Turning around, she saw him walk in. He wore leather chaps over worn jeans and black motorcycle boots. His leather cut fit over a long-sleeve white thermal shirt and black leather gloves covered his hands and fingers. A black beanie covered what she knew was gorgeous dirty blond hair. She would bet it was windblown because his face held the redness of cold from outside. A black bandana hung from the back pocket of his jeans. He took one cursory glance around the club before his eyes landed on hers. The smile that he seemed to reserve for her now broke across his face. She smiled back, wanting nothing more than to beat feet across the crowded room and throw herself into his arms.
“Your group over there is getting restless.” Sparkles sauntered up to her, closing a robe over her body. “I just gave redhead a lap dance and he called me Bianca. You better go shut that shit down.”
Bianca’s smile faded, and she turned around with new determination. “Okay guys, no more drinks, you’re at the limit. Do you have a DD?”
One of the guys in the group raised his hand. “That’s me. Just let me settle up with you and I’ll get them out of your hair,” he grinned good-naturedly at her.
Thankful that one of them seemed to still have his faculties about him, she handed him the bill and took the time to explain that the gratuity was already included and they weren’t required to leave her anything else. She hoped that would make them get out even faster.
Just as she was about to be done, redhead whistled at her and crooked his finger in her direction. She fought not to roll her eyes but walked over anyway, knowing that it was probably the worst idea she’d had in a long time.
“Yeah?”
“I got your tip hot stuff.”
Shaking her head, she indicated the receipt she held in her hand. “Already got it, thanks though.”
She had inadvertently gotten a little too close, and redhead was quick, even when inebriated. He put his hand behind her neck and pulled her down even closer before hooking a finger in her shirt and stuffing a bill in her bra.
Within seconds, she’d been moved, and Jagger’s hand was around the redhead’s neck.
“You want to take care of this or do you want me to?” Jagger asked, his teeth clenched.
“Normally, I’d say let me, but I’m tired tonight and this guy has been on my nerves since he got here. You take care of it, baby.” She winked at him as she said it.
“With pleasure.”
He jerked the guy towards the back rooms. “You boys might need to call his soon-to-be wife and tell her where her man can be picked up. I’ll be done in about thirty minutes.”
Dominic laughed as he escorted the rest of them out of the building.
Taking a deep breath, Bianca walked over to the bar and had a seat to wait on Jagger. Jerking the money out of her bra, she saw that it was $100. Normally she would have thrown it in redhead’s face, but she figured after everything she had been through, she deserved it. She took a moment to glance around the club, to see who else had shown up. Almost immediately her eyes locked with Money Bags, who did nothing more than smile and wave. She swallowed loudly. That was the scariest wave she’d ever seen in her life.
Chapter Twenty
“You wanna go home with me?” Jagger asked as he came out of the back room, putting his cut back on.
She was still glancing periodically at Money Bags, but gave Jagger her full attention when he came to stand in front of her. Casually, he took one arm and placed it on the bar, before placing his other arm on the other side, effectively boxing her in.
“I would love to, but I have stuff I need to do tomorrow,” she sighed, putting her hands in his belt loops and pulling him towards her.
He leaned down, nuzzling her neck with his mouth. “That sucks,” he groaned. “I was really hoping to spend some time with you tonight”
Agreement was on the tip of her tongue. “How about you come home with me?”
His eyes flashed in genuine surprise. “You sure?”
“If you are. I mean, if you can’t because you need to be at the clubhouse, I understand.”
“No, that’s not it at all. I’m actually off duty right now. You just want me to follow you over on my bike?”
“Yeah, that way if you need to leave you can. You’re not commandeering my car again.”
An innocent look spread across his face. “Me?”
“Yeah you.” She leaned up, kissing him softly on the mouth.
He went in for one more, wrapping an arm around her neck and putting his other hand at her hips. “I’ll see you when I get there.” He pulled away.
“Yeah, see you.” She stood up, throwing her apron behind the counter. “Sparkles, will you tell Wanda I’m out for the night?”
“Will do.”
Bianca made her way out to her car, stopping in her tracks when she saw a note tucked under her windshield wiper. Glancing around, she saw that Jagger hadn’t made his way outside yet.
Bianca Hawks, glad to see you around my school. Hope to see more of you soon. Interesting to know your boyfriend is a member of a motorcycle gang.
It wasn’t signed, but it didn’t have to be. She knew exactly who had left this message. Mr. Money Bags had thrown down a challenge, and now she had to figure out exactly how she was going to answer it.
“These stairs are a fucking death trap,” Jagger complained as they made their way up to her apartment.
“I know,” she sighed. Everyone who came to see her always complained about them.
“Tyler and I will be over here sometime tomorrow to fix them. They need an extra support.”
She raised her eyes. “You can do that kinda stuff?”
“Yeah,” he answered a little too quickly. “Well, Tyler can, and if he can, then I can.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that Tyler could probably do a million things that he couldn’t do, but she decided that maybe she should keep that to herself. “Whatever you say.”
