Margo moaned as she rolled onto her side and glanced at the clock across the room. Shit, it was already one o’clock in the afternoon. Rolling onto her back again, she let out a loud sigh and rubbed her tired eyes. She had to stop doing this to herself for goodness sake. It was the fourth time this week she’d slept in her study after painting till dawn. Staring up at the ceiling feeling like death warmed over, she rubbed at an itchy patch of skin on her cheek, absently lecturing herself for not taking a shower.
Margo didn’t really sleep at night much anymore and the working till dawn was becoming a habit since she’d started the series for the annual faculty and student art show. Glancing over at what should have been the third in her series of paintings, she groaned. Gunner stared at her from the painting and she knew it was his fault somehow. He’d gotten in her head after the picnic three days ago. About two hours after they’d parted ways he’d called her to ask her out. She’d turned him down and hung up. He’d called her every ten minutes for the next hour until she hadn’t been able to resist answering.
She still felt a little nervous about the messages he’d left before she’d finally answered his call. He was a hard man, that much was evident, which was a little disturbing. She liked him even if she wasn’t sure about him. They’d talked for nearly two days before she’d finally agreed to go out with him tonight. Her date with Gunner was at five tonight and that meant she needed to get her ass in gear. Scratching another spot on her hip that she thought must have paint on it, she crawled from the bed wearing just her underwear and a tank top.
She stumbled into the bathroom scratching her face and glanced into the mirror. Oh crap, what was that all over her face? Had she gotten a rash from the paint? She hadn’t taken a shower last night but—oh no, no, no, no. She leaned closer to the mirror recognizing that rash. She was suddenly remembering that she hadn’t showered after the picnic because she’d painted that night too. Now she was staring at the swollen red blotches and the hint of blisters all over her face, hoping she wasn’t correct in her assumption. She stripped off her shirt and panties to find red patches everywhere.
Margo went over what had happened at the picnic in her head. She’d hidden in a bush to get away from that creep, Kevin, which is where she’d met Gunner. Then she’d left the picnic with her mother and she’d changed out of that horrid dress the second they arrived at her mother's. She’d then come straight home to paint. No, this couldn’t be happening, it just couldn’t. But the red patches of what she was almost sure she recognized as poison ivy was evident. She recognized the rash from the poison ivy she got when she’d been roped into helping clear the brush from around a playground last year.
Oh, fudge.
This was just fantastic, Margo thought as she remembered the large blisters with little pouches of clear fluid that had developed after three days. She couldn’t go out with Gunner looking like this, he would be disgusted. Last year, once the rash had started, by the end of the day she’d been getting blisters. It had taken a steroid cream and ten days for the rash to clear. She wanted to scream because this sucked. Margo threw on her robe and walked into her bedroom to get her phone. She would call him and let him know she couldn’t go out with him. She’d then go see the doctor and confirm that it was poison ivy and not an allergic reaction to her paint.
“Hello.” Gunner’s husky voice poured through the phone making her want to cry. She’d really been looking forward to going out with him. He made her laugh and he seemed almost normal considering she’d met him at that picnic.
“Umm—Hi, it’s Margo.”
“I knew that babe, what’s up? I can’t wait to see you tonight.”
“About that, I can’t go out with you tonight.” Margo blurted out without any preamble or hesitation; her voice almost panicked.
“What? I—Damn Margo, you just agreed to go out with me yesterday and now you’re saying you can’t? What the hell?” Gunner’s voice held a hard edge that it hadn’t had before she’d just busted out with her panicked denial.
“I just can’t, maybe some other time—like weeks from now I can, but currently I’m sort of—umm busy.” Margo said, trying hard to keep her voice steady. She was so disappointed, but she knew that she couldn’t go out with him looking like a freak.
“Yep, ok then. Got to go,” Gunner grumbled before he hung up on her.
Margo stared at the phone for a long moment after he hung up before letting out a big sigh. Every time she found a guy she liked, something like this happened. Maybe she just wasn’t meant to be in a relationship and that was kind of sad. Shrugging, she called her doctor’s office.
