The Pet Stylist and the Playboy

by Rebecca James

  Sonny leaned close to my ear. “Is that Swish you’re staring at?”

  I blinked, realizing with a start the guy I’d been watching did look an awful lot like Swish from the back. If I hadn’t known Swish was at the clubhouse, I wouldn’t have been sure that wasn’t him on the dance floor.

  “What? No.”

  Sonny put his drink down. “Come on, let’s quit looking and dance.”

  We stayed together out on the floor for fifteen or twenty minutes before Sonny paired off with the body-builder he’d been ogling before. The guy who I’d thought resembled Swish danced nearby with a couple friends.

  Up close, he was nothing like Swish. Sure, he was lean, but more on the skinny side; he had roughly the same color hair as Swish, but without the rich depth; the guy’s cheekbones weren’t high, and he didn’t have the same dark eyes and thick lashes Swish did. He definitely didn’t have Swish’s pretty mouth.

  “Hi, I’m Bo,” the guy shouted over the music when he caught me looking at him. His smile was flirtatious, and I knew from long experience if I wanted him, I could have him.

  “Dante,” I said, falling into rhythm with his movements. We danced through two songs and were both damp with sweat when the music changed to something slow. Bo stepped closer to me, and I knew this was the moment when our bodies would press together, we’d both get hard, and I’d suggest we go someplace quieter. The steps were always the same, just the partners were different each time.

  My arms automatically encircled Bo’s waist, but as he pressed close, an odd feeling of unease settled over me.

  Bo had caught my eye earlier, but now I found myself unnerved by him, maybe due to Sonny’s comment about him resembling Swish. I had the passing thought that if Bo were really like Swish, I might enjoy nailing him to something, but the guy was nothing like the man who shared my room but never my bed, and I wasn’t interested. I put some space between us, and as soon as I could, I made my escape.

  Just like that, the night was over. I was done.

  I found Sonny in the dark hallway making out with the line-backer wannabe.

  I tapped him on the shoulder, and Sonny took his tongue out of the guy’s mouth and looked at me. I got close to his ear, so he could hear me over the music, and told him I was splitting. The guy Sonny was with rubbed a finger over my cock. Another time, the idea of a threesome might have been tempting, but I wasn’t feeling it.

  “You sick or something?”

  I nodded, because it was as good an excuse as any, and I really had no explanation for the sudden disinterest that had come over me.

  “Take care.” Sonny went back to what he’d been doing, and I made my way out of the club.

  I stopped a moment to run a hand over the seat of my bike before getting on. A classic racked front end Panhead with shovelhead rigid frame and a suicide shift, it was my baby and had been since the day I’d bought it at a swap meet, which was where I’d met Blaze. That day had changed my life. Adrift after college and dreading stepping up to the plate in my father’s business, I’d found a kindred soul in Blaze as we talked about bikes. When I learned he was the leader of an MC and invited me to the clubhouse, I was hooked.

  Never had anything consumed me enough to cause me to defy my parents the way I did then. I told them in no uncertain terms I needed time to myself, and they could just wait until I turned thirty for me to take up family responsibilities. I joined the Hedonists and tried to live life to the fullest before I became chained to Durham Imports and the rich society my parents had brought me up in but I’d never felt a part of.

  The entire ride back to the clubhouse, I thought about Swish’s face and his high, round butt. Most of the guys I picked up were bigger and broader. I liked pushing them around and them pushing back. So why had I given Bo a second look, and why was I thinking about Swish now? Two years sharing a room with the kid, and I had managed not to think of him that way. At least, not often, and suddenly I was having fantasies about tasting him.

  Had to be Swish’s announcement he was leaving. Suddenly faced with the knowledge someone was completely off the table, my selfish sex drive was objecting loudly.

  When I entered the clubhouse, Blaze, Hung, Zeke, and Foghorn were playing poker at the dining room table, a large bowl of nachos in the middle.

  “You weren’t gone long.” Blaze didn’t look up from his cards.

  I reached for a nacho. “Wasn’t feeling it tonight. Swish make these?”

