The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) (9 page)

Trish fires me a don’t-be-a-stereotyping-idiot glare. “
Classic
gangster rap,” she corrects with a haughty little sniff. “N.W.A. 1988. Back when shit was real. Your boy has good taste in music.”

“Real?” I say, about to ask when shit got unreal. Then I stop. “My boy?” I say, mouth dropping open. “What the hell, Trish? Seriously!”

“Seriously!” she mocks, fluttering her hands around her neck like an overheated valley girl. Then she leans forward and her voice gets all conspiratorial. “Yes, seriously. I saw you eye him when he rolled by on his bike. Saw you do the same thing over there by the bar. I’m a cop too, remember? Although it wouldn’t take much observational talent to notice you panting at him. Seems our little Lily has a thing for tattooed bad boys.”

Panting? Bad boys? Christ. I’m about to tell her to piss off when I’m distracted by the waitress bringing me my drink. “On second thought,” I say, “you know what? I’m leaving.” I turn to Trish. “You were right. This place is a dive. Lets get out of here. I’ve got a long day tomorrow. We both do.”
 

The biker takes his first shot. There’s a loud crack of cue ball hitting home and the rap continues to blare:

Shoot a motherfucker in a minute

I find a good piece of pussy and go up in it—

I make a disgusted face. Pigs and morons. Always and everywhere.
 

“It’s misogynistic bullshit,” I mutter to Trish.

“It’s a fantasy world, Lil. Like you and that outlaw biker.”

“Would you stop—”

The waitress puts my beer back on her serving tray.

“I’d like another bourbon, please,” Trish says to the waitress.
 

The waitress eyes me uncertainly.
 

“Fine,” I sigh. “Whatever. As long as someone changes the music.”

Trish smiles.
 

“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap once the waitress is gone. “You want to stay, fine.” I press my fingers to my eyes, trying to forget the feeling of the biker’s waist pressed close to me, his strong arms wrapped around my chest. He takes another shot behind me.
 

I will not turn and watch an outlaw biker Prez play fucking pool.
 

I will
not
.

“Ooh,” Trish purrs.
 

Bitch.

“So it’s bikers now is it?” I say. “Thought you were all in for rich guys?”

Damn. That was nasty, and the look Trish gives me lets me know she thinks so too.
 

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just…I mean…I’m off my game. Did you see him drop that guy? It was brutal.” I take a long sip of my beer, thinking about the Adderol in my purse. I have a two a night limit. Otherwise I grind my teeth so bad I’ll need dentures at thirty.
 

But this is shaping up to be no ordinary night.
 

“Oh, damn,” Trish says, smiling at the biker. “You really are missing out here, Lil.”
 

I close my eyes and sigh. I know why she’s doing it. Connor. They’ve never liked one another. Trish thinks he’s a dick and he thinks she’s uppity, self-righteous trash. She’s always tried to pull me away from him. And it’s one of those weird things: I both love and resent her for that. For having my back. Because on the one hand she’s right. Connor is a dick.
 

But on the other…

I turn in my seat to watch the biker Prez play pool. No harm in watching, right? The low light above the table shadows his face, makes the hard angles of his chin and cheekbones stand out. He’s handsome in a hard, unremitting kind of way. His leather cut is covered in patches and insignias, and across his back is the Pureblood Predators MC patch, a skeletal wolf head with glowing yellow eyes. There’s a small golden crown floating above the head, and a pair of upside-down grim reaper blades crossed beneath. All you’d need to add is a bloated corpse or two to complete the tough-guy look.
 

“You know them?” I ask Trish. She did a stint with Organized Crime before setting her sights on homicide.

“The Purebloods? Sure.”

The biker takes a shot. The cue ball smacks its target. The ball bounces off the side of the table and rolls across the floor. One of the biker’s lackeys hops after it, then hands it to him.
 

“He sunk a ball yet?” I ask.

“Nope.”

Another shot. Another miss. I can’t help but smile. “Bad boy’s got a hole in his outlaw resume.”

Trish giggles as the waitress deposits her bourbon on the table. “What’s his name?” she asks the waitress, nodding at the biker.
 

“Ask him yourself, hun,” the waitress says, shrugging.