An hour later, Margo was tugging on the edges of her paper gown as she shifted uncomfortably on the table looking around the room. She’d been waiting over twenty minutes while freezing her butt off. She was quite sure that they had cameras that recorded these rooms so they could throw popcorn at the screen and laugh at how uncomfortable everyone was in a paper gown. Okay, so likely not, but it was a thought that had spun through her head as she sat there waiting.
She turned to look at the cat who was hanging onto a railing for dear life with the words ‘Hang in There’ posted above his head. Geez, why did they put up such silly posters like that one? Margo could think of about a thousand images that would engage the mind of a patient as they sat here waiting for the doctor to show up. There was a light knock at the door before Dr. Jacobs entered the room, a smile on her face.
“Hi Margo, I hear we’ve had another possible run in with poison ivy.” Margo wasn’t as happy about this as Dr. Jacobs apparently was because that 100 watt smile was annoying.
“Yes, unfortunately.”
“Well, it’s good that you came for the cream right away instead of waiting till the blisters were bad like last time. I think maybe it won’t be as bad this time. Okay, let’s look at this rash and see if that’s what I think it is.” Dr. Jacobs kept that annoying smile on her face throughout the appointment and when she was finished, Margo walked out with a prescription for steroid cream and headed to the pharmacy.
Sometimes being right about something kind of sucked.
Gunner hung up the phone before he said something he didn’t mean. Margo had just canceled their date without an explanation and it really pissed him off. He slammed his fist into the wall next to him earning a surprised look from Joker who was standing near him.
“Dude, you’re going to break your hand doing that. Fuck, it’s a brick wall.”
“Don’t fucking care,” Gunner growled, his anger too hot to really say much more than that.
“Some chick isn’t worth you breaking a bone, chill out,” Joker said, looking at him with a raised brow.
“She canceled at the last minute for no fucking reason,” Gunner seethed, knowing if anyone would understand, it would be Joker. He’d been a womanizer since a year ago when his girlfriend was found in bed with another man. Since then he’d been hopping from woman to woman like a frog on steroids.
“Ah, then find another one,” Joker shrugged.
“I don’t want to. I just don’t understand it, she was excited about it yesterday and then today she just calls and says she’s just—umm sort of busy. What the fuck?” Gunner hit the wall again, feeling the splitting of his knuckles as pain burst through his hand.
“Like I said dude, not worth a broken bone. Just ask her, go over to her place or call her back and ask for answers. Cause breaking your hand isn’t helping. You need to focus, we are here for a reason and we both need to be ready if this goes sideways. Buck’s handling the details, but we are supposed to be watching to be sure no one double crosses us. Now get your head on straight. I’m not chasing tail, so you can damned well pay attention too,” Joker snarled, shaking his head and glaring at him over his shoulder.
Gunner felt something inside him settle because Joker was right. He would just go over there and find out what the hell was going on and be done with it. Margo was wrong if she thought this was over. His cock had been hard since the moment he’d met her and he wasn’t giving up on getting her into his bed this easily.
“Alright, let’s get to work,” Gunner said as the rightness of his decision settled his raging emotional storm.
He didn’t want to admit that he was slightly disturbed by his reaction. What the hell was going on with him and this chick? He typically didn’t give a shit about any woman enough to be this angry that she was giving him the brush off. They’d talked for a few hours the other night, but he shouldn’t be attached. He liked her and without a doubt. She made his cock harder than a steel rod, but fuck he could get pussy anytime he wanted it, not just from the sweetbutts either. There were plenty of women who came to the clubhouse just for the novelty of being with a biker.
What was it about the sexy blue-haired beauty that made him feel something for the first time in more years than he wanted to admit to? Gunner knew he was distant, it’s what made being a biker work for him. He took care of his brothers and he did what he wanted most days and if you didn’t like it, that was your issue. Some had called him cold—or a bastard—but to his way of thinking he made his own path. He didn’t care about what other people thought he should do, or be. If his well-meaning mother hadn’t managed to change him, then everyone else in the world was fucked.
Joker shifted beside him, bringing his mind back to the present job. Gunner managed to shake off the melancholy that had gripped him after his call from Margo and focus on getting this shit handled so he could go find out what the hell was up with her canceling their date. He wasn’t leaving her place until he had a solid reason and if that reason was another man, he might find himself in the slammer, because something told him that he wouldn’t react well to that.