Authors: Megan Crane
Skank factor ten,
she told herself. Perfect, in other words, for the night she had in mind. A night that would not include Ajax or his attitude problem.
She put on a whole lot of smoky eye makeup, blew her hair out big and a little bit wild so it slithered around her when she moved, and then she headed out to make the most of a Thursday night on Bourbon Street.
Because Sophie had understood one thing very clearly this morning when she’d opened her bedroom door to get an eyeful of Ajax, sprawled out on her living room sofa like a vengeful god in a moment of uneasy rest. His blue eyes had been wild, his hands freshly battered, and she’d learned a few things about herself in that stunning moment when all she’d been able to do was
look
at him.
All that crap she’d been telling herself her whole life? About how much she hated bikers and the life and the things they did and the violence they trailed along behind them like the smell of garbage on a Louisiana summer morning?
Bullshit. It was all bullshit.
Because all it had taken was one look at Ajax, a little bit bloody and oozing his over-the-top maleness and sheer aggression from every pore—and Sophie had been so wet, so hot, so achingly aroused that she’d been a little bit shocked Ajax hadn’t been able to see it from across the room.
It had horrified her, but that had only made her nipples pull tight and ache too, and she’d had no choice but to march herself into the kitchen to conceal her reaction—even as her pulse shuddered through her and her legs felt weak beneath her—or retreat into her bedroom as if he’d hurt her feelings.
Which he had, but what did that matter? That was who he was. She’d known that going in. All she could do was throw his shit back in his face, because like hell would she roll over and play dead like everyone else he encountered probably did.
Like hell.
Her daddy hadn’t raised a little bitch.
Priest had taught her not to crumple in the face of overwhelming masculine aggression—not even his own.
You show fear, you might as well lie down and play dead, angel,
he’d told her more than once while she’d been growing up.
And God knows what will happen to you then.
Fuck you,
she’d retorted once, memorably. She’d been about twenty. Her father had stared at her in open astonishment, and Sophie had laughed.
Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?
Good girl,
he’d grunted at her, but those eyes of his, green like hers, had gleamed.
Now watch your fucking mouth.
It had been a long day with a lot of deeply unwelcome honesty, after that moment with Ajax. Sophie had taken her time getting dressed and when she’d left her room again, Ajax had been passed out on the couch, looking something like ten years younger, if no sweeter, without that trademark scowl on his face. And so absurdly beautiful, stretched out there in the morning light, that Sophie found she had a lump in her throat as she’d sneaked past him.
The whole day had been like that. Sophie had been forced to confront a whole mess of things she hadn’t wanted to face. Like the police, who wanted to talk to her about the funeral tomorrow, because they were expecting a shitload of bikers and didn’t want any trouble.
“You can understand our position,” the officer had said, standing a little too close to Sophie in the funeral director’s office, his pudgy hand on his weapon like he expected that to intimidate her. Idiot. She’d literally fucked scarier dudes than he could dream of becoming, without blinking. “We don’t want a situation.”
Sophie had smiled at him, not particularly nicely, and he’d clenched that gun even harder. “That’s a little bit like staring up at a big, black thundercloud and hoping for a sunny day, don’t you think?”
“I think you’d know how to make sure that sun shines better than anyone, Ms. Lombard,” the cop had oozed at her, emphasizing the word
Ms.
like they both knew he meant
biker whore
instead. “Your father being who he was and all.”
Sophie had merely shrugged. “Bikers are bikers. They’re going to do what they’re going to do, and even if they
could
be corralled? I’m not the one who could do it. Do I look like a sheepdog, Officer?”
But her own words had stuck with her as she’d noted the increase of biker cuts on men in the French Quarter as she’d walked back home, and not just from the local clubs. Just like she’d noticed the little leap her heart made at the sight. The truth was, she
liked
bikers back on Bourbon Street. In force.
