Torched (10 page)

I winked at Jenny and poured the rest of her orders.

Snoop came up to the bar and put an arm around her. “You need some help getting these out?”

“That would be great, thanks,” she replied cheerfully.

“You good, sweetheart?” he asked me.

“I’m peachy. Seems like a good crowd tonight.”

“Yeah, maybe one of them will get you on that mic again,” he said mischievously.

During my first week at the Barrel, I’d had way too many drinks one night and got talked into going on stage and singing. Turned out I had a decent voice, but the whole experience was nerve-wracking. It was just fucking uncomfortable having all that attention on me at once. That was when I had decided to limit myself to three drinks or less.

“Not a chance, Snoop,” I groaned.

“Never say never, baby girl.”

I rolled my eyes. “Learned my lesson already. Just get these out,” I said, pointing at the twenty or so glasses of beer and liquor.

They both took a tray and loaded up, while I walked over to the other end of the bar to serve a new customer.

: : : :

Three hours later, the place was packed to the rafters. The kitchen was slowing down, so Snoop pulled Felix’s helpers to bus tables. Jenny and I had taken at least a dozen fake shots and I was popping aspirin like candy to keep my head from pounding. We had a live cover band playing, they were more than happy to let the drunks come on stage and make fools of themselves.

Members of three different motorcycle clubs had shown up, thankfully none of them 1%ers who had beef. They’d greeted each other with polite nods, but were keeping their distance.

Jenny rushed up to me with a whole new stack of orders. “Table six is definitely sticky now,” she said, pleading with her eyes.

“Okay, I got it. Let me get these orders and I’ll switch you places.”

“Can we get Snoop over here? I haven’t been behind the bar yet.

“Honey, I’m not gonna be here much longer. No better time to learn. You’ve seen me pour beers. Just eye the liquor. It’s not that complicated.”

She looked terrified.

“Just yell at me or Snoop if you get stuck,” I offered. “I promise you can do it. Take your time, everybody’s too wasted and busy being stupid to notice you being nervous.”

“Okay,” she mumbled and skirted around the bar. I showed her of the general measurements and loaded up a tray.

I made my rounds around the room, leaving table six for last. As I dropped off drinks, I got the usual cat calls and whistles, which honestly made me feel pretty damn good, and like a total failure of a feminist at the same time.

Pete, a regular and weekend warrior at table twelve got on his knee and started blabbering as I came by. “Marry me, Livia!”

“You couldn’t handle my ass, Petey,” I flirted, for no other reason than a hefty tip.

“Oh, I could handle that sweet ass of yours all night,” he crooned.

He looked like a lost puppy. I kissed the top of his head, just to give him a little
something
to dream about. “Sorry, sweetie. No diamond, no wedding. I’m old school like that.”

He pulled himself back up on a chair and grinned like an idiot. “I’ll be back next week with a ring. You can’t take it back now!”

Shit. You never knew with these guys, they were serious half the time. Yup, this was definitely going to be my last weekend in Ohio. I gave him a patronizing pat on the head and walked away.

After refreshing a few more tables, I finally managed to wrangle my way through the crowd and made it to table six. The three original guys had been joined by two more, all of them clearly beyond gone. Hopefully, controlling the situation would just be a matter of slowing down their drinking. I’d watered down their gin and brought along five sodas.

“Hey, gentlemen,” I called out over the noise. “I’ve got your drinks. Brought some sodas too.”

Everyone at the table looked me up and down, totally eye-fucking me in a pervy and not-at-all-flattering way. They weren’t bad looking, definitely a younger set than the rest of the customers, but I was immediately uncomfortable and felt bad that Jenny hadn’t pawned them off earlier. It was the most anxious I’d felt while slinging drinks. There was just something off about all of them.

“Hey there, hot stuff,” one of them fawned. “Where you been hiding those tits all night?”

Another guy reached his grabby hand under the hem of my skirt. I dodged it and shot back, “Behind the bar, where there’s a no-touching policy.”

“Oh come on, sexy,” a third jackass piped up, “we see how you little sluts around here operate. Don’t get all frosty.”

“You have me confused with somebody else,” I snarled, “I have no problems getting frosty and I sure as shit don’t have a problem getting your dumb asses kicked out if you don’t back off.”

I unloaded the last of their drinks on the table, unfortunately having to lean over another one of them to do so. He grabbed my waist and tugged me down into his lap. My eyes darted around, looking around for Snoop or a bouncer, but not a single soul was looking in my direction. Even Jenny, who’d been monitoring the situation, was busy with a guest.

Fuck it, sometimes the customer
was
wrong.

I threw my arm back and elbowed the asshole’s face. His head bobbed, blood pouring from his nose and eyes looking murderous.

Before I had a chance to brace for him to toss me to the ground, I felt myself being pulled up and away. A beefy pair of arms set me down, but I was so disoriented and struggling to maintain my balance that I couldn’t focus on who they belonged to.

Until he let me go. It was then that I saw the back of a man’s head. And an Iron Serpents cut.

Torch. Shit.

He didn’t even look at me before throwing a sucker punch. The guy went down as his chair tipped back from the force of the blow. The others at the table jumped to their feet.

“You get off on forcing yourself on women, motherfucker?” Torch roared.

Motherfucker looked like he was about to cry. “No,” he barely choked out.

“What? I didn’t fucking hear you, dumbass. Answer me.”

Snoop finally appeared. “Torch!”

“Yeah,” he seethed through his teeth.

“What the hell’s going on, buddy?”

“This piece of shit grabbed Liv.”

Everyone else around us had moved back, making no attempt to intervene.

