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  Holy shit.

  “Hey, sweet butt,” he said. That broke the spell. Sweet butt? What the hell kind of guy called a girl he’d never met something like that? “Your man here? We need to talk.”

  I scrambled backward off the table, away from him, nearly falling off in the process. The music stopped abruptly, and I glanced away from him to see that one of his buddies had reached into my car and pulled out my car keys. He put them in his pocket. Uh oh.

  “You mean Jeff? He’s in town,” I replied, trying to compose myself. Shit, should I have admitted I was alone? I really didn’t have a choice. I mean, I could have said I needed to go get Jeff from inside and then locked the door, but the trailer was thirty years old. The deadbolt had been rusted shut since I was a kid. Not to mention that they had my keys. “Why don’t you wait out here while I call him?”

  The big man studied me, his face cold and expressionless. I couldn’t be entirely sure he was human, I decided. More like a Terminator. Unwilling to hold his gaze, I let my eyes drop to his vest. Beat to hell, black leather, lots of patches. One of them caught my attention in particular, a bright red diamond that had a number one with a percent sign next to it. I didn’t know what it meant, but I was pretty sure I wanted to get into the house and put on some more clothing.

  Maybe a burkha.

  “Sure thing, babe,” he said, straddling the table’s bench and taking a seat. His friends sauntered over to join him.

  “How about a drink, girl?” one of them asked, a tall man with short dark hair and startling blue eyes. I nodded and walked quickly toward the trailer, using every bit of my self-control not to break into a run. I heard them laughing behind me. Not a friendly laugh.

  Thankfully, Jeff actually answered his phone on the first try.

  “There are some guys here to see you,” I said, peeking out through the kitchen window, careful to keep the faded curtains decorated with pictures of little flying vegetables closed. “They’re bikers. I think they might be dangerous. They look like murderers to me, but I’d like to think I’m crazy on this one. Tell me I’m being paranoid, please.”

  “Fuck…” Jeff replied. “That’s the Reapers MC, Marie, and they don’t fuck around. Do what they say, but don’t get too close to them. Whatever you do, don’t touch them or talk to them unless they talk to you first. Don’t even look at them. Just stay the hell out of their way. I’ll be home in twenty minutes.”

  “What’s an MC?”

  “Motorcycle club. Stay calm, okay?”

  Jeff hung up on me.

  Now I was really scared. I’d expected him to laugh at me and tell me they were just harmless guys who liked to ride their bikes and play badass. I guess this was the real thing. I ran into my room and pulled on a baggy t-shirt I liked to sleep in. I dropped my shorts and put on a pair of capris, pulling my long, dark-brown hair back into a messy bun. A quick look in the mirror was enough to convince me that I was worrying too much—they might have been crude and suggestive toward me, but I was no man’s dream girl. I had dirt smudges on my face, my nose had burned bright red and I’d somehow gotten a giant scratch across my cheek. It contrasted nicely with the fading yellow and purple of the bruise Gary’d given me.

  My hands trembled as I poured three big plastic tumblers of iced tea, wondering if I should put sugar in them. I decided to bring some sugar in a cup and stuck a spoon in it. Then I wedged two of the tumblers between my right arm and my torso, grabbing the third with my hand. I snagged the sugar with my left and managed to get through the door with some careful maneuvering. They were talking to each other in low voices when I came out, watching me as I walked to the table. I pasted a bright smile on my face, just like I used to wear when I waitressed back in high school. I could do this.

  “You call your man?” the big one asked. I glanced at him, forgetting I was supposed to avoid his gaze because his eyes were so deep and rich and green.

  “My man?” I asked.

  “Jensen.”

  Shit, I forgot about that. They thought I was Jeff’s girlfriend. Should I tell them? I couldn’t decide. I studied the biker, trying to figure out the safest answer. He met my gaze without giving anything away. His hair was pulled back in a rough ponytail and his chin was covered with thick, dark stubble. My stupid body came alert again as I wondered what that stubble would feel like if I rubbed my lips against it slowly.

