My Hotshot, page 1
Iron Fiends MC
Book 9
Wall Street Journal & USA Today Bestselling Author
Winter Travers
Copyright © 2025 Winter Travers
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduction, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) utilization of this work without written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks are not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Also by Winter Travers
Devil’s Knights Series
Loving Lo
Finding Cyn
Gravel’s Road
Battling Troy
Gambler’s Longshot
Keeping Meg
Fighting Demon
Unraveling Fayth
Forever Lo
Devil’s Knights 2nd Gen
Passing the Torch
Riding the Line
Royal Mess
Changing Lanes
Bucking Tradition
Reining It In
Fractured Brotherhood
Ride the Wind
Chase the Sunset
Freedom Ride
Skid Row Kings Series
DownShift
PowerShift
BangShift
Fallen Lords MC Series
Nickel
Pipe
Maniac
Wrecker
Boink
Clash
Freak
Slayer
Brinks
Fallen Lords Christmas
A Moo Christmas
Kings of Vengeance MC
Drop a Gear and Disappear
Lean Into It
Knees in the Breeze
Midnight Wreckage
Thrill Seeker
Livin’ on the Edge
Blacktop Freedom
Ride or Die
Powerhouse MA Series
Dropkick My Heart
Love on the Mat
Black Belt in Love
Black Belt Knockout
Nitro Crew Series
Burndown
Holeshot
Redlight
Shutdown
Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento, CA
Playboy
Six-Gun
Monk
Rebel
Barracuda
Jet
Jinx
Mace
Urn For Me
VII Knights MC: Golden, CO Chapter
Iced
Iron Fiends MC
My Biker
My Savior
My Romeo
My Hero
My Prince
My Dream
My Casanova
My Knight
My Hotshot
Sweet Love Novellas
Sweet Burn
Five Alarm Donuts
Stand Alone Novellas
Kissing the Bad Boy
Trapped with the Bad Boy
Daddin’ Ain’t Easy
Silas: A Scrooged Christmas
Wanting More
Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool
Tangle My Tinsel
Mr. Motorcycle
Oral Communications
Coasting In
Holly’s Biker
Bringing Home the Biker
Biker Under My Tree
Alice & Meg
Alice & Meg: Girls Trip
Banachi Family Series
His Reward
His Claim
His Sacrifice
His Forever
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
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
Coming Soon
About the Author
1st Chapter of Secret Southern Promises
1st Chapter of Loving Lo
Prologue
Dice
I punched in the number I had memorized, and my thumb hovered over the final digit for just a second before I hit send.
The dial tone rang once. Twice. Three times.
I held my breath.
Then the line clicked.
“Hello?”
My heart slammed into my ribs.
I knew that voice.
“Stretch?”
“What the fuck are you calling this number for?” Stretch’s voice snapped through the line, low and laced with panic.
“Pretty sure I’m the one who should be asking you what the fuck you’re doing,” I growled, pacing the sidewalk behind the garage. “You’re fucking working for—”
“Don’t fucking worry about what I’m doing,” he hissed.
I stopped pacing and curled my hand tighter around my phone. “Yeah? Don’t worry, huh? Then I won’t tell you the Banachi are two steps away from taking you fucking out, man.”
Silence.
Dead air.
Then a muttered, “The Banachi? What the hell do they have to do with this?”
“If you were fucking here, you’d know they’re helping us,” I bit out. “They’re going to clean house. And you, Stretch?” I exhaled harshly. “You’re about to be next.”
He let out a long string of curses, some I hadn’t heard since high school. Some I was pretty sure he made up on the spot.
Yeah, it was bad.
You didn’t fuck around with the Banachi and expect to come out clean. Those guys didn’t send warning shots—they sent bodies.
“Get the fuck out of there, man,” I ordered. “I’m serious. Ghost out. Drop everything. You stay another minute, you’re done.”
“I can’t,” Stretch said quietly, his voice dropping to just above a whisper. “I’m in too deep to stop now.”
“You’re not hearing me,” I said, every word clipped. “The Banachi are going to fucking kill you.”
“I’m not leaving. Not yet.”
The background of the call shifted—muffled voices, too far away to make out, but close enough that Stretch turned his head. I could hear it in the way his voice became more distant, the way he cupped the phone.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. “I have to go.”
