Alex disconnected the call. He was getting ready to punch in the number of the cab company when the phone rang.
“What?” he snapped into the line, expecting it to be Dawg.
“We have a problem.” Zeke’s voice was almost amused.
“No shit!” Alex bit out. “What now?”
“I just talked to Natches. He called the cab company. Driver took her to that bar at the edge of town.
You know the one. The biker bar.”
Alex didn’t say a word. He shut the phone, tossed it to the seat, and executed a U-turn in the middle of town before speeding through the traffic to the bar in question.
The biker bar. The one where Rogue Walker and her friends kept the town filled with gossip.
His jaw clenched as the phone rang and he ignored it. Dawg called. Natches called.
Ten minutes later he swung into the crowded graveled parking lot as the sheriff’s cruiser pulled in behind him. Before Alex was out of the truck, Natches rolled in on his bike, Chaya, Crista, and Kelly pulled in, and Dawg eased his pickup in behind them.
Alex strode furiously to the door, jerked it open, and stepped into the raucous, smoky atmosphere. He hadn’t taken half a dozen steps inside when he came to a full, hard stop and just stared.
He swore he swallowed his tongue. He heard Zeke curse behind him. Dawg was chiding Crista over something and Chaya might have been arguing with Natches. All Alex knew, all he saw, was Janey.
She was incandescent, and it wasn’t that bright red, too-damned-snug, tiny, strapped little camisole top that made her light the room up either.
Her hair was straight, feathering around her flushed face, her reddened lips. Her green eyes glowed. Her arms were stretched over her head as she and Rogue rocked with some leather-clad dancer on the dance floor, both of them laughing and weaving, swaying seductively as the men around them danced with them. Old, young—they had the whole fucking bar rocking. There were other women on the floor.
The women that ran with the bikers, dressed scantily, usually fighting. Not tonight. Tonight, they were dancing, and Janey was in the middle of it.
She tossed her head, shook her hips, and a vise tightened around his balls. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
She better be wearing panties.
That short black leather skirt flirted with the tops of fishnet stockings, and red fuck-me pumps graced her small feet.
And she was having fun.
Alex felt something clench in his chest, tighter than before. His guts felt twisted, his cock was a steel spike throbbing beneath his jeans, and his senses were so fucking scattered he didn’t know how to sort them out.
He’d seen Janey as sweet, vulnerable. Someone he had to protect from life and from himself. Hell, he’d never stop thinking that. But that was a woman on the dance floor, and every male instinct raging inside him warned him that if he didn’t take what belonged to him, then someone was going to take it away from him.
Tortured need clashed with the honor he had always demanded of himself. Dark, brutal, the memories of the past filtered through his brain as he watched her.
He’d almost loved once in his life. At twenty, two years after joining the Army. He was in Germany. His lover was an embassy liaison, and she had died in a back alley on her way home to her apartment. A victim of senseless violence. It hadn’t been terrorists. She hadn’t been a spy; she hadn’t known any secrets. She’d been raped and murdered, and left in a filthy back street.
And Alex had protected his heart ever since. It wasn’t just terrorism or betrayal that killed. Women died every day. Innocent deaths. Acts of God. In the snap of a finger all the happiness that could build inside a man could be snatched away just as easily.
He couldn’t let himself love. But he couldn’t walk away from the vision on that dance floor either.
Her green eyes shimmered between her dark, smoky lashes. Red lips curled with eager fun, not lust. Not invitation. Simple fun.
She bumped hips with Rogue before they turned and swayed with several other eager male dancers. She was laughing, keeping her distance; she wasn’t touching. She was excitement itself, and he was going to come in his jeans just watching her.
“Natches, leave her alone,” Chaya was ordering her husband behind him.
“Dammit, Chaya, they’re bikers,” Natches was arguing.
“She’s having fun, Natches.”
Alex swallowed tight. He moved through the crowd, pushing his way past them, and headed to the dance floor as the band slid smoothly into a slow, sensual tune. Janey laughed and shook her head at the men around her, pointed to the bar, and turned to leave.
He caught her at the edge of the floor. His arm slid around her waist, pulling her against him as she stiffened.
“Dance with me, Janey.” He lowered his lips to her ear, feeling her soften, feeling her body flow into his.
Alex turned her slowly, pulled her into his arms, and, staring down at her, jerked her hips to his before he began swaying with her.
It always amazed him, each time he had her in his arms, how tiny she was compared to him. A good six inches shorter even with heels, her curvy little body fragile against him. His hands cupped her hips, slid to her back. He wanted to crush her against him. Lift her up and carry her away. Touch her. Fill her with the hunger raging, dark and brutal, inside him.
“I couldn’t find you,” he whispered against her ear. “I was worried.”
Her hands smoothed over his shoulders, as though she enjoyed touching him.
“I left all the lights off,” she murmured, letting her body stroke against his, caress him.
“You didn’t tell me about the lights. And you took a cab.”
“I don’t drink and drive.” Her hands ran over his black leather jacket.
“I’ll drive.” He brushed her hair aside from her ear with his chin and tasted the lobe of her ear.
He heard her sharp intake of breath, felt her soften further against him.
