by Penny Dee
“But he signs.”
“At one stage he was almost completely deaf from the infection. We didn’t know how significant the loss would be, so we learned how to sign. His hearing improved enough for him to wear hearing aids, but he still likes to sign sometimes.”
He nodded and moved around the desk to stand in front of me. And damn, it was as if his aura was molten lava and wrapped its heat around me. I felt my face flush and my heart kick in my chest.
There was something a little fascinating about him.
“Where is he now?” he asked, leaning against the lip of his desk.
“Our neighbor babysits him for me sometimes.”
“I bet he hates that.”
I chuckled. “She’s a seventeen-year-old blonde cheerleader with big boobs and legs for miles. He’s an eleven-year-old kid discovering girls. I’m sure he hates it.”
He smiled, and dear God, I almost fell over. His smile was breathtaking.
“Sounds like hell.”
A sudden pang of longing assaulted me and I had to draw in a deep breath. How long had it been since a man had made me feel that with just a damn smile?
In all honesty, it had been easier to take care of things myself.
I’d been so damn preoccupied with keeping Noah safe and spending as much time with him as possible, there was no time to make that connection with someone.
I cleared my throat. And now most definitely wasn’t the time to start.
Yet, when Bull turned around and asked me out to dinner, my first inclination was to say yes.
“You’re seriously asking me out to dinner?”
“I am.”
I folded my arms. “Let me get this straight. I yell at you for showing my brother how to protect himself, then crash into the back of your van because I wasn’t paying attention, and now you’re asking me out for dinner?”
“Yes.”
What was this guy up to?
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine?”
“Yes, I accept your invitation.”
“Great, let’s go.”
My arms fell to my sides, surprised he’d called my bluff.
“You mean right now?”
“Is there ever a better time?”
Again, his smile lit up parts of me that had been dormant for years.
“I can’t believe this. Shouldn’t I be buying you dinner so you don’t sue me?”
He grinned as he handed me a helmet. “Who said you weren’t. I hope you’ve got money, because I’m ordering the biggest fucking lobster on the menu, and I’m definitely not a cheap date.”
BULL
Despite what I’d said earlier, she wasn’t paying for dinner.
And I wasn’t eating lobster either.
I was fucking allergic to seafood.
I was also allergic to being a jerk.
Despite my shortcomings—and let’s face it, I had a fucking ton of them—I still knew how to be a gentleman.
I took her to a small Italian restaurant where they had little candles and baskets of breadsticks on the tables.
“You like Italian food?” I asked.
“I love it,” she replied, flicking her long hair over her shoulders as she got settled in her chair.
I liked how she did that.
I also like the way she bit her bottom lip as she looked over the menu.
“Funny, I don’t see any lobster on the menu,” she said with a twinkle in her big brown eyes.
“What a shame,” I replied, trying not to notice the cute dimples flickering on either side of her bee-stung lips. “Maybe next time.”
“You’re confident there’ll be a next time.”
“I’m a pretty confident guy.”
She smiled. “So I can see.”
The waiter came to take our order.
“I think I’ll have the tagliatelle al ragù,” she said, handing him the menu.
Her pronunciation was perfect.
“Make that two,” I said. “And a bottle of the Fontodi Vigna del Sorbo.”
When he left, she leaned her arms on the table, and her beautiful eyes shone across at me. “You’ve been here before.”
“What gave it away?”
“I didn’t see a hundred-and fifty-dollar bottle of chianti listed on the menu. It tells me you know they have it.”
“You’re very observant.”
“I have to be,” she said, ambiguously. But before I had a chance to ask her why, she grinned mischievously. “Tell me, do you bring all your first dates here?”
“It might surprise you to know this, but I don’t date.”
One eyebrow jumped up. “I call bullshit.”
Of course, she did. Because she was a straight shooter and I liked that.
“Tell me, how do you know your bottles of wine and how much they cost?” I asked, changing the subject.
She sat back and shrugged. “I was raised in an Italian household.”
“You’re Italian?”
“No. When my parents died, Noah and I were raised by a man I called my godfather, Alex. He’s from a big Italian family. Food and wine were a big deal in our household.” She smiled softly. “Alex’s nonna spent hours teaching me how to make pasta and biscotti.”
I noticed how her face softened when she spoke about the nonna, and, Christ, she was beautiful when she smiled.
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
“I never knew either of them.” She tried to appear unaffected by it, but changed the subject quickly. “Tell me, why do they call you Bull?”
I smiled at the memory.
Garrett Calley had given me the nickname a long time ago.
It was just after he’d became president of the Kings of Mayhem. At the time I was a prospect. Young, dumb, and full of cum. During his inauguration party, he’d walked in on me getting a blowjob from the pretty, blonde Harley Davidson sales rep from Humphrey. He’d taken one look at my junk, and his eyes had bugged. Then the sonofabitch went and told the entire club I was hung like a horse. But since Horse and Moose were already club members in other chapters, he decided I deserved the title of Bull.
