REGENCY: Loved by the Duke (Historical Billionaire Military Romance) (19th Century Victorian Short Stories) (20 page)

Chapter 2

The interior of the bar was just about what she had predicted it would be once they got inside.  They waited in line for ten minutes before a pair of large – but not entirely neutral looking – bouncers admitted them.  All the while Carlie whispered into Jackie’s ear, “I hate you for this.”

If Jackie was at all offended by her words she had given no sign of it, her attention being decidedly elsewhere.  She just bounced on her heels excitedly as they finally got inside.  All Carlie could do was think that her friend was playing Russian Roulette and that somehow the both of them would end up catching a bullet if they weren’t careful in a place like this. 

There were so many people crammed on the inside of the bar that she was amazed that there was room for people to move.  And every activity seemed to require people from both camps to participate. 

There was a dance floor where bikers were crammed and moving to a melody that was hard to hear over the other noises.  There were people at the pool tables, playing darts, or having some kind of a drinking game at one corner table or another.  Some of them looked to be having hushed conversations while others looked positively overt about whatever it was that they were discussing.  It all put a chill down Carlie’s back.

She followed Jackie all the way up to the bar trying to stay as close to her friend as a remora on a shark’s back.  She felt stupid even being here.  It wasn’t the first time that Jackie’s pussy had led them into a place like this and Carlie considered getting her friend some therapy to try and cure her sex-driven adventures.  While Jackie’s eye was wandering around for some piece of easy man-flesh, Carlie’s eye was more wary and watching for potential threats.

There were too many to count.

They pushed their way all the way up to the bar and Carlie felt vulnerable for it.  The bar was on the far side of the building, directly opposite from the door.  It would be no small chore to get out in a hurry if it came to it.  But with so many bad elements crowded into a place like this, Carlie felt as if Jackie’s overdeveloped sex drive had finally landed them in god’s blind spot.

Jackie ordered them a couple of beers, though Carlie would have preferred something a tad stronger.  Though to have something stronger might have dulled her senses a little more than she wanted and something about that felt like she was baiting herself for something nasty to come and eat her. 

She turned an eye to her friend.  Where Jackie was slender and perky, Carlie was larger and buxom.  Jackie’s skin was fair while Carlie was dark, but she took some comfort from the fact that the pair of them weren’t drawing any unwanted attention from the people around them.  It was as if they were invisible to these people and Carlie found that nothing short of acceptable.  But as soon as Jackie tried to let it show that she was in need of a little TLC, then that was going to change and quick.

“Ooh, he looks good,” Jackie said, pointing out on particular biker sitting alone at a table near the dance floor.  Carlie’s eyes followed Jackie’s finger and she saw the focus of her friend’s attention. 

He was nothing special.  A man of sandy blond hair with a gruff look about him, like a man that should have been on a pirate ship with a patch over his eye rather than a leather vest across his chest.  But he had the kind of rugged manliness that Carlie knew Jackie favored in her men.  The jacket he wore had the logo of some kind of a high-velocity race team and there was no question in her mind as to which camp this man belonged to.

“Does he make you damp in your panties?” Carlie asked.

Jackie shook her head.  “No… but I’ll have to get closer to be sure.”  She took the beer that the bartender gave them and took a large swig before setting the bottle down.  She gave her breasts one final push upright and brushed her hair over her shoulders.  “How do I look?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

Jackie smiled.  “Keep your fingers crossed, sweetie.  Mama’s going hunting.”  With that, Jackie started off across the crowded room, leaving Carlie sitting alone at the bar.

Carlie almost called out after her friend but thought better of it.  Noise would only attract unwanted attention and she preferred to remain as invisible as she could.  She sighed and found an unoccupied stool and crawled up on it, taking her beer and drinking half of it in one go.

“I take it that you don’t really care to be here?” asked a deep and brooding voice from behind her.

She turned on her stool to see who had spoken.

Her voice caught in her throat when she saw the owner of the voice.  She didn’t know how to describe it to her satisfaction except to say that there was a god standing on the opposite side of the bar.

At first the sight of him barely registered in her mind.  He seemed so out of place here it was like finding a clean spot in a slaughter house.  This man that stood before her… he was captivating to look at.  All of the noise from the bar simply seemed to fade away.  There only seemed to be him and her standing here… it was as if they were completely alone.  But as strange as it seemed she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.

He stood close to six feet tall... maybe a little more.  His hair was short, nearly spiked and was light brown in color.  His eyes were a deep gray, like the sky after a passing storm.  His skin was fair, but pleasantly darkened as if he spent a lot of time under the sun.  His jaw was pointed with an adorable cleft in his chin.  More pleasant than that was his figure.  From what she could see he wore only leather riding pants and a leather vest.  Underneath that vest his abs, chest, and arms were fully visible and the muscles that were partially concealed under there were beautiful from any angle.

“Excuse me?” she said, finding that her voice had seemed to falter in her throat. 

“It’s pretty obvious that you don’t want to be here,” replied the god, a slight trace of what she thought to be a southern accent apparent in his voice as he began to mix a drink, but he did so without taking his eyes off of her.  “Usually most people that come in here have a reason for being here.  It’s pretty clear that you don’t.”

Carlie licked her lips, finding that they had suddenly become dry and she turned herself on her stool to rest her elbows on the bar and face the man fully.  “Oh?  Am I that obvious?”

The godly bartender smirked and she found something magnetic in the simple expression.  “Well, you do stand out.”

She felt herself blush.

“So what brings you here?  Business or pleasure?”

She tried to keep her face neutral.  “Uh…”

“Pleasure,” he said, seeming to draw the answer out of her omnipotently.  “Well, I’m not sure if you’ll find any pleasure here… but I’m glad you came just the same.”