“Oh, fuck no,” Snoop grumbled. If I thought he’d be a calming voice of reason, I would’ve been wrong. He looked just as pissed as Torch. Still, it was his business and I hoped that he wouldn’t let the situation turn into a boxing match. After everything he’d done for me, I didn’t want to be responsible for bringing him any problems.

“We’ve got your back, man,” I heard another husky voice behind me. Looking back, I saw that every patched biker in the bar had lined up behind me. Not a single one of them was a member of Serpents, but it looked like they were about to put aside any differences for a good cause.

Goddamn chivalry. This was exactly why Jenny and I talked in code.

Torch looked up, just as surprised as I was to see them all standing there. He focused on me, his face flushed in anger. “You good?” he asked.

I nodded.

He turned his attention back down to the floor and roughly pulled the grabber up to his feet.

Trying to diffuse the situation, I walked up to Torch and put my hand on his arm. “Torch, really, I’m fine. Please don’t do this in Snoop’s place.”

He looked at me and combed his fingers through my hair.

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

He ignored the question. “Any of them hurt you before I saw what I saw?”

“No,” I assured him. Finally, his face softened a little.

“She’s right, man” Snoop chimed in. “As much as I wanna fuck these dickheads up myself, I’d rather not start breaking shit and have the pigs show up. They paid for rooms, let ‘em sleep it off and we’ll herd ‘em out first thing. ”

Torch looked behind us at the other bikers standing guard. “Fine, but I want them out. Right fucking now.”

They all swarmed and took out the trash.

: : : :

The rest of the night went a lot smoother. Jenny was getting the hang of things, so I mostly ran drinks, going every which way to avoid talking to Torch. It hadn’t been easy, he’d perched himself at the end of the bar and watched my every move.

It rattled me, in more ways than one.

I’d never had a man get bloody knuckles for me before. Despite being so adamant about him minding his own business the day we’d met, I had to admit that the whole thing was pretty fucking hot.

Like, soak my panties kind of hot.

Which was why, I assumed, my inner bitch roared to life when I saw Lacey trying to cozy up to him again. Or maybe it was the smug expression she shot my way over his shoulder as she tried to hug him. Too bad he practically pushed her away as soon as he realized what she was doing. I grinned and flipped her off.

Torch totally caught it. Goddamn it.

I slipped into the bathroom, mostly out of embarrassment for being so fucking childish. But also because I needed to get rid of the panties, which were now uncomfortably wet. When I came out, Torch wasn’t on his stool.

I felt a pang of disappointment, until his arm wrapped around me from behind and pulled me back into the bathroom. I knew it was him from the familiarly delicious scent that seemed to emanate from his skin. The man smelled fucking amazing.

He kicked the door closed behind him, flipped me around, and used his hips to back me into a wall.

I couldn’t be sure, given his occupation, but the hard bulge in his jeans didn’t
feel
like a gun. He leaned in so close that the air between us seemed to turn into a vacuum. “You gonna talk to me or just keep staring, babe?”

Seriously, even his breath smelled amazing, which I couldn’t understand given that he’d been drinking and smoking for hours.

“I’m… I…
wasn’t
staring,” I stuttered, feeling my legs starting to go weak again.

For fuck’s sake, what was it about this guy that made me lose it whenever he was close? My body was such a bitch, betraying me at every turn.

Naturally, the smug jerk didn’t even try to spare me the embarrassment. He leaned his torso back, hips still holding me in place, and grinned. “Yeah? Could’ve fooled me, darlin’. You gonna answer the question?”

What the hell was the question again? All the blood from my brain had apparently drained right down to my crotch. Oh, right. Talking. Which was the last thing on my filthy mind.

No. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t give in, despite every cell in my body humming eagerly. Standing there, feeling his hard body on mine and acutely aware of how well-endowed he was under those jeans, it wasn’t a stretch to assume that this man had the potential to ruin me for all others with one night of passion.

I had to pull it together. “It’s almost last call,” I answered. “There’s not much to clean up, Jenny’s already working on it. We can talk after that. Cool?”

Thank fuck I’d managed to string together a few sentences without sounding like the bumbling teenage girl I felt like on the inside.

He nudged my face up and leaned in so close that our lips were less than an inch apart. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I’ll be waiting.”

In one swift move, he let me go and was out the door, leaving me feeling like I’d never be able to catch my breath again.

: : : :

Torch waited patiently, chain-smoking on the patio while Jenny and I cleaned up the bar area and Snoop ran numbers in the back office. The kitchen had closed at midnight, so Felix was long gone, but his helpers stuck around to sweep and mop the floors. All in all, the solid team effort led to a quick, thirty minute closing. By two thirty, everything was ready for the next day.

Trying to delay the inevitable, I avoided Torch for a little while longer by approaching Snoop in his office to tell him that I’d decided to leave in a few days. He was remarkably fine with it, probably because Jenny had shown good potential that night and he’d gotten a call from another former cocktail waitress who wanted her job back. And with the summer season coming to an end, business would be slowing down anyway.

Finally, with everything done and out of excuses, I grabbed two bottles of beer and headed outside to talk. I still wasn’t sure what to say.

Even with it being the middle of the night, the air outside was warm and comfortable. And fresh. It was the perfect way to end a long ass day.

“Hey,” I greeted, handing Torch one of the bottles.

“Hey yourself. All done?”

“Yeah, thankfully. I’m beat.”

“I bet,” he said, lighting a cigarette and handing it to me. I took the first drag with a smile, thinking about sticking it to Mitch and his disdain for my bad habit, even though he wasn’t around to see.

“What?” Torch asked.

“Nothing, just thinking.”

“Babe—”