But Taylor wasn’t getting that version.
Yeah, I was hung. But I didn’t fucking need to brag about it.
If I had my way, she would find out for herself.
“It’s been so long, I can’t even remember,” I lied.
Judging by the look on her face, and the small tilt of her head as she studied me, she knew I was lying. But she smiled anyway. A smile that I felt all the way along my dick.
“So what do I call you? Michael or Bull?”
“Darlin’, you can call me whatever you want.”
She thought for a moment, then smiled. “I like Bull.”
She picked up a breadstick from the basket on the table and put it between her lips. Immediately, my dick throbbed. She was sexy without even trying. And my body was reacting to everything she did with acute enthusiasm. I’d already noticed the hair and the beautiful face. Not to mention, the shiny pink lips, and her flawless slender throat. And don’t get me started on her curves, or the way her beautiful breasts gleamed under the muted restaurant lights.
When the waiter came over with the bottle of wine, I tasted it and nodded for him to pour two glasses.
“Salute,” I said, clinking my glass to hers.
“Cin cin.” She took a sip of her wine, and I was momentarily spellbound by the look of rapture on her face. “That’s incredible.”
“I’m pleased you like it.”
She took another sip, and I couldn’t tear my eyes from the way her plush lips slid over the rim of the glass and drew the wine into her mouth. When she sat back, she licked the sheen of wine from her lips.
Christ, I wanted to do the exact thing to her. I wanted to taste the sweetness of her mouth and lick the wine from her lips.
Thankfully, the waiter returned with our meals, distracting me before I did something stupid, like clear the table and dev
our her in the goddamn restaurant.
“So what brought you to Destiny?” I asked.
She thought for a moment and I noticed how the gleam in her big brown eyes darkened slightly. Like she was recalling something she’d rather forget. But then she smiled. “After Noah’s illness, we needed a change. A different pace. Somewhere we could live simply and quietly.” She looked around the room and chuckled. “Although, I’m not sure having dinner with the president of the Kings of Mayhem is conducive to a quiet life.”
“I’m harmless, really.”
“Harmless? I don’t think so.” She slid her tongue across her lips as she looked around the room. “Why do I feel like me having dinner with you is going to be burning up the small-town grapevine by the time the check arrives?”
I drank a mouthful of wine. “I don’t think anyone really cares.”
“Oh, they care alright.” She leaned forward on her arms as if she was going to share a secret with me. “See that table of four women over there? They’ve been glancing over at us since we sat down. And the one with the blonde ponytail, she’s reapplied her lip gloss three times in the hope that you’ll notice.” She grinned and I had an overwhelming urge to kiss her. “And the lady over there in the red dress? She’s passed by us no less than four times on her way to the bathroom trying to get your attention.”
I had noticed the lady in red. But only because Taylor was right. She had passed by our table several times, and each time she had made eye contact, offering me an unmistakable invitation.
I brushed it off. “They recognize me, that’s all.”
“No, they want to fuck you,” she said, leaning back with a sexy smile on her lips. “And apparently, they don’t care if you’re having dinner with another woman or not. Who knows, the more the merrier if they can get you into bed with them, I suppose.”
Her forthrightness was a turn-on. I was hard as fuck now.
“Tell me, what do you do when you’re not yelling at bikers and ramming their vehicles with your car?” I asked, changing the subject.
Her cheeks flushed. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. You’re passionate, I like it.”
She toyed with the stem of her wine glass. “I was angry that first day we met because I’d just lost my job.”
She told me how her boss had tried billing her for a custom paint job to his Camaro. He accused her of scratching it when she was taking out the trash. She said she was nowhere near his car. He said he had CCTV footage of it, but when she demanded to see it, whaddya know, he didn’t have it.
When she told me she’d been working at Slingers, a seedy strip club just out of town, it made sense. The owner, a greasy cretin called Willy Breeze, was as slimy as they came.
“He fired you because of that?” I asked, taking another drink of wine.
“No, he fired me because I kneed him in the groin when he said I could pay off my debt by bouncing on his balls three afternoons a week.”
My wine almost came out of my nose.
“Sounds fair enough,” I said, putting the glass down on the table.
“Which one, his offer, or the ball busting?”
“Definitely the ball busting.” This woman had fire, and it was getting me more and more turned on by it. “There’s plenty of women in this town who’d line up to shake your hand.”
“Yeah, well, it felt good at the time. But I’m not so sure it was a good decision. Despite being a cesspit of broken dreams, with way too much DNA sticking to the floor, it was still a good job. Doing the lunchtime shift meant I finished in time to pick up Noah from school, and there were less cockroaches who came out to frequent the establishment in the daylight.”
I’d been to Slingers once, purely for business, and didn’t touch a thing while I was there. Even the glass our drinks came in looked suspect.
“And you haven’t had any luck finding a new one?”
“Not yet.” She shrugged.
“And you’re not completely opposed to slinging beers to drunken, crude men who use words that’d make your mama cry?”
