The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1)

by Daniels, May Ellis

  But on the other…

  I turn in my seat to watch the biker Prez play pool. No harm in watching, right? The low light above the table shadows his face, makes the hard angles of his chin and cheekbones stand out. He’s handsome in a hard, unremitting kind of way. His leather cut is covered in patches and insignias, and across his back is the Pureblood Predators MC patch, a skeletal wolf head with glowing yellow eyes. There’s a small golden crown floating above the head, and a pair of upside-down grim reaper blades crossed beneath. All you’d need to add is a bloated corpse or two to complete the tough-guy look.

  “You know them?” I ask Trish. She did a stint with Organized Crime before setting her sights on homicide.

  “The Purebloods? Sure.”

  The biker takes a shot. The cue ball smacks its target. The ball bounces off the side of the table and rolls across the floor. One of the biker’s lackeys hops after it, then hands it to him.

  “He sunk a ball yet?” I ask.

  “Nope.”

  Another shot. Another miss. I can’t help but smile. “Bad boy’s got a hole in his outlaw resume.”

  Trish giggles as the waitress deposits her bourbon on the table. “What’s his name?” she asks the waitress, nodding at the biker.

  “Ask him yourself, hun,” the waitress says, shrugging.

  “Not a bad idea,” Trish says. “Thanks.” Then she turns to me and says, “So. Pureblood Predators MC. Runs up and down the West Coast. Usual one-percenter action: drugs, prostitution, gaming. A few low-level busts over the years but nothing even approaching the inner circle. Rumors of cartel ties that conflict with rumors of a close Eastern Euro connection. A smallish organization as these things go. Tight-knit. Shadowy, even. Maybe forty members. Hometown for our local chapter: Renton, Washington.”

  “Renton?”

  Trish smiles. “Land of meth labs, chop shops, Rottweilers and wide open spaces. Although that’s not entirely fair. I hear Renton has one or two hardworking citizens.”

  “The Wilds is his,” I say quietly.

  “What’s that?”

  “This bar. It’s his.”

  “Maybe.”

  Something’s niggling at me. A half-formed thought. About Connor—

  The biker sinks a close straight shot into a corner pocket. A shot a blind man could’ve sunk.

  “Nice one!” Trish says, pumping her fists.

  The biker turns and smiles at her. He has a blue-black shadow of a beard that isn’t quite thick enough to hide his dimples. The dimples seem incongruous on a man who was about to stomp the life out of a born loser just ten minutes ago.

  I glare at him, then at Trish.

  “If you’re not going to ask him for a game I will,” Trish says once he turns back to the table. “He looks lonesome up there all by himself.”

  “Go for it,” I say as dismissively as possible.

  “Ok then.” Trish makes to stand.

  I’m on my feet without realizing it. Damn. Bitch called my bluff.

  Trish waves me toward the pool table with a mischievous smile.

  I clear my throat and grab a cue from the wall. The biker’s glance follows me across the room as I rack up at the pool table opposite him. I keep my eyes on the table, arranging the balls in order in the rack.

  “Seems silly, two people playing solo,” he says in that rough but soft-spoken voice. It’s odd, the tone, almost as if he’s not used to speaking much.

  “Is that an offer?”

  “Sure. Play me a game.”

  I nod at Trish. “You mind if my friend joins? She bores easily and I wouldn’t want to leave her alone in a place like this.”

  He ignores my barb and slowly chalks his cue. God, even his hands are sexy and strong looking. “Sure. I can do two. No problem at all.”

  Pig.

  I wave Trish over. She shakes her head no. I sigh in frustration and wave again. It’s another no, lips firmly pursed this time.

  Damn. Now I feel like an idiot.

  Biker dude chuckles. “Looks like it’s you and me,” he says, gliding to my table with a smooth, nearly lupine grace. He’s a biker, but there’s something reserved in how he carries himself. Something almost regal. “You all right with that?”

  “If you tell me your name,” I say, trying to sound brave and nonchalant at the same time.

  “Aaron,” he says, offering his hand.

  Aaron. Not what I expected. Not at all. “Just Aaron, huh? Not Aaron…Scythe?”

