I couldn’t see whether he still had company under the table or not. He saw me looking, though. I felt it. Felt his eyes and his scornful grin on me as I hefted the beers onto the table.
His voice was a growl as I turned to leave. “You’re new here.” I looked back at him. He studied me like a pawnshop teller. His sharp, green eyes were all over me, “You should have me show you round.”
“You aint even a member, Hawk.” A bearded biker spoke up, “Leave the girl be.”
The green eyes hadn’t left off from assessing my t-shirt and its contents. He didn’t turn or look away to reply. He didn’t stop his tongue from sliding over his red lips. “Don’t I get the full courtesy you afford a guest, Ol’ Bear?”
Another of the men, big, frizzy-haired and quietly spoken said evenly, “You’ll get all of the courtesy you’re entitled to, Hawk. And that’s going to be plenty. You know it’s true. No need to push it while you’re a guest here, okay?” The features of Hawk’s strong face closed slightly. He quieted a little.
“Hey, no beef, Abe.”
“No worry, Hawk. Priest just brought her here, you saw that.”
Hawk was still watching me. I stayed quiet. He said, “Yeah, I saw that, Abe. I thought maybe she could do with some stress testing. That’s all.”
“It’s a helpful thought, Bro. Just don’t be thinking we need you to be our test pilot, okay?”
Hawk said to me, “I’ll see you in the back room later, right, girly?”
Abe told him, “Girl’s way too new for the back room, Hawk.”
As I returned to the bar, I felt Hawk watch the back of my ass and my thighs trembled all the way.
“You get any trouble from Hawk over there?” Crosscut asked me.
I told him, “Nah,” but inside I didn’t feel so confident. I felt safer back behind the bar, but I remembered what Crosscut had said about being useful.
I kept an eye on the tables. Watched for when the beer glasses got low. Then I’d saunter over, say ‘Hi,’ and asked if they wanted more. Took fresh drinks over before I cleared the old glasses away.
The bikers were all a lot friendlier than I had expected. Kind and even gentle in their manners. All except for Hawk. His eyes were hard on me the whole time. Whenever I stopped by at his table to ask if they’d like more beer, he always said something sly. Hinted at what else he’d like.
I’d been in the clubhouse about an hour and a half when the only other person I knew within a hundred miles of here stepped through the door and into the bar. In his leather cut-off Beanie looked very different from how he was in the diner. His hips swung as he walked here. He walked in like he meant it. He looked me in the eye and a thrill trickled down the center of me.
In the diner, he was quiet. Shy, almost. Here in the clubhouse he was confident. Assertive. Seeing him in the diner, his tribal swirls of ink were ornate and stylish, in an urban guerrilla kind of a way. Here, they were statements, badges of allegiance. Milestones in a life.
The open sparkle was still in his eye, but now a hard set in his sharp jaw gave it a new meaning. The boy in the diner had shed his camouflage. Here, the man was in his natural habitat.
Wearing his leathers and among the other bikers, his voice was deeper it carried more of an edge. His manner towards me was the same, though. As I served him a beer he said, “Glad Priest could fix you up, Belle,” and he chewed his cheek as his pale, gray eyes glistened at me.
One by one, the girl on the stage had taken most of her audience up there with her. The last two men she beckoned up together. She bent over with one guy in front of her. Deliberately she took his cock in her mouth. The other biker rubbed up behind her jiggling ass.
She worked her mouth along the first man’s cock. Her lips nibbled along the whole length of him. Her face reddened and her mouth stretched as her nose poked against his stomach. His eyes almost popped and he grabbed at her head, but she swatted his hands away.
The biker behind her had worked his cock inside her and his hips rocked, fast and hard. Her knees sagged and her eyes were wild as the two men both came. The two men grinned and they slapped her ass as they got off the stage, stowing their cocks back into their pants. The girl sagged to her hands and knees.
Her face was wet and sticky. So was her hair and so were her tits. The flag was long since abandoned and her sheer panties were in shreds. She had a bleary, satisfied look in her eyes.
A short while later, she made it over to lean on the bar. Her big, pale green eyes sloped down at the sides and they floated a little. Her blonde cascades were sticky and mussed. She’d put on a leather jacket. With nothing more than heels and the shreds of her panties, it made her seem more naked than she was without it.
She folded her arms on the bar and dropped her chin onto her wrists as she waited. When I went to her she asked me for a bourbon. Her smile was sweet and her voice was hoarse but cheery. Her eyes were weary. I was trying to see if she liked her work. Even now, while she was tired and breathless, she was keeping up a face. I got that.
When I brought her the shot she lifted a hand to me, “I’m Carlie, hi.” She lifted her head. Her face seemed to float and slowly bob over her neck.
