FOUR
Edison
I was a fuck.
That was the only way to put it.
I didn't do shit like that.
I didn't go overboard.
I didn't ever lose sight of the fact that a student in my class wasn't as trained as I was, couldn't take the same level of abuse that I could after so many years.
I certainly never genuinely hurt a woman.
Pushed one in class? Twisted them in ways that weren't comfortable? Let them slam back against a wall or the floor? Sure, yes. It was necessary to teach them to tolerate a hit.
But I never, fucking never brought tears to a woman's eyes from pushing her too hard.
That was exactly what I was trying to prevent - men who used their strength against women. Then I went ahead and made a woman like Lenny tear up.
I wasn't lying to her either.
She was so fucking tough.
I had gone up against trained men who couldn't take pressure point after pressure point like she did.
Even when she hissed and cursed me to hell, she didn't pull back. She kept charging, kept asking for more, kept trying to sharpen herself. The training session had been so intense - then so abruptly over - that I didn't get a chance to see if I could weasel out what that was for.
A part of me was mildly worried that I wouldn't get the chance again after the tears then the shaking. On top of the tit graze and shivering.
I could tell it was most definitely an off-day for her. She didn't strike me - or anyone who so much as crossed her path - as someone who wore her reactions on her sleeve. Snark, bitterness, and the slightest bit of anger aside. She damn sure didn't seem like the kind of woman who shivered easily either.
I would be lying if I said that her reaction didn't shoot right to my cock. A woman wound as tightly as her, who had the guards that she had, shivering at the barest of touches? Yeah, I couldn't help but wonder how she might respond with my lips at her neck, my tongue on her nipples, my fingers or cock buried deep in her pussy.
It would be a world-class fuck.
I think we both understood that.
But I also understood that if I tried to go there, that she might decide not to train with me anymore, which would deprive her of some skills she might very well need for whatever it was she was preparing for.
But then again, I also thought she was fully capable of showing up just to make a point.
That the sex wasn't personal.
That she wasn't wishy-washy about a casual fuck.
That she wasn't going to let the fact that she enjoyed your cock alter her behavior or patterns in the least.
If for no other reason than so a guy didn't think she was affected by him.
Interesting.
That was what Lenny was.
Women with guards like that, yeah, you know there had to be a story there. Likely one they had no interest in sharing. Which only made men like me even more intrigued to hear it.
"The fuck is up with him?" Reign asked, pulling me out of my thoughts, making me realize he was talking about me. Which meant he had likely spoken to me without a response.
"Came back from his class like this," Roderick supplied, making me shoot him a look. "What? It's the fucking truth, man. Been lost up in your head for hours. Expect that from Roan, not so much you."
"You finally met Lenny, didn't you?" Cyrus asked. The way my head whipped around to him at the sound of her name on his lips was, apparently, all the answer he needed. "Yeaaaah," he said, nodding, reaching up to run a hand down his beard. "She is something else, right? Tougher than half the fucks here," he added, and I had to agree. "Surprised it took you this long to notice her."
"Why's that?"
"Dunno," Cy said, shrugging. "There's just something about her. That's your thing, isn't it? Chicks with something about them that you can't quite put your finger on."
He was referring to his sister, Wasp, who he was convinced I had some plans on fucking behind his back. I didn't. First, because of loyalty. Second, because she needed a certain kind of man to get past her particular guards. I wasn't that kind. We were friendly when she came to visit. But that was all it was and all it would ever be.
"Pickiest biker I've ever met," Sugar agreed, dropping down in a chair across from Cy.
That was fair.
When there were women invited to the compound, or when we all went out on the town, Roderick, Virgin, and Sugar tended to almost always go home with someone, or bring someone up to their room.
Roan would occasionally be interested.
Reeve, well, he often didn't even go, didn't participate.
Reeve was another one with secrets. Not the kind like Roan and I had, blood-soaked and brutal. But they were there in that haunted look in his eyes, in his unwillingness to connect with anyone at all - his own brothers included - let alone random women.
