by Evie Monroe
“Who cares if it is? They have alcohol. And music. And hot men who don’t know I’m Slade’s daughter,” I said, pulling off my bulky sweatshirt to reveal a short denim skirt and a cleavage-baring camisole.
“Yeah,” she said, gnawing on her lip as she studied my skimpy outfit. “About that. What if your dad finds out that you came out here? Looking like that?”
Martie met my dad once. Only once. She told me she’d never felt so close to peeing her pants before. At the time, I just laughed at her, but gradually, I could see what other people saw in my dad. My dad was jacked. Yeah, he was graying and had a little pot belly, sure, and he may have been twice the age of a lot of the guys, but he could hold his own in a fight. He had a way of staring that could make even the bravest men cower. The men in the club didn’t think of him as royalty. He was their God.
I gave her a look, then sliced a finger across my throat. “Let’s hope he doesn’t.”
“Oh, great. Then he’ll probably chop me into little pieces for aiding and abetting.”
“Probably,” I teased. “But can we please just forget about him for one stinkin’ night? If I did everything he told me to, I’d still be a saintly virgin. Hell, I’d probably be in a convent.”
Tilting the rearview mirror to my face, I applied some hot red lip gloss, then looked over at Martie for approval.
“Your daddy would hate it,” she said, her mouth widening to a grin. “It’s perfect. You’re so hot, you’re gonna set this bar on fire!”
“That makes two of us!” I grabbed her hand and shook it, and we squealed in excitement, like two kids.
Then we opened our car doors in unison. Together . . . she in her high heels, me in my cowboy boots . . . we walked toward the entrance.
Well, she walked. I limped. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked as I trailed behind her.
“I have a blister, I think.”
“That better not stop you from dancing, girl.”
“Oh, hell no,” I told her, even though the way my heel stung, I thought I might need an amputation by the end of the night. I steeled myself, put on a brave face, and soldiered through.
The place was actually even more of a dive inside than out. I never would’ve thought that possible. But it was kind of like a cave, with just a few amber lights around the bar. The walls were painted blood red. There was an old jukebox spitting out classic rock in the corner. I didn’t know what was on the floor, but the soles of my boots stuck to it. I really hoped it was just booze and not something more sinister like jizz or puke or something.
Didn’t matter, though. I could’ve been walking into hell, and I would’ve been happy. The second we stepped inside, I felt it. A feeling of excitement, of possibility, that I hadn’t felt in forever. I already knew I wanted the night to go on forever. Men stopped mid-swig of their beers, or in the middle of their pool games, to ogle us as we walked across the floor.
I grinned at Martie as we sauntered up to the bar, which was already lined with peanut shells and empty beer bottles. The hot bartender smiled wolfishly at us and cleared some of it out of our way. “What’ll it be, lovely ladies?”
Martie reached down and grabbed an olive out of the condiment tray, popping it into her mouth. She and I looked at each other, then back at him, and said in unison, “Shot of Jack.”
He nodded, impressed. “Coming right up,” he said, setting the shot glasses in front of us and filling them.
We picked up the glasses, clinked them in a silent toast, and downed them in perfect sync.
The liquid burned going down my throat, but I didn’t mind at all. “I’m going to get so fucking drunk and dance like no one’s watching,” I declared, “You’re going to have to drag my ass out of this place. I may even wind up dancing on the bar.”
“What if you have to drag me out?” she shouted over the pulsing beat of the music. “Chad’s not coming back until next week. I’m as free as a bird! I don’t think I’m going to sober up until Sunday night!”
I laughed at her, and we motioned to the bartender for another round. I whirled on the barstool, just taking it all in.
I loved this. Loved this place. Loved being alive.
Then the door opened, and the two hottest men I’d ever seen walked in. One with chin-length darker hair, one with slightly shorter blond hair. Both unshaven, with caramel-tan skin. Jeans, and tight t-shirts, the sleeves of which looked about to pop from their bicep muscles, which were covered in tats. They strode through the bar comfortably, and the crowd parted, like it usually did for my father.
