by Brook Wilder
“Well?” Porky finally said, giving Tex an impatient look.
“Well, what? What the fuck are you saying?”
“Well, don’t you want to hear my suggestion?”
“Serious, Porky, if you’re trying to get me back there…”
“No, no. A different place. It will be chill, I swear.”
Porky looked at Tex imploringly.
“Come on, Tex. I’m not ready to crash yet. The night is just starting. What do you say?”
Tex stared over at his friend for a long moment, weighing his sincerity.
“I don’t know, Porky.”
“I promise, Tex. Let’s go have some real fun.”
“No fights?”
Porky held up his hands in mock innocence and Tex let out a snort of disbelief.
“No fights. I swear. Cross my heart.”
Porky swiped one thick finger over his chest and Tex was already shaking his head, knowing he would end up giving in anyways. It was better not to fight it.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Chapter 2
“Lori, sweetheart, can I get another shot of whiskey over here?”
Lori Greene glanced down the bar at her friend Carrie. The curvy, black haired woman seemed out of place in that rough atmosphere of the joint at first. Dressed in a skimpy denim skirt and a tank top, she looked almost like a lamb dropped into a den of hungry wolves. That was until you saw the shark-like look in her dark brown eyes and the toothy grin.
Carrie lived her life by one motto: Party hard, and damn the consequences. At the moment, that took the form of one of the newer members of the Grim Riders Motorcycle crew, who called the bar home and was angling up to Carrie from across the barroom with a sly look in his eyes.
Lori shook her head to herself as she dutifully poured a shot of the amber liquid and slid it down in front of her friend.
“You’ve got one at three o’clock.” Lori muttered under her breath, but Carrie just let out a husky chuckle.
“Oh, darling, I know,” she grinned unabashed. “And he looks like fresh meat. Should I have a little fun with him?”
“He’s a new recruit, Carrie,” Lori warned, not sure whether she should be more worried for Carrie or the young man making his way through the crowded bar, his hopeful gaze caught on the dark-haired beauty. “He doesn’t know about you yet.”
“That makes it even more fun,” Carrie said with another grin as she tossed back the shot in one quick gulp.
Lori made up her mind. She didn’t need to worry about her friend at all. The young guy, on the other hand, had a rough lesson headed his way.
Carrie partied harder than anyone Lori had ever met, sometimes a little too hard. But all Lori could do was shake her head as she watched the scene unfold.
“Well, hello there,” the young hopeful drawled as he leaned against the bar. “How about I buy you a drink or two and you can tell me if it’s true.”
Carried barely flicked a glanced at the guy.
“If what’s true?”
“If you really do taste as good as you look.”
Carrie paused for a moment before rolling her eyes at Lori, who was barely holding back a snort at the cheesy pick-up line. Laughter shimmered in Carrie’s dark eyes as she turned back to the man.
“How about you buy me that drink,” Carrie said, this time without even trying to hold back her laughter, “and I’ll teach you some better lines to pick up a woman with. Jesus, has that really worked on someone?”
The patch member blushed a bright red as he shrugged, suddenly looking even younger, and Lori took pity on him.
“Here, kid. It’s on the house.”
She slid him a beer and sent Carrie a chastising look. The other woman couldn’t care less.
Lori turned a sympathetic smile back towards the young Grim Rider. He was still blushing, burying his face in his beer.
“Carrie’s out of your league. Why don’t you go try that line on those girls over there?”
Lori nodded to where a bunch of young twenty-somethings were congregating around the dart board.
“The advice is on the house too, but you should take it. Now.”
“Uh-yeah. Thanks, for the beer I mean,” he stuttered out before turning away. He didn’t look at Carrie again as he headed towards the corner where the dart board was.
Lori just shook her head.
“That was a little cruel.”
“Pssh. I took it easy on him,” Carrie said with another shrug and then grinned at Lori. “I will take that drink, though. Make sure you put it on his tab.”
Lori couldn’t hold back a soft chuckle at her friend’s words.
“You are shameless.”
“I know. It’s what you love about me.”
“No, I love your loyalty and bravery, and the fact you’d knife anyone who even thought about hurting me.”
“Well, we both know you can take care of yourself,” Carrie said as Lori sat another shot on the bar in front of her. “But, yeah, I’m pretty great, aren’t I?”
“Did I mention your modesty?” Lori joked.
“What’s the point of being modest? Where’s the fun in that?”
Lori rolled her eyes at her best friend. Carrie was incorrigible and adventurous. An out-and-out risk taker. Not at all like Lori herself.
Lori looked around the biker bar and almost laughed to herself, but there was little humor to be found there. The Reaper Club was a rough-and-tumble Texas bar on the outskirts of town. Most of the regulars were members of the Grim Riders, one of the three major motorcycle crews in the area, the crew she was a member of herself.
