by Brook Wilder
Porky gave him a sideways glance.
“What the hell are you talking about, man? How could you miss them, especially in that skirt? They’re a mile long, at least.”
It was Tex’s turn to be confused.
Porky nodded and Tex followed the other man’s intent look. It led straight to the raven-haired beauty who was sitting on the bar stool and had been chatting with his blonde.
“The black-haired girl?” Tex asked after a moment.
“Her name’s Carrie,” Porky said, and Tex was shocked to see the bashful look in his friend’s eyes.
The giant of a man wasn’t exactly known for being shy.
“You’ve talked to her before?” Tex barely held back a small grin at his friend’s discomfort, but Porky just shrugged.
“I’ve been here a few times before and overheard it. She’s a regular here. I haven’t talked to her though. Not yet.”
“And what about her?” Tex said as casually as he could, nodding towards the blonde. “The bartender. Know her name too?”
“Not sure. Laura something, I think?” Porky answered, but his words were muffled and his eyes were still glued on the dark-haired beauty.
Tex looked from Porky to the girl and back again.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Go make your move, Romeo.”
Tex shoved Porky out of his chair and to his feet, the big man moving without a word. Tex could practically see Porky working up his courage. But, a moment later, he was sauntering over to where she was sitting.
Tex watched for a minute, silently wishing his friend good luck, but his gaze soon slid back to the woman behind the bar.
Well, what are you waiting for? Go make your move, Romeo.
The same advice he’d given to Porky echoed in his own thoughts and, after a shake of his head at his own foolishness, he rose to his feet. It wouldn’t hurt to get a drink. A cold beer, with something hot and sweet to go with it.
He drew to a stop when he reached the bar.
“Hey there, gorgeous!”
The rest of what he had been going to say got caught in his throat as she looked up. Her big eyes stared at him and, this close, he could see that they were an enchanting mix of grey and blue and green, a complicated in-between color that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He gave himself a shake, trying to recover from the shock to his system, and he slid her a slow smile. It was the same smile that made all the girls’ panties drop, but she just looked at him, waiting, unimpressed by his considerable charm.
“What can I get you, cowboy?” she said after a moment, a faint hint of Texas on her tongue.
“Uh, I’ll take a beer,” he stammered, wondering what the hell was happening to him.
He was tripping over his own words. Normally, he had women falling over themselves to get with him. But, just then, he felt as nervous as a teenager asking his first girl out to homecoming. Not that he’d ever gone to homecoming. But he imagined that’s what it would have felt like. Fuck, even his palms were sweaty.
“Just… a beer? Any preference.”
“Whatever you got on tap is good,” Tex said in a rush.
She shrugged before grabbing a glass and filling it with cold, sudsy beer.
She slid the pint on the bar in front of him without a word, and instinct had him reaching forward, curling his fingers around hers as he took the glass from her.
“Thanks. Laura, right?”
He leaned forward, trying out his charm again, but once again it failed him.
“It’s Lori, actually,” she finally said, her words short and clipped, before trying to yank her hand out from under his.
His fingers kept it trapped.
“Oh-uh, Lori. Right.”
Tex tasted her name, rolling it around on his tongue.
“Well, Lori, maybe after your shift is over you and me could...”
“Let me just stop you right there, cowboy,” the petite bartender cut in, holding up her free hand to forestall whatever he was going to say next. “I don’t date. And I’m not looking for a quickie or a one-night stand. In fact, this may be hard for you to imagine but I’m not interested in sleeping with you at all. Got it?”
She gave him a feisty look and every male instinct rose up inside him in glee. The chase was on.
“Oh, I got it,” Tex drawled, slow and smooth like whiskey, as he pulled the hand still trapped by his own closer to him.
Every word he spoke teased against the skin of her palm.
“Don’t worry, darling. I understand perfectly. In fact, I was just going to ask if you’d be interested in a movie or something. See? No sex at all.”
He let out a rough chuckle. It cost him, pretending not to care, not to want her when all he wanted to do was haul her up on the bar top and spread his body out on top of hers.
“Thanks for the drink, Lori.”
For one second her eyes were wide and luminous on his, then her brows lowered fiercely and she jerked her hand away as if he’d burned her.
“You know what else I don’t do, cowboy?” Her voice was quiet, but it had a brittleness to it when she finally spoke again. “I don’t play games. I mean every word I say. And, right now, I’m telling you nicely to get your drink and get the hell away from my bar.”
Tex stood there for a long minute, dumbfounded by her lack of response to him. Then it was his turn to scowl as he grabbed his glass and turned around without another word.