“Belle,” I said back. Her touch was soft and warm when I took her hand. Carlie slugged her shot, then took another. They didn’t appear to have much of an effect on her. If anything, she became more focused.
She chatted and I returned to her, keeping an eye on her while I served drinks. I liked her. Before she drifted back out among the bikers, Carlie gave me a frail, tender embrace.
A striking woman, tall, olive skinned with slow, exotic dark eyes was along the bar, talking with Crosscut. A black halter-top, patterned with rhinestones and tight black jeans emphasized her generous curves. Her hair was black, long and wavy.
She talked a while with Crosscut and then he motioned me over.
“Belle,” the woman said, stretching out a cool hand, palm down like a paw. Like the Pope offering their ring to give a blessing. When I took her hand she said, “I’m Jascinta. Welcome,” like it was something formal. As though the place was hers and she’d only just gotten around to meeting me.
She said to Crosscut, “I wonder if I could borrow Belle for just a little while,” she spoke like a teacher, talking to children out of school.
Crosscut said, “It’s Belle’s first night here, Jascinta,”
But she cut gracefully across him, “I’m sure Belle can take care of herself,” her eyes cast a dark twinkle in my direction, “Can’t you, Belle.” And she made a smile for me. “We’ll see that she doesn’t come to any harm.”
Her arm stretched out. It was a signal for me to go with her. I looked at Crosscut. His lips were pressed together, but he gave a nod. Jascinta said, “Bring a fresh bottle of bourbon, honey. You can freshen everyone’s glasses.”
As I passed, Crosscut stopped me with a touch on my upper arm. He looked in my eye as he told me, quietly, “Watch out.”
Chapter 3
JASCINTA LED ME THROUGH a door at the back of the room. In the gloom of the corridor she stopped and turned to face me. “Let me take a proper look at you, Belle.” Her finger lifted my chin, like I was a piece of livestock. “You’re Priest’s little waif, right?”
“I’m not anybody’s, Jascinta.”
“Yeah, okay,” her eyebrow raised as she said, “That’s good. I wonder if you can back it up, though. It can be demanding. Place like this. No-one to protect you.”
She looked me up and down as she said, “I don’t know what the men are like wherever you blew in from, Belle, but these men are bikers. You show them a challenge, specially in front of other bikers, they’re going to step right to it.”
She looked in my eye. “You jut your chin like that, with that ‘Oh yeah?’ look in your eye? They’re going to show you, right away.” I didn’t know if she was looking out for me or if she was just trying to scare me. Jascinta struck me as a woman with a strong sense of her own territory, and I wasn’t
sure how happy she was to have me there.
Her head tilted to one side, “Your first night, you want to stay back. Watch. Learn where you are.”
“You mean if I want a second night?”
She blinked, slow. “I mean if you want a tomorrow morning, child.”
Then she led me into the cigar smoke of the back room.
Chapter 4
THROUGH THE SMOKE I peered at the men sat around a card table. I thought of Laurent. He was probably in a room like this right now. He would be the guy who was sweating too much and convincing himself that nobody noticed. Wondering how his cards were going to magically turn into some all-conquering hand. Or if not that, how his opponents were all going to lose heart and fold in their hands.
That really was how he thought card games worked. My boyfriend, Laurent. Ex, as of today. Laurent the asshole who maxed our credit cards and trashed my cellphone contract, and left me stranded in the Nevada desert.
Laurent who, I was certain, made a moonlight dash from our apartment with us owing two, maybe three months rent. And leaving me with no chance to ever see my few possessions again.
Laurent the genius card-player, card-cheat he called himself, thinking that was cool. Laurent who brilliantly came away from every game a few thousand dollars poorer than he was when he arrived.
Lately, when he got home at four or six in the morning, I’d ask him how the night had gone. Then he’d yell. He’d concoct some bullshit about how I was ‘crowding’ him or I was ‘clingy.’
A couple of times he made his point with the back of his hand. Then, almost immediately after, he sniveled and cried and said he ‘didn’t know what came over him,’ and ‘how could it have happened.’ And he swore he’d ‘die before he’d ever do that again.’ Though he didn’t seem to have died yet.
Every time I let him get away with it my self-esteem dropped a floor down. My opinion of him sank, and my image of myself went underwater with it. In a very big way, I was glad he’d finally bolted while I took a trip.
I wasn’t sure that I was ever going to be ready to make the break. I would have prefered for it to have been me, but I was glad it was finally one of us. Leaving me stranded, though. Tough to find a way to be glad about that.
At least now I had no reason to ever go back to Boulder fucking Colorado.
