I couldn’t stop watching his hands, his enormous, strong-enough-to-kill-a-man hands. They rested on the blood-red table, one loosely wrapped around his sweating glass of whiskey on the rocks and the other relaxed palm down on the lacquered wood. I found myself sweating just like that glass, imagining the way those fingers could destroy me, how they would tear apart my body at the seams with rough, sure strokes and unceasing pressure. I was certain to my bones that those hands had killed a man, maybe many but definitely all who had dared to fuck with him. And I now knew from personal experience that those hands could be yielded with the same amount of passion and ruthless intensity on and deep inside a woman’s body.
I wanted those weapons of mass destruction on my skin, wrapped around my wrists like shackles, parting the folds of my soaking wet cunt like a hot knife through butter. I wanted the stretch and burn of each thick digit inside me and then I wanted him to wrap the other big paw around my throat like a threat, like a benediction and claim me as his while I came all over his palm.
I had the time now to go over because the club had just closed and only a handful of The Fallen remained, most of whom I recognized. The low murmur of voices from the back was dissolving into quiet as the girls left for their beds and most of the other servers had already gone home. Only our janitor Michael and my manager, Maja, remained.
But Maja had her eye on me as she had done all night, so I didn’t want to scamper over to Zeus like some eager beaver when I didn’t even really know where we stood on things.
Sure, he’d said I was stuck with him, but what did that mean?
I’d never felt so young in my life as I did when I tried to answer that question.
I was wiping the bar down and cleaning the runoff from the beer taps when Maja scooted onto a stool and said, “Pour me a big vodka, will ya?”
I pulled the Grey Goose off the top shelf and slopped three shots into a rocks glass for her.
“No ice, already dissolved it,” I explained as I pushed it across the slick bar and into her waiting hand.
“Leave the bottle,” she told me when I went to put it back. “And grab a glass. I have a feelin’ a girl talk is in order and I only do that shit when booze is—heavily—involved.”
I bit off my grin as I grabbed a glass, poured myself a thimble full and hefted my ass onto the counter on my side of the bar.
“What’s up?” I asked.
She was a middle-aged woman who looked her age because of her hard living but still wore it well. I’d never seen her without big hair, smoky eyes and seriously tight, flared jeans on. She was a biker babe and she rocked it hard. I didn’t know much about her history other than that she was married to Buck, the VP of The Fallen, and I only knew that because my friend Lila liked to come have a drink at the bar sometimes and she was a font of biker knowledge.
She looked at me then like she had some serious shit to say, serious shit that I wasn’t going to like.
Without meaning to, my eyes darted over to Zeus at his booth where he sat talking to Buck, Bat and Nova.
Maja laughed her loud, smoker’s laugh. “That’s what’s up, baby girl. You eyein’ the beast like you don’t care he bites.”
A blush worked its way into my cheeks before I could stop it, but I shrugged casually, desperate to pull it off. “He’s hot. A girl’s allowed to look.”
“Oh, she sure is and it’d be a crime not to appreciate a great, big beast like that. So pretty you could just walk up and stroke him, hmm?”
The woman was playing with me, smiling over the rim of her glass like a tigress playing with a cub.
I bared my teeth at her in something meaner than a smile. “A beast is just like any other animal… touch them just right, even they purr.”
This time, Maja threw her head back as she cackled and slapped the table with her free hand. “Yes! Damn, I knew I liked you, girlie.”
My grin softened. “Thanks, Maja.”
“That said, I still gotta tell ya to go carefully with this one. It’s my responsibility as an older woman to stick my nose in where it ain’t wanted and give advice, so bear with me a tick, yeah? I wouldn’t be sayin’ nothin’ if it weren’t for the fact that Zeus Garro hasn’t even blinked twice at a woman since he got shot of his bitch ex-wife and now he won’t stop fuckin’ starin’ at ya like you’re his last meal on Death Row.”
“Oh,” I said because wow, it felt good to hear someone say Z wanted me and that it wasn’t just all dreamt up in my head.
“Oh is right. You ready to take on the beast, girl? He’s fuckuva lot’a man for a grown woman, let alone a young one and he comes with a wealth of fuckin’ baggage. You ready to be a mom to two kids your age and a whole host of brothers in the club? ’Cause any woman of Zeus Garro’s is gonna have to pick up that mantle. Don’t get stuck in if you don’t intend to stick.”
“You’re really laying it out, huh?” I asked her to buy myself some time.
I took a sip of the vodka and hated it. Tequila was so much better.
She nodded, drained her glass and poured another. “Only way to do it. It’s part of the life, girlie. You live balls to the wall, say what you think and do what you feel. Know you got a life somewhere outside of here and I seriously doubt it’s a life like that. Remind me too much of my girl, Queenie. I can smell the blue in your blood.”
“My blood’s not got anything to do with this.”
“Like fuck it doesn’t. You want to take on not just a biker but the biker, you better be willin’ and eager to drown that blue out with green and black, the colours of The Fallen, ’cause that’s what you’ll be.”
I crossed my arms under my breasts and blinked at her, done talking about my relationship with Z with a virtual stranger. “Who says I even want to take him on?”
“Girlie, there’s only one man I know with hands that large,” she said with sparkling eyes as she gestured to my bare midriff under my cropped top. “Next time you want to keep somethin’ a secret, maybe hide the evidence, yeah?”
I looked down to see the faint bruises Zeus had left on my hips last night and glared at her. “One of the brothers blabbed about the dance, didn’t they?”
She laughed like a wicked witch again. “You betcha. Brothers are worse than a group of old biddies but don’t tell ’em I said that. Nothing stays secret in the club for long, not once you’re accepted into the fold.”
I rolled my lips under my teeth and voiced one of my worries. “Bet that’s easier said than done.”
“Darlin’ the Vice President’s wife just sat down to have a drink and a chat with you. Think that process has already begun.” Maja downed the rest of her drink with a wink then slid off the stool and sauntered into the back.
There was a commotion at the doors and I turned my eyes from Maja’s great ass to watch as Cy and Boner escorted a well-dressed man into the club.
I recognized him immediately as one of the men with Quentin Kade the night he’d shot at me. My heart leapt into my throat as my eyes swiveled to Zeus. He was watching me too and the moment I looked over, he tipped his chin at me. I didn’t know what that meant exactly but I stayed behind the bar, relaxing slightly when Mute appeared from out of nowhere and sat at the bar beside me.