Dark Seduction

by Jayne Blue

  “So the Hawks and the Saints … you don’t get along?” Domino’s eyes widened, he tilted his head and smiled.

  “Something like that.”

  God, this had the makings of a movie plot in and of itself. Romeo and Juliet in a biker gang. I took another sip of beer. I knew if I put it like that, Domino would probably shut down. These were real people. Their decisions must have had lasting consequences that probably impacted him even today. The last thing I wanted to do was trivialize it.

  “So, how’d it all turn out? Did Diesel win the girl? I mean, you’re here, wearing that patch.”

  Domino’s face went hard again. “Diesel didn’t win shit except for the smoker’s jackpot. He died when I was about seventeen. Lung cancer. My mother stirred shit up for nothing. She went back to Rip when she was still pregnant with me. That fucker figured out I wasn’t his around the time I was two. And he reminded me of it every day. Finally, when I got big enough to fight back, I lit out of there and came here.”

  My heart twisted. For the briefest of moments, I saw that scared, scarred kid in Domino’s eyes. For so long, he had to have felt like he didn’t belong. Except now, he did. He didn’t have to tell me the rest for me to figure it out. He wore a Dark Saints patch, just like his father, Diesel. The club must have taken him in.

  “It wasn’t for nothing,” I said, putting a hand over his again. Again, his went hard as stone. But he met my eyes and that flicker of vulnerability went through them as he looked at me. But just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by years of fight and fury.

  “Who are you?” he asked. A hint of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth. I had the sense I’d maybe gotten him to reveal something he didn’t talk about much to anyone. And I hadn’t really done anything special. I just listened. If he would let me, I wanted to do more of it.

  A commotion toward the front of the bar drew our attention. Dom pulled his hand away from mine and his disappeared under the table. His leather vest separated as he reached for something. I realized he was probably carrying. I turned toward the bar and my heart sank.

  Noel was there. Laughing and smiling, he slapped the backs of a few of the college-aged guys mingling near the flat screens. Noel stood in the center of them. A voice rose above the others. “No shit! I don’t believe it!”

  Domino started to edge out of the booth. He put a finger up, cautioning me as I started to rise myself.

  My breath went out of me when I locked eyes with Noel across the room. He gave me a wide wink then pointed the mouth of his beer bottle straight at me. The college guys turned and there was a fresh chorus of “holy shits” as Noel outted me.

  “What the ever-loving fuck?” I murmured.

  Camera phones came out. Lights flashed. Domino moved his body in front of me, becoming a human shield.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here. Unless this is what you want?” His tone dropped.

  “No!” I shouted, anger rising. What the hell was Noel thinking? “Hell no. Get me out of here.”

  Domino moved quickly. He grabbed my hand and drew me toward the kitchen. I stumbled once, my boot slipping over the slick floor. Domino snaked an arm around my waist, pulling me against his side.

  As the crowd thickened behind us, Domino burst through the kitchen doors and kept on going. We drew shocked stares from the line cooks and dishwasher as Domino charged through like a bull. He kept me against his side and I struggled to keep up.

  We spilled out into the alley behind the bar. It was dark and narrow, lit by a single street lamp at the end. Domino led me toward it.

  “I’m parked back here,” he said. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride back to your hotel.”

  “I’m sorry,” I offered. I really was. I could kill Noel. In the back of my mind, I knew exactly what he was trying to do. Part of his job was to drum up early buzz for this project. What better way to do that than get pictures of me talking to a real live biker all over social media? What an idiot I’d been to think I could trust him to play things my way.

  Dom’s Harley was parked a few yards away from the street lamp. He loosened his grip on me as he strode toward it. We almost made it. But two feet from the bike, a flood of lights came down another alley in front of us. My lungs burned and my heart seized as I realized what Noel had really done.

  The fucker must have tweeted our location. Why hadn’t I thought to watch for that? Half a dozen men with zoom-lens cameras poured down the sidewalk toward us. Paparazzi swarmed in a circle around Dom’s bike. They shouted questions I was used to, but Domino lost it.

