CHAPTER 2

Taz

The woman was a fucking knockout. Long, wavy, jet-black hair, steel blue eyes, tanned skin. And she had curves I wanted to get my hands on. She was wearing workout gear, skintight black pants and a loose shirt. Well, it hung loosely on her everywhere but where her lush tits pressed against the fabric, and if I wasn’t mistaken, her nipples were hard. The twin little bumps in the material had my mouth fucking watering.

This was crazy. I’d never done the girlfriend thing, only ever one-night-stands and quick fucks to ease an itch. And since joining the Charon MC, I hadn’t hooked up with a woman who wasn’t a club whore. It was so much easier to go to the clubhouse where the pussy was wet and willing, than try to find a woman that was okay with me screwing her all night, then walking away in the morning. But even I had to admit it was starting to get old. The whores didn’t require any chasing–there was no mystery at all to any of them. I’d gotten over the novelty of being able to walk in a room, snap my fingers, and having a woman on her knees in front of me a second later unzipping my pants, long ago. It didn’t exactly offer any kind of challenge. This chick, though, she’d definitely be a challenge. Despite the fact she clearly liked how I looked, she was holding her chin high and the look in her eyes told me she was no pushover. Hell, she wouldn’t even give me her full name. This could be fun.

I still wasn’t interested in settling down with a woman. Just because my two best mates, Eagle and Mac, had both hooked up with women and knocked them up, didn’t mean I wanted to follow in their footsteps. But the anniversary was coming up in a little over two weeks, and I was going to need to stay really busy if I was going to keep myself distracted from focusing on the fact it had been twenty years since I lost my mum and sister. With that in mind, maybe it was worth the risk to see if I could seduce this bombshell. Even if she did turn out to be a woman I wanted around for longer than a night, I was sure I could resist making it something truly permanent.

I started walking around the main room and she stayed beside me, her subtle perfume filling my lungs and making my cock twitch. Dammit. That was something I didn’t need right now. Gym shorts didn’t exactly make it easy to hide a raging hard-on.

“This is the main room, where all the equipment is. This is a mixed gym, there’s no special ladies room, so I hope you don’t mind working out in front of a few blokes?”

She chuckled, the sound not helping my fight to keep my dick from standing at attention. “I’m used to working out with men in the room. It doesn’t bother me.”

“That’s good. There’s always more than a few men in this place. The room in there is where we run classes. There’s actually one on tonight.”

“Do you run the classes?”

I smiled over at her when I heard the hint of hopefulness in her voice.

“Sorry, luv. Tonight’s class is Mac’s baby. He runs a women’s self-defense class once a week. You’re more than welcome to come along. All classes are included with your membership fee.”

Her face was a mask of indifference, like she wasn’t interested, which intrigued me. It wasn’t the normal reaction I got when I told a woman about the class.

“What, you don’t agree women should learn a few moves to protect themselves?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. Every woman should learn at least a few moves. It’s just I know how to take care of myself, so I don’t need to take a class.”

I stopped walking and turned to face her, running my gaze down her body. She didn’t look like a fighter. She was clearly fit and toned, but she didn’t have that roughness about her I’d seen in other female fighters who’d come by the gym. When my gaze returned to her face she had an eyebrow raised and was smirking.

“Like what you see?”

I gave her a wink. “You’ll do.”

That earned me another of her husky chuckles, along with a head shake.

“I was just thinking that you don’t look like a fighter.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up and making it really hard for me to keep eye contact. “Really? And what does a fighter look like, exactly?”

“Not like you, luv.”

She nodded her head and when her lips slowly spread into a smirk I started to worry. What was she up to? I didn’t have to wait long to find out, because a moment later she dropped her bag and, in a flash, kicked a leg out aimed at my knee. I spun to avoid the kick and before she could do anything else, I body slammed her up against the wall to the sound of my brothers wolf whistling us. I wrapped a hand in her hair, holding her head back so she didn’t hurt her face against the drywall.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Me proving I could defend myself. Clearly, not very well.”

I had my body pressed tight against hers, so she couldn’t move her arms or legs to reach to hit or kick me. The only thing she could have done was to head butt me, but the hand I still had wrapped in her hair prevented her from that move, too.

“You gotta have better moves than that to take down a Marine, baby.”

“Taz! What the fuck? Get off her.”

Mac came thundering across the room, I knew I only had a few more seconds to enjoy being pressed up against this lush woman. I leaned in and brushed my lips over her cheekbone, enjoying the fuck out of the way she shuddered beneath me. As Mac wrapped his palm around my shoulder I moved my mouth to her ear to whisper to her.