Now, in a room full of testosterone and murmurs, sweat and bourbon and smoke, I felt vulnerable. I was pretty exposed in the tiny skirt and a loose t-shirt, but, more than that, I felt like I was in a room full of men just like Laurent. Men like Daddy.
Daddy had given me a weakness for gamblers. Card players in particular and especially mean, tough, hard-ass card players. Sour, brooding men whose face can’t be read, but still an invisible sign says, ‘Keep away.’
Men like the man that Laurent pretended to be.
Priest’s eyes tilted up over his shades and through a thick cloud of blue cigar smoke. He gave me no more acknowledgement than that. Eight other bikers sprawled at the big, round table. Eight more plus Hawk.
Hawk was sat across from Priest. Hawk was dealing. He dealt two cards to each player. I guessed they were playing Texas Hold ’em.
Seems that’s the poker game that everybody plays now. It’s hard to see why, since it’s better for the house than the players. Daddy said that everyone comes away better from seven-card stud in a private game. He probably meant the more experienced players came away better off, though.
These players used seriously flashy looking chips. Vegas-style. Priest and Hawk had the highest stacks.
I took the bourbon bottle around the table as Jascinta told me, refilled shot glasses for almost everyone. One player lifted his hand palm down to show me that he didn’t want another.
The man with the shortest stack downed his shot in one, then hit the glass on the table for a refill. Like I was a dealer. His stack was almost down to the baize of the table. His forehead was moist. I didn’t need my Daddy’s eye to know that this was a man in trouble.
Priest spoke in a low, soft voice to him as he slung down the second shot, “Easy, Midge.” Midge just snarled. He was a small man with hard, dark eyes. His sharp, angular jaw tensed and flexed and his thin lips were pressed tight.
He knocked his glass on the table again. I looked to Priest for guidance but he didn’t look up. I turned my head to see if Jascinta would give me a hint, but her face was in shadow and I could hardly see her.
I poured Midge a shot like he wanted. He let it sit.
The hand played out. At the end there were just Hawk and one of the bikers with a smaller stack. As Hawk laid out the last card and won, a look passed quickly over Priest’s face.
Daddy said, When you sit down at a poker table, spot the mark. If you haven’t made them in three hands, get up and leave. It’s you. Here, Midge was the mark.
A couple of hands passed and I kept as far back as I could. I stayed close to the wall and behind Hawk. Whenever drinks ran down I refilled them.
A hefty biker with evil, narrow shades and a thin mustache stood as he pushed his remaining chips forward and went all-in. He lost, but he shook hands with all the other players, although Midge didn’t show much grace.
As the biker left, he gave me five dollars and a smile. He handed something to Jascinta, too. Priest waved with a short, fat cigar and said, “Tell Beanie there’s a seat if he wants it.”
Midge took two more shots of bourbon in a row. He was noisier in the next hand, complaining about his position, about a raise and obviously hating his cards. As he hadn’t enough chips for a big bet, his only way to stay in the game was to pick his moment to go all-in. And he’d have to win. The opportunity wasn’t coming up for him.
He needed to have believable show cards for a bluff, and he didn’t get anything that would even look like a hand for that deal or the next. Hawk won steadily. Steadily enough that I was sure he made Priest suspicious.
Beanie opened the door and greeted the bikers as he came in. When he saw me in the shadows, his pretty eyes flicked through an eager recognition. Then the pleasure turned quickly to concern before he settled in his chair. His didn’t look like a winning poker face to me.
Heartbreakingly gorgeous, but not a face for keeping secrets. but that can be a way to win, too. If he knew how to play it.
Chapter 5
MIDGE’S MOOD LIGHTENED AS soon as he got two hearts, an eight and a nine. He looked around the table like he’d already won as he shoved his chips all in. He was calm and he even smiled. That left him out of the betting rounds and he stood up as the betting went around the table.
When Hawk laid out the three cards of the flop, the other bikers folded one by one. Only Priest, Midge and Hawk remained in for the final two cards, the turn card and the river.
The turn card put Priest out. A wide smile spread over Midge’s thin face as Hawk turned over the river card. It was a red king. The room fell quiet.
Hawk turned his cards two cards over and they were both kings. Chairs scraped and Midge’s face darkened. He lunged forward at Hawk.
Priest was up with his arm out in front of Midge. His voice was stern. The rasp of it stirred me, “You know that Hawk is a guest here, Midge. Say whatever you have to say, but do it in a way that you can maintain respect.”
Midge’s face reddened. He was quiet. Priest’s voice was low and hard. “Hawk, as I say, you are a guest from another club, and one with rank. There is no way that I would insult you and call you a cheat.”
Hawk: Roid Rage – A reverse harem MC romance (Steel Riders Book 2) Page 2
