There was absolute nothing left to question as the man moved, danced, shimmied, and shook every bit of his goods on that stage for our entertainment. Then, he turned around, and it got even better. The banana hammock was riding up the crack of his well-toned ass. That wasn’t what caught my attention though.
“Is that a tattoo on his ass?” I asked as I leaned further over our table trying to get a better look. Liza howled in laughter, so she must have already known something about the tattoo. I squinted, but the lighting and his quick movements kept me from seeing everything. It sort of looked like a rabbit using a top hat to cover his junk or something. I was definitely going to ask him about that the next time I saw him. By the time the song ended, Rabbit was directly in front of our table, on his knees, and singing into the fake microphone while looking me in the eye. His hips hadn’t stopped moving, and while a huge part of me was screaming at my eyeballs to look down, the rest of me was just mesmerized by his eyes on mine.
When the last sound of guitar reverberated through the room, Rabbit stood and jumped right off the stage and made a bee-line straight for me. “Oh shit!” I hissed out as I squirmed in the seat, ready to bolt. “He is so not…” I didn’t get to finish what I was saying, because he so was going to do that. Afroman’s Colt 45 started playing and Rabbit was swaying his ass in my lap to “…Colt 45 and two ZigZags, baby that’s all we need…” I smacked the hell out of his ass and giggled so hard, trying to get him to stop embarrassing me. I wasn’t so much worried about what people thought of me, or him doing this, though. I was more worried about the state of my hormones and the fact that I was about two seconds from taking things way too far and getting that back room happy ending people always talk about men getting from strip clubs. We were both single, so it was okay? Right?
Before my nerves got the best of me though, or my hormones, Rabbit leaned in and whisper-yelled into my ear, “Congratulations on passing your exam, baby!”
My body erupted in head to toe shivers and goosebumps. I reached out, not caring one bit anymore what anyone might say, and grabbed his hips to still him as I looked up into his beautiful eyes. “You did all this for me?”
“Who else would I do something like this for?” Who else, indeed. I was dumbfounded though. “The girls said you needed a stripper to commemorate the occasion and here I am.”
Thwump! Thwump! Thump!
My heart banged against my chest, letting me know I was still alive and it was okay to have feelings. Tears brewed, but I managed to keep them at bay somehow. “You’re the best!” I told him as he turned to say something to me too. Thanks to the close proximity and the both of us turning to hear one another at the same time, our lips collided instead. When we finally managed to come up for air, the table was suspiciously empty and none of the girls were anywhere to be seen. Someone had been kind enough to leave a robe lying there at the table for Rabbit though.
“Don’t worry, I’ll see you home safe and sound.” He told me in a voice that had both deepened and roughened thanks to the hormones riding the both of us. For the first time since I left Blaze behind, I wanted that. I wanted another man to take me home, and hell if I didn’t want him to still be wearing that stupid yellow banana hammock so I could peel it off his body. With. My. Teeth.
Chapter 16 - Rabbit
I slipped off of Myra’s lap carefully, then leaned in one more time, knowing somewhere in the back of my mind that I was flashing everyone in the place who cared to look, my naked ass and that fucking ridiculous tattoo. “I need to go get dressed, but I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” she whispered back so breathlessly that I only knew she said it because her lips moved to form the word, even if the sound didn’t carry.
“Rabbit! Those moves!” One of our dancers yelled out to me the minute I stepped in the back again.
“I wish my man would do something like that for me,” one of the others called out.
I was just about to the office when a hand grabbing my shoulder stopped me in my tracks. Savannah Blue, otherwise known as Sapphire, was standing there with hard eyes trained on my own. “She’s a good girl.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Sav?”
“I watched you pursue Chastity, even warned you about what would happen if she ever gave in. Myra is nothing like that bitch. She is all the sweet and good things in this world rolled into one person. That girl might be tough as nails too, but you are the type of man who could break her.”
“That’s not a concern,” I told her.
She arched a brow and cocked her hip, attitude ready to be unleashed. “You over Chastity, finally?” Fuck. Not this again. Why did everyone think I was just holding out until the bitch came back to me? Did I really come off as so weak that I would be waiting for her to return to me?
“Chastity made her choice when she drove off in some other man’s truck,” I confirmed.
“We’ve all watched you basically self-destruct since then, Rabbit.”
And that was the point I lost my fucking mind, standing in the hallway of Renegade Rosy’s, wearing a fucking banana hammock, and with my brother down the hall watching as if I didn’t see him there. “I didn’t self-destruct because of her! I fucking went crazy because I couldn’t trust myself. My own judgement bit me in the ass. My desire for things in life that I didn’t have, but coveted, led me down that road. What I’ve been doing hasn’t been to pine over a woman I’m waiting to return to me. It was because I was punishing myself for losing that much of myself to the pursuit of her in the first place. So, don’t come at me like I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
Sav was grinning at me by the time I was finished, probably red-faced from rage-yelling at her. “Sorry,” I hissed out. She continued to smile at me before patting my shoulder and walking away.
She turned back one more time. “Okay then,” was all she said before she moved into the back room where the girl’s had lockers and a private place to change.