He had been more inclined to participate back when his brother was single, when he would - more or less - force it upon him. But Cy was with Reese, leaving his women-filled shenanigans well in his past. As it should be. But it also meant Reeve wasn't pushed to do the normal shit Cy used to encourage him to do, usually just hanging back at the compound, claiming he was doing so so that everyone else could have a good time, but anyone with a working brain would know it was just an excuse.
Me, well, like they said, I was picky.
I had no interest in taking some random woman to bed because her pussy got wet at the idea of an outlaw biker, in being able to slum it, knowing it wouldn't come back to bite her because she knew that the next night, your average biker would be right onto the next woman.
I wasn't opposed to casual sex. Clearly, since I hadn't attempted a relationship since my very early twenties, back when I was so wet behind the ears that I didn't see that my lifestyle at the time was not something to try to bring a woman into.
It wasn't the lack of depth of the act that was the problem.
It was the lack of depth of the connection.
It wasn't enough to have a great body, to be interested.
I wanted more than that.
Yes, even just for a one-night stand.
I wanted a woman who intrigued me, who sparked something other than a fucking hard-on.
Cy was right; it was always the girls with 'something' about them, that thing that they had that you couldn't quite put a finger on, the thing that you wanted to understand.
Those were the women I approached in bars; the ones who couldn't care less if I did or not.
And it wasn't the challenge, that alpha bullshit about wanting to fuck the unattainable girl.
It was just the girls who had something, who by having it, clearly had some depth, that worked for me.
Cyrus was right; Lenny had something.
"You gotta wonder what lit that fire under her ass," he went on.
"What fire?" Sugar asked as he typed off something rapidly on his cell. Maybe getting in touch with Janie.
"She's training like she expects to be jumped at any minute," Cy explained. "I've never seen anything like it. If you're at the gym anytime between eleven and four, she's there, busting her ass. No wonder she's so fucking thin. I've never seen someone go at a heavy like she does. It's a miracle she hasn't broken a hand."
"So, what? You only want to dip your wick in a woman who can kick ass?" That was from Roderick.
"Nah, man," Cy went on, happy to do all the talking for me, a quality he was likely used to with his brother who barely spoke at all. "It's more than that. She's got this fucking attitude too. About as friendly as a junkyard dog one minute, giving you a ribbing of a lifetime the next. She's just unique. That's Edison's thing."
"You going there?" Virgin asked, another somewhat quiet member of the newer Henchmen guys. He wasn't easy to get a read on. Aside from knowing he and Sugar had been raised in an MC together and he had a way with women, I really didn't know much about him. Not even in well over a year of knowing him.
Honestly, that was a good question. One I didn't have an answer to.
Did I want to? Fuck yeah.
I had needed to go up and take a shower when I got back to deal with the painful need for release from grappling with her for over an hour. Just the memory of the way she'd shivered had my cock rock fucking solid again.
I wanted her, sure.
But that didn't mean I would have her.
Not even if I knew she wanted me too. Which she did.
It wasn't that easy.
"I pushed her to tears with pressure points today," I admitted, not knowing why I had the urge to share that information, maybe because I thought that hearing the whole of the situation out loud might help me understand it better myself.
"Lenny?" Cy asked, brows drawn together. "I once saw Malc push her through a routine that would make a Marine beg for mercy with no tears."
I figured as much.
I had been wondering if maybe the tears had less to do with the actual physical pain, and more to do with a release. Like how cutters need to self-harm just to be able to get emotions out, how the pain of the slice was the only thing that made the numbness stop, and brought about a cathartic emotional release.
Maybe Lenny was dealing with some shit.
Or, more accurately, going through some shit without actually dealing with it.
Maybe the pain today had managed to break down the dam that was holding it all in.
I wondered what that might mean for the next couple of lessons.
Would she show?
Would her inability to disconnect the physical pain and her own emotional pain keep her from coming?
She wasn't the kind of woman, I was sure, who would be okay with allowing anyone else to witness her losing her battle with her own emotions. She was too tightly controlled for that.
Would this be a rare time when the need for self-preservation would win over her pride?
I guess I would know tomorrow.
"Dunno what to tell you," I offered, wanting to drop it, to let it go for now. It was no use discussing it since I didn't know what was going on, if anything was going to come of it, if it was going to matter in the grand scheme of things.
