Mona rolled her eyes and adjusted the Gucci biker jacket she often wore when riding. She’d grown up in wealth, and Daddy wouldn’t let her go without. Living in the Nevada desert hadn’t changed her fashion sense, even if she was so much freer out from under the wings of her mafia family. “So… I’ll be going. Thanks for the trip Mike, I needed that.”
He showed her his teeth in a wide smile. “Back to the mommy grinder? Bet you can’t wait to change diapers again.”
Mona laughed. “Why do you think we got Leo as an extra parent?” She waved and was off, swaying her full hips on the way out.
Kane tugged on Mike’s beard. “I’m talking to you, man! One hair falls off—”
“Why’s Shay working here anyway? Weren’t you supposed to hire help?”
“We have help,” Shay said and pointed her chin toward the front of the store.
A woman stood in the sunshine, facing the vast expanse of dry shrubs and pale brown hills stretching on the other side of the road. Petite yet not too short, she was the perfect size to pick up and carry around. Her legs were long and slender, like a gazelle’s, and her hair styled into two cutesy buns just above her nape. She had it dyed too—platinum blonde at the top and dipped in color at the tips, with mint on one side and baby pink on the other. Someone needed to water her or she’d dry out in the merciless midday sun.
Mike hadn’t seen her face yet and already knew he wanted to tap that.
“Who. Is. That?” he asked, quickly finishing his beer and stepping to the side in a bid to see more.
Kane exchanged glances with Shay, but Mike couldn’t decipher what the silent communication meant. Other than Kane being jealous that Mike wasn’t tied down, and could fuck whoever he pleased, of course.
“Arden. I guess you should go meet her. We hired her the day after you left for your trip with Mona,” Kane said, crossing his arms, and making the clown on his bicep scowl.
But all of Mike’s attention was on the pert ass packed into tight skinny jeans. Arden paired those with lilac high top sneakers, a studded belt in the same shade, and a white crop top that revealed the small of her back, as pale as her arms covered in colorful tattoos.
“I’m going in,” he said with a grin.
Shay snorted. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Mike guzzled down the beer, dropped the can into the trash and walked out of the store with his smoothest gait. He approached the pretty fae adjusting a newspaper in a stand at the front of the shop, and when he looked at her pristine nape from up close, his instinct told him to lick the sheen of sweat off the smooth skin.
But that might have been too much for starters, so he settled on swatting one of the round buttocks instead. “I hear you’re the new girl, pretty thing.”
She twirled around, and before Mike knew it, a slap landed on… his beard. It had been clearly meant for his cheek, but Arden hadn’t accounted for this much of a height difference. Not the tiniest girl Mike ever hit on, but she was twig-skinny, and when Mike stole a glance at her chest, there wasn’t much there to write home about. Flat as an asphalt road in a desert. But Mike was all for equal opportunities, since flat chicks gave blowjobs no worse than girls with huge racks.
Arden stepped back and frantically pulled out what Mike at first thought was a key, but then it opened into the cutest little butterfly knife. It trembled in her slim fingers with nails painted glitter pink. If that wasn’t the most adorable attempt at a threat, Mike didn’t know what was.
Arden took one more second to assess him from top to bottom, and their eyes met. Hers were pale blue, as big as a doe’s, with long dark lashes, but her expression was no less determined just because she had the face of a doll.
“Step. Away.”
Mike’s hands already went up in surrender—because a filly needed to want being ridden if it was to be any fun—but as Arden’s warning echoed in Mike’s head, his smile dropped, because he realized something.
Arden did not sound like a girl at all.
In fact, the voice that came from the plump mouth dipped in lip gloss, while not particularly low, was most definitely male. And as Mike’s gaze gravitated lower, down the little protrusion at Arden’s throat, over the planes of the chest, to the package at the front of Arden’s jeans, one thing became abundantly clear.
The pretty thing that should have been another of his conquests was a boy. Or was he? She? They? Those things could get confusing nowadays. Mike would go with he for now.
“Don’t hurt yourself with that,” Mike said, nodding at the butterfly knife.
“Oh, I know how to use it,” Arden said despite his breath hitching as if he were facing a lion. “I might not be able to kill you, but I will take an eye, you… caveman.”
Mike’s eyes grew wider, and he found himself staring at Arden’s lips again, as if his brain refused to register Kane had intentionally pushed him at someone who wasn’t on Mike’s usual menu. “Take my eye? Now why would you want to hurt such a handsome face?” he asked with a wide smile.
Arden lowered his puny weapon, but watched Mike’s every move like a baby hawk. And despite his voice, the Adam’s apple, and the cock in those tight pants, Mike’s brain refused to register that Arden shouldn’t be a sex object for him. The pretty thing even smelled like a girl. Flowers and bubblegum.
“You are… neutral to me.” Arden frowned, drawing Mike’s gaze to his eyebrows. They were cute and manicured, and the fact that the boy wore the kind of delicate makeup that gave skin a luminous, angelic appearance left Mike with a deepening sense of confusion.
Arden made a damn stunning girl, regardless of what hid in his pants, and Mike found himself weirdly fascinated with the ambiguity of the person standing in front of him. “I’m definitely not neutral to you. You look better than my last ex.”
The tiny knife lowered farther. Bad move, if Mike were actually up to no good, but Arden didn’t look like someone with experience in fighting. With his smooth face and tiny frame he could’ve still been in his teens.
Arden glanced up at him, and Mike kept noticing new details about his face, like the crystal stud in his shapely nose, or the tiny spade symbol drawn above the side of his eyebrow. How did a person like this end up working at the gas station of the Smoke Valley MC in Hawk Springs, Nevada?
“Um… Thank you? But yeah, you’re not my type.”
Mike frowned, glancing all the way to Arden’s nipples, hardened against the white fabric. “You’re straight?” he asked, because, as incredible as that would have been, it wasn’t impossible.
“N-no.” Arden finally hid the knife back in his pocket, but grabbed a newspaper off the stand next to him to fan himself, as if he needed something in his hand to swat Mike if push came to shove.
Mike was straight, so he shouldn’t care some gay boy wasn’t interested in him, but it stung his pride, and the fact that Kane and Shay were not far away, sniggering to each other didn’t make the situation any better. And then there was the way Arden watched him with widened pupils and fluttering lashes. There was interest there, dammit!
“And you want me to believe that a boy like you wouldn’t want a piece of this?” Mike asked and pulled up his shirt, revealing his abs and pecs. He did make sure they were hard and tense once the curtain of fabric went up.