Ava blew off the latest offer to hook up—this one from a fifty-something lizard-skinned man with faded tattoos and a basketball beer belly—and finished off her third vodka tonic.

Talk about a bust. Someone should have told her that very few biker dudes were hot biker dudes.

She let the glass snap against the bar and sighed. Katie had abandoned her for a charming ginger and was laughing up a storm with a group of bikers about twice her age. Just another sign Ava needed to let more of her inhibitions slide. But to what end? The only guy remotely interesting had turned her down cold.

His flat-out rejection had somehow taken the meager breeze from her confidence sails. All the determination she’d come with to fuck her cheating bastard of an ex-fiancé from her system had bottomed out.

Katie was wrong. It wasn’t time Ava got out and picked up some hot guy to make her forget. It only exposed her incompetence when it came to men, making her feel twice as bad about herself.

“Another?” the bartender asked.

“Please. A double.” What the hell? She and Katie could take an Uber back to Katie’s parents’ house in Greenwich if they had to. Ava would just have to dodge Katie’s mother in the morning. If her own mother heard she’d been in Connecticut and hadn’t stopped to visit, they’d have one more reason to keep her in the doghouse.

She let her gaze roam toward Mr. Tall, Built, and Irresistible where he sat in deep conversation with another guy. Maybe he was gay. Only she couldn’t imagine the other bikers here welcoming a gay man. And he sure as shit didn’t give her a gay vibe. But what the hell did she know? Matthew hadn’t given her a cheater vibe either, and look how that turned out.

Isaac had charisma. He had presence. He had a killer body, a scruffy jaw, and steamy, penetrating gray eyes. He was also rude, cold, and hadn’t looked at her once since he’d walked away.

Fucking figured.

The bartender served her drink. Ava laid a twenty on the bar and wandered toward Katie. When her friend looked over, Ava lifted her brows and tilted her head toward the door. The ginger had his arms around Katie and lowered his head to kiss her neck.

Ava rolled her eyes and changed course to the jukebox. Half a dozen innuendos peppered the air along with a whole lot of eye-fucking as she passed. But, nope, that wasn’t going to do it for her. She needed a real fuck. A wild fuck. The kind she read about in Cosmo or heard about in the locker room at the spa. The kind she felt she needed to bolster her self-esteem after she’d found her fiancé getting sucked off by not one but two subordinates under his desk.

Katie had assured Ava she’d find exactly the kind of man needed to set her straight at a rough biker bar. Evidently, this wasn’t Katie’s first time at Grind. But while her uninhibited friend was making time with the ginger, Ava was turning away the leathered, overweight, bald-headed, sagging biker dudes. After this drink, she was going home—Katie or no Katie.

She paused at the jukebox, where the thick beat of Lynryd Skynyrd blared from the speakers. Ava peered through the glass to see what other options were available, but the song list blurred in front of her tired and—okay, drunk—eyes. Three drinks had taken the edge off her nerves over coming here. They’d also numbed the residual pain that had been nagging at her for weeks and even given her enough courage to flirt with the hottest biker dude in the place.

Even though she shouldn’t, she sipped at the fourth drink because, well, she’d been here two hours—an hour and fifty-five minutes too long.

Ava set her glass on top of the jukebox, rocking her hips to Lynryd’s beat. Someone came up behind her and flattened his hand on the glass of the jukebox with enough of a snap to startle her. The combination of alcohol and disappointment fostered a what-the-fuck attitude.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice carrying annoyance. “Did you want to choose the songs? I’ll tell you what, I’ll pay, you pick.” She slid a dollar into the machine. “There, why don’t you—”

She stepped back to move away, but hit a wall of warm muscle and looked into turbulent gray eyes. Her pulse jumped.

“Well, we meet again.” She turned and leaned against the jukebox, holding his fiery gaze—and grinned.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. Trying to act all alpha and threatening when you know all I have to do is grab your balls to make you jump ten feet away.”

He didn’t think she was funny. Which only meant he hadn’t had enough to drink.

“If you’re not going to pick songs…” She shrugged and started to turn, but he shifted, his lower body connecting with hers, holding her in place.

“You and your friend don’t belong here.” His gaze burned into hers, so clear, so sharp. “I’ve given you an hour to get out. The drunker these guys get, the higher your chance of getting caught in a situation you don’t want.”

“How would you know what I want? Can you read minds?” She lifted her brows. “Go ahead, try it.” And she held his gaze thinking: You want me. You want me. You want me.

