But word had gotten to the Sons somehow—probably, Cami decided, he’d been spied picking her up at a club after one of her gigs, something he’d done more than once. Or it could very well have been that day at the motorcycle show when she’d accused him of following her. They might not have looked like old news then.
Cilla was staring at Cami, her big blue eyes saucers. “That is so romantic.”
“What? Thanks to him I made a fool of myself at the roadhouse.”
“But Cam,” Cilla insisted. “It was to save you.”
She wasn’t going down that path because it still led to a dead end. “He’s admitted the situation only hastened the break-up process. He doesn’t make commitments, he’s said that straight out. So extinguish those stars in your eyes, Cilla.”
“But—”
“Let’s talk about something more pressing.” Cami looked around at her friends. They were all gathered in the kitchen—Cilla, Rose, Alexa, Cleo, and Ashlyn. “What the heck do I wear to meet the president of a notorious biker club?”
As she’d suspected, it was the kind of distraction that pulled the women off the more dangerous topic. As they gathered the plates, utensils, and side dishes, the merits of everything from leggings and a tunic to the most feminine of sundresses were discussed. Cami listened with half an ear and kept checking out the windows to gauge the tenor of things between Eamon and the guys.
When she saw him and Ren off to the side in an apparent serious discussion, she decided an intervention was in order.
As she approached them from behind, she couldn’t help noticing they were two of a kind—with their dark hair and masculine, muscled builds. Eamon might be a bit rangier than Ren, but there was the same virile intensity in the way he held himself.
He forked two impatient hands through his hair, and she felt a traitorous shimmy in her belly as she remembered them on her. Those big, long-fingered hands, gently cupping her face, teasing her nipples into throbbing points, one of them wrapping the belt she’d buckled around her hips to yank her close for a hungry kiss.
During their stranger-to-stranger interlude.
What a stupid thing to agree to. It had made him even more familiar to her—further imprinting on her the scent of his skin and the different nuances of his touch—which meant it would be only harder for her to forget him. It was something a silly dreamer did, one who wasn’t on her way to getting over a man, but one who—no!
Shoving the unwelcome thought from her head, she continued forward, her soft-soled shoes unintentionally silent on the wooden deck.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t averse to eavesdropping, she admitted, when she paused behind a hibiscus, using it to screen her presence.
“So when this is over, you’ll be looking out for her?” Eamon asked Ren.
“Of course.”
“Because even if she’ll be safe from the Sons, she can use people in her corner.”
“We’ve got that,” Ren said, sounding irritated.
“Then where’s her alarm system?”
Her big brother winced. “Okay. I did let that slide…”
Cami frowned. And she could have arranged for it herself, sheesh.
“Do you realize she has left her back door open for the neighbor’s cat?”
“That isn’t good—”
“The neighbor’s cat. She’s trying to lure someone else’s pet to her place.”
Cami’s face heated. Put that way, it sounded pathetic. She was becoming not just another single cat lady, but a single surrogate cat lady.
“Do you get me?” Eamon demanded.
Ren shoved his hands into his pockets. “She likes animals.”
“She needs attention and affection, damn it.” Eamon passed a hand through his hair again. “She was left too often by herself at that fucking compound with only her mind and her music for company.”
Cami’s feet seemed rooted to the ground.
“She’s always been an independent little thing,” Ren started.
“That’s where you’re wrong. She’s got so much to offer, with those inner emotions she can so easily touch and express. Not to mention that amazing creative spark.”
“No one’s denying any of that.”
“But you have to understand that the flame needs to be sheltered. Protected, and then given just the right amount of space and air in order to thrive. Too much of both and it dies.”
Cami shivered, feeling as if someone had peeled back a layer of her skin.
“Shit.” Ren shrugged a shoulder. “I…I was gone a long time.”
“You should have known before you left. You should have realized when you were kids.”
Ren lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. “Fuck. Lay it on me, man.”
“Remember Bast and Crusader?”
Her big brother looked over at Eamon and chuckled, his expression easing. “You mean the tiger and the buffalo?”
“She wanted to name them Tabby and Buffy.”
Ren laughed again. “Those were stupid names.”
“But it wasn’t stupid why she wanted to name them in the first place, Ren.” Eamon turned to face the other man. “Don’t you see? Your little sister was desperate.”
Her big brother went still. “Desperate for what?”
“Cami was desperate to love and be loved.”
And still is.
She didn’t need to hear him say those last words, so she turned to make her silent way back to the house. Tears burned the corners of her eyes, and she dashed them away, feeling raw.
The conversation between the two men proved that Eamon didn’t consider her a stranger, either. He saw her—had always seen her—straight through to the soul. It was alarming, wasn’t it? To be so transparent?
And yet it gave her heart a sweet, deep thrill. He knew her. A woman could love a man just for that.
Except she already did, didn’t she? She’d been in love with Eamon—the proverbial, fantastical, only-happens-to-dreamers—love at first sight. And no heartache or break-up or eventual loss of him in her life was going to make that go away.
Which meant she’d failed in protecting her heart…but then, since the night they’d met it hadn’t been hers anyway.