"Alright, if we're done with the heart-to-heart," Reign started, bringing our focus back to where he was standing beside the bar with a yellow lined notepad and pen, "We need shit for the party tomorrow."
Summer's birthday.
It was almost a year to the anniversary of her father's death, and she was still not really back to herself. The woman had been through so much in her life what with being kidnapped and tortured. Twice. Her father getting gunned down right in front of her was apparently the breaking point. She had been in bed for weeks, then a zombie walking for months. She was back to functioning now, was trying to keep it upbeat for her kids, but it was clear there was still a heaviness weighing on her.
Which was why Reign had seen her upcoming birthday as a chance to try to drive some life back into her, thinking maybe she needed time to just be a person instead of a wife and mother. He had arranged to have all the kids shipped up to Hailstorm to be watched by the women there, then secretly planned a big to-do at the compound for the next night.
"Sugar, Virgin, I think I can trust you to deal with the food. Roderick, Cy, Roan, and Reeve can handle getting this place to smell less like balls and old socks and more like a place we can have a party tomorrow. That leaves the booze. Edison?" he asked, jerking his chin toward the bar. "We need extra of everything."
He wasn't kidding. If the entire club, their women, the girls club, their men, and a few local friends were invited, we were going to need enough liquor to supply an entire army on leave.
"Here," he said, tossing the keys. "Only got about another hour and a half," he reminded me, making me search for my wallet before heading out.
An hour later, the trunk of the SUV was loaded down with enough whiskey, tequila, rum, vodka, and gin to keep the whole east coast supplied for a three-day bender.
But I wasn't on my way back to the compound because, apparently, it was too short of notice for the liquor store we usually used to get us the three kegs we wanted. They had been decent enough to send me across town to some hole called Meryl's with the warning that it looked like a shithole that catered to the worst scum around, and that it was both those things, but that the place was clean, and it was fine to order kegs from them. And since it was a weird liquor store/bar hybrid, people often didn't think to order from them, so they could likely pull it off.
So that was where I was heading.
And, well, it was a shithole.
There was no way around that.
The name was scrawled in golden paint on a simple green board in desperate need of repainting above the door. The front had old plate glass windows that had been hand-painted to, I figured, keep the sun from beating in. It was an old school saloon scene fresh out of the west, and therefore completely out of place in Jersey.
I got out, pulling open the glass door, being assaulted instantly with the strong scent of just about every kind of liquor known to man from the bar I knew was situated in the back.
You could hear it too, the unmistakable sounds of a watering hole. It was always the same from Romania to Russia to the good ole USA. There was the clinking of glasses, the raised guffaws of men too drunk to remember to keep it down, the music of bygone eras because you could hear that new soulless crap at a club.
The store part of the building had, for fuck-knew-what reason, hideous blue and gold faded carpeting, dirtier and more rundown in the center that led back toward the bar from overuse. It, and the corner of the bar I could see from my angle, was dark, half the lights overhead either not working or simply kept off for who-knew-what reason. It had the strange business choice to have all the liquor bottles lining the walls in the somewhat small space hard to see, let alone read, unless you were right on top of them.
Right to my left inside the door was a six-foot-tall piece of plywood with various sales fliers pinned up to it, the oldest of which dated back six months. Whoever ran the place really wasn't interested in a working, functional business model that could make him more money.
"I'm just saying," a man's voice said from somewhere in front of that sheet of plywood where, I imagined, the front counter was situated. "Women who smile look so much prettier. Give me a smile, baby."
I rolled my eyes for the poor woman dealing with some asshole drunk whose words slurred so much that they tripped over each other.
"I don't smile on command; I'm not a fucking dog."
No fucking way.
Of all the, well, gin joints, right?
I walk into hers.
That seemed like some damn kismet shit right there.
I'd been in Navesink Bank for almost two years. I had been in and out of all the other local liquor stores. Then just two days after laying eyes on this woman for the first time, I had to come to this one for some kegs?
Talk about a major fucking coincidence.
"No?" the guy pressed on as I took a step forward to look past the bulletin wall to see a man who was fifty-five if he was a day with oily skin, balding hair, and a body so thin it looked like all he was was bones stretched over skin. "'Cause you're acting like a real bitch, Len."
