Yes, better to get inside with my paperwork, get it signed, and get out again. The problem was, I had an itchy feeling between my shoulder blades. I wanted… to be owned. It wasn’t even necessarily a need for dick. I justneeded, period. I’d been pent up too long. It had been almost two months since Buddy Anderson had pulled thebe my second boyfriendcard on me, and God he had shocked me. I hadn’t felt that flummoxed since… ever. I’d devoted so much of my time to him for fucking nothing.
The back of my neck burned at the memory of Madden walking in on one of my devotion sessions at the office. I’d been on an absolutely unbalanced trajectory with Buddy, giving him everything I had, only to find out he wanted me to be second fucking banana for his personal orgy. I was not that kind of sub—I needed to be the star of the show, or I’d cut the fucking stage lights down on the competition’s head. He wasn’t interested in tossing aside his live-in lover, and I wasn’t interested in fawning over him alongside another man.
So now I wasn’t getting any of my needs met. By anyone. I smacked my hand on the dash. “Fuck, sorry, babe,” I cooed at my car and gave Jovanny a pat. He was a good Italian boy and didn’t deserve that crap.
My heart twanged. If I was feeling bad, how terrible was Paxton feeling with his husband freshly gone? I wasn’t stupid. I knew half the reason I cared about him and his situation was because he was cute and looked like fragile hell warmed over—twice. I’d wanted to take his hand in the station, offer him some part of myself in comfort, but that’s not how cops worked. It wouldn’t have done Paxton any good for anyone to see me doing something like that.
It wouldn’t domeany good to get involved with a grieving man.
I wasn’t sure why, but being human made people look guilty. Crying. Screaming. Needing a hug. None of it was advisable when dealing with the law.
Shaking my head, I grabbed my briefcase, and refused to waste any more time on my enduring melodrama with Buddy tonight. I refused to acknowledge my breakup could be a real problem because someone who’d lied to me from the get-go couldn’t have been a real boyfriend to begin with. But the issue was, if I didn’t do something about the way I was feeling I’d end up doing somethingstupid. It had been a while, but I’d had to call West a time or two to come scrape me off a sidewalk, the same way I’d done for Madden, and I was trying not to make a habit of it. I was the boss, after all.
Oz and his bike bitch finally stopped making sweetheart eyes at each other long enough to notice me as I picked my way across the scraggly grass to avoid dog messes with my five-hundred-dollar shoes. Oz gave me a wave. I would have detoured their direction, but excitable shouts from inside the front door piqued my curiosity and I headed inside.
The darkness in the entrance hall blinded me, but I walked in and kept moving forward, toward the illumination at the end of the short corridor. I stepped out into the hellish glow of the barroom, had enough time to notice someone had put up some new globe lights in the ceiling, but for some reason had chosen red bulbs, and gasped as pain sliced across my forehead. My eyes slammed shut, and I slapped my hand to my head and backed up fast against the wall beside the door. Blood welled, hot and wet, under my palm. I wrinkled my brow and decided it probably wasn’t very bad, but I held my hand there anyway as I peeled my eyelids back open.
There were men in leather riding gear crowded all along the bar, shouting and stamping their feet. The Kings’ patch—a skull with a crown—leered at me from more than one cut. PD reared up from behind the bar like a shark doing that freaky thing where they jump out of the water before he disappeared again with his fist raised, and there was a loud round of “ouch” and “oh” from the guys leaning over the bar to watch what I assumed was a fight in progress. Next, Barnes’s head stuck up just enough for me to recognize the asshole. He had a nasty scar splitting one of his eyebrows, and it looked like PD might have given him another one to match because his face was covered in blood. He disappeared, and it seemed like maybe PD had pulled him down to the floor.
King jumped onto the bar top wearing nothing but jeans and black riding boots and cupped his hands around his mouth. “If you two fucking jackanapes ruin one more drop of liquor,” he bellowed, “I’m going to fine you and knock you back lower than a prospect. Lower than fuckingdirt. Stop!” He was grinning, though, when he dropped his hands and flinched back with a wince as the other men watching groaned again.
