“Morning,” said Will. He looked up at Eva, saw the heat flush still on her pale cheeks, and he grinned at her wickedly. He saw her struggling, trying to decide if she wanted to return it or not, still fighting the clear attraction she had to him.
I know you want me, he thought. I know it for sure, now. I felt the way you moved under my hand.
Eva and Will’s moment ended unceremoniously as Charlie joined them at the kitchen table. Eva went back to her book, ignoring Will for as long as it took her to finish her second cup of joe, then she disappeared into her bedroom. When they were alone, Will admitted to Charlie that he had been right about Eva not wanting to stay in the house.
“She does not like to feel confined,” said Charlie with a shake of his head. “Blame it on her ex-husband. He pretty much kept her trapped like a rat.”
Will raised an eyebrow, a bit of anger bubbling in his gut. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, that guy was a piece of shit.”
“Well, maybe I can find something safe for her to do, then.”
“As long as it keeps her out of harm’s way,” Charlie agreed.
After breakfast, Will waited patiently for the Murdocks to finish their morning routines. On his second extended intelligence-gathering mission ever for the MC, Will had learned the enormous benefit of keeping a compact travel toothbrush nearby, and he used the one he kept stashed in his saddle bags over the kitchen sink.
Eva met him first, coming out of the bedroom in a beautiful white dress that fell to her knees, sleeves halfway down her arms. He couldn’t remember the last time he met a woman who always looked so put together. She carried Coriolanus in her arms; the smile she gave Will when she saw him had a glint of mischief to it.
“Where is it you think you’re going?” he said.
“To help open the bar,” said Eva. In her eyes was a challenge, a dare for him to keep to his word from the night before and drag her back to the house for her insolence.
Oh, honey, you are definitely asking for more than that. “You can help open. But you’re coming back up here as soon as that neon sign gets turned on.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” she said, brushing past him and out the front door. He followed her out the door and through the forest meadow, trailing her like he was hunting a deer, smiling as he watched her move through the wildflowers like she belonged there.
Opening the bar didn’t consist of much except getting the daily ledgers cleared and ready, turning over stools, and making sure the front door was unlocked. At least, that was all Eva did as Will sat at the bar and watched her scurry around. Charlie came in after a few minutes and began doing heavier work, something with the keg connections under the counter and in the back. After an hour or so, when he was finished, Charlie asked Will if he wouldn’t mind holding things down for a bit while he finished the oak branches he had been working on the day before.
“I don’t want Eva in here alone,” he told him quietly in the kitchen.
Will nodded in agreement and patted him on the back. “I got you. I’m going to try and get her back up to the house, anyway.”
Charlie took off out the back door and Will watched him go before turning to watch Eva. She was sitting at a messy old desk stuffed into an ill-fitting office space to the side of the door, rustling through paperwork in a focused way.
“All right,” he said to her, leaning in the door way. “Time to go.”
“See ya,” she said without pausing or looking up.
Will snorted, folding his arms. “I mean it’s time for you to go back up to the house, out of the way.”
“I’m not in your way now,” said Eva, giving him a face. “You’re in mine.”
Something in her tone gave Will a little shot of heat, and he decided to tempt her a little. He stepped into the cramped office space and put one hand on the corner of the desk. “I’m in your what?”
Eva stopped rummaging through the papers and froze. Her gaze ran up Will’s body, starting with the bulge that was more or less at her eye level and begging to be noticed. Will enjoyed the feeling of her staring at his body until her gaze stopped on his face. “My way,” she spat out, flustered. “You’re in my way.”
“I can think of better things I can be in,” he said, taking another step toward her chair.
Red heat flushed over Eva’s face, and Will saw her lick her lips. For a moment, he thought he had her, but she stood up from the chair. He didn’t move; she was nearly pressed up against his body.
“Like a muddy ditch, somewhere?” she offered. “Or how about anywhere but in my face?”
Will smiled down at her wickedly. His voice came out a whisper. “But I like the idea of being in your face.”
Eva’s lips pursed open in shock and arousal, her chest heaving with a thick breath. She stared at him for a few tense moments before she huffed, frustrated, and pushed past him out of the office.
Will chuckled to himself, enjoying the feeling of her hand on his chest as she passed, even if it wasn’t meant to be tender. He followed out toward the kitchen with his hands in his pockets, and a half-hard dick in his pants.
Before he could tease her again, the rumble of an engine came from outside before stopping abruptly. A few seconds later, the door to the bar swung open and a familiar face walked in.
Of all the gin joints in all of the towns in all of the world, Will thought bitterly from the back as he watched Jase walk into the bar. Jase removed his sunglasses and looked around, an ugly look on his face. Before Jase could spot him, Will ducked behind the wall to the back room. Next to him, Eva gave him a quizzical expression.
“Oh, God, is it…” she whispered as fear washed over her face.
