Scars reached up, traced the curve of her cheek with one finger. Slow. Soft. Gentle.
“Beautiful,” he said, and this wasn’t a growl or a grunt. His deep voice wasn’t harsh, or hard, or full of sex. No, it was full of wonder, of awe. Full of light. “So damn beautiful.”
He slipped out of her then, but still held her closer, and they were quiet for a few minutes. Just breathing together, recovering together, rejoining this world together.
Scars smiled to himself, simply unable to believe that she’d just shown up at Satan’s, just wandered on into his life. No way he was letting her go, now that she’d appeared. He wanted to take her back to his place, and love her properly. Long and hard and deep… and then make her coffee in the morning. Then they’d make love again, then shower, then get filthy all over again. They’d talk too, talk until they wanted to do anything and everything except talk. God, he wanted to get to know her. He wanted to know every single damn thing about this beautiful, passionate, wild-eyed angel.
Zoe, meanwhile, was starting to think that Scars had to be ready to let her go by now. He’d had his fun, after all, and she had an early morning. She wriggled away a bit, and was startled when he gave a low growl and held her close again.
Huh. A biker who likes to cuddle. Who the hell would ever have thunk it?
Ignoring how good it felt to be held against that hot, hard body, Zoe pulled away more forcefully this time. She stood up, located her bra and panties, started to put on her shirt.
“Hey.” Scars sat up straighter, a look of confusion on his rugged face. “Where do you think you’re going, beautiful?”
“Home.” She turned slightly, yanked on her skirt. “I’ve got an early day tomorrow. Keira, remember.”
“Awesome.” He got to his feet too, totally unselfconscious about his nudity. But then again, why the hell would he be? Hundreds of women had seen him like this, she figured, and God knows, the view was spectacular. Every impressive inch of it. “I wouldn’t mind doing that all again in a bed.”
“Whoa. Wait.” She blinked. “What?”
“What what?” he rejoined with a grin. “You really think I’m letting you go that easy, beautiful?”
Zoe’s breath stopped. She actually stopped breathing. Was he going to physically stop her form leaving? Restrain her? Hold her against her will?
Scars must have seen something on her face, because he stared at her. “Zoe? You good?”
She nodded and backed up, her heart in her throat, looking for her stupid shoes. Praying the whole damn time that she was overreacting.
He watched her move away from him, wondering why she was as white as a sheet of paper. He disliked her pallor, and he disliked her getting dressed at warp-speed even more. He knew that he had to lock this down before she got into her shoes and hit the door.
“So, as I was saying,” he continued. “I’m coming with you, OK?”
“You – you what?” she stammered, totally wrong-footed. “Why?”
“Because,” he said, his voice a low growl. “You’ve ruined me for all other women… utterly ruined me.”
She stared at him. “Ummmm. What?”
“Yeah.” Slowly, like he had all the time in the world, Scars put his boxer shorts back on. “I’d love to come with you, do it all again on a nice soft mattress. Then I’d like to get a few hours sleep, wake up, have you scratch up my back some more, with lots of talking in between. I mean… I’m an awesome bedmate. Don’t snore, don’t steal the covers, and I’m a super-comfy pillow to fall asleep on.”
“Yeah. No. I don’t sleep with men in my bed.”
That stopped him, and he cocked his dark head at her. “You don’t?”
“Never.”
“How come?”
“Because I can’t fall asleep with a man in my bed. I sure as hell can’t fall asleep with a man touching me.”
“So, wait… you never fall asleep in a man’s arms?”
“Never have.”
“Well.” He grinned at her. “That’s because you’ve never met the right guy.”
“I still haven’t.”
“Hey, Zoe… c’mon.” He shook his head. “Look, this was amazing, right? Why not have some more?”
“More?”
“More kissing. More touching. More orgasms. More laughing. More talking. More of everything. Just – more. I mean, why not? Neither one of us has to be anywhere before noon, so why not spend the night together?”
