The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) (8 page)

Then I laugh. It’s one of those lousy, treacherous laughs that has a sob lurking close to the surface.

“Easy now, Lil,” I say to my reflection. “You got a lot of good going on in your life. Don’t fuck up so close to the finish.”

Which, in some weird way, makes me think of the biker Prez I saw on the street. How he sat on his bike, perfectly poised, like it was an extension of him. How it would feel to slip behind him and settle into that seat. Wrap my arms around his waist. Feel the bike leap forward. Feel the engine roaring and vibrating—
 

Someone pounds on the door and yells she “really really really” needs to get in here.
 

I toss back the latch and swing the door wide open, hoping to maybe clip the impatient bitch in the teeth by ‘accident.’ I shove past her and the music seems louder and as I walk past the gang of outlaw bikers at the bar I see him, the Prez, surrounded by his crew, a bottle of scotch in one hand and a smoke in the other, facing the pool tables and the rest of the bar, surveying his territory.
 

He doesn’t notice me, or if he does the bastard pretends not to, and for a moment I’m reminded of the time I saw a mountain lion while hiking in the Cascades.
 

They’re extremely rare, these big cats who live in the woods beside us. It was dusk, my favorite time to hike because the air is cooler and the light less glaring and the mountain animals more active. The cat permitted me to see him. They’re invisible if they want to be. He was watching me approach from within a cluster of huckleberry on a knoll in the forest ahead. Then he stood, flicked his long tail and stared at me.
 

I froze. Thought about the bear spray buried in my backpack. No way did I have time to dig it out if the animal decided to charge. But the big cat only looked at me, flicking his tail with that idle, almost bored but somehow still very sinister curiosity you find even in house cats.
 

Then he turned and strolled away. In three seconds, maybe less, he was gone, and I was left with clammy skin and a pounding heart, standing in the middle of a darkening forest, wondering if I’d imagined the whole thing. And what struck me the most was how perfect the cat was in that forest, its natural environment, how powerful and free.
 

That’s how the man I know only as Prez looks.

Powerful and free.

There’s a woman beside sitting on the barstool beside the Prez. The one who rode in with him, the thin lanky one with purple streaks in her jet-black hair. She has fine, whittled features. Her pale skin glows in the bar’s yellow light, and when she turns to stare me her eyes are the brightest green I’ve ever seen. A cold, almost crystal green.
 

The woman lifts a shot of booze to her lips and for a split second a long, thin forked tongue dips down into the glass, lapping at the liquor.
 

I stagger against the wall, trying to prevent a look of horror from spreading across my face. The woman flashes me a thin, ruthless smile and runs her long fingers across the Prez’s shoulder. He doesn’t respond to her touch, but I still feel a sharp, burning pang when she touches him.
 

Jealousy?
 

Come on, Lily,
I scoff at myself.
You’re smarter than that. Don’t be an ass.
 

But it’s there all right, and I know I can deny and deny until I’m out of breath but the feeling will still be there. Jealousy. Over a man I’ve never even met.

I wait a moment longer to see if the Prez looks my way.
 

I want to see his eyes once more.
 

Want to see if that feeling returns.

But he remains facing forward, scoping the bar, taking it all in. The outlaw bikers clustered around him laugh and holler and smack at one another and generally make a show of being loudmouthed assholes. But not him. The Prez sits motionless, only moving to lift his beer to his lips. He’s almost stone-like, handsome but removed, and there’s something in his posture, some subtle hint of body language, that tells me he’d rather be anywhere but here.

Or…maybe I’m imagining things again.
 

I rest a hand against the wood-paneled wall, steadying myself, then make my way back to Trish and my table. The college dudes are clustered around my friend, a half-circle of silver-spooned idiots pinning her against the wall. She’s still seated, her back straight, her face impeccably composed, but I can see she wants them gone. I shove my way through the meatheads and settle into my seat.

One of the guys, wearing black loafers and dress pants and a too-tight shirt under a three-quarter length black leather jacket, offers me a smoke with a raised eyebrow. He looks like he’s on his way home from an internet marketing convention. Drives a used Beamer sedan. Buys hair gel by the case at Costco. Basically, I’m bored out of my mind just looking at him.
 

