“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Nora usually had two options when it came to getting info out of recalcitrant barmen, depending on the situation. The first was dredging up information about said bar, such as liquor licenses that were expired or breach of health regulations. The second was money. Unfortunately the Rusty Nail wasn’t in breach of its regulations or its license. Which left money.
Reaching into her back pocket, she brought out a couple of bills and slapped them down on the bar. “That make it ring any louder?” Duchess could reimburse her later.
The barman stared at the money and almost licked his lips. Then he flashed a glance over to the pool table, which was interesting. Did he want permission from someone? Or was he checking out to see if anyone was watching him?
Nora followed his gaze to where a whole bunch of men clustered around the table. More beards and tattoos, chains on belts and scuffed boots. They all wore Graveyard Ministry cuts, with the picture of a skeleton riding a Harley on the back, and they all held bottles of beer.
They were watching one guy who was bent over the green baize, lining up a shot. She couldn’t see his face, but it was obvious he didn’t seem to find the intense attention of the other men a problem. The pool cue was unwavering in his long fingers, his posture still.
Was that Brook?
Nora narrowed her gaze. Brook was blond, this guy was dark, so probably not. Then again, Brook might have dyed his hair. It was difficult to gauge height from the way he was bending over the pool table, but he seemed too tall. His hair was shaggier too and…was that a beard?
The back of her neck prickled, which was always a bad sign.
Picking up her money from the bar—much to the bartender’s annoyance—she moved over to the pool area to take a closer look.
All the men standing around the table paid her not the slightest bit of attention. They kept watching the tall man bent over the table, lining up his shot, a beam of sunlight through one grimy window glossing his shaggy black hair.
The prickle on the back of her neck got worse.
Yeah, he was tall all right, powerful biceps stretching the black cotton of his T-shirt as he pulled his hand back, sliding the cue between his fingers. She liked a powerfully built man and those arms and shoulders of his were certainly something. But it wasn’t those she found herself focusing on, but his hands. Long, blunt-tipped fingers, tanned skin marred by lots of white scars.
Familiar scars, now that she thought about it. Where had she seen a man with scarred fingers before? She couldn’t remember.
Bullshit. You remember. You just don’t want to.
Nora firmly pushed that little thought out of her head. She’d been dealing fine with everything for the past eight years. No need to revisit that shit again. Nope. Never.
Anyway, she wasn’t here to stare at a guy’s hands. She was here to get her skip and take him back to Duchess and from there, the police.
She moved closer to the table, checking out the faces of the men around it. And…well, what do you know? There was Brook, standing beside the big guy who was currently taking forever to line up his damn shot.
Nora started toward him, only for the man bent over the table to flick his hand forward, the cue striking the white ball with a firm click, which then rolled over to a red nearby, bouncing it off the side of the table where it hit a blue, both balls rolling perfectly into the pocket.
The men around the table erupted into cheers while the big guy straightened up with a slow, almost menacing grace. He didn’t take one look at the adoring crowd around him. He looked only at Nora.
And her heart stopped dead in her chest.
Tar black eyes. A black scruff of a beard highlighting a strong, stubborn jaw. Bluntly carved features too irregular to be called handsome yet possessing a kind of rough, brutal masculine beauty all the same.
He was compelling. Mesmerizing.
But then, Smith always had been.
“You want one of mine?” he said in his deep, familiar voice, the one she hadn’t heard in so long, all gritty and soft like gravel in a pile of velvet. “Then you need to talk to me first, golden girl.”
That name…She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.
After eight long years, the man whose heart she broke was back.
—
Smith had known it was Nora the moment she’d walked into the bar. She hadn’t even needed to say anything. It was as if the air itself changed, became charged with that bright, sparking, sunlit electricity he remembered from years ago. The electricity he hadn’t been able to keep away from no matter how hard he’d tried.
Until she’d pretty much destroyed him.
Yeah, he’d managed to get over it after that.
He’d had to breathe deep as he’d lined up that fucking shot, hearing her light, smoky voice even through the damn noise coming from the jukebox. Even through the loud conversation of his brothers around him. Asking for Garrett Brook. Asking for Dust.
He didn’t know why she was here asking for his vice president and ex-army buddy, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that she was here. Eight years after she’d hung him out to dry and destroyed the new life he’d so painstakingly tried to build. Actually here. In his fucking bar.
Turned out God did have a sense of humor after all.
Smith stared at the woman standing not far from the pool table and no matter how tough and hard-bitten he’d gotten over the years, his heartbeat was still hammering like a bitch in his head, a fury he’d thought long dead hazing his vision.
Same small, compact, curvy figure, the shape of her delicious tits in no way hidden by the black bulletproof vest she wore, her beautiful legs encased in worn denim. Same warm brown eyes. Same glossy hair, that wasn’t simply blond, not with the streaks of toffee and tawny and caramel and burnished gold that ran through it. Same wide, sulky, sensual mouth he’d never been able to get enough of kissing. That had never seemed to get enough of kissing him…
The impact of her was a sucker punch straight to his gut.
Christ, she still had it.
And you’re still susceptible.
