Bud listened to the conversation, but didn’t know what to expect when the hour was up. All rooms were equipped with audio feeds, though none were recorded. Whoever was working security could hear all the rooms at once, but they eventually learned how to ignore it unless something demanded attention, in which case he’d walk the doors and listen with his wolf hearing to figure out which room was the problem and whether he should intervene.

Still, Bud had no idea what to expect when Nickie stepped into his office.

“I need to get drunk. Not just a little soused, but fall-on-my-face drunk. If you’ll make that happen and babysit me, you’re more than welcome to take full advantage of me once you get me safely home.”

That was the last thing he’d expected, but he wasn’t about to argue.

“Is our bar okay, or do you want me to take you somewhere else?”

“Your bar is fine as long as I can have all the margaritas I want.”

“You drank mojitos in Cancun.”

She lifted both eyebrows, dropped them, and shrugged. “Tonight, I want margaritas.”

“What the lady wants, the lady shall get.”

“I don’t have my helmet with me or I’d wanna ride the back of your bike.”

“I can borrow a helmet and have it sent back when we get there.”

“No. Patrick and Tyler usually like a heads up on that kind of thing ahead of time. It’s only a few blocks.”

“Okay, but for the record, I’d love to pull into the lot with your arms around me from behind.”

“Things to look forward to.”

Her voice was light, but it gave him hope. The fact she wanted to get drunk told him she wasn’t ready to talk about it just yet, so Bud didn’t push.

The bar was hoppin’ when they stepped in, and Bud leaned in to ask if she wanted a table just for the two of them, or if she wanted to sit at a table with some of his brothers.

“The more the merrier, though if I get too talkative you might want to move me away from them.” She put her hand to the center of his chest. “Seriously, don’t let me ramble in front of your friends once I’m drunk. Your job as babysitter is to keep me from embarrassing myself. Tell me to hold that thought until we move somewhere else, or something. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m trusting you.”

“Lotta trust going both ways.”

“Yeah.”

The single word sounded heavy. He wasn’t looking forward to the talk they’d eventually have about his business interests, but Bud hoped they’d find their way through it.

“When do I get to meet your daughter?”

Well, that was promising. “This weekend if you’d like.”

“And her husband?”

“Is that important?”

“I think it might be. He used to live here? Was one of your men? Why did he leave?”

“He left on good terms. The brothers who left to form another chapter did so with my full support.”

Bud walked her to a table mostly filled with bikers and introduced her around the table. A waitress walked up and he told her, “This is Nickie. Keep the margaritas coming. Don’t let her run out. I want two steaks and huge bowl of our homemade chips with blue cheese pieces melted all over.” He looked at Nickie. “You’re welcome to my chips. You want anything else?”

“No, the chips sound good. Thanks.” Nickie looked up at the waitress. “Tell the bartender to make sure there’s lots of salt on the rim, please? And the first can be mixed regular, but after that I want them mixed strong. The goal is for me to leave in a drunken stupor.”

“Everything okay?” Nickie turned and seemed surprised to see Shadow.

“Yeah, just need to clear my head. I worked out until every muscle in my body hurt earlier. I think I’ll try the drunken route this time.”

“You’ve come to the right place.” Shadow took a seat across the large round table and held his nearly empty beer up for the waitress to see.

Nickie was comfortable around Bud’s brothers and seemed interested in who they were as individuals. So many people saw a biker wearing his colors and couldn’t see past the stereotype. Conversation was all over the place, and eventually moved to Nickie’s fictional werewolves. The men asked her about the rules and how she came up with them. She explained how her rules are all about making them hot and fuckable, and one of the ol’ladies asked to hear a sample.

Nickie pulled something up on her phone, and Bud told her he’d need to look it over before he let her read it. She started to protest, but he reminded her, “You asked me to keep you from embarrassing yourself.”

She handed the phone over, and he had to work not to get a hard-on as he read the down-and-dirty scene describing exactly how it felt for a cock to penetrate a pussy. He had no idea how she knew how it felt for a man, but this crowd wouldn’t think lesser of her for it — they’d probably like her more.

When his darling Nickie finished reading her two-minute long excerpt, the table was speechless for a few seconds, but Sparky had been leaned against her ol’man, and she sat up and said, “Fuck. I orgasmed without touching myself. How do I buy your books? How do I buy that book?”

“I’m sorry, if someone told me your name, I don’t remember it?” said Nickie.

“Penny, but everyone calls me Sparky.”

“Ask her why!” someone shouted from another table.

“Why?” Nickie asked, without missing a beat.

Sparky’s face went pink, but she started the story. Bud knew her ol’man would finish it, though. He always did.

“When we go on road trips,” Sparky began, “sometimes we camp. Just a big field with all our tents — usually only a few feet between them. If you fuck in your tent, everyone’s gonna hear. My first road trip with Texas, I didn’t wanna have sex in the tent. He told me tough shit, we’d be there three days and he wasn’t going without just because I didn’t want anyone to hear.” She looked at him a second with an accusatory smile, but he didn’t look the least bit apologetic.

