I looked how I always did. How most of my brothers dressed. But that was a point in her favor. So was the fact that she’d worn clothes that would protect her better on the back of a bike than her usual skirts and flowy tops would. It hadn’t occurred to me to bring anything other than my bike. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” she said, turning to lock her front door.
I leaned forward a bit and inhaled. I had no idea what kind of perfume she wore, but I liked it. It made me want to bury my face in her neck. Or wherever else she might have squirted some. My eyes dropped down to her tits as she turned to face me again.
Clearing my throat, and averting my gaze, I held my arm out. “You good to ride with me?”
“Really?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with excitement. “I’ve kind of always wanted to ask one of you if I could take a ride.”
I had to swallow back the automatic urge to swear. The thought of her riding behind one of my brothers, her curves pressed up against them, made me want to kill them and bury them somewhere, more than I usually did. “Now’s your chance,” I said, being sure to soften my tone so I didn’t bark the words at her. She didn’t need to know I was jealous of a hypothetical situation. She’d think I was insane.
Rae seemed like a pretty soft, sweet woman, if a little distant. I planned to get to know her a lot better, and I was betting there was a spine of steel buried beneath all her gentleness. That didn’t mean that she needed to see the demented side of me right off the bat. We were all a little crazy. A bit fucked up. You had to be to do what most of us had done in the military and now for Sentry Securities. The security firm tended to get worse than the military ever got. That was kind of the point, to do what the rules didn’t allow.
I didn’t mind that so much, but it would likely be a deterrent for a lot of women. The kind who were walking red flags threw themselves at us all the time. Those who were old lady material? I’d gotten the side-eye more than once as they’d tried to figure out what my deal was. Usually, they moved on. Partly because of their own good sense, and partly because I hadn’t wanted anything serious before now.
Getting on the bike, I started it up, then held out a hand to steady Rae as she climbed on behind me. She wrapped her arms around my waist and I nodded mentally to myself. I would have been right to kill any brother who gave her a ride. She wasn’t a large woman, but she still had curves in all the right places. And those places were smashed up against my back right now. Against me is where they belonged.
The restaurant wasn’t very far away, so I didn’t bother with giving her my helmet. Though if we went on longer rides, we’d both need one. We both worked in professions where we sawwhat happened to riders who didn’t wear protective gear. It never ended well for those riders.
I pulled up at the restaurant and helped her off the bike. She aimed a bright smile my way and I huffed out a breath. It wasn’t fucking normal to get hard just because this woman was smiling at me like I’d just made her happier than anything had in her life. I shifted my stance, trying to discreetly adjust my cock before she looked down and realized what she was doing to me.
“That was so much fun!” she gushed, grabbing my forearm and squeezing.
I laughed, enjoying her exuberance. I hadn’t seen her this animated before. I liked that she was feeling comfortable enough with me to show it. “Glad you liked it,” I told her. “We’ll have to go on a longer ride the next time. I’ll pick up an extra helmet for you.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “I wouldn’t have wanted to go much further without one.”
She didn’t pick up on the significance of me getting a helmet for her. I wasn’t surprised. She didn’t strike me as the type who knew much about MC culture. Some clubs gave cuts to their old ladies, some gave anything that signified something important to the club. We tended to give helmets and nicknames and that was about all. But it was our way of claiming our women and it was as important to us as giving them a ring.
CHAPTER 11
Pyre
We sat down at the table the hostess showed us to and picked up our menus. I gave her a few minutes, eyeing the dishes they offered here and settled on a steak. It was hard to fuck up a good chunk of meat. Especially in a ranching town like this one. You wouldn’t survive if your steak was bad. Some places in other towns managed it, but I was hoping this wouldn’t be one of them.
For some reason there were places who considered A-1 sauce to be everything a steak needed. They didn’t season the meat with anything. Not even a fucking hint of salt. Disgusting. That shit needed to be doused in seasonings before it was tossed on the grill. It had to do with the meat’s chemistry, drawing out the flavor. Warrant explained it to me once, the details didn’t really stick because I didn’t give a shit as long as it tasted good, but I remembered the gist. Season the damn thing, and don’t dare do something horrific like cook it to a well-done temperature.
Focusing back on my date, I found her pretty brown eyes watching me. She looked a little wary. Couldn’t say I blamed her. I was scowling down at my menu like it had personally insulted me. I’d been reliably informed by other women, in this case Ainsley, that a nice girl might think my scowls were aimed at her. I made a mental note to check myself. Clearing my throat, I set the menu down and leaned back in my chair. “What did you decide on?”
“I’m going to have the mushroom risotto,” she told me with a small smile.
I loved the way she smiled. Like she had some kind of secret she wasn’t sharing, but not in a cruel way. Just like she had something she knew that made her happy and she wasn’t ready to tell you what it was yet. “Sounds good. I’m going for the steak.”
She nodded and we both fell silent as the waiter walked up. He announced the specials, we put in our orders, and then he left us alone together again.
“So. What made you want to become a medical examiner?”
She looked up at me with wide eyes. “Oh, um, I was always fascinated with biology.” I nodded, waiting for her to continue, but she rushed on, changing the subject. “Does the rest of your family live here in Sentinel?”
She knew about my cousin, his wife, and his kids because she’d arranged the funeral for my cousin’s kid Brandon a couple months back. I frowned at the way she pivoted the conversation, but humored her. I wanted to get to know her, not talk about myself, but it was a two-way street and if she wanted to get to know me that was probably a good thing.
“No. My parents live down south and my two sisters live in Washington and Nebraska,” I told her.
“All spread out,” she replied. “Do you see them often?”
“Us kids try to make it home a couple times a year.”
She smiled and searched my face. “You don’t have a southern accent. Where is home?”
