Shade's Lady

I started toward the back of the room, feeling the weight of his eyes the entire time. Well, either that or I was hallucinating, which was also a realistic possibility. The man was too potent for his own good—like catnip for women. Too many pheromones or some such. It really wasn’t my fault that he’d drugged me with his sexiness. Fortunately, I was smart and knew better.

(Fingers crossed.)

We reached the back room, and I fumbled with the keys to unlock the door. It wasn’t part of the bar proper, although there were tables and chairs back here. Bone used it for large groups and occasionally storage. For some reason I couldn’t get the key into the little hole, and the fact that Shade stood right behind me—radiating heat and pure fuckability, the bastard—wasn’t helping. Then his hand reached around mine, grasping the key and sliding it into the door with a slow, sure motion.

You know, that’s probably how he’d—

Shut up! I screeched mentally at my idiotic girl parts. You have a boyfriend and this guy is a murderer. Or something. Definitely something. NO quintuplets for you.

The door swung open. Apparently Bone had known they were coming, because the smaller tables had been shoved together to make one long surface, and the boxes that’d been in here yesterday were gone.

Shade caught my hips in his hands, gently pushing me to the side as his biker brothers filed in past him. I waited for him to let go but he didn’t. He decided to run his thumbs up and under the side of my tank instead. I shivered.

“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” I said, hoping Bone knew what they wanted because my brain had stopped working. The last thing I needed was a bunch of Reapers pissed off at me for fucking up their order. Shade didn’t drop his hands, just loosened his grip and lowered his head, taking in my scent.

My nipples went tight and he gave a low chuckle. Then he dropped his hands, brushing past me without a second glance.

“Sounds good, babe,” he said, stepping into the room. “Shut the door behind you.”

The evening got weird after that.

The Reapers stationed a guy with a “prospect” patch on his vest outside the door, and every time I came back with more booze he would knock on the door, check, and then let me in like a scene out of The Godfather. It would’ve been funny as hell if they hadn’t gotten so quiet every time I walked in. You know, the kind of quiet you get when you’re talking about where to bury bodies. Not that I had any reason to think they had bodies to bury, but…well, there was that whole rumor thing.

Oh, and Shade watched me every second, every time I was in there. Like, watched me. Enough to creep me out. I’d gone to Bone and asked him if I could swap out with Sara now that she was off break.

“Suck it up,” he’d said, crossing his big arms over his chest. “This is your job. Do it. If you’re a good girl, you’ll get a real nice tip at the end of the night.”

“What if I’m not a good girl?” I’d asked, unnerved. “I’ve never actually been very good at being…well, you know. Good.”

Bone grinned at me.

“Then you’ll get an even bigger tip.”

Somehow that didn’t make me feel much better.

“Now go back in there and make sure nobody runs dry. If the Reapers are happy, we’re all happy. That’s the way this thing works. Unless you want to find a new job?”

I shook my head quickly, unnerved.

“No, I need the work,” I assured him.

“What a coincidence, because I need a waitress who follows orders.”

“Stop scaring her,” Sara said, butting in. Bone glared at her and she glared right back, cocking her hip belligerently.

“Fucking women,” he muttered, turning away. Sara laughed, flipping him off behind his back.

“There’s a mirror behind the bar, remember? I saw that,” he muttered. “You’re both fired.”

“You love us and you know it.”

Bone growled something, then reached for a beer glass, deliberately ignoring us.

“He’s right about one thing—you need to get in there and make sure those boys don’t run dry,” Sara said, lowering her voice. “We can’t afford to piss off the Reapers.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“Then start moving,” she replied, snapping me with the bar towel. It caught me off guard and I laughed, because no matter how scary Shade and his buddies might be, I really liked my job. It certainly wasn’t boring, and that was good, right?

Trevor wasn’t boring either, and look how that turned out. Remember how bad jail food tastes?

Ah, shit. I did remember. It tasted bad. Real bad. I’d just have to stay focused and not let myself get sucked into anything dangerous. Shouldn’t be that hard—it wasn’t like serving drinks was all that complicated. All I needed to do was pay attention and keep my nose clean.

Easy as pie.

Chapter Two

Rebel showed up around eleven, looking a little rough around the edges. He’d gone on an epic drinking binge with his buddies the night before, and while I wasn’t sure how late they’d been out, he hadn’t made it to bed yet when I’d texted him good morning. He was still cute, though, and when he walked in the door and grinned at me with those bright eyes of his, I felt that same happy tingle that’d attracted me to him in the first place. Not quite the same dance my girl parts did when they saw Shade, but it was still good.

Mostly.

Okay, so Rebel was a jerk and a dumbass—oh, and there was the whole potential cheating thing—but somehow he always managed to charm me out of my pants anyway. And it wasn’t like I was looking for someone serious anyway. No more real relationships for me.

Not after the Trevor debacle.

“Hey, baby,” he said, hooking his good arm around my waist, pulling me in for a kiss. Bone leaned forward on the bar, glaring at me pointedly.

Bone didn’t like Rebel.

This was funny because it’d been Rebel who’d helped me get the job here in the first place. Or at least, he’d been the first one to bring me in. I got the job on my own. We’d all been hanging around one afternoon when a group of nearly forty riders showed up out of nowhere. I’d seen the panicked look on Sara’s face—it was just her and Bone in the place—and felt terrible. I’d waited enough tables in my life to know she was fucked without more help.