One, I was gonna see Roni again soon.
Two, until I did, Bane would watch her back.
And three, there was no way in fuck Taze was getting anywhere near her, ever again.
I was right in the first place; I had to protect her from that dumbass piece of trash.
Bane had already called in, and I’d given him Roni’s address and his instructions. He was taking over for Lex on my little surveillance project. He’d be at Roni’s place by the time Bishop dropped her there. Watching. Reporting in to me.
Con had another brother, Maddox, helping him with his task.
And Lex was on standby.
I was gonna deal with Taze, and Lex was gonna help me do it. That comment about the teeth? Not going unanswered.
Contrary to what most people might assume by looking at me, I was not a violent man. I didn’t have half the temper of my brother or a lot of the other bikers I knew. I didn’t particularly subscribe, without exception, to the “an eye for an eye…” mentality of dealing with grievances.
But I was a King.
A death threat against a member of my club could not go ignored.
Taze had crossed one hell of an ugly line last night. Me dealing with it without telling my brother, my club President, and the rest of my club was crossing another ugly line. But I would not bring violence down on my brother, in any way. I was not gonna let Taze start a fucking war over this bullshit.
The Kings had enough bullshit to deal with.
So I was gonna deal with Taze myself.
I was definitely gonna deal with Roni first, though.
Not sure yet what that was gonna entail other than feeling her out and going from there. This New Year’s Eve event gave me an opening, but getting a throbbing hard-on in the middle of a business meeting didn’t really go hand-in-hand with keeping things professional.
Well, fuck professional.
I pulled out my phone and sent her a text.
Meet me at Cardero’s. 8pm.
Chapter Eight
Roni
Meet me at Cardero’s. 8pm.
I kept staring at the text on my phone, like I was making sure it wouldn’t just evaporate or I hadn’t hallucinated it. It had come in as soon as I left Jessa’s place, from a number I didn’t recognize.
But I knew who it was from.
I saved the number to my contacts and programmed in his name: Jude Grayson. All the while, I tried to ignore the little thrill of knowing I now had his number in my phone.
Of course, I used to have it. But that was years ago.
Mid-afternoon, I finally replied.
Me: How did you get this number?
Did he seriously still have my number in his phone? After all these years?
He didn’t respond. All day.
I knew, with his silence, that accepting his invitation—which was more of a command than anything else—would only start the ball rolling on a very dangerous game. One I’d seriously love to play—if there was any possibility I could win.
Either way, I went to meet him.
I wasn’t about to do anything that might jeopardize the New Year’s Eve event, now that Brody had entrusted me with it—more or less. Even if that meant sitting through a dinner with Jude.
All day I’d been mentally pinching myself about the whole thing. I’d convinced Brody to take a chance on me. There was now a shit-ton of work to do, of course, but I’d gotten things this far. I’d gotten the venue. I’d gotten DJ Summer. I’d gotten Dirty.
And now I had a dinner meeting with Jude.
I knew it wasn’t a date. Yes, he’d asked me to meet him at a restaurant, in the evening, but this was normal in my line of work. I often met with people professionally, at all hours of the night, in restaurants or bars, to talk shop.
And yet… this did not feel like that, either.
Cardero’s was on the waterfront in Coal Harbor, and I made sure to give myself enough time to find parking and not be late. I walked up the walkway and through the door fashionably early, because I was a professional, and I wasn’t about to let Jude glimpse a single chink in my armor. There was a reservation in his name, but when I was shown to the table, he wasn’t there yet.
Minus one point for Jude.
Or maybe it was minus one point for me? As I settled in, I wondered if maybe I should’ve arrived a little late, made him wait.
Not half a minute after I’d sat down, though, someone approached the table. The first thing I saw was his arm as he reached past me to set a glass of white wine on the table in front of me—and there was no mistaking who that arm belonged to.
The full black sleeve tattoo of a big, twisted tree and the long, gnarly roots that wound down over his hand.
The silver skull ring on his middle finger.
The warm, burnt-toffee tones of his skin and the thick curves of his muscles.
I looked up at him. His built body towered above me as he gazed down, looking me over. He wore a charcoal-gray, long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up and fitted black jeans. The shirt clung to his thick pecs, the jeans to his thighs, and my tongue pressed to the top of my mouth as I fought back some primal response that would have me drooling if I wasn’t careful.
His almost-black hair was thick and short-ish and, as usual, casually, haphazardly styled. His dark eyes were a deep, bottomless molten brown. His lips were full and oh-so-fucking-kissable.
And those dimples.
Good fucking lord, the dimples. He smiled at me now, halfway, and it really wasn’t fair. Those things were weapons of mass destruction.
How did I convince myself I could handle this, exactly?
He moved to sink into the seat across from me and I caught his scent. One part faint, woodsy cologne mingled with his sexy man-musk, one part fresh air and the leather of the jacket he had slung over one arm and now tossed on the back of the seat. One-hundred-percent pure alpha male.
He set his drink in front of him on the table. If my memory served, it would be whiskey.
He’d remembered what I liked to drink, too. When I took a sip, it was a Pinot Grigio or something similar, light and just a touch sweet.