“Not a bad idea,” Trish says. “Thanks.” Then she turns to me and says, “So. Pureblood Predators MC. Runs up and down the West Coast. Usual one-percenter action: drugs, prostitution, gaming. A few low-level busts over the years but nothing even approaching the inner circle. Rumors of cartel ties that conflict with rumors of a close Eastern Euro connection. A smallish organization as these things go. Tight-knit. Shadowy, even. Maybe forty members. Hometown for our local chapter: Renton, Washington.”

“Renton?”

Trish smiles. “Land of meth labs, chop shops, Rottweilers and wide open spaces. Although that’s not entirely fair. I hear Renton has one or two hardworking citizens.”
 

“The Wilds is his,” I say quietly.

“What’s that?”

“This bar. It’s his.”

“Maybe.”

Something’s niggling at me. A half-formed thought. About Connor—

The biker sinks a close straight shot into a corner pocket. A shot a blind man could’ve sunk.

“Nice one!” Trish says, pumping her fists.
 

The biker turns and smiles at her. He has a blue-black shadow of a beard that isn’t quite thick enough to hide his dimples. The dimples seem incongruous on a man who was about to stomp the life out of a born loser just ten minutes ago.
 

I glare at him, then at Trish.
 

“If you’re not going to ask him for a game I will,” Trish says once he turns back to the table. “He looks lonesome up there all by himself.”

“Go for it,” I say as dismissively as possible.
 

“Ok then.” Trish makes to stand.

I’m on my feet without realizing it. Damn. Bitch called my bluff.
 

Trish waves me toward the pool table with a mischievous smile.

I clear my throat and grab a cue from the wall. The biker’s glance follows me across the room as I rack up at the pool table opposite him. I keep my eyes on the table, arranging the balls in order in the rack.
 

“Seems silly, two people playing solo,” he says in that rough but soft-spoken voice. It’s odd, the tone, almost as if he’s not used to speaking much.
 

“Is that an offer?”

“Sure. Play me a game.”

I nod at Trish. “You mind if my friend joins? She bores easily and I wouldn’t want to leave her alone in a place like this.”

He ignores my barb and slowly chalks his cue. God, even his hands are sexy and strong looking. “Sure. I can do two. No problem at all.”

Pig.

I wave Trish over. She shakes her head no. I sigh in frustration and wave again. It’s another no, lips firmly pursed this time.
 

Damn. Now I feel like an idiot.

Biker dude chuckles. “Looks like it’s you and me,” he says, gliding to my table with a smooth, nearly lupine grace. He’s a biker, but there’s something reserved in how he carries himself. Something almost regal. “You all right with that?”

“If you tell me your name,” I say, trying to sound brave and nonchalant at the same time.

“Aaron,” he says, offering his hand.
 

Aaron
. Not what I expected. Not at all. “Just Aaron, huh? Not Aaron…Scythe?”

Aaron smiles. Leaves his hand outstretched.
 

I take his hand in mine. His skin is warm, almost hot, and his palms are calloused and rough, not at all soft and feminine like Connor’s. He holds my hand for a second longer than might be considered appropriate and—damn him—I like how it feels, his large, powerful hand closed over mine, and when he releases me there’s a flash of wanting him to hold me.
 

All of me.
 

“Lily,” I say, trying to sound confident but damn near croaking it out. My mouth is suddenly dry.
What the hell, Lil?
I scold myself. And to get back some of my mojo I say, “Seriously though? Just Aaron? No moniker? No AKA?”

He gives me a look that’s not entirely friendly. “Your break.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“Exactly.”

I chalk up my cue. “I saw you on your bike. Outside.”

“You did?”

He’s actually not that good of a liar, given his profession.

“I did. That must be kind of neat. Riding around on a bike all. Make you feel like a kid again. A…juvenile.”

He ignores me, turns and waves at the bartender. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not, then I wonder what exactly a good sign would be?

Depends on what I want from him, I guess.

But as I lean over the pool table to break I know exactly what I want from him, and when I brush my hair back and glance up to catch him staring at my exposed neck, the soft skin tracing down to my tits I have a pretty good idea what he wants as well. It’s the first time I’ve seen him with his guard down, and the flush radiating through my midsection makes me tremble.

