“Holy shit,” he said in awe.
“Dixie Whiskey,” Jillian said. “She’s incredible, but I’m not sure if she’d do it. I just remembered that after she did my fashion show, I fielded calls from industry professionals offering her insane amounts of money to model, and she had zero interest in any of them. You know the Whiskeys. Dixie’s not a model; she’s real, Jace.”
“But she modeled for you,” he pointed out. Dixie was the image he’d carried in his mind when he’d been looking for the face of Silver-Stone. If he’d known she modeled, he could have saved himself months of trouble.
“Because she owed me,” Jillian said.
“Why?”
Jillian’s brows knitted.
“Jillian, come on,” he demanded. “We need her. You know that. Why did she owe you?”
“God, you’re a pain. If you tell her brothers, I’ll slaughter you in your sleep.”
He stared at her and crossed his arms.
“Fine!” She huffed out a breath. “I hooked her up with a guy I know here in Pleasant Hill, and I’m pretty sure you’re not going to do that, so why does it matter?”
Damn right he wouldn’t do that.
“I probably shouldn’t have suggested it,” she said. “I’m sorry. It was a dumb idea. Now that I’m thinking it through, there’s no way you’ll get her.”
He shoved the picture in his shirt pocket, grabbed his helmet, and said, “Watch me.”
“COME ON, BABY, let’s make a little wager.” Lance “Crow” Burke, a member of the Dark Knights who had been chasing after Dixie forever, tried to lure her into a date for the millionth time that week.
They were at Whiskey Bro’s, the bar Dixie’s family owned. Dixie was waitressing and Crow was playing darts with two other Dark Knights, both of whom looked amused. They knew Dixie well enough to know where this was headed. Dixie was part owner of both of her family’s businesses. In addition to running the offices of Whiskey Automotive and doing the books for the bar, she had been waitressing part-time at the bar for so long, guys like Crow had become like background music—entertaining distractions.
“What’d you have in mind?” Dixie asked, fucking with him. He was good-looking enough, with pitch-black hair and angular features that made him a little too pretty for Dixie’s taste, but “model hot” according to two of her closest friends, Isabel “Izzy” Ryder, and Tracey Klein, who also worked at the bar. Dixie had her bar for men set high, and it had nothing to do with looks, money, or charming pickup lines.
Dixie’s great-grandfather had founded the Dark Knights. Being a biker was in her blood. She had loving, demanding parents who didn’t put up with bullshit and three fiercely protective older brothers, Bones, Bullet, and Bear. Thanks to them, she’d learned to speak her mind and fight to win. The problem was, growing up with men like that had given her high expectations in a partner, just as she had high expectations for herself to never rely on a man for a damn thing besides unconditional love. She didn’t want a guy who acted tough, because toughness wasn’t an act. A man was either able to fearlessly stand up to any opponent or he wasn’t. There was no middle ground. She also had no interest in men who rode through life on their looks, because at the end of the day, everyone would get older, saggier, grayer, or balder. And she couldn’t care less about men who earned millions and tossed it around like confetti. Money couldn’t buy true love. After watching her brothers open their hearts and fall in love with wonderful women, she’d seen proof of what she always knew was true. A man could wear his do-or-die spirit like armor and still have a heart of gold.
Dixie had the armor and the heart. If only her fearless knight would show up.
With a twinkle of a dare in his eyes, Crow said, “If I make a bull’s-eye, you agree to go out with me Saturday night.”
“You’re being auctioned off Friday night, remember? Hopefully you’ll get lucky and some chick will bid on you. Then you’ll be busy Saturday night.” Dixie had taken the reins to run the annual charity bachelor auction to benefit a local women’s shelter. Each year a local company hosted the event. Mr. B’s microbrewery, owned by their friends the Bradens, had hosted the last two years. Dixie was excited to tie the event in with the Dark Knights, and she’d made it her mission to raise more money than any of the previous auctions had. She was good at many things, but business strategizing and corralling people to work together topped the list. She’d not only signed up almost every one of the Dark Knights who were single, but she’d also already secured more than fifty thousand dollars in donations for the shelter. She’d made her goal, and the auction wasn’t for another two days.
