Rough and Tumble

by Crystal Green

  See? Not interested.

  After doing her business then washing her hands, she looked in the filmy mirror above the sink.

  Screw it.

  She undid the elastic band that held back her hair until it hung just past her shoulders, and she fluffed it. Icy blond. Hell yeah.

  She adjusted the spaghetti straps of her dress, then, at the last moment, pushed up her breasts in their bodice. Let him ignore this. He could look, not touch, because she had too much of a future to blow her present on a guy who didn’t fit into her life at all.

  Being looked at like he’d been looking at her sure would go a long way in cheering her up, though.

  She opened the door, getting out of the tiny room, determined not to glance at the biker on her way out.

  But she did. And as she took in the fact that the boobies weren’t there anymore and that he’d turned around in his chair to face the restroom, she realized that he’d been waiting for her.

  He leaned his elbows back on the bar, giving her that slow warm-honey-down-the-body look. Then he grinned.

  “So she finally let her hair down,” he said.

  3

  His voice was part gravel, part velvet, and it felt as if it was smoothing up and over Molly’s skin, abrading her, brushing her in places that hadn’t been brushed in . . .

  Was a year too awful to admit to?

  She was so rattled by him that all she could manage was to give him that I-see-you-but-I’m-not-acknowledging-it look that she’d given the older bikers earlier. Habit. A survival mechanism, because there was no good reason this guy should be talking to her, grinning at her, nodding his chin to the shot of whisky on the bar that he’d obviously ordered.

  Cool.

  No, yikes.

  Both reactions blasted through her at the same time, and she wasn’t sure if she was actually cooling or yikesing right now. Thanks to her whisky buzz, she stood there deciding.

  That only seemed to encourage him. “I noticed you like this stuff, so I took the liberty.”

  “I’ve probably had enough,” she said. “But thank you.”

  Why wasn’t she moving along?

  “You haven’t had the top-shelf brand,” he said.

  She had no idea what she’d been drinking, but she shouldn’t be having any part of this so-called improvement.

  “That’s really very nice of you,” she said. Still standing there. Feet . . . help?

  “It’s obvious,” he said, “that you’re not much of a whisky person. Even with your back turned, I could tell you were making faces while you were drinking it, like Jane Austen trying out spiked tea.” He paused. “Or whatever her name was.”

  Now she really couldn’t move. Her nethers were too busy getting all warm and tingly again.

  Had he just made a reference to the Austen? Guys like him weren’t supposed to throw names like that around, even if he’d tried to backtrack.

  He lightly kicked at the stool next to him with his weathered biker boot, pushing the seat away from the bar in an invitation to sit.

  The whisky had hit her enough by now that sitting down and having another one with this total and inappropriate stranger seemed like a not-so-bad idea. She was on vacation, right? When would she ever see him again? Never.

  Sounded wonderful to her.

  But she’d always believed that when a guy bought you a drink, he was expecting something in return. Drinks are investments—especially if it’s a top-shelf whisky.

  Nonetheless, she glanced over at Arden, who’d gotten into an animated conversation with the tourists in the middle of the bar, as well as the old bikers, who’d crept over to them from the end. Somehow, that had happened. Molly even thought she heard the handlebar-mustache guy mention bluefin tuna and how it’s fished and processed. What? She didn’t know what kind of surreal dimension this saloon inhabited, but it was clear that Arden wasn’t available to pull her away from trouble down here. Same with ginger ale–drinkin’ Sofia, who’d relocated to one of the tables and was locked into her phone, texting again while her iPad lay beside her, forgotten and forlorn.

  When Molly looked back at the biker guy, it was like there was a bad-boy magnet inside of her, pulling her toward him and those tempting wide shoulders under that white T-shirt. He had a loose way about him as he lounged there, elbows still braced behind him on the bar.

  Should she really offend him by brushing him off? Would he cut her if she did? Was that what bikers did to their bitches when they displeased them?

  He raised an eyebrow, jerked his chin at the stool as he turned around in his seat, reaching into his back jeans pocket to pull out a lighter for the pack of cigarettes in front of him on the bar.

  She found herself wandering toward the stool, but she didn’t sit down. It was a miracle that her hand didn’t shake as much as the lining of her belly was trembling while she reached for the shot glass.

  Like a stupendous tool, she sniffed at the whisky.

  He laughed, low and rough, as he plucked a cigarette from his pack. “Just drink it.”

  Why not? She took a sip, anticipating that lighter fluid taste she’d gagged down earlier. But this experience was so different. This was smooth, and she drank a bit more.

  “Tullamore Dew Single Malt,” he said. “The kind you were drinking before wasn’t any better than rotgut. This is aged ten years.”

  It sounded expensive, and she had no idea how a biker could afford to be buying it for her. She didn’t want to ask. Maybe he’d just come off a successful drug run or . . .

  Shut up, Molly.

  “So you’re a connoisseur,” she said instead, thinking she had to at least be nice for ten minutes before she evacuated. As she should.

  “Every once in a while I give in to things that seem out of my league.”

