Tiffany…

I was sore in that delicious way a good fuck left behind when I stirred. It took me a second to remember where I was, and it took two more to realize I wasn’t alone in here. That someone was sitting in the old armchair by the bed. It took me only a half a second to realize that someone wasn’t the biker president who was my client.

I sucked in a sharp breath and turned away, letting my hair cascade over the scarred side of my face with an equally sharp turn of my head. I had been sleeping on my stomach, so I slid both hands across the crisp sheets beneath me and pushed myself into a sitting position. I was careful turning, giving the man my back, which crawled with nerves set aflame by the action. I don’t know why I bothered, but it allowed me to pull the sheet to my chest and cover myself, like the thin gray material would actually do anything to protect me from anything but his gaze. It didn’t even register as I did it that I had someone else’s, likely Dragon’s, tee shirt on.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked sharply, before thinking about it. My voice held far more bravado than I felt and I figured at least that was something. He dropped his booted feet off the ottoman to the wood floor in here and I jumped. He leaned forward, and I cringed back. He froze for half a second and moved slowly, leaning, bracing his forearms on his knees as his gaze swept over me and met mine.

“Name is Nikau, most of my friends call me Nik, the fellas around here call me Zeb,” he said and his voice was affable, his accent rich and melodic. It wasn’t quite British but it wasn’t quite Australian either, although between the two it was closer to the latter. I couldn’t place where he was from but I definitely wasn’t going to ask.

“What are you doing in here… I’m sorry, I feel like I’m going to butcher your name if I try to say it.” I frowned slightly and he smiled, his teeth very white, set in his deeply tan and ethnic skin. I had no idea what he was, but it was some sort of tribal from somewhere if I had to guess. My eyes were fixed on the deep blue-black ink etched into the skin of one side of his face in these intricate lines and whorls.

“Call me Nik or Zeb. Whichever you’d like,” he gave a shrug, the leather of his jacket and the vest over it creaking.

“Okay, Nik.” I swallowed hard. “What are you doing in here?”

“Dragon asked me to look after yah. Showed me the letter and the like. I reckon you have something to be afraid of with this guy.” He raised a hand and halfheartedly gestured to the curtain of my hair. I quailed, but there was something refreshingly forthright and honest about the way he approached the situation.

“So Dragon tells you to babysit a stripper from her completely psycho ex-boyfriend and you just do it?” I asked, mystified.

“Nah, he didn’t tell me to do nothin’. He asked me.”

I blinked slowly, and rolled my lips together. I had to think about this. I didn’t know what I had expected Dragon to do, but I sincerely hadn’t expected a bodyguard. I let out a breath slowly and I asked, “So, how is this supposed to work, then?”

He gave another shrug that could mean everything and nothing and said, “I reckon we should start with you getting dressed, yeah? Give you a lift back to your flat and see what you’ve got.”

“What I’ve got?”

“Yeah, locks, chains, you near a busy street? Off in the back? These things can make a difference.”

“I didn’t really know that and I can’t afford to move…”

“No worries, we can work with what you have.” He stood up in one fluid motion and I shrank back at the sudden movement. He paused, but only for like a half-second, and gave a nod and said, “Be out here waiting,” before sliding out the door and closing it behind him.

I had some mixed feelings about this turn of events. I didn’t know this guy. Of course, I didn’t really know Dragon all that well either, so I supposed in my case beggars couldn’t really be choosers. I got out of bed and slipped out of the tee-shirt I hadn’t remembered putting on. That tequila was the shit, but I was certainly paying the price for it now that I was moving around. Queasy, mouth and head full of cotton, muscles tight. I wanted a bottle of water and a couple of Advil something fierce.

As I was lowering my shirt over my torso and back into the waistband of my jeans, the door opened. I jumped and whirled, and as if conjured by magic, Dragon stood there with a bottle of water in one hand, his other curled around what I could only assume was a couple of tablets or something.

“Figured you might could use these,” he said, holding out his mitts. I took the water and held out my hand. He dropped a couple of brown round tablets into my upturned palm and I smiled a little one-sided.

“Powered up your extra sensory perception this morning?”

He chuckled darkly and said, “Livin’ this life, I’ve had a hangover or three. How you feel?”

“Like I’ve been plowed into by a truck.”

He nodded, “I’ve put my man Zeb onto your protective detail until we know if this guy is going to be a problem.” He raised an eyebrow and I could hear the question loud and clear, are you going to be a problem?

“No; yeah, uh, we’ve met. He seems… nice,” I finished lamely. I mean, he did seem nice, problem was that Silas had seemed nice in the beginning, too and trust wasn’t something that came naturally or easily, at least not anymore. I did trust Dragon, though. I mean, wasn’t that why I was here?

“Give him a chance, kid’s got a warrior’s spirit. The way I know it, he’s descended from a long line of ‘em. He’s good people and, I think, the right kind of fit for this particular situation.”

“You don’t need to convince me,” I said softly, downing the pills and draining half the water in three long swallows. “I came to you for help.” He eyed me critically and nodded once or twice, deciding I was telling the truth about the whole ‘convincing me’ part.

“I’m grateful,” I said, a bit breathless from my hydration binge. “I can’t tell you how many times the cops either didn’t believe me or didn’t care.” I dropped my gaze to the plastic bottle in my hands and sighed, the clack of the plastic sharp and loud in the little silence between us as my fingers massaged the bottle nervously. Opening up in any way was hard to do but I felt I sort of owed it to him at this point.