“A warning,” Eamon said, as he drove with Cami to a favorite bar of the Unruly Assassins the next night. He knew he owed her one. “While I like your family—“
“Despite the hostile interrogation and the dire threats to your person?”
He smiled. “I don’t blame them for that. And your brothers finally relaxed a little. I didn’t find any razor blades in my meal. They shook my hand when we left.”
“Cilla and Rose have softened them some.”
“Which leads me directly back to my warning,” he said. “While I like your family, mine is different. The people you’re going to meet tonight…they’re not just rough around the edges. They can be rough through and through.”
“You forget I’ve already met Mr. Simpson—Bart—and…Who was the other?”
“Si. Silent Joe.”
“They were both very nice.” Cami crossed her legs, drawing Eamon’s gaze for the tenth time since she’d walked out of her bedroom at the Malibu house in an outfit that was part biker girl and part, just, well…girl.
“Did I tell you that you look great?”
She fidgeted in her seat as if flustered by the compliment. “It was a group effort. My boots, Cilla’s short black leather skirt, Alexa’s lacy top.”
Sass and class. Irish Rooney was going to lose his mind, believing his son had finally found a woman like this one. It was gonna be hell when he had to tell his father that he’d parted ways with the music princess. It was a price Eamon was willing to pay, however, for the protection the club would afford her.
“Anyway,” he said. “We don’t have to stay too long. If you don’t like the bar or get uncomfortable tell—”
“Eamon.” He could feel her eye roll in the dark interior of the car. “I work at a motorcycle salvag
e yard. I play music in clubs. At night. When people drink. You act as if I’m only accustomed to high tea and the society of—of—society people.”
“Okay, okay. I hear you.” He blew out a breath. “The most important thing is that they buy we’re a couple. That’s our only concern tonight.”
“About that—”
“Nope. There’s no compromise there. If I come in, introduce you around as the woman I’m with, then you’ll have the power of the club at your back.”
“I thought you’d already spoken with your father this morning.”
“I did. I told him about the situation with the Sons and how you—my girlfriend—had been a target of their vandalism at your home and at your work.”
“How’d he take it?”
“He was pissed I hadn’t reported the problem immediately, but he understood my reasoning. And the existence of a ‘girlfriend’ provided a happy distraction.”
Now it was Cami’s turn to sigh. “You can’t introduce me as mere friend?”
As if that would work. The way she looked tonight—sweet enough to eat and bad girl enough in that black leather to make his blood boil—meant he’d likely be dogging her footsteps the entire time, his tongue hanging out. No one would buy mere friendship.
“Nuh-uh.”
“Then introduce me as an ex,” Cami said. “While we were never anything official, it’s close enough to the truth.”
“We were official,” he ground out, then wanted to punch himself in the head.
Official what? All those late nights under the cover of darkness were his way of keeping their hook-ups casual. Of ensuring he never made promises he had no intention of keeping, and that she didn’t misconstrue his attention.
But, Christ, other messages had been sent with every fevered kiss and frantic coupling. With every cup of coffee he brought her to their bed. With every night he found a stool at a dark club to listen to her perform.
“Or something,” he muttered, then turned in to the parking lot of the nondescript bar, crumbling asphalt crunching beneath his tires. The Helmet sat on a street parallel to the freeway, with a cyclone fence and a twenty-foot concrete block wall the only thing between it and twelve lanes of traffic. The rush of cars on the roadway sounded like the drone of industrious bees as they climbed out of their seats and headed toward the plain metal entry door.
“For tonight, just remember we’re a unit,” Eamon told Cami, “and everything will go fine. This watering hole is neutral ground for several clubs, and the Sons will think twice about any further plans they may have cooked up when word gets around that my dad and his men are taking you into the fold.”
As he reached for the handle, he slid his other arm around her. She stiffened.
“Baby.” He turned her to him and put both hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry it came to this. I’m not going to let anything happen though, okay?”
Her small frame relaxed. “Okay.”
But when she made to move out of his hold, he drew her in to him, resting his chin on top of her fragrant hair.
“I’ll find some way to make this up to you,” he promised, then gave her a final reassuring hug. “Let’s go.”
Pushing open the door, Eamon paused on the threshold. The place smelled of beer and perfume and good, greasy burgers. Hanging on the walls were helmets of all kinds, starting with infantrymen’s headgear from World War II to the different styles that bikers and soldiers wore today. The furnishings were a mismatch of tables and chairs, and sprawled on them and on the stools pulled up to the long, scarred bar were the people from his world.
His old world.
At fourteen, he’d supposed he’d be at the center of it forever, but now it only allowed him a place on its fringes. As unfair as it might be to that young kid he’d once been, Eamon couldn’t help holding himself partly responsible for the exile. An old, cold ache opened up in his belly, then he felt a small hand slide into his.
“Eamon?”
He glanced down. Cami stared up at him, a question in her beautiful green eyes. Who the hell could be melancholy when a woman like this was at his side? Smiling, he squeezed her hand. “This way, babe. I see Irish at the back.”
They wound their way through tables, and he nodded and smiled but didn’t stop to make introductions. Protocol dictated he bring her to the president first.
