Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1) (7 page)

She cried out as she slammed into me, and my arm banded around her back to hold her still.

“Shhh,” I said under my breath. “It’s me.”

She instantly collapsed.

Full blown, knees giving out, collapsed.

“Fuck,” I said, my hand going down to wedge under one ass cheek. “I’m sorry.”

She shook, and I turned and pressed her against the wall.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said softly against her ear.

Her arms threaded around my neck, and she hugged me tightly to her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I just have to tell my heart to stop beating out of my chest is all.”

I snorted and leaned back.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You l-left,” she whispered.

I lifted a brow at her.

“Yeah,” I said. “I have to go to work.”

She shook her head. “No. I mean, this morning. You were there around dawn, and then you left and didn’t come back.”

I was wary of the way she was taking this conversation.

“Yeah,” I answered.

For some reason, the idea of her being upset that I left did funny things to my heart, and made me feel incredibly guilty.

“I didn’t want you to leave.”

My eyes closed and I leaned my head forward until it rested against her head.

“I’m not a good person,” I told her. “In fact, it’s very likely that by the end of the year, I’ll end up in jail because I’ve been toeing that line too close to the edge. There’s no reason you need to be taken down with me. There’s nowhere for us to go,” I said. “You and I don’t work.”

“You don’t know that.”

I pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve done. What I plan to do. All you know is that I fucked you good.”

She scowled at me. “That’s not what I was thinking. How dare you put words in my mouth.”

I laughed softly against her cheek, letting my head rest against the top of hers.

“It doesn’t matter what your reason is,” I said, moving away until she stood on her own two feet. “My mind’s not going to change. I won’t be responsible for you. I’m going to fuck you up.”

Her spine straightened as she glared at me.

“So why’d you even involve me at all? Why not leave me the fuck alone in the first place? Then we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation right now,” she seethed.

I could practically feel the anger rolling off of her, and I felt somewhat bad for putting that expression on her face.

“I’m sorry,” I said, backing up.

I was out in the sunlight when the sadness in her voice made me freeze.

“Griffin?” she asked softly.

I closed my eyes.

“Yeah?” I croaked.

“You didn’t tell me why you involved me at all,” she whispered.

I opened my eyes and pinned them to her.

“Because I couldn’t help myself. I’ve never wanted anyone more in my life.”

Sometimes it’s best to reflect on just how amazing tits are.

- Griffin to Lenore

Lenore

Because I couldn’t help myself. I’ve never wanted anyone more in my life.

Who did he think he was, saying something like that?

He was the king of what I would call wishy washy.

One second he was telling me he wasn’t good for me, and the next he goes and says something like that, something that makes me care so much more about what kind of trouble he’s in.

It’d been a week and two days, and I still couldn’t get those words out of my head.

And to make matters worse, I saw Griffin everywhere.

I saw him at the bank.

I saw him when I was coming out of the dog shelter…two towns over.

I saw him when I was leaving work.

It was like every time I turned around, there he was.

Which made it nearly impossible to stop thinking about him.

And I kept replaying our time together in a continuous loop in my brain.

The way his hands felt when they touched the sensitive skin at the inside of my thighs.

The way he smelled.

The way he filled me up when…

“Jesus Lenore, stop!” I admonished myself.

“At least you’re not totally inept. Maybe you can use that knowledge to get a life,” Diane McDermott said disdainfully at my side.

I wanted to punch her in the throat.

I hated Diane.

She was Remy’s wife’s best friend, and not any nicer than Jenna.

If you added Jenna and Diane together, you had a lethal combination of beauty, no brains, bad attitudes and smuttiness.

They were like Cinderella’s evil stepsisters: self-centered jerks who only cared about themselves.

“Hello, Diane,” I said as I walked down the street.

Diane kept pace with me.

“Where are you going? To help those geezers at the old folk’s home? Trying to make up for what you did to your papa?” Diane smiled deviously.