  Probably pretty damned good.

  “Girlie, answer the fuckin’ question,” said the blue-eyed man. I jumped, splashing some of the tea against the front of my shirt. It drenched my right boob, of course, and my nipple came to instant attention when the icy drink hit it. The big guy’s eyes followed it, his eyes darkening.

  “Jeff’s coming,” I said, managing not to stutter. “He said he’d be here in twenty minutes. I’ve got tea for you,” I added inanely. Big Guy reached out and took the cup from my hand. That left me in a bind because I couldn’t unload the other two glasses without my other hand free. I could either give him the sugar or I could lean past him and put it on the table. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to do that.

  He solved the problem for me, reaching out again and wrapping his fingers around one of the cups I held clasped against my body. I felt all sorts of tingles as they slid between the cold plastic and my skin, standing frozen as he repeated the gesture. Then he took the sugar. He caught my hand and pulled me up against his thigh, until my stomach almost touched his face.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  He reached up to take my chin, turning my face so he could study the bruise. I held my breath, willing him not to ask me about it. He didn’t. Instead, he dropped his hand to my waist, rubbing down and up slowly along the curve of my hip. It took everything I had not to lean in and push my breasts into his face.

  “Jensen do that to you?”

  Dammit. I had to tell them, I couldn’t let it look like Jeff hurt me. He didn’t deserve that.

  “No, he’d never do that. Jeff’s my brother,” I said quickly, jerking away, blushing. Then I turned and ran into the house.

  They sat at the table drinking their tea and talking until Jeff got home. It felt like he took hours, even though he made it in record time. At one point the big guy reached over and peeked under the towel covering the bread dough, which was in danger of rising way too high if I didn’t get it into the oven soon.

  Crap.

  I wasn’t going out there though. Not until they were gone.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to be in the mood to leave. When Jeff rolled up in his aging Firebird they all stood around and talked for a while. Then they got up and walked toward our front door. Big Guy glanced toward my window and even though I knew he couldn’t possibly see me, his eyes seemed to lock on mine.

  As they came inside, Jeff was smiling and looking relaxed. The others were too. Everything was friendly and I frowned, wondering if I’d imagined just how serious he’d been with me on the phone.

  “Sis, my associates are going to stay for dinner,” he announced grandly. “You better go get your bread, I think it’s done rising. You guys are gonna love this, Marie’s bread is amazing. She’ll fix you a fuckin’ great dinner.”

  I smiled at him a little shakily, cussing him out in my head. What the hell? Sure, I cooked for him, but I didn’t want to cook for this group. They scared me, which combined oddly with my disobedient body’s desire to jump Big Guy’s bones. I couldn’t think of a way out of it though, not without breaking our little pretense that there was nothing weird about three scary biker dudes showing up out of nowhere.

  Not only that, the bread would be ruined if I didn’t cook it soon. I had spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove and it smelled amazing. I couldn’t even claim it was too hot to use the oven because we had a couple of those little window air conditioners chugging along like the Little Engine That Could, so the interior was pretty comfortable. The men settled themselves in the living room, except for Big Guy, who pulled out one of the stools at the kitchen bar, wh
ich was also our table. He sat down, leaning back against the wall comfortably, arms crossed in front of him.

  He’d be able to watch me cook the whole time while still following the action in the living room.

  I ran out to get the bread while Jeff turned on the TV. When I got back there was some kind of fighting on. Not wrestling this time, but real fighting in some sort of cage.

  “Grab us some beers, sweet butt,” said the third guy, a dark-haired man with slightly pock-marked cheeks. I bit my lip. I really didn’t like being called that. Not only was it degrading, there was some sort of nasty implication in the way he said it. But Jeff glanced up at me and mouthed “please”, so I set down the bread, went to the fridge and pulled out four beers. They ignored me for the most part while I fixed dinner, except for my Big Guy. Every few minutes I’d look up to find him watching me, pensive. He didn’t smile, he didn’t talk to me, nothing. Just studied me, with special attention for my boobs (smaller than some but perkier than most) and ass (slightly larger than I’d like).

