“Lock this door when I leave. And don’t open it for anybody but me. Got that? I don’t care what they say. Nobody but me.” His green eyes go cold as he waits for my answer.
“Yes, yes, of course.” I nod nervously, and he shuts the door behind him.
“Lock it,” he says through the closed door. “I’ll wait.”
I flip the dead bolt on the door and rest my head against the cool metal. I’ve never been any place except a hotel that had a dead bolt on an inside door. I’m not sure if that says more about this place and the people here than I want to know. But once the door is locked, my shoulders sag, and I feel exhausted, cold, and alone.
Outside, the storm rages on, battering the roof and walls with water and wind. I gather my strength and take a look around Shadow’s room. His bed is neatly made, and the comforter and pillowcases look clean. I wonder how many women from that party want to be in here tonight instead of out there. I wonder how many have been and might still come back here at some point, looking for Shadow.
He’s a gorgeous man, but also scary hot. I can see all of the women wanting him. And why would he refuse? Maybe sex is part of what they expect to do when they come here to party. But there are a few pieces that don’t make sense.
He has a full-sized couch against one wall that looks super comfy. Soft brown leather, the broken-in kind. That answers the “who will sleep where” question. Maybe he has an extra blanket he can loan me. I can’t imagine I’ll ever feel warm and dry again.
I wander through Shadow’s room, lightly running my fingers over the dresser and side table, peeking around to see if there are cameras in the corners. I mean, why would he trust me, a total stranger, in his room if he has no way to watch what I do in here?
I shake my head at my own naïveté. These guys are bikers. They carry guns and have weapons and a fortified clubhouse or whatever this place is. I’m a soaking-wet school librarian wearing a sundress. What harm could I possibly do to them?
I give in to my impulse to check the place out. I badly want to shower and change into something dry and fresh, but I’m afraid even the clothes in my overnight bag will be damp from running through the rain. I open a few of Shadow’s drawers and am shocked to find socks and T-shirts all folded and organized. He has no pictures on his walls, but I do spot a nice TV and headphones, which I might just use to try to shut out some of the noise.
Maybe I can curl up on the couch and watch a movie or something. Forget where I am and how I got here.
When I reach an armoire, I open the knob, expecting shirts and jackets to be neatly hung, but I’m shocked to see shelf after shelf of books. I finger the spine of one and squint at the titles. I’m a librarian by training, and this excites me. I grab a book off the shelf and see it’s been read. I open to a chapter that’s been marked with handwritten scribbles in the margins. I note the case citations and quickly scan the shelf. Every volume is a legal book covering criminal procedure, trial practice for defense attorneys, the Florida statutes, or some very technical aspect of the law.
I return the book to where I found it and close the armoire fast. A gun-carrying biker with a chest full of law books. Is he studying to be a lawyer, or…
Who is this man, and what the heck am I doing here?
3
Shadow
“So, Shadow, who’s the stray?” One of the club bunnies has her hand around a prospect’s cock, but she stops jerking him off to open her mouth to me as I walk past.
“Da fuck?” The kid’s eyes are glassy, and he looks helplessly from her to me.
“You look busy,” I tell her, giving her one chance to shut the fuck up and get back to her own business. I know this one. She’s a club whore, through and through. I’ve got nothing against the women who hang around here lapping up free drinks. They keep their mouths shut when it matters and open them when it counts. But this one’s always rubbed me wrong, and I hope the prospect knows where to draw the line between a hand job and a commitment.
That’s what they all want. A piece of gold on their hand that gives them claim over us. And this one won’t let it go.
“I got two hands,” she says, trying to sound coy.
I bend low to her and snake my hand underneath her hair. I tug hard enough to move her head but not to hurt her. “Why don’t you do something with that mouth other than use it to talk to me.” I grit the words against her ear, then release her.
She gives a disappointed little whimper but focuses back on the task at hand. I hear the prospect arguing with her quietly as I make my way through the crowd.
A cheer goes up so loud that for a second, I can’t hear the sounds of the wind battering the storm shutters. I look over to Savage, who’s wearing a white wife-beater under his leather vest, his heavily tatted arms punching the air like a high school football coach. Two prospects are playing some video game, and based on the scores on the giant screen, it looks like Savage just beat their asses.
Savage is the club’s sergeant-at-arms and is the only one of us with elite professional training in guns and weaponry. He spent a decade in the military, but he won’t talk about what went down or why he got out.
Savage knows this club, our dynamics, our rules, and how to stay under the radar like nobody else we’ve had. He’s as all in as they come, and the only thing he’s carried over from his military days is his love of video games. I guess hours of idle time in far-off places with a group of guys prepared him well for life in the compound. No matter how much shit I give him about playing games, it’s the one thing he does to blow off steam.
I haven’t made it even ten paces when one of two women peels away from Hawk, who’s wearing his signature shades inside—even here, even in the middle of a fucking tropical storm.
“I saw that wet rat the storm washed in.” Penny slides a hand inside the rear pocket of my jeans and cups my ass. “Why’d you go out to the streets when you have everything you could possibly want right here?”
Fucking Penny.
I groan at the familiar touch, and for just a second, my body reacts. Penny’s one of my favorite club bitches. She comes easy and often and genuinely likes to fuck. I know she’s a little sweet on Blade. Since his old lady passed, she talks to him about his kid like she really cares. Maybe she does.
