Page 17 of The Devil's Scars

“Do you think we should – should get the baby something? From us?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno.” Jinx looked around helplessly. “A – a teddy bear?”

“What about this?” Ice asked, surprising his friends by holding up a mobile. “Don’t babies like these things?”

The others shrugged.

“Should we track down Linda and ask her?” Jinx said, only half-joking. “She’d know.”

“Naw,” Ice said, his cold blue eyes showing a rare glimpse of humanity. “Let’s fly solo on this one, boys. Let’s get the… music thingy.”

**

Zoe opened the front door of her rented house, and watched as three guys carried in boxes and bags of stuff from IKEA. They stood in her living room, arms full, nodded at her.

“Hey, honey. Kansas, Jinx, Ice,” said the one with a shaved head, dark eyes and a cool neck tattoo. “Where do we set this shit up?”

“Zee,” she replied. “And over here.”

She led them to Keira’s bedroom, stood aside, watched them troop right on in. It wasn’t a very big room to begin with, and the three of them standing in it made it look even smaller. God, these guys took up lots of space.

“So.” The only one to speak so far set down everything, wiped his hands on his jeans. He approached her, hand extended, and in her shock at his good manners, Zoe actually extended her own. “Let’s do this properly, right? I’m Kansas. We spoke on the phone a few times.”

“Yes. I remember.” Zoe smiled, making sure to not show her teeth. No sense being too friendly yet – not until she knew what she was dealing with with these three. “Thanks for the help today.”

The one with long, dark hair and mint-green eyes waved his hand. “No problem, darlin’.”

She almost sighed aloud at the pet name, decided to start keeping a mental list of every meaningless endearment that spilled out of these guys’ mouths. Maybe she could even make it a game of Bingo, or a drinking game where she’d take a shot every time some bullshit pet name got directed her way.

Let’s see: so far I’ve had ‘baby girl’ – though Wolf gets a free pass on that one – and ‘sweetheart’, and now ‘honey’ and ‘darlin’’. Waiting on ‘doll’, ‘babe’ and ‘baby’ and then we’ll have all the usual suspects. These boys aren’t known for their originality, after all, and it is one hell of an effort to remember a woman’s name, huh?

Zoe swallowed her sigh, and stayed focused on being polite. These strangers had just done her a massive favor, and they hadn’t done a single goddamn thing to hurt or offend her. Reminding herself to dial down the bitch vibe, she shook the second man’s hand now, offered him a small smile.

“I’m Jinx,” he said, his green eyes somehow cool and sultry at the same time. She stared into them, feeling like she was looking at a crisp, sunny spring morning. “We’re glad you’re here. Maybe you’ll do me the honor of doing my next tattoo?”

She dropped her eyes to his strong collarbone, teasingly exposed thanks to four buttons on his denim shirt being casually undone. The ink across that sexy, hard chest was gorgeous, and she eyed it like the professional that she was.

“Yeah,” Zoe said, unbending slightly now in the face of this genuine kindness. “Yeah, I’d love that.”

“And this is Ice,” Kansas said, gesturing at the silent third man. Zoe turned to greet him, took one look at his face, slammed down all her defensive barriers again. Hard.

Ice was the living, breathing epitome of every single thing that she feared in The Road Devils. Tall, broad, rippling muscles all over the goddamn place, close-cropped blond hair, hard face, mouth clamped shut in a firm, uncompromising line.

But what really scared her was the blank, emotionless look in Ice’s ice-blue eyes. The stare that he gave her was freezing, biting cold, lacking anything remotely resembling warmth, kindness, or even basic politeness. It didn’t contain hostility, or dislike, or anger. It just didn’t contain anything; it was utterly devoid of anything human, good or bad. Even a flame of rage would be a relief, because it’d mean that he was actually capable of emotion.

She’d just met the man, but she knew with everything that she was, that in the club’s previous life, Ice had been a club Enforcer. He was the guy who’d been sent out to eliminate any and all threats and problems – and he looked like he’d never lost one second of sleep over anything he’d done. Hell, possibly beating and killing men was the only thing that he really liked doing. Maybe it was the only thing that made him come alive, whatever the hell that meant for him.

It was a huge relief when Ice stuck his hands in his jeans pockets, and merely nodded at her. Didn’t say a word, didn’t make any effort to be friendly. Zoe nodded back, thrilled that he wasn’t forcing her to touch him. She’d lay money that his grip would be rough and chilly.

Idly, she wondered why Ice hadn’t gone with Dawson when he’d taken off and started his new one-percenter club. Wolf had told her that Ice was loyal to him, but surely Dawson’s criminal activities – and all the inevitable beatings and kills made necessary by partnering with a violent, criminal piece of shit like Kirk Jensen – were all way more Ice’s speed. Wolf’s kinder, gentler MC would have no use for Ice’s undoubtedly-extensive abilities… and Zoe found it hard to believe that a man like Ice would be happy in anything legit and by-the-book.

“So,” Kansas said cheerfully, and she turned to him in relief. “Where do you want everything?”

“Uh, well.” She pulled herself together. “The crib over here, and the changing table against this wall, next to this shelf.”

“You already got diapers and everything, I see,” Kansas remarked.

---