Her Grizzly Outlaw (13 page)

Lucas jogged up to her, and when
Tarren
was close to Red he grabbed
Tarren’s
hand and pulled her around to face him. He let go of her arm, nodded, and
shoved his hands in his front jean pockets.

“Can we talk later?”

She swallowed, ran her sweaty
palms down her thighs, and stared into his deep blue eyes. “I have to go home
for a bit, and then head to work.”

“Can we talk later then,
Tarren
?” He looked at her, his expression guarded now. God,
why did he have to look so good? His short dark hair was a little mussed, but
it made him look even hotter, and the scruff on his face gave him this edge.

“Of course.”
She breathed out, let her
shoulders sag, and glanced at the window of the meeting room. If Alexis was
trying to watch them she wouldn’t be able to see from this location, but that
was better. This seemed a bit awkward. “Call me and we can work out where and
when, okay?”
Tarren
smiled, feeling like it was a
little forced, but she was a little on edge right now.

He nodded, didn’t take his blue
gaze off of her, and then she finally forced herself to move away from him and
climb into her car. She glanced at
him,
saw he was
still standing in the same spot, looking right at her. Red moved away from the
Harley and over toward Lucas. She tried touching him, but he shrugged her off,
glanced at the blonde, and shook his head. He started saying something to her,
and when Red huffed and threw her hands up in the air like she was pissed, a
smile covered
Tarren’s
face. The club whore glanced
at
Tarren
, her scowl deepening, and then she moved
into the clubhouse, probably to find one of the guys to fuck. Red was a slut in
the worst way, liked hanging around the single Grizzly members, and spreading
her legs for them.

Lucas glanced at
Tarren
again, lifted his hand in a wave, and she smiled.
She started her car, pulled out of the clubhouse driveway. And Lucas stayed on
her mind the entire time, because there was no getting away from him, or what
he did to her.

Chapter Nine

Tarren
grabbed the cup and empty plate off the small
patio table and brought them back inside the air-conditioned building. She had
been working at The Steel, a small sandwich and coffee shop for the last year.
Although she had her Associate’s degree, two in fact, they were useless. There
were no jobs in Steel Corner for a twenty-two year old that had studied art at
the community college, and her pre-
req
classes in
English and math didn’t count for shit. But she enjoyed working at The Steel,
was even working toward being the assistant manager.
Tarren
had her own place, albeit a small one-bedroom house she rented on the edge of
town that was more rundown than anything else. Still, it was hers, and that was
what mattered. It was a Friday evening, and although it should have been busy
with the weekend here, and kids being out of school, it was pretty quiet. She
set the cup and plate in the back room, came back out, and leaned on the
counter. She was the only one working tonight, but with the café being so
small, and only having a couple of tables inside, and a couple in the patio, it
wasn’t too much too handle.

Lucas
was on her mind, had been all day, but she still hadn’t heard from him on
whether they would get together later to talk. Would he actually call her and
try to work things out? Despite wanting to go back to what they had,
Tarren
didn’t think that was possible, but she wanted to
move forward with him and see where things went from here on out.

Some
sappy song that the owner had selected played overhead, and it reminded her of
elevator music. A couple came into the shop, not much older than their late
teens, all over each other, and pissing
Tarren
off.
She turned around, knowing it wasn’t their fault they were so madly in love,
and she was this crusty, cranky bitch nowadays. Even after all this time she
couldn’t stand to be around herself sometimes.

“Two
caramel lattes, please,” the young guy said, and then immediately started
kissing the bleached blonde girl. They were both humans, both sickly in love,
and it all made
Tarren
want to gag. She made their
drinks, handed it to them, took their money, and tried to block out the fact
that she was so miserable right now because she was jealous of what they had.
Fortunately, they didn’t stay at the café, and when she was alone once more she
turned her back toward the door and closed her eyes for a second.

She
thought about Lucas being in Arizona off and on for the last couple of years.
Jagger had sent him and a few others to help another club set up. But she
couldn’t blame only Lucas for this weirdness between them.

Her
relationship with Lucas was strained and probably would be for a long time, if
not forever, but she hoped to rectify that when she spoke to him later.

The
sound of the door opening again told her another customer had come in, and she
glanced at the clock. She only had another hour before her shift ended and her
replacement came in. She was ready to go home, to wait for her time with Lucas,
and see where in the hell the future took her. She turned around, and her heart
stopped. There on the other side of the counter, just separated from her by a
few feet, was Lucas. Of course she shouldn’t be surprised to see him, because
it wasn’t like he didn’t know where she worked, but she had thought he would
call to speak to her.

“Hey,”
he said, smirking slightly, and looking too damn good for his own well-being.

“Hi.”
Tarren
swallowed, knowing that she was staring at him, but
not caring.

“I
should have called, I know, but I wanted to see you in person.”

She
nodded, smiled a little, and licked her lips, all seemingly at the same time.
He glanced behind him when a little kid started giggling past the shop. He
looked good in his Grizzly MC leather cut, and the patch on the back telling
everyone that he was part of a very dangerous outlaw shifter biker crew.
 
He faced her again and gave her a lopsided
smirk.
 
Underneath he had on a dark
t-shirt, and he wore a pair of loose fitting distressed jeans that had a little
bit of oil smeared on the pant legs. He was all male, potent, intoxicating, and
she was still so much in love with him that she hated him for it. After all of
this, he had let her father intimidate him when Dallas had told him to back
off. She had started World War III that night her parents had come home early,
and her dad had known what they had done. Although they had seen each
thereafter, it still sucked that Lucas had let her father dictate what to do.
But she couldn’t just blame Lucas or her father for how that day had ended,
because
Tarren
hadn’t fought hard enough for Lucas
either.