Smith ignored that thought, not letting any of his reactions show. He couldn’t afford to look weak, not when he was only a month into his new job as president of The Graveyard Ministry MC and already instituting unpopular changes. There were certain brothers within the club who were just looking for an excuse to oust him, no matter that he’d been voted in fair and square, and he’d be damned if he undermined his own power by drooling over a chick.
There was shock stamped all over Nora’s lovely face, her skin pale beneath her golden tan. And fuck, she should be pale. She should be shocked.
She should be fucking terrified.
Eight years was a long time to hold a grudge, but he didn’t give a shit. He hadn’t forgotten and he hadn’t forgiven, and right now she was blundering into a powder keg and any little spark could set it off.
The keg being him. The spark being her.
Yet, instead of picking up on the danger and maybe turning around and walking back out again like a good little girl, Nora fucking Sutcliffe raised an eyebrow, a sarcastic smile curving her mouth. “Smith,” she said, the only name he’d ever bothered with even now. “Long time, no see, huh?”
As if she hadn’t destroyed him and the life he’d been hoping to create all those years ago. As if it meant nothing to her.
He leaned on his pool cue, his heart full of fury while his body rang like a church bell being struck, calling people to prayer. Fuck yeah, he remembered that particular prayer, worshipping at the church of Nora Sutcliffe’s glorious body…
Slowly, because he had to know if that was a religion he still subscribed to, he let his gaze rove over her, drinking down the physical reality of her here in this shitty bar. Beautiful, she’d always been so goddamned beautiful, and now she’d definitely grown into it. All that wide-eyed, eighteen-year-old innocence he remembered was gone, replaced by the
certain, tough confidence of a woman out to prove herself no matter the cost. Something had happened to her, that was for sure. The soft, shy, pretty little Texan debutante, daughter of one of Houston’s richest men, had disappeared completely, taken over by this gun-toting, cocky-looking, hard-ass chick.
And damned if it didn’t suit her.
“So,” she said into the silence, eyeing his cut. “You’re a biker now?”
He gave her a feral grin, letting his anger settle in and get comfortable. “I’m not just a biker, baby. I’m the fucking president.”
She blinked, her gaze settling on his president’s patch, her mouth opening slightly, full and red and delicious, just like an apple.
And desire kicked like a mule inside him, making his muscles tighten and his dick start to get hard, and sending his anger into overdrive.
Why the fuck did he still want her? After everything she’d done? What the fuck was wrong with him?
Then he noticed something else about her that sent everything into a tailspin.
She was wearing a black cowboy hat.
His black cowboy hat. He’d recognize it anywhere. It was the one he’d bought with his first construction paycheck, a sign of better things to come. The one he’d then left behind the day they were discovered in the pool house together and everything went to hell.
Holy shit, she’d kept it. All these years and she’d kept it.
The desire inside him began to gather and rush like a heavy rain down a dry riverbed. Collecting with his anger, getting heavier, forming a flash flood.
He’d had plenty of women over the years, went through ’em like a wolf through a flock of sheep, letting none of them touch him, letting none of them matter. And he’d felt just fine about that five minutes ago.
Now he felt starved. Like he hadn’t had sex in decades.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Nora dragged her gaze up from his patch, back to his face. “President huh? Well, alrighty then.” There was an acid bite to the words. “Shall we get the ‘Hi, how are yous’ out of the way first before you break into Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca? No, I’m not married. Yes, I really am a fugitive recovery agent. No, my Dad doesn’t approve. And no, I haven’t seen him in years.” Her lovely mouth curved in a brief, wholly professional smile. “So, now that’s over and done with, that man beside you has skipped bail and I’ve been sent to retrieve him. So if you could hand him over to me, that’d be great.”
A thick, uncomfortable tension descended on the room like a heavy blanket. The rest of the brothers were silent, watching him, gauging him.
Well, this was shitty timing. For Nora. And for a number of reasons. First, he wasn’t handing his VP over to anyone—Dust wasn’t just a friend, he’d been with Smith in Afghanistan, and even if he hadn’t been a brother, ratting out an army buddy just wasn’t happening, not in any universe. Second, demanding he hand over a brother in front of the whole damn club, was tantamount to a challenge and no MC president worth his salt would allow that, especially not a president in the middle of forcing an entire club of badasses and criminals to go straight.
Thirdly, no one told him what to do. Ever.
Behind him, Dust shifted on his feet and opened his mouth to say something, but Smith gave him a warning glance, causing him to shut it again almost instantly.
Yeah, good plan. His temper was not improved that this was the first Smith had heard about Dust getting arrested, not to mention skipping bail. That it probably had something to do with the custody hearing Dust had coming up in a few weeks for his son, didn’t make any difference. What had the stupid fuck been thinking getting arrested? Now? When he goddamn knew what Smith was trying to accomplish with the chapter, too? And, more to the fucking point, why hadn’t Dust told him about it?
Shit, he was going to have to deal with that later. Right now, he had more important things to handle. Such as one sassy blond bounty hunter giving him lip.
Smith glanced back at Nora, holding her gaze again, letting the silence sit there because sometimes silence was a useful tool when it came to unsettling people and he sure as hell liked unsettling people.
