“You’re so fucked,” Bat said, shakin’ his head. “The only thing keepin’ you away from her was knowin’ us brothers had an eye on her, now it’s not enough. You’ve seen her, watched her too long. You’re a predator if ever I fuckin’ saw one, Z, you ain’t the kinda man to sit back and deny himself his kill.”
I was about to agree with him. To say “fuck it”, storm up to Lou, haul ’er over my shoulder and take her to the nearest wall so I could pin her like a pretty little butterfly and have my ruthless way with her.
“Fuck, Zeus,” Blackjack called gruffly, swinging through the doors with Nova, Lab-Rat and Priest at his back. “Fuck man, the warehouse on Jackson is on fucking fire.”
The warehouse on Jackson. One of the thirteen warehouses we used to stockpile our shipments of prime grade marijuana.
“Fuck,” I cursed at the same time as Bat.
But I wasn’t just cursin’ about the potential loss of near thirty Gs of weed.
I was cursin’ because Blackjack had just reminded me of the biggest reason to stay away from Lou.
She’d been through enough in her short life already. She didn’t need a man-slaughtering, drug-pushing outlaw dragging her into the depths of depravity. She was better off in the shallow end, playing at wicked and lookin’ like a treat doin’ it.
I’d stay away, mostly. There was no way I was leavin’ her to her own devices, not when she was operating on the fringes of my world, but I’d guard her like I’d always done.
No contact.
Strictly as a watchman.
No emotion.
Only calculation.
No sex.
Not one fuckin’ kiss.
No even thinkin’ about it.
Even as I swore it to myself, I caught sight of her bendin’ over a stool to pick up something from the floor and noted the perfect ripe peach shape of that ass, thought about my cock wedge between each cheek, weeping against her skin as I came all over it and marked her as mine.
And I knew I was fucked.
He was ignoring me.
The Fallen MC had officially owned The Lotus for three weeks and the brothers were around constantly. They’d been stripping out the old, stained upholstery, the cracked linoleum floors and lopsided stage to replace it with all new, all wicked cool stuff. The booths were now black velvet with glossy blood-red tables, the bar was made up of faceted sections of mirrored glass so that it sparkled under the lights and reflected distorted visions of the girls dancing on the new massive and greatly improved main stage as well as the three smaller stages amid the floor seats. We had top-shelf liquor behind the bar, three new dancers that were so sexy even I drooled over them, and a manager named Maja who was tough as nails but also wicked cool.
This was all good—great, really—because I wanted The Lotus to succeed and when we’d reopened after two weeks of renovations, there was already a ton of business. It was the good kind—horny men with cash in their wallets and loneliness in their eyes, and bachelor and bachelorette parties from the right side of the tracks as well as the wrong.
And Maja, she liked me.
I’d been nervous even though I’d tried to hide it behind my usual sassy contempt when she’d approached a few of the serving staff while I’d been behind the bar. She’d taken a good hard look at me with hard, wise eyes for so long, I’d started to sweat.
Then she’d said, “Cute earrings, where’d you get ’em? I’ve been lookin’ for feathers like that for an absolute age and no luck. You tell me your secrets and I’ll give you a Friday night bar shift.”
So, I’d told her where I got the earrings and we’d gone together on Friday afternoon before my shift to get her a pair. She was cool but maternal. It was a weird combination but it worked for me because my mother was neither.
Loulou’s life was kicking ass but for one thing.
Zeus was finally everywhere and he was nowhere.
He was in the club nearly every night, holding court in the same booth as the first night he’d appeared like some kind of underworld god doing dealings with mortals. Bikers, businessmen in smart suits with slicked hair, and random civilians came to speak with him and it was clear in every interaction that Zeus was the one in control.
He sat in the deep shadows, the red and blue neon lights cutting his brutally constructed face into even harsher lines. His sheer size seemed magnified by the darkness, by his riotous brown-and-gold hair and the thick lines of black ink turning his dark skin into fallen angel wings. There was casualness to his posture as he sat straight-backed and spread out, yet his huge hands were always nonchalantly on display like a man who placed a gun on the table to make a point. They were his weapons, huge God-given weapons of sheer violence and force that anyone who looked at them knew it.