“Maybe I will make that class tonight, if you’re gonna be there. Wouldn’t mind seeing your moves when we’ve got a mat I can throw you down on.”

I let Mac pull me back and when he spun me to face him, his gaze was pure fury. With reason, generally speaking, manhandling potential customers wasn’t a good move.

“Relax, brother. Little Flick here was trying to catch me off-guard with a move to prove she didn’t need your class. But don’t worry, I think I’ve got her convinced she does, in fact, need it.”

The fury drained from his expression and turned to disbelief when Flick scoffed. “I sure as hell wasn’t expecting you to react by bulldozing me into the damn wall. If you hadn’t done that, I’m sure I could have held my own.”

I smirked at Mac before I winked and turned to focus back on Flick.

“The whole point of self-defense is to be ready for the unexpected. And, luv, that sounded like a challenge. I’d take you out back right now to prove you wrong, but the boys out there get their knickers in a twist whenever a woman tries to go back there.”

Flick frowned and flicked her gaze to the rear door. “Knickers? And what’s out back that’s so macho girls can’t go?”

“Don’t mind Taz, he likes to throw in Aussie words to keep us Yanks on our toes. Knickers are panties and out the back is an old school boxing ring for the ol’ boys. When we renovated this place a few months back, they wanted their own space, so we gave it to them.”

I let Mac finish before I cut back in. “So I guess you’ll have to come tonight if you want to try and show me more of your moves.”

Mac sighed loudly beside me, but I ignored him as Flick lifted that stubborn chin of hers and glared me straight in the eye.

“You’re on.”

My cock jerked at her show of strength. I’d lost the fight to keep from cracking a boner when I’d been pressed up against her very fine body. Now the bastard was throbbing against my gym shorts and I knew if she glanced down she’d see exactly the effect she had on me. I needed to get my ass away from her before she did.

“Excellent. I’ll see you tonight, then.”

With that, I turned and strolled over to the changing rooms, winking at a couple of the boys when they snickered at me as I passed. I didn’t even try to adjust myself, I knew there was no hiding the pole in my fucking shorts. Hopefully a nice, cold shower would help ease things, so I could fucking function for the rest of the day until I saw her again tonight.

Flick

Mac had told me I didn’t have to come to the class if I didn’t want to. Taz would get over it. But I found myself wanting to go. My body had been humming all fucking day after this morning. Having Taz pressed up against my back had been distracting. Especially since I hadn’t missed the fact his rather large dick had been hard, or the way it had throbbed against my ass, where he’d had it pressed. That had been the real reason I hadn’t gotten out of his hold. Damn man distracted me with lust. Bastard.

I put my hair into a braid, then wrapped it around into a knot that I tucked under, so it would be harder to grab onto. When Taz had tugged my hair this morning, arousal had shot straight to my core. My panties had been damp by the time Mac pulled Taz off me, so I didn’t want him to pull that shit again tonight. No way would I be able to keep my wits about me if he did.

Pulling into the parking lot of the gym for the second time today, I turned off my car and jumped out. I was more excited now than I had been this morning. Fuck, I needed to be careful around that man. He could break a girl’s heart without even trying, I was sure.

I was about to push through the door when a large palm slid around my waist and pulled me back. On reflex I slammed my elbow back, but before it could connect, another large hand wrapped around my bicep, holding my arm still.

“Whoa, hellcat. I was going to ask if you were ready for tonight, but clearly you are.”

I growled as I spun out of Taz’s grip. “What the fuck? You make a habit of waiting in the shadows to grab women without their permission?”

Fury heated my blood. Well, fury and lust, but I was refusing to acknowledge the fact that the way this man could manhandle me turned me on.

“Easy, luv. We just happened to arrive at the same time, and I thought it might be fun to tease you a little before class.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Taz. I hate it. If you’d just arrived, I’d have heard your bike.” I glanced over at the row of bikes and saw his was third from the end–further proof he hadn’t just arrived. But I caught myself before I pointed that out. I wasn’t supposed to know which bike was his. “Which one is yours, anyhow?”

“Green one is my beast. You like bikes?”

I raised a brow at him. “There’s two bikes after yours, I doubt they both pulled up just now. Especially since their riders aren’t out here. And yeah, I like bikes. I like pretty much anything that can go fast.”

For a moment an expression of wariness flashed over his face, but it was gone before I could be sure. Did I say something I shouldn’t have? Something to give away I knew more about him that what I’d learned this morning? I wasn’t ready to sit down and tell him the real reason I was here. I needed to reel him in a little more first, enough that he wouldn’t get mad and kick me to the curb when I told him the truth. At least, that’s what I was telling myself.