  Hung nodded. “Who else? They’re fucking delicious.”

  “Where’s Morgan?” I asked Zeke through my bite. Hung was right: the nachos were awesome. Swish had used more than one kind of cheese and cut jalapeno peppers into tiny pieces and sprinkled them over the batch. “Thought you two were attached at the hip.” I licked my fingers.

  “He had a dance class and went out with Nikki afterward,” Zeke said, playing a card. Nikki was Morgan’s best friend. A no-nonsense type of girl, she fit in well with the Hedonists when she visited. More than once, I’d thought about going for it with her but had decided her being Morgan’s best friend made it all too messy.

  “How’s the business going?” I asked, leaning against Zeke’s chair and picking up another cheesy chip, this one dotted with sour cream and guacamole.

  A few months earlier, Zeke’s estranged father had shown up at the clubhouse and asked Zeke to go into business with him. Now they co-owned a garage. His old man was kind of a jerk, but I hadn’t heard Zeke complaining.

  “Good.” Zeke folded his cards. “I’m out,” he told the others playing and turned to look up at me. “Generally, Pop just pretends I’m not in a relationship with another guy. So, we get along okay.” He stood and stretched before heading for the garage where he used to work on cars and now sometimes tinkered with our bikes during his off hours when not with Morgan. I followed him, as I wasn’t tired yet and didn’t feel like tossing and turning in bed.

  “Can’t sleep?” I asked Zeke as I hopped down the three steps from the house into the garage. After all, it was late, and Zeke worked the next day. Just to annoy him, I made a voice like I was talking to a baby. “Aw, is it because you don’t have Mor-gan to cuddle up to?”

  “Shut up.” Zeke’s voice held no anger.

  “Totally whipped.” I pursed my lips with satisfaction, enjoying my game of poking the bear, although these days Zeke didn’t roar very often. He had what he wanted and didn’t care what anyone else thought about it. I wished I could say the same for myself, but what the hell was it I really wanted? I knew what I didn’t want, and the reality of that was getting closer every day.

  Zeke crouched and began cleaning the tools he’d left on the cement floor. The light from the single bulb on the ceiling cast a halo onto his blond hair, which was ironic, as Zeke was no angel. Hell, I’d seen him hold his own four-against-one in a fight, and before Morgan, he’d had his share of conquests, all female. Figuring out he was bi couldn’t have been easy for the guy, but he seemed to be handling it well. I’d known I was bi since the end of high school and had since learned to embrace the rainbow, so to speak.

  “I hear Swish is leaving,” Zeke said, bringing my smexy line of thinking to a crashing halt and replacing it with that hollow feeling I’d had earlier when Swish had announced his intentions.

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Figured you’d talk him out of it.” Zeke placed a pair of pliers in his tool box as gently as a jeweler would a diamond on velvet and picked up a torque wrench from the floor.

  I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest. “Why’s that?”

  Zeke glanced up at me and shrugged. “I always figured you had feelings for the guy.”

  My arms fell to my sides and I straightened. “What? No. I mean, yeah, I got feelings—the brotherly kind of feelings. I think it’s great Swish has found something he wants to do.”

  Zeke snorted. “I get it, you’ve been looking out for him. Maybe feel like you gotta protect him since you took him
off the streets. But he’s twenty-three years old, and you ain’t that much older. There’s no brotherly anything between the two of you.”

  “You been breathing too much bike exhaust, man.”

  Zeke shook his head, attention focused on the soft cloth he was using to polish the wrench. “If you think you feel for Swish like a brother, you’re one incestuous motherfucker.”

  “I’m telling you, you’re crazy. You’re transferring your own feelings to me. If I remember correctly, not too long ago, you were calling Morgan ‘kid’ and weren’t keen on starting up a relationship.”

  “Yeah, and look how that turned out. ‘Cause he’s not a kid. He’s twenty years old, and you didn’t see me claiming my interest in him was brotherly, either. I ain’t that dim.”

  “Well, good for you,” I said. I knew I was being childish. I huffed and raised my hands, palms out. “Hey, man, you and Morgan are great together. I’m happy for you. But you got it wrong about me and Swish. I’ve never laid a finger on him.”

