Their stares make me feel…endangered.
That guilt I’ve come to know so well makes a home deep in my chest. Once again, I’ve managed to end up somewhere I shouldn’t be. I catch myself shrinking away, closer to Spider.
My captor pulls me into his side with an arm around my neck. It’s not a friendly hold. It’s iron-hard and crushing, trapping me against him. Most of the men stop staring and go back to their booze, back to their roughhousing and their women.
“Relax,” he growls in my ear. “No one will touch you if they know you’re mine.”
Why doesn’t that make me feel better?
When we step inside Casper’s, it’s like stepping into a whole other world.
The lower floor is a tavern, but it looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There’s a set of three huge flat-screen TV’s on the back wall, giving the place a brightly lit, flashy look that reminds me of the Las Vegas Strip. Scantily-clad women sit on the laps of men or move between them with trays of booze as if it’s nothing.
My eyes travel up to the ceiling and I gasp.
No less than eight motorcycles hang suspended from the ceiling on thick chains three or four feet above us. Instinctively, I try to back up toward the door, half expecting one of those chains to break and send a bike crashing down on us.
“Spider…”
He follows my eyes and smiles, patting my hip. “Take it easy. They won’t fall. Those chains could hold up an elephant, and the bikes have been up there for years.”
I try not to look at the bikes above my head, but that only puts what else is in the room front and center.
Several men lounge on the couches in front of the screens. There’s a pornographic movie playing out on the middle screen, the image of a woman being plowed into by two guys taking up half the wall. Of all things, there is a woman lying across two of the men on the couches with her tongue in one of their mouths.
Then she dips her head and takes him into her mouth, bobbing her head while he grips her hair and groans.
My jaw drops. If I’d thought the strip club was a den of sin, this place is worse.
I avert my gaze, but it doesn’t do any good.
Other men sit playing cards at the tables placed around the room, piles of money sitting between them. But one of the bikers also has a woman up against the wall with her legs around his waist while he thrusts slowly in and out of her.
This whole place seems designed to allow the most savage side of men to be unleashed with abandon.
“Oh, dear Lord,” I squeak. “It’s like Sodom and Gamora in here.”
Spider chuckles darkly. “Told you, Wildcat. We aren’t shy about fucking our women.”
He nips my ear, and his beard tickles my skin.
Heat licks between my legs, and I squirm. His voice is like fire in my veins.
The men we rode back with are already making themselves at home. Pip talks to a girl behind the bar while she pulls him a beer. Arson is lounging with some other men on the couches. Over near one of the tables, Striker hoists one of the women over his shoulder. She whoops in surprise and he carries her off to a room at the back while men at a nearby table, Reaper among them, whistle and cheer him on.
“I don’t want to be here, Spider.” I push at his chest.
His hand grips my nape as he crushes me to him. He buries his nose in my hair, inhaling deeply. “You should have thought of that before you put your hot little hands on our money.”
He turns to a man with a thick black beard at a table near him. “Where’s Diesel, Mort? Where’s the party?”
Mort accepts a mug of ale from a passing server girl. “Thanks, darling.” His eyes veer to me for a half a second before he answers Spider. “There’s been a complication. He and Snake went with Prez to deal with it. The party’s been put off until tomorrow.”
Spider frowns, as if he’s wondering what kind of complication Mort is talking about. Judging by the way Mort looked at me before he answered, he’s avoided going into detail because I’m there. Spider gives a nod, and I get the feeling some sort of understanding has passed between them.
Then Mort’s gaze takes me in, and the corners of his mouth go up. “She yours, Spidy?”
“Every inch of her.” Spider runs his fingers through my curls, running the tip of his nose along the side of my neck.
“Nice. This the little thief we’ve all been hearing about?”
My stomach clenches.
“It is. Monica been shooting her mouth off?”
“Oh yeah. She couldn’t wait to blab to the club girls, and now they’re all talking. Dee’s heard all about it. She intends to have a word with your girl when she comes back.”
Oh, no. Dee.
“Well, she’s going to have to wait. I have things for this wildcat to do first.”
Mort chuckles.
Spider continues toward the back of the room with me, clapping men on the back and giving brotherly handshakes as he passes.
“Nice one, Spidy,” one of the men says, jerking his chin at me with a friendly smile for him. His thick hair is all grey, and he has a patch over one eye. “How much did you have to pay her to come home with you?”
“Spider laughs. “Fuck you, Cap.”
When we reach the couches, one of the men comes over from a billiard table. His long blond hair is pulled back at his nape.
“So this is your new toy,” he says to Spider, looking me over hungrily.
“Back the fuck up, Whistler.” Spider growls, keeping me tucked close to his side. “This one’s not gonna be another notch on your fucking belt.”
Whistler’s hard green eyes and the cleft in his chin remind me of Deacon Harman. He looks a lot like him, except he’s thinner and has a nose ring.
“Enjoy.” Whistler raises his hands with a humorless smile. He walks backward toward his billiards game, his eyes on me. “Prepare for a lot of mind fuckery with that one, girlie.”
I swallow. What does that mean?
I’m not sure I like Whistler very much. Then again, I’m not sure I like any of the guys here much, considering the way all of them are rubbernecking and drinking me in.
“Come on, Wildcat, before one of these horny fuckers decides to try and drag you off.” Spider pulls me into a hall off to the side of the barroom.
After a few steps, he scoops me up easily into his arms and strides down the hall without missing a beat. I gasp, throwing my arms around his neck, startled.
“Why do you have to carry me everywhere, Spider? It’s not like I’d get far if I tried to run.”
It’s true. At the end of the hall is the only door that looks like it might lead outside, and it has a glowing exit sign above it. It looks like a security door, and it might have an alarm that will go off the minute I try to open it. There are no windows, only doors that, by the sounds of things, lead to bedrooms.
Laughter drifts out of some of the rooms, moans out of one, and squeals out of another. There’d be nowhere to go.
I hear a loud slap from one room and then a cry that could as easily be in pleasure as pain. The sound makes me flinch. I hate that I clutch Spider’s neck tighter in response.
“No point in taking chances.” Spider sets me down in front of a door, but his hands linger on my hips. “Or maybe I just like having my hands on you,” he rumbles in my ear.