“And you. If I see you dealing in this town, I’m going to use you for target practice. You feel me?”
“Yes!”
Jamison stared between them. The smell of barbecue smoke reached him on the breeze, mixing with the smell of bad blood. Jamison gathered a gob of spit in his mouth and propelled it into the dealer’s face. “Don’t think I won’t see you. I have a lot of eyes.”
With that, he strolled back to his bike and started it. In this small, depressed town, the cops were scarce on the ground. More budget cuts meant only a handful of police were expected to keep the population in check—that and the MC. The cops worked with them pretty often to help mete out justice.
With a single call, Jamison had his guys coming to trail this dealer home and confiscate his whole stash.
Ever paced the small living room. Every cell in her body screamed for her to go out to The Gearhead. Not because she needed alcohol or even company. She needed Jamison.
Too well she recalled the feeling of this kind of fix. She’d gone five years without a man addiction, and then Jamison Montgomery had to walk into her life.
She ran her fingers through her hair. Maybe she did need to get out of the house and away from these files. She’d spent most of the day staring at the information, trying to see something she may have missed. Her head hurt, and she was jittery.
She grabbed her leather jacket and slung it on over her tank top and shorts. Then she pulled on a pair of soft boots that laced up to the knees. With a few twenties in her pocket and purposely leaving her ID at home, she headed out to her car.
Street lights cast a blue glow over the sidewalk. She glanced around, prepared to see Jamison seated on his bike, waiting for her. What then? She’d climb on the back, that’s what.
Dammit, she hadn’t come back to Alabama only to get involved in another crappy relationship with a biker. She was older and knew better. It wouldn’t be so easy to fake her death a second time.
Jamison wasn’t waiting for her. Breathing a sigh of relief, she climbed into her car and started the engine. The radio was turned up too loud, and she set it lower before pulling away from the curb.
Her girly parts were screaming for her to go to The Gearhead and wait for her lover of the past two nights to find her. His thoroughness in bed satisfied a craving she hadn’t realized she’d had.
But there was plenty of reason to stay away from him. For one, those creases on his forehead, put there before his time. He lived a hard life, and while the wrinkles only made him more gorgeous—damn him—she didn’t want that life for herself.
Love the man, love the Life.
“Fuck, no.” She headed in the direction opposite from The Gearhead. Heller’s Gap had more than one bar, and she could order a Sex with an Alligator without picking up a man.
She stared at the darkened buildings lining the main strip of town. As far as she could see, this town had less crime than the one where the Dark Raiders ruled. Shop windows with bullet holes were nonexistent. She hadn’t spent more than a few minutes around the Hell’s Sons, but they seemed less violent than the Raiders.
At least on the surface.
Jamison’s forehead creases hadn’t appeared on his forehead because he was coaching the local boys’ basketball team.
She cut the engine and stared up at the painted sign lit by spotlights. The Tomfoolery. A silly name for what looked like a neighborhood bar. She’d probably find sports fans sitting around with beers.
With any luck, no one was wearing a patch.
She climbed out of her car and locked it. When she got inside, a white-haired man wearing a T-shirt and jeans looked her up and down. “ID.”
Fuck. She tilted her head and gave her best smile. “What a flatterer you are. I’m years past the legal drinking age.”
“Show me, darlin’, and I’ll let you in.” His gray eyes leveled on hers.
She patted the pockets of her itty-bitty shorts, twisting side to side to give him a good eyeful. She even gave him a peek at her bellybutton ring. “I seem to have left my wallet at home. All I’ve got is a few dollars.” She peeled a twenty off the small wad and extended it to him.
He opened his mouth, but a voice sounded behind her. “She’s with me.”
Fingers of arousal danced up and down her spine as Jamison’s deep voice washed over her. Her nipples pinched into tight peaks. He stepped close, and a wall of heat enveloped her back.
“Sure, boss.” The white-haired man nodded and waved a hand. Too late, she noticed the tats on his fingers spelling Hells Sons.
Jamison cupped her elbow and steered her past the bar, where every man turned to look at her. “You guys got a problem?”
