Page 36 of Haze's Jewel

Afterwards, she turns to Vapor. “You should be ashamed, you scared the living daylights out of her. You know how timid she is.”

Vapor takes a step closer. “If she doesn’t want chastised by me, then maybe you’ll remember that my wife is wearing a property cut and you’re not. We put our women in our cuts so everyone knows to leave them the fuck alone. Since you’ve both been with the club for a while, I would have thought you knew that already.”

Bella replies in a more moderate tone. “We have a right to speak our mind. The last time I checked this was a free country, even the part owned and operated by the Savage Legion.”

“Cut the crap, both of you. Everyone here knows not to mess with women wearing a property cut. Finding the two you aggravating my wife fills me with white hot rage. I suggest you both take the rest of the night off because if I have to look at you, I’m going to be tempted to ban you for crossing the line with my old lady. Remember what happened with Lori?”

Both women slowly start backing away. It occurs to me that they didn’t start paying attention and taking the situation seriously until he threatened to ban them. That’s some pretty brazen behavior out of club girls. They both turn and flee when he takes a step closer.

Vapor moves to Trix’s side and places a warm kiss on her temple as he gives her a hug. “Sorry about that, sweetness.”

Trix just sighs. “The club whores here are brazen.”

“Club girls, not club whores. How many times do I have to tell you that.” Vapors words may seem harsh, but the delivery is anything but harsh. He’s smiling indulgently down at her, so I know he’s not really mad at her.

Trix gazes up at him and replies, “I’ll stop calling them club whores when they stop acting like classless whores. My grandfather would have had the prospects beat anyone who dared to speak to a brother like they just did to you.”

“Well, you know the Savage Legion is not the kind of organization to abuse women. If anything, we’re overly permissive and it leads to problems like we’ve had tonight. I hope you two weren’t terribly inconvenienced by their useless banter.”

Trix shrugs it off. “I’m used to it. You can only expect so much decency from a club whore. This is a classy club. I don’t know why you still feel the need to associate with women like that.”

“If it were up to me, we wouldn’t. Unfortunately, it’s not my decision. Therefore, you and I will have to make the best of it.”

They settle down to wait for Haze with me, but I’m lost in my own thoughts. Maybe I dismissed Candy and Bella’s warning out of hand without proper consideration. I really didn’t like how they spoke about Haze being pretty much insatiable. I hate to think that I’m just a new piece of strange that he’s picked up, a diversion of some sort from his life’s stressors that he’s already told me about.

Even now, he’s out risking life and limb to figure out who set his boat on fire. And to figure out why they painted that horrible word with my likeness on the burning boat. I just hope nothing bad happens and he comes home safe and sound. It occurs to me to wonder if he’s going to end up resenting me over his boat getting torched by the drunk I rejected. I know he said he wasn’t bothered, and that his insurance would cover it, but I also remember him saying he and his brother put a lot of time and energy into fixing it up.

That coupled with the club girls saying I’m just one in a long line of girlfriend type relationships Haze has had, makes me think that maybe taking all his charm and sweet talk at face value was a mistake.

How well do I know him after just a couple of months?

“Are you okay, Anna? You look like you’re zoning out a bit.” I glance up to find Vapor and Trix with twin expressions of concern on their faces.

I can tell my next words catch him by surprise. “Do you think your brother is the settling down type?”

Vapor’s brows drop into a frown. He takes a moment to craft an appropriate response before answering my question. “To be honest, we were both sworn bachelors. My brother was always more adventurous than me when it came to women. I got bored of one-night stands with club girls. The women who frequent our clubhouse continued to be an endless source of fascination for my brother.”

I felt my expression shut down as I turned his words over in my mind.

“Don’t act like you didn’t know my brother had a prodigious body count. He told me that he fessed up about that to you early on.”

I give him a quick nod, acknowledging his words were true. “He did, and I appreciated the honesty.”

“I’m assuming that a beautiful woman like yourself isn’t a virgin. Am I right?”

Trix shoots Vapor an annoyed look and says to me, “You don’t have to answer that.”

“I know. Thanks for sticking up for me.”

Trix shrugs. “Girl code means we speak up for each other. Also, I don’t think Vapor was trying to insinuate anything.”

Vapor interjects, “I truly wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. I was just pointing out that neither of you are virgins, so numbers shouldn’t matter. Even though my brother was a sworn bachelor before he met you and made fun of me for how fast and hard I fell for Trix, doesn’t mean he’s immune from falling in love with you.

“Just give him some time to switch gears in his mind and see that he can have a better life with one woman as long as she’s the right person, than playing the field for all eternity.”

That stung. Here I am, head over heels in love with Haze. And his twin brother, the man he’s closest to in the whole wide world, is in essence telling to hang in there and see if his brother ends up taking a liking to me enough to stay with me.

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