"It's not an act," she responded, voice bored, completely unaffected.
"You know what I think?"
"Can't be too deep," she drawled, looking down at some magazine in her hand. From the angle, I couldn't make out the title, but damn if I wasn't sure I saw a gun advertised.
Seriously, what was this woman up to?
She looked good too; that didn't escape my notice.
Her outside of the gym style suited her. Tight black skinny jeans, a deep wine-colored tee that scooped a little low in front under a black fake leather motorcycle jacket, and a pair of deep red Doc Martens on her feet. No jewelry; she didn't strike me as the kind of woman to wear much - if any. Her makeup was minimal, maybe just some mascara and liner. Her eyes seemed a bit bolder than they had earlier.
Badass.
That was how she was. It only suited that her fashion sense matched.
"You need some dick in your life," the jackass concluded.
"And you need more brain in your head and less liquor in your liver. And, well, let's face it, probably some more dick in your pants too."
My lips curved up, finding myself liking that she didn't give a shit about watching her mouth. Not even at work.
"Oh, yeah? How about I show..." the man started, reaching down toward his fly, making me straighten, thinking I was going to need to step in before things went any further.
But then there was a soft click, the sound of which anyone familiar with one would know it for what it was.
A switchblade flicking open.
"Try it, and I will cut it the fuck off, Gary," she told him, voice still somehow bored-sounding, though there was now an edge to it. The man paused, but his hands were still holding his fly. "You know I'm not fucking with you," she added, gaze unblinking.
"Yeah yeah yeah," the man grumbled, zipping back up. "Would rather not be like Mitch," he added. "But you are a cunt, Len. In case someone hasn't told you yet today."
He walked away with that as Lenny closed her blade. "You're only the third today. I must be slacking."
"What did you do to Mitch?" I asked, watching as her body jolted, her head swiveling around, clearly having been too distracted by her interaction with Gary - and her Guns and Ammo magazine - to notice I had come in.
"Are you stalking me?" she asked, brows drawn low like that wouldn't make any sense.
"I need kegs," I informed her, moving around the front of the counter, seeing the display case she was standing against full of cigars. The wall behind her had other cases dispensing packs of cigarettes.
There was the slight urge to buy a pack, as there often was when faced with them. Even six years after giving the fucking things up, the urge was still there.
"Bottle Masters needed more notice. Sent me in this direction. What'd you do to Mitch?" I asked again, smirking. "And what did he do to deserve it?"
"He grabbed my tit," she explained easily. "And I broke his hand."
"Fair enough," I agreed.
"Are you wearing a cut?" she asked almost as I was speaking, her voice with a slight edge to it that I couldn't place. Was it simply surprise? Or did I hear a bit of eagerness as well? Or was that just my imagination?
"Yeah," I agreed, watching her eyes work. She might have had guards strong enough to keep the Roman army out, but for some reason, I could see a lot in her eyes.
"A Henchmen?" she demanded to know.
And it was definitely there.
The eagerness.
Interesting.
I turned, showing her the Henchmen logo on my back before facing her again.
"Got a thing for bikers, love?" I asked, wanting to understand. And maybe hoping the answer to that question would be a no. I didn't, as a rule, get involved with cutsluts who saw one too many episodes of Sons of Anarchy and thought getting to be some biker old lady would be a great life goal because that fucking blond dude made his relationship with that chick seem romantic.
Yeah, I had no room in my life for that.
And Lenny was too good to be one of those girls.
"It's just interesting is all," she said, shrugging. "Outlaw biker. Strange career choice."
"Outlaw?" I asked, blank-faced. "Me, love, I have a squeaky clean record."
Her lips curved up at that. Not a smile. As far as I could tell, she didn't smile, but showing some amusement nonetheless.
"That just means you haven't been caught."
"Got me there," I agreed, shrugging.
"So," she said when the moment stretched a little too long. "You said something about kegs."
"Three," I agreed.
One of her arched brows rose at that as she reached for an order form. "Big party."
"President's woman's birthday," I explained.
"What time are you picking them up?"
"Six," I guessed, figuring that would leave more than enough time.
