BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (67 page)

Chapter 6

              “What the hell is this supposed to be?” the angry customer stormed up to the bar, catching Adrien off guard. He glanced at the drink, and then at the customer with a dark eyebrow raised.

              “Looks like a strawberry daiquiri to me.” It was his own fault if it tasted like pure sugar for ordering the girliest drink on the menu. Adrien just shook his head. The guy should have known better.

              “Well, it’s not. It tastes like soap,” The customer slammed the drink on the bar top. “I’m not paying for this.”

              Adrien looked back at the cocktail, finally noticing the thin film of what looked to be bubbles on top. He picked up the glass, holding it to his nose and took a delicate sniff. Thanks to his animal half, some of his sense were hyper sensitive, like his sense of smell, for instance. He wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell. There was definitely something wrong with the drink.

              “No problem, sir. Can I make you something else?” He asked, his brain trying to figure out what happened. How the hell did their dishwasher soap end up in some guy’s drink?

              “No, I don’t want anything.” The customer turned to leave but then stopped, throwing over his shoulder, “You know what, you should fire the bartender that made that. She just lost you a customer.” The guy nodded at Morgan, who was busy with another table before stalking out.

              Adrien just shook his head. What the hell was going on? First the simple syrup he’d made turned out to be pure salt and the special bottle of bitters he used for old fashions had somehow gone rotten overnight. And now this. And it wasn’t the first time over the past two weeks that drinks had come up with mysterious ingredients.

On their own, he probably would have chocked it up to bad luck, but something about this had his hackles rising. Someone was messing with things intentionally, and all signs seemed to point to Morgan. But that didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

              His train of thought was interrupted as a large group of customers walked in. It was a Saturday night and he didn’t have the time to figure things out. He had a bar to run. Adrien just hoped to hell that he would have a boring, non-eventful shift.

              “Hey, Adrien, I need two Miller lights for table three.” She smiled at him as she handed him the ticket. A slow, sultry smile that had all burners instantly firing. There was no way she had anything to do with the madness that was happening over the past weeks. There was just no way.

              But a nagging doubt remained. No one else worked there at the moment with their bar back headed back to college and she was the one who had made the drinks with whatever weird or wrong ingredients. It just didn’t add up. What reason would she have for sabotaging the bar? Because that was what it was starting to feel like. Sabotage.

              The progressed like every other Saturday night, thankfully with no more angry customers or wrong ingredients. He had spent what little down time he had going through their stocks and double checking everything. So far he had found a bottle of orange liquor that tasted like mustard, maraschino cherries that had half of the fruit replaced with red rocks, and the strawberry syrup that was the culprit behind the soap daiquiri earlier that evening.

              He had the culprits all lined up on the bar and was staring at them. Something just didn’t add up. The thing was, these mistakes were almost high school prank level. Whoever had been behind them was either not trying very hard, or really, really incompetent.

              All it took was a single smell for him to know that something was wrong. The likelihood that whatever intent was behind this would be successful was almost laughable.

              He glanced over as he saw Morgan move behind the bar, wondering anew at how she moved like one of them, one of the tribe. She was at peace with the world and herself in a way that he rarely saw outside of the clan, which he knew partly accounted for the success of his bar.

              Adrien couldn’t tear his enamored gaze away from her movements, but a nagging sense of worry echoed through him, breaking its way through his trance as she grabbed a bottle of vodka from the part of the shelf he hadn’t looked over yet.

              Warning bells went off in his head and he leaped forward, snagging the bottle from her just as she began to hand the drink to the waiting customer.

              “Hey, what the hell?” Morgan turned to him with a look of surprise, and then arched that damn eyebrow at him as he delicately sniffed the drink. All he could smell at first was the scent of her, overwhelming every other note. He could easily get addicted to that smell and it was like his senses were so attuned to her that she blocked out everything else.

