Page 15 of Biker's Enemy

Our eyes lock as I stare at him for a few seconds to double check that he’s serious. My opinions on my physical appearance are one thing but when you’re a plus-sized black woman, random people feel extremely comfortable letting you know exactly how they feel about your looks. Old men make creepy comments about your “thickness” on the lighter end of things. A white guy at a gas station once said, “Damn that bitch is fat” right in front of me. Like I didn’t have feelings.

It’s like it says something about my worth as a person that I have extra weight. Tanner looks exactly like the type of guy who would typically target me, so I don’t know what to say.

I would prefer not to be the target of some white guy’s jokes.

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Tanner circles me a little and then takes a seat next to me. I can smell his cologne and damn, it smells good. He also has the largest arms I’ve ever seen. His biceps are insanely thick and muscular. I wish I didn’t notice them. He has a tattoo of a red-tailed hawk on his shoulder.

I can tell because I used to love the Animorphs series growing up. I read every single book from my local library and I was absolutely obsessed with Tobias. I bet he has the hawk tattoo for some crazy redneck reason, but the feathers peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt attract my attention.

“Well, Quin. I’m glad to hear you don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Why?”

He winks. “It means you have the perfect opportunity to run away with a cowboy.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not exactly built for running.”

“That’s funny,” he says. But his expression doesn’t change. “Can I get you a drink to wash down breakfast?”

“I already had orange juice.”

“Water?”

His closeness and his pale blue eyes both make me nervous. Tanner walks towards the sink and again, I can’t help but stare at him. He returns and sets down a glass of filtered water.

“There,” he says. “I’ll wait with you until Hunter and Juliette come back. You play cards?”

“Only spades.”

“What about gin rummy?”

I shake my head and take a sip of water.

“I’ll explain the rules,” he says. “It’s an easy two person game. I used to play with a buddy of mine and bet bike parts but he has somewhat of a gambling addiction, so we had to cut back.”

Tanner pulls a deck of cards out of his leather cut which has the name CASH stitched across a tag on his chest. The cut has other patches sewn on with various symbols and a couple latin phrases. I get distracted from observing his patches when he shuffles the cards.

“So,” Tanner says. “This is the goal of the game.”

His eyes flicker towards mine and the second I make eye contact with him, I get nervous again and bury myself in the glass of water, chugging the rest.

He waits for me to set the glass down before he continues explaining the rules. I fixate my gaze at a point on Tanner’s forehead as he keeps shuffling and bridging the cards.

“You want to be the first one to run out of cards…”

I try to nod, but my limbs feel sluggish. The weird feeling sends a single jolt of panic to my brain. The primal state of panic is the last thing I remember before either slumping forward or falling backwards, completely unconscious.

Eight

CASH

Iwatch her sleep for three peaceful hours. I get up a couple times to check on Avery, but for the most part, I just watch Quin – my beautiful captive. Once Hunter and Juliette find out, they’ll be pretty mad, but by the time they find out, it won’t matter. I have what I need and more importantly, some type of understandable pretext for keeping this woman here.

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