Chapter 1
LD
Jesus H. Christ, what the fuck was she doing here? I hadn't seen her when I'd first come in, she must have been dancing and lost in the crowd. If I'd known she was going to be part of the old ladies’ crowd I would have stayed back at the clubhouse. I shot a narrowed glance at my president, Demon, wondering if this was a setup. He and a few of my brothers seemed to think that I had a thing for the curvaceous Jolene.
I did, though I'd never admit it, because the way that I wanted her would ruin her. I knew deep down I could never love another woman. Loving someone and then losing them hurt too fucking much. Worse than a bullet to the gut or a blade across the throat. It was the kind of pain you never got rid of because it lived inside your heart and soul. Losing a child was a thousand times worse.
I would never recover from losing Johnny.
The looks and comments shot my way over the months since I’d met Jolene had only reinforced my resolve to remain unaffected. My brothers were only guessing that I was interested in her. I hadn’t admitted to anything, and I hadn’t bothered to deny anything either, because I knew my brothers. The more I denied my attraction, the more they'd give me shit about it. As long as I kept pretending that I wasn't affected by the beautiful Amazon-goddess-like woman, they'd eventually leave it the fuck alone and move on.
The more the woman became ingrained in my world, the harder it was becoming to stay away from her. It had begun when Holly, Sax's old lady, had taken over the Vegas construction office and she and Jolene had become instant, fucking BFFs. Jolene worked in Illuminations, the lighting fixture store next door, and now we had a fucking contract with them to provide the fixtures in the houses we were building. Holly had brought her around the club a few times since then, and now she was friends with all the old ladies.
Holly was gone now, to parts unknown, but Jolene still attended some of the functions at the clubhouse, and now it was clear that she was joining in when the old ladies had their girls’ night out.
Well, fuck Demon, I thought to myself as I shot him another glare and downed my second shot of whiskey. This was the last fucking time I'd take him up on his suggestion that I tag along.
I motioned to the bartender for another drink, resisting the urge to stare in the mirror across from me because I knew who I'd be looking for. Tall, blond, with violet eyes that cut right through a man. Not in a hard, brutal way, but in a soft, promising kind of way that fueled the hunger I kept so tightly coiled in my gut. When I was in her vicinity it was a struggle not to lose control. Not to fucking take her up against the nearest wall and fuck her. If she only knew the filthy shit I wanted to do to her.
I tossed back my third whiskey with as much force as I had the other two before it, slamming the glass down on the bar when I was done. The sound, even against the noise inside the club, drew the attention of several brothers closest to me. Their raised brows indicated a question I wasn't about to answer. Cole shrugged and went back to his conversation with Colton. Demon's response to my sudden aggression brought a knowing smirk to his mouth before he covered it with his drink.
Fuck you, Brother, I swore to myself.
He should have known better than to bait me, but he also knew that I respected him as my president, and he'd chosen me as his VP for a reason. We'd been brothers a long time. Knew each other inside and out, as well as two men could know each other. But that didn't mean that we didn't have secrets. Fuck, I had more than a few. Some shit was better kept buried. Reliving shit you couldn't change only kept the pain alive and the demons hungry.
As I mulled over my attraction to Jolene and Demon’s annoying understanding of it, I knew that I should stop drinking, but it was one of the things I did best. Killing was the other, and I did both often. My whole fucking life seemed like an instant replay of the same shit. I only did enough to get me through to the next day. The club was my fucking life, my brothers the only people that mattered to me. Sure, I'd protect their old ladies and families with my life, but I didn't get close enough to care about any of them. I didn't want to care.
I caught the bartender's eye and motioned for another drink. The whiskey was strong and burned like a mother going down, but it was the fuel that I needed to warm my blood and remind me that I was alive. As I glanced up, the woman I saw approaching the bar in the mirror took my fucking breath away. What the fuck did she want? She always had a smile for me, while I openly snarled in return, trying to scare her away. I wasn't the kind of man to let the sweet curve of a woman's lips or the friendly sparkle in her eyes calm me into pretending that I was a friendly guy. I wanted Jolene to know that she needed to be careful around me.
My eyes ran up and down the lush curves barely contained in the skin tight dress she was wearing. The fucking thing was so short that it barely covered the swell of that perfect bubble ass, showing off those perfect, toned legs. The red stilettos, in contrast to her silver dress, made her legs even sexier. She'd pulled up that thick blond mane of hers and secured it on top of her head with some kind of sparkly comb with a feather coming out of it. But it was her eyes that always sucked me in.
Amethyst. Purple. Violet. However the fuck you'd describe them. They were unusual, mesmerizing. And when Jolene looked at me I felt something I didn't want to examine too hard.
Her smile never wavered as she reached the bar. She had the common sense to wedge herself between Cole and Demon, who gave her an appreciative but respectful look. My brothers both had sexy old ladies of their own, and they were extremely loyal to Raven and Bobbie. Actually, “pussy whipped” was more like it. Though Jolene made fleeting eye contact with them both, when those violet gems touched on me they lingered long enough to remind me that she needed to be afraid.
I tried to convince myself that I didn't want her.
"Gentlemen," she said in her sweet-ass southern drawl.
The brothers chuckled. They always got a laugh when she referred to them as gentlemen.
"Since I'm the only single lady at the table, I've been tasked with giving you a message."
"And why is that?" Colton laughed. "Our old ladies scared of us?"
Even her laughter seemed to have a southern quality to it. "I seriously doubt that. More like they know I'm the only one not in danger of being pulled over one of your shoulders and taken out of here."
Hearty laughter came from everyone but me.
"What's the message?" Demon smiled.
"There's a bachelorette party in the back room and the girls have been invited to watch the male stripper do his thing. Apparently he used to be one of the famous Chippendales—"
"An original from nineteen-seventy-nine?" Cole snorted.
"Seventy-six," Demon corrected.
I stared at them as if they had two heads, not about to question how they knew that shit.
Jolene shrugged. "According to one of the ladies from the party he's six-feet of pure sex on a stick."
"Oh, hell, no!" Colton said, getting up from his stool in one fast move.
"But—" Jolene's pretty eyes grew large as she watched him walk briskly away. She turned back to Demon and Cole, who were also leaving their stools.
"Not going to happen, honey," Demon threw her way over his retreating back.