“Why?”
“It’s too sexy.”
And now she blushed, the pink tint of her cheeks evidence of a sweetness that was driving me crazy. I wasn’t used to spending much time with a woman before taking her to bed. Casual flings were really only about one thing.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a man look at me like you are right now,” she said, a little breathlessly.
“And how’s that?” I asked, leaning closer to her across the table. Our pretzels were laying in their paper sheaths between us, all but forgotten.
“Like you need me. Like you’ll starve without me.”
That was a hell of a way of putting it. But she was right.
Before I got the chance to respond, I picked up something in my peripheral vision that distracted me. It was a biker, but I didn’t recognize him. Which meant that he was probably a Las Balas member. Or a Prospect.
My attention wasn’t just drawn by the man’s attire. It was his behavior. He looked shifty, his eyes darting around as he bounced on the balls of his feet. He didn’t seem to be able to hold still. The guy was definitely on something. Based on the way that he kept checking his pockets and clenching his jaw, I assumed he was holding and anxious about it from the drug use. A dealer maybe?
Someone should have told him not to take his own shit. It was bad for business.
“What are you looking at?” Erica asked, turning to look in the same direction.
“No, don’t look,” I commanded, my voice coming out harsher than intended. The guy looked way too jumpy, and if he caught on to being watched, things could get ugly. I was packing, of course, but I didn’t really want to get into a public fight with a rival gang member.
No, this would have to be handled with some finesse. I needed to talk to Ryder.
“What’s wrong?” Erica’s question came out as more of a demand for an answer, and I smirked.
“It’s kind of club business, but I’ll tell you that there’s a guy to our left, next to the beer garden, that looks like trouble to me. Maybe a drug dealer. I just don’t want you to turn your head his way too because it will be too obvious. This guy looks like the unstable type to me.”
“A drug dealer? Should we call the police?” To my surprise, she didn’t sound too keen on the idea herself.
I shook my head from side to side. “No. We handle this.”
“We? You mean the Outlaw Souls?”
“Yes.”
Erica didn’t say anything else, just turning her attention to the pretzel. I watched her pick pieces off of it, nibbling on them with a troubled look on her face.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong? Does it bother you that I won’t call the cops?”
“No,” she said, meeting my eyes. In the sunlight, her vivid green orbs were even more entrancing than usual. “I just… I don’t like the idea of you in dangerous situations.”
The woman couldn’t seem to stop astounding me. She was worried about me?
“Don’t worry about me. The Outlaw Souls have each other’s backs. They’re pretty much the only family I have.”
“Really?”
“Well, there’s my foster mother, Mama Tammy. She insists that I call her that.”
“You were a foster child? What happened to your parents?”
“Dad was never around. Mom was a mess. I was taken from her when I was twelve, and I haven’t had contact with her since.” I kept it short, not wanting to rehash my tragic backstory. There was no point in lingering in the past. “What about you? You have a good relationship with your parents?”
“No, they died when I was eighteen. It was a fire at the house. I was still living with them, but that night I had gone to an overnight college orientation, so I wasn’t there.” her voice cracked, and I thought I saw tears in her eyes, but they didn’t fall down her cheeks. “Maybe if I had been, I could’ve helped them.”
“You don’t know that,” I argued. “You could’ve gone with them, and I’m sure they wouldn’t have wanted that.”
