Heart of Steel (Demon Riders MC Book 2) (2 page)

“Finally, something I can relate to!”  Jen throws her hands up dramatically and grabs a beer from the refrigerator, settling herself on the stool next to the other blonde.  “Suzi, I think that this might be the start of a beautiful friendship!”

Suzi looks at Jen curiously, but she seems to sense something in the other woman that she understands.  She holds up her bottle for Jen to clink.  “Come to the bar tonight.”  Suzi’s attention is back on Elyse.

“I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”  Elyse gives her a doubtful look.

“Why?  Because you’re chicken?”  Jen chimes in, clearly enjoying this far too much.

“What if he doesn’t want to see me?  What if he won’t even talk to me?”  Elyse voices the fear that has settled in the pit of her stomach. 

Suzi shrugs and pushes her stool away from the breakfast bar, making as if to get up.  “If you’re going to let minor details like that stop you, then I guess you’re not the girl I thought you were.”

Elyse’s rational mind tells her that this is just a challenge thrown out by Suzi to get her to rise to it.  She knows she’s being baited. 
But does it matter, Powell?
 
Are you going to get your shit together or not?

“And the Riders definitely don’t know about the article I was supposed to write?”  She gives up the last reason that she had not to go to Shooters and try to get back what she’d lost.

“They won’t know unless you tell ‘em.”  Suzi regards Elyse coolly.  “So, is that a yes?”

Elyse nods quickly, before she has an opportunity to change her mind. 

“Good, I’ll hang here with Jen to wait.” Suzi settles herself back down on the stool.

Elyse gives her an uncomprehending look.

“I’m guessing you’re going to want to get out of that Bridget Jones get-up.”  Suzi gestures at the supremely unsexy sleepwear that Elyse is comfortably ensconced in with barely veiled disgust. 

“Right.”  Elyse blushes to the tips of her toes, realizing just how ridiculous she must look. 

“I’m good like this?”  Jen holds her hands out, as Suzi gives her a once over and a nod of approval.

“You’re good.  She, however, still looks like someone’s grandma.  Weren’t you going to deal with that?”  Suzi waves at Elyse again, as if she had some kind of disease.

“Jen, you’re coming?  To a bar filled with outlaw bikers, where they deal pot and talk about gun running and God knows what else?”  Elyse’s eyes almost bug out of her head.  “What about the whole hear no evil, see no evil, thing?”

Jen seems to consider it for a moment, and then her eyes light up.  “Plausible deniability, Powell, plausible deniability.”  She clinks bottles with Suzi again.  “Besides, I could use a night out, and I’ve been wondering about the guy who stole my best friend’s heart.  I think it’s about time I meet this Dane Fletcher.”  She winks at Elyse who can’t help but smile back at her.

As Elyse heads to her bedroom, she hears the low hum of conversation between Suzi and Jen.  She feels the tingling of butterflies in her stomach.  It’s a sensation she’s missed for the past few days.  She is going to see Dane.

CHAPTER THREE

“Stop fidgeting! You look hot!”  Jen nudges Elyse in the back when she stalls outside the door of the bar. 

She looks down at herself, suddenly uncertain.  After pulling virtually everything out of her closet, she’d gone back to the first outfit she’d tried on. So here she was, in skinny black leather pants and an off-the-shoulder grey t-shirt that made her eyes look even more arrestingly blue.  She was rocking the biker chick look hopefully more successfully than during her first foray. 

“I feel nervous as all hell.”  Elyse mutters the words under her breath, as if her quiet voice will help calm the butterflies in her stomach.

“Don’t chicken out on me now, Powell.”  Suzi bumps her from behind, virtually shoving her through the door of the bar.

“Alright, alright, jeez Suzi, push much?”  Elyse gives the diminutive blonde behind her a look that tells her just how little she appreciates the more than gentle nudge.  “You know you’re way stronger than you look.”

Suzi allows herself a little triumphant smile.  “When you dance in a club, you learn to make the most of what you have.”  She levels Elyse with a hard look.  “Now, if you’re done trying to distract me, can we go inside?”  She doesn’t wait for Elyse’s reply before she steps through the door, vanishing inside, clearly expecting the girls to follow her.

Jen nudges Elyse in the ribs with a bony elbow.  “You heard the woman.  I didn’t come all the way here just to admire the sturdiness of the door.  So are you coming or what?”  She follows Suzi’s lead, walking inside without a backward glance at Elyse.

For a few seconds Elyse entertains the idea of turning around and escaping, but the truth is that her nervousness over seeing Dane again and what he’s going to say to her is still outweighed by how much she misses him.  She takes deep breath. 
Come on Powell—man up.
  She walks through the door, almost bumping into Jen who is standing stock still looking around the bar. 