"Yeah, that won't be a problem. Bottle Masters are a bunch of uppity asses. They don't need more than a couple hours notice to throw some fucking kegs together. You guys can always come here when you need them."
"Wait wait wait," another male voice cut in, making me turn my head over my shoulder to see a man with a generous beer belly, ridiculous comb-over, and full mustache say as he walked up. "Did I just hear you invite someone to come back here again instead of telling them that if they didn't like how you spoke to them, they could fuck off and never come again? Has hell frozen over?"
"This is Meryl," Lenny explained. "He owns the place. Meryl, this is Edison. He is a Henchmen."
Meryl perked up even more at that. I swear you could see cartoon dollar signs form in his eyes. Anyone who knew us knew we were a bunch known for single-handedly keeping the local liquor industry running.
"Edison, nice to meet you. Glad to know Len's sparkling personality didn't scare you off. I'm always telling her she needs to be less friendly," he teased, giving her a smirk.
"Yeah yeah yeah," Lenny said, rolling her eyes. "Worry less about my customer service skills and more about keeping fucking Gary away from me, would you?"
"He's harmless, Len," Meryl insisted.
"He was seconds away from whipping his cock out," I cut in. "I wouldn't call him harmless."
"Oh," Meryl said, clearly deflated. Whether it was because of what Gary did, or because someone like me was calling him on his bullshit was impossible to tell.
I couldn't help it. You really couldn't have much respect for a man who didn't make sure his female employees had a safe work environment. Especially when drunk assholes were involved.
"It's fine, Meryl. I can handle myself."
"No shit. I had to give Leon free drinks for a month after you broke his nose."
"I'm never going to apologize for that one," she said with a shrug. "He forcibly kissed that girl who was too wasted to walk out of the bar."
"You're making it sound like we only cater to perverts in front of our new friend, Len."
"Oh, no!" Lenny rushed to say, seeming to appease him for a second, even though I could hear a certain inflection in her tone that he obviously missed. "Not just perverts, no. There are also the racists, homophobes, gang members..." Meryl let out a long-suffering sigh, clearly used to Lenny's mouth and, if I wasn't mistaken, somewhat charmed by her even if it meant his business was shown in a bad light. "Allow me to buy you a drink and show you that things aren't as ugly as she is painting them," Meryl offered.
I turned over my shoulder to get a look at the bar, seeing a line of men, one with his ass crack showing between the hem of his shirt and the waistband of his jeans.
Turning back, I jerked my head toward Lenny. "The view is better up here."
"Oh, Lenny is closing up up here," he informed me, even though it was still ten minutes away from when they needed to stop selling booze, and I suspected the front of the store stayed open until two when the bar closed anyway since they needed someone to keep an eye on the cigarettes and booze.
"Is that right?" I asked, looking at Lenny, watching her profile as she sent her boss a very clear 'what the fuck' look.
"Yeah, we're having a little get-together just for the regulars - and new friends - tonight. The store is closing early. Isn't that right, Len? You could go for a drink - or ten - couldn't you?"
He was clearly leading her, and Lenny was not the kind of woman who was going to play along just to please someone else.
"Actually, Meryl, this is totally news to me. But if you want to schmooze him because he is a Henchmen, and you want all his buddies to start drinking here instead of Chaz's, you go right ahead."
Blunt as fuck.
You had to respect that.
"No, Len," Meryl said, reaching up to pull at his collar, his face a little red. "This nice gentleman would like for you to join us."
"And I would like to keep earning a paycheck," she shot back.
His face was even redder at that. "We'll work something out."
To that, her brow raised, leaving me to wonder if she would say that she would rather earn it the honest way, or take him up on the offer for a drink. Or ten.
She looked at me. "I will literally fight you for the Jose," she informed me, making my lips curl upward.
"We can keep it amicable tonight. I drink vodka."
"Gross," she informed me, lip curled, as she moved out from behind the counter. "First time I got drunk it was on screwdrivers. I threw up for half a day. I could never look at vodka or orange juice the same way again," she informed me, walking toward the back, leaving me to follow, and leaving her boss to deal with locking up.
It was a little piece of information about her, but I could feel myself tucking it away as if it was of the utmost importance.
