Page 29 of Demon
“Ciara,” Demon turned, his hands moving to my shoulders and, for a moment, instinctively I stepped back. Just a fraction. A little falter. Fingers wrapped around the bulbs of my shoulders, holding me still, not letting me run from him. I tipped my chin up, defiance swelling in my chest.
“Ciara,” he said again, “stop making this so damn difficult.”
“This?”
“Us.”
“There’s an us now?” I cocked my head, watching Demon stare at me, unsure how to answer, because whatever response he gave, I was in the mood for a fight.
“Maybe. Maybe there could be. I’ll let you think on that one,darl’.” I didn’t miss the way he slowed on the word. “Just do me a favour and go think on it over there. I’m heading out back to give Indie a hand to fix your car.”
He watched me a few seconds longer, the tiniest hint of a smile pulling at his lips, his face just knocked out of its perfect symmetry.
I spent the next few hours trying to work on my assignment but succeeding only in being constantly distracted. The blonde woman sat diligently a few tables away, guiding leather cuts carefully through a sewing machine, spinning and moving them deftly as the metal arm hammered into the thick material. She barely looked up, her concentration solely on the fabric, folding them into neat piles after she’d checked them, before starting another. Wherever Magnet was, he was taking his time, no one else showing for a good long while.
At the far side Fury, the twins and the girl sat sipping alcohol, the occasional bark of laughter breaking my thoughts. Thoughts that had taken some persuading at getting into the game. This morning should never have happened. I don’t know what I’d been thinking. I probably wasn’t thinking. Demon seemed to have that effect on me, cutting me off from rational thought, from reasoning and common sense. So here I was. In the clubhouse of a bike gang.
I glanced around again at the faded, peeling wallpaper. The stuff must have dated back to the eighties. A good decade before I’d been born. The green and cream pattern was separated by a dado rail, the woodchip paper below the same green gloss. It was easy to clean, I supposed, but ugly. Really ugly. I’d seen better decorated lap-dancing clubs back in Ireland, and that was fucking saying something.
A sudden rumble from outside broke my concentration once again, pulling my attention from the mottled screen of the old laptop. I could feel the vibrations under my feet. The whole pub seemed to shake. I couldn’t count the number of engines, but the heavy purr and guttural chant of motorbikes dwarfed the noise that Demon’s made. Then silence. The pub floor stopped vibrating, and the air stilled, my own breaths the only sound I could hear now.
Around me, no one else seemed phased. Suzy unhooked the thread from her machine, a pile of leather sitting to one side of her, and across the room the four heads continued to raise glasses and erupt in cackles. And, through the door, marched in a line of leather clad men.
The man in the front had a head of thick grey hair and a goatee beard, trimmed to perfection. Whiter than Indie’s, his hair was pushed back over his head, mussed from the helmet that he carried in one hand. Behind him, a slim woman in leather, with raven hair that fell around her shoulders and swung out from side to side from somewhere near her arse. The procession wandered in, the low rumble of men’s voices filling the room with a sudden energy.
“That’s the club president,” that light voice said suddenly from the side of me, answering a question I’d never even asked. But then she caught me with the next nugget of information she offered. “Indie and Demon’s dad.”
I stared then, at the man walking past me. He was tall, but older. Sixties probably. His right ear was littered with earrings. A mix of hoops, climbing up the flesh of his lobe. Silver, Celtic patterned, and gold. Nothing matched or contrasted, just scattered. He looked at me as he passed, keen brown eyes boring into mine, lingering for just a little too long that I felt I was being scrutinised. The woman behind him watched me, too. Not with interest, but threat. Something slightly vicious on her face.
“That’s Tori,” Suzy said again, this time more of a whisper, as if saying her name would see her struck down by a blasphemy punishing lightning bolt. The petite blonde woman had scooted along the bench seat without me even realising, and now she sat on my right hand-side as if we’d been deep in conversation for hours.
I shrugged back at her in response, as if I was supposed to know what she was talking about.
“Ste’s ol’ lady.”
The dark-haired woman glanced back at us, her eyes catching mine, noticing me watching her.
“Just watch your back with her. She can be a bit of a bitch.” Suzy sounded like she was speaking from experience. But I had no intention of watching my back. I had every intention of never coming here again.
Chapter Fourteen
Demon
“So, a dancer fromTrouble, huh?” Indie mumbled, smoothing the new pane of glass into the back passenger side of the car.
“She’s a barmaid. Not a dancer.” Not that it mattered what she did.
“Biting much? Guess you like this one?”
“Wouldn’t bring her to the clubhouse if I didn’t.” Although there was a danger in that. I’d done that once before and vowed never to do it again. Yet here I was.
“She’s Irish? Where from?”
“I’ve never asked, Indie.”
“And that’s a nasty scar on her face. Pretty fresh too. What’s that about?”
I knew why the fucker was digging. I had a habit of getting involved with people that had baggage. Not just the failed relationships or mental health issues sort of baggage, either. Those none of us cared about, as most of us had dragged those things around with us at one time or another, or still did. My baggage would have to be surgically removed. No, I went for women with the whole crazy ex who tried to burn the clubhouse down in retaliation, or another who drove his pickup truck all over a bunch of our bikes. Caused a right mess. We’d dealt with each one of those, as was the club rule. You take on one of us; you take on all of us.