She sighed. He was being very upfront about the fact that he just wanted one night of orgasms and fun with her, just ‘more’ fucking. She supposed that women usually fell for this whole zealous, passionate, ‘let’s cuddle and wake up together’ line. She had to admit, it was tempting, as was the thought of more earth-shattering orgasms.
But that was pointless, all of it. She’d needed some fun, and so had he, and it was now post-fun time. Her gorgeous no-strings stress-release had come through amazingly well – and this was now the time that they were both supposed to go their separate ways. No hard feelings, no expectations, no plans for the future.
So why the hell was Scars acting like this was a damn date?
“You’re not coming with me,” she snapped, angry that he was trying to unilaterally change the universal code of totally meaningless one-night-stands. “End of discussion.”
He stood still, studying her body language. Man, she was as cold as ice all of a sudden, and it was a jarring contrast to her heated writhing and moaning of less than five minutes before.
“I’m really not?” he said carefully.
“No.” She stuck her feet into her shoes. “You’re staying here and looking for your next fuck.”
Dumbfounded, he stared at her. “My next…”
“Yeah. Your next willing female. A handsome boy like you, you have your choice, I’m sure, so you can still do it in a bed tonight, if you want.” She nodded over at the far corner. “Oh, look. There’s one right over there, just waiting for you and your next mark.”
“OK, stop.” He shook his head, strangely hurt, but also very, very pissed off. “That’s bullshit is what that is, and…”
Suddenly feeling that it was imperative that she get the hell out of there now, knowing that if she didn’t, she’d fall into his arms and beg him to come home with her, she grabbed her purse, swung it over her shoulder.
“Thanks, Scars,” she muttered, avoiding all eye contact. “It was fun. See you around.”
“Wait. Zoe, wait.” He took three long strides and put his hand on the door to stop her from bolting. “Can I see you again?”
She stared up at him. “I work for The Road Devils now, Scars. Of course you’re going to see me again.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He tucked her hair behind her ear, tried not to notice that she moved away from his touch, and he fumbled a bit, didn’t find quite the right words for what he really wanted. He put his hand on the wall next to her, trying to find his balance there. “I meant… see you again like this.”
Zoe raised her eyebrows at him. So maybe he really was into repeat performances after all, huh? She supposed that meant that he was one of those guys in the MC who had his stable of eager and favored women that he was very possessive of, who all stood around the bar, preening and prancing, trying to get his attention. Hoping that they’d be chosen to be the woman of the night that night. That he’d go back to their place and be a great bedmate and pillow with them.
Well, as much as she’d enjoyed herself, no way she was the ‘pick me!’ type. She wasn’t much of a joiner, really, and wasn’t flattered that he seemed to want to add her to his harem of owned objects.
Scars was a much-needed stress-release, and he was damn good at what he did in the bedroom. She’d definitely benefited from his wealth of experience with the ladies, and she wasn’t complaining or judging. But she also was
n’t into playing this kind of bullshit game. She wanted permanence and safety, both for herself and for Keira.
And this scowling, scarred, tattooed biker didn’t look permanent or safe.
“Don’t worry about it, Scars.” She ducked under his outstretched arm now, got the door open. “I know this kind of thing means nothing at all to you boys, so there’s no need for you to pretend it does. I’m cool with it being what it is, so there’s no sense you faking being the commitment type to stroke my ego.” Zoe flashed him a gorgeous smile. “I know the score, and I played the game knowing what I was getting into. So thanks for the good time, and go on back to your regulars. I’m sure you’ve got a few waiting on you out there, who’ll be thrilled to take you home.”
Stunned by her words, this time Scars let her go. And he watched the only woman that he’d ever fallen for at goddamn first sight just waltz right on out of Satan’s Bar.
Dreams do come true, man… and then they’re taken away from you.
Well. Fuck. That.
Chapter Seven
“So, wait up.” Willa Moore set her cup of coffee down, stared at her best friend. “You… you had sex? Last night? In an MC bar back room? With a goddamn biker?”