His father sat at the end of a long table filled with other Unrulies, one hand curled around a beer and the other on Suze’s knee. They both were looking at the screen of the phone set between them on the table and laughing.
“Dad,” Eamon said, to get his attention.
Irish’s head jerked up and his mouth twitched as he looked first at Eamon and then at the woman by his side.
Sass and class. His dad had to see that right off, with Cami in that lace-embellished little shirt tucked into a black leather miniskirt. Hanging below its hem was a ruffle of more lace, at charming odds with the tough, scuffed motorcycle-style boots strapped to her small feet. A tooled cuff of narrow black leather wrapped one wrist, and a choker of braided black chord and white lace circled her throat.
As Irish’s lips curved in a full grin, she stepped forward with a smile of her own and an outstretched hand. “Mr. Rooney. So nice to meet you. I’m Cami.”
Taking her hand in his, Irish rose from his chair. He wore his usual uniform of jeans, black T-shirt, and his Unruly Assassins cut—the patch designating him as president over the right front pocket.
“Well.” He held her hand out to the side and continued his leisurely perusal until Suze stood, too, and introduced herself.
“My old lady,” Irish said, pulling the other woman close and kissing her cheek.
Cami shot Eamon a look, and he recalled the lover-like way that Suze had treated him that day at the motorcycle show. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Not my mother.”
“A relief,” she murmured, then shook hands with the older woman. “I like your boots.”
As usual, Suze was decked out in full biker-babe, including boots with heels, chains, and a dozen buckles.
“Thanks, doll,” she said, beaming at Cami. Then she glanced up at Eamon. “Don’t you have something to announce?”
It had to be done, he reminded himself. So he pulled Cami back in to his body, the small warm weight of her feeling suddenly fragile. It made him glad to do this, relieved actually, because she was much too precious to be in any kind of danger—large or small. For this time to have her in his arms and under the MC’s protection, he’d take any shit he’d get from the club when he ultimately confessed he’d lost her.
With his free hand, he made a fist and rapped on the table. The members there tonight, eleven or twelve of the men closest to his father, looked up. They were a shaggy lot, unshaven, uncombed, and pretty much uncouth, but their eyes lit when they saw him and noted he was accompanied by an unfamiliar woman.
“Everyone, this is Cami,” he said. “And she’s mine.”
Her head jerked, turning to look at him in response to the claiming words, and he made that his opportunity to go in for a kiss. With the hoots and catcalls of the biker peanut gallery fading away in his consciousness, he took charge of her lips with his mouth and tongue. His heart leaped and every muscle tightened when she melted against him.
Then his dad was there, pulling Cami away from Eamon to dole out a hug with a booming laugh. He sent a prospect to the bar for a couple of beers for them but told Eamon that before sitting down he’d have to take his woman on a tour of the room. Lots of old friends would want to meet her, too.
It was a whirl of introductions, laughter, boisterous back slaps for him, measuring glances for Cami. He lost her somewhere along the way, only to look around when a second beer was put in his hand to find her across the room under Suze’s wing. Her face looked flushed, but she was smiling. And so far she seemed to be holding her own.
A young man from another club snagged his attention to discuss a problem he had with a search and seizu
re he felt sure was illegal. Eamon didn’t have the heart to insist he wait until office hours. The kid’s ride had been impounded, and he needed it returned in order to get to and from his full-time welding job. They holed up at a table tucked away in a dim corner, and it wasn’t until there was a roar from the general crowd that he looked up from the notes he was taking on his phone.
“Oh, hell, no,” he said, and leaped to his feet to stalk across the bar, pushing people out of his way and kicking chairs when necessary. Then he stood on the edge of a small dance floor and crossed his arms over his chest.
A song by The Dropkick Murphys was playing over the speakers, a Celtic punk band that had many of the bar’s patrons on their feet. But Eamon’s gaze didn’t leave his old friend Linc, looking like a dark demon with his full beard, dark jeans, and Assassins cut. He stood, legs braced, while one of his hands held one of Cami’s. A wide smile on her face, she danced around the big man like he was a Maypole, whirling and reeling, the lace edging her little skirt fluttering around her thighs. As the tempo increased, so did Cami’s speed. Linc met Eamon’s eyes, the devil in his. Then he grinned.
Eamon refused to reciprocate. Instead, he signaled to his old buddy with a ruthless stare and a finger across the throat.
Linc threw back his head and laughed, but then, on Cami’s next turn, he let her go, which sent her spinning in Eamon’s direction. Stepping forward, he caught her against his chest. The crowd went wild, clapping and shouting, but he ignored them all to carry her away.
“Eamon!” she said in breathless protest, but he disregarded that, too, and found a seat at a small table against the wall. He hooked the chair with his boot, pulled it out, and dropped onto the seat, Cami in his lap.
The same prospect who had delivered beverages before came by with two fresh beers. Cami smiled at him, her “thank you” pretty and sweet, and the younger man put his hand on the back of the empty chair beside them, as if thinking he might stay a while. Eamon countered her charm with a pointed look that invited the dude to get going. Now.
Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7) Page 15