Several answered no and went back to their drinks. As Jamison led her into a private room and closed the door behind them, Ever’s heart kicked into a jog. She raised her chin a notch.
“Can’t a girl hide in this town?”
His eyes darkened, and his lips twisted into the bad-boy smile that lured her in like cheap cologne did when she was fifteen. “You trying to hide?”
“Maybe.”
He backed her against the wall. She let her gaze skitter away from his, but not for long. She snapped it right back, drinking in the rugged features of the man who she couldn’t stop thinking about.
His nose had been broken at some point, and if she hadn’t seen dozens of broken noses in her lifetime, she’d never notice the slight bump on the bridge. Add those piercing eyes and crooked smile, and she pulsed with want.
He’d shaved, and damn, it looked good on him. Being rumpled by wind, his hair was never neat, but he’d finger-combed it into order. Ever stared at it.
“What are you looking at?”
“Your hair.”
He raked his fingers through it. “Why?”
I want to mess it up. All night.
She dropped her gaze, but that was a mistake, because all she saw was the bulge in his jeans.
Fighting to keep from panting like a dog, she curled her fingers into her palms. Each blunt fingernail bit into her skin. She focused on the sting rather than Jamison.
“Baby.” He nudged her chin with his knuckles, raising her gaze to his. “I’ve never had to work so hard to get someone to talk.”
“I imagine not, considering the coercion you typically use.” That bump above his boot was definitely a gun.
He arched a brow, his silent way of pushing her for an answer. “You don’t know enough about me to believe that.”
“I know the type.”
Chuckling, he leaned in close until their lips were inches away. “Oh yeah. Dirtbag.”
Mint and man flooded her senses. Her heart flipped, and she ducked under his arm, putting several feet between them. “I came in for a drink, not to be part of your backroom club.”
His eyes glinted. “You think I’ve brought women back here?”
“I have no idea what you do in your spare time. Or with any of your time, for that matter.”
He waved a hand. “I run this place and The Gearhead on behalf of the club. That’s why it concerns me that you didn’t have an ID on you.” He grabbed her around the waist and groped her back pockets and then front ones. The pressure of his hand turned her inside out.
Squirming, she tried to escape his hold—or get closer?
He caught her earlobe between his teeth. “No ID, Ever? How am I going to find out your last name?”
Her driver’s license wasn’t in her real name, anyway. It was amazing how easy it was for a girl raised in the underworld to procure a social security number and driver’s license—or two. But she couldn’t let anyone see her IDs, especially Jamison.
She shook her head, tendrils of heat capturing her as he worried her earlobe in his teeth. “No last name.”
“Aw, c’mon, baby. You know mine.”
“Not because I wanted to.” She sounded breathless to her own ears and slipped out of his grasp. He stalked her around the room, locking her against another wall. His big body ignited her.
With a moan, she closed her eyes. “What do you want from me?”
“More of this.” He kissed the corner of her lips and then down to her jaw and around to her other ear.
Her pussy ached for his touch—and tongue. “I’m sure you can get a piece of ass anywhere.”
His fingers dug into her upper arms, and she snapped her eyes open. “You think I’m just looking for a piece of ass? If that were the case, why would I come find you when the club is overflowing with girls?”
She lost herself in the flecks of his eyes and the sincerity she saw there. No, she couldn’t afford to get attached to a man like Jamison. She put her hands on his chest and tried to push him back a step. He didn’t budge.
“Okay, maybe you’re not only out for sex.”
“Damn straight I’m not.”
She stared into his eyes, steeling her resolve. “But nothing more can happen between us.”
He backed away, forehead creased. “You understand the Life, Ever. And you know damn well what you’re looking for when you come into a bar owned by an MC.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t looking for anything but a drink.”
“Don’t give me that. You like the danger. Who were you with before? Not a Hell’s Son. I’d break his neck if you were.”
God, she couldn’t go there. He couldn’t find out about the Raiders or that she had been Stone’s old lady.
“No one,” she instantly denied it. “I just know a little, enough to realize it’s not for me.”