“Fucking women!” I huffed out as I turned to get my ass into the office and dressed again.
By the time I dressed and returned to the front room, the only people sitting at their table were Liza and Tango. I didn’t even see him earlier. “Where’s Myra?”
“She left,” Liza answered.
“What do you mean? I told her I’d be right back.”
Liza glanced down at her phone. “Rabbit, honey, that was like 20 minutes ago. The poor girl was already nodding off before you took the stage. She was exhausted. Spinner offered to take her home when he took Cherry.”
Tango smirked into his drink as I cursed my brother for existing. There was no way Myra would turn down a ride from him since they were going to the same place. That motherfuckin’ cockblock! Not that I thought we’d end up sleeping together tonight or anything, but my brother knew what the fuck he was doing.
I pointed to Tango. “You bastards are going down soon.”
He held his hands up. “I can’t help the woman took the first out to get away from you after you flaunted that you had a rabbit fucking a top hat tattooed on your ass.”
I walked away.
It was that, or kill a brother.
The whole way back to the clubhouse, all I could think about was that kiss. Never, in my thirty-one years had I experienced another like it.
“Heard you kissed the new, pregnant chick last night?” Whiskey asked, as if the gossiping men of our club hadn’t been reliving all the details with one another.
“And?” I retorted as if I could care less.
“Be careful with her. Those pregnancy hormones are no joke, especially on top of whatever issues sent her running here to begin with.” He would know all about the hormone issues. His and Fox’s ex-girlfriend had a lot of mental problems when she carried their daughter. Unfortunately, they think it also led to her abandoning them and the baby once she was born too.
“You don’t have to worry about anything,” I ex
plained to him. “Myra is just a friend.”
“Friends don’t kiss with tongues,” Whiskey mocked me.
“Whatever!” I walked away before I had to admit the truth. I was falling for someone else’s girl. Even knowing about their breakup, deep down inside, the truth was there. That ass-wipe, who put that baby in Myra’s belly, would find her eventually. When that happened, I might just have a fight on my hands to keep her, to keep them.
“Treat her right, if you’re going there.” Whiskey added before he wrapped his knuckles on the bar and headed in the opposite direction.
It made me wonder if people thought I had treated Chastity wrong and that’s why she took off. I didn’t think that was the case. The woman had been catered to like she was precious to me. I allowed that thought to trail off, knowing that was exactly where I had gone wrong. I treated Chastity the way I would have treated her sister, if she’d been mine instead. I held her in a regard that didn’t match who she was. If only I’d realized that sooner. I might have saved myself some time there.
“Rabbit, let’s go. We have a run and you’re driving today. No bikes either. The weather may turn to shit later and there’s still icy patches on the ground anyway.” Spinner called out to me as he came through the doors like he was on a mission.
“Looks like Spinner woke on the wrong side of Cherry’s bed this morning.” One of the prospects mumbled. I didn’t bother giving him shit for it, because he was probably right.
When Spinner was close enough, I asked, “Where to today?”
“Canada.” The one word reply was enough. I knew what Canada meant. We were taking one of Tallahassee’s hauls across the northern border. It also meant a nearly seven hour drive one-way.
“I’ll go get something else on,” I told him. The clubhouse had become my home again once Chastity left me. I gave up the rental we’d been in while waiting on my house to be built. The damn house was finished now, but I couldn’t bring myself to live in it.
I built the damn thing with a family in mind. For whatever reason, Myra and that kiss popped into my head. I could picture her there, making my house our home. “Snap out of it!” I muttered to myself as I ripped the club shirt over my head and replaced it with a plain colored thermal. A hoodie on top of that would help stave off the chill, and jeans with sneakers instead of my normal riding boots rounded out my wardrobe. I grabbed a go-bag to take with me just in case we got stuck somewhere along the way. December in South Dakota already had harsh winters, but North Dakota and Canada didn’t make it any better.
“Let’s do this thing.” I called out as I came back downstairs. Spinner nodded and started walking to the door without waiting for me to catch up. Something really must have been bothering him. My brother was prone to quiet, reflective spells, but he never outright shut me out like he had all morning either.
“What crawled up your ass?” I asked as I hauled my body up into the driver’s seat of the box truck we were using to get the gear it contained into Canada.
Spinner turned and glared at me. “What crawled up my ass is you, little brother. You can go off the rails all you want after what that bitch sister-in-law of mine did to you, but you will not drag Myra down with you. She’s been through enough.” I sat, stunned that Spinner would even speak to me like that. “Stick to drilling BRATs on the pool tables if you must, but pregnant women shouldn’t even be on your radar.”
“Whoa! What is this all about?”
“Last night ringing any bells for you?” He huffed the words out, sounding annoyed. “Or maybe you were too blitzed to care about that?”
“I was stone cold sober last night. I danced to make her laugh so she’d have a good celebration night out. That test she had to take isn’t exactly easy, in case you didn’t know. Besides, it was your damn phone call I overheard that gave me the idea for what the girls wanted.” I started the truck and pulled away from the clubhouse. That didn’t mean I failed to notice my brother’s curious glances my way.