“You’re late,” was the first thing out of my mouth. I glanced at my phone. “It’s eight-oh-four.”
“Sitting at the bar,” he said. “Saw you walk in.”
And with that, his wicked, hellfire eyes moved slowly, deliberately over every inch of my body that he could see above the table.
“So, how are you?” I asked, when his gaze finally met mine again. It was the way I might start a conversation with any professional associate, whether or not they’d just eye-fondled my breasts. And whether or not they had a fresh, raw bruise and a scrape on their face from a collision with a “door”—like he did, right now.
Though I really wasn’t sure how I’d handle his answer; how I’d handle any information about Jude or his life—a life that didn’t include me in it.
“Hungry,” he said, picking up the menu and, predictably, avoiding answering me in any meaningful way. He looked me over again, completely ignoring the menu in his hand.
Also predictable. I didn’t exactly wear business suits to business meetings.
I dressed according to how I wanted to feel.
And sitting down with Jude, I wanted to feel wanted.
My halter-style top was bronze-colored silk, with a plunging neckline, worn without a bra, and from certain angles a little braless cleavage might be glimpsed. When I moved, there would definitely be some suggestive jiggle. The shirt tucked into the high-waisted black lace pencil skirt that hugged my hips and butt, and the strappy nude suede shoes had bronze spiked high heels. I wore clothes that I felt good in, powerful in, always. I dressed for myself. Tonight, I’d also dressed for a meeting with a man I was deeply attracted to.
To see what I’d see in Jude’s eyes when he looked at me.
Appreciation. That’s what I saw.
And, yes; hunger.
“How’re you?
” he asked.
“Fine.” I figured a non-meaningful answer deserved a non-meaningful answer.
“How’s Taze?”
I felt my eyebrows go up, because really, I was surprised as shit he would ask. “Also fine,” I said, which was unfortunately the truth. Taze was nothing if not fine.
He definitely wasn’t drool-inducing, mind-melting, or totally fucking heart-shattering.
He wasn’t Jude.
“Yeah?” He put the menu, which he still hadn’t looked at, down. “Why’re you with him?”
I laughed a bit, but it came out as an incredulous scoff. Maybe because a mere week ago, Jude had warned me off my boyfriend. Told me he was “a bad dude.” If he was intent on more of the same, I’d call Taze down here right now and fuck him on the table.
Nobody told me who to date, or fuck, much less a man who wouldn’t lower himself to do either.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Because I feel safe with him,” I said, in all honesty.
Jude seemed to find that funny, though not ha-ha funny. A dark, disbelieving smile pulled at his lips. “You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”
I sipped my wine, unmoved. “Don’t ask the question if you don’t want the answer.”
“I want the answer.”
I waited a moment, maybe giving him a chance to take that back, to change his mind.
He didn’t.
So I answered.
“He’s a biker with an outlaw motorcycle club. He wears club colors and he carries a gun. He thinks of me as his, and if anyone tried to hurt me, he’d have a large-size problem with it.”
“That it?”
“Like I said. He makes me feel safe.”
Jude stared at me with those gorgeous dark eyes of his, and I just tried not to squirm.
“He’s younger than you. He make you feel safe like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like someone who’d never leave you because he looks up to you. Because you’re better than him.”
“I never said I was better than him.”
He sipped his drink. “He do what you want him to? Do everything you say?”
I laughed. “Hardly.”
“And yet.”
“And yet, what?” I was getting irritated with this line of questioning. Me, sitting here defending my relationship, which was none of his business. Instead of discussing the business we were supposedly here to discuss.
“And yet,” he said, “you are better than him.”
I feigned disinterest, glancing at the menu myself. “And what do you base that on?”
“Everything.”
“Everything? Could you be more vague?”
“You want a list?” He leaned back in his seat, dark gaze fixed on me. “You have a legitimate source of income and a career. Two careers. You own your own home. You’re older.”
“We’ve established that. And we all get older, so I won’t fault Taze for his year of birth.”
“You have more money.”
“And you would know that, how?”
“You’re smarter,” he said, ignoring that. “More well-spoken. You’re kinder. More confident. Classier.” His eyes drifted down to the exposed slice of skin between my breasts. “You have better style. You smell better.”
“Says you,” I said, completely cool. How or why he’d ever been close enough to Taze to smell him, I wasn’t sure, and also wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “That all?”
“Mmm,” he said, sipping his drink. “That’s a start. You’re better looking.” His gaze roamed over my face. “You have prettier eyes.”
“Is this your idea of flirting?” I asked. “Comparing me to a man you don’t like?”
“Wasn’t flirting,” he said. “Just speakin’ the truth.”
A waitress appeared with a bottle of white wine, which Jude had apparently ordered. It was the same wine I was drinking, and she topped up my glass before placing the bottle on the table. Jude just sipped his drink as she ran through the night’s features. We ordered, and when she’d departed, he said, “You’re stronger than him, too.”
I said nothing.
He lifted his glass. “Congratulations. Putting together a Dirty show is no small feat. Impressing Brody, even bigger feat.”
