“It doesn’t matter now.” She looked away, her gaze straying to the sofas where Skinny was sitting, his gaze still trained on Laney, one hand resting on his lower stomach. “Who’s he?” she asked, and I felt my anger spike at the hungry look in her eyes.
I clenched my teeth and tried not to sound too pissed off. “That’s Skinny.”
She nodded in response but didn’t say anything. She looked away from him and silence fell between us. I couldn’t think of a damned thing to say to the girl—at least not anything that would keep her attention on me and not on Skinny, the club, or anything that was going to upset her. I stared down at my bottle, my gaze straying to hers where she was picking at the label and tearing it off into little pieces. I thought I’d read somewhere that doing that was a sign of sexual frustration, and I looked away, my hard-on hurting even more. The silence continued to grow until it became uncomfortable and I had to speak to break it up before I had a fucking heart attack. Butch was on the phone to someone by then—probably Hardy—and Skinny kept on looking over at us and trying to catch Laney’s eye again.
“So, what’s it like living with your dad?” I asked, trying to make small talk with her. It wasn’t something I was good at, but I wanted her attention on me and no one else.
“My dad?” She snorted and took another sip of beer, and once again my gaze went straight to her mouth. “If you can even call him that. All he does is give me money to buy food and school supplies and tell me to keep out of his way and not cause any trouble for him. I’d hardly call that dad material.”
She didn’t realize how much I agreed with her on that, but that wasn’t the time to get into it with her. All around us, people were starting to wake up, thanks to Laney’s sudden entrance. Women were standing up on unsteady feet, still half-naked, and bikers were pulling them back down to be fucked before the day’s work began.
Groaning echoed over to us from one of the small black sofas in the center of the room, and Laney turned to look. From our position we could see every fucking thing and Laney’s eyes went wide when she saw Pops ramming into some bitch that Butch and Casa had brought back with them the night before. He was holding onto her waist tightly, and she was rolling her hips against every one of his thrusts and grunting.
The woman was old enough to be there, but like always, she was still way too young for Pops. She’d barely woken up properly when Pops had flipped her around and held her legs wide open, his gummy grin leering down on her as she grunted and groaned.
I’d grown up seeing that sort of shit, so I didn’t bother me in the slightest, but it was shit that Laney didn’t need to see. That was for damn sure.
“Come on,” I said, moving from around the bar. I took her hand automatically, feeling an instant connection as our skin touched. Laney looked away from Pops and the woman he was fucking and looked at our linked hands, and then her gaze rose to meet mine. I swallowed, feeling like I was going to have a fucking heart attack with the way she was looking at me.
“Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly.
“No one needs to see old, wrinkly nutsacks first thing in the morning,” I replied, and I felt a wave of something rush through me when she laughed. The sound was like fucking birds singing or some romantic shit like that.
Fuck me, I was a pussy.
“He’s really old,” she whispered on a laugh, her fingers squeezing my hand tightly. “How does he even get it up anymore?”
I laughed back and pulled her down the hallway, not sure where I was heading until we reached my room and I pulled her into it. I shut the door behind us, still laughing. I didn’t want to let go of her hand, but there was no reason to keep holding it anymore so I reluctantly let it go.
“Yeah, I don’t even know how he still has the energy for all the fucking he does, to be honest,” I replied, feeling my cheeks go hot as I looked around the pigsty that was my room. For the first time ever I felt embarrassed by the mess. Dirty clothes were piled up in the corners and moldy plates and cups were edging out from under my bed. And the smell. Good fucking Lord, how had I never noticed the damn smell before? It smelled like ass. Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t be surprised if she ran screaming from the room.
“He fucks a lot?” Laney said with surprise. Her face was still flushed pink, but it seemed more from humor than her tears now. And fuck me, I liked it when she said the wordfuck—mainly because all I could think about was fucking her right then, and her saying the word made me hopeful that she was thinking the same things as me.
“Oh yeah, Pops fucks more bitches than the rest of the brothers here put together, and they fuck a lot,” I replied, laughing. My laughter died on my lips when she didn’t join in. I’d said something wrong, I figured, but I wasn’t sure what. I grabbed the back of my neck, feeling uncomfortable.
“Why do you do that?” she said, sounding angry again, her face screwed up as she glared at me.
Made my dick even harder.
“Do what?”
“Call women bitches. It’s degrading, and you’re better than that.”
I was flustered for a moment because that sounded too much like a fucking compliment for my liking. “I uhh, I don’t know, that’s just the way it is,” I replied, and she shook her head, looking even more angry so I tried to explain further, because for some reason, what she thought made me stand up and give a shit. “The women that come here, they come here for one reason and one reason only. They know what they’re getting themselves in for. That’s why they’re just bitches.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“And what do they come here for then?” she snapped, her eyes on fire. Goddamn, I wanted to drag her down to my bed right then.
“To fuck,” I said bluntly—probably too bluntly, but I couldn’t help it. Her anger was giving me a raging hard-on and I was horny as hell. “Those women out there come here knowing full well that they’re only here to be filled and fucked and suck anything that’s given to them. They enjoy the party and the lifestyle that we give them. They don’t expect anything else. Some hang around for a few months until they realize that sleeping with half the club ain’t going to make ’em an old lady, because who wants to make some dirty skank their property when she’s been through all their brothers? But some just show up to party, wanting to get with the bad-boy biker. Everyone knows their place and everyone is cool with that. So don’t look down your nose at any of it until you understand the way it works.” I finished my little speech and clamped my mouth shut. I was defensive of our club because it was all I had ever known, and I was sick of civilians coming in and looking down their noses at our way of life.
She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again just as quickly, looking shocked that I’d spoken to her that way. She seemed to correct herself and took a step toward me.
“And what’s my place, Jesse?” she asked, and I nearly poked a hole through my towel when she said my name because it was the most seductive thing I’d ever heard in my life.
“What?” I asked, punch-drunk on her scent as she closed the gap between us.
