BREAKING THE RULES: Forsaken 99 MC

by Evelyn Glass

"I'll pick you up at four."

  She hung up. I put the library phone down and took a deep breath. I couldn't believe I'd agreed to go on a date with Logan when we'd had lunch. Actually, I could believe it, but I didn't usually do things like this. I'd had my fair share of boyfriends, of course. There was always someone interested. It just never lasted long. They never seemed to understand me. I could never relate to them, and, in the end, it often turned into something toxic or something detrimental to either or both parties. It just didn't work.

  This...this was different. Logan was the type of guy I'd never looked at before. He was a badass, a drop-dead gorgeous one at that, and he didn't look like he took any shit. In fact, he looked like he caused it. But besides that, he liked reading books. He liked reading my book. That was worth something. I was a writer, and maybe he would understand at least a bit of me.

  I wasn't expecting someone to understand me completely; I was reasonable, at least.

  I always felt awkward in relationships because I knew I was always trying too hard to be someone I wasn't. I always tried to be like the other girls, the ones who had jobs that were worth mentioning and bodies worth looking at and jokes worth telling. I didn't have any of that.

  I didn't care that Logan knew that, either. I'd shown him my snappy side, my irritated side, my wordy side, and he'd still wanted to see me again. Or at least, he'd wanted to get me to quiz him about his life. Which was fine by me. I didn't mind getting to know more about him. In fact, I wanted it.

  Joanne stopped in front of the library at four on the dot and I was ready to go. I'd begged off from Alicia and made sure Will was in there to take my place so she had no reason to argue with me. Will was the type of guy who looked like he was always high and he was fine with anything as long as he didn't have to think about it.

  "What do you have in mind?" she asked the moment I was in the car. "Where is he taking you?"

  I shook my head and put on my seatbelt. "I have no idea. That's why I need your help."

  She drove us to the closest mall and we parked and got out.

  "Your best bet is a dress, I think. You can dress it up with heels and a shimmering shawl or dress it down with flats and a jacket. Hair up or down. Makeup light or dark."

  I nodded. "That sounds like it could work."

  We walked into the first store and Joanne picked out dresses for me to wear. I went into the changing rooms and came out, modeling them for her one by one. She was unhappy with most of them.

  "Come on," I said after the fifth one. "Surely I can't look bad in all of them?"

  Joanne shook her head. "You look great. I'm trying to decide which one will make him wonder what you look like when you're out of it."

  "Joanne! This isn't what it's about."

  She shrugged. "It never hurts to be prepared."

  I shook my head and laughed. I knew I'd decided on the right person to help me with this. We finally settled on a very slinky little black dress that was made of a thin fabric that clung to my body. It set of my blonde hair and blue eyes and when I wore it I felt like a supermodel.

  "What are you going to do with hair and makeup?" Joanne asked in the car.

  "I was thinking something smoky? And I don't know...I'll leave my hair down because I wear it up all the time at work. That's all he's seen."

  Joanne stopped in front of my apartment so I could go up and get ready. I'd told her how it had come about that we were going on a date.

  "You know, there are other ways to create a character for a book. You don't have to sleep with them to write about them."

  I blushed and nudged her. "I'm not planning on sleeping with him. Remember? This is about just getting to know him."

  "Right. The DVDs. You just keep telling yourself that."

  I rolled my eyes at her, smiled and leaned over to hug her. I got the bag with my new dress and matching shoes out of the foot well and closed the car door behind me. I waved at Joanne as she pulled off and went inside to get ready.

  I showered and shaved. Everything. I knew I'd told Joanne I wasn't planning on having sex with him, but if it came down to it I wasn't so sure I would say no, and I wanted to know that I felt up to it - beautiful and well groomed - if it did come down to it. It never hurt to be prepared.

  I blow dried my hair and ran a brush through it until it gleamed like silk. Some hair spray and gel wax on the tips and it looked a little messy and wild, just the way I liked it. It looked like I'd been up to no good and hadn't bothered to fix my hair afterward. It looked sexy, even if I had to say so myself.

  I decided against stockings because my legs were so smooth I loved touching it myself, even, and I pulled on the dress. When I looked in the mirror it looked even better than it had in the shop. What was up with dressing room mirrors? If they tinted the mirrors a little and changed the lighting so it didn't show every blemish and flaw, I would be a lot more inclined to buy more clothes. I would feel better about my body when I walked out there and I wouldn't feel like it was a waste of my time and money.

  When I was in my dress, I put on makeup. A smoky eye and a very red lip. I looked in the mirror. I was nervous the red lips would make me look like a hooker but it didn't. In fact, it looked really nice.

