by Nicole Snow
“That's...that's terrible. I'm glad they walked away when you showed them the door.”
“Those boys are scum, Emma, but they aren't stupid. I stopped just short of spitting in their faces. I wasn't afraid. They aren't going to lay anybody out here. Thank God for the cameras.” She sighed, gathering her wits. “Just hope that's the end of it. We've already got enough rogues coming through town without these Prairie Devils stomping fresh blood all over Montana.”
I nodded. We talked about other crap that wasn't so heavy and infuriating.
But when I got back on my shift, the wheels started turning in my head. Wheels made of bills. Lots and lots of hundred dollar bills.
Holy crap, a voice snapped inside me. You're not really thinking about this...are you?
Not quite. I was thinking about bills. I was up to my neck in overdue notices aplenty and those damned student loans I hadn't put a dent in since the payments came due. I'd only been on the job six months, and if I didn't toss them something soon, they were sure to go to collections. After that, they'd threaten my RN license.
Gotta love the logic: pay up, or we'll make it so you'll never pay for anything again.
By the end of my shift, I couldn't get my mind off this strange new opportunity. My old acquaintance, Tracy, was pulling double duty at the Dirty Diamond strip club, plus another new one that had opened up several towns over. If anybody knew where to find these guys, it would be her.
It was late by the time I left. A quick phone call later, and I was on my way to Python, just south of Missoula, where the Devils had landed from North Dakota.
“I'm Maverick, and this is my VP, Blaze. You're the nurse?”
I nodded. The men were even more dangerous up close, and pretty damned hot too. Not that I'd ever admit it to these hardened wolves. They looked like the type who'd eat a girl alive if they caught a tiny whiff of interest – or, who knows – maybe they didn't need a whiff at all to sink their teeth in.
“Course she is. This girl's got the body for it, bro.” Blaze looked me up and down, smiling the whole time. “Fuck. Maybe we can have her pulling double duty at the bar. I wouldn't mind looking at that little outfit while she's serving drinks. Just gotta make it a little tighter.”
I folded my arms, trying not to go ruby red. Were these guys so out of touch they thought ordinary scrubs were sexy?
Maverick slammed his fist into Blaze's side. Obviously a hothead, he glared at the President, but never so much as rubbed the tender spot.
“Knock it off, man. This is serious shit, especially with the Grizzlies breathing down our necks.”
My eyes widened. So, the two clubs were at odds. I started to think this was a big fat mistake if I was about to wander in between two warring motorcycle gangs.
“You showed me your license,” Maverick said. “Far as credentials go, that's all I need. I'll have a brother dig into the dirty details to make sure everything's as spotless on your record. Now for the interview.”
Blaze opened up and stepped close to me. “How do you do under pressure, nurse? You gonna run off scared the first time some brother needs fresh blood while we're fending off fuckers circling this clubhouse on their choppers?”
I couldn't imagine it. I really couldn't. He was describing crap that supposedly died with the old West. But my eyes were all filled with green, and I wouldn't let seeing red get in the way of what I needed.
“Absolutely not. I think I've seen more bodies torn up than you have, Mister VP. These mountain roads aren't kind when it's icy. Neither are the grizzlies – the real bears, I mean.”
I glared at him. Blaze had a stare that shocked me to the bone, exciting and dangerous, but he also had a rough edge I didn't like. Still, it was easy to see why some girl was going to get her panties melted off.
“You wanna put money down? I'm a betting kinda man, baby. And right now, I think you're full of –“
“I believe her.” Maverick stepped between us, spreading out his hands. He turned to me. “Don't mind my fucking brother. I'm not just calling him that because we share the same patch. I inherited the brains, and he got all the hot fucking blood.”
“Don't forget I got the goddamned looks too!” Blaze locked eyes with his brother, clenching his jaw.
“He'll learn to appreciate you, Emma, and so will I. You've got spunk. I like that. Congratulations. You're working for the Prairie Devils now. I'll have Tank bring out your retainer.”
