Retribution: A Motorcycle Club Romance (4 page)

As her third orgasm approached, Will
let his own finally erupt. He practically roared as his hips slapped against
her ass just before he came, then pulled out and yanked off his rubber in time
to shoot his load in warm streams across the skin of her back and ass.

The dancer collapsed in the chair,
exhausted and sensitive from her multiple orgasms. Something on her face said
she wasn’t happy about the come on her back, but Will didn’t give a fuck.
Instead he offered her his cock, wet with her juices, to clean off. He’d made a
good choice and found a girl who was as dirty as he was, smiling as she
accepted by wrapping her mouth around him and sucking him clean.

Without another word, Will gathered
his pants up and straightened his cut. He didn’t wait for her to get dressed or
clean herself up. He could hear the sound of her voice trailing him as he left
the private rooms and headed back out to the main stage, eager to see which
girl was next.

~
THREE ~

As she towel-dried the last of the pint glasses that
morning, Eva said to Charlie, “Bartending isn’t so hard. Do people really go to
school to learn this?”

Charlie scoffed a little. He took the
glass from her and nested it carefully among the rest in the cupboard. “What
we’re doing isn’t exactly bartending. No one’s asked for anything more
complicated than a Jack and Coke in this place.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Eva as
she let her gaze wander over the few barflies posted up this early in the day.
Uncle Owen had given them a heads-up about the regular drunks, the ones for
whom there was no AA or miracle redemption left. Aside from feeling great
sympathy, Eva didn’t mind them. They kept to themselves.

Charlie stood up and closed the
sliding cabinet door. He looked down at the paper checklist sitting on the bar
and crossed one off the list. “All right, I’m going to trim that oak behind the
house that’s starting to pull up the rain gutters. Can you hold the place down
for a little while?”

Eva gave a look out to the silent
room. “I think I can manage.”

Charlie smiled and clapped a soft
palm on the side of her face before he shoved the checklist in his front pocket
and headed out the back door of the bar. Eva finished cleaning up the bar
surface and threw her towel in the laundry pile in the back room. She spied the
cordless phone hanging on the wall from the corner of her eye and yanked it
off.

As she walked back around to the bar,
Eva punched in the number for her best friend, Laura. She glanced at her watch
with the phone to her ear, hoping she wasn’t calling too early on a Saturday
morning.

“Hello?” From behind Laura’s voice,
Eva could hear the sound of sizzling and some indiscernible song playing from her
kitchen counter MP3 player.

“I can’t believe you’re actually home
and awake on a Saturday morning. Fruitless night at Donatella’s?” Eva smirked,
leaning on the bar.

Laura’s laugh instantly lightened
Eva’s mood. “I suppose that depends on how you define ‘fruitless.’ ”

“You skank.”

“I miss you. Why did you have to bail
to that stupid little place?” Laura whined.

Eva sighed and stared out at the
quiet room. One of the barflies hiccupped with his whole body, making her curl
her nose in disgust. “I haven’t even been gone a week.”

“It already feels weird, though. How
is everything?”

“Also weird. The place isn’t bad,
though. It’s on the edge of a really lovely forest, you wouldn’t believe how
quiet it gets.”

Laura snorted. “Great, so now I have
to worry about you getting eaten by a bear, or some shit, like you’re a
cavewoman.”

Eva laughed. “This is rural America, Laura.
I didn’t get dropped in the vast Siberian wilderness. Have you ever even been
outside of Silverton?”

“Sure, to other civilized places,
like New York or Seattle. Not to some Podunk village like Horlong where
everyone’s a meth head or a diner waitress.”

“Howlett.”

“Whatever, it’s crossed off my map.”

Eva shook her head, smiling even as
her heart ached with homesickness. “Well, you’ll be even
more
delighted
to know that the bar I’m running is a dive.”

Laura gasped. “Jesus, Eva! I swear, I
don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said
Eva as she dug a nail at some imperfection in the bar’s glossy surface.

“Come off it, you know what I’m
talking about. Eva-three-years-ago would have never agreed to just up and leave
the city with her meathead brother to go run a dive bar in the middle of
nowhere.”

“Yeah, well, Eva-three-years-ago was
a much dumber woman.”

The sound of cooking abruptly ceased.
Laura’s voice came louder. “You’re not trying to run from things, are you? From
your pain? You know that won’t work.”

“No,” said Eva immediately. She had
already had this conversation with herself countless dark nights, lying in bed,
staring at the city’s light reflections on her ceiling. “I really just needed a
change, Laura. I felt like I had rolled into a ditch I couldn’t crawl out of.
Living with Charlie helped stabilize my life after I left Rick. But now that I’m
stable, I need something else.”

Laura went quiet a moment. Then she
said, “What is it you think you’re going to find in Howlett?”

Eva shrugged, even though her friend
couldn’t see it. “Nothing. Myself. I don’t know. I’m not really looking for
anything. I just… needed to not be there, in that city.”

Laura sighed. “I blame your books,
filling your big, sweet brain with all these wild ideas about adventure and
excitement. What you really need is some good old-fashioned dick.”

Eva laughed and flushed red, scanning
the bar’s few tenants in embarrassment, as if they could hear Laura in her ear.
“Are you saying I can’t have both?”

“Honey, who among us is so
fortunate?”

Eva giggled. “Judging by my clientele
so far, I’m not going to get either.”