  I was really excited to see Logan. I wanted to tell myself to calm down, to let it go and take the evening as it came. I didn't want to blow it up too much and then by the time I got there I was disappointed. The fact was, though, I was more excited about just spending time with Logan than I'd been about sleeping with any of the guys in my past. That was saying something. He was already so far in.

  "Just take it slow, though," I told myself in the mirror. I barely knew the guy. It didn't have to go very fast. It didn't have to go fast at all. It would be better for me to take the time to get to know him.

  But that was what this evening was all about, right? To find out about the DVDs. Why would a biker like him - someone who looked like he would be more comfortable in a fist fight than in a nursery - take out five children's DVDs and keep them that long? Did he have children?

  God, I hoped not. Of course, I didn't doubt he'd been with a lot of women. With his charm and Alicia's eagerness to please him as a small taste of what this man was all about, I was pretty sure he'd slept with hundreds of women. There was a very real possibility that he'd misplaced a child or two.

  Still, that would be disappointing, something that detracted from how sexy he was. I loved children, but I didn't want to get involved with someone who had a couple of them. I was only twenty-four. I didn't need that kind of drama.

  What else could it be? Maybe he was a bleeding heart, the type who volunteered at children's homes and kept them busy with DVDs. Or maybe he was part of the Big Brothers of America where people fostered a kid for a day a week or something like that.

  I shook my head at myself, finishing up. I glanced at the clock. He would arrive in a couple of minutes. I was looking for all sorts of answers, the clue to all sorts of mysteries, but the best idea would be to ask him straight up and have him answer me. If, of course, he wasn't going to use the information against me again and ask for another date. Which, of course, I wouldn't be able to refuse, because it was him.

  My phone rang at eight exactly and I answered.

  "I'm so sorry to do this to you, sweetheart," his voice came over the speaker and my heart sank. "Something came up and I'm not going to make it to your apartment. Will you do be the biggest favor and meet me there?"

  "You're not canceling on me?"

  "Not even if the world depended on it."

  Relief washed through me. I'd expected him to cancel on me.

  "Where must I meet you?"

  He gave me an address.

  "I'll see you soon." He hung up. I looked at the address I'd scribbled down. I grabbed a handbag, decided on heels instead of flats considering I couldn't ask him, and walked down to the road. I flagged a taxi and gave him the address.

  The place was at the edge of town in an area I'd never
been. The restaurant was classy and a seating hostess took me straight to a table when I mentioned Logan's name. He was already at the table, looking suave in a suit and tie. I hadn't seen him in anything other than jeans or leather and I had to admit he looked really good. The suit was dark, which made his eyes seem like bottomless pools of black, and his hair was actually combed to the side. If I'd passed him in the street looking like that I wouldn't have recognized him. He smiled at me when I sat down and I smiled back, already blushing. The look he gave me was exactly the look Joanne had suggested he would give me, given what I was wearing.

  "Thank you for meeting me," he said.

  "Thanks for not standing me up."

  Chapter 8

  Logan

  When the seating hostess brought her to the table she looked like a blonde bombshell. She was stunning. She wore a black dress that made her look fantastic, emphasizing her curvy body in ways I could never have pictured when she'd worn her jeans earlier. That dress screamed for me to ogle her and I obliged. An erection punched into my zipper and I shifted, glad I had the table to hide my body's spontaneous reaction behind. She looked the part for the kind of place this was, too. She wore heels that made her legs look long and sexy. Her hair was loose and over her shoulders in beautiful waves of blonde that made me want to run my hands through it.

  She sat down, all elegance and grace, and looked at me through dark eyes that made the blue look that much more striking.

  "I would never stand you up." And that was the God-honest truth. Someone like Selena was way too special and I had the feeling that being allowed to be out with her with a privilege that few people got. "You look beautiful," I said to her when she sat down.

  Her cheeks turned bright red and she looked down with a shy smile. It was impossible to think someone as attractive as she was didn't know the impact she made on men. "You look really nice, too."

  She looked at my suit and tie. I felt completely uncomfortable in clothes that felt like it didn't represent me at all, but Selena wasn't the kind of person who deserved me meeting her in the same leather I wore for everything else.

  I had the manuscript she'd let me keep and a thick red pen that I'd bought at a stationary store earlier. I wanted to go through it with her.

  "What's that?" she asked.

  "This is my opinion." I held up the pen.

  She pulled a face. "It looks harsh."

  I smiled. "It really isn't. Constructive, maybe, but not harsh."

  She shrugged. A waitress named Maxine came to the table all smiles. She swung her hips and flipped her hair before glaring at Selena.

  "What can I get you to drink?" she asked. She didn't look at Selena again.

  "I'll have the usual," I said. "And for the lady, your cocktail of the day."

  Maxine nodded and disappeared again.

