Devil May Care: Boxed Set (26 page)

He was grinning widely and made it obvious as his eyes slid down over my body. His gaze lingered on my legs, which were crossed at the knees, and of course my limited cleavage. Sylvia had disappeared to the bathroom, which was probably why he wasn’t salivating over her instead. Both Lynn and Sylvia were attractive, but they didn’t have the hourglass shape like I did. A lot of guys would take that shape over how much skin was showing, only because they thought I was being a tease.

Which I wasn’t. My attire was
supposed
to say that I wasn’t interested. They never seemed to get that message though.

When he’d finished looking me up and down he leaned his hands on our table. There were tattoos on his arms and he was wearing leather fingerless gloves, which matched his leather jacket. The effect didn’t make him look manlier, rather, it gave me the impression of being unclean. Like he couldn’t bother to bathe or something, though I didn’t
strictly
get the smell of body odor.

“Hey there, honey,” he said, still grinning. “You’re looking mighty lonesome.”

I glanced over at Lynn with a raised eyebrow, but instead of getting support from her, I got two thumbs up and a wide smile. She was encouraging me to go for it, instead of backing me up in my attempts to ignore him.

Looking back at the man, I said, “Well, I’m not. I’ve got two friends here and I don’t need another.”

He laughed. I thought it was obnoxious. “I wasn’t talking about
friendship
, honey. I was talking about one hell of a good time. I’ll show you things you’ve never seen before.”

Taking a slow, steadying breath, I tried again. “Not interested. Bye now.”

His grin finally dropped as he realized I wasn’t just going to drop my panties and spread my legs for him right there in the club. He shoved back from the table and gave me the finger. I didn’t know if he called me bitch or not, because he stomped away too quickly, his frame and everything else about him disappearing into the crowded club.

When I turned back to Lynn she was shaking her head. “Seriously? He was hot.”

“Hot? Were we even
looking
at the same guy?” I demanded.

Before she could answer, Sylvia returned. “What did I miss?”

Lynn crossed her arms over her chest, sitting back in her chair. “A perfectly good opportunity being shot down.”

Sylvia looked confused for a moment, then turned to look at me. “What’s she talking about?”

I shook my head and tried to change the subject, but Lynn wasn’t having it. She was already diving head first into a recount of what had just happened. A story where
I
was apparently the villain.

“I mean, he was
totally
hot and had those rippling muscles that feature on the cover of every bodice ripper I’ve ever read,” Lynn told Sylvia, embellishing a little. At least I thought so, but then I hadn’t been paying much attention to his muscles. “And she just shooed him like he was an irritating bug or a child or something. Like she just couldn’t be bothered with him! Will you
please
tell her she’s out of her mind?”

Lynn gestured to me and Sylvia had no problems fulfilling that particular request. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, waiting for the lecture that was inevitably going to come.

“You can’t just ignore every guy, you know?” Sylvia began, her lecture all but memorized by now. “Not every one of these assholes is going to be Tom, but you won’t know that if you don’t give one of them a try!”

“They aren’t my type,” I said coolly.

Sylvia rolled her eyes. “How would you even know that? You haven’t talked to any of the guys who have approached you in the last month for more than two minutes! And most of that time you’re just being a bitch!”

“I am
not
being a bitch!”

Both Lynn and Sylvia gave me pointed looks, like I was lying flat out to them. I felt frustrated, folding my arms across my chest and looking away from them. For a moment, the tension rose up between us, then it fizzled out and when I looked back, Lynn was shaking her head but looked forgiving and Sylvia reached out to take my hand. She offered me a smile.

“It’s hard to get back on the horse again, but you don’t have to run forever.”

I frowned, but gave in. “I’m not
running
. I’m just not looking to make the same mistake I did before, you know? I just…I just want to do it right this time.”

Offering me a sympathetic look, Sylvia gave my hand a quick squeeze. “Okay, okay. Our bad; no pressure. But seriously, you should give someone a try. Even if it’s only a test drive, if you know what I mean.” She winked and both she and Lynn laughed.

I couldn’t help it; I joined in.

As we laughed, I looked across the room and spotted him. He should have looked just like any other guy in the room, complete with leather jacket, dark, but faded jeans, and naturally dirty blond hair that hung about the most beautiful blue-grey eyes I had ever seen.

Our eyes locked and his mouth—full lips, the bruising kind—pulled up into a slow, sensual smile that had my breath catching in my throat like I was some poor school girl just hitting puberty. His eyes flashed, never leaving mine. He was beautiful in a rugged sort of way, his shoulders broad and muscled, and the way his jeans hugged his legs…

I didn’t mean to stare at him for so long, but the longer I did, the larger his smile became. I knew I had to break eye contact with him, but it was so much harder than I thought it would be.

Forcefully, I ripped my eyes back to my girlfriends, my heart stuttering and stumbling along in my chest, erratic and unsure of itself. Subconsciously, I placed a hand against my chest just over the raging organ. My skin felt flushed, hot, and suddenly I had a flash of someone
else’s
hands sliding against my skin, over my chest. I pictured those full lips against my ear, his chest pressing against my back, as his hand caressed my flushed skin.