  Zeke glanced at me, blue eyes sharp. “Never even thought about it?”

  Fuck, Zeke was starting to piss me off. “No!” Not if I could help it.

  “You hit everything with a hole big enough to stick your cock into, and you’re telling me you don’t want a piece of that hot ass sleeping in the other bed every night? Those dark, broody eyes, crazy lips...”

  I clenched my fists, inexplicably wanting to punch Zeke in the face and growled.

  Zeke gave me an assessing look. “You really never thought about it?”

  “No.” I was going to hell for lying.

  Zeke looked unconvinced. “When I slept here more, I’d hear you through the bedroom wall, fucking a different person every night. Seems weird you wouldn’t notice the hot guy in the bed next to yours.” He shook his head. “I hope you get tested regularly, man.”

  Zeke had turned the tables on me. I was the bear getting poked. Hackles raised, I spit out, “Yes, I fucking get tested. I also always suit up, not that it’s any of your goddamned business. What’s your point?”

  Zeke went back to methodically cleaning and putting away his tools. “My point is, you fuck everything that walks, because you don’t give a shit. But you do give a shit about Swish. And you don’t know what to do with those feelings, so you funnel them into something you categorize as family, telling yourself you think of him as a little brother and therefore he’s off limits.”

  “What, you’re suddenly my therapist? I don’t need you picking apart my brain or my feelings.”

  Zeke shrugged powerful shoulders. “Just trying to save you some serious heartache, dude. You seem intent on pushing away Bluefin Tuna and settling for chum.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t bother. Your psycho-babble’s full of shit.” I turned and headed back into the house, throwing over my shoulder, “And maybe you oughta stop watching so much Travel Channel. Bluefin Tuna,” I muttered.

  Zeke called after me, “While I’m at it, do I have to point out how shitty it is of you to do all your whoring right under Swish’s nose when you know he has a thing for you?”

  I slammed the door on his words with so much force, a picture fell off the wall. I kicked it aside and strode to my room, telling myself to ignore Zeke. He thought because he was in love, everybody else had to be, too, and he didn’t understand my feelings toward Swish at all. I’d found the kid when he’d been as low as you get and couldn’t help feeling protective of him. That was it. End of discussion.

  I eased open the door to the bedroom I shared with Swish. The interior was dark and quiet. I undressed without turning on the light, not wanting to wake up Swish, who was an early riser. When I crawled into bed, a rustling from across the room told me I hadn’t been quiet enough.

  “Sorry. I tried not to wake you,” I murmured, Zeke’s last words still echoing in my head. He had a point about me flaunting my conquests under Swish’s nose. Come to think of it, maybe my inconsideration was why Swish occasionally gave me the freeze for days at a time. I was such a selfish fucker, and a slut to boot.

  Knowing my autonomy would soon be ending, I guess I’d gone a little crazy with the hookups; and it made sense, now that I was thinking about something other than my cock, that Swish hadn’t appreciated the parade through our bedroom and the fact he had to find somewhere else to sleep every time.

  “I was awake. You said earlier you wanted to talk,” Swish reminded me.

  I swallowed, knowing I needed to do the right thing.

  “Yeah, well. I’ve been thinking about it. You’re right to want to get out of here. This Gus guy is offering you a really good opportunity, and I was wrong to try to stand in your way.”

  “Why were you trying to stand in my way?” Swish’s voice held that in—your-face attitude I’d grown both accustomed to and fond of.

  “I worry about you, kid. But you’re right; you need to get out on your own.”

  Quiet settled over the room.

  “Okay,” Swish finally said. I heard him turning over in bed to face the wall.

  I suddenly wanted to keep talking, but there really wasn’t anything more to say.

  Fuck, letting go was hard. From the moment I had met the kid, I’d wanted to be there for him. He’d gotten under my skin. I loved my club brothers, but there was something about Swish that made me want to put myself out there for him in ways I’d never gotten around to exploring. Hell, two years and I still barely knew anything about him. For a long time, I thought I was incapable of that kind of feeling—that my parents had fucked me up that bad. With them, it had always been all about them, never me, and I had never learned how to put someone else first. Turns out, I did a good enough job of fucking myself over, what with the walls I’d unintentionally raised between me and Swish. And now it would be too late to knock them down.