“You’re here to get fucked,” he said.

“Hey, you’re good at this. But since you’re not interested in doing the fucking, why don’t you go back to your business, and I’ll go back to mine?”

“Why are you here?”

“Didn’t we just cover this?”

“The real reason. You could get fucked in any bar. Why come here?”

“That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me all night.”

He gripped her arm hard—his first physical contact. She liked the force of it, the intensity of it. She wanted to be handled tonight. Wanted someone alpha and confident to take the reins and give her an escape from the shame, the loneliness, the self-loathing. “What did you think you’d get here tonight?”

His hand burned into her skin. All the nerve endings between her legs tingled to life. “Escape. I expected you to understand the concept. Isn’t that what your group rides are all about? Freedom? Escape?”

“This is a different world.”

“That’s what I was hoping for. I was also hoping I’d find someone like you to show me a little more of this world.”

“You’ve had plenty of offers.”

“Yet none from you.”

“If you keep turning everyone down,” his voice shifted into a sultry, menacing tone, “they’re going to get pissed that you came to tease them all with such a tasty piece of meat only to yank it out of reach when they get close enough to smell it.”

Her pulse surged. She could feel every thick beat of the blood in her veins. “I think there was another compliment in there somewhere.” She shifted, sliding one thigh between his while holding his gaze. His lids lowered, his nostrils flared, his gaze fell to her mouth. She purposely licked her lips and murmured, “Do you smell it, Isaac?”

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He was intensely still. Finally, his gaze made its way to hers. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Four. You?”

“One.”

And he went back to the silent staring. Silent, intense staring that captivated her, annoyed her, and turned her on.

“What aren’t you getting at home that forced you out of that pretty ivory tower?”

His words stung like a whip. A caustic laugh bubbled up. “Fuck you.”

She sidestepped and jerked from his hold, but he shifted, trapping her there. He released her arm, only to rest his hand at her waist. His heat burned through her clothes and tingled over her skin.

“You looking to get a little dirt under your fingernails?” he asked, his voice a dark rumble. “’Cause if I fuck you, you will get dirty.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Is that what you want, Princess Ava? A dirty, hard-core fuck? Did you come down to the hood to get what your white-collar boyfriend can’t give you?”

The rough language shocked her. Heat flashed through every inch of her body. Along with anger. “I don’t have a white-collar boyfriend. And this dirty talk is fun and all, but I’m looking for more bite, less bark.”

“Bullshit. Women like you always have boyfriends.”

On top of brushing her off earlier and killing her hope, now he was pissing her off. “I don’t care whether you believe me or not, and I’m not going to stand here while you call me a liar.”

She pushed past him, but he hip-checked her against the jukebox again. Ava’s ass hit the machine a millisecond before his hips hit hers. She couldn’t tell if her quick breaths and tingling body came from fear or excitement.

“I’m going to say good-bye to my friends,” he told her, his voice low, slow, and deliberate, “and walk out to my bike. I won’t wait more than five minutes. But before you follow, let me tell you exactly what you’ll get if you do.”

Her heart pounded hard in her ears. At this point, she wanted everything he’d give. She was already so out of her comfort zone, she might as well go all the way. How often would this moment come again?

“I’m listening,” she told him.

“I will push your every limit. I’ll fuck you in ways you never dared. Next week, you’ll still see shadows of the bruises and bite marks I leave on you tonight.”

Her mouth dried up.

“I’ll take you places you’ve never even dreamed of going. I’ll fuck you in ways you’ve never dreamed, and you’ll love every minute. I’ll make you whimper, scream, and beg.”

His words quickened her heart. Her sex felt full and hot and wet. She pulled in a stuttering breath and licked her lips, trying to play it cool. “Someone has a high opinion of himself.”

“And there will be none of that. No mouthy backtalk. No attitude. No bullshit. Just raw fucking. The only thing you’ll be using your mouth for is to scream in pleasure or suck my cock. On your knees. In the dirt.”

Her insides trembled. The picture he painted was terrifying and thrilling at the same time. She’d always believed that fear was a precursor to greatness, the subconscious recognizing what the conscious mind denied. And everything in her gut screamed Yes!

“You’ll never feel so used or so satisfied, and I’ll leave you begging for more.”

He took a step away, creating a buzz of panic in her gut.

“Five minutes,” he said. “Not a second more.”