Page 3 of The Sentinels

I gave him a look over my shoulder.

"Don't cut your hair."

What? That had been the last thing I’d been expecting to hear come out of his mouth. I could only stare at him silently as shock held me frozen in place. Our eyes locked for a long minute, and what I thought I saw in Ace's warmed my blood with a promise I knew he wouldn't fulfill.

He couldn't possibly know how I felt about him. All he knew was that I took care of his needs a few nights a week. I didn't know how to respond to his comment; it was personal and so out of character for him. I forced myself to look away, saying as I walked away from their table, "I hadn't planned on it."

I didn't want him to think that anything he had to say would sway me one way or the other. He already had enough power over me. But deep down, I was thrilled by his demand.

Chapter 3

Ace

I kicked back with my brothers and quietly savored the whiskey in front of me, vaguely aware of their conversation. Something had caught my eye, something that caused my dick to twitch as a filthy image flashed through my head. I was fond of long hair, especially when it was attached to a naked woman who was running it along my torso and over my dick and balls. I wondered who the shapely siren was, and cast a quick look around the bar at who was still there. Had Tanner hired a new server? I let my gaze roam down her curvy backside, a frown spreading across my face when slowly I began to recognize the clothes.

Christ, did that glorious mane belong to Emerson?

MyEmerson?

I knew it wasn’t right, but I’d begun to think of her as mine.

She spun around, and I knew for sure that it was her. I felt a moment of self-recrimination. This woman had just given me a blowjob, one of many, and I'd cared so little about her that I hadn't really looked at her before. Not my finest moment, to discover how much of a jerk I was. Not once in the months that we'd been involved had I given her more of myself than my dick. I had to ask myself why, when I’d had similar arrangements with other women before, and I’d at least gotten them off. I’d even fucked them once or twice.

Jesus, why she was letting me use her like that? I thought about the money I'd thrown at her, money that she'd never refused. I figured that it must have accumulated to a few hundred dollars over the months.

For the first time I sat back and let my gaze take her in,reallytake her in. She wasn't beautiful. She was cute in a, “let's-have-some-fun, no-commitment” kind of way. She was the girl next door that you invited to hang out with you and your friends. Nothing serious.

But she was far from being a girl.

I wasn't too pleased with myself at the moment. Anger that I couldn't explain began to simmer in my blood. I was angry that she'd let me use her in the way that I'd been using her for months. Didn't she have any self-respect? How many other men did she take out back and do the same fucking thing with? I'd never seen her with anyone else, but then I wasn't there five nights a week while she was working. Fuck, was I just one of many dicks she was sucking for some extra cash? And then a thought crossed my mind that made me even angrier--did she fuck them?

Why the fuck did that make me angry?

Our eyes locked, she smiled, and I looked away, not wanting her to get the wrong idea. Permanent women weren't in my future. I could blame it on a lot of things, but the truth was that I liked my life the way it was. Alone. Uncomplicated. No one to worry about but myself. Even before I'd enlisted, gone to war, and then come home with a fucking permanent reminder of the hell I'd gone through, I hadn't wanted a serious relationship. I liked being free, and that included being free to fuck any woman that I wanted. When I wanted.

I had my brothers, and that was all I needed.

The trouble was that my brothers were starting to find things that were more meaningful than outside of the MC life. They were beginning to find women who completed them, who gave them a reason to go home at night. I’d watched as one brother after another slowly, if even unwillingly, had fallen into the shit they called domestic fucking bliss.

Tanner had Ruby and their twin sons. Mark and Judith had gotten married six months ago and were expecting their first kid. Sid had Lonnie, Skipper and Della were married, and Rod had recently met a little cutie named Cookie who he’d found after she broke down on the side of the road. It was just a matter of time before they all fell. We weren't getting any younger, and I was the oldest of them all at forty-seven.

Too fucking old to change.

"What shit's going through your head right now, brother? You look deep in thought."

Tanner's amused tone drew my attention to where he was sitting across the table from me. Ruby was firmly planted on his lap. I gave my head a shake. "Nothing important," I said, realizing in an instant that I was lying through my teeth. "Who's got the boys tonight?" I took a sip of my whiskey.

As always, any mention of Daniel and Michael pulled a smile from Ruby that brightened her eyes and lit up the room. "Who else? Skipper and Della are sitting with them."

So that was why they hadn't come tonight. It was no secret that Della couldn't have children, due to some prick ex-boyfriend who'd beaten her nearly to death. Skipper had met her doing guard duty on her while she'd been in the hospital and they'd been glued at the hip ever since. She loved the twins, and any time there was an opportunity to babysit she jumped at it.

Tanner's expression revealed that he was wise to the fact that I’d changed the subject. There were twelve of us in the Sentinels, and we'd all been friends for years, before our stints in the military. Tanner was the president, and good at reading people. Hell, we all were.

"I think it's time for me to head home," Ruby quipped, smiling up at Tanner. The love she felt for him was evident in her adoring gaze.

He nodded in agreement. "Gonna hang back with my brothers for a while."

"We'll give her a ride home," Judith offered.

---