I flash the guy a polite smile, shake my head no and take a long gulp of beer.

“Not a smoker? Good for you. Name’s Craig.”

Craig glances at his buddies, wavers, nearly too shit-faced to stand up.
 

Go on then, Craig,
I think.
What’cha got?

“You ladies are looking
much
too fine for a dump like this,” Craig manages to slur, and his buddies nod and worm closer to our table, apparently emboldened by Craig’s lead.
 

Trish fires me an I-told-you-so glance.

“What are ya doing in here anyway? Can I, uh, buy you a drink or something? Maybe play some pool? What’s your name?”

“We’re just going to enjoy our drinks, Craig, then we’re gunna leave. Ok? But thanks for the offer. Really.”

“Dikes,” one of the dudes behind Craig mutters.

Craig chuckles. “Yeah, okay. Whatever. Let me buy you a drink. What is that? Sierra Pale?”

“I’d like to finish this drink first. Alone. If you don’t mind.”

Craig bristles. He turns a little crimson, and there it is: anger. Craig, Mr. Clean College Boy, is actually a Grade-A asshole. He’s got a chip on his shoulder larger than the Space Needle. Feels entitled to girls he’s judged lower than him on the social ladder, and gets pissed right quick when he feels they aren’t giving him the respect he deserves.
 

“I think you’re right, Matty,” Craig says to the dude behind him, “I think we have a couple a straight-up dike bitches here.”

“Dyke hookers,” Matty corrects, joining Craig. Matty leans down over our table, so close I can smell the reek of booze, cigarette smoke and mint gum on his breath, and says, “How much to watch? I got ten bucks. That should do it? Ten bucks can get a couple a junky bitches like you a rock or two.” Matty’s the biggest of the four surrounding us. The ‘roid-monkey jock.
 

So the college boys are out trolling for hookers. Flat broke, street-living hookers. The most vulnerable kind. My stomach flops. The bourbon sloshes around, making me sick.

“Tell you what, Matty,” I say, thinking about the beat-up body we found at the dumpster. The girl with her eyes burned out. “Why don’t you pull your cock out and convert a couple of junkie dykes?”

Trish sucks in her breath. Yeah, I’ll be hearing about this once we’re out of here. And rightfully so. Should’ve kept my mouth shut.
 

But you know what? Fuck these guys.

Craig slams his hand on the table hard enough to knock over my beer. It’s nearly empty so I ignore it as it rolls of the table and clatters on the stained hardwood floor.
 

“Go on then,” Craig says, slapping Matty on the back. “You heard her. Butch dyke wants to see your cock.”

I look in Matty’s eyes. He’s fuming, caught between having his bluff called and being a pussy and busting out that little manhood of his in the middle of a crowded bar. His hand goes to his crotch. He fingers his zipper, eyeing me, and for a second I think I’ve found a dude who might just do it.

But they never do. Never.
 

“Fucking dyke bitches,” Matty scowls. His buddies jeer at him. He’s the weak one now.
 

Matty’s looks about to leave when a hand grips his shoulder. Matty says a quick what the fuck and whirls and there’s the biker Prez, staring at the jock with narrowed eyes.
 

For a moment I’m stunned silent like everyone else. But I recover quicker, and I’m angry. Who is this guy, thinking we need a rescue from a bunch of Momma’s boy morons?
 

“He’s leaving,” I say, standing at glaring at the biker. “Thank you very much.”

The biker doesn’t say a word, just keeps staring Matty down, and for some reason that seems to really upset the roid-monkey jock.
 

“C’mon Matt,” Craig says, gripping his boy by the elbow and trying to tug him away. Craig looks suddenly sober, and I wonder how much of the drunkenness was an act to excuse his idiot behavior.

“You should’ve left when we told you to,” Trish says, real quiet, and from the look Craig gives her, from the fear clouding in his eyes, I know he’s thinking the same thing.

“Outta my way, skid,” Matty says and the biker cracks a grin like I’ve never seen: gorgeous and deadly, welcoming and brutal all at once, and in the time it takes for me to blink Matty’s on the ground, rolling in pain, clutching his kidney’s, trying to scream but too winded, speckles of blood frothing on his lips.
 

Something inside him just got ruptured wide open.
 

