Page 70 of Hard Heart

“Excuse me? I do not. I’m about to eat dinner.”

“You can pick up a cheeseburger on the way.”

“On the way to where?”

He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering on the pinstriped shift dress I hadn’t got around to changing out of.

“And you need to put on a pair of jeans.”

“I’m comfortable in these clothes, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, but if I take you on the back of the bike looking like that, vultures will be picking my bones clean in the desert.”

What desert? It had been raining for most of the day. “That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”

Jester cracked a smile. “Boss’s orders.”

“Which boss? Are you talking about Levi Sykes? Or some motorcycle overlord?”

“The second one.”

I took a calming breath. Jester wasn’t going to go away, was he? He’d stand outside my door all night, getting in the way and glowering.

“Fine. Fine! But wherever we’re going, I’m taking my car.”

“Some jackass blocked your car in.”

“Seriously? Why didn’t you stop them?”

“Not my job, lady.”

“You really are a first-class cockwomble.”

Jester’s brow furrowed. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Yes, it’s a bad thing! Arsehole,” I added under my breath, just in case he hadn’t got the message yet.

His spare helmet smelled of sweat. Thankfully, the scarf he’d given me to wrap over my face was slightly cleaner, but the seat was uncomfortable, and the vibrations from the engine made my teeth rattle. I dug my fingers into the folds of Jester’s leather jacket so I wouldn’t tumble off the back and cursed Sykes, overbearing bikers, and the world in general until we got to…where?

Half an hour after we left the city limits, Jester pulled into a gloomy compound surrounded by a chain-link fence. What looked like warehouses surrounded three sides of a concrete courtyard, and there was a row of motorcycles parked under a sturdy carport. Bikeport, whatever.

“Now will you tell me why we’re here? Is this your clubhouse?”

He waved a hand towards the middle building. “After you, ma’am.”

Levi Sykes and I would be having words this weekend. He couldn’t send his buddies to practically kidnap me, and hadn’t he himself stressed the importance of revision? Jester hadn’t stopped for dinner either.

“Is there any food in this place?”

“We’ll send someone out.”

He herded me through dark passages into a cavernous room. A workshop? There were benches and tools and motorcycles in various states of repair. The odour of oil permeated throughout, and the naked man hanging from the ceiling groaned.

Wait.

What?

As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I took in his features and realised I’d seen his face once before, albeit briefly.