Sutton blinked up at him, swaying on one heel, her glossy mouth parting as though she’d already shifted targets and decided he might be more cooperative.
Fury looked past Sutton and lifted his voice toward the far end of the bar. “Rea, call her a cab. Make sure the driver knows she’s not getting dropped anywhere except the address she gives you.”
Sutton’s head jerked toward him, her brows drawing together as if being handled like an intoxicated adult was a personal insult. “I don’t need a cab.”
“Sure you do,” Fury replied. “What you don’t need is another drink, bad decision, or chance to put your hands where they weren’t invited.”
Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes narrowed with outrage, but she still tried to smooth it over by leaning toward him. “You’re cute too, you know.”
“I know,” he quipped without missing a beat, taking her elbow in a firm grip that left no room for argument but didn’t hurt her. “Cuddly too.”
A laugh tried to slip out, but I swallowed it so Sutton didn’t misinterpret it as an invitation. From either of us.
She made a weak sound of protest when Fury started leading her toward the door, her steps uneven as she tried to keep up without looking like she was being escorted out. She threw one last look over her shoulder at me, glossy eyes filled with wounded pride and something else that I couldn’t decipher. But I had no interest in figuring it out.
Fury kept moving her toward the exit with the kind of patience that looked easy only because of how long he’d been running the bar. Sutton tried to touch his chest once, but he caught her wrist before she made contact. He said something low enough that I couldn’t hear it over the music, but her mouth snapped shut for three whole seconds, which felt like a minor miracle.
The door opened, and Fury guided her outside.
Once they were gone, conversation picked up again, pool balls cracked against each other, and the jukebox rolled into a guitar riff. I took another pull from my beer, but it tasted flatter now, the whole encounter leaving a sour edge in my mouth.
Fury came back inside a few minutes later and grabbed the towel he’d abandoned earlier and sent me a look that was pure dry amusement. “Cute girl, but a fucking handful.”
“Not my problem.”
Fury barked a laugh as he tossed the towel over one shoulder. “Thank fuck for that.”
I grunted and set my beer down. She was exactly the kind of chaos I avoided because men who invited that into their lives usually ended up bleeding time, money, or both.
I slid off the stool and reached into my pocket for my keys, already thinking about the clean stretch of road between The Burnout and the compound. One drunk woman with grabby hands wasn’t enough to wreck my night, but the encounter made me want wind, speed, and distance.
Behind me, Fury muttered something to Rea about cutting off anyone who tried to match Sutton’s energy, and I almost smiled.
By the time I stepped outside, Sutton’s cab was pulling away from the curb. I watched it go with the certainty that I’d never have to deal with her again. That suited me just fine.
2
CENTURY
The next night, The Burnout was packed wall to wall with the kind of energy that came after a clean race and a Redline win. The big screens above the far wall replayed clips from the night’s run—a rough recording taken by one of our brothers since the race hadn’t been a legal one.
I’d had a damn good night. The custom bike I’d tuned earlier in the week had run exactly the way I knew she would, smooth through the turns and violent on the straightaway. It had carried me past the finish line with enough distance that nobody could pretend the win had been luck.
There were plenty of things a man could fake in this world, but speed wasn’t one of them. A machine either had it or it didn’t, and the man riding it either knew how to use it or he didn’t. Tonight, everything had lined up exactly the way I built it to.
Speed was the place where the world made the most sense to me. Where noise narrowed, instincts sharpened, and every twitch of the machine beneath me felt like an extension of myself. I kept pushing until the road blurred and every manwatching understood I wasn’t built with the same sense of caution as most people.
Too many years ago, I broke a speed record in a race that should’ve rattled me, but all it did was settle something in my bones. Kane had approached me not long after about racing for Redline Velocity—one of his pro teams. Since I raced for the speed and not the rules, I hadn’t taken him up on the offer. I did, however, accept his suggestion that I prospect for the Kings because I’d known from the moment he told me about the club that it was where I belonged.
As a King, I found out that I also knew exactly how far to push a man before he broke.
But the club wasn’t just about motorcycles and fights. The place was filled with family. Not the kind you were born to, the one you chose. Men you would give your life for because the only thing more important than the patch on our cuts was our women and children.
Our president was in one of the back booths with his old lady, Savannah, tucked close. To most men, the tiny sleeping baby against Kane’s chest would have ruined some of the intimidation, but he’d built his reputation so definitively that his name became synonymous with fear and respect. It was the reason he didn’t have a separate road name. People already knew who the hell he was and exactly how fucking lethal it would be to fuck with him or anyone he cared about.
His brother, and our VP, stood nearby with one arm around his wife, Callie. He looked relaxed in the way that meant at least three different knives were still within reach.
They chatted with Raze and Shifter. Gauge was cozied up with Riley, the woman he’d recently claimed, who gave me a run for my money when it came to talent with a racing machine. And Nitro and his wife, Jana, who was a seriously talented driver, were arguing over lap times near the pool tables, whichmeant they’d either end up betting on something stupid or disappearing somewhere private before the night was over.
