I moved closer to Grease and Reaper’s side of the table, pretending to study the table when really, I just wanted to eavesdrop. Wrath went with me, stopping me with an arm around my waist when he thought I was close enough.
“Who’re we sendin’?” Grease was saying into his beer, his cruel face made uglier with excitement.
He wanted to go, he wanted to find trouble and dismantle it with his gun.
Reaper was smart enough, I knew, not to let him go for exactly that reason.
“It’s small shit, thinkin’ we can send Mutt and Roper. They won’t even meet with my guy, just text ’em the number, they’ll go straight to the container and get the guns.”
“Black Knights gonna fuck us over on the number again?”
Black Knights, an American based 1%er MC that had links to the Irish IRA.
Laken’s bright laugh rung out through the noisy bar like the peel of fucking bells, distracting me from what the men said next.
“Harleigh Rose,” she called across the room, and when I looked over, she was waving at me from Danner’s fucking lap. “Get your ass over here.”
“Go,” Wrath said when I hesitated, and I realized he could feel the fury in my tensed body against his.
I rolled my eyes but went.
“Long time no see, girl,” Laken said, beckoning me to bend into her arms for a hug.
I could smell her sweet perfume mingling with Danner’s manly, cowboy scent and it made me want to throttle her.
“Yeah.”
“You avoidin’ me or somethin’?” she asked, her eyes narrowed on me.
Laken wasn’t the smartest girl in the world, but she was Reaper’s favourite child, and she’d learned early on to be suspicious of people who might use her to get closer to her daddy. It was why we’d always got along, I understood the feeling.
“No, just finished my last exam today, I’ve just been way busy with school,” I lied easily.
Her lips split into a wide, gorgeous grin. “Fuck, that’s awesome, H.R.! Let’s do some shots to celebrate. Li-Li baby, will you order some while I go fix my lipstick? I think you kissed it right off.”
He had. There was more red on his lips than hers.
My heart burned.
“Sure thing,” he agreed, carefully not looking at me until she had jumped up and strutted away.
“Li-Li?” I asked with raised brows, the bitter tang of jealousy on my tongue.
There wasn’t reason to be jealous, I told myself. We’d spoken about Laken and it was me who’d insisted I was fine with his continued faux-dating. She was a font of information about Reaper, information that Danner had put to good use over the years laying the foundation to get him arrested, and he needed the security of being her boyfriend for his cover. Reaper was a suspicious, crazy motherfucker and he’d already taken notice of how aware of me Lion was.
So, logically, I should have been casual about it.
But my soul burned on.
“Harleigh Rose,” he muttered, his booted foot finding mine under the table of the booth. “Only kissed her. Haven’t done more than that since I found you covered in blood in your apartment.”
“How’d you manage that?” I griped.
Bikers had a reputation for being horndogs, and it was rightly earned.
It would make Laken wary if her gorgeous man didn’t want to fuck her gorgeous body.
Danner shrugged a shoulder. “Told her I got chlamydia.”
I burst out laughing. “You did not. How’d she believe that? She let you sleep around on her?”
“She’s of the belief that you can’t hold a biker man down. Her daddy taught her that.”
Right.
I knew that.
It was an argument I’d had with her once over tequila shots when I’d confessed to her that Cricket hit me sometimes. She’d sullenly wondered if that was worse or better than infidelity.
Clearly, she’d never been hit by the full force of a man’s hand.
“Still don’t like it,” I admitted, because he was a magnet, forcing my confessions to the surface so they hummed on my skin, desperate to go to him.
“Me either. You think I want her lips on mine when yours are all I think about?” he asked seriously.
I pursed my mouth. “I’ll remind you just how sweet they are tonight when we get home.”
“Oh yeah,” he groaned. “I have no doubt you will. Now, you promise to be good for the rest of the time we gotta be here? No glarin’ or starin’ or gettin’ into fights.”
I ran my finger over my head like an invisible halo. “Angel reporting for duty.”
“Brat,” he said fondly.
I winked at him then got up as I spotted Laken returning from the bathroom. “Tell her I went for a smoke.”
I didn’t wait for his reply.
The night was still warm, the July sun lingering in the pavements, emanating from the brick walls of the bar as I leaned beside the front entrance and lit up a Lucky Strike cigarette.