For Silver, though, it wasn’t so great. He was forty-two years old, and God knows that some days he felt every minute of it, and even looking at some of these hot young things letting it all hang out made him feel like a dirty old man. Besides, he’d never gone for women much younger than him, not ever, always sticking with women within a few years off his own age, one way or the other.
Glancing around at the twenty-something cuties, it suddenly occurred to him that, actually, the clientele wasn’t getting that much younger: Silver was getting older.
“Damn,” he muttered to himself. “Hard truth, boy.”
He briefly contemplated the relentless passing of time, then decided what the fuck. He figured that he’d survived the most violent years of being in The Road Devils, the years under Kirby Riggs and Wheels Jordan, Wolf’s predecessors. Both Presidents had been brutally murdered when the club was literally cock-deep in blood and bodies, back when the club was still one-percenter affiliated. Back then, Silver had been in a bad fucking head space and he’d pretty much gone looking for death, just opened up his arms and invited bloodshed into his life, but he’d kept breathing. If Silver had made it through those hellish years – with all the shoot-outs, and circling enemies, and constant danger – then he was quite possibly bulletproof. Hell, maybe even immortal.
And he looked pretty damn fine for forty-two. Even if he did say so himself.
Greatly cheered up now, he tossed back his drink, caught Davie’s eye. The bartender raised his chin in confirmation, poured a second double, brought it over to Silver.
“Doing alright?” Davie asked, sliding the drink across the well-worn wood. “Life down in Denver OK?”
“It’s OK.”
Davie nodded, then turned to take another order. God, the place was crazy tonight and the throng of people standing around the bar waiting to get served swelled again. Silver got accidentally elbowed four times before he decided that that was enough, and looked around for a table. Not that he expected to find an empty one, but maybe he’d find one with a free seat and without a couple practically having sex on the spot. He’d quickly and quietly finish his drink, then walk across the highway to the cabins that Nell had inherited with The Red. Jump into the boring, normal shower in cabin two, watch a bit of bad TV, have an early night.
That was when he spotted her.
In a whole room heaving with scantily-clad and sexy women, a significant number young enough to be his daughter, all Silver saw was her.
Then again, she was impossible for him to miss, in that amazing red number that showed off every damn asset that the woman had. Curvy legs in high-heeled boots, waist pulled in waspish and tight with a belt, generous breasts spilling out of the dress, golden skin that glowed even in the dim light. But that astonishing lush body was just the start. Silver clocked the thick dark hair that curled around a heart-shaped face, the black eyes with the longest lashes he’d ever seen in real life, the glossy bee-stung lips.
Everything about the woman was rounded, soft, curved. Not one hard edge on her, not one sharp angle, not one harsh feature. She had a bit of a 50’s vibe about her, actually: all va-va-voom curves in that dress that bared her shoulders, all big smoky eyes, all quiet elegance and class. She looked warm and welcoming and all woman… and Silver was a man who’d had a long, hard day of driving across two states, another full day of work and then driving starting early the next morning. A bit of sweet company and teasing flirtation wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Silver paused, though, looked around again. Surely a woman like this couldn’t be alone in a bar? Maybe her man was in the bathroom, or at the bar getting another round?
But he knew – he just knew – that she was there by herself. She had a quiet dignity and stillness to her, an air of expectancy, of listening to something in her own head and heart. She was alone, but she didn’t look lonely. She looked at peace and calm and…
Happy.
Yeah. She looked happy and whole, just sitting there in that perfect red dress and she was the brightest damn thing in the room.
His silver eyes fixed on the empty seat across from her and without a single conscious thought, he started to move towards it. Aiming to get his ass in that chair, any which way he had to. He had to hear her voice, even if she was super-shy and all she said to him was hello. Though he definitely hoped for more than just a ‘hello’ with her this evening.