More of the shelving holding bottles behind the bar crashed down, and it occurred to me the rest were already gone, with the smell of alcohol so strong in the room my eyes stung. The men gathered around roared and hooted. King let out a bark of laughter and jumped behind the bar. Undertaker hopped over, too, flashing me a nice view of his ass because he was wearing a kilt and apparently nothing else, but not to break up the fight, rather to drag King physically away from it. Undertaker manhandled King—who wasn’t trying too hard to get out of his hug—to the end of the bar seconds before the rest of the shelving crashed.
There were moans and groans, and the two people fighting must have stopped because everyone’s shoulders drooped, and laughter cut along the bar. Undertaker let King go and he darted forward. When King came to the end of the bar again, he was hunched over and dragging Barnes by both arms—not an easy feat because Barnes was stocky and all muscle. King hauled him doggedly across the floor as he feebly kicked. King was working so hard he didn’t even seem to notice me.
“You okay?” someone asked softly. I startled. Hunter stood beside me. He was a sweet-eyed blond who barely ever said boo. I hadn’t realized he was there, let alone standing almost at my elbow.
“Yeah, a piece of flying glass must have hit me. I think I walked in as the first of the shelves went down and didn’t realize.”
He nodded and didn’t say anything else, his mouth set in a scowl, as if he didn’t approve of this. He was King’s bitch-boy, so he’d probably have to clean it up.
“Fuck you, PD.” Barnes dug in his heels and slowed King down when they were right next to me. I sighed and got out of the way. PD rose from behind the bar to a stand, straightening the black bowler he nearly always wore as he went. “We have a right to know if someone caught hepatitis at his fucking tattoo parlor. Most of us have had work done there. We can’t have someone disgusting like that in the club.”
PD’s face contorted into a snarl, and the men along the bar all seemed to start talking at once. Hands were held out, keeping PD from coming after Barnes again.
“You got that shit from one of those corner whores you fucked,” King growled into Barnes’s face, and commenced dragging him again. “And you’re dogshit stupid and we still got you here in our club. You have your uses. So simmer down.”
King caught my eye on his way toward the front door, still dragging Barnes along behind him, so I stayed put until I heard the door bang open. Then there was more shouting out there, with King telling Barnes to go fuck himself. Barnes said all sorts of things that got cut off quickly, I was assuming by a right hook from King, though I didn’t go out to watch.
Hunter left me by myself as he swiftly made his way across the room to Josh’s side. Together they helped PD, who was limping, around the end of the bar. The men who’d been shouting took their beers and moved away from the wreckage left behind by the fight, converging on the couches.
So much for hanging out here. Motherfucker.I didn’t want to have to mix with the real world tonight. There were too many rules and too much ass kissing involved.
King came back inside, still breathing like an overworked bull, and I laughed. He was sexy as fuck, as usual, sweat gleaming on his chest and a maniacal smirk on his face. “Take it you had a good day?” I asked.
“Oh, we’ve got two occasional riders in the hospital. Fender bender. Everyone’s fucking on edge around here.” He waved in the direction he’d hauled Barnes as if someone we barely saw getting hit by a car explained the recent trouble, even though Barnes was an asshole all the time. “They’re at the hospital to see if there are any broken bones.”
“Is the accident why Oz was here? Fuck, that’s….”
“Yep. No good.”
“Sorry.”
King gave me a world-weary shrug. “Damn it,” he snapped, staring at the wreck across the room. Josh stood next to PD near the bar, his hair a fluorescent green that nearly blinded me. He had cocktail napkins and was meticulously picking something from PD’s right forearm. My stomach roiled when I realized it was probably glass. “Did you know you’re bleeding?” King tilted his head and stared at my hand on my forehead, and at nearly the exact same moment a drop of blood rolled down my eyebrow and onward, plopping onto my shirt.
“Yes,” I said, dry as possible. I followed him as he stomped over to PD.
“You okay?”