  Aaron smiles. Leaves his hand outstretched.

  I take his hand in mine. His skin is warm, almost hot, and his palms are calloused and rough, not at all soft and feminine like Connor’s. He holds my hand for a second longer than might be considered appropriate and—damn him—I like how it feels, his large, powerful hand closed over mine, and when he releases me there’s a flash of wanting him to hold me.

  All of me.

  “Lily,” I say, trying to sound confident but damn near croaking it out. My mouth is suddenly dry. What the hell, Lil? I scold myself. And to get back some of my mojo I say, “Seriously though? Just Aaron? No moniker? No AKA?”

  He gives me a look that’s not entirely friendly. “Your break.”

  “Because I’m a woman?”

  “Exactly.”

  I chalk up my cue. “I saw you on your bike. Outside.”

  “You did?”

  He’s actually not that good of a liar, given his profession.

  “I did. That must be kind of neat. Riding around on a bike all. Make you feel like a kid again. A…juvenile.”

  He ignores me, turns and waves at the bartender. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not, then I wonder what exactly a good sign would be?

  Depends on what I want from him, I guess.

  But as I lean over the pool table to break I know exactly what I want from him, and when I brush my hair back and glance up to catch him staring at my exposed neck, the soft skin tracing down to my tits I have a pretty good idea what he wants as well. It’s the first time I’ve seen him with his guard down, and the flush radiating through my midsection makes me tremble.

  I flub the break. It’s weak-assed. The pool balls remain in a tight cluster in the middle of the table.

  “You look pretty straight for this neighborhood,” Aaron says, studying the table with a frown of concentration.

  “As opposed to what? Crooked?”

  “You look like you’re so clean you squeak.”

  “I heard most Harley’s nowadays are purchased by retired dentists. Is that true? Bunch of well-off old white guys cruising around, playing at being outlaws?”

  Aaron stops. Lifts his gaze to meet mine. Gives me a long, piercing look. I’m all swagger and bluff, whereas he’s…not. In fact he’s nothing at all like I expected. Oh, he’s no poser. No wannabe. And that’s what makes him so compelling. He’s perfectly composed. In control. And then that feeling hits me again, the memory of glimpsing that mountain lion, of what it means to be a predator stalking your prey through the evening woods—

  “Do I look like a fucking dentist?” Aaron says, tapping his outlaw cut.

  “No,” I say, almost whispering. It’s maybe the first genuine, non-snarky thing I’ve said to the man.

  “Tell you what, Lily,” he says, and I like how he makes my name sound. Like flowers in spring. “Lets raise the stakes.” He lays a hundred dollar bill at the edge of the table while the waitress deposits a neat scotch in my hand.

  “You waited to see me break before putting money on your game? Chickenshit.”

  That gets him. A tiny flush of red, just around the cheeks.

  “Well?”

  “Sure,” I say, nodding to Trish. “Money’s in my purse.”

  “Uh-huh,” he says with the cynicism of a man accustomed to trusting no one.

  “So it’s a deal? Hundred bucks for the win?”

  “Deal,” Aaron says, leaning for the shot. It’s a straightforward high angle into the side pocket. His arms stret
ch out over the table, long, tightly muscled. His tats are all old-school, skull and cross-bone type designs, demon-monsters descending from storm clouds. Nothing Celtic. Nothing tribal. Nothing trendy.

  The hot biker boss misses his shot by a mile.

  “A hundred bucks is almost worth an hour in this dive,” I say, eyeing up my shot. I sink it easily with a bit of backspin that lands the cue ball in line for my next shot. It goes down, then another, and the world narrows around me, the music fading, the god-awful week I’ve had fading. My nerves, frayed raw as hell, start to relax. My breathing slows.

  I eye down another shot. Get a little aggressive and miss.

  I look up to find Aaron staring at me. He looks…hungry. His eyes sparkle like an Alaskan river, and his lips are parted slightly. Moist. I think about kissing him, feeling his warm, searching lips against mine.

  I wonder how he’d touch me.

  Hard, hopefully. Demanding.

