CHAPTER TWO

“Strike. Batter out. Damn, beautiful." - Preacher.

 

 

 

“Ruby.”

Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Oh, god.

Everything in her clutched. One hot flex and release. Why the fuck did he have to have a deep rusty voice like Jason Momoa? Her breath caught before she let it go and cast a look towards the source of her unsettled feeling.

To be so spatially aware of another human that the very air stirs with their presence. It hit her from all corners of the bar.

Clearly, she’d spotted him the second he’d strutted his denim and leather into the bar and didn't her body let her know she was noticing too. How could she miss a six-six titanic size man and that wasn’t his height, it was wall to wall ego. His strut reminded her of a smiling serial killer, oh yeah, he'd kill you, but boy, he'd have lovely manners while he did it, that was Preacher, always aware of his surroundings but looking at nothing, his easy rangy massive frame bouncing him from each leg until it got him where he was going to. She hated she noticed these things about him.

Her belly reacted first. Soon to be joined by her girl parts clenching.

A visceral response didn’t mean a thing when her mind was adamant she wasn’t affected by that big man or any other man. She was off the market, she wasn't even near the market to smell its aromas.

Ruby might not want to be interested in Asher Priest in a carnal way, but her body didn’t seem to be on the same page when it sent signals of the very interested kind. Tiny licks of heat around the base of her spine, softening her bones.  Only after a good mental bitch slap did she feel confident enough to turn his way. Her delicately sculpted eyebrow arched in a silent question waiting for his order. With any luck, he would go back to his boys table, then hook up with a waitress and all could be well again, she could go back to not having lusty thoughts about that manwhore, or wondering what he did in the bathroom stalls or out in the alleyways with women to make them so glassy eyed and dreamy for hours afterwards.

Her name curled like rich wine off his tongue, Ruby had to take a second to inhale past the blast of energy to her vagina. She enjoyed a punch of desire now and then. But this was something different altogether. Drugging. She wanted to ask him to keep saying her it for that blow of pleasure flooding her system. Cheap thrills came with a price and she could only stab a guess that his would be out of her range.

Besides that, she had a strict no biker policy. All of them bad news.

Take her brother. The poster boy for biker warnings.

She'd seen this one in action too many times. Was it the voice that had the waitresses dropping their panties as fast as they could? He certainly wasn't typically handsome but she could see his features were an appeal and then there were his green eyes, like emeralds sharp enough to cut and leave a wound behind.

If she had to choose something, she’d say it was his build. Women were ingrained to go for the biggest Neanderthal in the village and they didn't come much bigger than Preacher. Disreputable Renegade Souls member. Perpetual Don Juan and swinger of his dick.

He was waiting for her to speak, that smile on his face hanging above his pointed beard, so perfectly styled she wondered how long it took him every day to do that. Was it soft? Did it scratch? What kind of woman was it that ran her fingers down and tested it out? He was just your average biker in blue denim jeans, thick-soled boots and a long-sleeved shirt underneath the leather jacket, nothing special she tried to reason with her clutching ovaries, little traitorous bastards. So, what if she hadn’t had sex in months, it was her choice, she could have a fast fuck whenever she wanted.

His smile was sexual. Devious and tempting.

Not tonight, Satan.

"Good evening," she greeted with a forced smile, avoided looking at him directly, choosing a spot just over his right shoulder to focus on, she reached for the towel under the bar and wiped it down to keep her hands busy, "what can I get you?"

She knew his drink. Knew what he liked to order from the menu.

"A smile would be nice, Ruby. I'd pay extra for it."

It took three seconds for the implication of what he'd said hit home and her gaze fired to see him grinning, eyes teasing.

Her lips thinned out. "We're all out of smiles. I can bring you a bourbon on the rocks."

"You remembered," his smile widened, became a tiny bit wicked, it hit her belly in hot slutty flutters. “I appreciate you knowing that.”

“It’s my job to know. Bourbon?” Belly muscles she didn’t know existed under her persistent Christmas pounds tightened.