Silver was a man who respected rules, who believed in discipline. He had a code that he lived by and that code was non-negotiable, its tenets unbreakable. And one thing that he never, ever did was hook up with women close to his life back in Denver. He’d learned the hard way to not mix work and pleasure, or The Road Devils and pleasure, or the day-to-day with pleasure. In short, Silver kept his sex life in its own little box, on a shelf way up high and far away from his normal life.
He wasn’t crazy about the coldness of random one-night-stands, though, and really preferred to have friends with benefits in the different cities and towns where he travelled often when scouting bike parts. Nothing too serious, nothing too casual – a perfect balance of great sex with women that he genuinely knew and liked, and the freedom to leave the next morning with no hurt feelings and zero expectations, except that he’d call the next time he was up that way, if he had time.
It worked out pretty well, mostly because he never told the women that he was in an MC. That was too visible and distinctive, too easy to be tracked or held over his head somehow, especially lately, with all the troubles back in Denver that had made the news out-of-state. He took some preventative steps to ensure the division between worlds, then: introduced himself with his citizen name Zeke, and said that he was a custom motorcycle builder from Arizona. None of that was a lie, of course, but it certainly wasn’t anything like the whole truth. Normally, he hid his cut in his hotel room closet, but luckily it was at Lev’s and he wasn’t wearing it tonight, so no need to make a quick dash to cabin two to ditch any evidence of his ties to The Road Devils.
Silver was planning several trips back up here to Nebraska over the next year, and if this woman lived locally, he’d maybe enjoy spending time with her. Assuming she was funny, sweet and clever, of course; he had no real time for women who were unkind, dull, unambitious. He knew that he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend or even a relationship beyond mutually-satisfying sex… but he did want to like the talking as much as the fucking.
Back in his real life, the one in Denver, Silver didn’t do much talking. Oh, sure, he talked to his brothers in The Road Devils, he talked to his customers at The Garage, he talked to suppliers and repair guys and his garage staff. But he was always in a rush, always short and curt, not terrifically friendly or relaxed.
The truth was that life as the member of an MC meant a certain persona. Less so now that the club was out of the criminal one-precenter life, but still… Silver had a reputation for being gruff and growly and he could pull it off, no problem. He even liked it.
OK, so, really, the truth was that back in Denver, he was kind of a dickhead quite a bit of the time. Never with his MC family, but with everyone else, everyone outside of his trusted and safe little circle… yeah. He was kind of a prick.
But on his road trips, with women in bars and bedrooms, he could be whoever he wanted to be, not what his cut and personal history demanded that he be. And it had been with nothing but amazement that Silver had discovered that he was, in truth, a guy who liked teasing and being teased. Banter and flirting and some back-and-forth witty conversation was all fun – and he had a serious weakness for a woman with a quick mind, great sense of humor and a smart mouth. He had zero use for pretty young things who sat there and agreed with everything that he said, or who made cow eyes at him while he did all the talking, or who had a hot ass but offered nothing in the way of a brain.
He looked at the woman in the red dress and wondered if she had sweetness and sass, and if so, if she’d
go for a friends with benefits arrangement kept locally, if she’d be okay with flying visits and long breaks. Well – assuming that she found him even slightly attractive, that is. He knew the effect that he had on women, but that didn’t mean that every single one of them wanted more than to just look.
But if all she wanted was to have a drink with him, spend some time talking and laughing in this bar for this one night… hell, he’d take that too. He’d enjoy just gazing at her lush beauty, talking to a woman who wasn’t still at school, a woman who maybe had some interesting life experience and great stories. There were far worse ways to spend a night away from home, for damn sure.
The black-haired woman glanced up now, met his eyes. She blinked, maybe startled at the intensity of his stare and stride, dropped her dark gaze back to her almost-empty glass. But lighting-quick, she looked at him again. She tilted her head, and he almost licked his lips as a curly tendril of hair fell over her shoulder at the movement.
