“Why did you say earlier that peace never lasts long?”
Fuck, I said that?
That was fucking stupid. Damn good thing we were off the record.
“In this town, peace should be fine,” I growled, happy to show my discontent at that question. “You’ve seen the fucking news about the Black Reapers. Sometimes, they might come here to make a point. But we drive them out quickly. There’s no prolonged war or any shit like that.”
One can hope.
“You gave me an idea,” she said, words that always made me pissed from a journalist. “What if I did a deep dive on you? Like, not these superficial two-minute segments on the news. But a deeper, longer segment? Maybe like a special report that would go for fifteen, twenty minutes?”
“Still no,” I said, waving my hand. “Nice of you to think that you can cover everything in fifteen to twenty minutes, but—”
“So then we’ll make a documentary, independent of the station, or no more than sponsored by the station.”
Now this bitch was talking my language some. I still strongly disliked the idea, but if ever I was going to give any weight to something someone in journalism suggested, this would be it.
And then I got an idea. An idea that would play into her fantasy and let me get my dick inside her. It was almost too perfect. Instead of having the journalist play us, I would play the journalist.
“You really want a deep dive?” I said, knowing full well she’d say yes.
“Of course.”
“You want full access?”
“Yes.”
“You want to knoweverythingthat goes on at this club, every little detail, everything we do, say, and think?”
“In an ideal world.”
“Well, you can’t.”
I chuckled to myself.
“But what you can do is you can come to our club party tonight.”
I paused a beat to gauge her reaction. She displayed no immediate one, though I did notice her face flushing with red a bit the longer that we spoke.
“You should come expecting to have a few drinks. The men won’t take kindly to you not consuming some alcohol.”
“I’m not going to come and be a club Barbie doll,” she said. “I’m willing to not show up with a recorder or a notepad, but you can’t expect me to come here and spread my legs for every biker in the club.”
I laughed. Did I tell her that I’d already declared her mine? Or did I let some unease play into it?
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” I said, deciding telling her directly was a terrible, pussy move. “You come, have a good time. I’ll give you what you want if you give me what…I want.”
“What…you want?” Hailey said, cocking an eyebrow. “And what do you want?”
I smirked. She smirked back.
God, the fucking tension.
But I’d been played before by journalists. Not to this degree, but I understood full well that they were like strippers—they may flirt, they may kiss on the cheek, they may call you honey and say you’re the best they’ve ever been around, but the instant they felt they wouldn’t get something from you, they’d move on to the next sucker.
It was probably a terrible sign for my self-control that I considered Hailey more attractive than many of the local strippers. Perhaps not as big-chested or as large in the ass, but the whole package just seemed more appealing, like eating an organic steak instead of a deliberately bloated and clearly artificial fried chicken breast.
“If I have to spell it out for you, you’re too stupid to have it answered for you.”