“I was talking about the kiss you shared while you straddled her lap.”
“That started out as a part of my dance, and we accidentally bumped faces when we tried to talk to one another.”
“And then?”
I shrugged my shoulders at Spinner’s prompting words.
“Then, I don’t know. One minute we were both laughing and she was whispering something in my ear. The next, I turned to answer back but our lips met instead.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure it was all a big grade school mistake, considering I watched you hold the poor girl’s head to keep her plastered to your face.”
His disbelieving tone only made me chuckle. “Well, it started innocent enough and then her hands gripped my hips hard, her lips parted, and-”
“Enough!,” Spinner interrupted my recap. “She’s come to be like a sister to me since she’s been here. I can’t listen to that shit.”
“Like a sister to you?” I asked, frowning over at my brother. “Cherry’s her good friend.” I shook my head. “Have either of you offered to take her to a single one of her doctor appointments so she doesn’t have to go alone?” I asked.
Spinner’s mouth opened as if he would say something, then closed, and opened once more as he turned to me. “I honestly hadn’t thought about it. I figured one of the girls was doing it.”
“Well, I took her to the last one, and her truck was broken down, so if I hadn’t been there, she just wouldn’t have gone.” I was sure she would have called Charlie for help, but I wanted to make Spinner feel bad. If he was going to play the big brother, protective card, he had better actually be fulfilling the role for Myra.
“I get it,” he finally said. “Do better or don’t come for you, but Rabbit, do me a favor, and don’t go there unless you’re completely serious. She had a rough time-”
“I already know.”
“You know?”
“She told me the gist of it and I had a visit from Phoenix of the Stoneridge Raiders MC recently.”
“What the fuck? Why wouldn’t you tell anyone? Does she know they found her?”
“Calm down. Phoenix filled in all the details Myra left out before he went back home. He doesn’t plan on telling his club where she is. It was his girl who slept with Myra’s old man. He wanted Myra to know right away. Club forbade him from telling her. I think this is his way of repaying a debt he feels he owes her since it was his woman that tore apart her relationship and he had the opportunity to the ditch the bitch, but Myra was never given that consideration because the cheater in her scenario was a club brother.”
“That’s just fucked, but I don’t think the club will see it quite like that if they find out he’s known where she is and kept it from them. That will be seen as an ultimate betrayal against their club.”
“Not my problem and now, I have tabs on them so we’ll know if they attempt to head this way.”
“You really do care about her,” my brother said after a too-long moment of silence.
“She’s growing on me.”
“You hated her at first,” he countered.
“I misunderstood something.”
“You thought she pulled a Chastity and ran from her ex for no reason?” He surmised this, and the bastard wasn’t wrong.
“Something like that,” I answered reluctantly.
“Not everyone is going to be like her,” my brother told me in a quiet, thoughtful tone.
“Let’s not discuss my issues, and focus on the task at hand for now, yeah?”
“Fine,” he agreed before he kicked back to take a nap. We would each only drive half way so the other could stay rested. There was no way we’d show up and not be alert as fuck for one of these handoffs. We spent close to 30 minutes watching the offloading of the truck. Once their men moved out, Spinner released a low growl of frustration.
“I hate that we’re wrapped up in this shit,” he grumbled.
“Me too, but some things can’t be helped.”
He eyed me for a moment
before tipping his head up in a half-nod. “Others can. Let’s grab a room in the next town and get a little rest before we head back.”
I shook my head. “Nah. I’ll drive it. Let’s just jump back across the border before we’re here long enough to leave a footprint where we don’t want one.”
As it turned out, we ended up with a flat tire halfway home, in the middle of nowhere. We ended up having to stay until the next day to find someone who could get a fucking tire to us that worked on the truck we were in.
“That hotel seems like an amazing suggestion right about now, doesn’t it?” Spinner had asked me before he cozied up in his seat with some of the blankets that had been in the back to offer a little extra cushion for the product we’d been moving.
“Fuck my life,” I muttered before also trying to get a little shuteye.
We made it all the way back to town, only a few miles left to pull back into the MC compound when the blue lights started flashing behind us. I glanced down to check my speed. “Two miles per hour over? Really?”
“Maybe your taillight is out,” Spinner suggested as he rolled his eyes. “Pull it over, and don’t be a dick. I don’t feel like going to jail today, and you’ve been a cranky ass since the whole flat tire thing.”
“What are you hauling here?” The first officer, Barker, asked as he walked up to the driver’s side of the truck, indicating the rear compartment with his hand.
“A whole lot of nothing,” I explained as I offered a quick wink in his direction. “What? Were you expecting guns?” His hand immediately flexed to his weapon on his overburdened tactical belt. “Wait, I have you covered. Have you seen these guns?” I tormented him as I flexed my arm, causing my biceps to bulge for the man who did not look as though he was happy to have to deal with me.
“You fucking moron!” My brother hissed. “That is not something you say at a goddamn traffic stop.”
“I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle, slowly, place your hands behind your head with your fingers interlocked.”
The Restart and the Remedy (Aces High MC - Dakotas Book 3) Page 11