Page 56 of Cruelest Contract
After a nod, I quickly check on my brothers.
Tye has moved. Now he’s right in front of the stage with his new lady friend and he’s got his hands all over her. Meanwhile, Fort is getting a lap dance in a dark corner.
Getty happens to look up from the pool table. When he sees me, I gesture that I’m heading for the back exit. He shrugs and returns to his game.
“Much better,” Cecilia says once we’re out in the cool night air. She closes her eyes and tips her face to the sky, inhaling deeply. “Being in there was kind of a sensory overload.”
The only light out here is a single bulb above the back door. The neighboring buildings are all dark. One of the bartenders is out here vaping and talking on the phone. After a hard stare from me, he wraps up his conversation and scuttles back into the building.
Cecilia opens her eyes. “You can say that you told me so.”
There’s nowhere to sit and she doesn’t object when my hands go to her waist. I’m helping her stay on her feet. I’m also taking the best excuse to touch her. The top of her head lines up with my shoulders and she doesn’t pull away when I draw her close.
“Not my style,” I say.
The curve of her hips is driving me insane. Her breath catches when I massage her waist with light pressure. I’m so hard I’m not thinking straight.
“You know what?” She hooks her arms over my shoulders, letting me press even closer. “This is the first time we’ve ever been alone.”
This is both true and deliberate. I’m in real danger of abandoning all that self-control I was bragging about earlier.
She sways slightly, a reminder that she’s been drinking. No matter how much my dick complains, this isn’t the night to move in for the conquest.
“I’m kind of dizzy,” she says and slumps a little. “It sucks. I don’t know why people drink. So much for new experiences.”
Gently, I tip her chin up with one finger. “It’ll pass soon. Just look at me.”
A flare of sudden intensity lights up her eyes. Maybe it’s because we’re so close I can feel her breasts pressing into my chest. Or maybe it’s because she’s very aware that I’m hard enough to drill through steel.
No, there’s another reason. An echo of a memory replays in my mind. I didn’t consciously repeat the words I once said to hera long time ago but I can’t deny the strands connecting us began to weave together on that terrible day.
“Julian,” she whispers.
I can’t get over how natural this feels, holding her. My relationships have always been brief and unemotional. Everyone gets satisfied and what’s promised is delivered. Nothing more. Romance has always been treated as unnecessary, a distraction.
My forehead drops to hers. Her lips are inches away.
The moment ends abruptly when my brothers thunder through the back door. Getty is bleeding from the mouth. Fort is shaking his hand with a grimace. Tye’s shirt is torn and splattered with mystery blood.
“Aw, you two look cute,” Tye says and snaps his fingers. “But some fucker is now missing an eye in there so let’s go before a team of badge-carrying shitheads shows up.”
I don’t even have time to curse. With my arm around Cecilia, we take a shortcut to the truck parked on a neighboring street. By now a siren is wailing in the distance.
Cecilia is still a little dazed when I lift her into the passenger seat and buckle her seatbelt. Explanations will need to wait. The second I’m behind the wheel the truck is flung into drive and we coast down the dark street with the headlights off to avoid attracting attention.
After a detour around the block, I glance down the street where the bar is located. I see flashing lights and people milling around.
“Stay down,” I say to my brothers, not a second too soon as the roar of motorcycles drowns out other noise. Cecilia huddles in the passenger seat, clutching her pink handbag, her eyes wide.
“You stay down too,” I advise her, “just until we’ve made it out of town.”
Half a dozen bikes roar past us and disappear into the night like phantom wraiths. I’m not surprised to see the LordMountain Motorcycle Club patch on the back of their leather cuts. It’s a good thing they’re heading in the opposite direction because I’m not in the mood to deal with their shit tonight.
I flick the headlights back on once we’re a mile away from the scene. “Tell me you didn’t start a war with the Lords,” I say to my brothers.
The local biker club can be a thorn in our side at times but we’ve always avoided outright conflict with them. That pack of smugglers and petty thieves are nowhere near our level. The silent truce between us says that as long as they stay the fuck out of our way, we’ll stay out of theirs. Dealing with them is a headache I don’t need right now.
“Nah.” Getty’s head pops up in the backseat. “They were just walking in as all hell broke loose.”