Well, she’s the one missing out, he fumed silently as he walked back to the table, replaying the conversation over in his head, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong.
He’d charmed plenty of women into his bed, but never had he been turned down as flatly and coldly as that. The rejection was made that much more painful by the insistent erection that he had to hide by quickly sliding into the chair.
Tex mulled her over as he took a sip of his beer. Lori. Lori the bartender. Lori, the member of the Grim Riders, a rival motorcycle crew. Lori, the sexiest damn temptress this side of Dallas.
Discontent and desire warred within him as he nursed his beer. Tex just hoped that Porky was doing better than he was. He glanced in the couple’s direction. They had their heads bent together as Porky whispered something in the woman’s ear and she threw her head back and let out a husky laugh. Damn it. Even Porky was scoring, while Tex had all but struck out.
By the time Tex had sucked down half of his drink, a grinning Porky was on his way back towards the table. The other man sat down next to him, that damned grin never leaving his face, and he turned towards Tex.
“It went well?” Tex drawled sourly, but the edge to his voice flew clear over his friend’s head. At least, it did for one of them.
“Yeah, you could say that,” Porky chuckled, leaning towards Tex conspiratorially but speaking loud enough to be heard by everyone in the damn place. “I got her number! And I gave her mine. She said she was going to call me later. Now who’s Romeo?”
Porky elbowed him in the ribs and Tex tossed back the rest of the beer. It wasn’t near enough alcohol to wash away the bad taste in his mouth, but damned if he was going to walk back up the bar and relive that snub again.
Porky was still going on about the girl, but Tex was only listening with half an ear. Apparently, though, someone else had been listening.
“Guess Carrie finally made it through the roster. She must have slept with every member of the Grim Riders if she’s moving on to random assholes. I didn’t think it was possible, but she must have lowered her standards.”
The comment came from one of the guys sitting at the table next to them. They must have overheard Porky’s words. The comment drew guffaws and laughter from the other bikers at the table.
“What standards?” one of the other men said.
He had a short beard and a bald head. His face crinkled in mock thoughtfulness.
“Carrie has no standards,” he continued, “you know that Bill. She’ll sleep with anyone as long as they have a p
ulse.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”
“Hey. Douchebags,” Porky cut in, his face growing angry as he turned around in his chair and jumped to his feet. “You better be real fucking careful about the next words that come out of your mouths.”
“Come on, Porky,” Tex said, slowly rising beside him, “They’re not worth it.”
“They can’t talk about Carrie like that.”
“I can talk about whoever the fuck I want, however I want. Got it, tough guy?”
The first guy who’d spoken jumped up and got in Porky’s face.
Shit. That’s a bad idea. A really bad idea.
Tex tried to get between the two men, but it was too late. Porky let a punch fly, knocking the guy back against the table. Beers and glasses hit the floor with a crash.
“Don’t you say another word about Carrie.”
Porky was shouting, but the words were useless. He’d knocked the guy clear out and he was lying unconscious on the table top. His friends all shot nervous looks at Porky as Tex grabbed the big man’s arm and hauled him towards the door.
“Come on, man. You proved your point. You defended your girl.” Tex implored, fighting for every step with Porky struggling in tow. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
It was a struggle, but finally he got Porky out of the Grim Riders’ bar and onto their bikes. Seconds later, their engines roared into life and they rode off into the night.
Chapter 4
Lori swiped at the same spot on the table for the third time without realizing what she was doing. With a shake of her head, she moved on to the next one. She worked around the empty bar, wiping down the dust and resetting the chairs.
This was her favorite time of day, when she came in at the beginning of her shift before the Reaper Club opened for the night and she had the whole place to just her and her daydreams.
Well, normally it was her favorite time. But, instead of dreams of riding into the sunset and moving on to start her new life, unwanted thoughts kept intruding. More specifically, thoughts of a way-too-handsome-for-her-own-good cowboy with laughing green eyes and a sinful smile that made her toes want to curl.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop think about the guy who had wandered into the bar the night before. She knew it was stupid. And pointless. And hopeless. The last thing she needed was another overbearing man in her life, and he had screamed the possessive, dominant type. She had no time to date anyone, but especially not someone who thought he was as clever and charming as he obviously did. It didn’t help that he was right.
The guy could probably charm a snake, but luckily for her she was even more cold-blooded. The only thing she had time to focus on was putting her head down, working her ass off, and getting the hell out of Dodge as soon as she could.
Besides, she wouldn’t even know where to start when it came to dating. She’d never done it before. Her life hadn’t exactly given her many opportunities for romance.