Crow winked at the other guys and said, “That’s code for she’s bidding on me.”
Dixie rolled her eyes and walked away to check on other customers.
She was looking forward to the auction, but she was also nervous about it. Since all her brothers were now spoken for, she’d let her girlfriends talk her into secretly getting up onstage to be auctioned off. If her brothers got wind of their plans, they’d lock her away to ensure it didn’t happen. Hell, they were so protective, their reputations preceded them. All it took was one threatening glare from Bullet, Bones, or Bear and any guy who might have been interested in her cowered away. If she had any hope of ever falling in love, she needed to get the hell out of Peaceful Harbor. Maybe she’d get lucky when she went to her cousin Justin Wicked’s art show in Cape Cod in two weeks and would fall in love on the sandy shores of Cape Cod Bay.
Pushing that too-good-to-be-true hope aside, she went to check on her favorite sixteen-year-old, Marco Garcia. She stopped at the table where he was hunkered down over a notebook doing math homework, waiting for his older brother, Ricardo, to finish his shift as the dishwasher. “Hey, handsome. How’d you do on that science test last week?”
His big dark eyes flicked up, and a sweet smile appeared on his adorable face. A few months ago, Ricardo had tried to dine and dash without paying, and Jed, a bartender and prospect for the Dark Knights, had caught him. When Jed learned he was skipping school and stealing food for his brother, he had taken the boy under his wing and offered him a job rather than having him arrested. Now Ricardo was attending school regularly and working instead of getting into trouble. Their situation had led Jed to start the Young Knights program, in which shop owners like the Whiskeys ran mentoring programs for troubled youths. Dixie was proud of all that the Dark Knights did to help the community, and as much as she wanted to fall in love and knew it might have to happen outside of Peaceful Harbor, she had no interest in moving away from her family.
“I got an eighty-nine,” Marco said proudly.
“That’s my boy.” She ruffled his thick, wavy hair. “Let me get you a refill.”
“Thanks, Dixie.”
“You bet.” She picked up his empty glass and headed for the bar. She was still getting accustomed to her brother’s new schedule. Bullet used to spend fifty-plus hours a week at the bar, but he’d recently gotten married and cut back. Izzy and Desmond “Diesel” Black were bartending tonight. Diesel was a mountain of muscle, with cold black eyes and no people skills, which made him the perfect replacement to watch over the bar.
Izzy was busy serving two guys at the other end of the bar, so Dixie set the glass near Diesel and said, “Pepsi for Marco, please.”
Diesel lifted his square jaw in acknowledgment, and one massive hand engulfed the glass. A few milk-chocolate sprigs of hair poked out from beneath the ever-present baseball cap he wore backward. Diesel wasn’t known for his personality, and he hated to be touched. But with bulbous muscles, a chest the size of Canada, and the ability to make a man scurry away with his tail between his legs with nothing more than a single terrifying glare, he was definitely all man. He was also a nomad, which meant he was a Dark Knight, but he moved around a lot and claimed no chapter as his own. No one had any idea how long he’d stick around this time, and nobody was brave enough to ask what he did with his time when he wasn’t there, but they were
glad he had stepped in to replace Bullet.
Diesel slid the drink across the bar and said, “Crow giving you trouble?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
Izzy winked at Dixie and moved in real close to Diesel. She ran her hand down the hard ridges of his muscular arm all the way to his wrist. “Do you call this trouble?” she asked seductively.
Diesel rose up to his full, imposing height of about six foot six, with an uncomfortable expression on his face. “Yeah, trouble for you,” he said gruffly.
“It’s called flirting.” Izzy sighed and patted his chest. “You really need to stop calling flirting trouble, or you’ll never get that sweet little lady to give you the time of day.”
His eyes shot to Tracey, the petite brunette waitress with a cute pixie cut, who had been working there for the past few months. She’d come a long way since escaping an abusive relationship. She’d moved out of the women’s shelter and was renting a room from Izzy. She was no longer painfully shy around customers, but she was deathly afraid of Diesel.
Diesel made a grunting noise and went to help a customer.
Izzy watched him walk away and said, “I kind of feel bad for him. The man will be single forever.”