“There’s a lot of things that go fast around here, luv. And not all of them have wheels. C’mon, or Mac will start without us.”

Without another word I followed him inside, taking some calming breaths as I purposely didn’t focus on his ass. Mac was standing at the front of the room when we walked in and he glared at Taz before his expression softened when he looked at me.

“Glad you could make it, Flick. Hopefully you didn’t have to fight your way in through the door.” He glared at Taz again.

I chuckled. “I got in with no problems. Thanks.”

As Taz went over to stand near his friend, I looked around the class. It was a good mix of young and middle-aged women. A couple of the younger ones clearly had stars in their eyes as they didn’t look away from Mac, and now Taz. I nearly gagged at the desperation radiating off them. MC groupies were apparently a thing. At least, if they paid attention, these groupies would learn something from their crushes.

“All right, ladies, because Taz has joined me tonight, we can do things a little differently. We’ll demonstrate some moves, then we’ll divide you up into two groups. I’ll take one group, while Taz will take the other. That way, we’ll have time at the end, if you ladies want, for me and Taz to do a little sparring match for you.”

The younger girls whistled and clapped, calling out that they’d only agree if they sparred first. My eyes rolled on their own accord. Yep, those two were full-on groupies. Mind you, watching two Marines spar was a sight to see, and no red-blooded woman would turn that shit down. I moved to stand toward the back of the group, not wanting to attract attention as Mac explained, then demonstrated several moves with Taz. It was nothing I hadn’t already learned at various courses I’d done, but a refresher never hurt. Not to mention it was good exercise, and the eye candy didn’t hurt, either.

Half an hour later we’d finished practicing. Mac had put me in his group so I could actually concentrate, which was a relief. I’d already made an ass of myself earlier in front of both him and Taz, so it was nice to be able to redeem myself, at least in Mac’s eyes.

“Right, ladies. That’s the work over with, let’s have a little fun. What do you say, Taz? Up for a little sparring match to entertain the class?”

Taz laughed and rolled his head on his neck. “Any excuse to put you on your ass, brother.”

Mac rolled his eyes. “Shut up and get over here. Ladies, stand back off the mat, please. I’d hate to see one of you hurt while we’re focused on throwing each other around.”

This time I didn’t hang back. Nope, I wanted to see this, so I moved to stand alongside the others. Within seconds, Taz had the bigger man on the mat and in a choke hold. Damn, that man was fast. Mac flipped them over and they grappled for a few moments.

My face was heating up and I had my thighs clenched as they threw each other around while they tossed friendly insults back and forth. They’d both pulled their shirts off before they started and now their skin was slick with sweat. They were both covered in heavy muscle but Taz was bulkier and shorter than Mac. Fuck, but I really could watch Taz move around all damn day with the way his ink stretched and shifted over all those bulging muscles. I was so lost in the fog of a daydream, I didn’t realize they’d stopped until Taz spoke.

“You waiting for something, luv?”

I shook my head to clear my vision and glanced around to see the rest of the class had left. Shit. I winced as heat flared over my cheeks. I was so busted and I couldn’t think of a single lie to get me out from under Taz’s scrutiny.

“Ah, I just zoned out there for a second. The class is finished, then?”

Taz used his discarded shirt for a towel and wiped off his torso, face and neck. Unable to look away, my gaze followed each swipe.

“Like what you see?”

“You’ll do.”

If he was gonna throw my words back at me, I’d return the favor. He barked out a laugh as he stepped up closer to me.

“You wanna have a sparring session, or do you want to go clean up and change so I can take you out for a drink? Either way, the night’ll end the same way.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re pretty confident of yourself, aren’t you?”

He took another step, and I backed up, straight into the wall. Dammit. He came in close and put a hand on the wall over each of my shoulders, caging me in. He smelled of sweat and leather and it was like catnip to my libido.

“In the Marines we’re taught to be really observant. And when I notice a woman who can’t keep her eyes off me, who is so lost in a sexy daydream after watching me spar with my brother, she misses the class being dismissed, who’s nipples are so fucking hard they’re poking through her shirt...yeah, I get pretty confident she wants me and that the night will end with her under me. I can guarantee you’ll enjoy it, babe.”

I closed my eyes as my body shuddered at his words. Clearly, my plan had worked a little too well. So well, in fact, it had backfired, and now I feared it was he who had hooked me, not the other way around. I needed to get away from him so I could breathe for a few minutes.