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  “At the…curb,” he huffed. “By the…donut…shop.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He looked up. His face was beet red. “She’s…there.”

  “Who’s there?”

  He gave me a bug-eyed look. “The girl.”

  Whoever it was had him shaken to the core. Knowing Brisco, it was likely one of the many women he was mixed up with. I had no idea what their names were, but I asked, nonetheless.

  “Which girl?” I asked.

  “Pig Pen’s daughter,” he stammered. “Gray.”

  I gave him a look. “I don’t think the fucking world’s going to come to a fucking end if she buys a donut, do you?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “It ain’t a fucking coincidence that she’s there while we’re having a meeting. It’s my job to protect this club. I’ll hit that bitch in the head with a brick if I have to.”

  “You’re not hitting her in the head with anything,” I said. “Especially a brick.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You went over there last night, didn’t you?”

  “Go cop a squat in my office.” I waved my hand toward the office door, thirty feet behind him. “Have a shot of whisky. Settle down a little. I’ll walk over there and see what she’s doing.”

  “You didn’t answer me,” he said. “You went there last night, didn’t you?”

  I turned toward the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “You’re thinking with the wrong head, Boss.”

  While Brisco continued to mumble his complaints to the contrary, I stepped out of the garage and peered across the street. Just as he claimed, Gray’s Pathfinder was parked across the street beneath a streetlight. I paused at the edge of our parking lot, near the curb. Unaware that I was watching her, she appeared to be texting someone.

  Small groups of motorcycles raced up the street, more than likely headed to strip clubs, bars, or to fuck their ol’ ladys. A group of four men shot out of the lot, chasing each other. In the wake of their exhaust, I sauntered across the street.

  Immersed in what she was doing, Gray had no idea I was approaching. I snuck around the back of the vehicle and up to the back side of the driver’s window. I peeked around the edge of the door frame and through the window. The phone’s screen illuminated her face.

  Without looking up, she rolled the window down two inches. “Want your wallet?”

  I was shocked that she knew I was there. “How the fuck did you get my wallet?”

  While she continued to text with one hand, she poked my wallet through the sliver of an opening with her other. “You were in such a hurry to leave last night that you left it on the bar.”

  I took the wallet and immediately opened it.

  “No, I didn’t take anything,” she said in a sarcastic tone.

  “Doesn’t mean someone else didn’t.” Satisfied everything was there, I put it in my back pocket. “Appreciate you taking the time to bring it by.”

  “Funny you mentioned that,” she said, shifting her attention from her phone to me. “Did it cross your mind that it’s Friday night at eleven o’ clock and I’m not at my bar?”

  “It did.”

  “Do you know why I was able to leave on a Friday night?”

  “Someone else is running it?”

  “There is no one else,” she said. “I had two customers today. Grand total of twenty-three bucks in income. I closed early.” She tossed her phone into the passenger seat and rolled the window down another inch or two. “I think I’m going to go get drunk.”

  “Is that an invitation?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Not even close. There’s one person going out with me tonight.” She rolled down all the way and glanced over her left shoulder. “I’ve got news for you, Price. It isn’t you.”

  With her eyes still locked on mine, she put her truck in gear and idled away from the curb.

  I’d never known a girl to have balls as big as a man’s. Until I met Gray, that is. I couldn’t decide if it was an attractive quality or if it was irritating.

  As her taillights disappeared in the distance, my dick decided for me.

  9

  Gray

  Landon Bishop was tall, lean, and attractive. He had olive-colored skin that women envied, and his bank account made most investment bankers jealous. He earned his money trading stocks online. Those that knew him considered him to be a financial genius. He wore his dark hair short and always uncombed. His attire of choice was worn sneakers, shorts, and a vintage concert tee.

  Our friendship began in middle school and continued through college. After graduating, we saw each other whenever we felt the urge, but primarily when I needed his opinion about men. Although his advice was often sought, it was rarely followed.

  He pushed his bottle of beer to the side with the back of his hand. The look on his face was one of utter disbelief. “Let me get this straight. He came in, sat down, and said, ‘Show me your tits’?”

  Hearing Landon say it made Price sound like a douchebag. I felt a tinge of desire to defend the biker who had sexually frustrated me to the point that I was seeking assistance, but I needed Landon to be honest in his opinion, so I offered an apologetic shrug and told the truth.

  “Pretty much,” I said. “But he said that after I told him he was a cocksucker for running off my best customers. If that matters.”

  “It does, and it doesn’t.” he reached for his beer, and then paused. “So, then he walked behind the bar, squeezed your tits, and left?”

  I sipped my wine. “Yep.”

  “And you want to know what, exactly?”

  “I want to know what he’s thinking.”

  His face contorted. “Who is this guy?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He reached for his beer. After a moment of thought and a few drinks of beer, he brushed the wrinkles from his shirt. “Do I know him?”

  The Strokes shirt he wore was pockmarked with small wear holes acquired from years of enjoyment. It was at least fifteen years old because I remembered him wearing it on the day we graduated.

  “I like that shirt,” I said. “You wore it on graduation day.”

  He laughed. “I know him.”