“Close your mouth, Jen, before a fly goes in.”  She whispers in her friend’s ear, welcoming the distraction from her own tenseness. 

“Is this place for real?”  Her eyes widen, and Elyse takes in the now-familiar smell of pot in the air, the leather-clad bikers making out completely brazenly in front of everyone, and the general sense of testosterone and danger that hangs about the place.  To her, this has all become pretty normal in a relatively short space of time.  But she can see it from Jen’s perspective, remembering her first impression of the bar.

“This is probably one of the realest places you’re ever going to be, blondie.”  Rick appears out of the shadows in the skulking way that he has, looking broad as a barn.

Elyse swallows hard, nervous at what his reaction to her turning up like this is going to be.  He knows that she’s a reporter and that she’d lied to them all. She’s not exactly expecting a welcoming committee.  But Rick surprises her, giving her a warm smile and throwing her a wink. 

“Good to see you, kid.  He’s been a living nightmare since you’ve been out of the picture.”  He doesn’t bother to lower his voice as he says this, and Elyse has to force herself not to look around to see if Dane is within earshot.  But Rick has already moved on.  “And who’s this?”  He jerks his head at Jen not in an unfriendly way.

“This is my housemate, Jen.  She was curious about where I’ve been spending my time.”  Elyse shrugs, not adding that Jen was mostly just there to size up Dane and to give her best friend some much-needed moral support.

“Ah, the one from the dare.”  Rick sticks his hand out for Jen to shake.

Jen flashes a questioning glance at Elyse who shakes her head almost imperceptibly.  She realizes that although Rick knows the truth about her role as a reporter, he’s backing up her story in front of the other bikers. He’s throwing her a bone despite the fact that she really doesn’t deserve one.  They shake hands, both sizing the other up, and eventually Rick gives her a little nod of approval, before he heads off towards the bar.

“Any drinks these ladies want are on me, Joe.”  He signals to the owner working behind the bar who just nods, clearly having watched the exchange between them with interest.

“So do you see him?  Is he here?” Jen nudges her friend, doing a supremely unsubtle job of searching for Dane.

Elyse doesn’t need to look around to answer in the affirmative.  The moment she’d stepped into the bar she felt his presence like a gravitational pull.  She didn’t need to see him to know that he was there.  She had to actively stop herself from zeroing in on him as if he were the only light in the darkness.  She can’t help but wonder if he’s noticed her or if the homing beacon effect only works one way.

“Let’s get a drink.”  Elyse pulls her friend towards the bar, not quite ready for a conversation with Dane yet, not before she has a little more alcohol buzzing around her system.

“Why are you avoiding him?  I thought you came here to talk to him?”  Jen looks at her accusatorily.

“I did. I just need to figure out what I’m going to say.  ‘Hey, sorry for totally lying to you and everyone you hold dear, but I was just doing my job’ doesn’t really seem to cut it.”  Elyse signals to Joe for a couple of beers, getting his attention much faster than on her first visit to the bar.  She can’t help but think that there is a lot to be said for associating with the Demons, including getting your drinks at record speed. 

“Where’d Suzi go?”  Elyse looks around for the little blonde who was the reason they were even there.

“She said she had some tips to collect, headed into the back.”  Jen lifts her chin towards the door at the back of the room labeled ‘Office’ with a sign that looks like it’s been there since the dawn of time.  “There are a
lot
of hot guys in this place.  Who knew that a biker bar was a little treasure trove of eligible men?”  Jen is taking in a group of guys sitting around a table appreciatively, before her attention is inevitably drawn to the pool table.  “Holy moly, that guy knows how to wear a pair of jeans, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him without them…” Jen’s voice is husky, and Elyse feels the hackles rise on the back of her neck.

“Told you. You can’t help but notice him.”  Elyse lifts her bottle to her lips, taking a long drink as Jen turns towards her, her eyes looking like they’re about to bug out of their head.

“That’s him?”  Jen’s voice comes out strangled, and Elyse nudges a beer bottle towards her friend, as if that would help.

“The one and only.”  Elyse doesn’t add that’s exactly what he is for her, something she’d only really taken on board when he’d walked out the door without any intention of coming back.

“Damn, Powell, no wonder you fell hard and fast.”  Jen shakes her head, as if she can’t get the image of Dane bent over the pool table out of her head.  Elyse knows exactly where she’s coming from.  “Not that you couldn’t do better.” Jen’s hurried back-pedaling leaves Elyse no choice but to laugh.

“Nice try, Jen, but you might want to wipe that drool off of your chin before you tell me how I’m out of his league.”  Elyse shakes her head, wondering at the wisdom of coming here at all.  What if he was with a girl?  What if he started making out with another girl right in front of her?  Just the thought of it made her want to vomit.