I’ve seen a lot of guys get dropped. But I’ve never seen a guy dropped with a single punch. Fights are usually dumb, slow events with lots of shouting and chest-puffing and maybe a clumsy punch connecting here or there. But not this time.
 

Matty’s college boy buddies are assholes, but they’re not brain dead.
 

They make for the door. Fast.

Blood pounds in my ears. It’s just me and the biker Prez, staring at one another over Matty’s writhing body, and now I see the guy for what he is, a killer, a man far more dangerous than Matty and his band of merry date rapists, and suddenly I’m afraid. Very afraid, but also—and this hits me like brick in the face—I want him. I want him
now
. My cunt’s throbbing for him, my skin’s hot and flushed and my heart’s beating like it’s going to leap out of my chest.

The biker Prez just stares at me. No emotion. Nothing. Those crystal-blue eyes staring into me, like he’s seeking an answer to a question he can’t find the words for.
 

Then he blinks, looks at the man on the floor, lifts his Dayton shit-kicker boot in the air…and I realize he’s about to murder the college kid. Stomp the life right out of him in the middle of his bar, and I know he’ll do it, know he
wants
to do it, and I know I have to stop him.
 

So I launch. Leap over Matty and straight at the biker, screaming at him not to do it, that it’s over, and I’ve taken enough self-defense training to aim for his solar plexus with my shoulder. I’m not going to try and smack at the guy.
 

I’m going to carry him off his feet.
 

That’s the plan anyway. Doesn’t quite work out that way, because slamming into the cool-eyed biker Prez is like running full-speed into a football blocking sled. There’s an inch of give, then a sharp pain in my right shoulder where it bites against his ribcage, then the biker has his heavily-muscled and tattooed arm wrapped around my torso, just below my arms, and he’s squeezing me a little, just enough to hurt, enough to tell me he could snap my spine if he wanted to, and oh God his arm feels good against me, the muscles taut and thick, his wet jeans pressed against my bare neck as he overpowers me, and for an instant I smell his sweat, and he smells like the forest at dusk when the sun is setting and the wild animals emerge from their dens, eyes glowing bright, intent on the hunt. He smells like a promise of freedom and the danger that comes with it, and then the Prez releases me and I collapse unceremoniously at his feet like a sack of very irritated, very turned on potatoes.
 

Or something like that.

“You fucking asshole,” I say, pushing myself to my feet and brushing off my skirt, relieved to see Matty stumbling for the door. “You dirtbag. Biker. Asshole.”

“That’s some kind of thanks,” the biker says, and his voice is low and growly and makes a flush of heat race between my legs, but it’s also unexpectedly reserved, almost melancholic.

“We didn’t ask for your help,” I say.

 
There’s a glimmer of amusement dancing in his eyes. He’s laughing at me, and suddenly I feel very self-conscious. The entire bar is staring at us.
 

“No. You didn’t,” is all the biker says.
 

Like that explains everything.
 

I don’t respond. Fuck him. I turn my back and walk to Trish. She’s sitting wide-eyed and completely ignores me when I sit down. My hands are shaking. I’m craving that smoke the moron Craig offered. I lift my empty beer bottle off the floor and wave it at the waitress.
 

Trish looks absolutely star-struck.

“Fucking dirtbag,” I say, jerking my thumb at the biker Prez.
 

Trish just nods, not taking her eyes off the biker as he racks up a pool table, twists some chalk on his cue with a goddamned way too sexy flick of his wrist, and leans over to take his first shot. His ass is a perfect tight crescent in his jeans. He pauses, then lifts his head and yells for pool music. There’s a scratching sound of a record being switched—
vinyl?
In a dump like this?
—and then a heavy bass beat followed by a pissed-off dude singing:

Do I look like a motherfucking role model?

To a kid looking up to me

Life ain’t nothin’ but bitches and money.
 

I roll my eyes, but Trish nearly leaps out of her seat when she hears the song.
 

“Gangster rap?” I say to Trish as the biker Prez leans over the table for his first shot. He hasn’t looked at us once. I raise my voice, hoping he’ll hear me over the thumping bass. “Not very white trash MC, is it? Thought they’d be in for Slayer. Maybe Led Zeppelin if they’re feeling mellow.”