I spent the morning checking in with the businesses owners we had security contracts with along the boardwalk. Usually, I took Chase or Axle with me when I did it. Today, it felt good to have my head to myself. When I was done, I called for one of the probies to pick me up and take me back to the clubhouse.

We got there late in the afternoon. As we went up the long gravel driveway to the clubhouse, I couldn’t help laughing to myself. The Dark Saints M.C. clubhouse sure as shit didn’t look like anything you’d see on a movie screen. That’s probably what I should have told Quinn. If she was looking for something real, she’d be disappointed. Our house was a long, L-shaped, black brick building tucked off the rural highway on the edge of town. We ran a body shop on the property. Beyond the woods behind it was our junkyard.

Rufus, our half-pit club dog, came roaring around the corner when I got out of the van. I scratched his good ear and headed through the back door.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, honey!” Mama Bear called out. She stood behind the bar, wiping down beer mugs. Her eyes crinkled when she smiled and she blew me a kiss. She wore a black tank top that showed off her toned arms. In her mid-fifties, Josie Bullock had a body that could put women half her age to shame. Her silver hair gleamed under the bar lights as she gestured toward the back room where I knew I’d find the rest of my crew.

“I’ll check in later, Mama!” I yelled at her. She gave me a thumbs up and went back to work.

As I made my way down the darkened hallway to the back room, a rowdy cheer rose. By the sound of it, they were either watching sports or porn on the flat-screen TV behind the pool table.

Sure enough, as I entered the room, about a dozen guys were huddled around the screen knocking back draft beer. Toby had the remote control in his hand. Kade, Axle, and Machop were on one side of him. Shep, Deacon, and Maddox were on the other. I heard heavy, female breathing coming from the speakers. Ah. So it wasn’t sports.

“Pause that. Pause it!” Machop shouted. “Rewind that shit!”

Laughing, Toby complied. “I told you assholes. You didn’t believe me!”

“Well,” Chase said, coming out of the john. “Dom’s here now. Ask him yourself.”

The crew turned around. All of them wore the same shit-eating grin. “What the hell?” I asked, taking a frosted bottle of beer from Deacon.

“Quinn fucking Larsen!” Toby said, his eyes twinkling. He spread his arms wide and angled them toward the TV. My back went up and my blood chilled. The crowd parted, clearing my view of the television screen.

It was Quinn all right. Her hair was shorter and she was sitting on the edge of a pool at night. The LED lights beneath the water kept changing, turning her skimpy white bikini blue, then green, then pink.

The camera took its time with her. Focusing on her face, then widening. You could see the outline of her areolas through the light fabric of the bikini top. She threw her hair over her shoulder and arched her back as she dangled her feet in the water.

“I’m not like the other girls, Jake,” she said in a breathless, put-on voice. I didn’t know this movie, but I’d seen a million like it. Probably college kids on spring break. I sort of recognized the actor playing Jake. He treaded water in the pool a few feet from Quinn’s character. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and kept pushing them up his nose.

He said his line. I couldn’t hear it. My eyes were glued to Quinn. Her dark nipples showed straight through the white bikini. She rose, slowly. The camera angle switched so you could see her from the back. Oh. Wearing a thong, that sweet ass of hers was on display. I went from arousal to rage.

They were all looking at her. Toby’s mouth dropped open. Machop thumped his hands against a chair back. Shep put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Show it all, baby!”

Then Quinn hooked her thumbs in her bikini bottom and dragged it down, bending far forward. It was tasteful as these things went. Hell, you could see bare-ass shots on primetime shows.

The camera switched and you could see her from the dude in the pool’s point of view but only from the waist up. Cocking her head to the side, Quinn reached up and undid the straps of her bikini top, letting it fall to the ground.

It was just a moment. Maybe two seconds. But there she was, glistening wet, her perfect tits on display for the camera. The camera went wide so you could see her in profile.

“Damn, those babies are natural!” Machop yelled, then stuffed a handful of popcorn in his mouth. I came close to reaching over and wringing his fucking neck.

Then Quinn executed a flawless dive and disappeared beneath the water. When she came up, she had her arms wrapped around the actor in the horn-rimmed glasses.

The same cheer rose among the guys. A couple of them whistled and touched the necks of the beer bottles together in a toast.

“Hot damn!” Toby said, putting his arm around me.

Protective rage and jealousy ignited inside me like a volcanic eruption. Before I knew what I was doing, I hurled my beer bottle hard at the flat screen. It went dark as a huge crack opened up straight down the middle.