“You’re killing me, Pistol.” The woman in the white tank top ran a hand through her thick, platinum blonde curls and stuck her ample chest out a little. “Sure you can’t just patch it?”
Jax “Pistol” Wilson straightened to his full height of six-foot four inches, forcing his gaze up from the woman’s chest to her face again. He wiped his hands on a greasy rag and then flashed the woman — Peggy? Patty? Something with a P — a grin. “Gotta be replaced. That crack’s too deep and too wide. The whole thing could fall in on you if you so much as hit a pothole.”
Her expression was exaggeratedly horrified. “Jesus. How much is it gonna run me?”
Pistol leaned against the woman’s bright yellow Mustang, broad, tattooed arms folded across his chest. He glanced at the web of cracks in the windshield. “Depends. Anywhere from two hundred to a thousand.” He could feel Deion eyeing him. They’d never done a windshield replacement for more than four hundred.
The woman sucked in a breath, and Pistol met her pretty blue eyes once more. He recalled a wild night last year — the two of them, half drunk, fully loaded, soaking her twelve hundred thread-count sheets in their mutual sweat. “Shit.”
He tossed the rag aside. “Tell you what. I’ll try my damnedest to make sure you’re not looking at more than three hundred.”
Peggy-Patty’s face positively lit up. “Omigod, Pistol, that would be incredible.” She had a hot smile—full lips stretching back to reveal gleaming white teeth. Pistol almost wished he could recall the details of their encounter. Had those straight, perfect teeth latched onto his skin? Had her long pink nails raked down his back? Had she screamed his name? Probably. They all did.
She couldn’t seem to keep her gaze off his chest. His once-white sleeveless shirt was smeared with oil stains and clinging to him with the Texas humidity and was ripped in strategic places to show his ink.
He heard Deion snort, and tossed the fucker a glare.
He grinned back at the woman, unable to resist the temptation to flirt, even with a woman he’d already bedded. Hell, looking at her now, he was almost tempted to go in for round two. Except that wasn’t the way he played. And anyhow, she was a bit older than he liked them — had a kid who was in high school, he remembered suddenly, so she was likely in her late thirties. Still, she’d been a tiger in bed. Probably had some flabby-gutted loser of a husband who couldn’t give her an orgasm. Pistol was recalling more details—the way those firm, round breasts had bounced as she’d ridden him. Those legs that went on for days. His own deep growl as he came inside her…
Shit, he really was hard up if he was thinking about pissing on the same tree twice. But he’d made it with every available woman in this town. If Rialto didn’t get some fresh blood soon, he was gonna have to start going back for seconds.
“Pistol?”
Shit, she’d been saying something, and he hadn’t been paying a lick of attention.
“Yeah?”
“I’d really like to say thank you for this.” She nodded at the Mustang. “Maybe a drink sometime?”
Ah, shit. “Maybe sometime,” he agreed casually.
“You still have my number?”
Not a chance. “Sure. I’ll call you.”
“All right.” She winked at him. “Looking forward to it.”
He nodded, pulling a battered pack of Camels from the pocket of his worn jeans. He stuck a cigarette between his lips and tipped his head toward the car. “We’ll need a couple of days to replace that windshield. You got a ride home?”
“A friend’s picking me up. Well … more of an acquaintance. My new neighbor has a daughter — lovely young lady. We just met yesterday when she was moving in. She agreed to pick me up if the car had to stay in the shop.”
A lovely young lady, huh? How young we talkin’? He dug out his lighter and lit the cigarette.
Pistol didn’t go in for barely legal, but twenty and over, and he’d have to figure out a way to meet this girl. “New in town? Or just new to your neighborhood?”
“New in town. The father doesn’t say much, but he’s nice enough. The daughter — I get the impression she’s a bit lonely. Certainly was eager to talk to me.”
“She in school?” A neutral enough question. If Peggy-Patty was like,Yes, she’s finishing her junior year at MacArthur High, Pistol would know to quit sniffing around. But if this ‘young lady’ was at the University … fair game.
He got started on Peggy-Patty’s paperwork, trying to play nonchalant.
