But today is
not
the day to show up
at my work-- of all days. Eileen is as straight-laced as they come,
and while she knows my dad’s Forsaken, it’s not something she’s
keen on acknowledging. Knowing that mouthing off to Diesel won’t
end well, I just bite my tongue and give him a pleasant smile while
taking a few steps in his direction.
Diesel’s never done me
wrong no matter how many times we’ve hooked up, but I’m not stupid
enough to think he’d treat me any better than he did Julie if I
start shit with him. “You want some coffee?” I ask, hitching a
thumb toward the espresso machine.
God,
please tell me this man just stopped in for coffee.
Heavy boots clunk against the hardwood
floor behind Diesel and a large, familiar form comes into view
despite being partially obstructed by Diesel’s massive body.
Wearing blue jeans, a black wife beater, and his leather cut, Duke
strides up beside Diesel and place his hands on his hips. It’s the
first time I’ve seen him in about two months-- ever since he
claimed me when we hooked up. He looks damn good despite my
frustration, and no matter how much I hate myself for it, I can’t
help but let my eyes travel down to his hips where his hands rest.
Those hips can perform magic tricks that would make performers in
Vegas jealous.
“
Where in the hell have
you been?” he asks, irritation evident in his voice. It only takes
a moment for my temper to rise, making me see red. He’s fucking
joking, right?
Chapter 2
“What?”
I snap. I ball my hands into fists at my side as my blood pressure
shoots through the roof. He knows the way this stuff normally
works—hell, his club fucking invented how this works—so it’s not
like he can play stupid.
Two
months
and not a damn word and now this?
The embarrassment I felt only grew as time went on and I hadn’t
heard from him. I went from feeling a little too dreamy about
everything to feeling a little ridiculous to eventually feeling
like a stupid piece of trash. We could have fucked and left it at
that, but no.
“Where have you been?” he
says very slowly. His blue eyes are narrowed, and his strong jaw is
covered by facial hair he’s let grow out. Though he commands the
attention of everybody in his presence, for once he doesn’t look
like he’s enjoying it.
“I’ve been around,” I say,
trying to bite back my anger. “Where have you been?” I may be
intimidated by Diesel, but Duke doesn’t scare me. No matter how big
and tough he is now, I remember the days when he was just the
awkward kid whose face hadn’t grown into his personality yet. And
damn it to hell—I had a crush on him even back then.
“Yeah, you been around,
all right, but you ain’t been where you should have,” Duke says. My
entire body tenses, and I shoot a questioning glare at Diesel. He
lifts his hands and shrugs his shoulders like he doesn’t know
what’s going on, either, then turns and stares curiously at Duke.
At least I’m not the only one not caught up.
Darren lets out a sigh,
and the very reminder of his presence has me taking a step closer
to Duke. His eyes narrow in Darren’s direction and move between us.
Though my movement was subtle, or so I thought, Duke’s caught on,
and well, shit.
“Who’s this guy?” Duke
asks, looking down at me. We’re barely two feet apart now, and,
this close up, his question comes across more like an accusation
than anything. Suddenly, it feels like I’m back in high school and
Darren’s caught on that I hooked up with Ryan while we were broken
up—and he isn’t pleased. And unfortunately, that actually happened.
I wish I could say that Ryan was a horrible lay, but even back
then, that bastard knew how to move.
“Darren Jennings,” Darren says as he
steps forward and introduces himself to Duke and Diesel. Diesel’s
playing on his phone and couldn’t care less about what’s going on.
I keep shooting him sideways glances to beg him for help, but the
few times he’s looked over at me, there’s nothing but amusement on
his face. Asshole.
Darren reaches his hand
out, brushing against me, but Duke sneers down at it like Darren’s
trying to shake his dick or something. Duke leans in just slightly
toward Darren and hooks his arm around my waist, pulling me back,
and says, “Too close, dude.”
Darren raises an eyebrow at that
comment. Even though he was born and raised in this town, and the
club’s been here longer than he’s been alive, Darren has never
understood the fine art of dealing with the outlaw biker club. The
more distance Duke puts between me and Darren, the more I’m able to
relax, and the more comfortable I feel.