Bikers were bikers
. She knew that. She’d always told herself she hated it—and yet here she was, still tending bar deep in Deacons territory. She’d never fought her father’s wishes too hard. And so she was still living this life where she was known as Priest Lombard’s daughter first, last, and always. Whereas she could navigate a pissed-off Ajax in another MC’s clubhouse the way a southern debutante could handle a garden party, and with as little sweat or tears. Whereas, after a long string of mediocre boyfriends and boring attempts to
feel something
with any of them, the first biker who’d ever gotten in her face she’d let straight into her pants—and she couldn’t regret that. Hell, she wanted more.
Who was she kidding? Her father had raised her up to be a biker bitch no matter what lies he might have told himself or her, and that’s exactly what she was.
And exactly what she intended to erase tonight. Biker philosophy was pretty clear when it came to fucking. It was all the same in the dark—and Sophie intended to explore that theory. The French Quarter was bursting with men. Men who thought motorcycles were noise pollution and those who rode them were dangerous criminals. Men who considered themselves
motorcycle enthusiasts
because they dreamed of keeping a bike or two in their suburban garages. Men who would have no idea who her father had been. Men who wouldn’t pull that biker bullshit Ajax had on her in the morning—they’d just leave. Hell, they might even call the next day. Or send a noncommittal text, like a normal person. The world was filled with far more palatable men and Sophie was going to find them or die trying.
Or maybe you can just flash your tits in true New Orleans style, drama queen,
she told herself drily as she made her way down the stairs in her very precarious shoes.
It will have about the same effect.
But she was a little too human and maybe a little too vain besides, and that was why she took a short victory lap through the Priory on her way out. Just to make sure everyone she knew was well aware that she was going out on the prowl.
Everyone.
She didn’t look over into that sacred corner to see if Ajax was watching her—because she didn’t have to look. She knew. She could feel the slam of his instant attention like a body blow as she breezed in from the back hall. She prickled all over as she leaned against the bar and told her manager not to text her tonight unless it was a dire emergency. She was afraid her knees were about to give out when she stepped back and shook out her hair, because the searing blue of Ajax’s gaze was like a strobe light all around her. She was shocked no one else was reacting to it.
But she certainly wasn’t planning to react to it, either, at least not where he could see it. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He and his collarless, bell-less dick could go fuck themselves.
And with a last wicked smile at her friends behind the bar, without so much as a glance into the corner where Ajax and his dark temper sat and brooded loud enough to drown out the hard rock from the speakers, Sophie set off to debauch herself in all the sin her hometown had to offer.
A few hours later, Sophie was packed in tight on what passed for a dance floor in a very sweaty, very smoky French Quarter establishment that hadn’t quite made up its mind between
dive bar
and
dance club
. The result was very drunk, very bad dancing, and very handsy.
She swiveled her hips away from yet another grope toward her breasts and reminded herself that this was why she was here, dancing to some atrocious Top 40 anthem laid down on a dire dance beat. The entire point was to suffer as much groping as possible, and wash the imprint of Ajax right off her.
Clearly, she thought darkly as she detached herself from yet another drunken fool who wanted to rub his dick against the cutout that snuck down toward her ass, she wasn’t nearly drunk enough to enjoy this the way she should.
She made her way out of the heaving dance floor crush to find the jostling pack around the bar no better. But at least here, there was a little more attention to her face on the way down to all those cutouts and a little less straight-out grabbing.
“Can I buy you a drink, sugar?” one man with a mouthful of Mississippi drawled at her as she approached.
He was cute enough, she supposed, in that clean-cut southern boy way that suggested a secret stash of revolting porn and five generations of terrible family secrets, but hell. That was tame by her standards.
You want tame,
she reminded herself sharply.
You want collars and bells and all that shit. That’s the point.
So even though she’d already rejected ten men just like him tonight for no good reason, she smiled at this one, long and bright and more than a little dirty besides.
“You surely can,” she said, as sultry as possible. “But you should know that I’m cheap and I’m easy. It’s only going to take the one drink. Are you up for that?”
