by Raven Dark
Anne sits on Vicious’ lap, wrapped in his arms. While we talk, he drops kisses on her neck and shoulders. He whispers in her ear now and again, and her blush makes me smile. She’s positively glowing.
The atmosphere is surprisingly welcoming and laid back, and safety wraps itself around me like a warm blanket. The life I’ve lived for the past few months feels like it’s a million miles away.
While the band plays, I dance with Barbie and a redheaded woman everyone calls “Princess.” I’m surprised to find I’m enjoying myself.
I could have lived without one thing, though. Sitting over at a table with some of the club guys, Gar’s eyes drift to me for the umpteenth time. He looks at me over the top of his whiskey glass, and I can feel his eyes from across the yard, setting my blood on fire. I swallow hard.
The notes to an old rock tune my dad might listen to pounds through speakers installed somewhere outside clubhouse. At least, he would listen to it if he was a heavy-metal rocker. The music thrums through my blood, and as I sway my hips with the beat, Gar’s eyes drink in every move I make as though his gaze is magnetically drawn to me.
Sitting back in his chair, long fingers playing with his glass, he looks incredibly sexy, reminding me of a hunter who’s found his prey. Having a man watch me this intently is exhilarating. His gaze lingers on my curves, on my breasts, my lips, making me feel hotly sensual.
As if his stare has taken control of me, I move my hips slower with the beat. The heat in his eyes makes my throat go dry. I swear I can see the bulge at the front of his pants grow bigger even from here. A throb begins between my legs.
The song stops, and so do I. Gar turns his head and laughs at something someone at the table says. With the music and his gaze no longer holding me spellbound, it dawns on me what I was just doing. My face heats. I turn and dive into a deep conversation with Barbie and Princess, and hope Gar doesn’t take what I was doing for the invitation I never meant to make.
Months ago, I never would have intended to do anything like that with a guy, and especially not a bossy, arrogant, tatted-up biker like Gar.
A little later, I find my seat and watch the others party, taking a rest. Anne is still sitting in Vicious’ lap. The two of them are locked in a passionate kiss that makes me a little jealous. I sip my wine and try hard not to think about what’s become of my life. Or about Gar, once again watching me from his own seat.
“Sandra, did you hear a word I said?”
I blink. Anne is standing in front of me as if she teleported there from Vicious’ lap.
“I’m sorry, Anne. What did you say?”
“You want a drink?” She lifts my empty wine glass.
“Yes. Or five.” I’m not a drinker, but I need something to take my mind off the embodiment of gorgeousness over there.
She looks at Gar and gives me a smirk. “Care to share what’s going on between you two?”
I shake my head. “Nothing, except that barbarian seems to think it’s okay to manhandle me.”
Her eyes sparkle. She practically throws herself in the chair next to me and leans forward. “Do tell.”
“Don’t laugh. The man doesn’t understand personal boundaries. I really don’t like him.”
She snickers. I glare, and her shoulders shake. “I’m sorry. It just means he likes you.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“What? Why not?”
“I almost hit him with my car.”
She covers her mouth, suppressing a giggle that sounds as concerned as it is amused.
“And then he carried you in here like a caveman. Vicious told me,” she adds when I look at her. “It’s the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”
“Oh, God. Please no.” It pisses me off that the memory of Gar’s hands on me makes my heart flutter. “I’m not into being treated like a possession.”
“Some part of you is. Every time I talk about what Vicious does to me, you say how hot it is.”
“Not to the degree that Gar does it.”
“We’ll see.”
Gar’s eyes are locked on me again, gleaming with amusement when I scowl at him. That single look is like a heated caress.
Snap out of it, Sandra. One broken heart is enough. I have no business thinking that way about a man like him. Besides, he’s too damned old for me, and too damned bossy. And yet, no man I’ve ever met has made me feel this unbalanced.
Gar says something to one of the other guys at his table. Then he walks over to ours, and as he passes me, he sets his heavy hand on my shoulder. His voice is low and soft like velvet in my ear.
“Save all your dances for me, sweetheart. I’ll be back for you later.”
I whip my head around and glare at him, only to be met with the symbol of the Hell’s Heathens club, the snake weaving through a skull’s mouth and eyes, stamped across his massive, leather-clad back as he walks away.
“Wow.” Anne whistles. “You’re in trouble.”
“Why?” I whine. The notion of being held by him again sends a shiver of excitement up my spine.
“Because.” Her dark eyes are filled with delight. “Gar has a thing for you. He’s never talked to a woman like that.”
“Like what? An arrogant ass?”
“No. Like she belongs to him.”
“Oh, God. Anne, help me. Please?”
“No way. You’re on your own, girl.”
After a break, the band starts to play again. As he promised, Gar sweeps past me, capturing my hand as he goes. Whatever Anne had been saying, she cuts off in mid-sentence with a grin before Vicious pulls her up for a dance and into his arms.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I snap at Gar’s back.
He turns and pulls me against his rock-hard frame. The heat of him pounds through me, drugging me. My body jolts in response.
“Do you have any idea what you did to me while you were swaying those gorgeous hips earlier?” His voice is a low, primitive growl in my ear.