“Yeah, well, we aren’t law enforcement, Sugar. We know better.” I nodded faintly and finished the water in three or four slightly less greedy gulps. He held out his hands and I gave him the empty bottle and cap. He crushed it down into a round coin with his massive fists and screwed the lid on to keep it from bouncing back. He turned to go and stopped, reached into his back pocket and held out a sheaf of bills. I met his solemn dark eyes and plucked the cash from his fingers.

“Been a pleasure, Sweetheart,” he murmured and then he was gone. The way he’d said it, well, it held the distinct flavor of goodbye. Not as in I would never see him again, but definitely that… the professional relationship was done. I looked down at the cool grand between my hands, leafing through the bills, counting it three or four times to make sure I was really seeing it right. By the time I stuffed it into my purse I was definitely sure that it was my severance package and I couldn’t say I wasn’t a little sad about that.

Dragon, by far and most certainly, had been my best client. Respectful, and gentle for the most part, just an all-around nice guy. I couldn’t say I blamed him for wanting the distance, though. My situation was complicated and messy, and by coming to him for help had definitely blurred the set lines we had both abided by up to this point, unspoken as they may have been.

I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on my socks and boots, getting dressed mechanically as I pondered where things were going to go from here. It was the worst sort of feeling, knowing something bad was on the horizon but not knowing what shape it would take. This wasn’t like a storm you could prepare for. There was no telling what kind of crazy Silas was capable of at this point. He’d had three years to think about all sorts of inventive things to do by way of revenge for having him locked up. I had thought I had about five to finish paying for things and to get away from him.

I should have known better. The system had only ever been good at one thing where I was concerned and that one thing had been to fail me. I stood up with a harsh, angry sigh and tried to shake the emotion off. It hadn’t done me any good before and being angry would just turn me into the same damn thing I was running from. Silas was always angry.

Silas is just a dick. I thought bitterly and yeah, he was that too. A dick with a less than impressive one at that.

I let myself out into the hall and looked around. It was a bit of a ghost town and I was okay with that. Somehow me slinking out of Dragon’s room felt like it should be a walk of shame, but fuck that. I wasn’t ashamed of getting what I had honestly come here for in the first place. I was used to the judgment that came along with the job and that was when people only thought I was a stripper. If they knew I was an actual whore? I didn’t want to think about that so much. Not here in the Bible Belt of good ol’ Kentucky. Hell, the bible-thumpers would have my ass branded a harlot in nothing flat.

People here just didn’t know how to mind their own business; it was like it was impossible for them to stay in their own goddamn lane. It’s what I liked about Dragon. He never tried to pry, he minded his own business and let me keep mine to myself. I could and did respect that.

I found his man in the barroom, sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in front of him that was mostly empty. He looked up and stood up as I came into the room and said, “Cuppa?”

I think he was asking if I wanted a cup of coffee myself but it was a weird way of doing it. Probably from where he was originally from. I shook my head and said, “No, thanks, I can make fresh when I get home; which I would really like to do.”

“Ah, yeah, this way, then.”

He led me out into the sunshine and I winced as it sent a railroad spike through my eye and up into my brain. I fished a pair of large, bug-eyed sunglasses out of my purse and shoved them onto my face the same time he slid a pair of wraparounds of his own out of the inside pocket of his cut. He walked up to a battered old Harley in the line of bikes and I blinked, waiting for him to say ‘just kidding’ and move to one of the other bikes.

Instead, he dropped onto the seat and gave a twist to the bars, kicking up the stand it had been leaning heavily on and thumbing the switch.

“You’re joking, right?” I asked and I immediately winced and apologized. “Sorry, didn’t mean for that to come out so bitchy.”

“Hangover’s got you good, eh?”

“Something like that,” I agreed. Really, it was starting to hit me that I’d lost my best damn client and I was starting to worry about cash flow some. Not to mention I was really starting to realize that it sort of hurt that Dragon had taken a walk on me. I hadn’t expected that, like at all. I mean it made all sorts of sense, and I didn’t know how I had convinced myself that nothing was going to change. I mean… really. Still, I felt myself going into an almost mourning phase. Like you do after a breakup, which was just goddamn ridiculous.

“Go on, then,” he said, in that rich accent.

“What?” I asked.

“Get it out of your system, eh,” he said affably, sort-of smiling and I couldn’t help but smile a little myself, though I tried not to.

I mean, I was serious when I asked, “Does it even run?”

He grinned and fired it up and oh god, I wished he hadn’t. The angry, protesting growl the bike let out thrummed through my whole abused, aching body that I had so thoroughly poisoned with that fine tequila and punishing fuck-fest last night and my body was letting me know All. About. It.

My head throbbed, my face felt as if it was going to slide off and I swear every joint creaked like his leather jacket had inside the closed space of Dragon’s room. My teeth were set on edge, and I gritted them and waited for some nausea to pass before I put one hand on his offered arm and swung a protesting leg over the seat behind him.

Good gracious, that hurt. Dragon had done a great job of getting between my legs the night before, and given my ‘day job,’ you would think I would be limber enough that I wouldn’t hurt where my legs met my body, but nope. I’d overdone everything to excess, apparently, and my body was pissed and just letting me know about it at every turn.

“You good?” he asked, over the loud chugging of the beast beneath us.

“As I’ll ever be!”

“Right, where you live then?”

“Oh! Shit, sorry…” I gave him the address and he thrust a helmet back at me. I put it on, even as he shook out his shaggy hair and wrapped a bandana around his head, tight to his skull.

He dropped another half-helmet-looking thing onto his own head and without even bothering with the straps, said to me, “Hang on, then!”

I did, because honestly, I expected the bike to fall apart beneath us at any moment; it looked that bad. To be honest, it rode even worse – the vibrations were terrible. I don’t know that I could entirely chalk that up to the miserable hangover, either.