Then she smiled at him. Just a small smile, an uncertain one, like she was carefully reaching out and testing the waters, but Silver was still damn near knocked over backwards at its shining, joyful undercurrents.
Goddamn. Never thought I’d see an angel in red.
Chapter Three
Jo smiled tentatively at the large man with the eyes that glowed bright silver in his hard, handsome face. For some reason, he was staring at her, and even though he didn’t smile back, his expression softened somehow, opened up just a bit, like light cracking through a closed door. Yeah, he was intense and rough-looking, but weirdly, she didn’t feel even slightly threatened by him.
And considering that he was walking towards her at warp speed, that was actually quite an astonishing thing.
Wait. Why is he walking towards me?
Dear God… is he coming to talk to me?
Why, though? Why?
Suddenly, all she wanted to do was get to her high-heeled feet and bolt for the goddamn door. Get over to the cabin that she’d rented, lock the door, maybe hide under the bed. Because there was no earthly way that she was up for even talking to this guy, let alone making embarrassing and clumsy attempts at seducing him.
Oh, sure, she’d briefly entertained a crazed fantasy of him being the one that she went back to her cabin with that night. For like, twenty seconds, as she’d watched him go up to the bar and accept a drink from X-ray Eye Bartender Lady. In her mind, this man had done the wildest and most wicked things to her body – he’d taken her, over and over, with all the passion and fury of a storm. He’d broken over her, around her, in her, and she’d thrown herself into the crashing waves of lust, just let herself drown in the pleasure and freedom of being so damn wanted.
God, that had been an amazing twenty seconds.
But this was here and this was now… and in the here and now, this god was coming her way, and he looked like he had stuff to say. And Jo knew that was way the hell out of her league, in every single way that mattered.
Some fantasies should just stay fantasies.
Jo was so focused on the hot man barreling down on her that she completely failed to notice another guy standing on her left, saying something. It was only when the blond and silver vision paused, slowed, narrowed those amazing eyes at something to her side, that Jo looked up.
“Uh,” she stammered to the man leering at her. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, whatcha doin’ here by yourself?”
Her heart sank as she registered his drunkenness. Brian’s drinking had been a serious issue between them, and too many shots of vodka had always preceded shocking violence. This guy’s slurred speech, his bleary gaze, his lack of balance… all of those things made Jo tense up automatically.
“I’m… waiting for someone,” she said desperately. “He’s on his way.”
“Why the hell is he leavin’ a hot tamale like you alone in a place like this?” the man asked, now well into her personal space and practically diving head-first into her cleavage. Jo leaned as far back in her chair as she could and crossed her arms, reflexively and defensively. “How ‘bout I join you while you wait? Huh? What do ya think ‘bout that, mamacita?”
Jo thought a few things about that, actually. One: just because she was half-Hispanic didn’t mean that calling her a ‘tamale’ or ‘mamacita’ (which actually meant ‘little mama’, which she wasn’t, but clearly this idiot though that it translated to something sexy) was anything like OK. Two: she disliked being ogled and looked at like a piece of goddamn meat, or a piece of ass. This guy was pathetic, and he had exactly zero right to disrespect her, just because she was a woman in a bar. Three: she thought that she’d rather go to her cabin now and watch bad TV there, than stay here and talk to this drunk moron for even one more second.
Her heady plans for launching herself into her New Life were just going to have to wait a bit longer, and that was totally fine. She was out of there.
Jo started to get to her feet, opened her mouth to say that she was leaving, when suddenly, another voice – deep, rough, almost harsh – came from her other side:
“Hey, angel. Sorry I took so long to get here.”
Startled, Jo turned in mid-stand, plopped back down to the chair onto her ample ass, in what was a stupendously inelegant move. She flushed, feeling like a character in a bad slap-stick comedy, the fat one who always falls down and sticks her foot in her big mouth.