“Not if you keep schooling him on the ways of the world.” Dixie picked up the drink and headed for Marco. She set the glass on the table and said, “Here you go, sweetie.”
“Thanks.”
The door to the bar opened, and Jace Stone strode in. Dixie dragged air into her lungs and stepped away from Marco’s table, taking in Jace’s sun-kissed skin, thick dark hair that brushed the collar of his T-shirt, and colorful ink snaking around his arms and peeking out from beneath his collar. Talk about “all man…”
His deep-set eyes surfed the room, landing on her, making her pulse quicken. His thick brows drew together, his powerful legs eating up the distance between them.
“How’s my favorite Whiskey?”
His rough baritone voice was as enticing as the seductive look in his eyes, but Dixie wasn’t fooling herself. Sure, Jace would slum it like the rest of them and down Jameson or Jack Daniel’s in a pinch, but everyone knew his favorite whiskey came in a pricey bottle. Dixie had a feeling he had the same taste in women. She arched a brow, calling him on the bullshit line and wondering what he really wanted.
He stepped closer, his woodsy, rugged scent accentuating his potency. “What? We both know your brothers can’t hold a candle to you.”
She might have had a crush on him since the very second she’d first seen him, at a rally she’d gone to with her brother Bear when she was just eighteen years old, but she wasn’t stupid. Jace Stone was as mysterious and unable to put down roots as Diesel. Even back then, at twenty-seven, he’d possessed the raw confidence and authoritative presence of a worldly man who took what he wanted and demanded attention. It had been more than a decade, and like good liquor, Jace Stone had gotten better with age. There was nothing pretty about him. His skin was tough as leather, his hands calloused, and he always looked like he needed a haircut. But while other women might find those things unkempt, to Dixie they were catnip. She even found the leather bands he wore around his wrist a turn-on.
Before she could make a fool out of herself as she had at eighteen—ogling him so openly Bear had physically dragged her away—she squared her shoulders, trying to ignore the butterflies partying in her stomach, and said, “What do you want, Jace?”
“I need you, Dixie.”
She’d fantasized about hearing him say those words to her for so many years, the naive girl in her was bouncing on her toes. But she eyed him curiously, wondering what the man who could have any woman could possibly want with her. Whatever it was, she knew it wouldn’t be what she wanted from him, so she said, “Get in line. So does every other guy in here.”
A low laugh rumbled out, but even his cocky grin couldn’t soften his edge. “Seriously, Dix. I need you to come with me to New York City this weekend to help me out with a job.”
Now her interest was piqued, but she already had a job.
“That’s the most interesting proposition I’ve had in a long time, but no can do. I’m slammed. I’ve got the bachelor auction this weekend. You remember the charity auction. The one I asked you to sign up for? I believe you said it’d be a cold day in hell before you sold your body. Yeah, that one,” she said sharply. “Whatever job you need me to do can’t be nearly as important as raising money for the Parkvale Women’s Shelter, where women and children who have endured horrible things are trying desperately to start over.” She glanced at Tracey, picking up a drink from the bar, and said, “Tracey stayed at the shelter, as did Bones’s fiancée, Sarah, with two of her children, before she met Bones. Jed’s fiancée, Josie, and their son, Hail, also stayed there. But I get it, Jace. You’re too special to offer yourself up for a date for a good cause.”
Needing to move before she said something she’d regret, she walked over to a table where three guys had just finished their beers and grabbed their empty bottles. “Refills?”
“Yeah, thanks,” one of the guys said.
She walked away with the human inferno that was Jace Stone on her heels.
“Dixie, how can you be upset with me? I gave you a twenty-thousand-dollar donation for the auction.”
She set the bottles on the bar and said, “Which I truly appreciate, but giving of yourself and giving money are two different things. One is easy and mindless. The other tells me who you are. It was a real eye-opener.” She crossed her arms and said, “What did you need help with anyway?”
Diesel grabbed the empty bottles, and Dixie said, “Another round, please.”
“I’m rolling out the Legacy line in the fall.”
“So I’ve heard. Bear’s pretty excited.” In addition to working at Whiskey Automotive, Bear worked part-time designing and building custom motorcycles for Jace’s company. He hadn’t worked on the Legacy line, but he raved about it.