The temperature in the room skyrocketed. Martie saw them, too, because she breathed out, “Oh, my.”
My thoughts, exactly. Holy hell. I’d forgotten such hotness could exist in this world.
And suddenly, I loved everything about this place just a little bit more.
Chapter Three
Drake
We pulled up on our bikes to The Wall, our regular hangout, at a little after ten-thirty, and the place was already packed. Outside, there was a thick fog rolling in off the ocean, and the air was cooler than usual.
It hadn’t worked to cool us down. We were still pissed off about church and our stalemate with the Fury.
Jet maneuvered his bike into a tight spot in the crowded lot, and I followed suit. I lifted off my helmet and affixed it to my handlebars. I motioned to his kutte as I pulled mine off. “Remember what Cullen said? We don’t need to call attention to ourselves, right?”
Lay low. That was the name of the game. Frowning, Jet pulled his kutte off and we left them on his bike. That way, no one could tell we were Cobras. We were just two guys, out to shoot some pool.
Not that we really had to. We knew just about everyone there. We went inside, not looking around, because everything was the same as it’d been the hundreds of other times we’d come here. Same crowd, same décor, same music. We had our regular place at the bar, or regular pool table. We made our way through the crowd, nodding and fist-bumping the people we knew, before stopping at the Cobra’s pool table in the very back.
I motioned to Jake, the bartender, to bring us a pitcher of beer. “Set ‘em up,” I said to Jet as I grabbed a cue off the wall.
Jet racked up the balls and broke, as Vera dropped off our pitcher of beer. I poured it and took a drink, as Jet scratched. “Shit,” he muttered.
That wasn’t like him. He was wound up, like we all were. Looked like he was going to be needing that pussy sooner than later.
He dropped the cue and raked his hands through his hair. “It’s bullshit, that’s what it is,” he muttered, leaning against the table. “I don’t like to speak ill of Cullen because he’s a good president and all the men like him. But I really wish to hell he’d grow a pair and let us take care of the Fury once and for all.”
I nodded as I set up my shot. “Preaching to the choir, man,” I said to him as I made my first shot. I straightened and lined up the next one. “I get that we need to think, first. But it really does suck, waiting for the next shootout. Then what do we do when it happens? Nothing. If we could just find their clubhouse, our problems would be solved.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
“You know what it is, more than ever, now. Cullen. He’s got Grace to worry about. His kid.”
Jet nodded in agreement and took a gulp of his beer. “Yeah. I guess.”
Cullen had always been judicious about wanting to get us involved in Fury business. But since he’d found out he had a kid and gotten engaged to his girl, he’d gone beyond that. It seemed like he was dragging his feet even more. I couldn’t blame him, since he had more than just the Cobras to look out for, now, but we’d been careful enough.
“Maybe he should step down if he can’t handle the heat,” Jet suggested.
“And let who take over?” I joked. “You? You’d get us all killed.”
He laughed. We all knew that Jet, the youngest of all of us, was in no place to be president. Him, included. “Probably.” He
pumped his fist. “But we’d all go out in a blaze of glory.”
I clapped him on the back. “Thanks. But I think I’ll just stay alive.”
This is the way things usually went for us. We’d play a little pool, toss back more than a couple of beers until we were nice and buzzed. Once the beer started settling in and we got tired of shooting pool, we’d look for the girls. The Wall was usually filled with the same old regulars, so I had some pretty reliable pussy to take home. No attachments, no expectations, no games. Just good, satisfying fucking, the perfect way to end a Saturday night.
But Jet didn’t like reliability. He wanted new. He was our pretty-boy, so the women went insane for him. This wasn’t usually the place for new, but if he found it, he zeroed in on it. I usually played wingman and watched him try his luck.
He really didn’t need luck. He was Jet. Legendary with women.
