Money Shot: Selected Sinners MC Romance Read online

  Money Shot

  Scott Hildreth

  DEDICATION

  No matter how old I get or how many children I have of my own, I will always be a little boy.

  My mother’s little boy.

  Mom, this one is for you.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  THIS BOOK IS A WORK OF FICTION.

  All names, locations, club names, and incidents in this book are a figment of the author’s imagination, and are depicted in a work of fiction. Any likeness to fact is pure coincidence. The club depicted in this book does not exist; it was created for this book. Lastly, the colors depicted in the cover and described in this book are a creation of graphic artistry, and are not actually the colors for any Motorcycle Club known to exist by the author.

  COPYRIGHT

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, are coincidental.

  Money Shot 1st Edition Copyright © 2015 by Scott Hildreth

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author or publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use the material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Cover design by Jessica www.creativebookconcepts.wordpress.com

  Follow me on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/sd.hildreth

  Like me on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/ScottDHildreth

  Follow me on Twitter at: @ScottDHildreth

  PROLOGUE

  June 6th, 2013

  I believe there comes a time in every man’s life when he questions the loyalty of his wife or girlfriend. Right or wrong, it eventually happens. A pattern of strange disagreements, her taste in music changing drastically, and a constant need to stay late at the office had raised my eyebrows, but it was when she cut her hair that I actually knew.

  Her long blonde hair had been her trademark since we met, and as many times as I asked her to change it, the answer was always the same. After ten years, I stopped asking. Roughly five years since I had last asked, she came home with her hair cut well above her shoulders and colored bright red.

  I remember standing there admiring her as she walked in, wondering what had changed. As she walked past me and turned toward the bedroom with a bag of new clothes swinging from her elbow, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

  She hadn’t done it for me.

  She had done it for him.

  Now, standing in his driveway glaring at him through the window of his truck as he fumbled to find what I was sure to be his gun, I felt incompetent, incapable, useless, and half sick at my stomach.

  I lowered my chin slightly and shook my head. “If I were you, I wouldn’t.”

  “Look, I uhhm,” he said as he shifted his eyes toward me.

  “I told you once, get out of the truck, Motherfucker. Just get out, and don’t reach for that console again. I ain’t planning on killing you, but I sure as fuck will if I have to,” I said flatly.

  I could have brought a few of the fellas, or the entire MC for that matter, but as far as I was concerned, my soon to be ex-wife’s lover wasn’t club business, it was personal. As much as I loved my club brothers, and as much as I trusted them to watch my back, I also knew the importance of keeping my personal life just that, personal.

  He glanced down at my clenched fists and did his best to reason with me. “Look I don’t want to…”

  I had never been a patient man. Even as a kid, I would peel the wrapping paper away from the Christmas presents and see if I could get a peek at what was underneath long before the day arrived to unwrap them. Often, while sitting on my motorcycle at a stoplight, I lose my ability to sit and wait, and simply ride through the red light.

  My mother always said I lacked tolerance.

  I couldn’t agree more.

  I pulled his truck door open with one hand and grabbed a fistful of his hair with the other. Although I had a reasonable amount of practice pulling men from their vehicles by their hair, attempting to pull him out by his provided an entirely new experience altogether.

  As his head followed the force of my hand pulling him toward the open door, his eyes widened and he began to scream. A short second later, and I had his entire head of hair in my hand, and he sat free of my grasp in the seat of his truck.

  And he was as bald as billiard ball.

  Quite confused at what had happened, I gazed at my hair-filled hand and tried to make sense of it all. The amount of time it took my mind to understand I was holding his hair hat and he had become a free man was just enough for him to do what I had clearly told him not to.

  I tossed his toupee toward my bike, leaned inside his truck, and reached for his right arm. As I squeezed his wrist with my left hand, preventing him from reaching for the open console, I began to punch him in the face repeatedly with my right hand, all the while continuing to pull him from the truck and explain why I was doing what I was doing.

  I felt fifteen years of my life had been wasted, and that I had been devoted – and loyal – to a lie. With every ounce of frustration packed into each swing of my fist, I continued to pummel him until he was a bloody mess.

  When I finally released him from my grasp he fell to the ground. Covered in blood and with both eyes swollen almost shut, he was still conscious. I stared down at him, wiped my knuckles on my jeans, and drew a long, slow breath.

  Looking back on the events of my past, there seemed to always be things that I had done in fits of rage or in a moment of desperation that I later regretted. I’d always referred to them as brain farts, and I had plenty of ‘em in my days. Several of the fellas would later claim that this night produced a brain fart, but I didn’t agree with them.

  I believed my actions were justified, considering I was married to the woman for fifteen years. If nothing else, I felt it would cause her to remember me for who I believed I was.

  A very loyal man with an extremely short temper.