“Shhhhh!” Zoe hissed, shooting a look at Keira. The baby was sitting at Zoe’s feet in front of the sofa, all blonde curls and brown eyes, happily absorbed in her favorite toy which Willa had been organized enough to bring on the plane. Thank Christ it was a totally silent toy, a stuffed giraffe with purple spots, because according to Willa, Keira had shaken that thing for the entire two-plus hours of the flight from Fargo. If it had even had a tiny bell inside of it, she was sure that it’d have driven the entire plane insane.
Willa stared at Zoe, then down at Keira, who was singing to herself in some language that made zero sense to anyone except Zoe. “‘Shhhh’… seriously? You think she knows what the hell we’re actually talking about, Zee?”
“Shhhh!” Zoe hissed again. “I have no idea, OK, but I don’t want the words ‘sex’ or ‘goddamn’ or ‘hell’ used around her.”
“Alright, alright.” Willa shook her auburn head and rolled her blue eyes. “Message received loud and clear, Mama Bear. I’ll skip the swearing, but we need to replace the ‘s’ word with something else, ‘cause we are going to talk about the hopefully-filthy-and-steamy ‘s’ that happened.”
Zoe grinned, drank some of her own coffee. “Let’s call it ‘step class’. Mostly because it was about that aerobic.”
“Nice. Burned some calories in a hot and sweaty step class, huh?”
“Oh, Lord.” Zoe almost shuddered as she recalled coming from Scars just sliding into her. “Yeah. So yeah.”
“How’d you meet the step class… uh… instructor?”
Zoe explained about going to meet Wolf’s VP at Satan’s Bar, who ended up being a scarred warrior with little bits of fallen sky as eyes. She told her friend about how she’d unburdened on him about Hailey, about how Keira had come into her life, about her fears of not being a good Mom for the sweet little girl sitting at her feet. Then she admitted that she’d just decided to go for it with Scars – history forgotten and the future ignored. That she’d just been living in the moment for the first time in a long time, and that it had been what she’d needed.
Now, though… now, it was back to real life. Her, Keira, this new house in a decent neighborhood, starting a new job managing an MC-owned tattoo parlor the next morning. And part of that reality was seeing Scars Innis again, and again, and again… around the bar, the parlor, the garage, with Wolf… and the whole truth was that as much as she wanted to stay the hell away from him because, Jesus Lord, the man scared the crap out of her, she also longed to see him.
Worse, she ached to have an extended, intensive step class with him again. Ached deep inside her body, deeper than he’d touched physically. Ached in her pussy, her guts, her chest, her throat. Just ached with desire and want and need. Ached for more of him.
No way she was telling Willa that part, though. Best to play it off as a stress-release and a meaningless night of fun before her kid reappeared on an airplane. Best to be all la-la casual about it, because God knows, Scars had barely watched the back room door hit Zoe’s ass on the way out last night before he (surely, most definitely) had been back at the bar, eyeing up one of the scantily-clad pass-arounds and MC regulars on the dance floor.
That’s what guys like him and Wolf did. It’s what all of The Road Devils did. She knew that. No sense pretending otherwise.
“So…” Willa said. “When’s your next step class?”
“Oh, there won’t be another one.” Zoe pushed her blonde hair off her face, aimed for ‘who-cares-anyway’. “It’s not like that with these guys.”
“No? Never?”
“I never saw it, in all the time that I hung around the club with Wolf,” Zoe said. “Even the married guys – the guys with old ladies – screwed anything that opened its legs to them, and the wives were expected to be cool with it, but stay faithful and not even so much as sneak a peek at another man. The club pass-arounds had literally no other purpose but to provide… um… step classes, and every night at Satan’s, women just showed up, looking to be around the bad boys. You’d be surprised how many college girls and women with decent jobs have a step-class-with-a-biker fantasy. It’s a nice break from their safe, little lives… and those boys are ready and willing and able. You get a few minutes of their time, maybe a night, then you’re damaged goods, and he’s off with the next chick hauling her skirt up. He’s a hero for it, the woman is a wh– uh… a w-h-o-r-e.”
“For real?” Willa grabbed a cherry danish. “Talk about a double standard.”
“Complete and total. These jerks live for the pussy on tap.”