And then I snapped myself out of it, because
my god
, what was I thinking?

Shaking my head, I glanced at the other girls, standing up abruptly. They’d been talking about something that I had completely missed, but stopped mid-sentence as I stood. They turned to look at me questioningly.

“I’m going to get us another round, okay?” I said.

Before either of them answered, I made my way quickly through the crowd and to the bar. My heart was still pounding wildly, and I couldn’t help it; I glanced back towards the blond biker who had grabbed my attention.

But he was gone. I frowned, turning back to the bar. The bartender was busy with other customers, so I had to wait a minute.

A minute was all it took.

I sensed him standing beside me before I noticed him. Heat seemed to radiate from him in waves, intense and seductive. When it was clear the bartender wasn’t going to come over right that second, I couldn’t resist any longer and looked over to find
him
, the blond guy, standing right beside me. And he was staring at me.

There was no denying the lust in his eyes. They were like grey storm clouds, promising rain and power and a night to remember, and there was definitely no mistaking the way he was staring at me.

To his credit, his eyes started at my face, searching all of it and lingering on my painted lips, before dropping lower and lower. They trailed down my long, bare neck like a caress and seemed to almost slip beneath my blouse, popping the buttons open further to expose my breasts to him. And they didn’t stop there. They dropped lower, slipping across my slim stomach and curving over my full hips, darting between my thighs.

By the time he was done, I felt naked, as though he had stripped me bare to reveal my wanton flesh beneath the almost demure clothing I wore.

The effect was tremble worthy, and I couldn’t help but shudder at the experience.

His eyes found mine again somehow and despite the roaring of desire in my ears, I managed to hear him as his voice, thick and heady, washed over me. “Rome,” he said.

I let out a shaky breath, trying to pull myself together. Did I miss something? What did Rome mean? “What?” I asked, meaning to sound haughty, but instead sounding as though I was a begging lover.

He smiled, slow and sexual. “Rome. My name, it’s Rome.”

Rome

There were about three different ways to blow off steam if you were a guy like me, and since two of them were pretty likely to get you put in jail, I thought the third seemed like a pretty good option. And I definitely needed to blow off a little steam tonight.

When you were a guy like me, family was important, because you didn’t fucking have any. You had a crackhead mother who OD’d when you were a kid and a slew of foster parents who didn’t know how to handle the wild child you’d grown up to be. Your dad was MIA for all of your life, and given your mother’s tendencies to sleep with anything that could get her a fix, it was probably for the best.

By the time you were old enough to understand what all of that crap meant, you’d gotten yourself in deep. Juvie was supposed to straighten you out, but all it taught you was that you were the only thing that was going to keep you safe. You were the only thing that was going to be tough enough to fight through the bullshit.

And you became one hell of a fighter.

When you’re a guy like me, family was important and you found it in the strangest places. Which was why I went to see Axel today, despite how the Renegades,
my family
, had been split lately. Or maybe
because
they’d been split lately.

It pissed me off that Axel was in there in the first place. He shouldn’t be. He was leader of the Renegades, a motorcycle club that dealt in more than a few operations, but took care of its own. And at least we didn’t deal in an underage children or crap like that.

It was a deal breaker for most of the club, and if it wasn’t, they didn’t last long anyway.

Unfortunately, having a moral compass that only ruled out that stipulation meant there were a lot of other things you could be doing. Things like running drugs and guns. And, apparently, the government didn’t really appreciate that.

I snorted, rolling my eyes at what the government decided was good and bad. Like the system had any idea what it was
really
like on the streets.

I did.

There was a long row of chairs pushed up against little desks that were attached to the walls. Each desk had a plate of glass between us and the other side of the room. There was a phone where we could communicate between one side and the other, but otherwise there was no connection.

I took a seat several chairs down towards the end that was opposite the door. Axel was already there in an orange jumpsuit, looking a little motley, but then he always had. He pointed to the phone and I nodded, picking it up just as he did.

“Things are getting restless,” I told him by way of starting the conversation. I wasn’t going to ask him how he was doing or what he thought his odds were of getting out. Those were things we both knew and we both knew they weren’t good either.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard. A couple of the guys have been in to see me.”

I tried not to look nervous. It wasn’t unusual to think that they’d come by and see him, after all, he was our leader. But it was the other stuff that was bugging me. I wasn’t deaf and I wasn’t dumb; I’d heard some of the shit that was flying around the club right now. It worried me more than I wanted to let on.

“Yeah?” I asked, trying to sound only annoyed instead of furious and worried. “And what did they have to say? Did their poor little feelings get hurt?”

Axel cracked a smile, but it wasn’t a big one. He seemed to be a little nervous about everything, too. Worried about what was going on. It didn’t affect him in here, not really, not yet, but it could. I knew what they were saying about me and so long as they were talking about me, the heat might stay off of what they were all
really
riled up about: what was going to happen if Axel didn’t get out.

Sure, he could still be de facto leader from the inside, but it made things more difficult. And there were probably a few people around who wouldn’t mind replacing him.