  As I gazed down at him, I reached for my pocket, pulled out my knife, and flicked the blade open. As he continued to moan and attempted to roll on his side, I pressed my boot down onto his shoulder and held him in place.

  “Hold on, Motherfucker, I’m not done with you. Just a little reminder of who was here,” I growled.

  After glancing over each shoulder, I knelt down, pulled up his bloody tee shirt, and carved a very distinct “V” down from each of his nipples to his belly button.

  With his screams of pain echoing into the night, I wiped the blade of my knife against the thigh of my jeans, folded it, and clipped it in place in my pocket. I needed a fucking cigarette, but I’d almost given up on the habit of smoking. Almost. After leaning into the truck and taking his gun from the console, I shoved it into the waist of my jeans and walked to my bike as if what had just happened was a common occurrence.

  But it wasn’t.

  Natalie and I had been together since we were in high school. Although I never would have guessed we would have grown apart, it happened, and now I was forced to deal with the thought of her being with someone else.

  I coughed a light laugh as I tossed my leg over the seat of my bike. Brain fart or not, I liked the end result of my actions.

  Her new man had my initial carved in his chest.

  She had always liked seeing me with my shirt off, but my gues
s was that she was going to have the new guy leave his on in the future.

  I released the clutch lever and twisted the throttle back. A thirty minute ride and I’d be back at the clubhouse; one day wiser, and with one less woman in my life.

  With the street lights rushing past me, and the warm summer air pressing my cut against my chest, I thought of what my life had become; and what I felt I had thrown away with Natalie.

  Fifteen fucking years.

  The only relationship I had ever been in.

  I knew one thing, and I knew it for sure.

  The next woman, if there ever was another, would have one hell of a time proving herself to me.

  SIENNA

  June 8th, 2014

  With my heart beating out of my chest and my mind racing in ten different directions, I brushed my hand across the face of the screen anxiously. The page didn’t move. I carefully pressed my finger against the screen and flipped the page in the other direction. After a quick study, and confirming it was the page I had previously read, I swept my finger across the screen again and stared at the end of what appeared to be the last page.

  There was no doubt.

  I had reached the end of the book.

  “Are you fucking serious? A cliffie? You bitch!” I screamed as I tossed my Kindle across the room and into the wall.

  My favorite author had just become a worthless heap of steaming shit. After falling deeply in love despite all of their differences, being torn apart and then reunited, the hero proposed marriage; and I was prepared for a wedding. Instead, in the last chapter, out of the fucking blue, the hero was arrested for murder. Who in the fuck would end a story in such a place, leaving the reader to wait anxiously with knots in her stomach for the next book?

  A fucking idiot, that’s who.

  Although I generally tried to give myself twelve hours to digest a book before writing a review, I rolled off the edge of my bed, grabbed my glass of wine, and commenced to downing it as I walked over to my desk. As I waited for the computer to go through its startup procedure, I walked to the kitchen with my empty glass and grabbed the remaining bottle of Madeira.

  After roughly two seconds of considering how much wine I should pour into the glass, I uncorked the bottle, raised it to my lips, and took a much needed drink. I tossed the cork on the counter beside my empty glass and stomped toward my bedroom with the bottle dangling from my loosely clenched fist.

  I walked into the room, sat down, slammed the bottle against the desk, and began to type.

  *Kindle throwing alert*

  I’ll be taking donations from anyone wishing to fund a new Kindle purchase, because after reading this book, my Kindle is in a thousand pieces.

  Can you imagine the story Cinderella ending with the prince finding Cinderella’s glass slipper, but not searching for – or finding – her?

  Or maybe in The Notebook, the story ending with Allie receiving Noah’s letters from her mother, but not acting on her feelings?

  You can’t, can you?

  Neither can I.

  The reason I can’t imagine it, and I’m sure you’ll agree, is because most authors follow a proven pattern in the crafting of their stories for romance novels. They have a hero and heroine meet, fall in love, and eventually some type of conflict tears them apart. We frantically flip through the pages, saddened by their separation, and jump with joy when they eventually reunite. At some point the book ends, alluding to them living happily ever after.

  I reached for the wine, drank a quarter of what remained, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I slid the bottle beside my monitor, inhaled a shallow breath, and turned on Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” After a few minutes of bobbing my head to the music, I commenced typing.

  That, my friends and followers, is not the case in this book.

  Not at all.

  The author seems to have misplaced the memo explaining the necessity on not only writing a novel, but completing it.

  When I reached the point where the book stopped (I refuse to call it an ending)…

  I stopped typing, searched through my files, and inserted a .gif of a wide-eyed woman’s head exploding. After laughing to myself for a few long seconds, I took another drink of wine and continued.

  I realized the author must have run out of time. Maybe she needed to meet a deadline, and decided finishing the book would push her past her date or time. Who knows? But what I do know is this…

  She sure as fuck didn’t finish writing it.