Most people would say that being a patch member of one of the most notorious biker gangs in North Texas was ballsy and adventurous, but that’s not how Lori thought of it. At first, it had been like a dream come true, like she’d finally found her family.
But that dream hadn’t lasted very long.
After being homeless for nearly a year, the crew had been heaven. A warm bed to sleep in. Reliable meals and a job. Her own place to put her few possessions and call home. Gears had saved her from her live on the streets, and he was the one who had brought her into the Grim Riders.
But things had gotten tense between them over the last few months. He’d become obsessed with her, showing up at her house. Which wasn’t hard for him, because not only was he her landlord, but his own place was right next door.
Carrie was right about one thing. Lori could take care of herself. She’d had to learn how to, homeless and alone, with no one else to rely on. She’d had to learn fast. Most would take one look at her five-foot-two height, slight build and strawberry blond hair, and assume she was an easy mark. Little did they know that she had steel in her core, forged from a rough childhood and an even rougher adulthood.
Lori stretched the sore muscles of her shoulders. It had been a long shift, already going on a double, but she was grateful for the work.
No one knew, she hadn’t even told Carrie, but she’d been slowly saving as much as she could over the past months. A few more months, maybe a year tops, and she’d have enough to get out of this deserted town, out of this gang. Maybe even out of the State. Just pick somewhere new and start fresh. Maybe north. She’d always loved the idea of snow in the winter. A white Christmas. That sounded perfect.
Lori grabbed a tray and a rag, her thoughts still miles away as she dreamed of her escape, and moved around the bar, wiping down beer-spills and trying to avoid being jostled by drunken bikers as she cleaned the rough wooden tables.
She was just turning to head back to the bar when she felt it. The sharp slap to her ass as she walked away.
Lori froze. Her good-girl good looks drew down into a scowl as she turned around on the heel of her boot.
As quick as a whip her arm shot out and she caught the first two fingers of the offending hand. Mercilessly, she bent them backwards, drawing the rest of the biker with her as he howled in pain.
“I’m sorry, Shor
tcake,” the man cried, his long beard trembling as he spoke and his eyes wide on hers. “I swear it won’t happen again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“You better make sure it doesn’t happen again, or I’ll make sure Gears hears about it.”
His eyes widened even more at her threat. Not that she would ever tell Gears. The guy was more likely to fly off the handle and kill the guy. He had made it clear from the first day he’d brought Lori into the club that no one was to mess with her. No, apparently only he had that right.
She huffed, shaking off the troublesome thought. Gears wasn’t even there at the club and he was causing her problems.
“Next time you lose the hand,” Lori growled, as frustrated with herself as she was with the biker who had tried to grab her.
“Y-Yes ma’am.”
Lori waited until she was sure he really meant it before releasing his fingers. Only then did she turn and walk back towards the bar, already banishing him from her thoughts.
She had much bigger things to worry about.
Chapter 3
Tex tried to ignore the heavy feeling settling inside him as he followed Porky into a gravel lot, pulling his bike to a stop next to the other man’s. He looked up at the bar. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but he could see the lights and hear the sounds of revelry coming from inside.
“This is the place,” Porky said tentatively. “There’s just one little thing…”
Tex nearly turned around and rode home right then and there, but his friend shot him a pleading look.
“What is it now, Porky?”
“You can’t wear your leather.”
Tex gave the other man a questioning look but took it off without another word He folded it carefully and stuffed it into one of the saddlebags that hung over either side of the back of his bike.
Tex followed Porky into the bar, still holding his silence, even though he could think of a few choice words he’d like to say to his friend. Porky threw him an excited grin as they walked in and they were hit with a wave of noise that deafened him for a moment.
Tex looked around dubiously and that bad feeling in his gut grew even worse. The place was completely packed and nearly every one of the people there was wearing a Grim Riders patch.
“Porky, what the hell, man? A Riders’ bar?”
“It’s cool. You’ll see. Just relax,” Porky said, but the big man’s words had the opposite effect.
Tex watched his friend walk forward casually, as if this was something he did often. Porky was obviously familiar with the bar, but Tex was already having second thoughts. Hell, he was having third and fourth thoughts. He might disagree with Capone, the Devils Martyrs’ president, every now and then, but he was loyal to the bone. It felt like a betrayal, being in rival territory.
After a moment’s thought, however, all Tex could do was shrug and follow Porky as he wound his way through the crowd to a newly vacated table. Almost all the rest of the tables were taken. Tex sat down, still looking around as if waiting for one of the other bikers to realize that a Devils Martyr had just wandered into their midst.