“Pardon?” Darren says with a raised
eyebrow. He drops his hand and takes half a step back. “I’m
speaking with an old friend, and who might you be?”
My eyes widen as Duke chuckles
heartily from behind me. Oh, maybe if I’m lucky Duke will beat the
crap out of him.
Diesel strains his neck,
curses, and then shoves his phone back in his pocket. He looks at
Darren with a flat expression and says, “Dude. I’m in the middle of
level ninety-nine of Candy Castle. Now I gotta stop what I’m doing
and deal with your mouth. Not cool.”
“I feel like I’m missing
something,” Darren says with a confused look on his face. I bite my
tongue to stop myself from telling him to give up the act. He knows
damn well who the Forsaken are, and he knows damn well what they
can do. But even in Duke’s grasp, where I feel braver than I have
in a long time, I don’t have the courage to mouth off to
Darren.
“You see our patches, your hear our
bikes, you know who we are,” Diesel says. He lifts his chin at Duke
and nods his head toward the back door.
From behind me, Duke bends
at the waist and places his mouth right beside my ear, whispering,
“Clubhouse. Ten minutes. You don’t show, and I’m going to hunt your
ass down, you got that? It’s been a damn long time, and I’m tired
of waiting for your sweet pussy.”
As much as I want to light
into his ass like there’s no tomorrow, I can’t. I have to work
here, and that’s assuming Eileen doesn’t fire my ass for all of
this shit anyway.
“Whatever,” I say. I can’t bring
myself to agree, and I can’t argue here. Without another word, Duke
turns and leaves the shop out the back door. Diesel raises an
eyebrow and shrugs his broad shoulders, then follows
Duke.
I’m tempted to say
something to Darren, whose eyes are fixated on the back door.
Something snippy like
‘Well, it was nice
seeing you, jackass’
, but I’ve had enough
drama for the morning and I’m not up to invite any more. I move
quickly around him and slip out of the door. A large hand wraps
itself around my upper arm, holding me in place. My chest
constricts painfully. For just a moment everything stops. Even my
breath.
“Wait,” he says. “Do you
want to have a drink later or something?”
Darren turns me around, giving me a
curious look. My eyes travel down to his hand wrapped around my arm
and narrow instantly. Even after all this time, I still don’t like
the feeling of him touching me. I pull my arm back and shove my
hands in my pockets.
“Listen, Nic, I didn’t know you two
were together,” he says. It takes me a moment to catch on, but when
I do, I’m annoyed for a whole other reason. Of course Darren would
assume I’m with someone and that’s why I’m less than thrilled about
his presence. Never would he consider that I’d like for him to die
in a fire. Slowly.
“I...,” I say and trail
off. I don’t know what to tell him. I certainly don’t want to tell
him the truth, but denying that anything is going on would be my
best bet. Letting Darren think I’m hooked up with Duke would be a
convenient excuse to get out of having a drink with him. Because
it’s never just one drink with Darren and it’s never easy to tell
him no.
“I don’t want to step on
any toes, or get mine broken, but I want to run something by you,”
he says. There’s nothing he can run by me that I want to hear. I
fold my arms over my chest, which, incidentally, shoves the tops of
my exposed tits farther out of my tank top. Darren’s eyes dip to my
chest before he lifts his eyes and gives me a flat
stare.
I clamp my mouth shut before I say
something I’ll regret.
“I’m kind of busy,” I lie,
“but can I take a rain check?” I take a few steps back, unfold my
arms from my chest, and dig around in my purse for my
keys.
“It’s important,” he says.
He reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep
breath. When he lowers his arm, he smiles apologetically. “What I
came here to tell you is that I’ve had a lot of time to think about
the way things ended between us. We can’t go back, but I want to
make it right.” If I could find the person who told him where I
work, I could choke the life out of them. Finding my keys I grab a
hold of them and give Darren my full attention. I shake my head and
clutch the keys with all my might. How dare he think there
is
any
way he can
make that shit right? Because he can’t. “I talked to my dad, and he
agreed to review your dad’s case and see if he can help get some of
the charges dropped, or at least the sentence reduced.”
