by Evelyn Glass
I was happy and unhappy. Happy that he'd admitted to what he'd done, unhappy that he hadn't taken her home so I could use it to get rid of the obvious attraction between us that was starting to build more and more. I didn't like dating because I always ended up disappointed, learning that the man was just a man and not someone who would save me.
Not someone who would let me save him in return.
This was blowing up in my face because he was the perfect mix between badass and great and I was starting to really want to go out on a date with him.
I took a deep breath and blew it out in a loud sigh.
"Fine."
"Every time you agree to something you make it sound like I'm forcing you."
I narrowed my eyes. "You are."
That wasn't entirely true. This time, he'd left me little choice, but I didn't have to see him to find out why he liked children's DVDs. I could say no, walk away and never see him again. The truth was, this time, I didn't want to walk away. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to go out on this date with him, and if the information he was holding ransom was the way that was going to happen without him thinking I really was interested, so be it.
He shrugged. "I'll pick you up after work."
"I need to go home and change into something better than this."
He looked at my clothes like he hadn't noticed it before - which I was sure was a total act. He was a man and I'd seen him looking at my breasts earlier.
"Okay. I'll pick you up from your place. At eight." He gestured to the manuscript. "Can I keep that, though? Just a little longer?"
"That's pushing it."
"Come on, let me read it again and give you some real feedback."
I narrowed my eyes at him. I wanted real feedback. I wanted his opinion. It shouldn't have mattered to me but it was starting to. "Fine," I said again but it didn't sound nearly as sarcastic or hostile as it had before.
Chapter 6
Logan
Lunch for Selena was just an hour. She ordered a toasted sandwich when we agreed to go on another date. I ordered food, too, and finished it after she left. That waiter with the long hair kept glaring at me like I was doing something wrong just by sitting down with her. I didn't blame him, though. Selena seemed to be unaware of how much male attention she generated. I was very aware of how many men looked at her when she walked past them.
And I understood why, too. She was a hell of a good-looking woman. I wanted her, every part of her. Not just her brilliant mind but her smoking hot body. And I didn't want to just have it for one night, either. I wanted her to get to the point where she gave it to me and then I wanted her to do that every night.
God, I shouldn't be thinking like this. I wasn't interested in dating and Selena's heart was the last thing I wanted to break. My life wasn't the kind of life for someone like her, anyway. She was stunning and I was a scumbag. I seduced girls and used my charm to get what I wanted and I was in some bad shit before I'd decided to straighten myself out.
Why would someone like her be with someone like me?
I left the restaurant after paying the check and got onto my bike. I drove past the library, looking at the door, hoping to see her through it, but the door didn't exactly face the road and I knew I was just acting like a teenager with a crush. Me. A crush.
I carried on driving, my bike roaring, making a statement wherever I went. I was heading to the club. It was a rundown bar on the outskirts of town where we always met up.
The Fallen Thorns was a group of men who had been on the wrong side of the law for a very long time. A lot of us were happy we were out of trouble now but we still had to be careful and when temptation came knocking it was hard not to answer.
I parked the bike in a long row of other bikes and walked into the bar. The place was dim and musty, stale smoke hanging in the air, the permanent smell du jour. The boys were scattered across the room, sitting around the tables, in booths, and at the bar. Three of them were behind the bar, handing out beers to the rest of them.
They were a sight to behold. All of them bulged with muscle, there was more inked skin than there was clean and the amount of leather was almost obscene. But these guys were my family. There wasn't one man I wouldn't take a bullet for and not one who wouldn't take a bullet for me.
These were the guys who had my back. I would put my life in their hands without even thinking about it. They were tattoo artists, bouncers, bodyguards, auto repairmen, anything that was rough and needed a lot of muscle.
Chatter hung in the air and they talked and smoked and laughed. When they saw I was there the talk quieted down until the only sounds were that of the three men behind the bar pouring drinks. Saul brought me a beer and I sipped the foam.
"Thanks," I said when I swallowed a cold sip.
Saul looked uptight. His muscles were hard, flexed. He looked uncomfortable. I looked around the pub. More of the boys seemed unsure in the dim light as if something had happened.
"What's wrong?" I asked. I needed to know why my men were in a bad place. If anyone fucked with them they fucked with me.
"This was delivered this morning." Saul held out an envelope that was addressed to the pub. It had our gang name on the front, as well. It was someone who knew who we were. The envelope was already torn open and I took out the note.
Your time is coming to a close.