  Now, for the beginning of the book, and what transpired between that point and when the book simply stopped?

  I loved it.

  As I read through this book, I was relieved that it had it all. A hero I could sink my teeth into. A heroine I wanted to sit down and have a glass of wine with. Scorching hot love scenes, more scorching hot love scenes, and conflict I saw coming, but hoped never came to fruition. After a hundred or so well-written angst-filled pages, the H and h were reunited, and then…

  Something ridiculous happened and the book just fucking ended.

  Up until the last chapter, this was a five star read for me. After reading all the way to the point she ran out of desire to finish it, I’ll have to give it one and a half stars.

  And I’m only doing that because I’m half-drunk and a hell of a lot happier than I was when I started this review.

  I inserted a .gif of an obviously drunken woman sitting on the edge of her bed in her underwear with a bottle of wine between her legs.

  As I read the review, I finished the bottle of wine. After rereading it, I wished I had another bottle, but knew I had no business driving to get one. Hoping a search of my kitchen would produce a bottle, but knowing damned good and well I had drank my last one, I published the review, excited at the thought of all of the comments I was sure to have when I woke up. I glanced up and stared blankly at the small hole in the wall, and slowly filled with drunken regret for throwing my Kindle. After a few insanely long alcohol induced seconds of lusting over my newest book boyfriend while Bruce Springsteen’s “Merry Christmas Baby” played, my doorbell rang.

  The sound startled me, causing me to jump from my seat and almost pee in the process. As my mind filled with thoughts of some mass murderer going door to door in search of his next victim, I tossed my glasses on my desk and ran to the window to get a peek at the scum. I carefully pulled the blinds away from the window frame and peered outside.

  Dear God.

  A big, rough, muscular, tattooed biker stood on my porch in his leather vest, jeans, and biker boots.

  It was like Christmas in June.

  I rubbed my drunken eyes with the tips of my index fingers, blinked a few times, and continued to admire him from the privacy of my bedroom.

  He got more handsome with each passing second.

  He pushed his hands into his pockets, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and slowly turned around. His bare arms were covered in tattoos and muscles. Even his muscles had muscles. After a few seconds of watching him walk toward the street, my curiosity – and the fact I was sexually deprived – got the best of me.

  I released the blinds and made it to the bathroom in three quick strides. I glanced in my mirror, attempted to fix my hair, and ran toward the front door. Dressed in a reasonably clean pair of Victoria’s Secret’s best sweats, I looked pretty presentable – at least for a late Sunday night. After clearing my throat and second guessing my thoughts for a few seconds, I yanked the door open and did my best to look sleep deprived. In my half-drunken state, it wasn’t much of a stretch.

  “Hello,” I said in what I hoped to be a sensual whisper. The words escaped my lips as a raspy drunken cough.

  Half way to his motorcycle, but fully illuminated by the security light in my driveway, he paused and turned around.

  Holy fucking shit.

  He looked like no other biker I had ever actually seen, but exactly like the ones I had developed in my head from the MC Romance
novels I had spent so much time reading. If it wasn’t for the warm and extremely humid summer air blowing in my face and making me half nauseous, I would have thought I was dreaming.

  As he walked in my direction and spoke, my heart began to beat rapidly and my palms began to sweat. As the low rumble of his voice explained the situation he was in, my mouth fell open and I stared at him as if he was being offered to me by the God of sorrow.

  “Listen, this is going to sound like complete bullshit, but I ran out of gas and this is where I ended up,” he said as he waved his hand toward the motorcycle parked by the curb.

  I glanced at the vintage Harley, shifted my eyes to where he was standing, and stared. Common sense, which was something I often seemed to lack, should have caused me to turn toward the house, go inside, and lock the door. Instead, I stepped from the house onto the porch and asked for more details.

  After clearing my throat of the sweet wine that still heavily coated it, I widened my eyes at the sight of him. In an effort to look cute, but more to lure him a little closer, I tossed my hair over my shoulder. The move threw me off-balance, causing my drunken ass to almost fall flat on my face.

  “So, you need a ride?” I asked in a fractionally more sultry tone.

  He took a few steps toward me, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and sighed heavily. “Well, not exactly,” he said. “I don’t want to leave the bike here.”

  I turned my palms up and shook my head from side to side. “I don’t have any gas. The maintenance men cut the grass and stuff, so I don’t have any need for it. But…”

  I paused and studied him as I considered what else to say. He rocked back and forth nervously on the balls of his feet as he seemed to consider leaving his motorcycle in the street. He looked rough, but not in a homeless unkempt way. He seemed to be, at least by his appearance, stature, and stance to be a guy no one would ever want to cross, and I suspected very few had successfully done so. His hair was dark, short, and as close as I could tell in the dark, well-cut. His face was covered in a day or two of beard growth, and it complimented him quite well. His bare arms were nothing but muscle, and were covered with various tattoos.