              Adrien took a small step away, just enough to clear his head and took another sniff. He grimaced at the chemical smell that invaded his nose and immediately dumped it out.

              “Adrien! What are you doing?” He could hear the temper in his voice and sparked something deep and primal inside him. He shook his head. That was it. He was officially going crazy. Even the thought of her pissed off at him had him instantly hard.

              “It was bleach,” He finally explained, forcing his wayward thoughts back to the dangerous matter at hand. “If you had served it to him…” He let the thought trail off and he saw the truth dawn in her gorgeous emerald green eyes.

              “Bleach? In the vodka? What the hell is going on around here?” Morgan shook her head, looking confused and a little scared. He didn’t blame her. Whoever was pulling these pranks was starting to escalate and they were obviously still trying to frame Morgan. This time he knew she wasn’t to blame because he had just grabbed that bottle from the back– He cut off mid-thought. He had just grabbed that bottle not ten or fifteen minutes ago, and had assumed it was fine because it had looked new.

              Maybe whoever was behind this had left some clue as to who they were and what the hell they were trying to do.

              “Listen, you stay here. I’m going to go try and figure this out. Are you okay?”

              “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Go do what you got to do, Adrien. This is really starting to weird me out.” Morgan turned back to the customers, and he saw her taste all of the ingredients before she mixed the drink. If things kept going like this, he would have to shut down the bar for the rest of the night and go through every single bottle. Adrien shuddered. If that customer had drunk that bleach cocktail, who knows what would have happened. But if anyone was ever poisoned in his bar, he knew it would be shut down immediately. He wouldn’t let that happen. This bar was his life now, and he owed it to himself to get to the bottom of this.

              As quietly as he could, he walked to the back of the building and down the short flight of stairs to where they kept their stores. A tell tale shuffling noise had all of his bear senses jumping to alert. He could feel the razor sharp claws extend from the tips of his fingers. He was on the attack now, there was no doubt about it.

              He jumped out with a roar and froze at the same time as the large man currently holding a funnel and a vat of chemical cleaner over an empty booze bottle.

              The intruder immediately dropped the bottle with a yell and took off through the still open back door. Adrien could see the lock had been busted. Fury rode him. That this happened right under his own nose, while he was there above in the bar oblivious!

              “Adrien? Oh my god, your hands!” Adrien turned at Morgan’s startled voice, willing the claws to retract and praying to god or anyone that would listen that it was too dark down there for her to really see just what had happened.

              “Hey, it’s okay. See?” Adrien held up both hands, flipping them back and forth. She grabbed them, sending a shockwave of lust skittering through him.

              “I swear I saw…never mind,” She shook her head at herself before looking up at him, concern shining from the depths of her eyes. “I heard someone yell, I wanted to make sure you’re all right. What happened down here?” She asked as she finally took a look around the store room. There were several bottle broken from the intruder’s hasty exit, the funnel and gallon bottle of cleaning solution still gurgling out where he had dropped it.

Adrien sighed as he took stock of the damage. At least he final had the answers he had been looking for.

“Why don’t you head back upstairs. Take care of the last customers here and then close up for the night. I’ll start cleaning down here.” Morgan nodded solemnly before heading back to the front of the bar, leaving him alone with the smell of bleach hanging heavy in the air and his thoughts.

Harris might not have realized that he would recognize the young bear, Bradley Simone, since he’d been apart from the tribe for so long, but Adrien made it his business to know what went on in the tribe. The cub was one of Harris’ new henchmen, and that meant he now knew exactly what had been going on, albeit not very successfully, and he was pissed.

Harris thought he could run Morgan off with a few mislaid pranks? Hah. The only thing he’d done is assure Adrien that the old bear couldn’t’ be trusted. He desperately hoped he would give up now that this attempt at splitting him and Morgan up had failed.

With another sigh, he grabbed the mop and started cleaning up the mess that Harris’ henchman had left behind. Adrien just hoped there wouldn’t be any more.

