Fuck it’s cold.
I run back up to my apartment, grab a heavier jacket and throw it on over my sweater.
The car rumbles to a start, and the tires spin briefly before it barrels backward out of my parking space. If there’s one positive thing I can say about this car, it’s the heat it gives off. My lips shrivel in seconds the moment the air flowing through the vents shifts from arctic to Death Valley. I tilt the vents down and let the air warm my legs and feet.
The closest bar out of town is only twenty minutes away, and there are multiple roads leading to it. I pull to the curb on the side of the building facing one of the roads leading back toward my town and apartment and blow out a heavy sigh.
This is such a bad idea. Mastyx is going to be pissed when he figures out I’m using him. That is, if he hasn’t already. I rub my palms together before reaching for the door handle, my heart pounding. I hesitate to open it, my mind second-guessing what I’m about to do.
“You’re playing with fire, Contessa,” I say aloud. “Literally.”
I draw in a deep breath, grab my clutch, and climb from the car, slamming the door behind me as I bite my bottom lip. There’s no sense locking it. I have nothing inside to steal.
A wave of stale air, smelling of body odor and alcohol, hits me when I open the tavern door. I wiggle my nose as I scan the room, and a sudden sinking feeling weighs heavily in my stomach. This is not the type of bar I should be in.
All eyes are on me—lots of them. It appears I’ve just waltzed into a biker bar.
A jukebox plays a heavy metal song I’m unfamiliar with in a far corner, and a large pool table surrounded by some very scary-looking men sits nearby.
Fuck. Runaway, Contessa. Run the fuck away.
If I leave now, it will be too obvious, but if I stay, everyone will remember who I am and that I was here—too many witnesses to call Mastyx.
A leather jacket hangs over a barstool beside me. The back of it reads “Hell’s Hogs”.
Hell’s Hogs?What a terrible name.
A part of me wants to turn and dash out the door, but the other part of me likes the feeling of how dangerous this is. The only problem is, I’m frozen in place. My legs don’t want me to take this any further. It’s as if my subconscious sounded an alarm and alerted all my limbs. Now I have to decide whether to hold fast or retreat.
You can do this, Contessa, I say inside my head, trying to convince myself that I’m not petrified and bordering on shitting my pants.
I lift my chin high, trying to appear unrattled and confident, and take a seat on the barstool beside the jacket and drum my fingers on the bar top, waiting for the bartender. He eyes me from across the room and shakes his head, before throwing a white towel on the bar.
“I think you’re in the wrong bar, sweetheart,” the bartender says with a heavy Southern drawl.
“Jack and Coke,” I say, ignoring his intense gaze.
He raises his eyebrows, “Do you have an ID?”
I glare at him, my eyes darkening. “No, do you? Does anyone in here have one?”
His eyes drift past me, and he nods to someone standing behind me before walking away and grabbing the Jack Daniel’s bottle from a lower shelf.
Heat from someone’s breath drifts across my neck. “Aren’t you a sweet little thing?” an older, deep voice says from behind me.
I peer over my shoulder. “There’s nothing sweet about me,” I say, ignoring the chill that’s running through my body.
The man standing dangerously close to me wears the same jacket as the one hanging over the chair beside me. His eyesare an intense blue, and his sandy blonde hair barely covers his scalp. He smiles broadly. “Not so sweet, huh? Does that mean you’re a working girl?”
It takes me a moment to realize what he’s asking me.Working girl. He thinks I’m a prostitute.
“No, just a girl desperate for a drink,” I say with confidence as the bartender rests a coaster down by my hand and places my Jack and Coke in a glass on top.
I quickly gulp it down, ignoring the burning pain that travels from my lips down to my stomach, trying to steel my nerves that are threatening to unravel my entire plan. I push my tongue around my mouth, feeling a gritty texture and odd aftertaste. Within seconds, I realize I have made a colossal mistake.
I shoot the bartender a horrified look before an overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia shrinks me down in my seat.
Every patron in the bar has either risen to a stand and is facing me or is now slowly moving toward me. Within the blink of an eye, they’ve surrounded me, cutting off my exit. Over a dozen pairs of hungry eyes crawl down my body, leaving me feeling more exposed than I would be completely naked.