This is what happens looking directly into the sun, idiot. Rookie mistake. She’d avoided those green depths for months for good reason. "Sure, if smiles are off, hit me with the strong stuff, beautiful, I need it."

It was biting on the edge of her tongue to ask if everything was okay, sneaking a shady glance his way, not too long, just a fast look, those large hands tapping a beer coaster between them, his focus straightforward. Tiredness noticeable around his eyes.

She poured his drink, slid it across and went back to wiping before he handed over a twenty. "Have one on me."

"Thanks." She took the four dollars and let him watch her put it into the tip jar in the middle of the bar. Hoping it would be filled by the end of the week, otherwise her rent was going to be short again and having her landlord banging on the door for yet another month was something she could do without. And if he offered her the option to pay in kind again she was going to dick punch the little punk.  He was all of twenty-three with slicked back greasy hair caught in a rat's tail down his back and a pencil moustache. Little shit worked for his dad and thought he was the bees-knees.

Only five people sat at the bar, Preacher being one of them, the most noticeable as she went about her work. Still relatively early for Otis’ to be full, it would be wall-to-wall people soon enough, she took food orders, delivered them to the kitchen, half listened to the game up on the TV screens, if the Rockies would only win it usually generated happy drunks and more tips. She crossed her fingers and prayed for the win.

“How’s life treating you, Ruby?” She caught and stalled putting a drink down in front of a guy and his girl, eyes tracking back to Preacher who was trained on her, fully intent.

I could do with a million dollars if you found some down the back of the couch. “Oh, you know.” Her smile was present but not full wattage because she didn’t want to encourage him.

Her bartender job was a fine line between being friendly and boneheads thinking she wanted their dicks if she giggled too long.

She was never sex shy. She liked sex, but nine times out of ten she went home alone and no one had interested her baser needs in forever, she was beginning to think her vagina had decided to retire to Florida.

And then he swaggered in.

And she felt her body respond on every part he swept his filthy green gaze over. Her libido hadn’t been this awake since … she couldn’t even remember. It was as if Avon had come calling and she was buying every damn lipstick in every damn shade.

Damn you, vagina.

Seriously, your timing sucks.

Wiping the length of the shiny oak, aware a pair of dirty eyes on her, she turned her head to look at him briefly, he hadn’t even touched his drink, cradling it between his palms, long tapered tattooed fingers holding it gently. Belated she asked. “You? Back in town for good now?” She’d noticed he was gone, but to cover her tracks she added quickly. “I saw your boys in here a lot without you, that was all.”

His smirk appeared and he ran a hand down his beard, otherwise didn’t say anything to that other than “For right now I am. Might be headed back to Nebraska in a few months, depending on how things go and if Rider wants me back there.”

“Nebraska?” Small world, she thought, meeting his gaze. He arched a dark brow.

“You’ve been?”

“I have family there,” she didn’t elaborate and then barber shop Daryl called for her attention. She passed a minute with him pouring his beer with a whiskey chaser. He was a terrible drunk that bordered alcoholism but always friendly with it. As she handed over his change, Ruby’s skin was all conscious of a dirty biker’s eyes on her, she wanted to rub her thighs together, to stop that little fire building there. Her stare refused to slide left to look at Preacher, that’s all his ego needed to let him know she was feeling his pheromones. Not buying a ticket, bud.

“How’s that brother of yours, he still over in Fort Springs?“ asked Daryl. The short round man with the mop of graying ginger hair sipped on his beer, she could smell the fumes on his breath a foot away, but she had a soft spot for the old man ever since his wife died last year. “He’s doing good,” Ruby had no clue, hadn’t spoken to him in a while. And even then, it had been a single text. 

When she’d lingered too long down one end of the long bar she made her way back up the other end, serving, wiping down, tossing the empty glasses the waitresses brought back into the dishes for the bus boy to take into the kitchen. It was all very routine, after two years she could do the job blindfolded, it just sucked it didn’t pay what she needed it to pay.