“She’d brought this bug zapper thing,” said Texas. “Looks like a tennis racket but with metal wires instead of strings. You push a button and it electrifies the wires, and when you hit the bug it zaps it dead. The longer you hold the button, the more electrified the wires get.”

“Oh, my God!” Nickie squealed. “You’re Texas! With the Texas drawl!” She looked around the table and added. “Sorry, I just put it together. I’m apparently well on my way to drunk. Please keep going. I’m sorry I interrupted.”

“No problem, sugar,” Texas drawled, layering his accent on even more. “Sparky was wearin’ this cute little skirt, and I’d already gotten her out of her underwear, so all I had to do was tip her over my lap. I pushed the button to let the thing charge up, but she couldn’t see what I had in my hand. I told her she could choose between everyone hearing her get fucked or spanked, and when she said I wouldn’t dare, I lit her ass the fuck up. Just a tap, but a spark flew out six inches.”

“It made a huge red mark!” Sparky told him as she punched his arm. “It fucking hurt!”

“Made her horny as fuck, too.” Texas added. “Now I have a modified cattle prod I use on her, with the volts and amps set so it can’t kill her and won’t burn her, but it packs even more of a wallop than the bug zapper.”

“He’s an asshole, but he’s my asshole,” Sparky said with an exaggerated eye-roll, and Bud grinned as the two leaned into each other without even thinking about it. Bud had been that close to someone once. He hadn’t met anyone since his wife died he wanted to be close to.

Not until Nickie. Fuck, but she had him twisted inside out.

Nickie drank fast until she was buzzed, but then wasn’t in a hurry to get drunk. She paced her margaritas, drank some water here and there, and snacked on the chips. However, two and a half hours later she was handed her fourteenth margarita, and Bud wondered if it might be time to get her home.

“You should’ve told me earlier. ’Bout the girls.”

Bud shook his head, once again wondering if his wolf had let him know this was about to start, or if his human subconscious had known.

“Maybe, but I didn’t. Let’s get you out of here.”

Nickie looked around, considered whether she wanted to leave, licked the rim, and downed the full glass in one long drink. “Yeah. Okay. Am I on your bike or with my security guys?”

“Had someone pull my bike into the back room here. I’ll ride with you and your guards.”

“Oh, good. That’s nice.”

She easily stood when he urged her up, and leaned into him as they walked. “Shit, I’m drunk.”

“Thought that was the goal.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m drunker than drunk.”

“Nah, you’re still upright and walking.”

“Yeah, but I’m not finished getting drunk yet. It might be good to get me home before that last drink hits my bloodstream.” She sighed. “I always assumed prostitutes were exploited, but Kate enjoys her job and Jeni is using it to better herself without going into debt. Do I have to rethink everything?”

“Not everything. Katie was in bad shape when Bash rescued her. Even if prostitution were legal, there’d still be scumbags preying on runaway teens because there’s a market for kids. We tried to move Katie away from sex work, but when it became apparent she’d go back to it on her own, we put her to work for us to keep her safe. She was eighteen by then, though barely.”

“She introduced herself to me as Kate.”

“Yeah, she’s trying to be more grown up now. She was definitely a Katie when we found her, but she’s turned into Kate. She mothers the new girls, takes care of anyone she thinks isn’t handling something well. My guys have told me when she decides to retire, we’d do well to offer her a job in the office. If we can teach her to use the computer enough to schedule, she’ll still be around to act as a kind of madam to the girls.”

“Why not offer it now?”

“Decision has to be hers, not ours. She has something like three and a half years left on Brain and Shadow’s master plan, where she’ll theoretically have enough money to retire as long as she lives frugally, but she still enjoys her job. She’d miss it, if she just had to watch other girls get to have all the fun.”

“Do you know so much about all your employees? Did you somehow know to put her in the lobby, knowing I’d pick the submissive looking one?”

“No. If you want to talk to one of our pro-Dommes, I’ll set it up. They work out of a small house we bought for just that purpose. Three dungeons, with one of the rooms set up to house submissives who pay for an extended stay of two to five days. Are you sobering up? Your words aren’t as slurred.”

“No, I’m just focused and alert. I’ll relax again when I’m home.”

“Okay.” Bud opened the door. “Let’s get you home then.”

“When I figure all this out, I’ll go to another city and find sex workers who are willing to talk to me for a story. I’ll blur them out or put them behind a screen if they want, but I want to do an intensive, in-depth look into this. Maybe for a news organization, or possibly a non-fiction book if there’s enough material. I mean, how is the customer supposed to know if the woman he’s paying is being exploited or is… well, in a way, exploiting him. I don’t think Kate means to exploit anyone, but Jeni certainly sees it that way. She doesn’t even like some of the people she fucks, and she doesn’t care because she’s just doing it for the money.”

“Is that wrong of Jeni?”