I waited with him by the bar while Blaze stormed off looking for the third guy. Maverick filled me in on their tension with the Grizzlies up in Missoula. He also told me he might need a checkup for a girl he'd picked up at their strip joint, some woman named June.
Blaze returned a few minutes later, and my eyes nearly popped out when I saw what was behind him. If these two brothers were built to kill, then the man behind the VP was made to end whole worlds without breaking a sweat.
He was huge, and handsome. A little younger than the other two. Clean cut. Eyes that hung like delicious dark diamonds, glowing in the dim light. I imagined they were little windows that let me have a glimpse at whatever crazy furnace underneath his skin powered the mountain of muscles.
“You got it?” Maverick asked.
“It's all here, boss. Every cent.” He drew a thick stack of bills from his pocket wrapped up in plastic and pushed it forward.
“It's not mine, brother,” Maverick shook his head. “Give it to her. Emma's gonna be taking real good care of your clumsy ass from now on. Everybody else's too.”
Tank pushed forward and reached out. His eyes were all on me now. I'd never been melted by a man's glare before. I thought that was only the kinda stuff that happened in bad comedies and cheap romance novels, but right here, before me, I was turning to mush.
Make that sizzling, tingling, smoking mush.
I had to focus real hard to make my hand move and push toward his. My fingers brushed his as he laid the stack in my hand. The weight was a big surprise.
Jesus, Linda hadn't been kidding about the bribe. It was at least a year's salary. Hazard pay, Maverick had said, as well as a retainer to make sure I wasn't going to walk away without the club's permission.
But it wasn't half the shock I got when I lost myself in his big brown eyes. Tank exhaled, lips moving just slightly on his concrete jaw. He towered over me, nearly a foot and a half taller, shoulders that could've swallowed me up several times over.
An irresistible urge shot through me. I had no clue lust and curiosity could get together and dance, but they did, throbbing until I couldn't imagine anything but reaching for his shoulders, climbing him like a tree, and planting my lips on his, perfectly even and so damned hot.
“Hey!” Blaze snapped, jerking me back to reality. “Stop gawking. Both of you. Tank, walk the girl out to her car. It's fucking dangerous around here.”
Maverick laughed. “You heard him. See her out and then come on back. We got a lotta shit to unload before Throttle's crew starts coming here on runs.”
I stumbled after him, clutching the money dumbly in both hands. We were outside, heading for the place where I'd parked by their garages, when Tank finally offered his first real words.
“Stuff that shit in your purse. It's not just assholes in the Grizzlies we need to be concerned about. If you get robbed by some local fucking yokel or a cop sniffs around your cash, it'll be club business. That money's yours to spend, but it's a gift from this MC.”
“Of course!” I could've smacked myself in the head. Instead, I shoved the money away, tucking it between two old pay stubs.
Suddenly, those crappy loans and the other bills didn't seem so bad stacked up against my new salary.
“Don't worry about it. You're new to this, same as me not so long ago. You'll learn quick, babe.”
“I'll do my best.”
I flipped the button on the remote to unlock my car. Tank beat me to the door and opened it, resting his hand on the top while he waited for me to climb inside.
&n
bsp; “It'll be different having a professional lady around here.” A thin smile pulled at his lips.
“Oh?” I slid into the car and looked up. Damn, sitting down below him, it was like he reached up to the sky. A total redwood of a man, and just as glorious.
“Yeah. Most of the other bitches who hang around here are whores.” He saw the surprise in my face and his smile faded. “Uh, club whores, I mean. All part of the lifestyle. Not used to having girls around who aren't here to fuck.”
Fire licked at my cheeks. Even the silly boys at my old campus hadn't talked about sex so casually.
“Got it. I'm not judgmental.”
That was rich. Compared to these guys, I was just as big a prude as Linda, fearful and sadly inexperienced. For some reason, I hated being like that. Hot jealousy shot through me when I imagined him with some faceless skank.
“Thank you, Tank. I appreciate the advice, and I'll take the rest from here.”
