Instead, he lifted his hand to brush a lock of hair away from my ear. He leaned over to whisper in my ear, and the way his warm breath brushed my earlobe made me feel light-headed.
“I plan to spend all night holding you down and taking you so hard that you scream,” he said evenly. Not some colorfully-exaggerated flirtation or figure of speech. Just a fact stated simply, decisively, almost clinically, like a comment on the weather. There was no hesitation or uncertainty in that voice. He was simply stating what he knew he would do to me. “So we'd better head over to your place, so that can start happening right now.”
I almost agreed immediately—I wanted to, so badly. But even in the thick fog of desire that clouded my mind, even though I had never felt this before, had never done anything like this, the rational part of my mind still couldn't be fully ignored.
He's a biker you just met in a bar called the Devil's Nest. I get that you're high on the whole spontaneous, romantic, knight in leather armor thing, but just in case he's not what he appears to be—or at least, what you desperately want him to be—is this someone who should know where you live? Are you really comfortable with that, Lauren? Because I'm not.
I wished I could imagine a face to go with that nagging schoolmarm voice, so I could fantasize about punching it.
Instinctively, I knew that the surest way to lose this man's interest would be to show any fear or caution. He needed to believe that I could be as tough and daring as he was, or else I'd prove that I was just another shy girl who didn't belong in his world, even for one night. I cupped my hand under his chin, stroking his jaw provocatively and bringing my lips just a couple of inches away from his own, my tone daring him.
“Why my place, lover boy? Don't you have somewhere we can go?”
A cloud of concern seemed to pass over his eyes, and inwardly, I winced. Shit. I blew it. I was doing great, I had him in the palm of my hand, and now he's going to feel like I think he's some nasty thug I wouldn't dream of inviting into my home. He'll think I'm a stuck-up bitch, and he'll blow me off. Bikers are supposed to be big on respect, and I just disrespected him, big time. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Nic seemed to think for a moment, his brow furrowed. “Wait right here,” he said, sliding off his bar stool. “I'll be back in just a sec.” He walked over to the mild-looking man with the glasses.
So I waited, wondering if this was the setup to some awful and disappointing punchline. Wondering if I should just run away now and save myself the embarrassment.
I waited, feeling like a convicted criminal about to receive her sentence.
Chapter Five
Bard
I'd been watching Nic closely ever since the girl walked in and sat down next to him. She was gorgeous, sure. No question about it. But what was she doing in here? I only had to look at her to see that she was about ninety miles away from the girls we usually got in here—inked-up thrill-seekers dressed like cartoon prostitutes, eager to coo and paw over the bad boy bikers, always good for a laugh and a cheap thrill. This one looked smarter somehow, more sophisticated. Her poise and self-confidence were an act—that much was obvious—but it was a convincing act, just the same.
Before leaving them to it, I'd joked mildly about her being an enforcer for Giovanni. Nic had merely grunted while continuing to stare at her, and I wasn't certain he'd actually heard me.
On the other hand, I wasn't entirely certain I'd been joking, either. Nic had a good head on his shoulders—a more level head than the other Reapers, that was easy to see—and his antennae were generally quite fine-tuned to detect trouble in time to avoid it or ambush it. I admired that about him. But despite an intelligence that even he didn't fully understand or acknowledge in himself, Nic also tended to embrace certain things at face value.
This was the result of watching too many movies, perhaps, like so many of his generation. To him, gangsters were men in flashy suits with slicked-back hair, cops were beefy-looking bulls with uniforms and crew cuts, informants were greasy little scabs with ponytails and nervous eyes, and reporters were fast-talking guys in trench coats with press passes tucked into their hat bands. He probably couldn't imagine that the best disguise for any of these professions would be an attractive and flirty woman, but I knew better.
It was a lesson I'd tried to teach him once, early on, when we'd gone to see the Graw brothers in Indiana. Before that day, I knew that even though he showed me the deference due to an MC president, in his mind, he'd remained skeptical of me. When he'd looked at me, he'd seen nothing but a four-eyed pencil-pusher pretending to be an outlaw. He hadn't seen the commando who'd helped guard General Norman Schwarzkopf all those years ago, who'd survived the blazing heat of the Iraqi desert and had personally taken down over two dozen of Saddam's fiercely-trained elite Republican Guards.
