Hunter was dreaming about a girl with jet-black hair and aquamarine eyes. Her eyes were like the ocean in places he’d never been but always dreamt about; places like Hawaii and Tahiti, where the water was clear and warm and more green than blue. She was smiling at him, just before she raised the two by four and slammed it into his head. He ripped his eyes open and for the second time that day, Levi’s big, brown doe eyes were the first ones he saw. He liked the kid, but he’d rather wake up to a beautiful woman.

“Hey,” Levi said. At least the kid wasn’t a talker.

“Hey. How long was I asleep this time?”

“Few hours.”

“I stayed awake all night. How long is Doc going to have you guys watching me?”

Levi shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is Dax said you got beat up by a girl…” His lips twitched as Hunter interrupted him.

“I was ambushed.”

Levi cleared his throat and looked like he was struggling to keep a straight face as he said, “Okay, you were ambushed by a girl…”

“Do we have to keep dwelling on the gender of the person swinging the steel pipe?”

He chuckled. “No, but it’s funny.”

“It’s irrelevant. She didn’t beat me up, the pipe did. It’s been over twelve hours now so you’re excused from duty, and I need to get back to work before Chase shows up with a pipe of his own.” Chase was Hunter’s cousin, and his boss. Hunter wasn’t afraid of him. Chase had gotten most of the brains in the family, whereas Hunter and his brother Brett had gotten the brawn. Hunter could kick Chase’s ass easily, if he had to. The problem with working for family was that he’d never hear the end of it from his aunts and his own mother if he did. As it was, most of them blamed Chase and the business they were in for Brett’s death. The ones that didn’t, blamed Hunter. Any more violence in the family and nobody would invite him to Sunday dinner any longer. Besides, as much of a prick as Chase could be, he paid well, and Hunter loved the autonomy of his job and didn’t want to lose it. Hunter threw back the covers and Levi groaned and covered his eyes with his long arm. Hunter looked down and realized he was completely naked. “What did you do with my clothes?”

“Me?” Levi asked incredulously. “I didn’t undress you.” Hunter looked around the room. He was in one of the rooms upstairs in the Skulls’ clubhouse. He’d used it before with one or maybe four of the club girls. The only furniture in the room was a bed, a chair, and a nightstand. Hunter didn’t see his clothes anywhere. He stood up and Levi groaned again. “Can you cover that shit up?”

Hunter grinned, and then he winced. The movement of his face made his head throb and he suddenly realized he was light-headed too. He fought through it, tired of the biker nursemaids, and said, “Jealous?”

Levi chuckled. “Not hardly. Your clothes aren’t here though. Dax didn’t want you getting up and leaving, so he had the girls take them to wash.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nope. Doc said you shouldn’t ride for at least forty-eight hours and you should stay on bed rest. I guess Dax knew you’d be stubborn about that.”

“Stubborn my ass. Give me your clothes.” Levi was several inches taller than Hunter and his muscles were lean where Hunter’s were bulky. There was no way Levi’s clothes would fit him, but they’d be better than nothing. Levi looked at him like he was crazy.

“No offense, Hunter, but fuck that.” Hunter growled and pulled the afghan off the top of the bed. Wrapping up in that, he headed for the door. “I can see your ass through the holes in that,” Levi chuckled.

“Keep looking, pervert.” Hunter headed out into the hallway and for the stairs. He could hear Levi following him and was halfway down the stairs when he heard the message tone on Levi’s phone. “You texted Dax, didn’t you?”

“Yep.”

“You told on me? Big, badass, tattling biker.”

Levi laughed again, “You got beat up by a girl.”

“Fuck you.”

Levi kept laughing and Hunter kept going. He took the stairs down to the great room, and of course, it was packed with bikers and their old ladies and club girls. Doesn’t anyone in this fucking place have a job? He ignored their stares and the little voice in his head telling him that they’d just started to accept him as part of the club and now they were staring at his naked ass through holes in an afghan. He walked over to Dax’s office and knocked hard on the door.

“Yup.”

He pushed the door open and Dax didn’t bother trying to suppress his smile. Old Hawk, asshole that he was, laughed outright, and loudly. Hunter ignored him and addressed Dax. “I need my clothes. I have to get back to work.”

“Doc said forty-eight hours, Hunter.”

“Larry’s trail will be cold by then.”

Dax lost his battle with the smile and said, “I’m pretty sure it got cold when that girl hit you in the head with a pipe.”

“I never should have told you assholes it was a girl.”

“You had no choice, you were talking about her while you slept. Look, Hunter, I just don’t want you taking off on your bike and passing out and ending up dead. You need rest. I’ve already got guys out asking questions about Larry and trying to find out about his family.”