“No, no,” said Will. “It’s something else.”
“Are we in danger?”
You two aren’t; I’m not so sure about me. “No. But listen, I need you to do exactly as I say.” Will grabbed Eva by both shoulders and looked straight down into her eyes. The feel of the warm skin of her arms beneath his hands made his heart race. Her pupils dilated when he touched her. “Go out and serve him. I need you to act like we don’t know each other. Don’t say a word about what’s happening or why I’m here. Got it?”
“Why don’t you just go out the back? You can wait in the house until he leaves.”
“He had to have seen my bike, he knows I’m here. We just have to go with it.”
Eva nodded, and then licked her lips. “Okay, sure.”
“Go on out, I have to fake like I’m coming from the restroom,” said Will. He waited until Eva had Jase’s attention at the bar before he came walking out from behind the wall, thumbing absently at the fly on his jeans. He did a decent job coming to a surprised stop when he looked at Jase, as if he was seeing him there at the bar for the first time.
Jase straightened in his stool, his expression grim. He spread out his arms and shifted a bit. Will knew the man well enough to know by his body language, Jase was daring him to run.
A shameful sting pierced his chest; it was like seeing just how far he had fallen in Jase’s eyes. He didn’t have to fake the anger rising under his skin as he took a stool next to his MC brother, although Jase would never guess the source was more from shame than fury.
Eva put a full stein in front of Jase and wiped the glass with a rag before she turned to Will. “Did you need another drink?”
Pushing against all his instincts to look at her face as long as he could, Will only flicked his eyes up at her a moment as he ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey. Eva nodded and bent to pull glasses up from under the counter.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” said Jase. He took a big gulp of beer.
Will took the shot that Eva put in front of him. “I’m not hiding.”
“Not answering your phone, not being where anyone but me can find you… what else would you call it?”
“How did you find me?” said Will.
Jase rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I know you
, man. I’m not blind to what’s been going on with you.”
Will took a deep drink of his beer and looked up at Eva. She sat near the other end of the bar, trying to busy herself with organizing. Jase probably didn’t notice how she was trying to listen without being obvious, but Will did. He waited until she looked up and caught his eye, and gave her a very slight nod toward the back room.
Eva froze for a few seconds, as if considering whether to follow his unspoken command. But when she finally moved to follow his direction, she did it with such nervous speed that she knocked her leg hard into a stack of boxed beer sitting on the floor. A jolting sound of glass rattling against glass made both he and Jase look over curiously.
Eva went red with embarrassment and gave them a small smile. She kept her eyes down as she moved past and disappeared into the back room.
Will took a quick, clean side glance at Jase. He frowned at Eva as his eyes followed her out, but nothing on his face said he was suspicious.
Jase cleared his throat. “So, are you just going to spiral downward until someone kills you, or you kill yourself?”
“Fuck you,” said Will. He could feel the blackness rising from the back of his mind and realized he had actually been feeling better the past little while—until this moment. “I don’t need your self-righteous bullshit, Jase.”
From the moment Will spotted him, he could see the anger boiling under the surface of Jase’s skin, and it took no time at all for that kettle to start steaming. “Self-righteous? What part of me driving around the pass, searching for my asshole of a best friend who can’t answer his fucking phone… What part of that is for me?” said Jase. “I should be home with Maggie, getting my brains fucked out. Instead, I try to help out, and I get this shit.”
“No one asked you to come looking for me,” said Will, turning to him with a sour expression. He could feel a tension rising between them, the opposite of the tension he felt with Eva—this was the rage he was used to, all the earlier shame had dissipated against it. “Don’t nail yourself up on the cross and expect me to start wailing for you.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” said Jase. “What the fuck has happened to you, Will? I’ve known you half my life, and you’ve never fucking talked to me like this. You’ve never bailed on a community event; hell you’ve never bailed on anything the MC has asked of you. Now it’s like you’re begging us to take your cut.”
Will finished his beer in a few chugs, wiping the spill from his scruff. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s fucking time.”
Jase fell silent. When Will looked over, he saw a hooded darkness over Jase’s eyes, and pain on his face. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t fucking tell me what I mean,” said Will. Some tiny voice was screaming out from deep in Will’s mind that Jase was trying to help him, begging him to take the hand being offered. Will smothered it with a wash of anger. “The club has made your life better. It fucking ruined mine.”
Jase shook his head and stared down into what was left of his beer. “Dude, I can’t even imagine the pain you’re feeling about what happened. I get that. But how is this the MC’s fault? You got your retribution—”
“Did I?” said Will, startled by the loudness of his own voice. “You know what real retribution would be? Taking down every single one of the fuckers who had anything to do with that fire, and then severing ties forever with that piece of shit cartel. Instead, Henry asks me to smile and shake their hands as they drive through my fucking town every day.”