Clearly she was unsettled since her hand had come to rest on the butt of the pistol at her hip. The pistol that sat beside the badge that said FUGITIVE RECOVERY AGENT.
Good. His little ex-debutante could use some unsettling.
He handed his cue to Dust without looking and folded his arms, keeping a lid on the worst of his anger for the moment. “Not sure if you’re aware, sweetheart, but the Ministry president answers to no one but himself.”
She gave him a look of polite regret. “Sadly for you, Ace, the law would disagree.”
“I was just trying to—” Dust began from beside him.
“Dust,” Smith didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t have to. The brothers knew what it meant when he spoke in that tone. “Shut the fuck up.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Look, I don’t care why he skipped bail. Fact is he did, and it’s my job to bring him in. If you get in the way, then you’re breaking the law too.”
Smith didn’t give a fuck about the law or about breaking it, at least not when it came to stupid shit. Sure, he was aiming to get his club on the straight and narrow, but not because it was the right thing to do. He was doing it because he was goddamn sick of the relentless police attention that came their way and an MC was all about freedom from the civilian world, not being hassled incessantly by it.
This isn’t going to help.
No, it fucking wasn’t. Dust getting arrested then skipping bail and drawing unwanted legal attention was definitely not helping. Looked like he was due a serious talk with his VP later.
Now, though, if Nora thought she could come in here and start demanding shit from him, in front of his own damn club, she had another think coming.
Maybe she needs the “who’s in charge” lesson?
Interesting thought. In fact, it was starting to give him ideas.
Smith gave her another long look, examining all the changes the years had made. The faint lines at the corners of her eyes, the firm set of her mouth. The way her face had thinned out, her features becoming more distinct, less pretty, settling into stunning.
Hot day, the sun beating down as he’d helped old Pete lay the foundations on the Sinclair’s new pool house. And he’d seen her, lying on a sun lounger in a tiny white bikini. Golden haired and golden skinned, humming tunelessly along to whatever was playing on her iPod, not even knowing he was there. As the concrete was poured, he’d stood and watched her, completely unable to look away. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in all his fucking life…
Someone coughed behind him. The brothers were getting antsy and he was fucking daydreaming. Christ. Time to show them and this little girl standing in front of him who the fuck was president.
“Well,” Nora said impatiently into the silence. “You can continue the staring competition on your own. Don’t mind me. I’ll just go get Brook here and we can—”
“No.” Smith kept his voice flat and hard.
Her eyes widened. “No?”
“You actually think you can come into Ministry territory and start ordering me around? That I’m actually going to do whatever you say?”
She tilted her head, gave him a long look of her own. “Oh, I don’t know. I thought if I asked nicely enough…”
“Then ask me nicely.”
“He broke the law, Smith.”
“So?”
Nora blinked. “So…I’m guessing you don’t want legal trouble, right?”
He said nothing, staring at her, looking deep into the warm brown and gold of her eyes, letting the silence answer for him.
Of course he didn’t want legal trouble, not while he was still in the process of shutting down the various illegal businesses the Ministry had once been involved with.
But by coming in here and doing this publicly, little Miss Nora had put him between a rock and a hard place.
“No,” s
he answered for him, holding his gaze in a way very few people ever did. Man, she hadn’t done that when she’d been eighteen, either. “I’m guessing you don’t. In fact, I’m guessing there’s a whole world of legal trouble that you don’t want, that could potentially become a problem if you don’t give the son of a bitch to me.”
Smart girl. She’d given him the rock, now she was reminding him of the hard place.
Too bad for her that he tended to blow both rocks and hard places the hell up.
Electricity sparked along his nerve endings, a primitive response to the challenge she presented. A sharp jolt he hadn’t felt for years, not since he’d come back from Afghanistan, looking to rebuild the life he’d lost after Nora and war had destroyed it.
Well, he had rebuilt it and now that he was just fitting the last few remaining bricks to it, he was not going to let her mess with it a second time.
Hell fucking yeah, let’s blow this shit up.
Nora’s firm chin was lifted high, her shoulders square, and there was absolutely no fear in those pretty eyes, no fear at all. As if she routinely faced down presidents of motorcycle clubs who were fully a head taller than she was and armed to the fucking teeth.
This was not the debutante he’d once known, the spoiled, pampered good girl who’d been the apple of her father’s eye.
The electricity in his veins became lightning. Because, hell, he wasn’t the twenty-two-year-old builder’s laborer she’d dumped in the shit either. Not anymore.
“Everyone get the fuck out,” he said, not raising his voice. “And don’t come in until I say.”
There was a silence.
“Prez?” Dust asked, sounding uncertain.
“I’ve never had to repeat myself before.” Smith didn’t take his gaze from Nora’s. “You wouldn’t want to break a perfect record would you, Dust?”
Another silence.
“Fuck, you heard him!” Dust roared. “Everyone get outta here!”
Within seconds, the bar was completely empty except for Lemmy screaming from the jukebox.
“Now,” Smith said. “You and I are gonna have a little chat.”
Take Me Deeper Page 28