“What is happening?” Sloan and Ace had joined us now, and we all formed a loose circle around Haley. Katie even turned from the VIP chair at the bar to watch what was happening.
“Are you ready for this?” Haley asked with the microphone Brody had given to her.
“Ready when you are,” Brody confirmed, giving her a thumb’s up.
“Wrong,” she said sweetly. “None of you are ready for this.”
We all laughed, then cheered wildly as the opening melody of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” began to play. Haley danced around, saucy and sexy as hell, as she sang the lyrics perfectly, not ever needing to glance up at the television to see what line was coming next. She flirted with everyone, but she seemed to only have eyes for me, watching my reaction as she shimmied at Jack, gave Katie an impromptu lap dance, trailed her fingers across Sloan’s chest. When she made it over to me, crooning the lyrics with half-lowered eyelids, she backed up directly into me, giving me a sultry look over her shoulder as she danced. Normally, I would be embarrassed to pop a boner in a public place, surrounded by friends, but I was pretty sure I would be forgiven. Haley looked amazing. She danced amazing. She sang amazing. I knew that I had my work cut out for me with my performance, but her next-level showing somehow boosted my confidence.
We screamed and clapped for her as she did a cute little curtsy in the middle of our circle and handed the microphone off to me.
“Good luck,” she said, and gave me a lingering kiss on my cheek.
“I’m going to need it,” I admitted. “That was a goddamn inspiration.”
“Next up is Chuck,” Brody said, and the rest of the guys looked at me in surprise.
“Can you sing, bud?” Ace asked, looking a little concerned, and I laughed at him.
“You’re going to have to find out with the rest of everyone else,” I said. “Brody, cue the song.”
Everyone hollered with delight as soon as they recognized the tune Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Haley laughed so hard that she collapsed on the floor, so I knelt beside her and serenaded her from there, stroking her soft hair, really putting on a show for everyone, until I managed to get her back on her feet. I let my hips do a lot of the talking throughout the performance, and Sloan fanned his face like he was about to pass out.
As the song closed out, I handed the microphone off and took Haley in my arms.
“Can I kiss you?” I asked.
Her eyes shined with a special kind of light. “You already did.”
“I know, and I apologize that I just charged in here and did that.” I dipped her down, and she shrieked with delight. “You see, I seem to be having some pretty strong feelings toward you, and I was just curious as to whether you might feel the same.”
“Chuck?”
“Yeah?”
“Please kiss me. Please fucking kiss me.”
I was only too happy to oblige, this kiss even better than the impromptu one I’d planted on her upon walking into the bar like I owned the place, and I knew it was because she told me to do it. I didn’t even have to stop and think about what her choice of song signified, and I knew, from the way she was kissing me, the way her fingers were gripped around my neck, that she knew what my song meant, too. I kissed her until I couldn’t think anything else, until all the sounds around us disappeared. Until there was just us, just this kiss. Just each other.
The roar in my ears gradually faded until I realized that it hadn’t just been the sound of my blood rushing through my veins it was every single patron in the bar, Horizon MC included, giving us a raucous standing ovation.
“I’m so proud right now,” Jack was saying as Brody pounded him on the back. Sloan gave a two-fingered wolf whistle and everyone laughed.
“That’ll be twenty bucks from each of you,” Ace said, preening. “Well done, Chuck.”
“You motherfuckers did not bet on this,” I growled, shaking my head with disbelief as I straightened, Haley still in my arms. She felt good there. Comfortable, even, like that was an excellent place for her to belong.
“Of course they did,” she said, sounding more resigned than disgusted. “Ace, I trust you can cover for me.”
“Hey, it’s a pretty packed house,” he protested, waving the three twenty dollar bills at her. “I’ll give you the winnings if you stick around.”
“You’ll give me the winnings because you’re all pigs,” she said, neatly yanking the money out of his fingers. “And you’ll give me the night off to make up for it.”
“Go, go,” Brody said, waving at us, looking a little chagrined for once. “You beautiful kids get out of here. Go make beautiful babies.”
“Jesus, Brody,” I said, feeling the blood drain from my face quick enough to make me a good candidate for passing out right there in the middle of the bar. “What a strange thing to say.”
“Let’s just go before any of the rest of these geniuses try and congratulate us,” Haley said, taking me by the arm and leading me toward the exit. “Got any ideas for the sixty bucks we just made?”
I laughed. “Keep it. Your tip for having to put up with us idiots. I’m sure that if it wasn’t you and me, I’d have been in on the pool, too.”
“It’s all in good fun,” she said. “Want to blow it on takeout or booze at the liquor store?”
“Well, with a little bit of budgeting, I think we can manage both,” I said, grinning. “Dinner and drinks on the guys.”
“Technically, we’re the ones who earned this money,” Haley pointed out.
“So, dinner and drinks on the success of the start of our relationship?”
“Why, Chuck.” She batted her eyelashes at me. “I had no idea you wanted to go steady.”