He
took a step forward, his grin vanishing. “Dallas is a pretty intimidating male,
Tarren
.” He was so close to her now that she smelled
the cologne he wore, and the faint scent of the grease from his Harley.

“What?”
she stuttered out, not realizing she had spoken her thoughts out loud.

He
didn’t respond, just came closer.

Her
face heated instantly, and she licked her lips, feeling embarrassed.
“Yeah, ugh.”
She shook her head, not even finishing what she
had said. Lucas was so close now that she couldn’t breathe.

“It
was a long time ago, but I still think about that night, even if I’ve … been
with you since then.” He took one more step forward. “I regret a lot of shit,
Tarren
, a lot of shit.”

She
licked her lips.
“Me, too, Lucas.”

“Can
we talk?” he asked in a low voice.

“I’m
working.” She was so damn nervous, and she didn’t know why. It was like she
couldn’t control her emotions around Lucas.

He
looked around, clearly noticing the empty cafe. He had several days’ worth of
growth on his cheeks, and the dark hair looked so rugged and handsome on him.
Here she was, using sappy freaking lingo when all she felt inside was this
deep-rooted heat.

“
Tarren
, you hauled ass out of the clubhouse like you
couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Please, come out from behind the
counter, and just talk to me.”

She
stared into his blue eyes for a second, forced her libido to calm the hell
down, and moved out from behind the coffee counter. She stood a foot from him
now, and he took a step back. When she moved a little closer, she realized her
hands were shaking from her arousal, nervousness, and need for him. And then he
moved closer to her, caged her in with his hands on the counter on either side
of her, and she braced her palms behind her to steady herself.

“What
are you doing?”
Tarren
said softly, searching his
face with her gaze. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and was locked in this
intense connection right now with the male she had been in love with for years,
but where fate hadn’t allowed them to be together. It was on both of them,
still was in fact, but right now Lucas looked at her as if he wanted to devour
her, and
Tarren
wanted to be consumed by the male.

“I’m
looking at you, remembering what you smell like.” He closed his eyes for a
second and inhaled deeply. A growl left him, purely animalistic, and bear-like.
“I’m memorizing the exact shade of your eyes.” He leaned in one more inch. They
were so close now, his face mere centimeters from hers, and their breath
mingling as one. He smelled of cinnamon, spicy, sweet,
hot
.
“My bear is trying not to come out right now, rip all of your clothes off, and
finish what we started all those years ago, what we did just six months ago,
Tarren
.” Lucas was looking at her lips, his eyelids at
half-mast, and his voice this husky pitch. That stupid music still played
overhead, but was now switched to something slower. The air seemed hotter even.
Anyone could come in and see this intimate exchange, and although that should
worry
Tarren
, she couldn’t think about anything else
but this male in front of her.

And to
be honest thinking of someone coming in, walking by the windows even and seeing
this very sexually charged encounter had her so damn wet her panties were already
soaked through.

Lucas
inhaled again, stared right in her eyes, and then cocked his head to the side
so he could whisper in her ear. “Things shouldn’t have gone down like that, and
I should have said a lot of shit to you sooner. But I know you’re too good for
an asshole like me.” He held her gaze with his own until her heart skipped a
beat, and then he started speaking again. “Compared to you I am the shit on the
bottom of a boot.”

She
wanted to disagree with him, because he wasn’t anything of the sort. He was
rugged, fierce and strong, and even if his reputation was filled with a lot of
random sex, and had a temper toward men that fucked with him or the club, he
was soft and gentle to the people he loved.
Tarren
shook her head, opened her mouth to tell him that that wasn’t true, but he
placed his lips on hers before she could get a word out.

He
cupped the side of her head, tilted it to the side, and deepened the kiss. When
he stroked his tongue along the seam of her lips, she opened for him without
hesitation. She was weak when it came to Lucas Landon, so weak that here she
was surrendering to this male after years of tension, sex, and strain in their
relationship. But she hadn’t tried hard enough to make it work between them,
and right now she just wanted to bask in the fact that she was here with him,
and that Lucas had come looking for
her
.

He
pulled his mouth away from hers, his hand still on the side of her head, and
his breathing a little increased from their kissing. “I shouldn’t have left
you, and I should have done fought harder to show you that I wanted more than
just the sex,
Tarren
.” He looked at her mouth again.
“I care about you, have for a very long time, and it has nothing to do with the
fact that we have known each other all our lives and I count you as a person I
trust my life with.” When he stared at her again there was this definite
vulnerability she had never seen in him before.

She
looked at his cut, traced the Grizzly MC logo that was on the right hand upper
side, and breathed out slowly. He was patched in, a member for life now, and
this club would always be in his blood. She knew enough about the club to know
that although they lived for and worshipped their women, their club was
important, too. The women had to be strong if they were going to be with a
member of The Grizzly MC. Was
she
strong enough? Was
she ready to deal with the aftereffects of her father going ape-shit over the
fact she was with Lucas? Her dad might love him like a brother, a son even,
because of how close everyone was, but that didn’t mean Dallas had ever wanted
her to be with another club member. Her whole life he had told her that the
lifestyle they were in was too hard for her, too dangerous, and he didn’t want
that for her or Tawny. It wasn’t Dallas’s decision though, and although she was
an adult and would ultimately follow her heart, she also loved her father and
knew this would send him over the edge.