“I don’t like this, Porky,” Tex leaned forward and hissed under his breath.
But his friend just shrugged.
“You worry too much, man.”
“And you don’t worry enough. It’s why I’m always bailing you out of fights, remember?”
“Really?” Porky said, tilting his head to one side. “I thought you did that to keep me from having any fun.”
“Real funny,” Tex snorted. “You’d be even funnier behind bars for battery and assault.”
Porky rolled his eyes. He never thought ahead. Never thought of the consequences of his actions. Good thing he had Tex there to worry enough for the both of them.
“Look, let’s just try and have a good time, alright?” Porky implored and, after a moment, Tex let out a grin and nodded his head.
“Yeah, alright. I could use a little fun. Things have been way too… tense,” Tex said, hastily changing what he had been going to say. He had to be careful not to mention their crew. There would be no way in hell he’d be able to talk his way out of that fight.
Porky snorted.
“Yeah, no kidding. That shit’s been giving me a migraine.”
Tex nodded in agreement, scoping out the bar.
It was a big open room with the tables and dance floor on a sunken level and the bar itself set a little higher in the middle of the place. His eyes caught on a pretty, petite blond making her way through the crowd of rough bikers and she looked so out of place that all he could do was stare.
She looked like a little slice of heaven dropped down into this hell of dirty, drunken bikers and crude assholes. As she stepped under a light, Tex could make out the hint of red in her dark blond hair and a rosy blush in her cheek. Her lips were drawn into a perfectly kissable pout and a sudden image of her on her knees in front of him had his body drawing tight like a live wire.
Fuck. He needed to get laid. If just the thought of her lips around him made him go hard, it was definitely past time.
But Tex had quickly gotten bored with the biker bunnies that hung around The Hole, willing to screw anything with a leather jacket and a patch. There was no challenge there and, damn! did he love the chase. Hunter and prey. The rush of adrenaline when she finally gave in. They always gave in, eventually.
Tex sat back, content to watch the little mouse as she pushed her way past men twice her size. His brows furrowed as one of the bikers sitting at a table with a few of his crew leaned forward and grabbed at the sexy blonde, slapping her on the ass.
He was moving before he even realized what he was doing, already thinking of all the ways he could hurt the asshole for laying a hand on her. But no sooner had he scooted his chair back to jump to his feet in her defense than he stopped, forcing himself to stay seated as she turned on the man who had grabbed her.
She had his hand in some sort of death grip, bending it at an unnatural angle as she gave him the setting down of his life.
Tex saw the anger shine in her eyes, which he still couldn’t tell the color of, and the heat of it burnished her cheeks to an even darker hue of rosy red. Damn, she was the sexiest little thing he’d seen in a long time. She looked like the girl next door, sweet and innocent but she handled the rough biker as well as he could have, even if she did leave him without any permanent damage. Tex didn’t think he’d have been so merciful.
He didn’t take his eyes off the surprising little firecracker as she said one final thing to the biker before spinning around and walking back behind the counter of the bar.
She went back to work, smiling and chatting, as if nothing had happened. But Tex guessed that, in a place like this, those sorts of encounters would be a nightly occurrence.
He wasn’t sure why, but that thought didn’t sit right with him. He shouldn’t care. Hell, he didn’t even know her. He’d just laid eyes on her not ten minutes earlier, but still he couldn’t shake that feeling that she shouldn’t be in a place like this. She was too delicate, too special, too sweet and untainted.
Tex saw her lean over the bar, talking with a woman who was sitting on a bar stool and who had the longest black hair and the shortest skirt he’d ever seen. There was an obvious familiarity between the two women and he wondered what it would be like to have that kind of easy relationship with her.
Nothing between him and Kayla had ever been easy. It had always been a struggle, a fight, and at first it had always ended in a draw. It had been fun, matching wills with the feisty woman, but then the fights had gotten more vicious. Kayla could draw blood with a well-placed word or two and it had just gotten exhausting.
Tex couldn’t help but wonder if the blond would be a challenge. If she would resist him or melt against him willingly. Once again, his body tightened at the wayward turn of his thoughts and he had to shift in his chair to get comfortable. Next to him, Porky whistled.
“Damn, Tex! Are you seeing what I’m
seeing?”
Tex’s eyes were locked on the blonde bartender.
“Yeah, she sure is something.”
“Could you imagine taking her home? Now, I bet she knows how to have fun. Just look at those legs.”
Holy hell, could Tex imagine it! In fact, it was all he had been imagining from the moment he’d seen her take on the biker who was twice her size.
“Can’t see her legs,” Tex mumbled, his gaze still locked on her as she walked behind the bar, disappearing behind the counter to grab something and popping back up a moment later.