That was it. Nothing more. I turned the note around and back again.
"You don't know where this came from at all?"
Saul shook his head.
We'd been on the straight and narrow - as much as we could manage, at least - for a long time. We used to have wars against rival gangs and men who ended up in jail for doing bad things - we had fights that left men broken or dead. That was all over. We'd had peace with rival clubs for years. I couldn't think of any of the other guys who would want to off us or get us out of the way as a gang.
"We'll take care of this. We're going to come out the other side."
The men nodded. They still looked unsure but I knew they trusted me, and when I said I was going to make this go away, I meant it. They had a right to trust me and I was going to deliver.
"I want you boys to be careful the next couple of days. Stay in touch with each other. Make sure you're always contacting someone; make sure we know where everyone is. If something's up, let us know so we can help. We're not going to let this get us down and we have nothing whoever sent this can use against us."
There were murmurs among the men. They knew I was right. We were going to be just fine.
I turned away from the men and they carried on drinking and talking. Saul walked with me.
"If there are more threats I want you to come to me first before you tell the rest of them. And I want you to try to find out where this came from."
"How am I going to do that?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. If this next one gets delivered, see if you can track who did it and who they're doing it for. It will no doubt be an innocent but any kind of lead at this point will be great."
Saul nodded again. "I'll do what I can."
"I want someone at the club at all times. And not alone. Not even you - make sure that when someone's here there are two or three people here with them."
Saul nodded. They all had jobs but I was sure they could organize something. Some of them worked nighttime and had days off. We would be fine.
I had no idea how something like could have happened. I wasn't sure why someone would want to threaten us at all. This was out of the blue and with nothing behind it. We hadn't done anything worth threatening for years.
God, and now I was thinking of bringing Selena into a life like this. She was right not wanting to get involved with me, even if her reasons were different than mine. My life wasn't safe, even when I wanted it to be.
I was going to see her again tonight but I was going to make sure nothing happened to her. She wasn't going to get involved with this, no matter how involved she was with me.
I hoped she would be more involved than she was now, but I would keep her safe. I already had almost fifty lives in my care. Another one would just be part of the job.
I looked at the men from where I was standing. They were all good people. They had bad pasts, yes, but they were good people who made an honest living now. Some of them had families now, too. A wife, children, girlfriends. They had people who cared about them, people they cared about. I couldn't let anything happen to them. I wouldn't.
I pulled out my phone and looked at the screen. Nothing from Selena. I'd half-hoped there would be. A thank you for lunch? Of course, I was seeing her tonight so there was no reason for her to contact me now. She'd already given me her address before leaving so I knew where to pick her up.
Really, there was no reason for her to send me any kind of message. Still, I couldn't get her off my mind and I wasn't sure I wanted to. It was nice thinking about her. It had been nice seeing her. I was looking forward to seeing her again.
I turned and walked to the office. We'd been using the club for so long we'd moved everything here so it was all in one place. The office really more belonged to Saul than to me but as long as I was in the building I had first dibs. It was a perk of being the leader, but, to be honest, the office really belonged to Saul more than anyone else. He knew every single piece of paper on the desk and the shelf to the side no matter the chaos. If I was the leader he was like the manager - someone with every single member's number on his call list, someone with all the extra numbers we needed, like next of kin.
I pushed the door open and nearly had a heart attack. May was draped over the desk - on top of all the papers - like it was the start of a porn shoot. She wore a dress that was tight enough to push all her assets together until it was obscene and so short it really left nothing to the imagination.
I closed the door. Heaven forbid one of the others would see May here. I'd already done us a bad reputation because of this crazy bitch. I didn't need them to doubt me now, not at a time like this.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
She sat up, arching her back, pushing her breasts out. She wasn't wearing a bra if her nipple stand was anything to go by. Maybe once upon a time that would have turned me on but I was honestly not impressed.
"Is that way to greet a long lost lover?"
I snorted. "Lost is the only word we want to focus on here. That, and get. As in Get Lost."
She frowned. "Your jokes haven't gotten any funnier."
"And I'm not any happier to see you than the last time I told you to get the fuck out of my life."
She hopped off the table and walked toward me on heels that were so high it was impossible to balance on them. How she did it was beyond me. It made her hips swing when she walked toward me and her whole body was on display. It was the way she liked it. Once upon a time it was the way I liked it, too. Thank God I'd done up some standards in the meantime. Someone like Selena was so much classier than this bitch.
"I'm going to ask you again. What are you doing here?"