Chapter 7

“Hey, pretty lady, I’ll take another one of these.” Morgan rolled her eyes at the slurred words and the just emptied glass that had just been full of whiskey a moment ago rattling at her.

“I really think you have had enough Roscoe. Besides, it’s almost closing time. Isn’t Ronda missing you by now?” Morgan asked as she took the glass from his alcohol numbed fingers before he could drop it. Everyone in the area know Roscoe and Ronda. They had lived up at the old trailer park since before she was even born and a better couple she had never met. Of course, Ronda was his pet bull dog.

“You know, you’re probably right.” Roscoe stood and stumbled a little and she was grateful that he was walking the short distance to his home instead of driving. He took another unsteady step and she reached out a hand to help him regain his balance.

“You sure you don’t want me to give you a lift home, Roscoe?” Morgan asked concernedly as he ambled this way and that way towards the door. It was like he was incapable of walking in a straight line.

“What, so you can take advantage of me? I think not!” His wrinkled face was suffused with red and his jowls shook as he spoke. Morgan couldn’t help but laugh along with him. Roscoe Jenkins was also almost seventy years old.

“You know I would if Ronda gave me have a chance.” She helped him move a little closer towards the door. He was the last customer for the night and she could practically feel Adrien’s hot gaze burning into her back. Morgan remembered that searing kiss from a few weeks before, interrupted by a brick through the window, but even still the memory had stayed with her, burned into her thoughts.

“Well, Ronda don’t like women much, especially the pretty ones.” He cast a grin over her shoulder aimed straight at Adrien, and suddenly he looked sharper than he ever had, “besides, I wouldn’t want that man of yours coming after me. He looks like the type who would fight for what’s his.”

Surprise shot through her at his words, followed by a small thrill she couldn’t deny.

“Oh, he’s not…I’m not his–.” Morgan stuttered but Roscoe just smiled.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, and more importantly the way you look at him. And believe me, I know that look. It’s a look that doesn’t happen all that often, so when it does, you treasure it.” With those last words he turned and walked out of the bar, whistling some old Willy Nelson song as he disappeared into the night.

His words crashed over her. He was right about one thing. What was between her and Adrien was special; it didn’t happen all the time. In fact, she’d never felt this way about anyone. She was drawn to him. She thought about him all the time, and even though it had only been a few weeks, it felt like they had known each other for a life time.

“Let’s close early.” Adrien’s voice was sudden and hot right behind her, his breath tickling the back of her neck as he bent to lay a kiss right in the crook where it met her shoulder. She couldn’t deny that she wanted him. Had wanted him since the minute she’d first laid eyes on him three years ago when she been desperate for cash and he had hired her on the spot.

“I have to finish closing down for the night. And besides, weren’t you supposed to leave hours ago?” Morgan glanced at the clock which ticked fifteen minutes to ten. It was a Wednesday night, the nights he usually took off early to balance the books and she stayed and closed. They were supposed to be open for another hour but the gleam sparking in his eyes convinced that maybe an early night would be worth it.

“I can put in a good word for you with the boss.” Adrien slowly spun her around until she was facing him, her back pressed against the edge of a table but she didn’t even feel it. All she could feel was him. Adrien. Overwhelming her sense and eclipsing any other thought.

“Well, when you put it that way,” Morgan said breathlessly, her words swallowed by his mouth as it closed in on hers. She couldn’t move as he neared, slowly, so slowly it seemed like she was waiting for hours rather than the mere moments it took for him to clear the space between them.

Finally, his lips collided with hers and the impact ricocheted through her like a nuclear bomb, its shockwave echoing all the way through her and back, coalescing in her center. The deep, throbbing ache that had been ever present since that first kiss all those weeks ago roared back to life and she couldn’t’ be content just being a passive partner.

Morgan rose up on the tips of her toes, straining against him to get closer, as close as she could. She met him, kiss for kiss, a duel of lips and teeth and tongue that drove them both higher and higher.