I landed my last shot and Jet racked them up again. As he did, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked around at the prospects. There was a group of women I’d never seen before in the far corner of the bar, dancing together and giggling as if the world revolved around them. They were pretty hot; looked like college students. I motioned to Jet. “Them?”
He considered them for about ten seconds, then shook his head. “Co-eds are too easy. I could probably have them all together.”
Knowing him, that wasn’t an exaggeration. Once, we’d gone to Cullen’s house to find him in the hot tub with three naked women, all eager to please him. Women fell at his feet and killed for the chance at one night with him. He didn’t usually do repeat engagements.
Jet wanted a challenge. He wanted a woman who’d put up a fight, give him something to work for. I didn’t care about that. To me, it didn’t make sense, since I wasn’t looking for a relationship. Neither was he, but he enjoyed the game. Had this big thing about spreading himself around to as many women as possible.
On the contrary, I just wanted release, as easy as I could get it. Avery was my go-to. She was there, at the end of the bar. She was pretty enough, and nice enough, and forgettable enough. She waved at me. I winked at her. She mouthed something to me that sounded like, Whenever you’re ready.
Then I scanned the other side of the bar, and I saw a redheaded dream, standing alone.
And everything I’d been thinking just flew right out the window.
A mane of deep red hair. Pale skin. Barely-there denim skirt showing off two gorgeous S curves. Full tits poking out of a tiny tank top. Bare belly, with a little diamond piercing in her navel. She was leaning against the bar, with legs that went on for miles, ending in two beat-up cowboy boots. She looked bored, bordering on annoyed, like she was better than everyone else in the place.
My cock twitched like never before, a fucking earthquake in my pants. I almost had to rub my eyes to convince myself she was real and not some oasis. Goddamn, she was fine.
For a moment, I let my thoughts wander to putting her on the back of my bike and taking her home. To bending her over and slowly entering her, inch by inch . . .
But then it hit me. If I knew Jet . . .
“That one,” he said to me, giving me a nudge as he eyed the redhead from top to bottom, like a dinner he couldn’t wait to devour. “Holy fuck. Yes. Have you ever seen a body like that?”
I shook my head.
Hell no, I hadn’t.
I sucked in a breath, let it out. “You going for her?”
He finished his beer and set it down on the edge of the pool table. “Is water wet?”
It shouldn’t have disappointed me.
I’d probably end up fucking Avery tonight, perfectly acceptable, warm, hot Avery, who’d give me the good, reliable release I was looking for.
But I was damned sure I’d be thinking of the redhead, even though she’d be under my best friend.
Jetson led a fucking charmed life. He was one lucky, lucky bastard.
Chapter Four
Caitlyn
It took about ten minutes and three shots of Jack for Martie to fall completely under the spell of some random loser with a mullet who looked about my father’s age.
I nudged her from her lip lock. “Come up for air, every once in a while. It’s good for you.”
That was Martie. I loved her to death, but she wasn’t exactly discriminating. And when she fell, she fell fast and hard.
Chad had been like that. She’d been on track to get her RN degree before she met him at a college party. A day later, she’d moved in with him. A month later, she dropped out of school, and nine months after that, had a son with him, Lucas. Now she was busy pretending to be a happy homemaker for him, trying to make it work, when it was obvious from how much she complained that she hated that life and wished she could escape.
There she was, on the barstool beside me, making out like crazy with this tall, probably late-forty-something guy with a ponytail. He already had his hand down the front of her dress, in front of everyone. She had her legs spread, and he was grinding his package against her.
Nice. I knew where that was headed.
She didn’t break her suction-hold on the guy’s mouth. She just muttered something with his tongue, still down her throat. Great. Nice talking to you, too, Martie.
Truthfully, I hadn’t expected I’d be taking Martie home. I knew she’d probably find a man and leave me high and dry, and her babysitter would have to spend the night at her house watching Lucas.
