by Alyssa Breck
“I’m not going back inside.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to go home.” Frustration was building and when she got frustrated it made her want to cry. Don’t you dare cry.
“Fine. Then I’ll drive you.”
Before she could say no, Hunter snatched the keys out of her hand.
Chapter TWO
Hunter
The woman was stubborn as fuck. She stood there like a five-year-old about to throw a fit. “You’re not taking me home. I don’t know you from Adam.”
“If anyone is going to give you a ride tonight, I’m your best option, babe.”
“I’m sure.” Holly held her purse close to her body like she thought he might grab it and run. Her skin was pale as porcelain, but her cheeks were red, and she breathed harder than normal. “Anyway, you’ve been drinking, too,” she said.
Hunter laughed. “I’m not drunk. I had three drinks almost an hour ago.”
“I only had two drinks.”
“Yeah but you’re like five feet tall and weigh a buck-o-five soaking wet.”
An old Buick that needed a muffler pulled into the parking lot and when it backfired Holly jumped.
“Jesus Christ.” She stared up at Hunter. Black eyeliner made her eyes look bright blue. “I’ll sit in my car for an hour, and then I’ll leave. Is that acceptable?”
“No. Just come inside for a while. There’s no reason to sit out here by yourself.” Hunter looked up at the streetlamp that shed some light on the parking area. “There’s been a lot of auto burgs around here lately. A girl sitting alone in a car is a statistic waiting to happen.”
“Well, thanks to one of your buddies, I almost became a statistic tonight in the bathroom. I don’t want to go back inside. Is that clear?”
“Wait. What? What are you talking about?”
“Tall guy in a black beanie tried to get in my pants. I’m a little pissed so I’d rather sit in my car.”
The light on the tail of the devil blinked and burned out. “Damn it.” He took her hand and pulled her toward the bar. “Let’s straighten this out right now.” He had an idea of who she might be talking about. Only one of the members wore a beanie all the time. Butch was young but losing his hair, so he kept his head covered. And he was dumb as a doorknob.
“I said no. What is it with you bikers not understanding no?” Holly reached into her purse.
There was a blur of motion before she aimed something at his face. The spray hit his eyes like fire, and he bent over, fighting the urge to vomit. “What the fuck?”
He couldn’t see anything, but he heard her car door shut, and the engine roared to life. When he was in Afghanistan, he’d been hit with gas. That shit was way worse than the crap they called pepper spray nowadays. But it still stung like a motherfucker. Rubbing his eyes and face would make it worse. The bar probably had some milk, and that would stop the burn. Hunter blinked his eyes and spat on the pavement.
Holly’s car was running, but she hadn’t left. He hoped she wasn’t crazy enough to run him over.
“Hey, Hunter.”
He squinted and looked back toward the bar.
Hem stood in the doorway. “We have a situation—”
“I have a situation.”
Hem let the door swing shut and walked across the parking lot. “Dude. What the hell happened?”
Hunter pointed at Holly’s car. “She just hit me with capsaicin.”
“Yeah. You’re not the only one. She maced Butch, too.”
“Go grab me a bottle of water, would you?”
“Okay.” Hem was the secretary of the club. Despite his rock star appearance, he was one of the most responsible members which was why they trusted him with their money.
While Hunter waited for the water, he walked over to the driver’s door of Holly’s car. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she stared straight ahead. He tapped on her window with his knuckles.
She glanced at him. “Go away, or I’ll call nine-one-one.”
“I don’t know what crawled up your ass. But go ahead and call the cops. Maybe they’ll throw you in the drunk tank for the night.”
Hem came around the side of the car and held out the bottle of water. “Here you go, man.”
Hunter twisted off the cap and dropped it on the ground. The water cooled the sting and rinsed out his eyes. He shook his head and poured some more on his face.
“Is she one of those Fatal Attraction type chicks?” Hem whispered. He was one of the younger men in the club but not a newbie. He’d patched in early after being discharged from the Army.