  I grabbed a beer for myself, relaxing after a while and rolling with it. I supposed I should be indignant that he just sat there, blatantly checking me out, but it felt kind of good to have a man appreciate me.

  It’d been a long time.

  By the time I pulled the bread out of the oven the fight on TV had ended. I set out some hot pads for the pasta and sauce and grabbed the salad. The guys fell on the food like a bunch of starving animals.

  “This is amazing,” the man with blue eyes said, as if seeing me as a person for the first time. He had strong, sculpted features and I decided he was pretty hot for an old guy. “You can really cook. My old lady used to cook like this.”

  “Thanks,” I said, hoping I wasn’t blushing. This might go down as the oddest dinner party of my life, but I loved to cook for people who appreciated good food. In fact, during high school I’d planned on going to culinary school.

  Thanks for nothing, Gary.

  Big Guy didn’t say anything, but I noticed he took seconds and then thirds of everything. While they finished, I started cleaning up, but he reached across the bar and grabbed my arm.

  “You might want to go for a drive,” he said, jerking his chin toward the door. “We’ve got business.”

  I glanced over at Jeff, who offered me a placating smile.

  “Do you mind, sis?” he asked. I shook my head, although I felt a twinge at leaving without even learning their names. Somehow over the course of dinner they’d stopped scaring me, turning alarmingly human. I knew when I wasn’t wanted though, and I owed it to Jeff not to cause trouble. I smiled brightly at everyone and went to the door, grabbing my purse off the rack next to it.

  “Well, nice to meet all of you, um…”

  Mr. Blue Eyes, who I noticed had the word “President” written on his vest, grinned.

  “I’m Picnic, and these are my brothers, Horse and Max,” he said.

  I glanced over at Big Guy. Horse? What kind of name was that? And they really didn’t look like brothers…

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Picnic,” I said, holding back my questions.

  “Just Picnic. Thanks again for the food.”

  Horse stood.

  “I’ll walk you out to your car,” he said, his voice low and rumbly. Jeff’s eyes opened wide, and he jerked his head, then stilled. Picnic smirked at me knowingly.

  “Take your time, we can wait,” he said to Horse, reaching down and pulling my keys out of his pocket, tossing them to me. I walked out into the warm sun of the late-summer evening, Horse following me. He snagged my hand, leading me to the table. My heart raced with every step. I had no idea what was about to happen, but part of me really wanted him to touch me.

  Maybe.

  Probably not.

  Shit.

  Horse tucked his hands under my arms, popping me up onto the table. Then he slid them down my sides, wedging them between my legs and pushing my knees gently apart. He stepped between them and leaned into me.

  I’m pretty sure I came close to stroking out.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I said, glancing back at the house, heart hammering. Jeff wouldn’t like it. Horse was dangerous. I could smell it on him. Seriously. Under the delicious scent of leather, light sweat and man was a pungent strain of pure trouble. “I mean, everyone is waiting for you, right? I can just go, let’s just forget this, okay?”

  He didn’t say anything, just studying me with that cool, expressionless face of his.

  “That how you gonna play it, sweet butt?”

  “I’m not your sweet butt,” I snapped, narrowing my eyes. I hated getting called things like that. Gary did it all the time. Why did they keep calling me that?

  To hell with him and to hell with Gary too.

  Men.

  “Fuck off,” I said, glaring at him.

  Horse gave a bark of laughter, the sound sudden and loud in the silence, which pulled me back to reality. His hands tucked around my waist, jerking me into his body where my crotch immediately came up against what had to be a pretty healthy erection.

  He swiveled his hips into mine, slowly dragging it up and across my clit. I’m ashamed to admit that I creamed my pants right then and there instead of kicking him in the nuts like a sensible girl. He leaned over and I held my breath, waiting for him to kiss me. Instead he whispered in my ear.

  “Nice ass. Sweet. Butt.”