She unlocked her door and let him in. “Hang on, I forgot my mail.”
Going back down the stairs, she went to her small mailbox and rifled through the junk mail that was there. Taking it to her trash can, she threw it away. Glancing up and down the street, she froze, seeing a white van turn onto her street and almost stop.
“What’s wrong?” Jagger asked from where he stood.
For one night, she wanted a quiet time with him. “Nothing, just thought I saw someone I knew,” she shook her head, hurrying up the stairs.
He held the door open for her as she made it to him. It was then that the white van drove by. “That white van drive by out here often?” he asked. It looked just like the one that had run him off the road.
“No,” she answered quickly.
His brows drew together, but he didn’t push it. Walking inside, she put her stuff down and went to turn the heat up. It was a little chilly.
“Sorry dinner got ruined,” he apologized, having a seat on her couch.
“It’s alright. I don’t have any plans the rest of the night, and I don’t have class tomorrow morning. Maybe we could just hang out,” she shrugged.
They had spent plenty of time together already, and she had slept at the clubhouse in his room, but this felt completely different. They hadn’t been in her environment, and she obviously didn’t feel comfortable because her demeanor was 180 degrees different from before.
“Sounds good to me.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“You tired?” she asked, looking at the dark circles under his eyes.
“A little. That protection run took forever and I got shot at.”
Her face paled and her heart beat double time. “You got shot at?”
“Yeah, but nobody got hurt. Obviously I’m okay.”
“Obviously, but I’m not sure how I feel about you being shot at.”
He opened an eye and shrugged. “It’s not the first time. I’m sure it won’t be the last. It kinda goes along with what I do, ya know?”
Sh
e did know, but this was scary. “I’m gonna go take a shower,” she announced abruptly.
Reaching out, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down to him. She had no choice but to straddle his lap to keep from falling over and hitting his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“We’re not back to this again are we?”
“Back to what?” she played dumb.
“B, you got a problem, you have to tell me. I can’t read your fuckin’ mind, nor do I want to. I’m pretty sure you think a lot that you never say.”
That was the truest statement that anyone had ever said to her and showed just how well he knew her. This relationship was getting more serious by the minute.
“I just don’t like hearing that you’re shot at.”
“And I don’t like men putting their hands on you or sticking money in your bra, but you’ve already told me what you think about me being jealous.”
“Did it change anything?” she asked.
He tilted his head. Warmth bled out of his eyes. Now they were cold and a little more sinister than she liked to see. “I took care of that guy tonight. I wanted to chop his dick off because it was hard for you, but I decided to let him remain a man. I won’t be that nice when the next one comes around. I can’t control my jealously when it comes to you, and I think it’s pretty fuckin’ clear I don’t like you workin’ in that place, but I understand that you have to do what you have to do. Like, you are who you are, I am who I am. If I’m not asking you to change, then you can’t ask me to change. I’ll deal with men if I need to, I’ll beat the shit out of them if I have to, but I won’t stand for another man touching you. We clear on that?”
She swallowed loudly. “Crystal.”
Getting up from his lap, she felt cold. This was a side of him that did scare her. She knew that it wasn’t directed at her, but jealously brought out a side of him she didn’t like and it worried her. The job she had was the job she had. And now with Money Bags, who knew what was going to happen. But if he was going to lay it all out, then so was she.
“Let’s get something else straight. You get shot at, I want to know. I don’t want to be kept in the dark. I don’t know how your other women have dealt with this, but I do better when I know what the fuck is going on. Don’t think I’m not strong enough to handle it.”
Turning from the living room, she went into the bedroom and grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt before going to the bathroom. She cranked on the shower and waited for the hot water heater to kick in. While she did, she took her shirt off and breathed a sigh of relief when she undid her bra and let her shoulders relax. Now she could be comfortable. After completely disrobing, she knew that the shower would be as warm as it was going to get. Climbing in, she let the hot water run over her back and arms. She’d only be in there for a few minutes when she heard the curtain be pushed back and felt the warmth of Jagger’s body pressed against hers. His hands went to her hips, his long fingers pressing against her pelvic bones to turn her around.
“You left before I could be completely honest with you,” he whispered, burying his head in her neck.
“With what?” Her mouth was dry. Had he killed someone tonight, was he going to have the cops at her door in the morning?
“There hasn’t ever been another woman that I’ve been in a relationship with like this. No other woman ever wanted to know what I was doing because none of them cared about me, Jagger. They cared about the motorcycle, the cut, and the badass attitude. You see right through it, B, and it scares the absolute shit out of me. You really do care about me.”
She knew exactly what that had taken out of him to admit to her. He was a lot like her, playing everything close to their chests so that they didn’t have to put themselves out there for other people.
Silently she slipped her arms around his waist and pulled him close. They stood there holding each other until the water ran cold.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I could get used to this. With you here, I’m not cold.”
