Page 3

Puck

Kenna looked good. I hadn’t realized how good until I really looked at her, draped all over Jester. Because the last time I saw her…the memory of the night at the frat house flared the possessive, angry feeling to life, and I had to look away from her.

I glanced back at the small stage in the VIP room. The dancer with mile long legs arched against the pole and spun, her mass of copper hair trailing behind her. Sexy. Judging by the way Val Soletsky watched her, I wasn’t the only man who thought so.

Kenna laying one on Jester had been sexier. Better if it had been my lap she was on, my face she’d stroked. I dumped the dancer off my lap and handed her a bill. She was probably hot, but not my thing.

“You need to lighten up, bro.” Jester reached over and socked me in the shoulder. The punch held a little sting but didn’t budge me. “Have a drink, say something, do something.”

The man was a god-damned after school special level bad influence. He knew better. I hadn’t drunk in years. Alcohol changed me, made me do fucked up shit. Problem was, my best friend liked it.

“The fuck you want me to say?”

“I just tongue fucked your girl, and you didn’t say a fucking thing about it. The hell is wrong with you?” He half shouted over the music.

“She ain’t my girl.” I shook the ice in my now empty glass. She shouldn’t fucking be here, dressed like that, acting like that. I thought of the last time I’d seen that much of her skin and my cock twitched.

Which only pissed me off more.

He twisted his face in a yeah right expression. “Keep telling yourself that.”

“She seems more interested in you.” I thought of her now, the way she’d straddled Jester’s lap. He’d been into it. I couldn’t blame him; she was fucking delicious. The neon pink lingerie and the black fishnet were doing it for me.

“Brother, that was a show for you, and we both know it.”

Maybe. I wasn’t complaining about that or the sauntering around here with her ass half out and putting on a show for everyone.

“AP’s edict sucks.” He finished his beer and contemplated the empty bottle, AP had told me to put distance between Kenna and myself.

“We’ve got shit to work out, brother.” And shit to cover up. I couldn’t go around fucking Ghost’s ex until we knew what to do with the little weasel.

“Waiting on Cam to get back is a long time to stretch out this vow of celibacy.”

I snorted and made a point of watching the dark-haired dancer who’d been all over me wrap her lush body around the pole now. “I’m not celibate. I have standards.”

He cut me a side eye, but his mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Your standard is currently shoved into a hot pink bikini and fuck me boots.”

She was, and he knew how I felt. He could read me better than anyone. Since moving to Nevada, Jester had appointed himself my closest friend. I hadn’t been able to shake him.

Not that I wanted to until he gave me shit about women.

“Why don’t you?” AP told me to stay away, no one else. He could claim it was because of Ghost. But deep down, I knew there was something else. Because he saw me that night, knew how easy it was for me to earn that Hooligan patch .

“Fuck Kenna?” Jester’s brow raised with serious interest.

“Beats the hell out of you talking about it, all the god-damned time.”

If I couldn’t have her, at least I could watch.

It would be a lie to claim I hadn’t constantly thought about that night, imagined her splayed out naked beneath me—mouth parted, eyes drunk—and not wonder where she’d been. She’d refused to see me after. David said all she did was go to work and stay in her room. I’d worried about her.

Then I find her here, half naked, with men pawing all over her like that night after Desert Lights at the frat house hadn’t even happened, and it pissed me off.

“And you would watch. Kinky bastard.” Jester laughed as he stood and stretched. “Because that’s all you can do.”

I grunted. He wasn’t wrong. AP had ordered me to stay away after that night. We needed Ghost happy until the Preacher shit blew over and Cam was back from Vegas. Anything for the MC, anything to get our brother home where he belonged.

“Exactly.” I’d scratch that itch. And maybe I wouldn’t think about fucking her all the time. Because if I got my hands on her right now—I wouldn’t be any better than the assholes pawing at her.

I rose with him, Merc shaking Val’s hand, before following us out of the room.

Kenna’s voice rose over the music and caught my attention from a roped off area that looked out over the main stage. She seemed fine, her expression amused. But the shrill sound of her voice was something I’d heard before. She was about to lose her shit.

When she’d been a house mouse, before Ghost, that was her tone right before she slugged someone right in the face.

I was halfway to her in several long strides, and the bouncers hadn’t even looked up yet. Fuckers. What welled in my chest wasn’t anger. It was something very different. Darker. Unyielding.