“Shhhhh!” Willa flapped her hands and gestured at Keira. “Don’t say ‘pussy’! Say ‘pineapple’ instead!”
“B-i-t-c-h,” Zoe said with real affection. “So, yeah, now that Keira is here and I start work, my pineapple is closed for business. No more step classes for a while, and when I do feel the need for a bit of exercise, I’ll be looking far away from that clubhouse, believe me.”
“Like where? An Appleby’s? A TGI Friday’s?”
“You got it, babe. Gimme vanilla and law-abiding. I’ll be good with that.”
“Well,” Willa said, not convinced. “I think attending a regular step class isn’t a terrible idea. I mean, look… if it’s the kind of thing that you can just show up for when you get a burst of energy, and you don’t have to buy a full membership or commit to monthly fees, then why not just enjoy it? Treat that instructor like – well. Like a piece of convenient hot fun, the way that he’d treat you like a hot pineapple. Why not? Have a good time, get a work out, call it a day. Come home and eat ice cream, and hug this adorable little girl.”
“Because Wolf already desperately wants me to be part of the MC family,” Zoe said in a hollow voice. “He wants me to think of his brothers like my brothers, and to be honest, the guys that I’ve met are already taking me in. Doing things for me.”
“And that’s a problem, because…”
“Because I don’t want to be thought of as club property or a club responsibility. As a club woman.”
Willa stared at her, not fully getting it. Zoe elaborated.
“If the guys start seeing me as theirs, and then word gets around that I’m doing a step class with one of them, the assumption will automatically be that I’m up for it with any and all of them. I’d be fair game.”
“Bull s-h-i-t,” Willa declared, meeting and matching Zoe’s withering glare. “Wolf would never let anyone treat you like a pineapple and nothing more.”
“Of course not. He’d tell them to leave me alone,” Zoe said, ignoring that fact that she’d just totally contradicted herself, scrambling to get the feet of her argument back under her. “But it’s more… uhhh… more a
bout how I’m seen and thought of.”
Willa stared at her some more. Yeah, Zoe knew that look: it was the one that her friend leveled her with when she thought Zoe was talking shit, but she wanted to see what else Zoe had to say. It was Willa’s ‘I’m gonna give you all the rope that you need to hang yourself with, you idiot’ look.
“I mean, I’m going to be running the tattoo parlor where three of the guys work,” Zoe said, back on firmer conversational ground. “I can’t have them looking at me and thinking that I’m exercising with one of their brothers. That can’t be the way they see me, it can’t be one of the first things they think about me. They have to respect me, Willa, take instruction from me, and being a woman, I’ve got a big enough challenge with that as it is. I just can’t be involved with one of The Road Devils. Believe me… it’s a terrible, terrible idea.”
“Actually, yeah.” Willa sighed. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
“Right?” Zoe said. “I moved here to start again, to make a better life for this little girl. To earn a decent wage to save up a bit for a car, and be able to buy Keira some clothes as she grows, make enough for me to live off more than Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles. Thanks to Wolf, I’ll make enough to be able to hire a babysitter for Keira instead of sticking her in some awful death-trap daycare like I did back in Fargo, because I had no goddamn choice in the matter. It’s just – this is a chance. A real chance. I can’t mess it up… not for anything, or anyone.”
“Hey, Zee.” Willa spoke softly. For all her joking and teasing and pushing, she knew where Zoe’s heart and priorities lay – and that place was sitting right there at her feet, cooing at a patch of sunlight. “I get it, alright? I mean, I wish you’d find a good guy who could make you happy, but I know that’s not where your head is right now. That’s OK. You did real good, moving here and making the choices that you have. I think it’ll be great for Keira and for you to be back in Denver. Despite all that shit that went down back then, despite being back around the MC… you’re back with Wolf, and after everything you’ve told me about him, he’s a true friend. He’s going to look out for you.” She looked down at Keira, who was rubbing her eyes, a sure sign that afternoon nap-time was approaching. “He’s going to look after both of you. You’re going to be OK here. Happy, even. I know it.”
The Devil's Scars (The Road Devils MC Book 1) Page 9