Jagger laughed. The two of them were lying on her couch, watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory. He had laid down first and opened his arms for her. With only a little bit of hesitation, she had fallen into those arms and pulled a blanket over them. For over an hour, she had snuggled so tightly against him that he didn’t know where he ended and she began. If asked, he might even say that this would be a defining moment of his life.
“That’s all I am to you? A heater?” He put his hand over his heart. “You wound me.”
Moving her head to the side so that she could look at him, the grin that came over her face was contagious. “Speaking of wounding you, when did you take that picture to put on my phone?”
He cracked up in earnest now, laughing so hard she could feel his abdominal muscles contract. “I was wondering when you would see that. You didn’t have a picture of me on there so Layne took one of me for you.”
“Why were you T-Swifting in it?” she asked, laughing along with him.
“Isn’t that the popular thing to do for young couples in love?”
Shock blanketed her face. Was he being serious? He was in love with her?
“Relax.” He cupped her face. “I’m not confessing my everlasting love for you right now. It was just an expression.”
She opened her mouth and closed it. “Okay. I mean, I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about you, but I’ve never thrown around the world ‘love’,” she explained.
“Either way, I just thought it would be cute. Layne gave me a bunch of shit for being lame.”
Running her hand through his hair, she pulled his mouth down to hers. She kissed him twice before pulling away. “Well thank you for being lame for me.”
“Damn, you thought it was lame too?”
“Nooo.” She drew her head back from his. “What would be lame is if you brought your guitar over and serenaded me with a song guaranteed to make you get lucky.”
“Is there a list of those songs somewhere?” he asked dryly. “Because I would gladly memorize those chords and sing those lyrics.”
“Hello, I just said that would make you lame.”
He flipped her over so that she faced him. “I think you’re subconsciously telling me this because you want me to do it. I’m on to you, B.” He ran his hands down her sides and gripped her hips.
“Maybe I’ll make you a list sometime.” She winked, entangling her leg with his.
Clearing his throat, he gestured to the TV. “We were watching a show here.”
“We were, but I like talking to you a lot more,” she confessed, hooking her foot along the back of his calf.
“So what, my dear, do you want to talk about?” he asked, pushing the hair back from her forehead.
She wracked her brain. What did she want to know about him? Already he had told her a little bit about his parents, but she craved to know more. In actuality, she wanted to know everything about him.
“What was your first car?” she blurted, surprising even herself. Out of all the things she wanted to know, that was the first thing that had come to mind.
“A late model Honda. That movie The Fast and The Furious had just come out. Everyone wanted a rice burner, and it just so happened I worked enough the summer I turned 16 to be able to get one.”
Tucking her hand under her chin, she gazed up at him. “Did it make you popular?”
“Oh fuck yeah,” he grinned. His gaze became soft and unfocused, obviously taking him back to another time. “Every girl in school wanted to be with me. Not just because I had my own car, but because I fixed it up. It was fast, and I drag raced it out on Highway 185.”
“What happened to it?”
He grimaced. “Got drunk one night and wrapped the damn thing around a tree. I’m lucky to be alive. Don’t ask me why I tempt fate riding motorcycles. That’s the first thing my Mom said to me when I told her I was goin’ to prospect for Heaven Hill.”
Her fin
gertips lightly ran against the soft fabric of his t-shirt. “Did it change your life?”
“The wreck or the motorcycle?”
That caught her off guard, but it was a legitimate question. “Both, I guess.”
Jagger cleared his throat and tucked her head under his chin, wrapping his arms around her tightly. “The wreck changed a lot of things for me. I realized that I’m not invisible, and just because my parents told me not to do something didn’t mean I had to. I was faced with my own mortality. Which, I’m sure you know, as a teenager is the last thing on your mind.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “I’m really just glad and lucky that no one was with me. I’d had a date that night and had just dropped the girl off. She’d been drinkin’ too and her Dad tried to take my keys, but I was a dumb fucker back then.”
“How in the hell did you get into bikes?” she asked, her voice slow and lazy.
“My Dad, believe it or not. A couple of weeks after the wreck, I was bitchin’ about everything. I was pissed off that none of my ‘pussy brigade’ wanted to see me again; I was sick of sitting at home while everybody else went partying. That night, he rolled up with a bike on the back of his truck. Told me if I wanted to kill myself, I could damn well do it, but I would have to wait until I was 18.”
It all clicked in her head. “So that’s when you left. The day you turned 18, you left on the back of the bike he gave you.”
“Sure did…and I ain’t ever looked back.”
To look at him now, she wouldn’t think he was such a rebel. To her, he had always just been himself. Even in the first couple weeks of them knowing each other, she had been a little bit scared of him. His face was always so intense, and he always carried an air of authority about him. She imagined—scratch that—knew that when he got something in his head, he went for it. Without a doubt, that’s why they lay right where they were at this particular moment in time.
He coughed lightly, shifting so that he could gaze into her eyes. “So Bianca, tell me something about you.”
Losing Control (Heaven Hill Series) Page 9