  “We’ll still be close, kid. I ain’t turning you loose,” I murmured. If Swish heard, he didn’t give any sign.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Swish

  A hint of blush, some contouring, black eyeliner, and my favorite lip gloss, which smelled like strawberries. And, of course, the attitude that went with it all. I knew it for what it was—my armor, and I needed it securely around me that morning.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” I said to Foghorn when he brought my suitcases outside. The big man set the bags on the walkway and clapped a hand onto my shoulder. I managed not to let my knees give way under the force. Living with a houseful of large men, I’d had to get good at that.

  “We’re gonna miss you around here,” Foghorn said, the deep voice that had given him his nickname rumbling against my ear as he clapped me to him in a brutal hug. His real name was Jesse, and I usually called him that because I felt ridiculous calling him Foghorn. Although I couldn’t exactly talk, with the nickname Swish. Maybe it was time to let that go. This was a new start, after all.

  I gave Foghorn my best flirtatious smile, even though he was straight and in a relationship with Cupcake. I liked the way it made him blush. “You better, big guy.”

  In the past few months I’d felt my persona of careless, flamboyant gay man slipping, but since Dante had let me know he didn’t give two flips if I left or not, my armor was back with a vengeance. I’d let myself think he was going to try to get me to stay. If he had, I probably would have caved. But Dante had flat out given me his blessing, and I wasn’t going to let him know how much the rejection hurt.

  When are you ever going to get it through your thick skull, Dante doesn’t see you like that? I wanted to kick myself.

  I knew I was going to love working for Gus. It was just that leaving the club was hard. Leaving Dante was hard.

  The rest of the bikers seemed genuinely sorry to see me go.

  I smiled at Foghorn, who loved animals almost as much as Ax. “Come see me at the shelter. You can help out, if you feel like it.”

  “I’d like that.” He gave me another clap on the back in farewell.

  Dante stood to the side, watching me. Even scow
ling, the man was gorgeous. I tried to ignore him.

  The rest of the MC present that morning stepped forward one by one to say goodbye. The night before, they’d had a surprise party for me at dinner. Seeing them all there with streamers draped around the dining room and a big cake Blaze had ordered had made me tear up, and they’d all pretended not to notice while telling me how good I was going to be with the animals at the shelter. It had been nice. And Dante had been there for the whole thing, without a date, and he had gone to bed when I had. He’d been particularly talkative, almost like he wanted to prolong our last night together.

  Or maybe I was letting my imagination run crazy.

  Let it go, I told myself. Let him go.

  “Thanks for everything,” I said when Blaze pulled me into a fierce hug.

  “We’ll miss you,” he said. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  As leader of the Hedonists, Blaze had done me a good turn by letting me stay with them so long without being a member of the club. I wished I could repay him somehow, but how do you repay someone who gave you everything you needed when you needed it most? Like Dante taking me from the miserable life I’d been leading. I would owe these guys forever.

  I gave Blaze a final squeeze. “I won’t. Seriously, thanks, Blaze.” I was tearing up again, probably looking foolish and smearing my eyeliner.

  Blaze squeezed my neck with his hand. “You can always come back and cook us dinner on the weekends.”

  I laughed. “Gee, thanks. I’ll think about that.”

  “Be good, little guy.” Hung wrapped an arm around me and planted a wet kiss on the side of my face. I made a show of wiping it off but smiled at the sexy Latino.

  “I will. You, too.”

  “Oh, I’m always good.” Hung flashed white teeth in a feral grin and tucked a strand of dark hair behind his ear.

  I spent a few seconds pulling myself together, and then Dante was standing in front of me, and everyone else seemed to have magically disappeared.

  “This isn’t goodbye,” Dante said, and I thought, Sure it isn’t. As soon as I’m out of sight, these guys will all forget about me, including you.