“Nah. Something spooked her. She said something happened inside.”
“Well, I think we’ve solved that mystery. Nichole told Butch that this girl was a new club bunny. So, he followed her into the bathroom thinking she was going to be an easy score.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hunter exhaled. Nichole had been hanging out in the bar for the better part of a decade. She had money and didn’t mind spending it on booze and games of pool. Also, she’d screwed about eighty percent of the club. Hunter didn’t like her. He wouldn’t fuck her with Hem’s dick. “Why doesn’t someone kick that bitch out? This isn’t the first time she’s brought drama into our house.”
Hem shrugged his broad shoulders. “Because she puts out? Anyway, he followed this one into the bathroom, and she surprised him with a can of mace.”
“Shit.” The taste of the pepper spray lingered in his mouth, and he spat again. “Keep an eye on her. I don’t want her to leave yet.”
“Okay.” Hem leaned on the trunk of her car and pulled his phone out.
“I’m going inside to give that bitch a piece of my mind.” Hunter strode back to the bar and yanked the door open. After a quick scan of the room, he didn’t see Nichole. Butch was sitting at the bar with a bag of ice on his face.
“Where’s Nichole?” Hunter asked the bartender.
“She’s in the back with Linc.”
Hunter turned down the corridor where the bathrooms were. Moans and grunts echoed down the dimly lit hall. A faded poster from the movie Bullitt hung just opposite the men’s room. He pushed the door open. The first thing he saw was Linc’s hairy, white ass and Nichole’s pale, bony legs wrapped around his waist. Her jeans were in a pile next to the toilet. Linc had her pinned against the wall and was drilling her like he was looking for oil.
Hunter cleared his throat.
Linc looked over his shoulder but didn’t stop fucking her. “A little busy here.” His pants were pooled around his ankles, and he hadn’t bothered to take off his shirt or his cut.
Nichole’s corset hung over the side of a green plastic wastebasket overflowing with paper towels. She kept her hands on Linc’s shoulders, but her brown eyes grew wide. Wisps of red hair were plastered to her sweaty face.
Hunter pointed at her. “You. Out in the bar. Now.” Without waiting for a response, he turned the water on in the sink and splashed his face and eyes. He grabbed a paper towel and walked out.
Butch was still sitting at the bar with the ice on his face. Hunter slid onto the stool beside him. “You want to tell me why both of us got bitch sprayed tonight?”
Butch sighed. “I came in after you guys were meeting with the Bastards. Nichole and Kimmie were over by the pool table. I stopped to say hi. The blonde who was sitting at the bar got up and went to the bathroom. Nichole told me she was new and needed breaking in. So, I followed her. When I went into the bathroom, she lost her shit and maced me then kicked me in the nads.”
Hunter’s blood boiled. Nichole was lucky he had a strict policy of not roughing up women or he’d flatten her ass. Every time a new girl came around, Nichole started shit and either she tried to fuck them herself or she’d try to take the guy they might be talking to. He’d never known someone who thrived on drama and chaos like that bitch did.
The bartender slid a glass of whiskey across the counter. “You need some ice, Hunt?”
“Nah. Pepper spray is like being sprayed with water compared to what I’ve been hit with. The sting is gone already.”
“That shit will linger in your beard, man. Make sure you wash it out real good.”
“I will.”
A disheveled Nichole sauntered out of the hallway with Linc on her heels. She had that freshly-fucked-in-a-dirty-bathroom look. Come to think of it, she always had that look.
Hunter stood. “You’re very close to being banned from this bar and from any club activities.”
She tilted her head to the side and blinked her eyes dramatically. “What did I do now?”
“You sent Butch into the bathroom with Holly? Told him she was a club girl?”