Good. Because that was what they'd taught us in Delta Force. We took great pains to craft our outer personas so we'd look like truckers, longshoremen, or even just candy-ass accountants—anything to get the job done and get out without being noticed. We were taught that camouflage meant more than just the stripes and blotches on our uniforms. It was something we wore inside, in the way we carried ourselves.
“You want to be an action figure?” our commanding officer used to sneer. “Then you'll end up just like one...without a pulse. You want to be Rambo? Go to fucking Hollywood. You want to be Delta? You keep your fucking heads down and you get shit done.”
However, after watching Nic with the girl for a few minutes, I felt myself starting to relax. She was too scared and unsure of herself while trying to seem too brave and sure of herself, which didn't add up to someone comfortable enough with themselves to properly run any sort of game that could harm us. From the look of her, she was just some lonely heart out for a good time outside of her comfort zone. She'd probably just lost her boyfriend or job over the holidays and had decided that the best way to make herself forget would be a harmless little scare, a brief ride on the biker rollercoaster before she went back to her pedicures and issues of Cosmo. I'd seen the type before. I'd learned to read the signs.
Then again, you could never be too careful.
I saw her lean in, every curve in her body an engraved invitation. I saw him brush her hair back, and I could almost read the words on his lips as he accepted. Oh, to be that young again, I thought ruefully. Sure, I had my moments of lustful indulgence, but to have that kind of cocksure passion, to throw oneself into the joys of discovering a new person with such careless abandon? That was a privilege of youth, to be sure.
Nic stood and turned his back to her, starting to walk toward me. There was a strange expression on his face, and it took me a moment to realize what it was—the awkward look of a teenage boy who wants to impress a girl and needs to ask his father about borrowing the family car for the night. I stifled a laugh and instead took a sip of my rum and cola, waiting patiently for him to reach me.
“I, uh, need to spend tonight at my place after all,” he mumbled, almost too low for me to hear.
I raised my eyebrows, grinning. I shouldn't have enjoyed his discomfort so much, but given his usually impenetrable macho demeanor, I couldn't resist ribbing him a bit. “Oh? Because I seem to recall having a conversation, oh, ages ago, in which this very topic came up. Granted, it's been such a long time, and my memory isn't quite what it once was.”
Nic rolled his eyes, making a “go ahead, get it over with” gesture that only made me relish the moment even more. “I know, I know,” he said, “but it's important.”
“Yes, 'it' looks exceedingly important, to be sure,” I agreed, nodding in the girl's direction in a patronizing manner. “However, 'it' probably has an apartment of 'its' own, if 'it' can afford that dress. Perhaps 'it'...”
“Okay, okay, I get it!”
“...will be kind enough to invite you,” I finished placidly.
“She wants to go to my place instead,” Nic replied. “She just met me, so she probably doesn't know me well enough to show me where she lives yet, in case I'm some kind of creep. Which, c'mon, makes sense, right?”
I could tell he was trying to keep the plaintive tone out of his voice. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that no matter how old these Reapers get, many of them are still just boys, I thought wistfully. Lost Boys like the ones in Peter Pan, who ran away and joined an MC so they'd never have to grow up. That's why it's so important to protect them.
“Your place isn't safe, remember? If one rat-faced simpleton with a pop gun can find it and sneak into it, so can others.”
“So what do I say to her?” Nic asked. “That she can't come back to my place because there might be some goons gunning for me? She'll run away screaming.”
“A valid point, to be sure,” I conceded. I wanted to stay firm—this wasn't some game, after all, and ordinarily I'd never allow something that would risk the life of a Reaper, even if that Reaper begged me—but I'd known Nic for a long time, and besides the awkwardness of asking, there was something else in his eyes that I'd never seen in them before.
I knew how hard he'd taken Kong's death. They'd joined the Reapers together, and when Kong was picked up, the cops had leaned on him to give up information on Nic in exchange for a lighter sentence. As the club's Sergeant at Arms, Nic would have been quite a prize for the State's Attorney, who'd had dreams of flipping him against Growler.