Page 1 of Viper

Chapter One

Clementine

Ten Years Ago

I never drink. Not ever. Twenty-seven years and not one sip of alcohol. It’s a badge I’ve been proudly wearing since I left my mom’s house eight years ago. Now that woman, she can drink a lake into a puddle. I told myself I’d never be like her.

Tonight, I’m proving myself wrong. I don’t know how many shots I’ve had, but the room is blurry. I think that might be my signal to stop.

“You alright?” A massive man covered in tattoos meets me at the side of the bar. His eyes are insane. They’re green with dots of brown mixed in. I’ve never seen a hazel like this. They’re wild looking, like he crawled up out of the deepest depths of the mountain looking for trouble.

I study him closer. He’s the biker type with one of those leather vest things that have patches all over it. There’s one with some mountains, another with some words, and a few that look like watercolor when I squint my eyes.

“Yes! I’m fine,” I snap. “Do I not look fine?” I’m holding the edge of the bar as I talk because the more I try to move, the dizzier I get.

The man cracks half a smile. “No, you don’t. You look like you can’t hold your liquor. Who can I call for ya?”

First of all, who is this dude to tell me who I am? Second, I can most certainly hold my liquor. I just happen to be holding it for the very first time. Of course, that’s going to come with complications. I’m human.

“What? I don’t need you to call anyone. I’m perfectly content.” This, of course, is a lie. Even drunk me knows that.

I slide up onto the stool and lean my head against the wood countertop. It’s cold against my face and it feels really good.

The man sits next to me. He smells like cedar and leather, with some kind of spice beneath it all that I can’t identify. I don’t hate it. “Okay, what’s going on?”

I glance toward him. “You realize you’re acting like a creep, right?”

“How so?” His face is straight.

“Well, you’re at a bar, hitting on a drunk woman.”

He cracks half a smile. “You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you?”

My eyes roll. “It’s true. I’m just calling a spade a spade.”

“Same, and you… look like a drunk girl making a fool of herself, which usually means something awful has happened. So me, being the nice guy I am, is looking out.”

“Right,” I slur, leaning up from the counter. “You’re a hero. Tell me more.”

“Sure, after you tell me why you’re at this bar. You’re not from around here.”

I roll my eyes and swing my feet back and forth, circling the rim of the empty glass in front of me. There’s loud country music playing over the speaker, but other than that, the bar is quiet tonight, though I have nothing to compare it to. Maybe bars are always quiet on Thursdays.

“Why are you here?” I know the rule about not answering a question with a question, but I’m drunk, so rules don’t apply to me. At least that’s the way my mother lived.

He laughs. “I’m always here. I sit in this chair,” he lifts his bottle, “I drink one beer, and I go home. It’s an end of the day thing. But you, you’re new. Why are you here?”

I stand from my chair. “I’m married.”

“You’re here because you’re married?”

“No!” I scoff. “I’m married, so stop talking to me.”

“Okay. Well, I can call your husband then.”

“No! He’s out of town. I’ll be fine.” The room spins and my legs go weak. I think I’m going down.

Big hands wrap my waist and I land against the man’s chest. There’s nothing sexual or intimate about the catch, but my body reacts to his touch in a way I’ve never felt.

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