“Asshole wasn’t supposed to have any family. At least that’s what we had in our files.”

“Well, if he does, we’ll weed them out. Especially if that girl is as hot as you’ve been going on about while you were talking in your sleep.”

Hunter groaned. “She could have been ugly as sin and as fat as a Sumo wrestler for all I remember,” he lied. He couldn’t get her face out of his head, and it was beautiful.

“David sent Vice over to the bar.”

“Fuck, why did he do that?”

Dax raised an eyebrow. “Because some of those girls working upstairs were underage.” Hunter knew Dax had a thing about kids being exploited. Not that he didn’t have a problem with it, but someday he’d like to find out exactly why Dax had appointed himself keeper of the sanctity of childhood.

“Well, hell, now I’ll never find the son of a bitch again. That place was my only lead.”

“The detective in charge is a good friend of David’s and Angel’s. He promised he’d do his best to get anything he could out of them about Larry and pass it on to us. So, what you need to do now is relax, heal, and be ready to grab him as soon as we have a location. At the very least, maybe they can find the woman who knocked you out.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Ambushed me,” he said.

Dax chuckled. “Yeah, okay. Anyways, how about I set you up with a computer and whatever else you need to work from here at least for another day?”

“I’ll have to talk to Chase. I’m sure he’s pissed.”

“I talked to him just about an hour ago. He was his asshole self, but when I told him that we were helping look for Larry, he chilled out a bit. I let him know you were under doctor’s orders to take the next twenty-four hours off.”

“Fuck.” Hunter sighed. Chase wasn’t stupid enough to piss off Dax Marshall, but he knew that he’d still hear it as soon as his cousin got ahold of him. Maybe a twenty-four-hour staycation wouldn’t be so bad. “Okay, I’ll take a laptop and my phone.” Dax nodded and motioned at Levi. Levi pulled the phone out of his pocket and handed it to Hunter. Hunter grimaced when he looked at it and saw five missed calls and a handful of text messages from Chase. With another sigh he said, “Can I get some clothes or do I have to work on the laptop naked?”

With a deep, raspy, smoker’s laugh Hawk said, “Oh, hell nah!”

“Shut the fuck up, old man.” Hunter glared at him. He really didn’t like the old guy and he wondered why Dax kept him around. Hunter had heard all the stories and he knew that if Dax Marshall didn’t like you, you either got a boot in the ass, or you disappeared, depending on how badly you’d pissed him off. Why the hell he hadn’t done either with Hawk was beyond him.

Hawk flipped him off and Dax shot the old man a warning look, and then turning back to Hunter he said, “I’ll have one of the girls bring your clothes up to you.” Dax looked at Levi then, who was still standing in the doorway. “Can you get him one of the laptops from the basement?”

“Sure. You picky about brand names?” Levi asked Hunter.

“What the fuck you got down there, Best Buy?” Levi grinned and cocked an eyebrow. Hunter shook his head. “Whatever is fine, as long as I can get online.”

Ten minutes later, he was back in the room upstairs with a laptop. Levi had just left when there was a knock on the door. Hunter opened it to Gigi. She was a five-foot-two, platinum blonde with a size DD chest that made him wonder how she didn’t topple over. It also made her one of the Skulls’ most popular porn stars. “Hey, Hunter,” she said in a seductive voice. “I heard you were asking for clothes—that’s new.”

Hunter grinned. He had sampled those DDs more than once. Now that he knew he was grounded for at least a day, he was thinking about doing it again. “You want to come in and spend some time with me before I put them back on?” he asked her.

“What did you have in mind?”

“I’m up for whatever you’re in the mood for, Gigi.”

“Well, I have to leave for a shoot in half an hour, so I don’t have much time.”

Gigi was an aspiring actress, or at least that’s what she told people. She’d come to the club on the arm of one of the nomads who passed through and she’d gotten a job with the club in their porn business. She claimed it was just until she made enough money to go out to California and “go legit,” but Hunter got the feeling she enjoyed her work…a lot. He was enjoying the tight shirt she was wearing and the way her tits were spilling over the top. She had a short little leather skirt on with it that came to the top of her thighs and barely covered what he knew to be a sweet, sexy little pussy. His headache was all but gone just thinking about it. He’d often wished that he could bottle the female flesh. It was a cure for everything that ailed and if he could package it, he could make a fortune.

“I’d love to help you rehearse,” he said with a grin.

Gigi stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “In today’s scene I’m a housewife who’s caught in nothing but her robe by the cable guy…I’m sure you can imagine the rest…”