“No, wait—Stretch—”
“Keep the Banachi off my ass,” he cut me off. “You know me, Dice. Don’t call this number again. I’ll call if I need you.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the screen in my hand, and the call log blinked back at me like it didn’t know what the fuck just happened either.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket, but that didn’t stop the tension thrumming in my veins. My knuckles cracked as I clenched my fists, and my body practically vibrated with confusion and fury.
Stretch.
The one person I thought would never turn his back on us.
The one guy I thought I knew inside and out.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
Chapter One
Dice
I was just about to blow past Main Street when a flash of long, sun-kissed hair and a pair of tanned legs stopped me cold.
I hit the brakes hard enough that the tires squealed. My bike fishtailed half a foot before I got it steady, and I swung my head around so fast that it damn near gave me whiplash.
No way.
No goddamn way.
I whipped a U-turn and parked in the nearest parking spot.
I kicked down the stand and climbed off as my boots crunched on the pavement. “Lainey,” I called.
And then she turned.
Her head tilted like she was trying to make sense of me and the fact that I was standing in front of her for the first time in sixteen years.
“Duane,” she said, and I swear it hit me in the gut like a fist.
I shook my head. “Not Duane.”
She raised an eyebrow, like I was the confusing part of this moment. “You said Lainey, and then I said your name. Are you not Duane anymore?”
Hell, I hadn’t been called that in over a decade. Probably closer to fifteen years. “Dice, baby.”
Lainey blinked. “You changed your name from Duane to Dice? I know you never really liked your name, but I thought you would’ve picked something less… weird.”
I gave a short laugh and shrugged. “I didn’t pick it.”
She looked around like she was expecting an alien
We were on Main Street in the parking lot of the grocery store, right by the corner with the diner and that old barber shop. I’d just been cruising by when something about the woman walking toward the store yanked my soul out of my chest. I did a double-take so hard I nearly wrecked.
It was her.
My Lainey.
At least, she’d been mine once.
Back in high school, when the world was simpler and we were invincible. I left town a few weeks after graduation to chase that itch to get out and keep moving.
Lainey? She had college lined up. Scholarships. Plans. A future. Everything I didn’t.
She stepped closer. “You are Duane Clyde, right?”
“To the government, yeah. But I go by Dice now.”
Her eyes raked over me and lingered on the tattoo that curved around my neck. “I only knew it was you by your eyes. You’ve… changed.”
“Life will do that to you, baby,” I said, my voice low and rough.
She nodded. “I suppose you’re right. I’m not exactly the size four I was in high school.”
My gaze dropped over her body. Long, light brown hair hung past her shoulders in gentle waves, half tucked behind one ear. Her face was still that perfect mix of sweet and strong—just a little more defined now. More woman than girl. She wore a plain white T-shirt that clung in all the right places and light blue jean shorts with a frayed hem that showed off miles of legs. White sneakers on her feet. Tan skin. Curves that screamed grown woman in every damn sense of the word.
I wanted to touch her. I wanted to taste her. I wanted to hear what her moan sounded like after sixteen years apart.
I looked at her left hand.
No rings.
Thank fuck.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t with someone. And suddenly that thought hit me square in the chest.
“You look fantastic from where I’m standing, Lainey,” I said honestly.
She blushed. Actually blushed. Pushed her hair behind her ear and ducked her head a little.
“Yeah, well, you might be biased. Having a baby kind of wrecked my body.”
My head jerked up. “You have a kid?”
She nodded. “I mean, it was fifteen years ago. I don’t really think I can use that as an excuse anymore.”
Fifteen years ago.
We graduated sixteen years ago.
I blinked. “Fifteen years ago?”
She must’ve seen the panic set in because she laughed and held her hands up. “Whoa, whoa. I can see you panicking. You are not the father,” she said, still laughing.
Relief punched through me, but it was quickly followed by something else. Something sharp and unexpected.
Disappointment.
I had no idea what the hell was wrong with me. But part of me didn’t hate the idea of that baby being mine. Well, now teenager.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Uh… well. Congrats.”
She snorted. “I deal with a fifteen-year-old girl every day, Duane. I need a bottle of wine more than I need congratulations.”
I didn’t say anything. My head was still spinning. Lainey was a mom. She had a daughter. She’d lived a whole damn life while I’d been off raising hell with the Iron Fiends.