My heart pinched at the mention of my Pap.

He’d been my best friend in the whole entire world, and when he’d needed me I wasn’t there.

“Yes, Diane. That’s where I’m going. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late,” I said, trying my hardest not to engage in anything with her.

“Or are you going to see Remy? You know, Jenna thinks you and Remy have a friends with benefits kind of relationship, although she’s never been able to prove it,” Diane said viciously.

I glared at her.

“Let me ask you something, Diane. Do you want to have relations with Jackson?” I asked.

Jackson was her baby brother.

He owned Uncertain Motors, the only mechanic shop in Uncertain.

He also didn’t forget to tell Diane on a daily basis just how annoying she was.

Which I loved.

“No!” Diane said, voice raising about eight octaves.

“Really? Because that’s the kind of relationship I have with Remy. It’ll never be anything more than that. I love him, but I’m not
in
love
with him. Those are two totally different things, and you should really figure that out. You should be focusing on your own problems with your so-called boyfriend. I’m sure he loves you, he’s still with you after all. But he’s obviously not in love with you seeing as he’s in my shop every few days with a different girl, buying toys and using them in my parking lot,” I hissed

I knew I overstepped my bounds nearly the instant those words came out of my mouth.

Dammit, I really shouldn’t give any information out about my customers.

Not what they purchased or how often they shopped, and definitely not what they did in my parking lot with those purchases. But the bitch pushed me, and she had it coming. Diane brought out the worst in me, and had since high school.

Her and Jenna had bullied me every chance they got. I was at the point that I no longer had a civil thing left to say to either of them.

“I’m sorry, Diane. I shouldn’t have said that,” I apologized when Diane still hadn’t spoken.

Diane’s eyes went from being wounded to calculating.

“Don’t apologize to me, bitch. Just stay the fuck out of my way.”

I closed my eyes in remorse as Diane walked away from me, and when I opened them again, I saw Griffin, on his bike, staring at me.

He was across the street and in front of the diner – well out of earshot – but I still had the feeling that he knew exactly what had just happened.

I’d gone and pissed off an angry bear.

And we all know what angry bears do.

They strike back.

The next day, I woke up with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

From the moment I walked out of my duplex to grab my paper, I knew I shouldn’t have said what I had said to Diane yesterday.

I shouldn’t have provoked her.

I knew it’d come back and bite me in the ass.

And the article on the front page of the paper was enough to make my blood boil.

Uncertain Pleasure Boutique a disgrace to this fine town.

I almost died.

When I’d first opened Uncertain Pleasure, it was because of the many sex toy parties I had attended throughout college.

I’d learned that the sex toy market was a quite profitable and well-selling one.

And to my business oriented mind, it was the perfect thing to open when I got out of college.

During the last two years of my MBA studies, I started hosting my own sex toy parties, and I’d done so well with them, that by the time I graduated, I’d had quite the nest egg saved to use for startup capital.

Uncertain wasn’t my first choice of locations to open my new business, but it has been one of the few places I could afford.

Why?

Because people in the south are prudes…
mostly
.

A lot of the surrounding towns didn’t even allow alcohol sales.

You had to travel to the bigger cities.

Uncertain was smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt.

Where God comes first.

And apparently God doesn’t want you to open a sex toy shop, at least according to nearly all of the bankers that had turned me down for a loan.

So when the opportunity to open up my shop in Uncertain had presented itself, I’d jumped on it.

I’d had Uncertain Pleasures open for nearly four years now, and although I wasn’t doing magnificent, I also wasn’t doing ‘bad’ either.

But it was people like Diane that were really hurting me.

It was one step forward and two steps back.

“Oh no,” I breathed, eyes closing as tears threatened my eyes.

I walked inside moments later, stiff and sick.

What was I going to do?

And why would the paper publish such an article?

The more I thought about it, the madder I got.

What in the world gave them the right to judge what I was doing?