Mississippi’s dark eyes lit up as he leaned toward her, and Sophie could smell the faintest hint of aftershave and a whole lot more beer. But then he froze, an inch away from her. His reasonably handsome face went pale. He muttered something wholly unintelligible, threw up his hands as if someone had pointed a gun at him, and moved away from her. In a hurry.
Sophie gritted her teeth. She pulled in a breath.
And then she turned, very slowly, to see what could possibly have scared off a six-foot-three southern man who’d been that drunk and that close to so much of her bare skin.
But, of course, she knew.
Ajax lounged there against the bar, his mouth set in that evil grin of his—the triangle of his beard made that much worse—his blue eyes a blaze of heat and fury that cut through the crowd and deep into her, too. He’d raked that dark blond hair of his back from his face and he wore his cut with an ease that made the fact of it—of what it so obviously stood for here in the post–
Sons of Anarchy
world—that much more pointed as it emphasized the impossible width of his hard, heavy shoulders. There was a small ring around him, Sophie noticed, even here in the busiest part of this overcrowded place, as if he’d peed around himself in a circle.
Or more likely, had simply shouldered his way there and glared.
She glared back at him.
That grin of his only deepened, and it was a dangerous, edgy thing. She could feel the scrape of it deep inside of her, making her feel something like drunk in a single, searing instant. Drunk and hot and needy.
So needy it edged over into greed.
Tame will never do,
something inside of her whispered.
Not for you.
Up above, another pop star wailed about her pain while the blood in Sophie’s body slowed, then ran hot. Ajax’s blue eyes were hooded and intense, and he merely looked at her for a moment that dragged out much too long before he crooked a finger at her.
But she had no intention of running when he called, thank you. She might be a biker bitch down deep in her bones, but that didn’t make her
his
biker bitch.
Instead, Sophie smiled at the man beside Ajax, who gaped at her, then at Ajax, before turning his back to her. The idiot on her left, who’d spent at least ten minutes drooling over her dress earlier, gulped so loudly she could hear it above the music, and threw himself back into the crowd.
She looked back at Ajax, her eyes narrowed, and he only shrugged, that shit-eating grin all over his face and pure murder in his eyes.
And the truth about all of this, Sophie understood then, was that she’d never wanted anyone more. She couldn’t imagine how she ever would.
She took her time walking to him. Because surrendering to the inevitable wasn’t the same thing as full capitulation. It didn’t make her a junkie if she was
choosing
this—choosing
him—
instead of merely succumbing. Or so she told herself.
That look in Ajax’s eyes, darker the closer she got, filled with sex and mayhem and the promise of retribution, told her otherwise.
She slowed down. His gaze heated up. She made sure her hips swung and he really got the full effect of all her cutouts and her bare skin beneath. The one on her side that spanned her hip. The one just below one breast. She felt his hard gaze lick over her and his grin had turned deadly by the time she stopped in front of him, as close to standing between his outstretched legs as she could get without actually touching him.
Then it was as if someone turned off the music, the sound of the crowd, the French Quarter in full wail outside. There was only the jarring thud of her heart and Ajax. Ajax everywhere, so tall and strong and lethal that no one dared get too close to him. Ajax brighter than the moon and the stars and the lights on Bourbon Street, and all Sophie could seem to do was bask in the glare of it. Of him.
He reached over and slid his hand over the fall of her hair, and then held on. Tight, though she refused to react to the yank of it. He never dropped that blistering gaze from hers. He merely began to wrap her hair around his big, battered hand and scraped knuckles, twisting it over his palm, tugging as he went until he had her on a short leash made of her own long hair. All he’d have to do was pull a little bit to bring her sprawling up against him.
She waited, tensed and ready, but he didn’t do it.
And she ached, everywhere. She
needed.
She was wet and close to desperate, her nipples so hard they made her breasts feel swollen, and she couldn’t seem to pull in a full breath.