  “Slumming, Quinn? You let him stick it to you yet?”

  It was all planned. They did this just to get a reaction out of me. The money shot would be if I lost my temper. I was used to this. Dom wasn’t.

  Before I could stop him ... hell ... I never could have stopped him, he cocked a fist. I watched the graceful arc of his massive forearm as he landed a punch straight on the guy’s jaw. He staggered backward, his camera flying up. A dozen other flashes went off as the rest of the photographers recorded the whole scene.

  “Dom, stop! You’ll only make it worse. This is what they want!”

  Dom turned back and looked at me, eyes wild. He was beyond reason and logic, acting purely on some sort of predatory rage. He gripped my hand and pulled me toward the bike. His vest flapped open and I got a look at the gun he kept holstered near his hip. I’d only used them as props, but I recognized it as a 9mm.

  “Shit,” I shouted. “Come on!”

  My anger flared as I pulled on Domino’s arm. He was going to ruin everything. He didn’t know what these vultures were capable of. Mercifully, I got through the bloodlust in Domino’s eyes long enough for him to see the danger we might really be in. He slid an arm around my waist and swooped me into the air. I kicked and flailed, but it was like trying to move a block of marble.

  Dom plopped me on the back of his bike and slid in front of me. I had just enough time to get my arms around his waist and hold on for dear life as his engine roared. With cameras still flashing, he hit the throttle and we zoomed away from the curb. Photographers dove out of the way just before Dom would have plowed them over.

  Then we sped off into the night.

  Chapter 9

  Domino

  I broke every speed limit and about ten other traffic laws as I whipped into the valet lot in front of Quinn’s hotel. She had a vise grip around my waist and I can’t deny how much I liked it. Still, my blood roared in my ears and my need to punch something hadn’t waned. The poor kid at the valet desk read me right away.

  “Uh ... we don’t,” he stammered.

  “Just make sure nobody comes near it,” Quinn said as she climbed off the back of the bike. She stuffed two hundred-dollar bills in the kid’s hand and turned to look at me. I gripped my handlebars tight, willing my temper to settle.

  When I squeezed my eyes shut, all I could see were those groping hands, camera flashes, and cell phones all around Quinn. That mob had been willing to tear her apart. They all wanted a piece of her. They would have taken anything they could grab. How could she be so fucking calm?

  “Are you coming?” she asked, eyes flashing with fury. She stood in front of the revolving door with her hand on her hip.

  “What?”

  “We need to talk,” she said, lips pursed in anger. She was angry? At me?

  “Come on,” she said, insistent. “I don’t want to stand out here too long. We’ve drawn enough attention already.”

  I shot a glance at the valet kid. He was still fingering the c-notes Quinn gave him. When he caught me staring, he took an unsteady step sideways. Yeah. We understood each other. It wasn’t Quinn’s money that would make him look after my bike. He knew exactly who and what I was.

  I hooked my helmet on the handlebars and followed Quinn into the lobby. She practically ran to the penthouse elevators and jammed her finger into the button at least a dozen times before the doors opened. She did the same thing as w
e stepped inside. I swallowed the urge to tell her that didn’t make shit go any faster. She looked damn near ready to explode, so I let her take her shit out on the button.

  The doors opened into her suite. I took one step, and froze. “Fuck,” I whispered. This place was a damn palace. We stepped out into a huge living area with cream-colored gilded furniture. Floor-to-ceiling windows opened to a balcony overlooking downtown Corpus Christi and the bay. She had a full kitchen and wet bar. That’s where I headed.

  Quinn didn’t stop me as I fished for two rocks glasses and surveyed the bottles with crystal stoppers. Nothing had a fucking label on it. I opened one and sniffed it. Scotch. Perfect. I poured for both of us and handed her a glass.

  The shit was smooth. Expensive. The heated trail it left down my throat helped calm my simmering rage. The liquor had the opposite effect on Quinn.

