“What’s going on?” Carmen asked.
I took the moment to drain the rest of my beer. Noah shook his head, clearly disheartened by whatever I’d told him.
“Those guys that came into your work were Scorpions,” Liam explained. “We’ve had them stop by this club a few times. They’re bad news.”
“How so?” Carmen glanced at me, as if I knew all the answers.
“They’re mostly bored rich kids who think they’re badasses,” Noah said. “Bunch of yuppie, wannabe outlaws. They tried bringing drugs into Canyon City once, but we put a stop to it.”
“So why’s Terrence hanging out with them?” Carmen asked.
My mind whirred. Memories clicked into place, and my next words flew out of my mouth before I even realized it. “It must be money laundering.”
Three pairs of eyes turned onto me.
I cleared my throat. “If they’re dealing, they have to find some way to clean their drug money. A restaurant is a perfect front.”
“You’re right,” Noah said slowly. He stared at me as he spoke, looking almost suspicious. “Any dirty revenue can just be claimed as cash tips. It’s a great place to clean money.”
“Like a strip club,” Carmen piped up. She glanced appreciatively at her surroundings.
“I bet Terrence is taking a cut, too. Scumbag,” Liam said. It warmed my heart to hear him say that.
Noah set his jaw. “Well, we’ll take care of it, won’t we?” he said
Liam punched his fist into the opposite hand. “That’s right. You, me, and the Skull Kings MC.”
* * *
Liam and I stepped out to have a smoke as Carmen tucked into her second beer. Dusk was beginning to settle on the town, casting everything in shadow. Liam lit my cigarette for me, and I was reminded of the night we’d spent together.
“I’m sorry about the table,” I said.
“Nah.” He exhaled a long plume of smoke and leaned against the wall. “We’ll get those fuckers back.”
I mirrored his stance, angling my back into the wall and facing the parking lot. The sides of our arms touched. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Are you going to ask me why I love that table so much?”
“Yeah.”
“If I answer, I get to ask you a question.”
I watched the smoke rising from my lips. So, we were about to play the question game. It sounded promising. “Sure.”
Liam tossed his cigarette to the ground and stomped it under his boot. “It was my dad’s favorite table. He was friends with the old owner. We used to drive into town once a week when I was a kid, and we’d always stop by Buddy’s. Harry gave him his favorite table every time. After he died, it was like…” Liam trailed off. “It was like nobody else deserved that table like my dad did, especially after Harry sold off the place.”
I watched Liam’s profile. The more I got to know him, the more there was left to discover. He had only sisters and one dead father. Where were his sisters, now? His mother? Unfortunately, it was Liam’s turn to ask a question, and I could tell it was going to be a doozy.
He grinned. “Why do you carry a huge ass brick around in your purse?”
I rolled my eyes. “If I told you it was a long story, can I leave it at that?”
“No.”
I scoffed, feigning offense, but my smile broke through. “Fine. Self-defense.”
Liam looked skeptical. “That’s it?”
Kind of, sort of. But it really was a long story. “That’s it,” I lied. I took a sip from my cigarette. “Now it’s my turn again. How did your father die?”
Liam ran his fingers through his shorn hair, looking uncomfortable. “Lung cancer.”
I dropped my cigarette. “Good god, Liam.”
“I know, I know. I’m bad, I’ll admit it.”
“Why are you still smoking?”
“You could say I have an oral fixation,” Liam said, his eyes on my lips.
I covered my mouth instinctively. Liam pulled my hand away and stepped close.
“I can’t stop thinking about last night,” he said.
A number of witty retorts crossed my mind, but my brain was fried. Liam wouldn’t stop staring at my mouth, and he was invading my space, standing so close I could feel his body heat. I opened my mouth to say something, but Liam cut off my words with a single finger pressed against my bottom lip.
“Look at me,” he said.
I looked at him, and my heart stopped. His eyes were soft, half-lidded, with honey irises set ablaze by the setting sun. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach, an uneasy yet exciting feeling. It had been so long since a man had looked at me like that, and it was Liam looking at me. Liam, whose smiling face put me at ease if he ever walked into my work on a busy day. Liam, whose arms circled me after I was ambushed by Scorpions.
