“Why are you still here?” Hallie burst out as she appeared on the kitchen’s doorway. Dark haired and blue-eyed, Yuri’s younger sister was always dressed femininely, with either frilly tops or lacy dresses. Today was no different, and MJ couldn’t help but smile when she saw the pretty pink bow on the other girl’s hair.
But her smile disappeared when Hallie dragged her out of her seat. “Wh-what are you doing?” MJ exclaimed.
Hallie didn’t stop dragging her towards the hallway leading to the club’s private yard. “Today’s maintenance day, don’t you remember?”
MJ frowned even as she tried to keep up with Hallie. “Maintenance Day?” She took out her daily planner from her jeans’ back pocket and flipped through the pages. Oh, there it was. MD. “I thought I had written this down.”
At Hallie’s confused look, MJ said sheepishly, “I thought it meant Menstruation Day.”
Hallie groaned. “MJ. For real?” She shook her head. MJ was the only volunteer that she really got along with, but even she had to admit that MJ’s brain pattern was not exactly at the same wavelength as everyone else’s. She was an adorable combination of innocent and mature, although in Helios Andreadis’ case, it was said that the club’s president found her more infuriating than anything else.
And that’s a good thing, Hallie thought to herself as she ushered MJ out of the back door and waved for the other girl to follow her into the garage. Located at the end of the club’s private yard, the garage was previously used by the university as a warehouse for its gardening supplies. When Helios founded the club in his first year, he had donated a huge amount of money to the school in order to acquire full ownership of the warehouse. It had since been transformed into a state-of-the-art lab where the club’s innovators could pimp their bikes.
Helios had been sad and alone for too many years now. He deserved happiness of his own, and she and Yuri believed MJ was the key to that. The problem was getting Helios to give MJ a chance to make him happy.
She checked her watch and bit her lip worriedly when she realized they were already five minutes late. Helios was big on punctuality. Considering how he had been bad-tempered of late, he might just use this as an excuse to bite MJ’s head off.
Glancing at MJ over her shoulder, Hallie asked, “You okay there?”
“Yep.” Not. Everyone in the club seemed so fit. Even Hallie, who looked more like a real-life china doll, seemed to have more stamina than she had. The club’s yard was huge, and trekking it so unexpectedly already had MJ gasping to catch her breath. Hallie, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be winded. At all!
MJ sighed in relief when they finally reached the garage, a huge enclosure with brick walls and steel gates. But her relief was short-lived when, upon entering, the sight of dozens of motor bikes greeted her.
Everyone seemed to be having a grand time inside the garage, with the bikers high-fiving, laughing, and yelling at each other. All of the club’s volunteers were there, and they, too, were obviously having fun, flirting with the guys and wiggling all the body parts that could be wiggled as they helped with washing and cleaning bikes.
It was a happy, noisy affair but she didn’t truly hear any of it.
She was immobilized with fear, trauma throwing MJ back into her nightmarish past. And then one of the bikers started to play cops and robbers with a sexy blonde, pretending to be a cop as he revved his bike’s engine. “I’m going to catch you!”
Vroom, vroom.
MJ wanted to cover her ears.
VROOM, VROOM, VROOM.
“Are you all right?”
It took MJ a shameful amount of time to come out of her nightmares. When she looked up, Kellion, Yuri, and Helios were in front of her. The two gazed at her in concern while Helios’ face gave none of his feelings away.
It was the first time for them to come face to face after last night’s...encounter. It was the only word she could come up with that would not make her heart hurt. She had tossed and turned the whole night, trying to convince herself that Helios’ cruel words were only a result of the betrayal he had suffered from his brother and girlfriend.
He had not really wanted to treat her like a slut. He had said what he said, done what he had done simply because he had a hard time trusting anyone. That was all.
Helios had a hard time keeping himself still. MJ did not look okay at all, and he had the strongest urge to pull her into his arms and demand what was wrong so he could fix it. Just seeing her was more than enough to remember their time together, his imagination having no difficulty replaying it with explicit detail.
Jealousy and lust warred inside him. If he had thought having a taste of her would put an end to his obsession, he had been wrong. It had only fed his passion, and now he wanted her more than ever. Just looking at her was enough to have Helios hard and aching, and his cock became rigid under his pants at the thought of claiming her body as his.
He wanted to claim her, now, right here, so that everyone would know she belonged to him.
“Are you all right?”
Yuri’s gentle voice had Helios clenching and unclenching his fists. Yuri was always the most courteous one among them, but wasn’t this fucking overkill? The other man was giving MJ too much attention, and he did not like it. Not one fucking bit, not when Yuri’s gentle treatment of her was making it more and more obvious who was her secret crush.
MJ felt so miserable. All this time, she had felt Helios’ eyes on hers, and it did not feel good. She had stolen a look at him, and the contempt in his gaze wounded her. Why did he hate her so much? Why, after last night, did he hate her still?
Forcing herself to smile, she told Yuri haltingly, “I’m sorry. I’m just...” She stopped, realizing that she didn’t want to share her horrible past. Back at home, everyone in town had known of the life she had with James, and they had responded by pitying her from afar. She did not want to experience the same thing with the club. That would kill her.
And so she said lamely, “I’m not that fond of bikes.”
Everyone gazed at her with disbelief at her answer. Finally, Yuri said, “I see.”
The note of understanding in the other man’s voice infuriated Helios. That was fucking it? Did Yuri like MJ then? Did he like her so much that he was going to let her get away with such a stupid answer?
Looking back at MJ, he snapped, “Are you just playing cute or what?”
MJ swallowed. “I...I just don’t like bikes.”
“Then we have a fucking problem,” Helios said coldly, “since Afxisi, if you haven’t noticed, is a fucking club for bikers.”