  Aaron of no AKA seems to have forgotten it’s his shot. He’s holding the pool cue clasped tight in his hands, leaning into it in a way that’s nothing if not damn sexy, and the thought crosses my mind that I’m going to take this bad-boy biker Prez home with me tonight.

  “Your shot,” I say quietly.

  Aaron blinks and gives his head a tiny, nearly imperceptible shake.

  Listen, I’m old enough to be close to happy with how I look. There’s only so much you can change and at a certain point in your life you have to say fuck it—if they’re not interested for whatever reason, find another one.

  There’s plenty out there. Time to grow up, girlie.

  But I’ve seen how guys look at the real knock-outs. The one-in-a-million movie stars and models. How they glaze over, as if the only thing in the world that matters is that one woman’s beauty.

  I never, ever expected to be looked at in that way.

  Devoured.

  But that’s how this gorgeous man was looking at me a second ago, and he just gave his head a shake to snap himself out of it. Oh yeah. You can bet more than that C-note on the table I’m leaving with him tonight.

  There’s a longish silence that verges on awkward as he checks the next shot, so I ask him about the life of an outlaw biker. “Is it all booze, bitches and blow like they say?”

  “About sums it up,” he says.

  “Must get kind of boring.”

  “I have simple needs.”

  Simple needs. I like that.

  He takes his shot, finally sinks one, then flukes on a cross-table Hail Mary that somehow comes through.

  “Nice one,” I say, meaning it.

  He shrugs. “Just warming up.”

  Me too, I think, trying to take my eyes off him. It feels very warm in the bar. I keep meaning to go over and check on Trish, then I keep forgetting.

  He misses the shot.

  I sink until I’m at the eight.

  “You’re a fucking shark,” Aaron says, flicking the corner of the C-note and downing his scotch.

  “A predator,” I say, laughing. “Built for one thing. To school leather cut wearing biker dudes.”

  I bring the cue back for the shot that’ll win, and right as I slam it forward Aaron says, “Not used to entertaining pigs in my establishment.”

  The cue bounces off the ball and digs into the burgundy felt, tearing a three inch hole in the fabric.

  “I’m sorry?” is all I can think to say.

  Aaron reaches out over the table and runs his fingers along the ragged edge of torn felt. “I have a nose for this sort of thing. Y’know. Biker dude instinct.”

  “Yeah. Well. Keep your fucking hundred bucks, bucko.” I make to leave, and he snatches my wrist, holding me so hard it hurts.

  “Lets play out the game.”

  “Piss off.”

  “You on the clock? No. Didn’t think so. Lets play out the game.”

  He’s holding me real close, and I smell him again, the sharp, fresh scent of warm pine needles in the evening woods, and him being so close and holding me tight and the smell…everything in my mind is screaming to tear my arm from him and run the hell on out of there.

  But my body? The whoring little minx.

  She wants him, and worse, she likes how he’s holding me. Against my will. Like if he wanted to he could—

  “Let me go,” I say, my voice flat and even.

  He does. But he doesn’t apologize.

  “Your shot,” I say, and this time he does smile, a broad grin that shines like a star and I wonder how often that smile comes out, and for who. “Does it bother you? That I’m a cop?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  Ok, so maybe he’s a pretty good liar after all, because it has to bother him, and yet it looks like it really doesn’t. He chalks up the cue for what is likely his final shot and asks, “Why’d you do it? Become a lawman?”

  “Is that a genuine question?” I dunno. I didn’t mean for that to sound as bitchy as it did.

  He shrugs. “I don’t ask about shit I’m not interested in.”

  “A real straight-shooter. Got’cha.”

  “I’ve just always been curious. About the type. You like sweatin’ out broke motherfuckers? Protecting rich assholes and their property? Make you feel like a big shot?”

  “You’re political? Let me guess. Robin in the Hood?”

  I cringe inwardly. I’m being a douchebag and I’m not sure why. He’s got my hackles up, though. I shake my head to settle down and say, “I don’t know why I’m in law.”

  Aaron lifts an eyebrow. “Doesn’t seem like a career suited to drifters. And you don’t seem like a drifter.”

  “Take your shot,” I say.

  “You want to help people? They call and you come running? Guns blazing?”