  “Do you have any idea the mess you’ve made?” she said. She knocked back the last of her scotch and set her glass down on the bar hard. She plopped on one of the cushioned bar stools. I didn’t ask. I poured her another drink and gestured with my chin. Quinn kept her fiery eyes locked with mine as she tipped her head back and did her shot. A few seconds later, some of the fury dimmed from her expression as the alcohol did its work.

  “That I’ve made?” I asked. I leaned forward on my elbows. “Does that shit happen to you a lot?”

  “What shit? Paparazzi, you mean? Yes, Domino. It happens to me sometimes on a daily basis. It’s part of the gig.”

  “The gig,” I said, straightening. “So you get mobbed like that all the time?”

  “Frequently, yes. I told you. It’s part of my job.”

  “Bullshit!” The alcohol did nothing to dull my rage. She could have been seriously hurt out there. “What kind of fucked-up job do you have? That shit isn’t normal, Quinn. I saw those fuckers. They wanted to ... touch you. Hurt you. If I hadn’t been there …”

  “If you hadn’t been there, I would have smiled, said nothing, got into my car and drove away.”

  “They wouldn’t have let you drive away. Jesus. Don’t you have people? Bodyguards. Something.”

  Quinn’s gazed settled on the skyline out of the windows. She smirked. “People. Well, my people are responsible for calling them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That was Noel’s handiwork,” she said. “I’m going to have a talk with him about it, but I have a feeling I understand his logic.”

  I shook my head, trying to make sense of what she just said. I stepped around the bar and sat on the stool beside her. “Noel, again. Are you trying to say that shithead actually told those vultures where you were? He planned that?”

  She shrugged. “Planned isn’t the word I’d use. He probably called one or two of the guys he knows who were in the area. But somebody blabbed. It’s not usually quite as nuts as that. But Noel’s trying to create buzz about this project. I suppose he figured me getting photographed with you would do the trick.”

  “So you two used me.”

  “Not we,” she said, holding her index finger up. “Noel. I swear to God, I had nothing to do with that. I meant what I said. I was just looking for a quiet conversation with you. I promise, I’ll have a talk with Noel.”

  “He’ll do it again,” I said. I couldn’t sit still. I still wanted to punch something. Shit. I wanted to punch Noel.

  “Calm down,” she said. “I told you. I’m used to this. I’ve been in this bubble since I was twelve years old.”

  If she was trying to make me feel better, it wasn’t working. I drove my fist into my thigh. Turning, I studied Quinn. She was tough but so small. If she’d been alone out there, if she’d lost her balance or something, God.

  Before I knew what was happening, I went to her. I put a hand on her shoulder. She sucked in a breath and her eyes flicked upward, meeting mine. “That. Is. Not. Normal,” I said. “If I hadn’t gotten you out of there like that, who the fuck knows what could have happened.”

  “Well,” she said. “I know what’s going to happen now. Pictures of you losing your shit on that photographer are probably all over the internet. They’ll twist it, Dom. They’ll say I’m having a nervous breakdown or something.”

  “What?”

  She flapped her hands. “That’s how it works. They’ll use any little scrap of controversy to spin a story that isn’t true. Sometimes they stick.”

  “That’s all bullshit. And you’re okay with this?”

  “I’m not okay with it,” she said, sliding off the stool. Quinn walked to the window and hugged her arms around herself. “But I told you. It comes with the territory. I suppose I should have warned you.”

  I couldn’t stop shaking my head. She lived in this chaos. Every day. She said she wasn’t okay with it, but it made no sense to me. She was alone out there. I saw the terror in her eyes. That same protective rage that had overtaken me back at the club while the guys feasted on her nude scene came back. No one looked after this woman the way she deserved. Even her own people hung her out. She had no father. No brothers.

  “You need somebody, Quinn,” I said. When I touched her back, she shivered. With the air conditioner blasting, it was kind of cold here by the windows. I slipped my leather vest off and put it around her shoulders. It was heavy, warm and she grabbed the ends and drew it around her. My shield. My protection. At that moment, it startled me how badly I wanted to give it.

