Page 213 of American Hellhound
“Shut up,” someone shouted.
RJ’s voice called, “Bounce his ass, Mercy.”
“Dad!” That was Boomer. Maggie saw him fighting through the crowd to get to them.
She caught a glimpse of Aidan watching with delighted horror.
Ghost glanced down at the finger on his chest, and then back up at Roman’s face, the picture of underwhelmed. “Do what to her?”
Red in the face now, Roman said, “She’s not a goddamn groupie! She’s not your whore!”
Conversations were rapidly breaking off, brothers turning to see what the disturbance was. Some, like Aidan, looked like they couldn’t wait for the fists to fly. Others, like Walsh, looked like they wanted nothing more than to drop-kick Roman over the twelve-foot gate. (Sorry, honey, she thought to Walsh, one of the big boys will have to do that.)
Ghost sighed and shook his head. He was enjoying this now, putting on a show. “Nobody’s touched your girl, man. Sheworkshere. Ipayher. To clean house and serve drinks.”
“You lying son of a–”
“Get your hand off me,” Ghost said calmly, “or I’ll break it.”
“Get your big monster to break it?” Roman sneered, tilting his head toward Mercy. “You don’t get your hands dirty anymore, do you? Too important for that now.”
Mercy, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Candy, both of them now looking gleefully bloodthirsty, cracked his knuckles.
“No,” Ghost said, brushing Roman’s finger away. “If anybody gets to hand your ass to you, it’s gonna be me.”
“I’d like to see you fucking try.”
“Here we go,” Maggie sighed to herself.
And that was how she ended up sitting on top of a picnic table beside a panic-stricken Kristen, watching Mercy and Candy appoint themselves refs. The entire party had crowded around, forming a loose circle around the two combatants.
“I’m so sorry,” Kristin kept saying, face in her hands. “I’msosorry, oh my God.”
“It’s not your fault,” Maggie said. She was trying to sound supportive, but she was distracted. “The guys spar all the time, it’s just what they do. And this fight’s been brewing for years.”
“Oh my God,” Kristin groaned.
Maggie patted her knee, but her eyes were trained on Ghost. She felt giddy and breathless as a teenager staring at him, like that first time he’d taken his shirt off and she’d gotten a look at what was underneath.
Somehow, he was more entrancing now. The soft padding of young muscle carved down to the bare essentials by stress and hard work, the cuts of pec and ab stark, the jut of bone at his hips unforgiving. He had an assortment of tattoos, but the one of her name over his heart was her favorite.
She wanted to smooth her hands across his chest, lean in and trace his sharp collarbones with her tongue.
But they were in the middle of a crowd. And he had a fight to win.
He looked at her, briefly, as Candy was laying out the rules. In the middle of wrapping his hands, a piece of tape held between his teeth, he glanced up and shot her a wink.
“It’ll be okay,” she told Kristin.
She just couldn’t promise thatRomanwould be.
~*~
Mercy was the monster. And Candy was the one with the tooth-taking punch – Ghost had witnessed that enough times to know it wasn’t just a myth. Michael was mean with a knife. All his boys could handle themselves in a fight.
But Ghost was the one tried and true boxer of the bunch.
Once upon a time, he and Roman had duked it out when they were in their twenties. Ghost had no doubt this time would end the same way that one had: Roman spitting blood and too dizzy to get up on his own.