I sighed as Liam closed the distance between us.
* * *
Liam’s bike vibrated between my thighs as we rode through town. Buildings and trees flashed by in a blur, but I wasn’t aware of them, anyway. I gripped Liam around his tight middle and held myself close. I could still feel the ghost of his kiss on my lips, hear the breathless invitation he murmured into my mouth.
“Come home with me.”
We crossed the railroad tracks and turned onto a dusty access road. Chain-link fences topped with barbed wire loomed on either side of us.
“Where are we going?” I asked, yelling over the growl of the engine.
“Home!” Liam called back. But the steel warehouse we finally pulled up to didn’t look like anybody’s home.
I felt a stab of disappointment. “You live here?”
Liam slid off of the seat and reached for me. “Pretty much. I’m never at my apartment. This is the Skull Kings clubhouse.”
I gaped at the rusty, ramshackle monstrosity as Liam unbuckled the helmet strap under my chin. It stood almost two-stories tall with nothing but corrugated metal siding for its walls. I followed Liam to the entrance, deflating myself of all hope for a romantic evening at his place.
Then, he opened the door.
Chapter 4
Wow.
Light flooded the room when Liam flipped a switch, shining from an impressive collection of neon beer signs. Harley-Davidson memorabilia lined the walls, interjected with framed photos of whom I assumed to be Skull Kings, past and present. I examined everything with the reverence of a museum patron.
“What can I get you?” Liam asked. He sauntered over to a gleaming mahogany bar and gestured to their liquor stash, which only consisted of tequila and something else that was clear and tinged a suspect electric blue.
“I’ll have what you’re having.”
“Tequila it is,” Liam said.
I didn’t take the shot until Liam knocked his back, revealing the tender, sinewy underside of his neck. I had to swallow to calm myself.
“Liam, to be honest, this isn’t what I expected.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“It’s…really nice in here.” Though, “nice” didn’t even halfway cover it. Sumptuous was more like it. Luxurious. I smoothed my hand over the gleaming, lacquered bar to illustrate my point.
Liam laughed. “Oh, that. Well, this place is kind of the club’s pet project. The old owner was running a junk yard out of here, sold it to Noah to bail someone out of jail. Skull Kings did all the restoration, installation, everything.”
I quirked an eyebrow, imagining Liam shirtless with a tool belt, hammering nails while covered in a sheen of sweat. “So what did you do?”
Liam laughed and poured us another shot. “I grew up with sisters, remember? I picked out the furniture.” Instead of handing me my drink, he picked up both glasses and walked away. He paused to look back at me. “Want to see?”
I noticed the door on the opposite wall. By the way Liam was staring at me and licking his lips, I had a feeling there were more than just beer signs on the other side.
I smiled. “Where are you going wit
h my drink?”
Liam extended the shot glass, as if he were handing it to me. When I stepped forward, he retreated. “Here, kitty, kitty,” he said.
My head rushed when I saw his devilish grin. His smirk was all it took to push the tequila into my system, get my engine going from zero to sixty.
“Just a little further. That’s it,” Liam whispered, drawing me closer.
When I was a hair’s width away from the rim of the shot glass, Liam yanked it back and dove forward to capture my lips in a kiss. I opened my mouth immediately to let him invade me with his tongue. He pulled away a second later, and I could see that his pupils were wide, darkening his gaze.
His next words were spoken in a deep, gruff voice I hardly recognized. “Get inside.”
We fell through the door. I attacked his clothes, tugging and pulling, and managed to drench myself in two shots of tequila. Liam tossed the empty glasses aside and went to work salvaging the liquor off my skin with his tongue. I gasped when he licked at the inside of my elbow.
“You like that?” he whispered. He dragged his tongue up my arm to my shoulder and tore off my sleeve.