“So, uh… you just passing through Mt. Pleasant or…” I trailed off.
We grew up in Oklahoma. Mt. Pleasant was six hours and a lifetime away.
She squinted at me. “Moving here. Lottie and I needed a fresh start, and Mt. Pleasant is going to be it. What about you?”
“Mt. Pleasant’s been my home for a while now. My club is based here.”
Her eyes flicked to the patch on my chest.
“Iron Fiends,” she read aloud. Then her gaze slid to the patch over my name. “And yep, Dice.” She gave me a half-smile. “How’d you come up with that?”
I shrugged. “That’s a story for another time.”
She laughed, a soft musical sound that tugged at something buried in me. “Okay.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out and glanced at the screen.
Where the fuck are you? Yarder had impeccable timing as usual.
I frowned.
“I’ll let you get that,” Lainey said, giving me a gentle out. She shifted the canvas grocery bag higher on her shoulder. “I’ve got an empty fridge and a fifteen-year-old who’s not going to deal well with takeout for the second week in a row.”
I didn’t want to end this conversation. I wanted more—more time, more stories, more of her.
But I also knew Yarder didn’t text like that unless shit was serious. And I’d already been skating too close to the edge with him lately.
“Uh, yeah,” I said reluctantly. “I do have some things I need to do. Maybe we can get together one night and catch up?”
Lainey hesitated. “Uh… maybe. I’m kind of busy with getting settled in right now.”
I nodded, not wanting to push her. “How about I give you my number, and you can call or text when it’s good for you?”
She pulled out her phone. “Sure. That sounds good.”
I rattled off the number and watched her type it in with fingernails painted a dark gray.
“I’ll text you when things settle down,” she said with a timid smile. “It was good seeing you again, Duane.”
I slid my sunglasses back on and smirked. “Dice, baby.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, that one’s gonna take me a bit to get used to. I’ll see you around.”
She turned and headed toward the grocery store. Her hips swayed as those long legs carried her away from me. I stood there like some idiot stuck in a daydream.
Damn.
She looked even better walking away.
My past had just strolled back into my life wearing frayed shorts and white sneakers, and now she was disappearing into a grocery store while I stood there with a patch on my chest and feeling like an eighteen-year-old all over again.
Lainey fucking Daly.
I remembered everything in a rush. Kissing her in the cab of my truck with her hair tangled in my fingers. That laugh that bubbled out when she was happy and the way her hand had felt in mine when we made those bullshit promises about forever.
She looked hot.
Not just pretty. Not just fine.
Hot.
Curvy and womanly and every bit the fantasy I didn’t even know I still had.
My phone buzzed again. This time, Yarder was calling.
I swiped to connect and put it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Get your goddamn ass to the clubhouse NOW,” Yarder barked.
Shit.
I turned, and my eyes went to the door Lainey had disappeared behind.
Whatever was waiting for me at the clubhouse… it sure as hell wasn’t going to be as sweet as the woman I’d just seen for the first time in sixteen years.
And if I had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t be the last.
Chapter Two
Lainey
I bumped the button to shut the garage door and hauled the last three grocery bags into the house with a huff as the plastic handles bit into my wrists. My arms were sore, my back ached, and I was pretty sure the shocks on my car might not recover from all the groceries.
I set the bags on the kitchen island and blew a stray strand of hair out of my face. “We might have enough food to feed an army, Lainey,” I muttered to myself and tossed my keys into the little ceramic bowl by the sink.
That might’ve had something to do with the fact that I’d spent the last two hours doing everything in my power not to think about the fact that I had just come face to face with Duane.
Or Dice, I guess. That’s what he called himself now.
Didn’t matter what name he went by. I still knew that voice, still remembered the way his eyes had burned into mine. That crooked grin and stupid, cocky shrug. All of it.
I was great at avoiding things. Denial was my oldest and dearest friend. Buying pretty much one of everything at the store had been my way of not thinking about Duane.
And now I was home, alone, and my mind was doing the exact opposite of avoiding him.
“Get out of my head,” I snapped, grabbed a bag of apples, and yanked open the fridge. The crisper drawer stuck. “Stupid drawer,” I mumbled as I jerked it open harder than necessary.