  When she twisted at the waist to look up at me, her eyes shimmered with tears she refused to cry. My heart turned. She was scared. She could bluster all she wanted, but what happened out there on the street had freaked her out.

  “What do you want from me, James Dormer?” When she whispered my name, it made me shiver. No one ever called me that. I’d almost forgotten what it sounded like.

  I stared down at her. She looked so small, so vulnerable. Her image reflected in the window with the twinkling lights of the skyline surrounding her. Quinn herself was like that. She had an image, projected in stars that she put on like a cloak. But then there was the real woman. The one I suspected she didn’t show too many people. Did she even know the difference? She said she’d been at this since she was ten years old. How could someone grow up like that without being twisted up inside?

  “I don’t want anything from you,” I said, though I knew it was a lie. “You came looking for me, remember?”

  “Did I?” she asked. Her voice took on a dream-like quality. I knew some of it was the alcohol. There was something else behind it too. Quinn brimmed with some strange magic. She put her hand up and touched my face. I gripped her wrist and pulled it back. I could see her slipping into that girl I’d watched on screen.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t change the subject. I said you need somebody. Somebody to look out for you that isn’t trying to pick at your bones like some vulture. That guy, Noel. He’s not your partner or your friend. He’s using you. Nobody who really cares about you would have set you up like that. I’ve seen this before.”

  She drew her hand away and tucked it under my jacket. “You? You’ve seen this before?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I have. In junkies.”

  She blanched and took a step back. “I’m no junkie, Dom.”

  “I know that. But this shit you do, the people you surround yourself with. They’re sucking the life out of you just like a drug would. And you’re too close to see it. These people are toxic.”

  “Why do you care?” she asked, cocking her head.

  I wanted to tell her I didn’t, that it was just a casual observation. That would be a damn lie though. I did care. Way more than I realized until just that moment.

  “I was trying to protect you back there and I don’t think you could see it. You stand there talking to me about buzz and press and your image. That shit was real, Quinn. Those people didn’t give a fuck if you got hurt. They would have kept on snapping pictures. That’s bullshit. I’d hate to see anything bad happen to you.”

  “Wha
t do you want from me?” she asked again. It hit me then. Jesus. This girl literally didn’t know any better. She’d probably never had a relationship with anyone that wasn’t based on what they could get off her. By the sound of it, even her mother used her to get the fame she couldn’t grab on her own.

  “I told you,” I said. “I don’t want anything from you. I was trying to look out for you back there. I think no one ever does.”

  She blinked wildly. Again, a tear threatened to fall but she raised her chin and held it back. So strong. So vulnerable at the same time.

  “Who are you?” she asked, taking a step toward me.

  “I already told you that too.”

  She reached for me. This time, I didn’t pull her hand away. I stayed stone still. Quinn raised her arms, sliding her hands up my chest. My leather cut dropped from her shoulders and fell to the ground. With her hands pressed against my shoulders, her eyes flicked over me. It was as if she truly couldn’t figure out what the fuck to make of me.

  Heat roared to life inside of me. God. I was a liar. I didn’t want just anything from her. I wanted all of her. I had from the second I laid eyes on her. I went rigid. My heart pounded and my jeans grew tight. Quinn’s hot breath kissed my neck. It took everything in me not to swoop her into my arms, hooking my hands beneath her thighs.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered.

  Her cheeks colored with a slow blush. She had on a skimpy, glittery tank top. The outline of her pebbled nipples drew my eye. I wanted to rip that off her so bad it got hard to see straight. Somehow, I managed to keep my hands off her.

  “I told you,” I said. “I ain’t one of the vultures trying to take something from you.”

  She cocked her head to the side as if I’d spoken some foreign language. It occurred to me that’s probably what my statement was to her. As lust coursed through me, that powerful protective instinct did too. I knew with absolute clarity I would never let anyone hurt this woman as long as she’d have me around.

  “I know,” she answered. “Somehow, I know.”