We picked up a couple of six-packs of beer and some Chinese takeout, then I followed Haley on my bike to her home. I’d been there before, but only in passing, like when she was tired after work or had too much to drink and we drove her out there in her SUV so she wouldn’t need a ride in the morning to get it. Her home was small, but well kept, and it was obvious she cared about it. It had the nicest landscaping in the whole neighborhood, in my opinion, but I was probably just a little bit biased.
“Home sweet home,” she said, giving me a nervous smile as she climbed down from behind the wheel of her SUV.
It was sweet to be there, sweet to know I was about to step into her house and spend some one-on-one time with the girl of my dreams. She knew how I felt about her, too, and she felt something at least a little similar to it or I probably wouldn’t be there.
“Should I take my shoes off?” I said, pausing at the door.
“Just make yourself comfortable,” she said. “Mi casa es su casa, and all of that.”
That’s when I lookedreally looked around me for the first time.
“Your place is wow,” I said, temporarily losing the ability to express myself properly. “This is really nice.” Her home, or at least the living room area of it, was covered in greenery. There were pots of growing plants and flowers on every available surface, and my brain traveled backward in time, unwittingly, to the sight of the wildflowers on the hillside at the cemetery, when I’d gone to visit Chelsea’s grave on the anniversary of her death. What a thing to think of at a time like this.
“You’re just being nice; it’s not nice,” Haley said, dashing ahead of me to pick up an article of clothing pooled on the floor. “It’s messy. I didn’t expect anyoneespecially you here tonight, or I would’ve at least picked up a little.”
“If this is messy, I hope you never see my place,” I said, giving a low whistle as I followed her into the kitchen even more plants, including a vine that was working its way above the cabinets.
“Aw, come on,” she said, giving me a pretty pout as she pulled some plates from a drying rack situated on the counter. “I’d be pretty disappointed if I didn’t get to visit you at your place.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Okay, then. That made me feel good
about how things might be proceeding between the two of us, even if I didn’t have any real expectations.
“I’ll make it happen, then,” I said. “Though, I have to say, my place is a lot less impressive than yours.”
“I’m sure yours is just fine.”
It wasn’t, but if she really wanted to spend time in my home, I wasn’t about to discourage her. “I like all your plants.”
“It’s kind of a jungle in here,” she admitted. “I think I have a problem. I just love them too much to pass one up.”
“Seems like they love you, too,” I said. “You have quite the green thumb.”
“Just a hobby.”
I laughed. “Stop selling yourself short. This is really great.”
“Well, thank you. I don’t do anything special.”
“You water them, at least. Most people seem to have trouble with that concept.”
Haley just smiled at me and scooped the takeout onto the plates. I took the opportunity to crack open a couple of beers, wrapping them with napkins the way I’d seen Ace do so frequently at the bar.
“Oh, I have some foam can holders,” Haley said, then giggled. “You’re actually better than Ace at that. These will do just fine.”
“I am not,” I said, incredulous. “The man’s a bartender for a living. I’m just a mechanic.”
“Just a mechanic? I’ve heard you’re kind of a genius. That you can fix everything.” She pointed to the napkin folding I’d done as if it proved her point.
“All I did was wrap a napkin around a bottle of beer, Haley,” I said, giving her a dubious look as she handed me a plate of Chinese food. “That doesn’t make me a genius.”
“I heard that you fixed up Jack’s bike for him.”
“Well, that’s true, but that doesn’t take the work of a genius. It’s just about working hard and not giving up.”
She shook her head. “It’s like knowing someone who’s fluent in another language.”
“I didn’t pass high school Spanish.” Not the first time I took it, at least.
“But you know the language of machines, of engines. You know how to make things work. Honestly, I wish I knew more about my car. I don’t even know how to check the air pressure of my tires, let alone how to change the oil.”
I chuckled. “Those are easy enough things to teach.”
She gave me a look, her sculpted eyebrows raised. “Are you offering to teach me about my SUV?”
“If you want to learn,” I said, shrugging. “And if you don’t, I hope you know you should always be bringing it by the shop if you have trouble with it.”
“Oh, I always just go to the dealership”
“No, no,” I said. “They’ll gouge you there, especially if you don’t know what they’re talking about. Just bring it by the shop. I’m serious. Any time a light comes on, or you’re due for an oil change. I’ll take care of it.”
“I thought your shop was only for specialty cases.”
I smiled, took a sip of beer, was well aware of how nervous my next words made me. “You are special, Haley.”
She choked on the mouthful of food she’d been swallowing and I pounded her on the back.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” she said, laughing as she coughed, then pausing to take a quick swig from her bottle of beer. “That was, um, really sweet of you.”
“What? You were choking.”
“No, I mean about…you said I was special.”
“You say that like you don’t believe me.”
She flushed, and laughed again. “I’m just saying it was really sweet of you to say.”
“Now, Ms. Greer, I hope I’m not going to have to lecture you on how special you are.”
“You’re making me blush.”
“You’re even more special when you blush.”
“You just stop, you flatterer. You do a lot more than I do. You’re more special than I’ll ever be. I just serve drinks for a living.”
She tried to occupy herself with her chopsticks, but I snagged her wrist, got her to stop, to listen.