“Will…”
“No, shut the fuck up, Jase,” said Will. “You wanted to know what my problem was, so now you’re going to hear it.”
Surprisingly, Jase remained silent, but his expression darkened.
Will leaned down close to Jase’s face. “You didn’t feel the heat of that fire on my skin as it burned everything I’ve ever loved down,” Will whispered bitterly. “You didn’t feel the emptiness that was supposed to be relief when I blew away the men who set that fire. And you didn’t feel the betrayal when the other family in my life asked me to put down my sword and swallow my pain.”
Will thought he saw Jase’s eyes growing wet, but the look on his face was pure anger. Somehow, though, it wasn’t at Will.
“I’ve given the club everything I had, and in the end it meant nothing.” Will could barely believe the venom in his own voice. He turned away from Jase and stared at the bottles lining the bar wall, trying to quiet the adrenaline rushing through his veins.
“It didn’t mean nothing,” said Jase. “And it’s shitty of you to blame all of this on Henry. We all tried to do what we thought was best for everyone—for the town.”
“We were all fucking wrong.”
“You voted for diplomacy too, Will, plenty of times,” said Jase. “You backed Henry’s decision every step of the way, or do you not remember that?”
Will felt a new darkness erupt from his gut. He turned to Jase with fire in his eyes. “Are you about to deliver the most ill-advised I told you so in history?”
“What am I, a fucking fortune-teller? I don’t know what would have worked. I’m only saying it’s bullshit for you to play this solo martyr act when the club followed the plan you yourself propped up all along. Blame the club, fine—but you were a part of it too, Will. You can’t just make us villains in your personal story.”
“Oh, don’t you fucking worry, Jase, I have plenty of blame for the club and myself,” said Will. “We can all burn together.”
Jase stood up from his stool in an angry huff. “You know what? Fuck this. I’m so goddamn tired of trying to pull you up out of the gutter and getting stabbed for my effort.” He pulled a handful of crimped dollar bills from his pocket and threw them carelessly on the bar. “You are on thin ice with Henry. You need to figure out what the fuck you want to do—man up and do something useful with your pain, or sit here and drink yourself to death on top of your grandmother’s funeral pyre. It’s your call.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Will growled.
Jase didn’t say another word to him, only grumbled underneath his breath and pulled his sunglasses from his cut. He stalked out of the bar, and Will heard the reckless revving of Jase’s bike as he pulled onto the highway.
Will stared down at his bruised and cut hands sitting on the bar, surprised to see them trembling with adrenaline. He thought he felt a panic rising in his throat.
Taking a long and steadying breath, he looked up to see Eva, standing and staring at him, half-out from behind the back room wall. The look on her face told him that his conversation with Jase wasn’t quite as private as he would have preferred. But exactly how much did she overhear?
~ TEN ~
Eva sighed heavily and tossed onto her back on the lumpy mattress. White lace curtains drifted in the cool night breeze, dancing in the dark.
I don’t even know why I came to bed, she thought to herself as she stared at the ceiling. I’m not even tired. The last couple days had been nothing but an adrenaline rush, something Eva had very little experience with. She also felt a lustful stirring that was unlike anything she had ever experienced, either. Together, the two sensations did an outstanding job of keeping her tossing and turning until she finally gave up and threw her feet over the side of the bed.
After that tall, dark-haired man in the biker vest had left the bar earlier in the day, Will had become very distant. She knew he sent her to the back room to keep her from hearing too much, but Eva couldn’t help herself and tried to listen anyway. She told herself it was practical—after all, Will clearly had secrets he wasn’t telling her. They didn’t know him at all, despite his offer to help them in a dangerous situation, an act which was suspicious itself. She still felt guilty, though. Especially when she saw the look on his face at spotting her.
He avoided her the entire rest of the afternoon.
Eva could barely keep her thoughts away from him: his gorgeous face, his lean and taut body. He was unlike any man she had ever met. E
ven though she knew deep down he was dangerous, more dangerous even than Rick had been, she also felt a strange intuition that the sharpened teeth Will bared were not truly his own. The softness in his eyes when he looked at her betrayed as much, and she felt drawn to it. And she couldn’t stop thinking about the way he had touched her in the kitchen.
Eva stood up and stretched her back as she looked out the bedroom window and into the meadow. Trees rustled lightly in the night air. Across the way, she could see a faint yellow light glowing in the blocky shadows of the bar. Will offered to take the night shift at the bar—to “keep watch,” he’d said. She thought about him in there, probably drinking by himself and staring at the wall, and her heart ached.
Eva grabbed her short bathrobe from the back of the bedroom door and threw it over her silk nightie before stepping into her slippers and creeping her way through the dark house. Charlie was snoring away in the smaller bedroom, but she had no wish to wake him and face his questions.
Retribution: A Motorcycle Club Romance Page 9