To her horror and delight, the object of her twenty-second steamy sex fantasy was standing there with a scowl on his face, just staring on down at her with an intensity that she’d never known before. It was like he saw nothing but her – not in the room, not in the state, not in the whole damn world – and she felt so incredibly exposed and seen. It was like he knew her, somehow, right down to knowing that her last name ‘Angeles’ meant ‘angels’ in Spanish. This was a first for her, and she didn’t know if she liked it or loathed it.
But right now, she’d take it, because this guy seemed to be here to help.
“Angel?” the guy repeated, and goosebumps rose on Jo’s skin as he literally called her by her name yet again. “This guy bothering you?”
“Ummm,” she managed, shooting the drunk jerk a look, saw how he was taking in the bearded blond god’s superior height and large muscles. “I don’t know. Are you bothering me?”
“Nope!” he said, taking a step back, hands up in a ‘for the love of God, don’t shoot!’ gesture. “Just talkin’.”
“Find someone else to talk to,” the man mountain said, his voice silk with an unmistakeable steel core. “The lady is talking to me.”
“Gotcha!” The guy gave a shaky, stumbly salute, the turned and went to the bar, clearly relieved to get away.
Jo watched him flee, kept her gaze fixed on his spineless little back, because she suddenly had no idea where to put her eyes. Where to look on this man’s body? Because every single part of him was danger and temptation.
He was still standing there, his thumbs stuck loosely in his belt hoops, his black boots firmly planted on the floor next to her table. He didn’t look like he was in a hurry to go anywhere, and Jo realized that she had to say something to the man. He had just offered assistance, though she wasn’t totally sure that drunk idiot had been more than a nuisance and anyway, if he had caused a fuss, that’s what the huge, scary bouncers were for.
Actually, now that she was thinking about it, Jo didn’t remember the last time that a man had done something to protect her. Experience had shown her that she needed to be protected from men, and she’d had to take care of herself. But this total stranger had walked on over and helped her. Unprovoked, unprompted, unasked. He’d just stepped up, just done a decent thing.
So open your damn mouth and say thank you.
“Uhhh,” she said, forcing her eyes up to his right cheekbone, despairing that even that relatively innocuous and stubbly part of him was rugged and chiseled and
amazing. “I – thank you. For that. He was – I’m not sure that he was a major threat or anything, but… well. I didn’t enjoy him being that close to me. So – I – so thank you.”
He shifted his muscled weight a bit on his long, jeaned legs, cocked his head at her, nailed her to the spot with those hard eyes. Said nothing.
“So, I – I guess I’ll call it a night.” Flustered under that silver gaze, Jo started to get up again, reached for her backpack. “I’ll just –”
“Can I join you before you make your escape?” he said abruptly, gesturing at the chair across from her with a rough hand. “Buy you a drink?”
Bang on cue, Jo fell back into her chair with maximum lumpishness. She let loose a string of curses in her head as she looked as ungraceful as humanly possible in front of this man yet again. A favorite phrase of her maternal grandmother’s suddenly came to her: ‘you’re as graceful as a galloping gallumph’. As a child, Jo had had no idea what a gallumph looked like, but here in this moment, as she performed another ass-plant worthy of perfect tens at the Olympics, she totally, utterly, got it.
“Ummm,” she muttered, painfully aware that she’d said some variation of ‘um’ or ‘uh’ in front of this man too many times already. “A drink?”
“Yeah. A drink.” He looked at her glass. “Margarita, right?”
“Uh,” she said, then mentally rammed both feet in her mouth.
Pull. Yourself. Together. Right. Now. I swear to Christ.
“Yes, please,” she said in a squeak, but at least she was using actual, real words instead of ‘uh’ or ‘um’. “A Margarita would be great. Thank you.”
He nodded, turned to the bar, paused for some reason. She sat and gazed up at him, wondering if he’d changed his mind, but he shook his head a bit and went back to the female bartender.
The Devil's Silver (The Road Devils MC Book 2) Page 3