“Earth to Powell.”  Jen waves a hand in front of Elyse’s glazed expression.  “You’ve gone white as a sheet.”  She gives her friend a concerned look, and Elyse blinks several times to get the image of Dane with someone else out of her head.  “And I wasn’t just trying to make you feel better. Yes, he’s all Diet Coke hot, but you’re not exactly chopped liver my statuesque friend.  You could have any guy in the place.”  Jen waves expansively at the room, and Elyse winces at the thought that any number of these bikers could have overheard their cringe worthy conversation.

Elyse doesn’t bother to point out that the only guy in the room that she wants is the one that doesn’t want her.  It’s poetic justice or irony or a Sod’s Law or a combination of all three.  Whatever it was, it sucked big time.

“Another beer please, Joe.”  Elyse holds up her beer bottle that she’s managed to empty in record time, drinking through the pain.

“She’s had enough, Joe. Thanks.”  The deep voice behind Elyse makes her freeze, and it’s not just the suddenness of it, but it’s the coldness in his tone that makes her wish she could wave a magic wand and disappear into thin air.  She swallows hard and turns around to face Dane.  Her heart still does the erratic beat that she’s become used to around him, but it’s not just the anticipation of seeing him, of his touch that does it.  It’s the fact that he doesn’t look at all happy to see her.  “She’s just leaving.”

Elyse blinks, processing what he’s just said, and Joe weighs in so she doesn’t have to.  “Rick’s paying for her drinks, man.”  Elyse is grateful for Joe’s response on her behalf, even though she’s fairly certain it has more to do with his bottom line than with the fact that he actually wants her in the bar.

“And
I’m
telling you to stop serving her.”  Dane looks past Elyse, focusing on Joe, and she senses rather than sees Joe shrug before moving off to take another order.

Elyse blinks back the tears that are rapidly forming behind her eyes.  The last thing she wants is to dissolve into a pathetic puddle in front of him.  She’s stronger than that, and although her self-respect is hanging by a thread, she has to hang on to the last vestiges of it.  She has never let a guy make her feel this small, and no matter how much she cares about Dane, she isn’t prepared to let this be the first time. 

“Dane, can we talk about this?”  Her voice is low, but she’s impressed that at least it doesn’t shake.  She leans back, letting the bar support her a little, more because she doesn’t trust her legs not to shake than to appear relaxed.

“I don’t have anything to say to you—except that you need to leave.”  He doesn’t step any further towards her.  He doesn’t need to for Elyse to feel the anger radiating off of him.  His hands are clenched into fists, and she notices the bruising on his right knuckles, remembering the way he’d punched the doorframe of her front door before he’d walked out of it.  She resists the urge to reach out and stroke her finger across his hand; it doesn’t look like he would welcome any kind of contact from her.

“I didn’t come to fight with you, Dane.  I just want to talk.”  She looks at him searchingly, forcing him to meet her gaze, and she feels the familiar jolt as his dark eyes seem to penetrate right through to her soul.  She catches a flicker of something on his face, as if the anger that had been masking his features was, for a few brief seconds, chased away by something else, something like the way he used to look at her.  But just as quickly as she has seen it, it disappears, and her heart drops, feeling like she’s just lost him again.

“What part of ‘I have nothing to say to you’ do you not understand?”  He’s aggressive, looking at her like she couldn’t be any less important to him.

She fumbles for a response as the sting of his words feel worse than if he had actually hit her.  Jen beats her to the punch.

“Back off, hotshot.  Last time I checked, this was a free country, and I didn’t see your name over the door.”  Jen levels him with her cold stare and flicks her hair dismissively.  Elyse feels bolstered by her friend’s support, but this isn’t Jen’s battle to fight.

“It’s alright, Jen.  This is his world, not mine.  I shouldn’t have come here.”  Elyse takes a deep breath, biting her lip, fighting to keep the tears that are threatening to take hold at bay.

“What the hell, Fletcher?”  Suzi’s voice rings out, drawing the attention of almost everyone in the room.  She throws a glare out, and the men go back to their drinking and their conversations.  Elyse makes a mental note to work on her glare. 

Elyse looks down at the petite blonde squaring up to Dane who stands over a foot taller than her.  It would be funny if not for the anger radiating off of both of them.

“Don’t get involved, Suzi.  This has nothing to do with you.”  Dane tries to shrug off the hand that his best friend has placed on his shoulder, but Suzi clearly doesn’t have any intention of letting go of him.

“Excuse me?”  She gives him an ‘Oh no you didn’t’ look that should come accompanied with snapping fingers.

“She’s feisty.  I wouldn’t want to be on the other team when she’s fighting.”  Jen looks at Suzi admiringly, and Elyse is inclined to agree with her.