He nodded and stepped back after closing my door. As I pulled away, he was still watching me. If he were a dog, I had a feeling his tail would've been wagging, eager to chase me down and keep me from leaving.
What the hell was I thinking, anyway? Hanging around these hardass bikers had gotten me so dizzy I'd nearly lost my senses in a blink – especially to him.
“It's just a job,” I told myself, driving back to the tiny house I rented.
I reached down and patted my purse, reminding myself what this was all about. I didn't care how hot those bikers were, or how fast Tank made my pulse thump between my thighs.
Men like that weren't dating material. They fucked strippers and prostitutes and then threw them away. I shuddered, wondering how many STDs I'd end up treating for these boys.
God, what if I had to examine him?
Tomcat or not, Tank was polite, and I'd be kind right back. Nice and professional. Nothing more.
I'd already done a crazy thing. No damned way could I afford to get any deeper into this – even if it was a sin to think about any girl but me climbing all over his walking perfection.
My phone went off while I was winding down my shift a few days later. Not the little mobile I'd had for years – the other one. Blaze called it a burner, and told me to keep it on me at all times.
I flipped open the cheap device and felt my heart stop when I saw the text.
NEED YOU RIGHT NOW. TANK'S BEEN SHOT. CLUBHOUSE.
I wrapped up, grabbed my bag, and nearly bowled over Linda on the way out. She threw her hands out to stop me.
“Whoa, Emma, where's the fire?”
“It's my mother's place. Seamstress stuff. She forgot to drop off a rush job and really needs my help. Business hasn't been so awesome lately. I'm trying to keep her afloat.”
White lies never did any harm, right? Surely not, especially when they were mixed with dark truths.
Linda narrowed her eyes. “I need you to look over some files with me tomorrow. The admin's been complaining about inventory mismatch. Supplies missing. I've talked to everybody but you and Katie.”
“Of course! Anything you need.” My phone buzzed again, rocking my whole purse. “Didn't know that was a problem. We'll sort it all out, Linda, I'm sure it's all in the files.”
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Great. Now I had two nightmares staring me down. I roared out of the parking lot and took off before Linda took the notion to follow me out and saw me driving like a maniac.
I thought I'd been tracking everything I took for the club's infirmary without missing anything. I must've slipped up, and now someone had noticed.
I pounded the steering wheel. Whatever. It wasn't time to worry about that until it was staring me down. I had to focus on the patient, and nothing else. Saving a man's life mattered more than my slip ups – especially if that man was Tank.
Worry churned in my stomach, the kind I didn't get over most patients at the hospital.
Why did it have to be him? I wondered, pinching my bottom lip between my teeth.
Perfect. First real job for the club, and I was already coming apart at the seams. How could I be so stupid and weak? I was letting myself get weighed down by worries, and it wasn't going to get any better when I had his blood on my scrubs.
When I got to the clubhouse, Blaze waved me to the rear. Tank was sprawled out on the table they'd set up in the little storage room, way too small to contain him. His cut was off and his shirt was rolled up.
I grabbed the shears off my supply table and clipped the rest off. God, if it wasn't for all the blood, his muscles would've held me transfixed, lost in the violent world of ink on his chest. The huge Devil's face on his breast watched me the whole time as I worked on the wound.
He'd taken a direct hit. Some surprise attack on the road, Blaze told me. They were lucky he hadn't hit the pavement at full speed, or else there would've been a whole lot more than this hole in his side to worry about.
The VP stood in the room, watching for a long time. I expected more infuriating bullshit out of him, but he held his tongue and let me do my job, standing aside while I cleaned the wound and patched him up.
We were low on anesthetic. Hadn't pulled enough from the hospital's stock, and shipments to the clubhouse were getting wrecked by the Grizzlies attacks.
My hands were so hot on his body they went numb. Tank groaned once during my crude surgery, bristling like a doped up tiger.
I finished the job in a haze, only coming out of it when I noticed how pale he'd gotten. The new bag of blood pumping into his system was almost depleted.
I walked to the refrigerator I had the guys fit and calibrate at just the right temperature. “Oh, shit!”