Lori snorted softly to the empty bar. Or much of anything, if she was being honest.
She’d been raised by her drunk of a daddy in a little trailer park on the outskirts of Odessa. Lori had practically had to raise herself after her mom split when she was three.
She’d barely scraped through school, skipping classes more often than she went. It didn’t matter. She’d known there was no way she’d ever be able to go college. It was way too expensive and her father would never give her a dime. Not when he could drink it all away.
Just out of high school, Lori had gotten a job as a waitress at a local diner, but then her daddy had died. He’d drunk himself into a stupor and passed out with a cigarette burning. In the blink of an eye, everything she owned, everyone she’d ever had in her life, had gone up in flames. Literally.
She’d mourned the loss of her father, though she often asked herself why. He’d spent their grocery and rent money on booze and had been loose with his fist whenever he was drunk, which had been always. But he’d been the only thing she’d ever known, him and that stupid trailer home.
Lori had managed to keep the job for another week or two, spending the rest of her meager savings on a motel while she tried to figure out what the hell she was going to do. She’d scoured the papers, finally finding a job listing for a receptionist in North Texas, and she’d taken off, full of hopes.
But then she hadn’t gotten the job. She had no place to stay, no money, and no food. She’d been carrying everything she owned in the world in a back pack. Things had gotten worse and worse, until she’d ended up sleeping on the streets, begging for anything she could get.
That’s when the desperation had begun to set in. Lori had refused to turn tricks. That was where she’d drawn the line, even though there had been some hungry nights where she’d even gone so far as to contemplate it.
She’d been able to find enough odd jobs to feed herself, but it was impossible to find steady employment. It had been the lowest moment of her life. And that was when Gears had found her, taken her into the Grim Riders, and helped her get a job at the club. He’d even rented her the small place she now called home.
She was finally making something of herself. It wasn’t much, she knew, a bartender at a biker’s club, but it was something. And she’d been able to squirrel away a couple of hundred bucks already, a little savings-fund towards her dream.
In a year, maybe less, she’d have enough to leave. Then she could really start over. Get a real job. A real life. Lori couldn’t wait. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to let some cowboy mess things up for her, no matter how handsome he was.
Lori was still lost in her thoughts when she heard the front door creek open, the tiny bell announcing the customer’s presence.
“Bar’s still closed,” she said, not looking up from the table. “You still got twenty minutes until we open.”
But the sound of footsteps on the hard plank floors drew closer instead of leaving and finally she tilted her head up. She drew in a sharp breath. Gears was standing right behind her.
She shifted to put the table between them, still wiping at the already clean top.
“Gears! I didn’t know you were coming in tonight,” Lori said as she peeked up at him under lowered brows. “You’re not usually here during the week.”
He was a lean, hard-eyed man in his mid-fifties. His muscles had been carved out from years of hard living as a senior patch member of the Grim Riders. His once dark hair was lank and sprinkled with gray, pulled back in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. A few days growth shadowed his jawline.
He stood perfectly still as if she was a horse he was afraid he would spook, but that hard look in his eyes never left.
“I just had to see my favorite bartender,” he drawled, the slight gap in his front teeth making his words whistle.
It should have made him less intimidating, but it didn’t. He’d put the last man who’d made fun of him through the wall and there was still a hole to prove it.
“Only got a few minutes before the bar opens up, Gear,” Lori said hastily as she headed towards the bar, careful to keep tables between them as she moved. “I have a lot of work to do, so...”
His hand shot out quicker than she could react, latching on to one of her wrists with an iron grip.
“You remember the first time we met?” he asked suddenly, and Lori had to swallow past her pounding heartbeat to force out the words.
“N–Not really, Gears.”
“I do,” he crooned, his eyes far away, as if he really was seeing it for himself. “I remember it perfectly. I was walking down the street and I heard something from the alley. I looked over and there you were. Standing all alone and looking good enough to eat, your hair all tangled up in a bun. And you looked at me with those big eyes of yours...”
“And then you offered me a job at the club,” Lori said, trying to get out of his grip without bringing attention to the movement. “I remember that. You brought me here and gave me a hot
meal, told me all about the Grim Riders and how they could be my new family. You really helped me out, Gears.”
“I did, didn’t I?” he said, a terrible possessive light shining in his steely eyes. “I saved you from yourself. Gave you a better life, right?”
“Yeah, you did, Gears,” Lori said softly, tugging more insistently now.
But it was like he wasn’t even aware of his grip bruising her wrist.
“I’m a hero,” the older man whispered, almost as if he was talking to himself, “and heroes deserve rewards. I deserve a reward, don’t I Lori?”