The back of the bar was, well, unimpressive. It was clear we were in a shitty area and that no one expected Meryl to pretend any different.
The bar itself had seen better days, back before the shine wore down to nothing and there weren't chunks missing and words carved into the surface. The stools were all mismatched, some sitting un-level. To the left, there was open space meant, I thought, to be a makeshift dance floor beside what seemed to be some kind of modern jukebox.
"That was all me," Lenny informed me as she tapped the bar, getting the attention of the bartender who was sixty-five if he was a day, hollow-cheeked, bushy-browed, but quick to grab the bottle of tequila and pass it to her. "The stereo system," she explained at my questioning look. "I saw you eye-fucking it. Meryl used to have this sad old-school giant boombox just sitting on the end of the bar with a pile of cassette tapes. And, let's face it, you are simply insulting AC/DC to listen to them on that thing. He had some extra cash laying around. I convinced him to invest in the music instead of the new stools. So we wobble," she went on, moving to sit on one of the uneven stools, "but we do it to crystal-clear music."
"Christ, Len," Gary from before said, brows low. "Think that was the most words you ever put together before."
"What can I say, Gar," she started, taking a second to tip back the bottle of tequila. "Edison here strikes me as the kind of man to appreciate good music whereas you think Toby Keith is God's gift to the world."
Gary gave me a once-over, coming back angrier than before. "Thinking with your pussy, I'd say."
Lenny opened her mouth to spit another of her perfectly pointed and somehow simultaneously unaffected insults, but I beat her to it.
"I'd recommend you start saying a fuck of a lot less from this point on," I told him. My tone was conversational, but my conversational tone was a lot like another man's growl.
He went even redder than Meryl had a moment before, but his with anger, not embarrassment, clearly not liking being told what to do, but with a Henchmen cut on my back, he knew to bite his tongue.
"What can I get you?" the bartender asked into the tense silence, having that perfect timing of a man who had been in the industry - and had seen more than his fair share of drunken assholes - for his entire career.
"Edison here drinks the evil stuff," Lenny informed him, drawing my attention back to her, seeing her cheeks already going a little pink. I'd been around a lot of liquor - and drunk women - in my life. And if there was one phrase that was true, as I had once heard in some ear-wig of a country song, tequila makes her clothes fall off. You couldn't be around a woman drinking tequila without seeing her stripping out of something.
"Is that right?" the bartender asked, producing vodka without having to ask, pouring it straight into a rocks glass, somehow knowing exactly how I drank it. You know, when I couldn't - as Lenny was currently doing - drink it straight from the bottle.
"Gimme the remote, Donald," she demanded, but did it with grabby hands that seemed almost out of character for her, leaving me to wonder if it was the tequila, or her simply liking the old man.
"No more of that satan crap," he told her as he pressed the remote into her hand.
Lenny rolled her eyes. "Can I help it if Marilyn Manson often suits my mood? No, I can't."
But she didn't turn on Manson; she found a classic rock station, and cranked it up, almost loud enough to make conversation impossible.
"Glad you could stop by," Meryl told me, moving to cup me on the shoulder before thinking better of it. "We can use some fresh blood in here."
"Yes, I think he gets it, boss," Lenny told him. "He really wants you to come back. And bring a dozen of your friends. Who will spend lots of money. And maybe if they are all as equally you know as you, that it might bring in a female crowd who would never normally come in a place like this."
"As equally as what as me?" I asked, wanting to hear her say it.
Her eyes rolled. "You know."
"Maybe I don't."
"Liar."
"Maybe you're too chickenshit to say it."
There it was.
I had her.
She even knew I had her.
But she couldn't let the challenge go anyway.
"As good-looking, you needy fuck," she told me with an eye roll.
"You're pretty good-looking yourself," I told her, clinking my glass to her bottle, then tipping it back for a drink.
"Don't bother," said some other random man at the bar, younger, with an edge to him, something inside telling me that, in this neighborhood, that meant he was likely involved with Third Street. "She's a dead fish."
It was none of my business, but I could feel my anger rise up.
"Don't," Lenny said over the brim of her bottle. "He's not worth it. Pretty sure your president wouldn't want you starting some underground war because that fuck is mad he couldn't get in my pants."
