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Adler's lips twitched. "She did. Figured I could prove to her that she's been wrong all her life."
"Well, this is sufficiently fucking awkward," Cash declared, moving to go sit down with the rest of the men who weren't even trying to pretend they weren't watching the interaction.
I turned back to the bar, seeing my gin poured. As desperately as I needed a drink, I wasn't even going to complain about it being warm.
The part of me that knew the best way to get under someone's - especially a man's - skin was telling me to keep entertaining Adler's flirtation, to ignore Edison completely.
The other part of me, however, was begging for me not to play games, not to be a bitch, not to keep pushing people - him - away.
"Yeah, can ya believe that?" Adler asked, just poke poke poking away at the sleeping bear. "Me and her, we got a bit of chemistry. Duchess," he said, leaning in close, and well, you had to admit - the man definitely had more than his fair share of charisma, "wanna see if I can make you come on command? Bet I could even do it with just my fingers."
"Aren't you supposed to be locked the fuck up?" Edison demanded, voice a bit of a roar in the rather quiet space.
"What?" Adler asked, all false innocence, knowing damn well exactly what was going on, "and deprive you all of my sparkling fucking personality?"
"Reign said he had to stay cuffed and watched," Cash supplied. "And if I had to listen to him pound on that fucking door for one more minute, I was going to go in there and kill the fuck myself before we even got any answers."
Hmm.
Answers about what?
Why was Adler in cuffs?
Why was Adler not freaked out about being in cuffs in a notoriously violent - when it was necessary - biker gang?
And, well, why the hell was I, an outsider, allowed to see a prisoner cuffed in an outlaw biker gang compound?
Maybe they figured I wasn't stupid enough to say shit about it.
"I must not have had enough of this yet," I told him when his eyes went back to me. "I'm not seeing the sparkle."
"No?" he asked, eyes mock-worried as I raised my cup to take a sip. His hand moved out, tipping up the bottom, forcing me to chug, or spill half the contents down a shirt that earlier this evening had already proved was not hiding much even without it being soaking wet. He didn't stop until the cup was empty, giving me a sly look as I shot daggers at him. "I have a feeling that now the fun begins," he declared, moving off toward the seating area, taking the spot next to Cash who was keeping an eye on him, leaving just one open spot.
And both Edison and me needed a place to sit. My eyes scanned around, knowing Cash and Cyrus both had women, not wanting to fuck with biker old ladies. So I moved instead over toward the gray-eyed biker who seemed to scream single, and rested my ass on the arm of his chair.
There was a pause, then a brow raise before he spoke. "I'm Sugar," he supplied, dropping off the end sound, reminding me of a mix of Staten Island, Jersey, and the Bronx, a mix I somehow found comforting. Maybe because I had lived in all those places. "And this is Virgin," he went on, introducing the friend seated beside him, who nodded his head at me.
"Interesting road names," I observed. "I'm Lenny."
"And that's short for?" And that's shawt fawh?
This one little clubhouse had a lot of interesting accents.
I had always been a sucker for them.
I shook my head at that, a little too aware of Edison finally dropping down in the open chair. "Lenore," I supplied, curling my lip.
"As in The rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore?" Cy asked.
Every set of eyes shot to him at that, brows raised, smirks teasing.
"What?" he asked, rolling his eyes. "So Reese read me some Poe shit and I liked it. Fuck off."
"My fucking eighth-grade teacher made us memorize that shit," Pagan said, shaking his head. "Know how much fucking alcohol I've had to drink to try to kill the braincells that remembered that crap? Now you're bringing it up in conversation at a biker compound where I was damn near fucking certain I would never have to worry about having goddamn classic American poetry recited at me again? I'm not drunk enough for this shit," he ribbed Cyrus, moving to go get himself a drink. "Lenny, refill?"
"Sure."
"So, Lenny," Cyrus spoke again, clearly trying to move the conversation away from his apparent enjoyment of macabre poetry. "Are you from around here?"
I snorted a little at that. "I'm from everywhere," I said, watching as his brow raised in a way that was inviting an explanation. And that was not information I generally shared. Maybe bits and pieces came out of me here and there on occasion, but not when I was mostly sober, and in front of a guy I had fucked. "My mom was - is - a serial dater. And wife. And every time a man wanted to get shot of her - which was often - we all picked up, and moved somewhere new."