My heart swells for just a minute
before I remember who I’m talking to. Darren doesn’t do things for
people without an end game. He’s as selfish as they come, and a
total bastard to boot.
“The club’s taking care of it,” I say.
Because they are, but there’s only so much their expensive-as-fuck
attorney can do for Dad after everything he’s done on the club’s
behalf since he’s been inside. I can’t believe there’s much
Darren’s dad can do to help at this point.
“Are they? Wasn’t your
dad’s attorney that guy who represented Ryan when he made the paper
a few years ago?” Darren asks. Of course, if he’s asking this, then
he already knows the answer. And he
would
bring Ryan up. It doesn’t
matter that Darren was off fucking around with half of the
cheerleading team when I hooked up with Ryan. Ryan took something
Darren considered his, and I guess he isn’t letting that grudge
go.
“Roger Sloan,” I say with a slight nod
of my head.
“When is the last time you talked to
Roger Sloan?” he asks. I really hate that he’s baited me into a
conversation, but now I need to know where this is
going.
“Never,” I admit. “The club’s always
handled it.”
“Nicole, I’m sorry, but my dad talked
to Roger Sloan yesterday. He said the club hasn’t retained his
services in over a year.”
I shouldn’t believe him.
The club is all about brotherhood and family. They do what needs to
be done to help one another out. They wouldn’t just leave Dad in
there without any help—would they? I shake my head in disbelief.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Whatever I may think about the
club and certain members in the club, this isn’t how they
work.
“Hey, I could be wrong,”
he says. “I mean, maybe they got a lawyer from another area? My dad
hasn’t checked as far south as San Francisco yet.” Something in the
way he says that, like he’s trying to be reassuring, but he’s not
all at the same time, makes me even more on edge. Not that I like
talking to him or spending time with him, but what if he’s telling
the truth? What if the club’s figured they’ve done all they can do
and now they’ve stopped pouring money down the drain?
“I’ll go easy on you. How
about The 101 Club? That’s your kind of place, isn’t it?” he asks.
I have half a mind to be insulted. The 101 Club definitely isn’t
Darren’s kind of place. I’m dive bars and stale cigarettes. He’s
flashy sports bars and hookah lounges. I know we’re different, but
the comment just makes me feel like trash, and that’s one feeling
I’m not in short supply of. His eyes narrow, and I can practically
see the wheels turning in his brain as he tries to comprehend the
fact that I’m turning him down.
“Come on. Show me that we’ve both
matured,” he says. Us maturing was never the problem. I may have
been immature, but the problem was always that Darren couldn’t keep
his hands to himself.
“It’s just a drink. We can
review a bit about your dad’s case and see what I can give to my
dad that may help,” he says, flashing me that smile of his that
used to melt me from the inside out. My heart drops a little at the
realization that he’s found yet another way to get me to say yes to
something he wants. After all of his charm wore off and his ability
to control me waned, he searched high and low for ways to keep me
in line. He’s baiting me, and I know it, but I can’t say no—for my
dad’s sake. I hop from foot to foot before I finally nod my
head.
“Eight o’clock at The 101 Club, okay?”
he says. I nod my head again and rush to my car while trying to
convince myself that Darren really is trying to help. As much as
the thought of spending time, particularly time alone, with him
frightens me, I decide to give it a shot just to see what this is
all about. Taking a deep breath, I remind myself that I’m not the
same girl I used to be, and I don’t need to fear him the same way I
used to.
Once inside the car, I gently coax her
to life then tear off down the street to step into the club’s world
for just a few minutes. I put Darren out of my mind. I have other
things I have to worry about right now. Like Duke and his bullshit.
It’s a good thing the clubhouse is just a few blocks away or I’d
never make it in under ten minutes. As much as I want to give Mr.
Asshole the middle finger and ignore him for the next two months, I
already know that’s not how this is going to play out.