“It was just a dance, Gar.” I hate the defensiveness in my voice. Everything about this man sets me on edge.
He hums in his throat. It sounds like a warning. His hand traps my hip, huge and powerful, making me feel wonderfully fragile.
“I don’t want to dance with you.” But instead of pushing him away, my hands migrate from his chest to his shoulders.
“Yes you do.”
God, his voice is like rich honey.
“Why are you doing this? Is this punishment for almost hitting you?”
He chuckles, a wonderful, resonant sound that makes my toes curl. “Am I that bad?”
“Yes.” But I let him sway with me to the slow music that now plays. Why can’t I make myself run the way I know I should? Men like him, men who think it’s their God-given right to do whatever they want to whomever they want, can only be bad for my already shattered heart.
“One dance. That’s all you get,” I grumble.
“And leave you in the arms of other men for the next couple of hours? Not gonna happen, sweetheart. I don’t let other men touch what’s mine.”
“What’s yours?” I stare up at him. “When exactly did you decide this?”
“When I saw you in that car shaking like a scared rabbit.” He presses his lips to my forehead, running them warmly over the skin. I almost moan at the electricity that races through my veins. “Someone needs to protect you from yourself, Sandra.”
The concern, the level of protection in his tone, baffles me.
Okay, I know there is no way in hell he can know, but I feel like somehow he’s aware that my life has been one long string of bad decisions after another, and he means to prevent me from making any more. His words should piss me the hell off, but instead, an absurd tightness forms in my throat. I feel an overwhelming safeness in his arms, the kind I know can’t last.
It’s a funny thing. Contrary to what I said to Anne earlier, I know I could be into guys like Gar. I know, because when Anne told me about her wild first night wi
th Vicious, I’d thought he was incredibly sexy. His dominance, his demands, his wild and fast ways, I’d practically needed a bib to catch the drool. But that was before the man I loved had broken my heart and changed everything. Now, when I think about the idea of getting involved with Gar, all I can see is pain and heartache. My mind is screaming at me to run, to end this now. Too bad my body isn’t getting the memo.
When the song finishes, I clear my throat. “There. You had your one dance.”
I’m almost surprised that he releases me, but not without a smirk. “There will be more.” He touches me under the chin.
Then he walks away to talk to someone on the dance floor, leaving me standing there staring after him like a buffoon.
Anne touches my arm and I glare at her when I see her grin.
“I hate you right now,” I tell her.
“Me?” Her eyes go wide in a look of feigned innocence.
“Yes, you. You’re enjoying this.”
“You’re right, I am. I’ve never seen you so flustered over a man.”
“Ugh!” I shake my head. “He’s just so…”
“Sexy?” She says helpfully.
I scowl. “He’s…”
“Hot?”
“An ass!”
Her eyes shine.
I drop my arms helplessly. “I think I’ll go with you to get that drink now.”
Anne’s smirk is back until she takes my hand and starts toward the inside of the clubhouse. “Good. It’ll give us a chance to catch up.”
Catch up. The term sounds so innocuous, like we’ll be talking about my life at college, about my family, about my job. What will she think of me when she realizes where I’ve been? Just like that, all the heat pounding through me from my dance with Gar fizzles and is gone.
In the clubhouse’s impressive kitchen, Anne gets drinks for us, and I excuse myself to go to the restroom.
“Okay, but you can’t avoid me forever,” Anne teases.
I’m only half-avoiding the subject of the last few months. I really do have to pee.
I find the restroom near a side entrance of the clubhouse and relieve myself. As soon as I come out, I wish I hadn’t.
“Enjoying the party, Sandra?”
My stomach drops to my feet. The man blocking my path doesn’t appear threatening at all. Dressed in a custom black suit with a Rolex gleaming on his wrist and his black hair slicked back, he looks like any of the well-to-do men in this town. With a tanned, slightly weathered face and a pleasant smile, he looks the way my dad did before his heart attack, when he still worked at Whiskey’s only law firm, only dark-haired and considerably wealthier. In spite of the innocuous look of him, I find myself stepping back as if confronted with a poisonous snake.
“Mr. Sinclair… What are you doing here?”
“Nice try, Sandra. Or, should I say, Blue?”
The blood floods out of my face. It’s not like anyone would recognize the name, or the significance of it, and even if they would have, there’s no one in the hall now except the two of us. Still, some part of me can’t help imagining that the stage name will somehow carry through the whole club.
Knowing there is no point in lying about who I am, I handle him the best way I know how. “Whatever it is you want, Mr. Sinclair, I’m not interested. I don’t see customers outside of work.”
A tight smile touches his lips. “You think I’d drive three hours to the ass end of nowhere for that?” He slips his hand around my arm. “Let’s talk somewhere private, shall we?”
“Not happening.” I try to twist my arm free, but his hold is like iron. It pinches until I wince.
“We can talk now, or we can go to my car. Your choice.”
“I choose for you to leave,” I bite out.
Some of the girls warned me this might happen when I started working with them at the Foxy Lady. Despite that establishment’s strict rules, men—or women—would occasionally want more than what the strip club allowed, enough to harass girls outside of its doors. Max Sinclair is the first one to approach me like this outside of the club, and considering that I had no other connection with him, there was only one thing he could want. The thought makes my skin crawl.