She tried to maintain her neutral look, but her lips cracked with a girlish smile.

He gestured to the bar at large.  “It’s a dump, isn’t it?”

All she could do was give a slight nod. 

The bartender nodded in the direction that Jackie had gone off in.  “Your friend dragged you here, right?  Can’t see why a lady such as you would be here unless she didn’t want to actually be here.”

Carlie said nothing, but simply gave a nod as if she were in fact being questioned by a god and knew better than to lie.  She wasn’t silent out of politeness.  She simply wanted to hear him speak more. 

The bartender completed his drink and slid it down the bar without watching where it ended up, though it likely was caught by the one who had asked for it.  He leaned on the counter top across from her and looked her over, his eyes scanning her from the hair to elbow and then back.  Somehow the sight of simply watching him look at her sent a strange tingle up and down her spine.

“I saw the way you walked in here… it’s pretty obvious you don’t generally keep with a crowd like this.  But I noticed how you kept your back straight.  That means a proper upbringing… that means money.  You come from a wealthy family and I noticed how you kept a watchful eye on everyone else in this place.  So you know how to recognize danger when you see it and that means you have a professional eye.”  He turned his head sideways like he was looking at her from a new angle.  “That tells me you’re a lawyer… maybe a doctor… someone from the upper echelon.  And you’re here because you have no choice.  How am I doing?”

She nodded, but didn’t speak.  She didn’t want him to know how much he was getting right, only to acknowledge that he had gotten something right.  There was something exciting in keeping him guessing.  More important than that, she didn’t want to break his chain of words in any way, his voice was like magic.  He sounded both intuitive and hypnotic at the same time and his words were a silent command for her to keep listening.

Keep talking
, she silently pleaded.

The barkeep again looked her over; his eyes seemed to be combing her more deeply than before, like he was surveying every strand of muscle beneath her skin.  Part of her hoped – wildly so – that he was simply undressing her with his eyes. 

“From the way you’re dressed, I can tell that you don’t like to flaunt your wealth.  But your perfume,” he sniffed at the air, “that’s Lilac Seduction.  High end stuff, usually goes for two grand for an ounce.”  He looked her over; his eyes seemed to reach deeper inside of her.  “From your perfume and your casual dress I can tell that you live a simple life… you have a routine… you’re organized… and after a while that gets to be pretty mundane.  So your friend, who obviously doesn’t come from money or privilege, wants a night of doing something unorthodox.  Something dark and dangerous, and a biker’s bar seemed like a good place to go.  But you… you had reservations about it.  I’ll bet you tried to talk her out of it the whole way here.  Am I right?”

She couldn’t maintain her silence anymore and felt a giddy excitement building up inside of her.  “I’m impressed,” she said with a smile.

“So, I was right?”

She tilted her head to one side and took a drink from her beer.  “Close enough.”

The barkeep smiled. 

“Hey there, handsome,” said a woman’s voice from Carlie’s shoulder, drawing her attention of the god away from her.

She looked and saw the shapely figure of a woman standing next to her and she cringed inwardly at the sight.  The woman standing beside her was full breasted and slender of waist.  She was the kind of woman that she usually saw modeling high end underwear or on the arm of a famous movie star.  Her hair was fire-engine red and the look she wore was easy to interpret: she wanted the bartender.  And not just to have him mix her a drink.

Fuck!
Carlie thought, taking a second and deeper swig from her beer, feeling her heart dwindle at the sight of the woman and knowing her intent.

“I saw you working here the last time I was here,” said the skinny woman familiarly and with the kind of charm that a whore would use to pick up a guy on a street corner.  “I was hoping you’d be here.”

The barkeep kept his smile in place, but there was something…
less
… about it, Carlie thought.  Like he wasn’t all that thrilled to see this woman… like he’d seen her before and didn’t care for what he saw.  Somehow, she found that very endearing.  “Can I make you a drink, miss?” he asked, his voice only fractionally as hypnotic as it had been a moment before.  That was endearing as well.

“Sure…” the skinny bitch asked, her smile as seductive as the rest of her.  “And, can I get your phone number while I’m here?” she added, sounding braver than she had a moment before.

Carlie felt like that was her cue to get up and find some corner to disappear into and puke.  She’d had bad luck with meeting men before but this instance was a rare occasion all by itself.  But before she could so much as stir, the god behind the bar spoke up. 

“It’s usually not a good idea to speak like that to a man in front of his wife, miss.”

Carlie froze.  Her eyes locked on the god, who kept his gaze fixed on the other woman as if savoring her reaction.  She couldn’t blame her. 

The skinny girl looked perplexed.

The god looked to her – Carlie – and smiled, indicating whom he had spoken of. 

Carlie’s blood felt like it had suddenly caught fire. 
Oh god… he means
me
?! 
It was an outright lie but Carlie suddenly found that she didn’t mind being caught up in it.  If the god said that it was so, then it was.  She found a vindictive smile touch her lips. 

The skinny girl turned her attention to Carlie and it was the skinnier woman’s turn to wear a look of confusion.  Her mouth dropped open with shock at the sight of her, like she couldn’t believe what she had just heard.  Carlie struggled to keep from laughing, but managed to put a smile on her face.  If she could have spoken she might have said, ‘Ha, that’s right bitch… he’s
mine
.’ 

“Oh,” the skinny girl said, taking a small step back, the look of embarrassment as pronounced as her breasts.

“Can I make you a drink?” the god asked, his voice full of faux sympathy.

“N-no,” the girl said, taking another step back.  “I just… oh, god…” She turned and walked away, not even bothering to look back and melted into the crowd.

Once she and the godly bartender were alone she looked back to him, feeling her cheeks flush.  “Wife?” she asked, her voice almost a squeak.