“What the hell is it?” Blaze ran up and stood at my side.
We both looked inside and saw the gory mess. Some bag on the top shelf had gotten pierced and bled all over everything, its thick contamination was smeared everywhere. No blood bank in their right mind would use anything it had touched, and neither would I. There wasn't time to wait around and try to disinfect the rest.
Unfortunately, that meant the whole shelf marked with Tank's blood type was toast. I felt my blood draining and slammed the freezer with a grunt.
“What!” Blaze demanded.”It's a fucking spill. You telling me all that shit's no good?”
I shook my head sadly. Thoughts of creeping into the hospital and trying to slip out blood under lock and key flashed in my head. Or, worse, letting Tank languish without the stuff he needed to fight his shock.
I couldn't let that happen. Everybody needed the right balance to heal, even this giant who'd taken a blow that would've sent most ordinary men to their graves by now.
“Hey!” Blaze grabbed me by the shoulders, pushing his elbow toward my face. “Take mine, nurse. I know him and I got the same damned type. I set this place up myself. Same fucking tags for Tank and I on that shelf. Give him my blood.”
Wriggling away from his grasp, I stood up, shock and awe spreading across my face. “It doesn't work like that! There's no time to test for disease or alloantibodies...”
“Bullshit!” he roared. “This is fucking war, Emma. You got the equipment to hook my ass up and draw out what you need. I'm fucking clean. Haven't had a goddamned sniffle in years.”
“There are lots of other germs –“
“Look at him – he's white as a fucking sheet!” Blaze pointed, fist shaking in fury. “Fuck it! I'll do this myself if you're not gonna do your job. No bro's gonna crash out and die or fuck off into a coma while we've got the stuff to stop it.”
He marched toward the shelf where all the equipment was stored. I pinched my teeth and sighed. Blaze was right.
When I tried to push my way past him, grabbing for the old transfusion machine we'd gotten shipped in, he didn't fight. His anger melted into a kinda smug satisfaction, happy he'd forced me into this medieval procedure.
In less than an hour, it was over. I watched three hundred milliliters of Blaze's fiery blood slide through the IV into Tank.
&n
bsp; “Hey, one more thing,” he said, just as he was about to leave me in peace. “Don't tell him about this shit.”
I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. Blaze just shuffled his feet.
“I'd give any brother a kidney or a fucking lung if I had to. Just don't need him knowing we're literal fucking blood brothers, though. I don't want anyone owing me special favors. I just need them to fall in line and listen.” He tapped the V. PRESIDENT tag on his leather cut, and then took off, leaving me alone.
Another hour, and Tank opened his eyes. The anesthesia was wearing off. I swept his huge hand off the table and pressed it to me, clutching it tight between my fingers.
“It's a miracle!”
Not really, but I said it anyway because it sure as hell felt like one to me. It wasn't my skill or modern medicine I was staring at totally amazed. No, I was gawking right at his rock hard body as the poor dumb mountain of a man tried to sit up and throw his legs off the table.
“Hold on! You're not going anywhere. Let alone getting on your feet! Lay back down please.”
“Club's been hit. I need to see the Prez.” Rage flickered in his eyes. The flesh under the gauze had to be hurting like hell, but if it was, he didn't show it. “You did your part, Emma. I need to take over from here and help my brothers skin some bears for what they've done.”
“Look, you're just barely getting enough blood into your system to keep you conscious. You're still not out of the woods for infection. If you go galloping off right now, you'll collapse the second you get down the hall. And I really don't want to drag you back here myself.”
Crap, crap, crap.
I was trying to talk serious, going into full RN mode with an unruly patient. Too bad he was no ordinary patient. Bratty kids and cranky old ladies were never this imposing, this massive, this gorgeous.
He locked those honey eyes right on me, and I fell right in. Jesus, I could've gotten lost in those eyes again, if he wasn't naked from the waist up. My eyes kept traveling along his rock hard hills and valleys, flesh lined with pitch black tats like Celtic runes smoothing wild ground.