“Fuck no. The men don’t likely care about her either. They just want a hole to stick their dick in.”

“Not in all cases. I worked the lobby for a while when I first patched into the club. Some men are just lonely. We try to aim those towards the girls like Katie.”

“Customer service on steroids.”

“Our girls service the customers, we provide service so the girls can do their jobs. Everything we do is customer service at the B&B.”

“You’re more like the CEO of a big corporation than the president of a bike club.”

“One and the same.”

None of her security guys talked. They stood watch as Bud helped her into the back seat, and were silent as the two carried on their conversation. Bud figured Patrick was already clued in on how the RTMC worked, since his wife used to be a sweetbutt in Chattanooga. Plus, the chapter up there got along with him and liked him, so he had Bud’s trust through them. As for Tyler, Nickie trusted him with her life and more, so while Bud couldn’t give him the same, he respected the man. Also, Tyler might be human, but he’d held his own fighting supernaturals. Additionally, both worked for Aaron and were paid for their discretion as well as their bodyguarding services.

So, while Bud kept an eye on their conversation with her guards in mind, he tried to keep it flowing while she was talking.

“I feel like I should apologize to you,” Nickie told Bud. “I thought the worst of you, and then thought you were full of shit when you tried to make out like you’re the hero for giving them a good work environment.”

“I’m not a hero. Didn’t mean to give that impression.”

“I was so pissed at you. I like you and I thought I had to cut you out of my life and it pissed me off because… dammit. I like you.”

“Even when you’re pissed at me?”

“Yeah, which I’m sure I’ll be for at least half of our last two days, but even then, I’ll like you. Mostly.”

“I like you, too, but are you going to remember any of this tomorrow?”

I dunno. Fuck, I hate riding when I’m drunk.”

“Almost there. Why did you need to get drunk?”

“You’re a complication. I was pissed off when I thought I had to walk away from you, but now that I see we can work out, I’m scared. You aren’t a casual kind of guy. If we start this, I have to be up front with you. Honest. Fuck. You’re a complication.”

“You said that twice.”

“Well, you’re a big complication. Fucking huge.”

“I’m a simple guy. Food, my brothers, fucking.”

“You’ve turned my world upside down. Werewolves, vampires, fucking lions. And now with the sex workers, I keep having to redefine shit.”

“Some people can’t do that. I’m glad you’re stepping back and rethinking your views. I also think it’s cute that you cuss left and right when you get drunk.”

“I can’t glamorize a story about it. I mean, I’ll need to touch on the hard parts, even for the ones in the perfect situation. I’ll also have to show the men who find runaways and treat them as Kate was. And, I mean, how bad must things have been at home for her to run away and think it was better to be whored out to men who beat her?”

“Her stepfather has been taken care of, and her siblings were removed from the home. Katie reconnected with her siblings a few years ago but still wants nothing to do with her mom, which is probably healthy. If she didn’t tell you why she ran, it isn’t my place to.”

“I don’t think it was sexual since she was a virgin, but it must’ve been bad. I understand your loyalty to her, so I won’t probe.”

Bud unbuckled her seatbelt and Nickie looked around, surprised to discover they’d parked. “Oh, we’re here. Shit, but I wish we could swim. Sucks that the pool is closed at night. I never want to swim during the day. My next house should have a swimming pool.”

“You’re selling your house?”

“I’ve never owned a house this long before. I dunno, it might be time for a move.”

Tyler helped her out since she aimed her feet out before Bud could make it around the SUV, but he handed her off to Bud when he stepped close.

“We could jump the fence and swim anyway,” Nickie said with a grin and a drunk sparkle in her eye.

“We could, but maybe we’ll just go up to your condo so I can see how loud you are during drunk orgasms.”

“Yeah. Okay. That can work.”

Bud didn’t figure she’d last long before she crashed so he kept it simple. Humans sometimes bruise more when they’re drunk and their blood’s thinner, so he gave her a light hand spanking, and his cock went hard when she asked if something was wrong with his arm.

“Tough shit if you want it harder, Brat. You get what I give you.” Tomorrow, he’d tear her up. Assuming she wasn’t sick.

His dick throbbed with the need to pound her while he fingered her to an orgasm, and he didn’t even try to control his long, low growl when he finally sank into her hot, sweet, tight pussy. He wanted to fist her, spread her open until she screamed and begged, but the timing hadn’t worked out yet. Maybe it would tomorrow. He pumped hard and fast at the thought, and went in and held when she spasmed around him.

“Don’t remember you askin’ permission for that one.”

“Oh, fuck. I’m sorry! It just came. Damn, I’m drunk. Do I get a free pass or two when I’m drunk?”

Bud chuckled, and slowed as he answered, “Not usually, but we’ll make an exception.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

He hadn’t even beat her, and she’d dropped into subspace. “Good girl. Hold onto this one until I say you can come. I’ll order you to just before I’m ready, and then you can go to sleep.”

“No. Want more orgasms!”

“You’ll only get one more, so make it good.”