He shoved his knee between her thighs, parting them. The ache in her core spread, and she was helpless against his dark gaze. “It’s not for you—unless you’re with me. A woman like you needs protection.”
She did—from herself. When he brushed a kiss over her lips, she curled her fingers into the hair on his nape. Jamison ran his fingers down her side and gripped the hollow above her hip bone, sending a flood of cream to her pussy.
“I can protect you, Ever. But that means you have to accept me—and the club.”
Hell, what was she getting herself into? She tried to ignore the arc he was drawing with his thumb over her skin. “Never.”
He pulled back, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Never, Ever?”
He had no idea how well his words fit with her life. “Never,” she said.
Rocking on his heels, he put much-needed distance between them. She drew a deep breath to steady herself and get her rampant libido under control. But she didn’t tear her gaze from his body as he circled the room like a caged animal.
Each rolling step fanned the flames of her desire. She locked her knees together.
“Never gonna tell me your last name?”
“No.”
“Never gonna tell me why you know so much about the Life?”
Fuck, no. She shook her head.
He eyed her. “And you’re never gonna agree to let me protect you.” That wasn’t a question. He
was
getting to know her better.
Again, she shook her head. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder, and his gaze was drawn to it. He stopped pacing, eyelids heavy. “Just one more night? I can see you want it, baby.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I do. But I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
In three strides he reached her, forcing her against the wall again. His mouth crashed over hers at the same moment he gripped her ass and lifted her against his erection. She moaned as the ridge of his cock met her pussy through the barrier of denim.
He kissed her as if it were their last. Plunging his tongue deep, then licking shallowly, tormenting her by tongue-fucking her as he drove against her pussy. Her moans filled the room.
Tearing away, he gazed down at her. His jaw was set. “One more night.”
Could she? She had to. Her body screamed for the release Jamison gave her. Instead of answering, she yanked his head down again.
A primal growl rose in his throat.
•●•
The rush of need in Jamison had never been so strong. He should go slow, woo her. But she didn’t really want that, either. She wasn’t a girl who liked sex in bed, missionary style.
He grappled with her clothing, popping that long line of buttons all the way to her bellybutton. A small gold hoop rested there, the metal warm from her skin. He flicked it with his pinky while swirling his tongue around her mouth. She moaned.
When he skimmed his hand back up her torso to cup her breast, she arched into his touch. Kneading her full breast, he concentrated on what he knew about Ever.
She claimed she didn’t want this life, but she willingly took his hand and stepped into it. Also, she was tough enough to stand on her own, though she didn’t want to. Girls like her enjoyed the Life. They could handle their own shit, but they preferred when their men did it for them.
Still, she possessed the fierceness to be what he wanted in a woman. Too bad he couldn’t figure out her true identity.
He pinched her nipple hard enough to make her suck in a gasp. Liking that sound, he squeezed the other. Her rasp changed to a coo of delight that snapped his last thread of control.
In one hard yank, he opened her shorts. Her panties were hot pink. Against the earthiness of her body, the color looked out of place—and hot as sin.
He plunged his fingers into them and met her soft curls. “Don’t ever fucking shave,” he growled, seeking the wet seam between her thickened lips.
She rocked her hips forward to give him better access. He shoved the denim and hot pink lace down her hips and then off her knee-high boots. The scent of her arousal struck him, and he pressed her hand to his cock.
“Take it out if you want it.”
Her eyes were dark with lust. “I do.” She was just as unrestrained about getting his jeans and boxers down. When she wrapped her fingers around his length, pre-come oozed from his tip.
Smearing it with her thumb, she held his gaze.
“Who are you?” He was bewitched.
“Ever.”
“Ever who?”
“Ever Yours-in-this-moment.”
His lips quirked up of their own will. “I’ll take that.” For now.
She stroked his cock from root to tip, her finger riding the vein that snaked on the side. He fumbled in his vest pocket for a condom. With Ever there weren’t enough condoms. On his way to find her, he’d stopped at a drugstore and bought two boxes, but he expected those to be gone by week’s end.