  “You at least know ‘of’ him.”

  He rested his chin against the web of his hand. “North or south side of town?”

  I shook my head. “I’m saying nothing until you give your opinion.”

  “I’m not giving my opinion until I have the entire story.”

  If I wanted the best advice Landon had to offer, I needed to be honest. I was reluctant to tell him the entire truth, because it made me look like a woman who was easily manipulated.

  I took another drink of wine. “We had sex,” I said over the rim of glass. “On the night we met.”

  “Nice,” he said, dragging the word along for a good two seconds. “That’s classy. Tell me the details. Not of the sex, but of how it came about. Instant chemistry, right?”

  Again, honesty would be instrumental in reaching my goal. I sighed at the thought of telling Landon the sordid details, but proceeded, nevertheless.

  “I said his dick was small and that I didn’t like guys with small dicks. He said it wasn’t. I said he was full of shit or something of the sort, I don’t remember. He shoved my hand in his pants. I squeezed his dick and said he was too small to ride this ride, ‘this ride’ being me. He took exception to the comment and pulled my shorts down. Me being shortless led to sex. It was insanely satisfying, for what it’s worth. Insanely.”

  He shook his head ever so slightly. “Your stories are incredible. Sadly, it seems they always end the same. I hope you just skipped over the part where he put on a condom.”

  I cringed. “There wasn’t time.”

  His eyes bulged. “What?”

  “There. Wasn’t. Time.” I reached for my purse and began rummaging through it. “It was a heat of the moment thing. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” I brushed my lips w
ith gloss and tossed the tube into my purse. “You know, one of those.”

  “That’s like saying you’re going to jump from a plane, but there’s not enough time to put on your parachute,” he blurted. “That you’re going to work in the ACME acid bottling plant, but there’s not enough time to put on your protective suit. That you’re going to war, but you forgot your—”

  “I get it.” I already felt like an idiot, I didn’t need him to rub it in. “Let’s move on.”

  “Fine.” He forced a sigh. “Start at the beginning, hit the highlights, and don’t leave out any of the important stuff.” He leaned against the back of the booth and crossed his arms. “Go.”

  I finished my wine and called for another round.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here we go. He came into the bar, and he had this strut. You know the kind of walk that says, ‘I’ll kick your ass if you look at me crosswise?’ He had one of those. Actually, he looked like he invented it. So, there was that. Then, there was the confidence thing he had going on. He acted like he didn’t give two fucks whether I existed or not.”

  “I bet that drove you crazy,” he said. “You’re a sucker for those arrogant asshole types.”

  “Yeah,” I cooed. “So, he had a few beers and left. No sex talk, no flirting, no nothing.”

  He seemed confused. “That’s the night you met?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I thought you said you had sex on the night—”

  “In hindsight, it was the next time we met.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Continue.”

  “On night number two, he came in and immediately walked up to the bar. I don’t remember what he said, but it was flirty. Kind of.” I thought of what Price and I initially talked about and came up with nothing. “Maybe I lured him behind the bar, I don’t remember. So, the argument started that I told you about earlier, and then—”

  “Wait,” he snapped. “You had sex in the bar?”

  “Oh.” I tried for my look of innocence, but instead looked embarrassed. “Yeah, I left that part out, didn’t I?”

  “Oh. My God.” He leaned over the edge of the table and made prayer hands. “Tell me the place was empty.”

  “Define empty.”

  “You, this mystery man, and a bunch of empty tables,” he said. “Maybe a locked door or two.”

  “Uhhm. No.”

  “The doors weren’t locked?”

  “A few people were there.”

  “A few?”

  I peered beyond him, hoping to find the waitress. “I think you’re getting hung up on small details that don’t matter.”

  “How many?”

  “Thirty-one, I think. Maybe thirty-two, I don’t remember.”

  “You just left thirty-two people in your bar while you went into the back room and had sex?”

  I cringed. Again. “Not exactly.”

  He shook his head to clear it of the confusion. “You made them leave?”

  “No,” I said. “They stayed. The man who will remain unnamed came behind the bar. That’s where we had sex. Behind the bar.”

  He scrunched his nose. “On that nasty rubber mat?”

  “Nope.” I plastered my face with a prideful look. “We were standing up. At the bar.”

  “You had sex in a packed bar?”

  I raised my glass of wine to my mouth and tipped the bottom toward the ceiling. It was still very empty. “I did.”

  “While thirty-one or thirty-two strangers watched?”

  “They didn’t really seem interested. And, they weren’t exactly strangers. They were his friends.”

  “Thirty-two friends?” His eyes widened. “What was it, a bachelor party?”

  “No.”

  “Birthday?”

  “No, just a Thursday night with his friends.”

  “Who has thirty-two friends?” he asked, nearly frantic. “And, since when can there be thirty-two men in one place that aren’t interested in watching their buddy fuck some insanely cute girl while they drink beer?”

  He had a good point. It didn’t change the fact that no one appeared interested. I shrugged, “I don’t know.”

