“Did Gray send you?” Cass demanded, referring to her supervisor at the FBI. Grayson Stone, FBI mastermind, mind fucker, all-around asshole. And…
The closest thing to a brother that Cass possessed. They were actually cousins. They’d grown up more as brothers, though, but that relationship was something that the majority of the MC did not know about. If you wanted to stay in power, you didn’t advertise the fact that you’d kill to protect an FBI agent. That just wasn’t the way shit was done.
“Gray has no idea that I’m here,” Agnes returned. Her hands had flattened on the bar top, one hand on either side of her body. “I don’t exactly run potential lovers by my boss. That would just be weird.”
What?
Her words had been a bit hard to hear because there’d been a flurry of sudden shouts behind him. The crew always got rowdy the later it became.
Her head cocked to the side as she looked beyond him, toward the noisy crowd. “I don’t want to tell you your business…” With one hand, she reached for the beer bottle that he’d put down on the bar top moments before. “But I don’t think this is a friendly group.”
No shit. He snorted. “If you wanted friendly, then you should have stayed the hell out of this bar. Only MCs come here.” Not just the Night Strikers, either. The Bottomless Pit was supposed to be a neutral zone, of sorts. Only things had a way of not staying too neutral the later it got and the drunker the crowd became.
“You were here, so I had to be, too.” She raised the bottle.
So now the woman was drinking his beer? Drinking his beer, and, apparently, she’d been stalking him, too? Should that flatter him, terrify him, or annoy him? Maybe all of the above?
Her words definitely should not interest him. Should not. And why in the hell was he still holding her waist? Why was his gaze still locked on her face as he waited to hear whatever bullshit story she was about to spin for him next?
Random fact, she had a few freckles across the straight bridge of her nose. Oddly cute.
Dammit.
“Someone should really be watching your six,” she murmured as she scrunched her nose in what was an oddly adorable way.
Not that he thought she was adorable. Adorable and sexy didn’t go together. She was sexy. Way too hot. As for his six, he had a whole team who watched his six,
“Good thing I’m here,” she added, and then she threw the beer bottle over his shoulder.
What in the hell?
Even as he heard the thud of the beer bottle connecting with something, Cass whipped around. The beer bottle crashed to the floor. Shattered. But it wasn’t the only thing that crashed to the floor.
A knife did, too. The knife that some tricky bastard had been intending to stab into Cass’s back. The bastard was just a few feet away, and the expression of utter fear and horror on his face was almost priceless.
“He was going toward your back,” Agnes explained in a casual voice. “I saw him pull the knife from the inside of his coat. Everyone else seemed busy fighting or drinking or…you know, making out in dark corners. So I had to intervene.”
She’d intervened…?
“You really should have better protection,” she chided.
“I can protect myself.” Deliberately, he turned to fully face the man who’d frozen. The prick who’d intended to stab Cass in the back.
“You weren’t doing it this time,” Agnes piped in from her perch on the bar behind him. “Thus, I stepped in like the amazing girlfriend I am.”
Girlfriend? Since when? They barely knew each other. Had they even exchanged more than a full minute of conversation before this night? Cass didn’t think so. But he’d deal with his girlfriend later. At the moment, he had a conniving jerk who needed to be handled.
Cass scanned the tats on the man’s arms. His hands. Cass grunted as he recognized the ink of a rival MC. All those skulls with thorns twined around them. But no sign of a tat that would show a position of power in that MC. “Seriously? You think you’ll jump ranks by plunging a blade into my back? Aren’t you precious?”
The creep’s eyes darted to the left. To the right.
The fighting and the music and the laughter and every damn thing else in the dark bar stopped.
Things tended to stop when Cass used that particular tone of voice. And when people knew he was about to kick ass. He was so ready to kick some ass. Dark tension had been riding him hard. Hell, the darkness always pulled at him. Lately, that pull was even more intense. The idiot before him had just given Cass the perfect excuse to let the beast within off the leash that normally held him in check.
For a beat of time, he studied the dumbass who’d come to the bar in order to attack. Shaved head. Long beard. Nose ring. Beady eyes. Those eyes made the mistake of darting to the discarded knife.
Cass sighed. “You don’t telegraph your intent, dumbass. You just attack. When you telegraph, that lets people like the cute redhead behind me…” He reached back. Maybe he gave her thigh a pat. Fine, there was no maybe about it. He did pat her thigh. Then his fingers lingered. The touch was supposed to be a sign for her to stand down. Not like he wanted her to fly into the fight that was moments away from occurring.