“So. Why was she here if she’s not looking to be a club girl?” Nichole flipped her hair over her shoulder.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Well, what happens between her and Butch is none of your business.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Not only did you almost get her raped, but you got Butch and me both pepper sprayed, and now she’s sitting in her car about to call the police. If you bring heat down on my club, you’ll be sorry you ever stepped foot in this place. Do you understand me?”
“You’re all overreacting. Let me talk to her. I can straighten this out. Woman to woman.” Nichole was drunk and often slept in the booths of the bar only going home the next morning to clean up and change her clothes to come back. Nobody knew what she did for a living, but her credit card bill had to be ridiculous with the tabs she settled each night.
“No. Go sit your drunk ass down somewhere and keep your mouth shut.” Hunter looked at Linc. “If you’re her current fuck, you better keep her in line, or I’ll hold you responsible for whatever shit she stirs up.” Hunter ran his hand through his hair. “I’m going to go talk to Holly and make sure she doesn’t call the cops.”
Before he went outside, he stopped in front of Butch and jammed a finger into his chest. “I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you didn’t just walk into that bathroom and get pepper sprayed.”
He looked down. “I thought she was playing hard to get.”
“Look at me, you dumb fuck.”
Butch’s eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. The skin around his eyes was discolored from the pepper spray, and Hunter didn’t feel sorry for him. He got what he deserved.
“Didn’t your mother teach you that when a girl says no, you respect that shit?”
“Yeah, man. I know that. But Nichole said—”
“I don’t give a fuck what Nichole said. Use your god damned brain. You got pepper sprayed and probably rendered sterile because you scared the crap out of Holly. Bottom line is, club girl or not, you don’t do that shit again. Got it?”
Butch nodded.
Common sense ran short in Butch’s head, but he wasn’t a bad guy. Hunter knew that if Nichole hadn’t said anything to him, Butch wouldn’t have just followed a random woman into a bathroom. But still … Being the morality police for a motorcycle club sucked ass sometimes.
He took a swig of the whiskey and slammed the glass back down. As he walked toward the door, Hem pushed it open.
“She took off,” he said. “She threatened to shoot me if I didn’t move, and I wasn’t willing to take that chance because the chick is loco. But I used her license plate and found out some interesting info.” Hem was the resident geek, the brain. He spent six years in the Army working in intelligence. Dude could hack the Pentagon if he wanted to.
Hem was short for Hemene. Hemene Silvereagle from the Nez Perce Tribe out of Idaho. The Army stationed him in San Antonio after he came back from a tour in Iraq. Once he finished his enlistment, he moved to Dallas for work. His younger brother, Kol, followed him a year later. Most of the members of the Knights of War were vets.
Hem held up his phone. A smiling picture of Holly was on the screen. “Holly Farris is single, twenty-four years old and a graduate student at UNT. She got her BA in creative writing from UT Dallas. She lives alone in Sugar Branch. She’s an only child from a wealthy family. Daddy was a banker; mom was a nurse. Her parents retired to Florida three years ago. And the best part … she’s a fucking reporter for the Dallas Daily News. She’s going to UNT for a master’s in journalism.”
“Great.” Hunter downed the rest of his whiskey. “How did you find all this out in the fifteen minutes you were out there?”
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” Hem smiled. “She writes a column for the special interest section at DDN. Do you think she was here to write a story about us?”
“I sure hope not,” Hunter said. As Sergeant at Arms, Hunter was tasked with putting out fires. If Holly wrote a story about what happened tonight, it would be an inferno. The club already had to battle the stereotypes society slapped on them that they were dirty, uncivilized criminals. Sure, the club did some shit that was under the table, but they also ran a legitimate business. They were pipeline welders. The best in the state. They had government and private contracts and made good money. They also owned the bar and the property where the clubhouse was.
The Knights of War’s original founders worked on the Alaskan pipeline in the late seventies. They took the dough they made on that project and started Knights Welding and Fabrication. Over the years, the company became intertwined with the club. They were never out of work with the oil industry constantly booming in Texas.
