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Chapter 1
It wasa busy night in Sam’s bar. Simone Durand wiped the sweat from her forehead and loaded up the serving tray with mugs of beer. She was hot and tired, but that was okay. She preferred the busy nights to the slow ones. Working hard made the time pass quickly, and busy nights were good for tips. While she appreciated the tips, making time fly by was the best thing. The faster the night went, the sooner she could get out of Sam’s and home to a hot shower. Still, the noise and constant hustle to keep the crowd of drinkers happy could wear a person down.
Of course, she had to fend off a lot of uninvited attention from the men who came in. Most of them were teasingly friendly and trying to flatter her, not groping, so it was easy enough to ignore the errant hands that reached out to touch her ass now and then. They used conversation to reach out to her too, trying to catch her interest and keep her at their tables. They wanted to flirt. Being busy helped there too, as she could nod at Sam, suggesting she’d get into trouble if she didn’t keep moving.
She didn’t mind their attentions, but she didn’t encourage them, either. She wasn’t seeing anyone and hadn’t for some time. She wasn’t particularly lonely, and she wasn’t particularly interested in any of these men. A number of them were married, and their comments let her know they were hoping she’d like to take them home for hot sex. That held no appeal for Simone, not even if the men were good-looking. She didn’t like the idea of sleeping with married men. Where was the future in that? If she were going to make the effort, to take the time to get involved with a man, well… she’d make sure it was with a man who was willing to give her a lot more than a few nights of sex.
Besides, she had enough going on in her life as it was. A love life would be a complication she had little time for.
Most of the regulars weren’t bad, but some could be incredibly annoying. Unfortunately, given her job, she couldn’t pick and choose who to be nice to. Sam, the owner, valued all his customers and expected the staff to treat them all equally. “You can’t have favorites… not so they see it,” he’d said.
That could be hard at times, with the men competing for her attention—a competition that some took rather seriously. Men like Brad Drake took themselves and their charms far too seriously. Unfortunately, the man drank a lot, and she had to talk to him to take his frequent orders. It wasn’t that he was obnoxious—no, she thought he was needy. He tried to act with a bravado she doubted he felt, and part of his act was to pretend he was irresistible. At least she hoped he was pretending—if he believed it, he was kind of desperate.
Brad was around forty, with long reddish hair, a scraggly and unkempt beard, watery eyes, and bad skin. He always had a laptop computer in front of him. He’d insisted on telling her he made his living online. The way he’d said it made her cringe. Not that she knew what he did, but she guessed whatever it was, it had something to do with the cringe-worthy parts of the web.
“Check this out, Simone,” he said, tapping on his screen. His thin, whiney voice cut through her. It was painful. “There’s a new video site on the web that’s nothing but porn for gays. What kind of shit is that?”
She tried to be nonchalant. “You don’t have to look at it if it offends you.”
“Aw, they shouldn’t allow shit like that. Bad enough that half the crap on the porn channels is black men with white women.”
She bit her tongue. He seemed to be fishing for something or trying to lure her into a conversation. Why he’d think she wanted to talk to him about porn, no matter the racial or sexual orientation, was beyond her. “They do it to make money, so someone must like it, Brad. I don’t know why people do things. Now, did you want another drink?”
“Yeah,” he said, thinking about what she’d said. “Whisky, neat.” As if she didn’t know his drink by now.
Happy to slip away, she went to put in the order. She stopped at the bar and pushed the slip over to Sam and sighed. Even with a crowd, when things started like this it promised to be a long night. Fortunately, when she brought his drink, Brad was involved with something on his computer.
A tall, lean young guy came in wearing biker colors, with another one with a hard, muscular build following right beside him. He also wore biker colors. When she went to take their order, she saw they rode with The Road Kings. She’d heard of the club and had even seen a couple of other members come into Sam’s place. They never gave her any trouble, so she didn’t mind them being around. She hadn’t seen these guys before, though.
The lean one had to be in his twenties, with curly black hair, olive skin, and dark brown eyes that had a mischievous twinkle in them, which attracted her. The bulkier one had short, straight brown hair, penetrating brown eyes, and a face that could have been chiseled from granite. It was a fine face, handsome even, but with a hard edge that warned not to mess with him. Under other circumstances she might’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes talking with them, but not on a busy night.
“What’ll you have?” she asked.
“Long-neck beer is fine,” said the lean one.
“Glass?”
He grinned. “You have long-necked glasses here?”
The teasing note in his voice made her smile. “Sorry, no. Just regular mugs.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to drink it out of the long-necked bottle.”
“Fair enough.” She arched a brow at Mr. Muscles, as she mentally dubbed him. “What about you, sir?”
“Same.” The answer was more of a grunt than a word. Though he was abrupt and appeared surly, there was something about his voice that sent a tingle shooting down her spine.
“Coming right up.” As she turned to go back to the bar, she saw Brad glaring in her direction—past her to the newcomers. The look on his face told her Brad had some kind of problem with the men. She wondered if it was with these men or all bikers in general. Maybe Brad just had bikers on his shit list, along with gays and mixed-race couples. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear his views.
Rafe LaRue had comeinto the bar on a whim. He’d been hunting down a motorcycle part for Clutch, the club mechanic, and found it on Craigslist. He’d negotiated a price and gone to see it with Max in tow. Clutch would be happy. It was a vintage seat for an old bike he was working on. Pleased with himself, Rafe had come out of the house where he’d made the purchase and seen Sam’s bar sitting conveniently on the corner. It hadn’t taken much effort to convince Max to grab a drink, so here they were.
“Buying bike parts is thirsty work,” he’d told Clutch when he called with the news. “I’ll bring it to the clubhouse later. We’re stopping in a local bar for a beer.”
“It’s on me,” Clutch had told him.
And so, he’d parked his bike in the lot and strolled in with Max at his side. It was early, so the place wasn’t crowded. They took a seat at a table and a sweet-looking young lady came over, smiling. “Hey there, I’m Simone. What can I do for you?”
A single glance and already he could think of dozens of things she could do for him. This waitress was in her twenties; her features and her lovely mocha skin suggested she was of mixed race. She had wavy black hair and unusual silver-blue eyes that had him salivating.