“Haley, you don’t just serve drinks for a living,” I said, watching as her green eyes widened at my sincerity. “I have seen you defuse situations that would’ve ended in fights at the bar. You run the whole thing by yourself whenever the situation arises.” I swallowed, thinking about the last time it surely did when all the guys were too occupied with me, weepy with drink and memories, to think about going in to the bar. “You keep a jungle of plants alive in your beautiful home, so you care about things. You’re something special, Haley, really. I’m not trying to flatter you. I’m just stating the facts.”
Her voice was a lot quieter than when we started talking. “Chuck, if you’re thinking that what we’re doing right now…what this is… This is a sure thing, honey. You don’t have to fill my ears with sweet talk.”
My gentle grip on her turned into a caress, all thought of eating and drinking our winnings from the rest of the guys lost.
“I’m just telling you how I feel, sweetheart.” I didn’t know where “sweetheart” came from. I usually wasn’t one for terms of endearment, but there it was, out in the open, probably because she had deemed me “honey.” I smiled. “I didn’t expect anything from you tonight except dinner and drinks.”
If possible, Haley looked even more embarrassed, the pink on her cheeks spreading to her chin and forehead.
“You kissed me at the bar,” she said, hesitant. “Everyone cheered you on.”
And now I was kind of feeling like an asshole for that. “I’ve liked you for a long time.”
“So?”
“So I don’t want to do anything tonight if you’re not perfectly comfortable. You don’t have to expect that something is supposed to happen just because I’m here.” I smiled, pointing at the vine creeping above the kitchen cabinets. “I’m happy to have even been invited to see inside your house. It’s been an incredible experience.”
Haley seemed to think this over for a moment before smiling at me. “And if I want something to happen? If I invited you over for the sole purpose of getting it on?”
I laughed. “Then I’m absolutely game. I told you. I’ve been attracted to you for as long as I can remember. Since the first moment you rolled into Rio Seco and demanded Jack give you a job at the bar.”
She had a faraway look in her eyes, and I figured she was probably just remembering the early days.
“I liked you, too,” she said, her voice softer than it had to be. “You seemed really nice. Respectful.”
“And I’m telling you that I still am. If we had sex tonight? Perfect. I’d be absolutely into it. But no regrets if we don’t. We’ve known each other for a while, now, without taking everything to the next level. We have all the time in the world to take it slow.”
It was true, even if it pained me to say it. I was only flesh and blood, after all. I was immensely attracted to Haley, and always had been.
On the flip side, though, I also knew that there wasn’t all the time in the world. At any time, any place, anything could happen. My sister was evidence of that. After her death, I’d triedas hard as it was to embrace the present, to say what I meant immediately instead of dragging it out or hiding it. Life was so precious. There wasn’t any point living it half-assed.
“So if I tell you I want to take you into my bed?” Haley seemed to have forgotten both her open beer and the Chinese food steadily getting cold on her plate, the pair of abandoned chopsticks still tangled in the oily lo mein.
“Then I would gladly join you,” I said, lifting her hand to my face, turning it over, pressing my lips into her palm.
Haley shuddered before gripping my hand and drawing me forward, kissing me, fitting her body against mine. It felt so good to kiss her, to sink into the attraction I’d felt all this time. It felt somewhere between a revelation and a completion, the logical conclusion to a journey. I hugged her to me, stepping with her in a dreamlike d
ance down the hallway off the kitchen, pushing open door after door until I found her bedroom it just looked like hers. We left a trail of clothes like breadcrumbs between the kitchen and the bed, Haley bouncing down naked on the mattress, grinning up at me, her green eyes luminous in the dim lighting of the room.
“Do you want this?” I asked, breathless like I’d just run a race, pushing toward the finish line.
She drew her legs apart, slipped a hand between them, never taking her eyes off of me. “Does it look like I want this?”
“Tell me. Tell me you want it.”
“Yes. Now. I want you.”
I bit down on a groan at just how good it was to hear that. Kneeling on the floor by the bed, I wrapped my arms around her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the mattress.
“Chuck, what ah.”
I answered her question with my tongue, laving her labia, parting them, tasting her. The muscles in her legs bunched and shook in my grasp, and I enjoyed pinpointing the areas that made her tremble the most, making a map of her womanhood in my mind. The sounds she was making, the micro-movements of her body, the way her fingers scrabbled at the sheets beneath her made me incredibly hard, my erection jutting out to hit the side of the bed as I worked her over.
“Chuck, please.”
She didn’t have to say please. I didn’t want her to beg. All I wanted was to make her feel good.
I kissed my way up her stomach, shifting her back across the bed, away from the edge, and climbed on over her, spending time on her breasts, mouthing over her pebble-hard nipples, nestling against her neck.
“I want you inside me,” she panted, and I smiled against her skin.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
My track record wasn’t as long as, say, Ace’s, but I had ample experience of women biting off a little more than they could chew with me. The last thing I wanted to do was cause Haley any pain.
“Let’s just make sure,” I crooned into her ear, letting my hand drift downward, remembering the particulars of how she had been touching herself when we first entered the bedroom, mimicking those movements, circling her clit without fully touching it.
HORIZON MC Page 23