"Fair enough," I agreed. "Are you feeling better?" I asked without thinking, then immediately worried that she wouldn't want the reminder of this morning.
She surprised me by shrugging. "I was shaky for hours," she admitted. "Even after a shower, some food, and a nap."
"It's just the adrenaline. You'd have been better to take a walk, or clean your apartment. Something active. If it happens tomorrow, don't take a nap after."
It wasn't exactly subtle. I wanted to know if she planned to come to another class without outright asking her. I figured that I would get away with it when she was feeling the tequila.
"Good to know," she said simply. There was a long pause before she spoke again. "Can I try pressure points on you tomorrow? I think it would be more useful for me to learn how to use them than to know how to tolerate them."
"Useful for what?" I pried, wondering if she was drunk enough for that.
"I might be feeling this," she said, showing me the bottle she had already taken a healthy amount of liquid out of and into her bloodstream. "But I am not that girl."
"What girl?"
"The kind that spills her secrets when she is drunk."
"Nah," Meryl agreed, face red again, but this time from the whiskey he was downing like water. "She's not that kind of drunk girl."
"What kind of drunk girl is she then?" I asked.
"The kind that puts on old school rock or R&B and puts a show on for all the guys around."
"Is that right?" I asked Lenny who was mid-chug.
"I would deny it," she said when she swallowed. "But the last time I got drunk, Pony came on and I ground on that jackass," she confided, jerking her chin toward the gang member with the big mouth, allowing his comment to make a lot of sense. Drunk Lenny might have been willing to dance, but she didn't strike me as someone who made that poor a choice, no matter how wasted she was.
"So if I maybe went over there and put No Diggity on..."
She gave me something close - so damn close - to a smile at that, leaving me to wonder what it would take to make her smile, and how brilliant that would look on her gorgeous face. "I'm not that drunk yet," she informed me.
An hour later, though, she was.
That drunk, that is.
She had enough tequila in her system to keep a whole frat of girls silly and slutty all night.
Still, though, not a single smile.
She somehow managed to laugh at something Meryl had said to her without actually smiling.
She hadn't, though, as I had predicted, stripped out of any of her layers. She still had her damn motorcycle jacket on.
But she was currently moving toward the stereo, shaking her hips a little as she stood before it.
Not a minute later, I heard it.
No Diggity.
When I looked again, she was standing in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, head tipped to the side, challenge in her eyes.
And, well, she wasn't the only one who had a hard time backing down from one.
Besides, was there really any way to back down from a situation that might end up with her, as Meryl had suggested, grinding on me.
I could never claim to be much of a dancer, but when a beautiful woman wanted you to dance with her, you fucking danced. Case closed.
I tipped back the rest of the drink - my first and only - and made my way over toward her.
She didn't come to me.
Hardass to the core, she stood there with her chin raised, waiting for me to come to her.
So, of course, I did, moving in until my front brushed hers, feeling her breasts - free of a bra - slide across my chest. My arm moved around her lower back, pulling her hips flush against mine, and I didn't imagine it when her breath whooshed out of her on a slight gasp.
One of her arms raised, the hand hovering for a second before sliding over my chest then around my neck.
"This doesn't mean what you think it means."
"And what do you think I think it means?" I asked, reaching out with my free hand to swipe her hair behind her ear.
"You think I want to fuck you," she said, always choosing blunt over coy, something a man had to appreciate.
"I know you want to fuck me," I told her, ducking my head down slightly, keeping my voice low even though the music was high enough to guarantee the sound wouldn't travel. "But this is just a dance. I get that."
"I never said I wanted to fuck you."
"Love," I started, turning her slightly so that no one at the bar would see when my hand slid up, brushing the side of her breast. "All I have to do is this," I told her as my fingers slipped out, very nearly brushing her nipple, "and you shiver."
As if on cue, she did.
And this time, with her facing me, I got to watch the way her eyes went heavy-lidded, how her lips parted slightly.
Seeming to notice how my focus went to her mouth, she pressed in even closer, going up on her toes a bit, her mouth getting closer to mine.
I wanted it too.
That was the worst part.
I fucking wanted it.
But she was drunk.