“Why don’t ya pull on your boots and
spurs and rustle you up a young stallion over at the local saloon?” said Laura
in her best country accent—which was, in fact, a terrible country accent. Eva
tried to keep her laughter down, covering her mouth as she rocked on a stool
behind the bar. One of the barflies gave a fleeting side glance at her.

“I can see you’ve watched a lot of
westerns in your time,” said Eva.

“Even a shit place like Howlett has
to have a place to meet guys. Christ, what else is there to even do out there?”

Eva slipped out her own country
accent. “Well, first we get up at the crack of dawn to castrate the bulls and
clean the outhouse…”

“Ugh, I’ve already lost you.” Eva
could hear the smile in Laura’s voice. “I’m just saying, if you’re out there
for adventure, you should really go for it. You’ve had, like, a single
one-night stand since you left Rick. You’re a young, hot, brainiac. Stop
depriving the world of your sexiness.”

Eva began to reply as the front door
of Swashbuckler’s opened, creaking. Sunlight swamped in. Two men with broad
shoulders stood in the doorway for just a moment before they stepped inside and
let the door swing shut behind them. Both had sharp, attractive Latino features
and expensive leather jackets. The man on the right had his long, crow-black
hair circled up in a bun at the top of his head in a style that struck Eva as
out of place. That hipster look was popular in the cities. She immediately had
a flash of instinct that these men were not locals.

Laura had been talking in her ear,
but Eva heard none of it. She couldn’t tear her eyes off the two men at the
door as she said, “Sorry, Laura, I’m going to have to call you back…”

“Man, you’re really going to lengths
to avoid this talk, sweet cheeks.”

The two Latino men scanned the room
silently before their eyes settled on Eva. She felt something sick and urgent
shoot up her spine and to the hairs on the back of her neck. “It’s not that. We’ll
talk later, I’ve just… got some customers.” They stared at her now. She could
feel their gaze despite their sunglasses.

Laura didn’t seem to notice the
tension in Eva’s voice. “Okay, honey. Call me this evening, I’m staying in
tonight.”

“Will do,” said Eva. She dropped the
phone from her ear and ended the call.

For a few tense seconds, the three of
them just looked at each other from across the room. Eva had this strange urge
to do
something
, even though she had no idea what that would be.
Instead, she stood stiff like a deer in headlights until the men took their
sunglasses off and moseyed slowly up to the bar. Eva came up to meet them.

The one with the bun on his head
smiled at her when he approached, but the smile didn’t reach up to his eyes. “
Hola,
señorita.
”

“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Eva.
The other man with the close-cropped black hair stood behind his compatriot,
silent. “What can I get you?”

The man with the bun smiled, a
genuine one this time. “
Ai
, it’s a little early for us to be drinking, I
think.”

Eva frowned. “Some coffee, then? I
can put on a pot.”

“No, miss,” he shook his head and
leaned onto the counter with his arms stretched out in a pose that made Eva
think of the way Jesus looked in Da Vinci’s
Last Supper.
“We are here for
business. I need to speak to your husband.”

It had been a long time since anyone
asked for Eva’s husband, but even still, thinking of Rick made her sick to her
stomach. It must have shown on her face; the man with the bun amended his
request. “Or your father, perhaps?”

Eva said, “I’m sorry, is this your
way of asking to speak to the owner of this bar?”

“Yes. We have business to conduct
with the owner.”

Eva had to stop herself from rolling
her eyes. Instead, she just looked up at the ceiling for a few brief seconds
and took a breath. “You’re speaking with her.”
For all intents and purposes,
anyway.

The man turned back to exchange a
glance with his compatriot. There was nothing subtle or friendly about it. “Is
that a fact?”

Eva felt a growing anxiety in her
stomach, and it made her impatient, made her tongue sharp. Rick had always
punished her for it, but no matter how hard she tried to quiet it, it was just
who she was. “Must not be very important business, if you couldn’t be bothered
to find out who runs things.”

Darkness crossed the face of the man
with the bun, a darkness Eva recognized. But it passed quickly and without
comment. Soon his fake smile had returned, teeth polished and shining white. “On
the contrary, it is
very
important business. And this is the first I
have heard of a woman’s involvement here.”

“Recent development,” said Eva,
cocking her head. “So, what is it I can do for you?”

The man watched her for a few
seconds. She could almost hear the gears in his mind turning as he tried to
decide what to do with this new information. He stood up and removed his arms
from the counter. In a slow, deliberate walk, he moved down the length of the
bar. Like an accompanying musician, his partner headed slowly toward the front
door, standing in front of it like a human shield.

Blocking the exit
,
said some deep part of Eva’s mind.
Or do I just read too many books?

Her chest felt tight as she watched
the man with the bun move around the bar, past where customers were allowed to
go. He came around it without hesitation and walked straight toward her. Aside
from hopping over the bar itself, Eva had nowhere to run. She froze as he
approached her.

He stopped in front of her, standing
almost a head taller than she was and staring down at her with dark brown eyes.
Dead eyes.

“The only thing you can do for me…
señorita
…
is what all other women can do for me.” He took one of his hands and ran it
down the pale skin of her left arm, exposed by the sundress she wore. Eva felt
shocked at his touch but didn’t recoil. She stared at him with anger in her
eyes, frozen. “So unless that is what you are offering…”

“It is not,” said Eva through gritted
teeth.

The man smiled at her discomfort and
moved his hand up to trace her clenched jawline. “Then you can deliver a
message for me to the real owner. You tell him Ramirez will be back to speak
with him very soon about a business arrangement, and I would find it
unspeakably rude if he does not show his face a second time.”