Just because I owned the only sex toy shop in the area didn’t make me a bad person!

I’d really worked myself into a good lather as I got dressed and made my way out the door.

But by the time I arrived at the newspaper offices, I wasn’t quite so sure of myself.

I opened the front door to Uncertain Times, and immediately winced.

Why?

Because Griffin was in Orlando, the copy editors, face.

And he was bellowing at him.

“Doesn’t your reporter ever do her fucking homework?” Griffin snarled at the copyright editor. “Because if she had, she would’ve known that Lenore has fucking cancer. That she volunteers at a fucking animal shelter every Tuesday and Friday. That she reads to the goddamned kids at the library in Jefferson every Wednesday. That she volunteer’s at Ted’s House every Saturday to watch over Alzheimer patients, like her own grandfather, so their families can go out and get things done for a few hours without having to worry about watching their loved one’s every step.

“Had she done her homework, she would’ve known Lenore wasn’t a ‘plague amongst society’ like her article made her out to be. She’s a fucking saint that deserves a fucking commendation. Not censure over what she does for a living which, let me tell you, isn’t the worst thing I’ve seen in my life. She could be pedaling drugs to school age kids. She could be prostituting her body like the ladies on Tenth Street. She could be selling organs on the black market like the case I’m working on right now. So no,” he snarled, getting further into the Orlando’s face. “She isn’t a fucking menace, and what you’ve allowed
her
,” he pointed at Diane, “to publish is slander. It’s against the law, and if Lenore wanted to, she could sue you.
And she’d motherfuckin’ win
!”

Oh boy, I’d never seen Griffin so mad.

Even that time I’d had the stupid urge to go check on him after seeing him storm out of the coffee shop, he wasn’t this mad.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Everything coming out of his mouth didn’t scream ‘leave me alone’ like he wanted me to believe. It screamed, ‘I care about her. And I watch over her.’

I couldn’t breathe.

“Now, I want a retraction printed in tomorrow’s paper. And I want a public apology to her by Monday. I don’t care what or how you have to do it, just make sure you do it,” Griffin hissed.

He looked so fucking yummy.

He was in faded jeans, motorcycle boots, a button up black long sleeved shirt, with a cowboy hat.

I’d never seen a cowboy biker before, but he was totally working it and I loved it.

And seeing him so incredibly mad on my behalf was more of a turn on than the cowboy hat sitting atop of his head.

Then, without another word to either of them or a passing glance to the crowd that has amassed to witness his little speech, he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

He only stopped to push the door open.

“Coming?” He asked.

I blinked, turning to him to see him holding the door open.
For me.

“Me?” I asked.

He grinned…and my panties melted.

“Yeah, you,” he confirmed. “Let’s go get some lunch.”

Without a word, I followed him out, ducking underneath his arm as I passed through the open door, and stopped once I got outside on the sidewalk.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked softly.

I was nervous.

Why had he done that?

“Just to the diner, I guess. Unless you want Taco Bell?” He gave me a sketchy look.

I snorted. “
No
. I don’t want Taco Bell.”

Yuck. Taco Bell was the worst, at least that was what it was considered here anyway.

He grinned. “Good.”

We walked in silence to the diner.

The whole time I was very aware of him beside me.

He was still angry; it was rolling off of him.

His long strides ate up the sidewalk, and I had to practically power walk just to keep up with him.

His hand brushed mine, and my heart sped up in response.

I kept my eyes forward, even when I felt him studying my face.

What I was wearing.

My shoes.

My hair.

He took in everything about me, and my nipples pebbled in reaction.

He noticed those, too.

“You read the paper?” He asked finally.

I nodded.

“Yeah, I read the freakin’
paper
,” I sighed.

“I’m sorry. Knew the moment I watched her storm off yesterday that she was going to do something stupid. I was ready for it, but I didn’t think she’d be so stupid about it,” he said.