Just when she couldn’t take any more without throwing him across the table and ripping his clothes off, Adrien pulled back. Morgan stared up at him, thrilled to see him panting and flushed and obviously as effected as she was.

He stared down at her for such a long time without saying anything she began to grow a little nervous. It seemed like there was something always interrupting them and she needed him too much now to go back.

“Adrien, let’s go upstairs.”

“I was wondering if you want to come up to my place.” They both spoke over each other, something that was becoming a little bit of a habit between them, and both started laughing, easing some of the thick tension hanging around them.

“Yes. I would love that.” Morgan said, smiling up at him. She had her fingers crossed behind her back that no more bricks would be thrown through the window, which they had finally gotten repaired. She felt like the last few weeks had all been leading to this moment and it sat heavy with promise.

Adrien shot her a smile that went straight through her and they wasted no more time, hurrying through the few chores that remained, cleaning off the last table and closing down the bar for the night. There was an electric current running through the air, and every time they drew nearer the feeling intensified, as if every nerve ending was a tiny spark that reacted to his touch and his alone.

By the time the bar was ready to be locked up for the night, Adrien thought he might explode then and there. He didn’t know how much more he could take and with the mating bond pulling him along on a string, binding him closer and closer to Morgan, he knew there was no going back.

Finally, the tables were cleaned, the bar wiped down, and the bottles all put away in their rightful spot. Luckily, since he had caught Harris’ young lackey tampering with his stores they hadn’t had anymore odd instances or occurrences for which he was grateful. There was only so much a man could take. And that wasn’t even taking into account the animal half.

Just thinking of the great bear lying dormant inside him had Adrien instantly aware of his other half’s impatience. There was a sense of urgency, and sense of rightness that flooded through him, and for the first time in weeks both parts of himself were in total accord.

Adrien turned off the lights, holding the door open for Morgan as they entered the dark Nevada night and locked up after her. He turned to her to try and gauge her emotions, her thoughts. He was afraid he might find nervousness or reticence now that she’d had some time to think about things while they were closing down the bar, but all he found was lust and impatience shining at him from her beautiful green eyes.

They shined like emerald stars in the darkness, the only illumination the dim outdoor bulb that was always on and the golden light of the moon beaming down on them. It took his breath away and all he could do for a long moment was stand there and stare at her. She was the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen, everything about her called to him in the most primal way and he actually hurt from wanting her so badly. More than anything he had wanted in his entire life. And she was all his.

A soft growl rumbled up from his chest at the possessive thought. Yeah, she was his, but didn’t now it yet. Or ever, if he couldn’t figure out a way to tell her the truth without sending her running off in the opposite direction. As they began to walk around the building towards the stairs that led up to his apartment he unconsciously grabbed her hand, twining his fingers around her much smaller ones.

He needed to feel that connection. The knowledge that he was mated to a woman who might never know it, or if she did find out, might just scare her away was enough to have his heart pounding in panic. Adrien finally felt like he was complete. He knew now what he had been missing for so many years, and it terrified him that he could lose it so easily.

He opened up the front door, stepping back to let Morgan in first and followed close behind her. He inhaled, savoring the feeling of have her scent, all woman and fire, wrapping around him in the dark, settling into his home. He knew he would always smell her there, and the thought was a double edged sword.

Hastily, he flipped on the light illuminating the small kitchen and living room and went to pour them both a drink. Adrien loved to see her in his home, to see her touching his things. The memory imprinted itself on him, and he hoped that he could find a way to come out of this unscathed. Adrien forced himself to take a deep breath and glanced over at Morgan to find her looking at him oddly.

“It’s okay, Adrien. I meant what I said. I really don’t bite.” She said softly, and her words and husky tone washed over him eradicating his painful thoughts and bringing with it all the lust and desire burning like an inferno inside him.

“And I meant what I said,” He whispered the words hotly as he crowded close to her body, “I do.”