Devil's Mark

  She followed Katelyn into an office where a large, battered leather sofa took up one wall beneath a huge, bright Devil’s Keepers banner with that grinning devil dead center. Holly stayed on her feet when Katelyn tossed herself onto the middle of the couch and then lounged. Aggressively. Katelyn was as curvy as she’d always been, something that had driven Holly insane in high school given her own lack of anything in that department. Katelyn’s breasts strained at her slinky little tank top, showing off the tattoo she’d gotten—some biker club thing Holly didn’t pretend to understand, because she, personally, could not imagine waking up one day and yearning for a grinning, evil-looking devil inked into her skin, much less splayed all over her breasts. It made Katelyn’s already significant cleavage into a secondary DKMC banner.

  “I’m sorry,” Holly said before her friend could say anything snarky. “I should be trying to figure out what’s going on but seriously, Katelyn. That tattoo. I definitely didn’t realize how big it was when I saw you before. Did your mother have a heart attack?”

  Her friend giggled at that, as if the laughter took her over against her will, and whatever weirdness had been there between them disappeared in the warmth of the familiar sound. The way any and all conflicts between them in high school had been solved, if Holly remembered it right.

  “Let’s just say my mother does not approve of my life choices.” Katelyn shrugged. “Like that’s anything new. If she could retroactively become a nun—or better yet, make me one—she would.”

  “What about your grandmother?”

  “You know Grandma Hebert. She’s been running that construction office for decades. She’s tough. She said she didn’t much like the idea of her granddaughter announcing to the world that she was biker club property, but she couldn’t help but admire the audacity of the ink. Quote unquote. Then she told me to cover it up for Easter Sunday or she’d take a hand to my ass herself no matter how old I was these days or how bad I thought I was.”

  Holly laughed, picturing Katelyn’s spry and canny grandmother doing exactly that, with relish. “I’ve always loved that woman.”

  “Grandma Hebert does not mess around.” Katelyn shook her head, her smile fading. “You should have told me you were really going to come in tonight. These are rough men, Holls. This isn’t college. They’re not, like, in costume out there.”

  “You knew I was coming in. I stood right there in the country store and told you I was coming in. ‘I’m going to come in tonight,’ I said.”

  Katelyn sighed, crossing her arms beneath her breasts in a way that made them even more prominent, something that Holly would have thought impossible, since ten push-up bras and some judicious stuffing wouldn’t make her any less flat. “I didn’t think you’d do it, though.”

  Holly frowned at that. “You thought I’d chicken out? Really? I never have before.”

  “This is Dumb Gator’s, Holly. You used to pretend you didn’t know where it was.”

  “When I was, what? Twelve?”

  “Or last year when you were home for your spring break and I suggested you come out here one night to take in the local scene and maybe expand your horizons a little bit.”

  “I thought you were kidding last year.” Holly waved at the tattoo. It was like the prow of a very large ship. Or a giant flesh billboard. It was impossible to ignore. “It was before you made your intentions and allegiances quite so well known.”

  It wasn’t that Katelyn had concealed the fact that she’d started hanging around with the club. It was that Holly had chosen not to understand what that meant, the way Holly had historically chosen not to understand a lot of things around here. That Katelyn regularly enjoyed the kind of freewheeling sexual adventures Holly had thought were only staged on the Internet by professionals was not something she could really process on a brief vacation from college. She and Katelyn got together only once or twice each time she came home. It occurred to Holly as she stood in the center of the office that she didn’t actually know her best friend at all. That the term “best friend” had been something that made sense while they’d been in high school together, sure. But high school was a long time ago.

  Maybe she should have listened more to the tone of Katelyn’s invitation and not the actual invitation itself. Maybe she should have thought more about how this would all play out in actuality and less about how her father would react to it when he heard. Maybe she shouldn’t have picked a night out in a biker bar as her opportunity to show her daddy that she could cause him as much public humiliation as he’d caused her. Maybe she should have rolled into church drunk, or something equally disgraceful yet not actually dangerous.

  But the office door swung open again and it was too late to do anything about it.

  Uptown came through the doorway, that low swagger of his as much of an assault on Holly’s senses as the blast of hard rock music that came in with him. His gaze moved instantly to Holly and his impossible mouth curved.

  It took her entirely too long to notice that he wasn’t alone. That there was another man with him, this one barrel-chested and covered in tattoos, but without one of those leather vests that all the bikers wore so proudly.

  “Take a hike,” the other man said abruptly, and it was only when Katelyn stiffened that Holly understood who he was talking to. If not why. “You need to be behind the bar.”

