I lived up to my name as well. I had conned several people in my career, making them believe that I was on their side, living the life that they lived.

  I had learned the lingo, learned how to fit in when the mood struck and make myself disappear like a ghost in the wind. I charmed them, showed my strengths, and never my weaknesses.

  I was that guy that most remembered in the back of their minds, though their memories might be a little fuzzy of how I got there and how I left.

  And I was fucking sick of it.

  I really was. Fifteen years of being on the road, pretending to be someone I wasn’t, was starting to wear on me. There were times when I was afraid, yes, afraid, that I would get my lies mixed up, that I would be found out, therefore ending my life and losing the connection that the CIA needed to bring down some nasty people. Snitches found ditches and I was the worst of the lot.