She didn’t answer, and he glanced up to find her eyeing him. “She’s a nursing student. Good Lord, you got a one track mind.”
He laughed and ashed his cigarette. “I didn’t say anything, ma’am. Just curious.”
“Ma’am?” She shook her head. “You’re making me feel like an old lady. Listen, I knew all about your reputation before I screwed you, but this poor gal’s still getting her bearings. Don’t go pouncin’ on her like a horny tom cat, you hear?”
Pistol wanted to ask what the girl looked like, but he had a feeling Peggy-Patty wasn’t about to give him measurements. “Fair enough.”
She looked him up and down, and her gaze rested just a little too long on his crotch. She shook her head again, a little ruefully, but with an amused smile tugging her lips. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Pistol Wilson.”
He grinned and dragged on the cigarette as he went back to work. He tried to keep an eye on Peggy-Patty so he could see when her ride came, but he got distracted doing some detail work on a Chrysler and trying to ignore Deion’s whispered jibes. Deion was his — well, it wasn’t like he had best friends; he wasn’t a fucking thirteen-year-oldgirl— but his closest pal. They were both members of the Blackened Souls Motorcycle Club, working at J&J Auto by day, going out on whatever missions Kong had assigned them by night.
“You fucked her, didn’t you?” Deion whispered.
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” Pistol muttered around the cigarette, trying not to smirk.
“Aw hell. How old is she? Forty? Forty-five?”
He pinched the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and blew out a stream of smoke. “Jesus, she’s thirty-two if she’s a day. Look at the rack on her.”
“How was she? A screamer?”
“They all are.”
“You dog.” Deion laughed. “Seriously, you fuckin’ ass-sniffing, tit-humping old dog.”
Pistol snickered and stubbed out the cigarette. “Shut up.”
“Hey, man,” Deion said after another minute. “Did you think something was weird about Kong last night?”
Pedro “Kong” Ortiz was the Blackened Souls’ president. A gruff old curmudgeon — hard to tell when something was up with him, since he always had a bug up his ass. But yeah, Pistol had noticed the old man had been particularly grim last night when they’d all been over at the clubhouse shooting cans in the backyard.
Pistol shrugged. “Dunno. Figured it was just the heat.”
Deion rubbed the back of his neck. “You think it could be Jaws’s boys again?”
“Better not be.” He glanced over at the woman, who was waiting by the curb. Kept his voice low, just in case she had good ears. Pistol and Deion tried not to discuss club business at work, but sometimes it was necessary. “We made it damn clear last time where the turf lines are.”
“You know Jaws, though. Like a dog hurling itself against a chain. He’s gonna keep testing us.”
“Well. If the dog keeps biting, we’ll have to put him down.”
Deion shook his head and grabbed a socket wrench. “Any excuse to pull out the big guns, huh?” He got on a backboard and rolled himself elegantly under the F-150 he was working on.
“What can I say? I like my toys.”
They worked for another few minutes in silence before Deion spoke again, from under the truck. “Ought to go for a ride soon. Maybe next weekend. Up into Three Sisters.”
“What for?”
“What d’you mean? Just to ride.” Deion sounded surprised.
“Not a bad idea,” Pistol agreed. “Who do we take?”
“Ford, if he wants to come. Anyone who wants to come, really.” He paused. “Or it could be just you and me.”
Man, he and Deion hadn’t gone off on one of their rides together in a couple of years. The Blackened Souls had gotten busy with local mission, and they’d let the more innocent aspects of the club fall by the wayside.
“Let’s do it,” Pistol said. “We can leave the others a note.”
Deion rolled out from under the truck and grinned. “Ran off together into the sunset.”
“So long, suckers.”
“We’ll send you a postcard.”
Deion got up just as a baby blue Ford Camaro — 2004 or 2005, by the look of it — pulled up. Peggy-Patty got in. Pistol strained to see the driver but couldn’t around Peggy-Patty’s big blond curls. But as Peggy-Patty shifted forward, Pistol caught the briefest glimpse of long, dark hair.
Deion barked twice. Pistol whipped him in the arm with a greasy rag.
The Camaro pulled away.