  The way he said it made her shift on her feet. It made her realize that she was wearing strappy sandals and new red nail polish in a shade that said, Possible slut alert, if enough whisky is applied. She hoped he didn’t see the goose bumps that’d prickled along her arms.

  He took up his lighter, and even though she was trying not to look too much at him, she did take a second to notice that there was an image of Bettie Page on the casing. With her lowered gaze, sassy long Cleopatra ’do, and barely there fifties drag-race-queen attire, she looked like she would’ve been right at home on his lap earlier.

  Molly finished up the whisky, nudging the glass away from her. She had an even stronger buzz going, so it might be a good time for a walk outside around the tiny town, ovenlike heat or not.

  “Thanks again,” she said. “But I know this seat belongs to someone else, so I’ll leave it for her.” She crinkled her brow. “Or them.”

  “They had to run.” He hadn’t lit up the cigarette yet, merely hunching over the bar, giving Molly that damned grin.

  “Just like that, they’re gone?” Nice syntax, Yoda.

  “They had to get ready for work.”

  Doing what? Something that involved poles and horny businessmen? Yeah, Molly had seen Showgirls, so she knew all about that stuff.

  He laughed a little, as if he knew what she was thinking. It was unnerving that he could read her like that. Kind of hot, too. Real hot.

  He said, “My friends have shifts at the Silver Hills, that casino near the highway exit.”

  “I remember seeing it.” She wasn’t sure they had strippers there because it was a casino where a lot of tourist buses seemed to stop. His “friends” were probably waitresses or blackjack dealers, and she felt like a terrible person for assuming otherwise. “Do you work there, too?”

  Now that she’d shown a flicker of interest in him, his grin widened. He scanned her with that piercing gaze again, and she thought of how the color of his eyes was like limes that you could pair with the whisky.

  Bad Molly. “Never mind,�
� she said.

  “No, I don’t work there.” He shrugged. “I’ve got a job that’s a little less . . . structured.”

  Biker. Easy rider.

  At that moment, one of the old Fonzies from the end of the bar walked by them on his way to the restroom, and her . . . whatever he was . . . jerked his chin at him in greeting. It was sexier than anything. Why’d he have to be like that?

  The old biker winked at Molly before he went into the men’s room.

  Her hot biker laughed. “Don’t worry. Dustin doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  “What?” She would simply pretend she hadn’t seen that insinuating wink. This place was full of them. First the bartender, now Fonzie . . .

  Mr. Hotness narrowed his gaze at Molly and leaned closer. The smell of leather crept into her nose, tickling, nearly making her shiver with pent-up delight.

  “The guy knows you’re just having a drink with me, that’s all,” he said.

  Was he implying that she might’ve minced over here for more than a drink? “A drink’s all I have time for.”

  He gave Molly a squinting sidelong look, then eased the cigarette into the corner of his mouth, talking around it. “Of course your time’s limited. You’re a tourist, like one of them.” He gestured with his lighter toward the button-down crowd that Arden was a part of. “Those types come in here all the time, just to take a look around at the local color and to say they’ve been in a biker bar. Which this really isn’t during the day.”

  Was he teasing, calling them yuppie thrill seekers? Huh.

  He kept on. “I don’t know if you’re coming into or going from Vegas, but my best guess is you’re coming.”

  The last part sent a rogue zing through her. He had to be toying with her. His grin confirmed it.

  At any rate, she wasn’t drunk enough yet to give him any details about where she was going or . . . good God . . . coming. “You’ve got a fifty-percent chance of being right either way. Those are pretty good odds in this area.”

  He chuckled, finally lighting his cigarette, then sucked on the death stick until it glowed at the end. He exhaled, putting down the lighter. Bettie Page stared up at Molly from her plastic position, giving her a saucy grin that said, You’re hotter than lava under all that reserve, doll. Keep goin’.

  Yeah, she was doing pretty well here. Vegas, baby!

  The biker interrupted Bettie’s mentoring. “Want me to tell you exactly what someone like you’ll do when you get into town?”

  Bait? Taken. She stayed even longer.

  He said, “First off, you’ll check in, then get an overpriced cocktail. Then you’ll plan every hour you’ll be on the Strip down to the last detail—dinner at eight at the Rio Seafood Buffet, because some web page told you it was good. Then a show that the concierge recommended. Before bed, there’ll be some gambling at a ten-dollar blackjack table if you can find one, and you just might since it’s during the week, but you’ll want to go to a casino that’s a lot seedier than the one you’re probably staying at, if I can judge anything by that shiny hybrid that was parked outside when I got here.”

  It was as if he were undoing the strings of a corset one by one, and it was the only thing Molly was wearing.

  He motioned toward the group of tourists with his burning cigarette. He held it between his index finger and his thumb, as if he were more used to smoking marijuana than a boring old ciggie. “There’re a bunch more clone wagons here now, but that’s how it is in the Rough and Tumble during the day. You people generally don’t come in here at night.”

  “Clone wagons?” she asked.

  He was amused all over again. “What else would you call them?”

  “You realize that you just said my friends and I are clones.”

  He shrugged, then took a drag off his cigarette, narrowing his eyes, daring Molly to challenge him.

  Was he dicking around with the tourist? Was this how he and the regulars at the bar entertained themselves?