I bit my lip, suppressing the urge to growl in his ear. I grabbed his arms and circled them around my waist, delighted when he tightened them to pull me close. Our lips smacked together when we kissed. My heart drummed wildly with each bite, the sensations amplified by the darkness pressing in around us.
“There’s a couch behind you,” Liam said. His hands drifted to my hips, urging me back.
It was completely dark, but I closed my eyes, anyway. I wanted to shut myself off completely, sink into every crevice of pleasure that Liam gave me. I shuffled backward until my legs hit something solid. Then, Liam gave me one final push. I was on my back a second later.
Liam didn’t waste any time after that. He put his hands up my shirt, groping toward my breasts. He cupped them in his warm hands and squeezed, groaning and thrusting his hips. Already, I could feel his hardening knot in the crotch of his jeans. I put my hand there and squeezed back.
“Fuck!” Liam hissed. He unzipped his pants and forced my hand inside.
I slid my fingers toward his heat and circled my hand around his shaft. It shot straight against my palm, going from semi-flaccid to hard in an instant. I opened my eyes wide, blind in the darkness. But when Liam groaned, I thought I saw a flash of white.
“Goddamn, Aspen.”
He pushed up my shirt, tore at my bra to bare my nipples. His mouth was cold at first when he licked them. I arched my back in shock, then sighed back down as he circled my nipples with his tongue. His kisses roamed farther down my belly to the waistband of my jeans, which he swiftly unbuttoned.
“Liam.” I sucked in a long breath before saying his name again. And again. In the back of my mind, I was still the scared, new girl in town, the first time waitress at Buddy’s, and Liam was just too good to be true.
He wrestled my pants to my ankles. My panties quickly followed them. I kicked them to the floor, and suddenly my entire body was on fire. The fever flushed from my head down to my pelvis, burning and itching, and I needed Liam more than anything else.
Immediately, Liam put his face to my pussy, as if drawn by some sort of primal scent. His tongue lashed out, attacking my already wet slit, digging into the folds and whipping across my clit.
My spine curved, shooting me upward. “Oh!”
Liam’s lips pressed against my lower ones. He touched his fingertips to my opening. “So sweet,” he whispered. His index finger slipped right in, and he penetrated me with a second and third with ease.
I bucked my hips, riding his hands and mouth. “Oh, fuck!” I heard him slurping at my pussy, heard the thup-thup of his fist around his cock, jerking away. I craved seeing his face, the wild look in his eyes, and at the same time I was glad for the veil of darkness. His next oral maneuver left me spasming in ecstasy.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Liam! God, Liam!” I couldn’t stop screaming.
Liam lifted his head and bit my thigh. He gave his fingers one last push before sliding them out of me.
I strained my eyes, searching.
“I want to fuck you,” his disembodied voice said. “I want to make you come while I’m inside you.”
“Yes,” I found myself agreeing. I reached for him, found his fingers, and squeezed. “Fuck yes.”
I rolled on top of him. Our mouths crashed clumsily together as I held him throbbing in my hand. His chest rumbled beneath mine, heavy with breathlessness under all his hard muscle. I traced his flat nipples, his ridged abs. There were so many angles to his body that I longed to explore with my mouth, my lips, my tongue.
All in due time, I told myself as I kissed his neck. I rubbed my pussy on his dick and felt him shudder.
Liam cupped my ass in his hands, lifting me up. He maneuvered himself under me until his tip just barely grazed against my wet folds. “Baby…”
I slid down carefully. I wanted to feel every inch of him going in. My muscles slackened as I collapsed on him, as I felt his hardness slowly filling up my cavity. My nipples tingled, and somehow Liam knew. His mouth was on my breasts, sucking and biting. I pushed myself all the way down. I needed him. All of him. When our hips crashed together, Liam took off pounding.
My hand darted out for the armrest. I braced myself against the frame of the couch as Liam began thrusting. Already, I could feel his skin dewing up with sweat and smell the cocktail of our sex mingling in the air. I undulated my hips, matching his rhythm. My clit grazed against the patch of hair just above his shaft. I threw my head back and rode harder.
