Step Bride: A Bad Boy Mob Roman(72)

“What’s with the crowd tonight?” Leary asked me.

I looked back at him and shrugged. “Not sure,” I said.

Leary wasn’t one of the Right People, although he wanted to be. We had gone to high school together, back in the day, but our paths diverged from there. Where he began to do meth and deal in minor crime, I worked my way through the ranks and was made Right over two years ago. Around then, Leary started showing up at Drake’s, and we quickly became friends again. He did some jobs for the Mob, though nothing major. But he wasn’t an insider, and, if he kept going down the path he was on, he never would be. Which is why he decided he’d try to get sober. As far as I knew, he hadn’t touched the drugs in a while, though he was compensating with plenty of drink.

“Lotta fucking pussy tonight,” he said, grinning.

“Yeah, and what are you going to do about it?”

“Fuck you, Liam. You’re not the only one who can get some.”

I shrugged, sipping my drink. “Maybe not.”

Leary may have been in the business for a while, but he had never been smart enough or ruthless enough to get a real piece of the action. So when the chaos started, Leary knew something was up, but he didn’t know exactly what was going on. I wasn’t about to fill him in, either. We didn’t need every junkie and knee-breaker in the city panicking because Leary couldn’t keep his idiot mouth shut.

“Check it out,” he said, nudging me.

I glanced up and saw her: the redhead from the other end of the bar was headed in my direction.

“Catch you later, Leary,” I said, knocking back my drink and standing.

“Whatever,” he said, laughing.

I quickly moved through the crowd, making a beeline for her. She was a short little thing, maybe five four at best, and I made her look tiny. That was fine with me; I liked small girls, made them easy to throw around a bit. Plus, little girls like her tended to go for big guys like me.

“Hey,” I said to her, cutting through the music.

She stopped and smiled at me. “Hey yourself,” she said.

I stepped close to her. I could almost feel the tension between us spark immediately. Her tits were nice and big, and they heaved as she began to breathe heavy. Her whole body turned toward me as I got closer, and her full lips parted slightly into a cute little smile. I could practically read her like a book.

She was aching for me.

“Where you headed?” I asked.

She laughed. “Do I know you?”

“Not yet. I’m Liam.”

I stepped in close, giving her my best smile. I stopped a few inches away from her, definitely violating her personal space, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was playing it cool, though I could see through her. She was practically begging for it.

“Hi, Liam. I’m Andrea.”

“Andrea, that’s a cute name. Where you headed, Andrea?”

“I was going to the bathroom.”

“Listen, Andrea, you should have a drink with me.”

She shook her head softly. “I can’t. I’m here with someone.”

I shrugged. “I’ll show you around the back room and the basement, give you a little tour of the place.”

She smiled. “What makes you think I’d go into a basement with some stranger I just met?”

“Because I can tell from the way you’re breathing and smiling that you find me attractive, and I find you attractive too. And you seem like the type that would want to explore that.”

There it was. I wasn’t bullshitting her; I really could tell she was into me. But it was definitely a line, and it didn’t always work. She had a surprised little look on her face, and she probably wasn’t used to a man like me going right for her.

“Okay, Liam. I’ll be back. Then you can give me that tour.”

Then again, maybe she was.

I grinned at her and touched her hip. She didn’t shy away. “I’ll be here.”

She gave me this fucking cute-as-hell look and started off. I stared at her firm ass in her tight jeans, and I guessed she was in her early twenties, probably a few years younger than me. My cock began to stir in my jeans as I imagined all the dirty shit I knew she’d let me do to her. I was sure she’d be begging for more by the end of the night.

And I wouldn’t give it to her.

I looked around the bar, smirking softly, and reminded myself again, maybe for the fiftieth time that night: it was good to be a Right Person.

“Liam,” a gruff voice called out, cutting through my good mood.

I looked over and spotted Max, all six-foot-eight of him. His thick beard was unkempt, and he had this serious expression on his face that immediately killed my hard on. I made my way over to him, picking through the crowd. I was over six feet and fit in my way, but Max made me look almost skinny.