Page 43 of Vengeance

With a drink in his hand, he watches a club bunny he thinks is named Silky dance up on the stripper pole in front of him. She doesn’t have much rhythm, but she’s entertaining to watch nonetheless as she slides up and down to a song West doesn’t know. Not that he could tell if he did with the bass being turned up so high. She’s taken full advantage of this not being a strip club to shed every piece of clothing and spreading her legs to the many men sitting in front of her waiting to take her right there on the stage. The joys of a clubhouse. If he sticks around too long, he’ll see at least three men have her out here.

Diane Crawford, another club bunny who used to be the stepdaughter to one of the officers, walks over to him wearing a red teddy with a black, leather miniskirt. Her curly brown hair looks wild in the best possible way, and West finds himself annoyed with his attraction to her. He doesn’t hook up with bunnies. He doesn’t hook up with anyone.

He never expected to want to see what she looks like without her clothes after what she did to Colt. How she attached herself to a married man and made his wife believe he cheated. As much as he wants to be disinterested in someone so manipulative, he feels himself stiffen as she sits next to him and places her hand on his thigh. Damn her.

“Hey, handsome,” Diane says and smiles seductively.

“Hi, Diane.”

Her lips form into a pout, and she looks up at him with large, doe eyes. “You don’t want to call me beautiful or gorgeous in return?”

“I have a feeling you’re more than well-aware of how attractive you are. You don’t need me to say it to you.”

“Just because I know I’m hot doesn’t mean I don’t want to be told so every once in a while. Especially from a sexy, broody man like yourself.”

He sees the slight yellow bruising under her makeup, and he smirks. “I’m happy to see the nose seems to be healing well.”

Sneering, she moves and sits with her back against the couch next to him. Crossing her arms under her chest, she sighs. “That bitch.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t deserve it. We all know you did.”

“Excuse me?” Diane scoffs.

“You went after a taken man, which was your first mistake.”

Raising an eyebrow, she turns her body and looks at him. “I’ve been with plenty of taken men, and I’ve never had their women deck me.”

West can’t help but laugh at her ignorance. “There’s a difference when the taken man pursues you. You pursued him, unsuccessfully, by the way, and you paid the price. You can be mad all you want, but you totally deserved it. Especially going after Lex’s man. That’s just stupid.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“Oh, I’m more than aware,” he says and chuckles.

A man walks through the door wearing a Phoenix Rising kutte, the old logo of the club before the Drifters patched them over. West doesn’t recognize him, but a few of the Rising originals do, and they hurry over and hug him.

West nods towards the man. “You know who he is?”

“Bodie Hall,” Diane says and looks at her nails.

“Who’s Bodie Hall?”

“He was a Rising member years ago, but he left when he had to stop riding. I honestly thought he was dead. We all thought that’s what happened. That he just left to go off and die. Like a cat.”

Looking back at the guy, he looks well enough. And he can’t be much older than thirty. “Why’d you think he was dead? Because he left?”

“He has a bad heart. That’s why he couldn’t ride anymore. The issue affected his lungs or something like that, and then he couldn’t ride. And when you guys stop being able to ride, you’re basically dead. Plus, he just fell off the face of the earth. No one heard from him, and we just assumed he croaked.”

“Doesn’t look sick.”

She shrugs and jumps off the couch to stand in front of him with her hands on her hips. “No idea. Are we fucking tonight or not?”

West’s eyebrow lifts, and he stares at her. “What?”

“I can sit here and continue to try to entice you by running my hand along your thigh until I feel the head of your cock, which is already starting to point at me, by the way. You’ll pretend you’re not interested, but after a while, it’ll become too uncomfortable, and you’ll need to relieve the strain. Then you’ll have a decision to make. With anyone else in here, it would be a sure thing that we’re fucking, but with you, it’s about fifty-fifty. Rather than waste my time, I figured I’d just ask. Are we fucking or not?”

She’s right. If she’d toyed with him, even though he’s turned on, he would’ve turned her down. He’d go home to his apartment and jack off to release the tension instead.

“That was straight to the point.”

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