Liam cursed loudly and spanked me. The sting broke me. All I wanted to do was come, now. And I was very close.
My muscles clenched tight. The walls of my pussy closed around Liam’s shaft, sucking him in deeper.
“You close, baby?” Liam asked. His voice was strained with effort.
I didn’t bother answering. Pleasure licked up and down my body. It wouldn’t stop. I heard a dull roar in my ears every time Liam stabbed into me, pushing the button that made me go wild. My left knee dropped off the couch, leaving me impaled on Liam’s cock and entirely at his mercy. He took advantage of his new position and grabbed my hips, clenching me down against him.
“Oh…”
“That’s right, baby,” Liam muttered. He crunched his abs, aiming his cock in exactly the right spot.
My body shuddered. I grabbed his shoulders. Feeling his muscles tensing and relaxing, tensing and relaxing only made me more anguished. I bit at him and felt a tug of triumph when he screamed. He hammered on with even more intensity.
“Yes. Yes. Yes!”
I heard myself screaming before I realized what I was saying. First, a knife of heat tore up my body, obliterating all coherent thought from my mind. Then, cool waves of bliss washed back down. My arms shot straight, pushing me off of Liam’s chest and locking me in place. I moaned and thrashed as I came, harder and fiercer than any time I’d ever experienced before.
Liam tossed me off of him. His warm cum streamed out, staining us on our stomachs. Our hips slid apart. Then, he leaned forward and gave me one last kiss. This one was different, sweet and thankful.
“Aspen?”
“Yeah?”
He kissed my bottom lip, then my top lip. His fingers touched my jaw.
We heard it at the same time: the hollering, the cheering. Moving as if a switch had been thrown, I scrambled blindly for my clothes as Liam leaped off the couch and disappeared into the darkness. A square of light popped into my vision as a door was thrown open, and I squinted at the figure of Liam struggling to put his pants.
I clutched my jeans to my chest, barely enough to cover me.
“Have fun, kids?”
I shaded my eyes. “Carmen?”
Logan, the bouncer from the club, stood a few paces behind her, grinning lewdly with his arms crossed.
“What the fuck, man?” Liam said.
“Hey, Noah told me to
drive her here in her car,” Logan said, jerking his chin at me. “Not my fault Carmen got so wasted.”
Just as he said so, I noticed Carmen was teetering on her high heels. Her next few words came out a little slurred but were coherent enough. “I don’t drink and drive.”
“But I drove,” I said.
“Yeah.”
Liam looked at me over his shoulder. With the light spilling in from behind him, I could only see half of his face. He was smiling.
“I’m sorry, Aspen.”
“Don’t be.”
Liam scratched his head and frowned, deep in thought. “Do you need to drive Carmen home?”
“I was actually kind of hoping I could stay here.”
Liam beamed. “Then, stay. I’ll take her home.” He ambled forward and planted his fists in the cushions on either side of me. I sank down a few inches when he leaned in for a kiss. “But I’ll be back before you know it,” he whispered.
Chapter 5
Terrence poked his head out from the kitchen. “Is Carmen here, yet?”
“Nope.” After last night, I imagined Carmen was still in bed. “I could cover for her today. It’s not that busy.”
“Good,” Terrence said distractedly. I could feel his eyes on my back as I rang up an order. “By the way, would you come see me in my office when you have a minute?”
My jaws locked together. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. A torrent of choice words whipped through my mind, but all I could manage was, “Sure.”
Asshole.
I took drink orders, delivered drink orders, and ran plates, but eventually, I was out of things to do. I smoothed my apron over my knees as I made my way to the office.
“Aspen’s in trouble again, fellas! What’d she do this time?” a cook yelled as I passed through the kitchen.
I gave him a smile. It was an actual, genuine smile, too. In spite of Terrence, of having to pick up the slack on Carmen’s behalf, I was happy. After last night, the first night in a long time I actually felt worthwhile, I knew that I could accomplish anything.
Well, I was going to accomplish something, all right.
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