“You see something you like here, huh?” the oldest of them asks me, a craggy-faced, bearded man I guessed was in his forties.
I flash a glance at Malcolm, who is sitting on the other side of the table, but his face is completely expressionless as he looks at the cards in his hand.
“Nothing like that,” I demur. “I was on deck a moment ago, and the breeze is a bit chilly tonight.”
“That’s all it is, eh?” The scraggly old pervert scratches at his cheek as he pulls a small wooden box out of the leather cut he’s wearing. “Well, stay a moment after you pass around those drinks. I want to pick your brain about how you feel working for these fine gentlemen.”
As he’s speaking, he lays the small box he had produced on the table, lifting a clasp and opening it to reveal a black, powdery substance. Dipping a tiny spoon concealed inside the box into the powder, he lifts it to his nose and snorts it with a ripping, sinus-grating gurgle.
Before I can ask what the hell he’s doing, Silas, who’s sitting beside Malcolm, speaks up. “You still cooking that stuff up, Bobby? Thought you gave all that up after your…troubles.”
“Bah, we don’t cook it in bulk anymore,” Bobby laments. “This is just for personal use only these days. Of course, we still have a little income coming in from it here and there. The way we grind it means you don’t have to inject it, which brings in a surprising amount of what I call ‘health-conscious consumers.’”
“So you are still cooking enough to sell?” Silas persists, before I see Malcolm gently elbow him in the ribs.
“Their business isn’t our business,” Malcolm says softly. “At least not yet. If we all decide to move forward with any sort of arrangement, we can all sit down another time and work out business dealings. Tonight is just about having a good time.”
“I’ll drink to that, Mr. President,” Bobby says as he rubs at his nose and snorts, before lifting his glass of whiskey to his lips and finishing it off in one swallow.
There is a palpable tension at the table as Silas, Nash, and Malcolm all sit in silence while Bobby looks around after finishing his drink. The two guys he brought with him are both staring at their cards when one of them says quietly, “You gonna call the pot or fold, Bobby? You’re holding up the game.”
“Oh, well, hell, I am,” Bobby sneers, before looking over at me still standing beside the table. “I know a fine pot when I see one, and I tell you, boys, I’m all in on this one!” Laughing, he reaches over and slaps his hand, each finger adorned in a different gaudy ring, on the back of my thigh. “My god, what an ass on this one!” he exclaims, running his hand up the back of my dress, over my bottom before I can even move or protest. His fingertips drag right up the crack of my ass!
I leap forward and bump the table, letting out a tiny, surprised squeak as the old biker’s hand gropes me. Before I can get a handle on the situation and slap him away, bodies seem to blur into motion all around me.
Malcolm erupts from his chair first, slamming his knees into the table and sending drinks, cards, and chips flying everywhere. Silas and Nash both try to grab at his arms as he storms around the table, but he shakes off both of them without even sparing them a glance.
“Malcolm, don’t!” Nash manages to yell as the two other Knights scoot their chairs back and I grab helplessly at the edge of the table, still pinned there by the hand grabbing hold of my ass. The pressure disappears almost instantly as Malcolm whips around the bottle of Jack Daniels he had been sipping from on his side of the table, shattering it over the old biker’s head and sending him sprawling to the floor!
“Malcolm!” I exclaim as he follows Bobby down to the ground, straddling him and slamming both of his fists into his face, one right after another. “Malcolm, stop it!” I shout when I grab his elbow and pull it back. “Please!”
Finally, he pauses long enough to look over his shoulder at me, strands of his long hair falling in his furious eyes. “He needs to learn a fucking lesson about touching shit that’s not his!”
“I think you’ve made that lesson very clear. He’s asleep, so you can stop hitting him now.” I keep pulling on Malcolm’s arm until he finally gets to his feet. “It wasn’t a big deal. He just caught me by surprise, and…oh shit, Malcolm!”
When I glance around, everyone in the entire casino is gawking at us. Most of the other MC guys look a little on edge, but Malcolm’s brothers? Well, Nash and Silas look pissed off at me more so than Malcolm, and I didn’t even do anything!
“Come on,” I tell him as I start pulling him in the direction of his office, his boys following behind us.
“We’ve got this,” Nash says with a nod of his head toward the bar.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Get back to work,” he snaps.
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault that prick grabbed my ass!”
A humph is his response before the three men disappear.
“Whoa,” Ronnie whispers when she comes over. “I’ve never seen Malcolm lose his shit like that before, especially not on the freaking president of another MC.”
“What? You said he shot someone once...”
“Yeah, that was different. He calmly removed his gun from his pants, cocked it and then pulled the trigger. Tonight? Well, he looked like a rabid dog, all fists and no thought.”
“Some jerk grabbed my ass!” I tell her in case she missed that part.
“That’s what set Malcolm off?” she asks as if it’s ridiculous. “Crazy. I thought the fight with Fiasco was just a pissing contest, but maybe it was more…”
“More what?” I ask in confusion.
“He must actually care about you,” Ronnie says. “You’re his old woman.”
“His old woman?” I seethe.
“It’s not a bad thing. It means he’s laying claim to you as his publicly so that everyone knows you’re taken. You should be flattered. It’s not like the Aces to settle down.”
Settle down?
The words repeat in my head over and over.
Is Ronnie right? Does Malcolm feel the same way about me as I do for him?
In just two days, our two-week arrangement is going to end. I’ve been dreading it all week because I’m not ready to lose him.
And maybe that feeling is mutual.
Malcolm
* * *
“What the hell were you thinking?” Nash asks as he paces in front of my desk. “Robert Greene is the goddamn president of the Knights of Wrath MC. There might not be many of them on the outside, but you better hope his crew doesn’t retaliate like we would if someone beat the shit out of you!”
“He reached under Naomi’s skirt and grabbed her ass!” I mutter, clenching and relaxing my fist, my knuckles burning and bleeding as I think back to the moment I saw that motherfucker’s hand disappear under her dress. I was on the other side of the table, so all I could do was watch as Naomi startled in surprise that someone was touching her so intimately without her consent before her stunned face looked like she wanted to vomit. “No, he didn’t just grab it. He fucking fondled it.”