I clinked the rim of my glass to his. “I’m not sure I’ve actually impressed him. Won his trust, for now, maybe.”
“With Brody, that’s pretty much the same damn thing, darlin’.”
Christ. Already with the darlin’.
This was gonna be a looong meal if he was already flashing his dimples and pulling out the darlin’.
Next thing he’d be calling me V, like no time had passed between now and then, and my panties would be around my ankles.
We sipped our drinks and his dark eyes never left mine. And I remembered what happened the last time we’d toasted each other—the night of Jesse and Katie’s wedding. Late in the night, just the two of us, on the deck of the lodge.
The night we last fucked.
I wondered if he was remembering the same thing.
“You always discuss your security needs with promoters in person, over dinner and drinks?” I asked him.
“Promoters don’t always look like you,” he answered. “You always leave your bra at home when you meet with security?”
I glanced down; my silky halter had draped open a bit too far on one side, exposing a rather generous curve of breast. My nipple was still covered. I could’ve casually smoothed the shirt closed, covering the rest.
I left it right where it was and looked him in the eye.
“I’ve never had to meet with security before. As you know, I’ve never done an event this big. Does my lack of bra offend you?”
“Long as you don’t mind me staring, darlin’, I don’t mind your clothes comin’ off.”
Later, when the food had long been cleared away and I’d hit the bottom of the wine bottle, and Jude was on his third or fourth drink, I asked him, “Are you seeing anyone?”
It wasn’t like it had never occurred to me to wonder. I would’ve driven myself into a mental ward long ago if I’d ever allowed myself to dwell on that topic, though.
Right now, the way he kept looking at me, the way he’d flirted with me all through dinner, the way every conversation kept leading back to some sort of compliment about me… I just suddenly needed to know.
“No one regular,” he said, vague as fucking possible.
“Anyone special?”
“Special to me? No.”
“Anyone who’d be bothered by you being here, right now, with me?” And looking at me like that…
His eyes narrowed slightly, and he didn’t answer right away. So I amended the question.
“Anyone who you’d care would be bothered by you being here, right now, with me?”
His gaze drifted down my chest. My nipples hardened under the slinky, silky fabric of my shirt, and I truly hoped he saw it. Not because I wanted him to know how his heated glances affected my body. Because I wanted him to remember how my breasts felt in his hands. How my nipples felt in his mouth. How they tasted.
I wanted him to relive every steamy, raunchy, X-rated moment that had ever passed between us—and eat his fucking heart out.
Cruel, maybe.
A tease? I’d never been called that. But Jude, for sure; I’d tease him in a heartbeat.
Why? Because he’d rejected me, not once, but several times in my life, and yes, deep down in places I would never tell a soul, it still stung.
A lot.
“No,” he said, finally.
“Anyone who makes you feel safe?”
At that, he licked his lip. His eyes twitched a little, though I couldn’t tell if he was amused or considering the question. “Safe. How?”
“That thing you said about Taze. Someone younger or someone lesser than you, who looks up to you and makes you feel secure.”
“Thought you weren’t doing that with Ta
ze.”
“I didn’t say I was. You said it.”
“No,” he said. “No one like that.”
“You don’t date women who make you feel powerful?”
He didn’t answer that for a moment. Then, “No.”
“You date women who make you feel weak?” I challenged.
“Not what I said.” He sipped his drink, slowly. “I don’t date women to ‘make’ me feel anything. I date women I want to date.”
I finished the last of my wine, staring at him.
He stared back.
We really hadn’t talked all that much about business, in the end. Over dinner he’d laid out his expectations for me, in terms of security for the New Year’s Eve event. It wasn’t exactly anything earth-shattering. Nothing he couldn’t have filled me in on over a brief phone call. But the entire time, he seemed more focused on me, on staring at me and flirting with me, than anything else. And one bottle of wine in, I was definitely focused on him.
The fact was, Jude Grayson was the one that got away.
That had always been true.
Though most days I just didn’t allow myself to think about it. I didn’t dwell.
If I’d ever allowed myself to dwell I would’ve been, frankly, heartbroken, and I didn’t want to live like that, plain and simple.
So I just. Didn’t. Think. About. It.
Ever.
Until he’d suddenly come back into my life.
And now that he was in my life again—suddenly fucking everywhere—I hadn’t quite figured out how to deal. I’d had a minor pathetic freak out around Jessa’s meet-the-baby party, but thank God that was over. I just wasn’t yet sure what my next move should be.
Ignoring him wouldn’t work. Not when I was now going to have to see him, repeatedly, in the planning and executing of this event.
Fucking Taze also didn’t work. Unfortunately. That had really seemed like a two-birds-with-one-stone situation—get laid and get over Jude—but no such luck.
So maybe facing him down was the way to go?
Worth a try, right?
“Did I make you feel powerful?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer.
“Did I make you feel weak?”
He didn’t answer that either, but he also didn’t break eye contact, even when the waitress came by to ask if we wanted anything else. He ordered us two shots, then when she was gone, he said, “You made me feel a lot of things.”
Dirty Like Jude: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 5) Page 9