  Is he mocking me? I don’t know him well enough to be certain. “A lawman saved my life once.” I say it so quietly I’m sure he won’t hear over the noise of the music and the general hum of the bar.

  But he hears.

  “Is that the truth?”

  I nod.

  “Rescued you from the big bad?”

  “Why’d you become a drug running pimping murdering criminal?”

  I say it fast, before I can stop myself, and when I’m done I wish I could take it all back.

  He doesn’t even blink. Won’t let me bait him. Just shakes his head. “What happened, Lily? Who saved you? And from what?”

  “Take the shot.”

  He smiles. This time it’s distant and a little bit sad.

  He leans over and takes the shot. Misses.

  I bury the fucking eight and snap up the hundred bucks. “All right, Aaron. Good game. Nice to meet you and all that. Now if you don’t mind—”

  He reaches inside his cut, pulls out a wad of cash secured with a rubber band and lays nine hundred dollars on the table. “One more game. Win and you walk with the cash. I win you ride with me tonight.”

  “Ride?” I say, itching to laugh, shut him down and walk away. I don’t need the money, and to be honest I don’t like being made to feel I’m being paid for my time. But somehow I can’t leave.

  “Yes. A ride. On my bike.”

  “You mean…like your bitch?”

  “Sure. My cop bitch. You in?”

  My cop bitch. That would’ve got anyone else a kick in the balls. But it has kind of a hot ring when he says it. I look back at Trish. She’s on her phone. I think about walking over, telling her what’s up. Then I turn to Aaron and tell him to rack.

  “My turn to break,” he says once the balls are racked.

  “Sure. Yeah.”

  Aaron lifts an arm back. Settles in for the shot. Cradles the cue tip. His posture is suddenly perfect: graceful and powerful and athletic. The cue shoots forward so fast it’s a blur. The sound of the cue ball striking the formation is loud and sharp.

  I know instantly I’ve been hustled.

  Three, four, five balls slam down. Four highs and a low.

  The fucking bastard.

&n
bsp; Aaron shrugs. “Warming up now. You feel me, tool?”

  Oh, I feel him all right.

  “Asshole,” I say as my face drains of color.

  “A predator,” he says, laughing. “A fucking shark. And you didn’t even spot the dorsal. Hope you have sharper eyes when you’re on the job—”

  “Fucking asshole.”

  “You missed something in your not very imaginative summary of an outlaw biker’s life.” Aaron sinks a ball, looks straight at me with absolutely nothing resembling flirtation in his eyes, and says, “Booze? Check. We got that.” Another ball pockets. “Bitches? By the dripping dozens.” Another shot down, this one a pro-level cross-table bank, the kind of long shot you see on TV. “Blow? Fuck yeah. We got mountains of blow.”

  Plunk goes another ball.

  He’s hitting every shot short of actually hopping the fucking cue ball: long shots, angles, banks, doubles.

  “You forgot one important thing though, Lily Miss Bacon. You forgot pool.”

  Aaron continues the run until he’s sitting at the eight.

  It’s a piss easy shot for him.

  I sip at the ice water in the bottom of my empty scotch glass, telling myself there’s no way in hell I’m getting on a bike behind this asshole.

  Aaron flubs the final shot on purpose, lifts his hands in a mocking ‘well-whaddya-know?’ gesture, and says, “Your shot.”

  “Fuck. You.” I breath, clenching my pool cue so hard my knuckles are white.

  “Aw, don’t be like that. Consider it a free life lesson.”

  Finish the game, I tell myself. Then get out of here. Bastard’s right. Lesson learned.

  “Hey Charlie,” Aaron yells to the bartender. “You smell something?”

  “Mmm, boss. Smells like bacon!”

  The bar quiets. A few of the smarter hipster kids head for the door.

  “Sure does, Charlie,” Aaron says, turning to me. “Sure does. Mind getting our squeaky friend another scotch?”

  “No thanks Aaron I’m not—”

  “On the house, boss?”

  “Yeah,” Aaron says, his voice a razor parting skin. “On the fucking house.”

  The waitress saunters over, sets my drink on the edge of the pool table. Whispers in my ear: “You know his name now, pig?”

  I knead my hands together and stay quiet.