I flub the break. It’s weak-assed. The pool balls remain in a tight cluster in the middle of the table.

“You look pretty straight for this neighborhood,” Aaron says, studying the table with a frown of concentration.
 

“As opposed to what? Crooked?”

“You look like you’re so clean you squeak.”

“I heard most Harley’s nowadays are purchased by retired dentists. Is that true? Bunch of well-off old white guys cruising around, playing at being outlaws?”

Aaron stops. Lifts his gaze to meet mine. Gives me a long, piercing look. I’m all swagger and bluff, whereas he’s…not. In fact he’s nothing at all like I expected. Oh, he’s no poser. No wannabe. And that’s what makes him so compelling. He’s perfectly composed. In control. And then that feeling hits me again, the memory of glimpsing that mountain lion, of what it means to be a predator stalking your prey through the evening woods—

“Do I look like a fucking dentist?” Aaron says, tapping his outlaw cut.
 

“No,” I say, almost whispering. It’s maybe the first genuine, non-snarky thing I’ve said to the man.
 

“Tell you what, Lily,” he says, and I like how he makes my name sound. Like flowers in spring. “Lets raise the stakes.” He lays a hundred dollar bill at the edge of the table while the waitress deposits a neat scotch in my hand.
 

“You waited to see me break before putting money on your game? Chickenshit.”

That gets him. A tiny flush of red, just around the cheeks.
 

“Well?”

“Sure,” I say, nodding to Trish. “Money’s in my purse.”

“Uh-huh,” he says with the cynicism of a man accustomed to trusting no one.

“So it’s a deal? Hundred bucks for the win?”

“Deal,” Aaron says, leaning for the shot. It’s a straightforward high angle into the side pocket. His arms stretch out over the table, long, tightly muscled. His tats are all old-school, skull and cross-bone type designs, demon-monsters descending from storm clouds. Nothing Celtic. Nothing tribal. Nothing trendy.
 

The hot biker boss misses his shot by a mile.

“A hundred bucks is almost worth an hour in this dive,” I say, eyeing up my shot. I sink it easily with a bit of backspin that lands the cue ball in line for my next shot. It goes down, then another, and the world narrows around me, the music fading, the god-awful week I’ve had fading. My nerves, frayed raw as hell, start to relax. My breathing slows.
 

I eye down another shot. Get a little aggressive and miss.

I look up to find Aaron staring at me. He looks…hungry. His eyes sparkle like an Alaskan river, and his lips are parted slightly. Moist. I think about kissing him, feeling his warm, searching lips against mine.
 

I wonder how he’d touch me.
 

Hard, hopefully. Demanding.
 

Aaron of no AKA seems to have forgotten it’s his shot. He’s holding the pool cue clasped tight in his hands, leaning into it in a way that’s nothing if not damn sexy, and the thought crosses my mind that I’m going to take this bad-boy biker Prez home with me tonight.
 

“Your shot,” I say quietly.
 

Aaron blinks and gives his head a tiny, nearly imperceptible shake.

Listen, I’m old enough to be close to happy with how I look. There’s only so much you can change and at a certain point in your life you have to say fuck it—if they’re not interested for whatever reason, find another one.

There’s plenty out there. Time to grow up, girlie.
 

But I’ve seen how guys look at the real knock-outs. The one-in-a-million movie stars and models. How they glaze over, as if the only thing in the world that matters is that one woman’s beauty.
 

I never, ever expected to be looked at in that way.
 

Devoured.
 

But that’s how this gorgeous man was looking at me a second ago, and he just
gave his head a shake
to snap himself out of it. Oh yeah. You can bet more than that C-note on the table I’m leaving with him tonight.

There’s a longish silence that verges on awkward as he checks the next shot, so I ask him about the life of an outlaw biker. “Is it all booze, bitches and blow like they say?”

“About sums it up,” he says.

“Must get kind of boring.”

“I have simple needs.”

Simple needs. I like that.
 

He takes his shot, finally sinks one, then flukes on a cross-table Hail Mary that somehow comes through.
 

“Nice one,” I say, meaning it.