“We all are. This line is my baby. I’ve put blood, sweat, and tears into it. It’s the first motorcycle line that will have bikes designed specifically for women. Nobody’s doing that, Dix. This is a huge deal.”
Bear had told her all about Jace’s innovative, sleek designs for women. It was a genius idea, and it didn’t surprise her that Jace had come up with it. But she couldn’t help thinking about Jace researching the contours of women’s bodies…
Diesel put three bottles on the bar, eyes locked on Jace. “Stone,” he said evenly.
“Diesel.” Jace lifted his chin in the manly greeting Dixie was accustomed to.
“Thanks, Diesel,” Dixie said, and as she headed to the table with Jace beside her, she said, “Congratulations on the line, but what does it have to do with needing me?” She set the bottles down, flashed a smile at the customers, and said, “Can I get you boys anything else?”
One of them looked her up and down lasciviously. Jace stepped closer, and the guy shifted his eyes away and said, “No. We’re good.”
Dixie spun on her heels, grabbed Jace’s arm, and dragged him to the side of the room. She felt Diesel’s antennae springing and glanced at the bar, mouthing, I’m fine! Turning her attention to Jace, she spoke in a harsh whisper. “You just fucked up my tip, and I don’t appreciate it. So whatever you have to say, say it and be gone, okay? I’ve got work to do.”
“That guy was looking at you like you were a piece of meat.”
“No shit. They all do.” Except now that she was thinking about it, Jace never had. Not once. In fact, in all the years she’d known him, this was the longest he’d ever looked at her. He didn’t live in Peaceful Harbor, but he traveled there often to see his brother Jared, who had signed up for the auction. Jared owned a restaurant in Pleasant Hill and lived there for several months out of the year. “I have a lot to do, Jace, so if you have more to say, please get on with it.”
“I’m launching a women’s clothing line called Leather and Lace when we launch the Legacy line. We’re makin
g a calendar to promote the clothing and the new bikes. The photo shoot is next week, and the woman I hired to model got hurt and can’t make it. I want you to replace her.”
She blinked several times, unable to believe what she was hearing. An incredulous laugh tumbled out. “Do you even fucking know me, Stone? I am not a pinup girl!” She took a step away and he grabbed her arm, tugging her back to him and keeping her so close, she could see flecks of gold in his sexy hazel eyes.
“This is important to me, Dixie. I don’t want someone who fakes being a biker. I want an authentic woman. I want you.”
“Do I need to point out that I was your second choice, or maybe your tenth. I don’t know or care, because any way you cut it, the answer is no. I told you, I’m not a pinup girl.” She held his steady gaze with an ice-cold one of her own and said, “For the record, Whiskeys don’t play second fiddle to anyone. Sorry, Stone, but you’re out of luck.”
“Come on, Dixie,” he pleaded gruffly. “I’ll let you auction me off.”
“Too little, too late. The ballot is full.” The lie felt victorious. She yanked her arm free and said, “I have customers to help. Good luck with the line. I’m sure, like everything you touch, it will turn to gold.”
“With you on board, it’ll be legendary.”
“No.”
He leaned closer and lowered his voice to say, “This isn’t over, kitten.”
“What the hell did you just say?” Anger simmered inside her. She poked him in his rock-hard chest and said, “I’m nobody’s kitten, and you’re this close to earning a knee to your groin.”
“You definitely know how to use those claws, and you’re so sweet I bet you purr,” he said arrogantly. “You know you want to do it, Dix.”
His eyes drilled into her, causing heat to sear through her veins and her traitorous nipples to pebble into aching peaks. Damn, he played dirty.
“Careful, Stone. This kitten bites.”
She stormed off, as annoyed with herself for getting turned on as she was at him. A pinup girl! She eyed the calendars of biker chicks hanging on the walls of the bar, and her stomach plummeted. Her brothers had lusted over those types of calendars in their bedrooms when they were growing up. Jace’s lack of attention over the years had left her wary but hopeful that one day he might see her as more than Bear’s little sister. Now he’d quashed those hopes. No self-respecting biker would want a woman he had any interest in on a calendar for guys to jerk off to.
Taming My Whiskey Page 2