“I want to go parking.” Leaning back, her smile drowsy, her cheeks flushed, she gazed up at him with enough hunger to fry his brain. “I’ve never been parking.”
Parking with Janey? God, he hadn’t taken a girl parking since he was sixteen years old.
“Janey, I’m a man . . .”
“Who’s going to take me parking,” she told him firmly, choosing that moment to rub her hips against his, to stroke over his cock with her lower stomach as her hands clenched against his biceps. “I’ve never been parking, Alex.”She was going to kill him. Because he was going to take her parking.
“You really want to lose your virginity in the front seat of my pickup?”
The thought of it had flames shooting through his mind. Hell. The image of that in his head would make him crazy.
“When I was seventeen, I was at the lake, remember?” She pushed her hands beneath his jacket, her fingers stroking over his chest.
“I was thirty-one,” he reminded her.
“I wanted to leave with you. I wanted to jump into that pickup you had and just ride away with you. And I imagined you taking me parking.” Her tongue licked over her lips. “I wanted you, Alex. I wanted you so bad.”
He was fucking crazy.
“I’m not easy, Janey,” he tried to warn her. “I won’t be satisfied with a little stroke and tease.”
“I’m a woman, Alex. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to have fun.”
One hand slid down his chest, his abdomen; her fingers curled beneath the band of his jeans and stroked over the throbbing, sensitive head of his cock.
He had to clench his teeth to hold back his cum. Still, his erection throbbed and a small spurt of silky release pulsed to her fingers from the tiny slit.
And what did the little witch do? With him shielding her body, she pulled her damp finger free, lifted it to her lips, and licked. Curled her tongue right around her damned finger and her lashes dipped in pleasure.
“We’re leaving.”
“I’m having fun, Alex,” she murmured, but she didn’t fight him when he gripped her upper arm and pulled her after him.
“Where’s your coat?”
“Oh. Damn. I must have forgot to wear one,” she said, too innocently, as they left the dance floor.
Fuck. He jerked his jacket off and pushed her arms into the sleeves, thanking God the bar was dim and it was dark outside.
“Wow, the whole family is here.” Janey stared around Alex as she approached not just her brother and cousins, but their wives as well.
Rowdy, Kelly, Dawg, and Crista watched her and Alex with an edge of amusement. Natches looked thunderous, Chaya resigned.
“What the hell are you doing here, Janey?” Natches groaned as he jerked her to him for a rough hug.
“You scared the hell out of me.”
She wanted to roll her eyes. “Sorry. Did I break curfew?”
Chaya snickered. Natches didn’t.
“Come on.” Natches gripped her arm. “We’ll take you home.”
“Natches, I’m not sixteen.” She pulled her arm back and almost glared at him. “Besides, Alex promised to take me riding around. I’m not ready to go home.”
“Then you can come back to the boat,” Natches gritted out.
“Chaya, take him home and give him some before he blows a gasket.” She stared back at her brother in shock. “Natches, what is your problem? What? It’s a sin for me to go out and have fun?”
“With him, it should be illegal.” He glowered at Alex. “He’s too old to be running the roads with you.”
“Oh geez, am I still in high school?” Janey shook her head and stared back at Natches angrily. “Get a grip, Natches. Go home. Have a beer. I promise to be home in time for curfew. Oh wait.” She widened her eyes. “That’s right—I’m over twenty-one. I don’t have a curfew.”
Did his lips twitch? His eyes were narrowed, his lips tightly compressed, but she swore she saw them twitch.
“Damn, I think she’s a Mackay.” Rowdy laughed as Janey turned and stalked out the door, followed closely behind by Alex.
Boy, she bet he was enjoying having three Mackays at his back.
“Natches, you poke that fist in my back again and I’m going to break your hand.” Alex’s voice drifted through the night, a low murmur of danger as Janey felt him stiffen behind her.
“Alex, please don’t break his hand.” Chaya sighed. “I have several uses for it. Natches, stop being an ass.”
“Yeah, really.” Janey turned and stepped around Alex.
She caught him. Fist raised, Natches was getting ready to poke Alex in the middle of the back again.
Actually, it was probably more of a full-fledged strike than a poke.
His fist stilled as he stared back at her.
“High school,” she reminded him.
Natches dropped his fist, only to cross his arms over his chest.
“He’s fired. Chaya and I will stay at the apartment with you.”
Janey leaned back against Alex’s pickup, sensing the tension running high between the two men. Because of her. They were friends. They had always been friends. Was she coming between that?
“Do you trust me, Natches?” she finally asked, needing to know.
She hadn’t asked him that, ever. But suddenly, the need to know rose inside her like an illness.
“I’ve always trusted you, Janey.” He frowned.
“Then stop,” she said softly. “For my sake, Natches. Please.”
He leaned closer. The moon added brilliance to his dark green eyes as they glittered in warning. “If he breaks your heart, I’ll kill him.”
“If he breaks my heart,” she whispered back, “you’ll never know.”
Natches shook his head at that. “I’ll know, Janey,” he promised her. “Just like I’ve known other things for years.” He looked at where Alex had been drawn aside by Dawg and Rowdy. He watched them, closely, but he couldn’t hear the conversation.