Hem tapped the screen on his phone a few more times. “Here’s her address and cell number.”
“Text it to me.”
Chapter THREE
Holly
A few blocks from the bar, the drive-thru at McDonald’s was six cars deep. Holly needed some coffee and to sit a while longer before she got on the road for home. She didn’t have a gun with her, but the dark-haired biker that Hunter left to watch her didn’t know that.
He seemed preoccupied with his phone anyway. Some watchdog he was. She found a spot in the rear of the restaurant to park. The coffee was hot, and she sipped it carefully. She pulled her notepad out of her bag and made some notes. She wrote down what happened in the bathroom and descriptions of the inside of the bar. The bartender had been nice. Regret niggled at her conscience for having pepper sprayed Hunter, but it had been a visceral reaction when he grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the bar.
She was pretty sure there would be a bruise on her thigh where the guy had grabbed her leg. What happened tonight would make a hell of a story for her column. Holly could use the information for that and for her thesis if she wanted to. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Despite what had happened, she was still curious. Mostly about Hunter. There was some truth to the bad boy persona being attractive.
Her notes turned into more of a journal entry than an outline. A little after midnight, she drained the last of the coffee and started her car to go home. Traffic was light, and she made it to Sugar Branch in less than an hour. Turning onto her street in the small subdivision had never felt better. The other houses were dark this time of night. She hit the button on the garage door opener and parked inside.
The shower was a little hotter than she normally liked, but she wanted to wash off that feeling of being violated. The top of her thigh bore a red mark that didn’t hurt much but reminded her how close she’d come to being a statistic. What-ifs were dangerous thoughts, so Holly pushed it to the back of her mind like she did with everything that made her feel uncomfortable.
Sleep eluded her. She made sure all the doors and windows were locked then plugged in the laptop beside her bed. She opened up her thesis and scrolled down to the part where she was going to write about personal experience.
She typed: Bikers are an interesting subset of society. Tonight, I ventured out to a bar to hang out with the Knights of War. Their gritty culture of booze and loose women was apparent. I learned that they’re really no different than anyone else, honestly. Under the right, or perhaps wrong, circumstances, they did the same things other peo
ple did. I’d seen more rowdiness in college frat parties. A motorcycle club was like a fraternity for grown-ups. Only these weren’t college boys, these were men who colored outside the box.
For now, she’d settle for more research on the internet and watching Hell’s Angels documentaries. She wasn’t sure she was brave enough to go to the Devil’s Lair again. But if she did, she wouldn’t go unarmed.
Her phone vibrated on the dresser beside the television. She glanced at the clock and wondered who would be calling her at nearly two in the morning. She closed the laptop and put it on her nightstand and crawled out of bed to grab the phone. The display showed a missed call from an unknown caller. Probably the wrong number. She set the phone next to the computer and fluffed her pillow. She pulled the blanket up to her neck and closed her eyes. The phone vibrated again.
“Jesus.” She rolled over and looked at the screen. There was a voicemail. She hit the little reel-to-reel symbol and put the phone to her ear.
“Holly, it’s Hunter. We need to talk.”
Chapter FOUR
Hunter
Hunter opened up the cabinet above the stove and took down the bottle of Jameson. The Army shrink had advised him years ago that alcohol wouldn’t solve his problems. That was the last time he spoke to her. Unless someone had been in a war, they had no idea what demons it spawned in the psyche. If a fifth of whiskey a day kept the demons at bay, so be it. Therapy worked for some guys, but Hunter didn’t like being picked apart and told how he should feel about having seen his fellow soldiers—his friends—being blown up or taking a sniper’s bullet to the neck. Unless they’d been there, no one really understood how hot and warm blood was as it left the human body and seeped through the fingers of the person trying to stifle the flow. And until those fucking therapists cradled the head of a dying man and watched the life leave his eyes, they were useless in his opinion.