“Have some food with me later,” she heard in that rough voice she was avoiding for the last ten minutes. Her spine melted straight into a puddle, sure if she put her hand back there it would be sopping wet.

She kept on drying glasses. “Ruby. I can see you hear me.” He laughed rough, braced his arms on the wood, leaning his mass forward. Even sitting on the stool, he was incredibly big. “Anything you want. Italian. Chinese. Hot dog. Poptart. Come on, what can it hurt? You gotta eat.”

“I’m not hungry. And I’m working.” See, that was easy enough, she self-high-fived.  

“Not now, beautiful. After work.”

“I don’t finish until four.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Working.”

Persistent biker only laughed like he wasn’t bothered by the rejection.

That noise bothered her in a low region of her pants and a tiny bit higher where her boobs were. Ruby cleared her throat and hoped that was the end of it because ----

“How about next weekend? The club is having a party, the first cookout of the season, come on by.”

She sighed, sidled up to where he was sat, they were eye level, so close she could see every whisker crop shaved on his jawline and the bright flecks of blue in his irises. Full lips smiled with his head cocked. Fuck, he was attractive.

“Preacher man, take the very-obvious hint.”

“Nope. Come on, Ruby, you’ll enjoy yourself. Say yes.” Something dark and enticing entered his voice.

“Since when do you date? Is this the long game to get me into the bathroom?” She’d been told once her snarky tongue was like the devil.

He smirked. “Since now, apparently. Are you really gonna turn me down on my maiden voyage? Have a heart, beautiful.”

“Sorry. I don’t want to date you.”

Her standards were fair; no fuckwads with tiny dicks, freeloaders or mansluts. While she didn’t think, Preacher had a tiny penis, more than likely he was smuggling a tree trunk down there, not that she wanted to think of what he had hanging between his thick thighs, and she didn’t guess he was a fuckwad per say, in fact, he was always nice to the bar staff, he seemed to be popular with his boys, and he always paid for drinks, so that took care of the gold-digger, but she shouted bingo with his manwhoreness. The guy fucked anything that moved. She’d seen him with some of the temporary waitresses who shared a brain cell between them, so his tastes there let him down. Sorry, pal. Standards were in place for a reason.

“Why not?” Really? Even after that, the fucking man was unfazed looking at her like he was already licking her skin with that small smile edging his mouth. Jesus.

At that moment the other bartender Tom, a college kid, came on shift, she moved pressing her belly to the bar, putting her closer to Preacher for a second, so Tom could get by to the other cash register. Preacher used that one fucking second to smile almost nose to nose, to let her smell his cologne and say. “I’ve sat here ten minutes and watched you sneak glances at me eight times. Say yes, Ruby.” His stare was direct. Every glance she’d ever had from him was borderline inappropriate, but there was something else going on.

The commanding way he used his voice did something physical to her insides, they began to boil and pulse, growing wet and needy where places shouldn’t be wet and needy, dammit. She could not catch the tingles for Asher Priest of all men for fucks sake. She scowled and turned a vicious tongue on him, embarrassed by her body’s reaction, she naturally fired first, verbal bullets flying randomly.

For someone who worked in a bar, casual socializing was not her forte when people were drunk, but this sober directness had her jumbled inside.

“I don’t want to date you, Preacher, now or ever, you’re not my type. Go hook up with a bar-bunny, hey look, there’s a shit ton of women with their tits out over there, knock yourself out.”

“Damn. Jugular, beautiful.” Preacher laughed, straight even white teeth on display. “I fucking like that. I’ll wear you down. But I gotta head back to my boys, they missed me, even if you didn’t.” Sliding off the stool in a lithe move, he stood tall and winked before striding back to where the rest of the Renegade Souls sat drinking and laughing.

Over the next hour more of the biker men joined the two tables, they never caused any hassles, they spent a lot and flirted a lot with the waitresses gravitating to their station.

Ruby slyly watched it all, and goddammit, every time she looked over, Preacher was staring at her. Smiling. Knowingly.

She did not want to date that man.

Just my vagina does.