Her eyebrow went up. “Why, do you have somewhere in mind?”
“As a matter of fact, darlin’, I do. One of our bar girls is moving out of town. The job is yours, if you want it.”
She suddenly straightened in her chair. “You’re giving me a job?”
“Sounds like you need one.”
If her last smile seduced my dick, then the next one slayed me. She was so damn beautiful, and I couldn’t help but fuck her ten different ways till next Sunday in my head.
“You’re kidding! I mean, are you sure?”
“I assure you, darlin’, I rarely joke about business, and I never make an offer I can’t back up. If you’re interested, come by the clubhouse on Monday at 12:30 and I’ll introduce you to our bar manager, Randy.”
She sat back, and her dark eyes twinkled with mischief. “And here I thought I’d end this day getting laid. Not with a job.”
Part of me fell in love with her, right then and there.
“Why not both?” I suggested, a smile playing on my lips.
She shook her head. “I’ve mixed business with pleasure before,” she said. “It doesn’t work.”
“Sounds like you have a story.”
She shrugged and toyed with the stem of her wine glass. “Not much of a story. I drank too much at an after-work party and went home with one of the male strippers from the club I used to work at. He read more into it than there was, and when it became obvious I wasn’t interested in a repeat performance, he became a petulant child. He was difficult and intolerable. He tried picking arguments with me. Started complaining to others about me. When our boss caught wind of it, he hauled us into his office and told us to sort our shit out. Slick said either I left, or he did. He was a big draw on Ladies’ Night, so I suddenly found myself with less and less shifts.”
“I can’t imagine you taking that lying down.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. I was ready to take it further. But Noah was about to start school, and working nights was going to interfere with our time together. So instead of wasting my energy fighting for a job that wasn’t worth it anymore, I moved on. Lesson learned.”
I thought about what she said for a moment.
“We’re not all big bags of dicks,” I said.
“No.” Her eyes grew serious. “I can see that.”
Something crackled in the air around us, and we both knew it. Our eyes lingered, and a hot longing took up residence in my veins.
But Taylor broke the spell. “I should probably get back to Noah.”
After I paid the bill, I took us the long way back to the clubhouse, enjoying the feel of her arms around my waist as we rode through the sultry summer night. They were warm and comforting, and I felt myself relax, feeling my soul at ease as the wind whipped past my face.
Taylor was relaxed too. Her warm body softened against mine, and her fingers spread across the hard plane of my abs, making me ache to feel them all over the rest of my body. I felt tight with need, turned on by the closeness, and hard as fuck because this woman was somethin’ else.
Despite taking my time, the ride was still over too soon, and we arrived back at the clubhouse. I pulled up next to her car. The prospects had done a good job repairing the damage, no doubt with the help of Hawke who was a genius when it came to minor panel repairs.
“Thanks again for dinner…and for the job,” she said, climbing off. She undid the helmet and handed it to me. “And for fixing my car. You’ll have to let me know how much I owe you.”
I shook my head. “Consider it a Welcome to Destiny gift.”
She gave me a soft smile, and in the muted glow she looked like every man’s dream, and I was about done holding back. I was dying for a taste, and if I wasn’t mistaken, so was she.
I was going to kiss her.
Then I was going to take her into the clubhouse and do things to that beautiful body of hers until we were both breathles
s.
I stepped closer so there was no space between us.
“That’s not a good idea,” she said when my hands slid around her jaw.
Good idea or not, I was aching to make her moan.
“I’m not interested in a one-night stand,” she added.
“Who said anything about one night?”
She gave me a doubtful look. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want to fuck you. A lot. And judging by the heat in your eyes and the way your pulse is throbbing against your throat, I think you want to fuck me too.”
“Are you always this straight to the point?”
“No point wasting time.”
A small smile touched her perfect lips. “Like I said, I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
“The business hasn’t started yet, sweetheart.”
She licked her lips and, fuck me, I was salivating for a taste.
Her eyes narrowed slightly and she lifted her chin. “Say you’re right—”
“I usually am.”
“—and I do want to fuck you—”
“I’m fucking praying that you do.”
“—then what happens when you’re done coming? I’ll lose my job.”
I let my hand drop.
“I may be a lot of things, honey, but a fucking douchebag ain’t one of them. Your job will always be safe. You have my word.”
“Excuse me if that doesn’t reassure me. I don’t even know you.”
“If I’m not mistaken, I’m trying to change that.”
“Don’t kid yourself, you’re not trying to get to know me. You’re trying to get me into bed.”
“Bed, floor, up against the wall…tell me your preference, and I’m all yours. I’m an adventurous guy.”
“And not in the least bit arrogant.” A ghost of a smile softened on her lips. “I’ll tell you my preference. Tonight, it’s a cold shower before climbing into my bed…alone.”
“Why go to bed alone when you could go to bed with me? Believe me, I have a million different ways to make you come. Why would you deny yourself?”