She circled me like a vulture, dragging a hand over my chest, around my shoulders and up to my neck as she came all the way around to the front again. "Come on, Logan. You can't tell me you're not at least a little happy to see me."
She leaned in really close so I could smell the mixture of smoke and peppermint on her breath. It made me want to light one up, but it was because seeing her was stressful, not because the smell of smoke had a chain reaction.
"I missed you, baby," she said when I didn't respond to her. Her seduction meant nothing and her words fell on deaf ears. It was irritating her but she was trying to lay it on thick. Her words were syrupy sweet - nauseatingly so.
"I don't have time for this right now," I said. I stepped away from her so her sexiness and attempted seduction looked stupid in the middle of the room.
Her face changed. "What happened to the good old days?"
I looked at her with the hardest face I knew how to pull. "You fucked it up."
Her face changed again - anger crept in, replacing the sweet innocence she'd been throwing at me. This was more like the May I knew. As unstable as she was, I trusted this face more because I knew it wouldn't end well. When she was all sweet and nice and looked vulnerable it was harder because I hated it when women cried and I didn't know what her intentions were. At least when she was being a bitch I knew whatever followed would be unpleasant.
"Why are you being a dick to me?"
I sighed. "Because we broke up, May, and it wasn't a nice breakup. We can't be friends. We can't even be acquaintances. We agreed we wouldn't see each other again."
She nodded. "I said that before I knew how hard it would be without you." That pleading innocence was back. She had mood swings like day and night.
"You need to get out of here."
She shook her head and her pissed off side was back. "Don't be like this, Logan. It's not like I'm asking you to have sex with me." She smiled. "Although, I can guarantee it would be great if we did. But I just want to spend some time with you, catch up. You know?"
I shook my head. "I'm really not interested."
"That's not what you said just before we broke up."
I rolled my eyes. I'd gone through the whole break-up sex routine, the one where we did it for old times' sake. I'd thought back then it would be funny, a last 'fuck you.' Literally. Boy, had that blown up in my face. "I'm not the same man I was then."
I'd been involved in a lot of bad things when I'd been with May.
"Yeah, I can tell." The comment went with a look up and down my body like I was found wanting. It irritated me and I wanted to get back at her.
"I have a date tonight that I need to get ready for and I really don't want to rock up there in a bad mood just because I saw you."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "You don't date."
I shrugged. "How do you know?"
"Because you never dated before me, and after you went back to one night stands. Those never mean anything but a date?"
I looked at her, pinning her with an I-don't-give-a-shit look. "I'm going on a date tonight and I really would love it if you left the club. I don't want you here and I can tell you now none of the others want you here either."
"Don't break my heart, Logan."
"I can't if you don't have one."
I folded my arms over my chest and glared at her. Leaving the room would have been perfect now but I had no idea what she would do if I were gone. Either she would make a scene, running after me and embarrassing me in front of my men. Or she would stay here and torch the place, potentially burning everything to the ground. Or something else ridiculously unpredictable. I didn't want to leave her alone.
She looked like she was going to cry. Please don't, I willed. I would only feel bad and, honestly, May didn't deserve a shred of sympathy. Her expression changed from crying to something hard and expressionless, a look I knew very well. She was at a place now where she could do anything if she stayed there. It was scary as hell but I didn't show fear. People like May could smell fear. Her face changed again and this time, it was pure rage. Better than the blank expression but just as unpredictable. The biggest threat was over, though.
"I'm going to make sure you'll never forget me," she said. She picked up a paperweight from the desk and threw it through the window. The glass broke, the sound skipping around us. She stormed out of the office and down the corridor that led down the back door. She wasn't planning on letting the rest of the men see her, not now that she'd lost this little battle. Thank God for that, too.
Saul appeared in the doorway.
"Was that who I think it was?"
I nodded and looked at the window.
"Well," he said, coming to stand next to me. "Minimal damage, then, considering."
I nodded.
Chapter 7
Selena
"Can you finish early?" I asked Joanne when I phoned her just after lunch. "I need to go shopping and I really need your a
dvice."
"What do you need to go shopping for?"
I hesitated for just a second but, of course, I wasn't going to keep a secret from my best friend. "I'm going on a date with biker guy tonight and I have nothing to wear."
"Oh, my God."
I nodded even though she couldn't see me. "I worked overtime last night so I can take off earlier. Come with me? You know I haven't done this in so long."
She was silent for a while and I imagined her checking her watch or her schedule or something.