  I didn’t like his tone, so I bit his ear. Hard.

  He jumped back, and I wondered if he was going to kill me. Instead he started laughing so hard I thought he might pull a muscle. I scowled, and he held up his arms to each side in pointed surrender.

  “I get it, hands off,” he said, shaking his head, bemused. “Play it the way you like. And you’re right, we’ve got business. Go drive for an hour, that should be enough time.”

  I slid off the table and darted around him. He trailed me as I went to my car. I opened the door and almost got in, then the same stupid streak of curiosity that’d caused me trouble all my life drowned out my sense of self-preservation. I stopped in the doorway, looking at him across the roof.

  “Horse isn’t your real name, is it?”

  He smiled at me, his teeth white in the darkness, like a wolf’s.

  “Road name,” he replied, leaning against the roof of my car. “That’s the way things work in my world. Citizens have names. We have road names.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “People give them to you when you start riding,” he said casually. “They can mean all kinds of things. Picnic got his name because he went all out planning some pansy-assed picnic for a bitch who had him twisted up in knots. She ate his food and drank his booze, then called her fuckwad boyfriend to come and pick her up while he took a leak.”

  I grimaced at his crudity, trying to understand.

  “That seems…unpleasant. Why would he want to remember that?”

  “Because when the fuckwad showed up, Picnic shoved his head through a picnic table.”

  I caught my breath. That didn’t sound good. I wanted to ask if the guy had been all right but decided I probably didn’t want to know the answer.

  “And Max?”

  “When he gets drunk, sometimes his eyes go all wide and he looks fuckin’ crazy, like Mad Max.”

  “I see,” I replied, thinking about the man. I guess he did look sort of like Mad Max… I decided I didn’t want to see him drunk.

  Silence hung heavy between us.

  “So aren’t you gonna ask?”

  I studied him, narrowing my eyes. I had a bad feeling about this. But the words came out of my mouth, completely beyond my control.

  “So why are you called Horse?”

  “’Cause I’m hung like one,” he replied, smirking.

  I dropped down into my car and slammed the door shut. I heard him laughing through the open window as I peeled out of the driveway.

  Chapter Two

  Sept. 17—Present Day

&nbs
p; “I’m so sorry, sis,” Jeff said, the words muffled from his bloody, swollen lips. Was he missing a tooth? I looked around the room, unable to believe that these men—two of whom I’d cooked for, one of whom I’d done a lot more than cooking for—were actually threatening to kill my brother. Could this really be happening?

  Picnic looked right at me and winked.

  “Little brother’s been a bad boy,” he said. “He’s been stealing from us. You know anything about that?”

  I shook my head quickly. A bag fell off my arm, apples bouncing out and rolling across the floor. One of them hit Horse’s foot. He didn’t glance down, just maintained that cool, thoughtful expression I’d seen on his face so many times. It frustrated me—I wanted to scream at him to show some fucking emotions. I knew he had them. Unless that had been a lie too.

  Oh. My. God.

  My brother knelt in the middle of our crappy living room, bleeding and awaiting execution, and all I could think about was me and Horse. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “I don’t understand,” I said quickly, looking at Jeff’s puffy, bruising face, silently pleading with him to burst out laughing at the big joke they were playing on me.

  Jeff didn’t start laughing. In fact, his breath rattled through the room like a movie sound effect. How badly was he hurt?

  “He’s supposed to be working for us,” Picnic said. “He’s pretty good with that little laptop of his. But instead of working he’s been playing at the casino with our fucking money. Now he has the balls to tell me that he’s lost the money and can’t pay us back.”

  He punctuated the last four words with jabs of his pistol’s thick, round barrel into the back of Jeff’s neck.

  “You got fifty grand on you?” Horse asked me, his voice cool and casual. I shook my head, feeling dizzy. Oh, shit, this was why Jeff had tried to get me to ask Gary for money… But fifty grand? Fifty grand? I couldn’t believe it.

  “He stole fifty thousand dollars?”