And I had rules.
I shook my head as she got closer, an action that seemed to have the same effect as if I doused her in ice water, making her shock back so hard that if I weren't holding her so close, she would have broken all contact.
There was offense in her eyes, along with anger and, if I wasn't mistaken, a tiny sliver of hurt.
"When I kiss you, Lenny, I want you to remember it. And not regret it. It can't be like this."
"Fine," she hissed, jerking back harder, digging her nails into the wrist of the arm that was still around her, making me let her go. "Your loss."
With that, she turned on her heel, walking away, grabbing her bottle of tequila, and moving over to the far end of the bar to strike up a conversation with a quiet man who had been nursing a ginger ale all night.
It would seem weird if I hadn't come across men like him before. The clean ones. The ones that broke the addiction, but couldn't shake the habit.
I spent the next few hours being asked a shitton of questions, mostly by Meryl who was clearly wearing his business cap this evening.
It wasn't until she stood up and declared while slamming the empty bottle of tequila down on the counter, "Okay. That's it. I'll see most of you tomorrow."
I wondered if I was included in that or not, given the course of the night.
But then my attention was on the way she wasn't walking straight.
"She's not driving, is she?" I asked Meryl as I watched her back.
"Nah. She's too smart for that. She's walking."
"In this neighborhood? At night?" I asked, my voice clearly taking on an angry tone. There was clueless and then there was careless. Meryl was being the latter of the two.
"Think she's any safer with one of these fucks escorting her?" he asked, waving to all his patrons.
"No," I conceded. "But she would be with you."
"But here I am with a business to run. And she nearly killed me the last time I offered to get her a cab."
I could hear the front door open and close again. Before I knew it, I was on my feet, slamming a fifty on the bar as a tip on my free drink, then following her out.
"Gary, fuck off!" Lenny called without turning around. She walked for a few yards before she reached the end of the working streetlights, bending down suddenly to reach inside her boot where, I imagined, the switchblade was currently situated.
But crouching wasn't a great idea when you were drunk, and she began falling backward, sure to end up flat on the dirty sidewalk. But I was right behind her, hands going under her underarms, grabbing her, holding all her - not very considerable - weight for a long second. "Ugh, you," she said, tilting her head back to look up at me. "What are you doing here?"
"Walking you home."
"I am hardly a girl in need of an escort. I can take care of myself."
"Normally, I wouldn't doubt you. But I want to make sure you get there safely." I helped her back onto her feet.
"Fine," she conceded, straightening her jacket, then reaching to zipper it, hunching into the warmth. "I could drive you so you're not cold," I offered, getting only a grumble from her as she started walking again, a little straighter and sure-footed this time.
I bit back a curse when she moved to run across the street toward an apartment building, one I was familiar with because of what syndicate operated there.
Of fucking course she would be living in the Third Street building instead of, say, the much safer one owned by Shane Mallick.
"Alright. I'm here. I'm safe. This is where I am supposed to say 'thank you.'"
But not actually say it.
"What?" she asked, raking a hand through her hair, making it rearrange, falling softly to frame her face again. "Seriously? You're going to do the door thing?" she asked, looking at me like I had sprouted another head. "Fine. Let's go then," she demanded, waving a hand to the door that didn't even lock.
She took me up the stairs because, apparently, the elevator made a churning sound that reminded her of the old movie cliche of them plummeting, and she'd much rather trip over the junkies passed out in the stairwell and avert her eyes from the Johns getting blowjobs from the hookers who were looking to get in from the cold for a bit.
I had thought she was exaggerating, but we absolutely had to step over two junkies, one passed out, one in the process of shooting up. I didn't see - or hear - any Johns getting sucked off, thank God, but I didn't doubt her anymore about the validity of that claim.
"Okay, this is me," she informed me, stabbing her key into her lock. "I do not need you to come in and inspect things. Good night, Edison."
"I'll see you tomorrow, love," I offered, waiting for her to close herself inside and slide the locks.
On the cold walk back to my SUV, I had the strange, distinct feeling that things had just changed.
Why they had changed, and what change that was exactly was beyond me.
But there was no shaking the sensation.
I couldn't wait to see what the next day would hold.