“Come on, baby.” A drunk guy teetered off his stool and into her, grabbing at her breasts as he did.

Impressive . She didn’t go down beneath the weight of him. Kenna was a tough little thing; I’d give her that. Made her sexier. The sort of tight little body that could handle a guy as big as me, who probably liked things as rough as I did.

With one hand, I grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him back toward his stool. “Get the fuck off her.”

The wild surprise on his face would have been funny had he not screwed up his mouth in determination. Drunk enough to test his mettle. Stupid enough to get his ass beat.

“Whoa.” Kenna pushed the tray out in front of her, holding him back. Again, tougher than she looked.

My body vibrated, but I didn’t dare move as she backed up into me.

Jester dodged around me as security scrambled toward us. “Easy, buddy. All a misunderstanding.” He tossed a companionable arm over his shoulder and steered him away from Kenna. “Let me buy you a lap dance and get you some more agreeable ass to latch onto.”

The big Ukrainian security guy drew up short as Jester waved him off. He glanced from me back to Val Soletsky. Who just snorted, then made a wrap it up gesture toward Kenna and headed back the other direction.

“Cash out, little one,” the security guy said in heavily accented English.

A pissed off woman is one hell of a turn on. Especially when it was Kenna. She glared at me, smacked me in the chest with the tray, and stormed off in a tiny ball of righteous fury. She paused as she passed Jester, stopping long enough for him to wrap her in a hug.

When she’d kissed him, it had been hot as fuck. That hug, though, sent a flare of jealousy ripping through my body.

The bouncer whistled in a way that translated into any language. He didn’t want to be me.

“She ain’t my problem.” But I wished she was. I moved toward Jester, ignoring the angry man he’d distracted with a naked woman. The club was too confining and made me want to hit something.

Best to get the fuck out of here. One of the hardest things to get used to when wearing the patch was how people in Dry Valley—even at The Black Cat—moved differently when we pushed through.

Cautious, almost afraid of the big bad bikers.

As we cleared the VIP section, everyone moved down the steps and through the club’s main floor.

“Time to roll.” Jester went out the back door, skipping the last three steps with a long-legged hop. “I’ll call you when Kenna calms down, and I decide we need an audience.”

I followed him to where we left the bikes parked.

Merc was already leaving, having handed over the cash for the next drop.

Jester was off before I could crank my bike.

I could follow, or I could wait and make sure she was okay.

See if she wore that sexy little pink shit home and remind her she had other options.

Of lovers or jobs, I wasn’t sure.

It was a bad idea, but Eli was at my mom’s for the night. I sat sideways on the seat, pulled out my phone, and stretched my legs out.

Kenna came out the back door, and I steeled myself for a fight that never came.

Out here beneath the harsh LED lights, she looked tired.

I hadn’t noticed that inside. She’d swept her dark hair up in a messy bun so that the purple ends sprouted out like a peacock tail.

She wore a pair of dark red leggings that hugged her hips and ass, and a pink, cropped sweatshirt that showed a flash of pierced navel.

I fought to keep from adjusting my half hard cock.

“They sent me home early, because of your shit.” But there wasn’t any heat to her words. Like she wanted to be mad but couldn’t drum up the energy. I knew that feeling.

“How early?” I took my time sliding my phone into the inside pocket of my cut. I had her, to myself, for the first time in months. The worry that had tightened in my gut whenever I’d thought about her slowly loosened.

As much as I couldn’t rid myself of the desire to do nasty things to her, I needed to know she was okay. Aside from David’s new woman bitching about her.

“A few hours.” She toed at some of the loose pavement at her feet. She’d ditched the fuck-me boots and wore a pair of white canvas sneakers. Damn . I’d really liked the boots.

She wasn’t going to her truck, instead lingered just close enough I could smell the fruity body spray she had a fondness for. “Several hundred dollars in tips on a busy night like tonight.”

When I went for my wallet, she snapped her gaze to mine. The movement was so fast it jerked her chin up, defiant, but her bottom lip trembled. “I don’t want your money.”

“Kenna.” I sighed, feeling more tired than I should at twenty-seven years old. I reached for the box in my pocket instead, shook out a joint, lit it, and took a long drag before handing it to her. “It was my fault.”

“You’re right, it was.” She moved slowly toward me, a half step every few words, then took the joint and hit it.