  He exhaled a breath of frustration. “Let’s move on. The two of you met and you were attracted to him, but you didn’t express it, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then, he came in, and for some odd reason you two ended up in a conversation about dick size, which led to bareback sex on the bar.”

  “Against the bar, not on it,” I said. “There’s a difference.”

  “I stand corrected,” he said in a smart-assed tone.

  “On the bar would have been an invitation to be gang raped,” I explained. “Against the bar was sexy.”

  He looked at me like I was nuts. “If you say so.”

  The waitress stepped to the end of the table. “Sorry about that.” She handed me my wine and set Landon’s beer beside his half-finished bottle. “We’re short-staffed.”

  “You can bring another round whenever you get time,” I said with a smile. “We’re having a heated conversation, and I don’t see it ending anytime soon.”

  She flashed a smile. “Okay.”

  I looked at Landon. “Where were we?”

  “You just had meaningless—I mean meaningful—sex against the bar.”

  “Okay.” I downed half the glass of wine in one gulp. “A week passed without seeing him or hearing from him. Then he came back in and said, ‘Show me your tits’, to which I responded, ‘No’, which prompted him to come behind the bar and pull off my shirt.”

  “Did he bring his friends?”

  I laughed. “Nope. Bar was empty that night.”

  “So, he squeezed your tits and then what?”

  “He left.”

  He rolled his eyes. “He came in, said nothing, walked behind the bar, squeezed your tits, and walked out?”

  “From what I can remember of it, yeah.”

  “He didn’t speak?” he asked. “I know he can, because earlier he told you he had a big dick.”

  “When he left, he said, ‘There’s one of us in charge here, and guess what? It isn’t you.’ Then, he walked out. I took his wallet back to him tonight, and when I did, I said, ‘I’m going to meet someone tonight, and guess what? It isn’t you.’ I thought that was a nice little touch.”

  “Wait.” He shook his head. “Back up. He left his wallet?”

  “Yeah, he got a toothpick out of it and set it aside. While he was picking his teeth, the tit talk started. He said, ‘show me your tits’, I said, ‘no’, and he came behind the bar and accosted me. When he stomped off, he forgot it.”

  He laughed. “I thought biker’s wallets were attached to their hips with chains?”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Not all wallets, or not all bikers?”

  “Probably a little of both.”

  “Well, chain or no chain, I doubt he forgot it.”

  “He did,” I argued. “I took it back to him. That’s where I was when I texted you.”

  He raised his brows. “Describe him.”

  “Tall, muscular, tattoos, long black hair. Not nasty long. Just, I don’t know, longer than the norm. He’s rough-looking, but in a sexy way. Confident walk, and he’s got a confident tone to his voice that makes you listen when he talks. It’s raspy-ish, or whatever. Oh, and he’s got crazy serious eyes.”

  “A self-confident biker doesn’t forget his wallet. At least not for long. He left it to see if he could trust you.”

  “Do you think so?” I asked excitedly.

  “It was a test,” he responded. “A guy like him doesn’t forget his wallet.”

  I gazed blankly at what remained of my wine. “You’re probably right.”

  “Based on everything you said, I think he’s interested in you.”

  “Oh, really?” I sat up straight. “You don’t think he’s just toying with me?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, he’s toying with you, there’s no two ways about that. But
I think there’s interest. The first night he came in, you intrigued him. I’m guessing on that night he wasn’t alone?”

  “No, there were several people in there, some of which he wasn’t friends with.”

  “Okay. Then, on the second night, you challenged him, claiming that his dick wasn’t big enough to garner your interest. He tried to prove otherwise by shoving your hand down inside his pants. When you said it was too small, that questioned his manhood. He reacted by proving to you that it was, in fact, large enough to ride the ride. It wasn’t his idea—nor was it his original intention—to fuck you in the bar. You provoked him.”

  “This is all my fault?”

  “I’m not laying blame. It’s no one’s fault. I’m making an observation based on what you’ve told me.” He took a drink of his beer and collected his thoughts. “Then, acting on the combined interest that originally caught his attention and his obvious interest in the sex the two of you shared, he came in and asked you to show him your tits. I’m guessing he didn’t see them when you had sex?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “When he asked you to show him your tits he was seeing if you were a pushover. If you could easily be coerced into things. Your ‘no’ response prompted him to come behind the bar and show you who was in charge. In case you didn’t understand what he was doing and why he was doin it—and you obviously didn’t—he informed you when he left that he was the one in charge. For clarification, at that moment he took ownership of the ‘relationship’ the two of you are in.”

  I was confused. At no point in time did I mutter the “R” word. I arched an eyebrow. “Relationship?”

  “It might be unorthodox, but it’s a relationship, nonetheless.”

  Mentally, I winced in pain. It wasn’t the term I was hoping for. At least not yet. “Okay,” I murmured.

  “Now,” he said. “Tell me who he is.”

  I finished half of my remaining wine. It didn’t make it any easier. Landon would see Price in the same light everyone saw him—as a criminal.

  “Price McNealy,” I muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  I cleared my throat. “Price McNealy.”

  “Price McNealy!?” he screeched. “Price McNealy? As in, Price McNealy, the head of that motorcycle gang?”