  "A friend of yours?" she asked, mimicking the words I'd used on her with the waiter at The Crepe Place. I grinned. She was too quick for me.

  "I ah...I own the place."

  Her eyes widened in surprise. She hadn't expected that one. "What?"

  I shrugged. "Business is going well. I own a few things here and there. I have to admit it didn't start out with honest money, but it is now, and that's all that counts."

  She looked around in the place and I imagined her seeing it in a different light. "It's really nice. Wow. Having something like this to your name has got to be the kind of stability every human being wants in life."

  I shrugged. "Having a lot of stuff is great but I don't see that as riches. I think it's important to have someone to share it with."

  "Isn't that the most cliché outlook on life?"

  I laughed. It really was. I sounded like one of those billionaires in movies that would never be happy because they let go of true love. "It is, but it's true."

  The drinks arrived. I thanked Maxine. She smiled at me and took out a notepad.

  "What can I get you to eat?"

  I ordered for us both the way a gentleman should for a lady. I let her choose from the menu. To my delight, she chose steak and not some fluffy salad.

  "You're a woman after my own heart," I said after we'd placed our order. "Girls are usually so concerned about their weight."

  "Oh, God. I should probably be, but I love food. My metabolism has been kind to me."

  I shook my head. "You really don't have to worry about your weight. You're stunning inside and out."

  She blushed again. I was going to keep complimenting her all night so I could just see her blush. It was the most beautiful thing to see a woman who still took compliments like that and turned it into a gift to me. Most women expected flattery and it did nothing for them in the end.

  "Okay, let's take the plunge," she said and nodded toward the manuscript. "You have all sorts of criticism. That pen is making me nervous."

  I opened the first page. "You really don't have to be."

  She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward, ready to hear what I had to say. I wondered if she knew how good it made her cleavage look. Maybe she had done it on purpose, but I doubted it.

  "First of all, your characterization is brilliant. The way you build these people up and give them life is something very few people manage in books."

  She smiled. "Thank you."

  "Your dialogue is great, too. It's something special. You write the way you talk."

  "How is that?"

  "Witty and quick."

  She shook her head. "When you said positive criticism I thought there would be more criticism than positive."

  I laughed. "I'm getting to that. The good things first."

  She nodded, sipping her cocktail. It was a blue mix of something that looked like it might be potent. I sipped my three fingers of Whiskey on the rocks. It wasn't my favorite but in a place like this it seemed silly to order a Corona so this was my usual for this restaurant. It was a little like all the faces I put up for different people in different areas of my life.

  "Your action scenes are fast-paced, which is good, but you don't plan them, do you?"

  She shook her head and I nodded. "I can tell. If you write with a plan you might be able to fix that and not write yourself into a corner."

  She groaned. "You're not the first person to tell me that. The ladies at the writing club I belong to all tell me the same thing. I guess now that an outsider has mentioned it, too, it must be true."

  I leaned back. "You're part of a writing club?"

  She nodded. "We meet once or twice a week, depending on how busy everyone is, and then we read our new pages to each other and discuss how it fits in with the rest of the book and how we can make it better. They're great ladies and brilliant writers and the discussions are really good. They agree that the male lead needs to be a biker."

  I raised my eyebrows at her. "You talked about me?"

  "I...well, yes, I just...I needed to. You know, Francis needs work."

  She was cute when she stuttered like that, finding an answer to a question she hadn't expected. She'd talked herself into a corner the same way she wrote herself into a corner now and then. The fact that she'd spoken about me to her friends just made me feel like something special.

  "I like that you mentioned me to your friends."

  She shrugged. "I told them you were an asshole."

  I laughed, unable to help my surprise. "You think that of me?"

  She nodded. "You're managing to redeem yourself - it's not as bad as it was before."

  I couldn't believe she was saying that, but it was true and I knew it. The insult stung a little but the fact that was willing to be honest with me trumped that.

  "What else?"

  I looked at the manuscript again. "You can work on your voice a little if you don't mind me saying. Your characters all sound the same. Like you. Just try to give them different voices."

  She nodded. "Noted."

  I scratched my head, forgetting I'd slicked my hair down. I flattened it again and got irritated with the oil on m
y hand. I really wanted a smoke but I wasn't going to smoke in front of Selena. That would be rude.

  "Other than that, I really just think that your commitment is commendable."

  "That's a big word for a biker."

  I shook my head, smiling. Sometimes she jabbed me with little insults, almost like we were play-fighting. In a way, we were.

  "Sorry."

  I smiled. "Don't be. It is a big word for a biker. I know a lot of my men who won't be able to understand what you're saying, and I mean that in the nicest way possible with no disrespect to them. I'm just not your average biker."