I open my mouth to call out for Vicious, but I don’t get the chance.
Sinclair’s hand clamps over my mouth. He presses into me, and something hard and metallic jabs into my stomach.
There must be something instinctive about every human being that tells them what a gun feels like. Living in a small town like Whiskey where hunting is a common pastime, guns are nothing new to me. Plus, the security guards at the strip club wear them. Even so, I’ve never been this close to one in my life. Yet, the moment I feel the barrel pressed against my skin, I know what it is.
The scream bubbling in my throat dies a quick death. If I hadn’t relieved myself a minute ago, I’d have had a hard time returning this dress. I breathe hard against his hand and give a nod to let him know I won’t make a scene.
He slowly removes his hand.
Christ, I jiggled my ass on the man’s lap a few times and he puts a gun to me for more? What the hell is going on here? “What do you want, Sinclair?”
He steps back and tucks the gun into his belt. Does up his blazer, hiding the weapon from view. “Give me what’s mine,” he says coldly.
Okay, now I know he’s not talking about banging his favorite stripper in the back of his Rolls.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I hiss.
His smile stretches, slimy with accusation. “Did you watch the videos, Blue?”
I make a face at him. “What videos?”
“Now, Blue,” he drawls. “You had to know I’d figure out it was you. Would you rather I went out there and told all your friends how we met? How you spend your nights? That would be a lot more fun than shooting you, whore.”
Shit. There is little point in begging him not to. Unless I want the entire clubhouse, including Anne, to know I’ve been taking my clothes off for a living, I have to give him whatever he wants. The problem is, I have no clue what that is.
The urge to call him a few choice names rears up, but I quell it fast. Not wise to hurl insults at a man with a gun.
“Sinclair, trust me. If I had anything of yours, I’d give it to you. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
His face twists into a look of contempt that’s become all too familiar of late. He reaches for me.
“What the fuck is going on here, Sinclair?”
At the sound of the deep voice that fills the hall, Sinclair drops his hand as if his arm is suddenly broken. He whirls around to the man blocking the entrance to the hall.
It’s Gar.
2
Truths
Gar.
Based on the last few hours since I met him, never would I have imagined I’d be this glad to see him. Glad doesn’t begin to cut it. The moment I see him, my knees nearly fold with relief and send me collapsing to the floor.
Then, a half a second after he speaks, several things register at once. One, Gar knows Max Sinclair. He knows a creep of a customer from the strip club where I’ve been working very much incognito for three months. The possibilities as to how he could know him send a bolt of paranoia through me. Two, Gar might not know Sinclair has a gun tucked into his belt.
It’s doubtful Sinclair would try anything at this point, especially not now that several of the men have gathered behind Gar in the doorway, arms crossed and eagle-eyed. Still, he’s a desperate man, so one never knows.
My mind spins with rising panic. Gar stalks down the hall toward him. His silvery gaze is that of a predator stalking prey. Sinclair gives him an oily smile and backs away a pace, hands in air.
Gar is on him in a split second. Next thing I know, Sinclair is pinned to the wall and Gar has his forearm under his chin, against his throat.
“Vicious told you to leave,” Gar growls in his face. “What do you want with her?”
Sinclair’
s eyes go to me for a fraction of a second, then back to the huge man holding him. “Nothing. I must have mistaken her for someone else.”
“Don’t make the same mistake twice. I catch you near her again, and I’ll break your neck.” Gar releases him and shoves him toward the front door. “Get gone.”
Sinclair straightens his blazer, and amazingly, he looks as pleasant and approachable as he did when I first saw him in this hall. Well, except that his face is as white as a sheet and his eyes are a little wide. “Forgive me…” he pauses on my name, panic swells in me, and I watch his eyes twinkle. “…Miss Marshal.”
“Now!” Gar thunders.
Fists balled up, Sinclair turns and stalks out.
As soon as he’s gone, I slump against the wall, my chest heaving.
Only when Gar is right in front of me, his hand cupping my nape with astounding gentleness, do I realize how scared I must look. I hate that I’m showing my fear, as much for the weakness it implies as for the questions I know it will bring.
“You all right?”
I nod absently. It bothers me how much his touch grounds me, rooting me to the here and now.
“Answer me, Sandra.” He tips my face up.
“I’m f—fine. He…he had a gun, Gar.”
“I know.” His jaw hardens as he glances at the door. When he looks at me again, protective anger flashes in his eyes. Then his fingers massage my nape and he pulls me in. I don’t realize that I’ve fisted his cut in my hands or that my face is buried in his chest until the fantastic smell of him fills my head.
“You…” I blink up at him. “He could have shot you.”
“His gun wasn’t loaded.”
“What?”
“Vicious took his ammunition out before he talked to him.”
“Damn it. I feel like an idiot. He pulled it on me. I was terrified.”
“Don’t feel bad. You did the right thing. Sandra, what did he want?”
Crap. What am I supposed to say? I can’t tell him the truth, but something tells me Gar is not the kind of man I can get away from without telling him everything he wants to know.