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Chapter Two

Mary Jay

What in the what was that?

How did that even happen?

How about I just call you mine?

Was the man trying to make me collapse right then and there? No one says things like that unless I’m reading a romance novel or watching a movie.

And boy, did the man look like he was ripped from the pages of a romance novel. Tattoos covered his arms, even peeked out of the neck of his shirt, and his dark brown hair was cropped close on the sides while longer on top, begging for my fingers to comb through it. He looked like a biker version doppelgänger for David Gandy.

Jesus criminy!

I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and tossed it over the back of a chair.

I had lived above Dive Inn for over five years, and I had never once had anything like that happen to me.

Sure, I had drunks who tried to hit on me when I was just trying to get to my apartment, but they were always innocent and easily distracted.

Not this guy.

He had swooped in from out of nowhere and was ready to beat the hell out of Jim just because he bumped into me. Well, and yelled in my face, but I could have handled it.

I ran my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath.

Lost Mavericks MC.

I would, of course, catch the attention of someone in an MC. I had enough MCs in my life to be fine with never hearing those two letters together ever again.

It wasn’t the Lost Mavericks I had dealt with, but I could tell they were just like other bikers I knew.

Hell, Hail’s friends had managed to find a woman to stick her hand down their pants by only walking a few feet.

Crazy.

Meow.

“Tommy,” I cooed. “Are you going to come out?”

Tommy meowed again, sauntered out from under the bed, and did figure eights through my legs.

“Did you miss me?” I asked. “Need to get your scent all over me since these pants aren’t covered in hair?” Getting dressed was the last thing I did before I headed to work at the Cranston Produce warehouse.

Being covered in cat hair was not the best thing when I dealt with checking pallets of produce and loading them onto semis. How about a furball with your watermelon and oranges?

I leaned down and scratched the top of his head. “Missed you, big man.”

He led me over to my bowl as if I had forgotten where it was while I was gone and cracked open a can of wet food.

My apartment ran the length of the bar downstairs and was relatively small, but it was home. There weren’t a ton of places for rent in town, and I had been lucky to snag this place when I did.

The apartment was just one big open room. Well, except for the bathroom. That was thankfully enclosed at the other end of the apartment with a large tub and two-sink vanity.

My apartment was set up as separate rooms; there weren’t any walls actually separating them.

I could turn the TV on in the living room and comfortably watch it from my bed.

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