I didn’t mind it. Well, not that much. I just wished she would’ve waited a little longer to find that guy. We hadn’t even gotten on the dance floor, yet.
Sighing, I fended off yet another loser that offered to buy me a drink and whirled on the barstool, feeling kind of out of place. I was definitely buzzed, but not enough that I’d go out on the dance floor alone. The ratio of men to women was skewed in favor of men, and men were lined up around the perimeter of the floor, watching the women dance. And even with the alcohol in my blood, my blister still hurt.
Then I noticed the two ridiculously hot bad boys, across the room. They were standing there, shoulder to shoulder, pool cues in their hands. They looked effortlessly cool. The darker-haired one leaned over and mentioned something to the blond, and he grinned his perfect white smile.
Both of them were looking at me.
Bikers. Gorgeous. Fucking. Bikers. You’d think I’d have been sick of bikers by now, but I’d always been turned on by a hot, jacked, leathered up, tattooed guy. No doubt I got that from my mom. No one from the Fury, though. They were all a bunch of assholes who bowed down to my father.
These guys must have been bikers, from another town. I knew they weren’t Fury, but they didn’t have kuttes on, so they might not have been in any club. But they were the hottest guys in the place. For sure.
I wasn’t an idiot. As Slade’s daughter, I was one of the few girls allowed in the clubhouse during their church. I’d spent a lot of time surrounded by men, especially big, tough, macho men. I knew exactly how they ticked. How to get them interested. How to make them beg.
I gave them a small, seductive smile, and looked away, pretending to be bored.
That amused them. When I looked back, I knew they were buying it, hook, line and sinker. I scraped my top lip over my bottom lip and flipped my hair.
The blond one said something, and the other one nodded, eyes never leaving me. I could tell the blond was the one who was used to getting play. He was magazine-cover beautiful, his features like a young Brad Pitt’s. Just absolutely stunning, the kind of man who looked too beautiful to be real.
But it was the other guy that made my heart skip a beat.
I had no trouble looking at blondie. But there was something in the other guy’s eyes that was much more exciting and devilish. He was hot, too, but not classically so, with penetrating, dark amber eyes. Blondie had boyish features; but the other? All man. Dark, dangerous, and hellishly masculine. And geez . . . those biceps could have their own zip code.
He drew me in, hoo
k, line and sinker.
But wouldn’t you know it?
It was the blond guy who pushed away from the pool table and started to walk toward me. I shifted in my seat, wondering if I said I wasn’t interested, I’d end up turning them both off.
Because I really wanted the other one to talk to me.
He was hanging back, though, drinking his beer, like he was so much better than me. I felt a shot of disappointment as a dark-haired girl waltzed up and started to talk to him, lifting up on her tiptoes and whispering against his ear, staking her claim. Bitch. He slinked his arm around her waist, and it was like a punch in my gut.
Next to me, Martie let out a moan as Mullet Man squeezed her tit harder. Geez, get a room, girl, I thought, as the blond guy finally sidled next to me. He leaned in, and he smelled like a combination of motor oil and soap. Like my daddy.
That was strike one.
“Hey,” he said, motioning me forward so he could speak into my ear. When I got close, his hot breath tickled my cheek. “I think you should go home with me.”
I was four shots in and feeling pretty brazen. But I’d never be that brazen to just leave with a guy I just met. I decided to play it coy. “And why is that?”
He shrugged easily. “Because you want to. You know you do.”
I laughed. “Does that line usually work for you?”
“Yeah. Always.” He put his beer down and stretched, lifting his hands over his head. “Face it. You and I are the hottest motherfuckers in this place. Everyone here is just waiting for us to get together.”
God, he was so over-confident. Like my dad. He said stupid things, and people just went along with it, like it was the way of the world. Like I didn’t have any say in the matter.
Strike two.
“It doesn’t always work for you,” I countered, looking away. Over his shoulder, I could see the girl, whispering into his friend’s ear. I felt a surge of jealousy, because I wanted him, not this jerk in front of me.