  Dustin, the older biker, came out of the restroom. This time, on the way by, he said, “The girls go to work?”

  “They had to move on sometime.” A plume of smoke curled out the side of O’Hottie’s mouth as he flicked his cigarette toward a nearby ashtray.

  Molly waved her hand in front of her face to chase away the smoke . . . and also to see if the gesture rankled him. It did not. Belatedly, she realized that if his smoking bothered her so much, she could’ve used that as an excuse to leave.

  Didn’t happen.

  Dustin patted biker guy on the back. “If I were a few decades younger, I’d be bringing the three girls I’d just shtupped to the bar for a farewell drink, too.”

  Um . . . ? Hello?

  Molly didn’t quite do a double take at the biker, but he was watching her with that . . . well, the kind of grin he was wearing had nothing to do with eating canaries anymore, and more to do with the pussies that chased them.

  “You’re the shit, Cash,” Dustin said as he left.

  “Right, man.”

  So his name was Cash. And why not? He looked like a Cash, if only because of his man-in-black attitude and nothing else. Cashes were free-spirited, careless in just about everything they did, including smoking a cigarette as if every moment were an afterglow. Cashes had foursomes—not just threesomes, dear God—and messed with the brains of nice-girl tourists who meandered into the local bar.

  The whisky had really hit by now and, out of the blue, Molly started to laugh, turning her face away so he wouldn’t see. Good try, because she could feel him looking at her. When she peeked up at him, he was softly laughing, too.

  “Dustin’s going to go home and put up a shrine to you,” she said, in spite of all her reservations about being here. The day had become too strange not to love.

  “Dustin’s had his own shtups over the years. I should be worshipping him.” He glanced at the old bikers, who were buying the tourists cheap beers now. “They’re harmless, those boys. Retired Strip workers who love their rides, and ride just for fun. You can see some of their bikes out front. Before dark, they’ll go home to the wives and leave this place to the heavy hitters.”

  “Are you talking about motorcycle club guys?”

  “There’ll be some of those.” He nodded at Kat as the bartender glanced at him and smiled, almost secretively. “And then there’re some who get into trouble without the benefit of an MC.”

  Molly wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Also, she was still way back on the part about the older guys. From what Cash said, she assumed that they weren’t part of an MC—a motorcycle club.

  She wanted to ask if he rode a Harley for fun . . . or rode something else. She wanted to know if he was the type who usually came in here when it got dark.

  But there were bigger questions burning at Molly, like, was he really this friendly? More important, had he heard everything Arden and Sofia had spilled earlier about “losing it” and “inhibitions”? If he had, Molly was just waiting for the real teasing to start.

  It was definitely time to go now, while she was still having fun and hadn’t gotten into any trouble.

  Then he fully turned to her again, and the motion made her look at his arm. He had that thing going on where his triceps muscle was so cut that it gave his arm a great deal of heart-jarring definition. It was a basic turn-on, and the whisky certainly wasn’t helping.

  “How about another shot?” he asked softly.

  Words, stuck in throat. Libido, buzzing like a chainsaw cutting her down the middle. Stay? Go? Give in? Give out . . . ?

  He answered before she could. “Just have one more. Live a little . . .”

  He was waiting for Molly to tell him her name, wasn’t he?

  When she didn’t, he shrugged, tapping his ash into the tray. “You don’t have to tell me who you are. It’s Molly P. Preston. I’ll even bet that’s what
your business card says.”

  As she just looked at him, he did that chin jerk toward Arden.

  “I heard her call you that. It’s cute.”

  He’d heard Arden mouthing off. But how much?

  All right. Definitely time to go now. Time for safe mojitos by the pool and, yes, a comped buffet, thanks to Arden, and then a show with glistening male pec muscles and bowties. Molly could live for months on fantasies of what could have been with Danger Man, and all would be copacetic.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she said once more. “That really was nice of you.”

  He paused, as if he hadn’t quite heard her turn him down. As if he weren’t even used to it. Then he spread his fingers in a suit-yourself gesture, took a pull on his cigarette, and angled away from her. Already disinterested. Already looking around the bar to see if any more young tourists had entered and he could have a fresh pick.

  As Molly left, he murmured, “It was good to meet you, Molly P. Preston.”

  She hesitated, sensing . . . something. A quality she hadn’t noticed in him before, as if he’d been having some fun, too, and he hated to see it end.

  But he had no business in her business, that was for sure. Just imagine—him, her, rumpled sheets, a cheap hotel room . . .

  Before she started fanning herself, she moved away from him, attempting to walk a straight line until she got to Sofia’s table and slid into an empty chair. Her belly was tight, as if it was telling her to get back to him, but she knew better.

  Molly P. Preston’s brain always did.

  Sofia looked up from her phone, probably for the first time in about twenty minutes. “Oh. You ready to go?”

  “I might hork out the window of the car if we drive anywhere.” Now that she wasn’t on a flirting high anymore, the whisky had turned out to be a terrible idea.

  “Molly, check out what Roberto’s been texting. What does it all mean? It’s like he still wants to talk with me, be with me, even if it’s on the phone like this.”