“I don’t know about their feelings,” Axel said gruffly. “But I know some of them are looking for anything to pin me being in here on.”

I froze. It took a minute for that to sink in as I processed it. He didn’t say it outright, but he didn’t have to. When he said anything, he meant
anyone
. Namely me, if I was reading between the lines correctly.
They think I had something to do with it.
I’d heard some rumors flying, mostly about me being the kind of guy who might step in and try to take over the club, but some other things, too. Like that I’d been the one who fucked up that night. That it should have been me in prison, not him. Or that I was just a knucklehead who was dumb enough to go to another club for help.

None of that was true, and although it irritated me and worried me—anything that had us all split down the middle while Axel was locked up worried me—I didn’t let it
really
get to me. Nothing a few well-placed punches wouldn’t get out of my system.

But this?

“You know they don’t know their ass from their elbow, right?” I asked.

He considered my question, knowing what I was
really
asking. “You’ve been loyal through and through. Haven’t had an issue with you yet.”

I let out a small sigh, barely audible, as relief flooded me. At least the guy in charge believed me. I just wished that the guy in charge wasn’t also the guy behind bars.

We didn’t say much after that, but Axel had a parting piece of advice. “Watch your back. These guys can be vicious if they think you’re a rat.”

We hung up after that and I left with the intense need to blow off a lot of steam. When I got to Shiverly that night, I was looking to pick a fight. Anyone and everyone was on the menu, but when I caught sight of
her
across the room, my gears quickly shifted. I couldn’t say what made her different or why my dick was struggling to get out of my pants the moment my eyes locked onto hers, but without even seeing her for longer than a second, I knew that I had to have her.

Her hair hung down her back in chocolate waves that looked silky. Silky and strong. The kind you could dig your fingers into, grab into a fist, and tug on while you drove into her again and again. Her eyes were a bright green that seemed to glow in the dim, shifting light. They were locked on me and I held on to them like I could physically reach across the room to grab her, despite the distance and the throng of people. When she continued to stare at me, I couldn’t help but grin, the urge to go to her and see if the rest of her was as perfect as those damn eyes was almost impossible to ignore.

It wasn’t until she tore her eyes away from me that I realized she was going to play hard to get.

Suits me,
I thought, and when she got up, I made my way across the room to follow her. She was headed towards the bar.

I’d come here looking for a fight tonight, but now that I’d seen that sliver of  perfection in the form of an hourglass brunette beauty, I decided that fucking was a much better option. And less likely to get me thrown in jail for causing trouble. And, man, did I want to fuck her. Fuck her until she screamed and clenched around me and did things she never even imagined. Let
me
do things she’d never even imagined.

And oh the plans I had for that body.

She was already at the bar when I reached her. She was pointedly not looking at me, but I knew the second she sensed I was there. Her body tensed up, her shoulders and arms going rigid. I resisted the urge to slap her ass, which was the perfect kind of round, tapering off into some of the best damn legs I’d ever seen.

I wished her skirt wasn’t so damn long; I would have liked to see a little more of those stems.

After what seemed like forever, she finally turned to look at me.

When she did, I let her see just what I wanted. Lust shone in my eyes and I let them travel over her soft, smooth features. Her full, ruby red lips needed my teeth grating against them. Her ears needed nibbling. And her throat…

I was going to slide my wet tongue down that throat and between those full, perky-looking breasts. I was going to bite and suck on them, too, until her nipples were hard and the undersides of them were red with hickeys. And I wouldn’t stop there, oh no. I was going to trail my tongue down the center of her body, flick it in her bellybutton, then go lower and lower until my face was pressed between those long, shapely legs. When she started screaming for me, that was when I’d give it to her. Hard and fast until she was breathless and I was spilling myself inside of her, hot and thick.

“Rome,” I told her, and her breathless, lusty answer told me just how much she wanted me. She was already tucked into my back pocket, waiting for the second when we could get out of here for somewhere more private.

Hell, I’d do her right here if she was up for it. I didn’t mind finding a dark corner where I could press her up against the wall and tear off her panties. She probably wouldn’t even think about protesting if I did it right, and I almost considered making the suggestion to her before we even got any farther than this.

Then the bartender came over and whatever spell I’d cast over her seemed to be broken. She blinked twice, then seemed to find herself again. She looked over to the bartender and ordered another round of drinks—three, presumably for herself and the other two women I’d seen her seated with. When she left to get those drinks, she turned back to me.

“Well, lucky for you,” she said. “But I’m not interested.”

My eyebrows shot through the roof. I knew she was lying, at least partially, because her voice was still low and seductive, but her eyes were hard all of a sudden, as though she was forcing herself to mean it even if she couldn’t
really
mean it. Then the drinks came and she whisked them away before I could say anything else.

I watched her go. Watched her hair sway low down her back and watched her full ass swing to and fro, enticing me,
begging
me to slap it.

Oh, she wanted me. At least, her body did, and the rest of her would come willingly enough. All she needed was a little time, and, suddenly, it seemed like I had all the time in the fucking world.

I was going to fuck her until she begged, or my name wasn’t Rome Gentry.