  Katelyn looked at Uptown as if she expected him to say something in her defense, but he didn’t. He kept looking at Holly instead, which was making her feel a little too warm. Okay, downright hot. Once again, Katelyn didn’t argue though she clearly wanted to, which fascinated Holly and made something hollow yawn deep inside her. The Katelyn she knew had never followed an order in her life. She’d smiled prettily and done whatever the hell she wanted anyway. Holly had always loved her for it. It had been so refreshing to be around someone who told the various authority figures whatever they wanted to hear—just like Holly tended to do, because there was so rarely any point in arguing with people and things that couldn’t or wouldn’t change—but then had gone ahead and done the exact opposite. But tonight Katelyn simply moved toward the door and walked out.

  “Shit,” the other man said when Katelyn closed the door behind her. He ran a hand down his full, dark beard, frowning at Holly. “I already have my hands full with these bitches. Every time I turn around they’re fucking somebody on the pool tables when I need them serving drinks.”

  “This one won’t be,” Uptown said, and the hard note in his voice might have caught at her if she hadn’t been focused on the “bitches” part. To say nothing of the pool tables. “That might be why the others are here, but not Holly.”

  “Come on. You can’t really believe…?”

  “Not a chance.” Uptown’s voice was flat. Final.

  “I’m not a bitch.” Holly hadn’t exactly meant to say anything, and wished she hadn’t when both men stared at her. The one she didn’t know looked astonished, if in an angry sort of way. Uptown only looked amused, which was worse. So she forged on. “Well, I’m not. I thought you should know that, in case accuracy was important in whatever decision-making process this is.”

  “Baby, you start slinging drinks in a biker bar, people are gonna call you a biker bitch whether you like it or not.” All the laughter she could see in Uptown’s gaze was in his voice, and it made her skin seem to prickle in a reaction she didn’t entirely understand. “You need to get right with that or maybe find yourself a job in the library.”

  The other man shook his head. “This is nuts. You know it’s nuts, man. I don’t need this kind of drama.”

  Uptown was grinning like this was all a delightful game to him. It encouraged Holly to imagine that maybe it really was. “You’re full of shit. You could sell tickets and knowing you, probably will. Benny Chambless’s daughter behind the bar at Dumb Gator’s? You’re going to have to put bouncers on the door to keep the scumbags who want to eye-fuck her from causing a riot.”

  “I want a job,” Holly said, t
hough she got the distinct impression no one was actually talking to her. Or even really about her, for that matter. “I’m not a sideshow attraction.”

  Uptown grinned even wider at the other man. “See? Pure fucking comedy gold.”

  “Fine.” But the other man shook his head, looking dour. “This is on you. Not the club. You.”

  “I take full responsibility for her,” Uptown assured him, and Holly told herself there was no reason that should make her stomach flip over.

  The big man looked doubtful, but that was it. He turned and walked out of the room. The music swelled when he yanked the door open, then was muffled as the heavy slab of metal swung shut behind him.

  Leaving Holly all alone in a room with Uptown.

  Obviously not the smartest thing she’d ever let happen to her.

  She told herself it was the beat from the music out in the rest of the bar that poked at her, running through her veins and making her skin feel too tight. But she was pretty sure that really, it was her own pulse. And that needy thing that raced through her, making her…anxious.

  “I don’t understand what just happened. Who was that?”

  “That was Bart.” Uptown was standing in front of the door. He crossed his arms over his chest and aimed that grin at her, and it was worse than the beat inside her. It was much more complicated than the lick of some far-off bass line, though it shivered inside her all the same. “He’s a friend of the club. Runs this place. He’s your new boss.”

  “But I’m your responsibility. Is that what you said?”

  She was only quoting him. There was no reason that should have stolen all the air from the room, but it did. Or maybe it was just that she couldn’t breathe, because Uptown seemed fine. More than fine, if she had to categorize it, and looking at her in a way that reminded her of that day behind the church. Too hot. Too dark. Too…something.

  “Congratulations, baby,” he said with soft intent after a moment. “You get to make drinks for a bunch of dangerous assholes who are gonna want you as a chaser. You ready for that?”

  “Do I start tonight?”

  “Why, you need the money?” His face changed then. All that lazy amusement vanished and something much harder and more dangerous replaced it, making an involuntary shiver snake its way down her spine. Belatedly, it occurred to Holly that however little she knew her high school best friend these days, she knew this man even less. Years of fantasies about him didn’t actually count, and besides, that was one more thing she pretended didn’t happen. “Your daddy spent the last decade bragging he’s the richest man in the parish. I’m gonna bet you have an allowance. Some extra shopping money to keep you in pretty jewelry and expensive clothes, am I right?”

  Holly shook her head. “If my father embezzled all that money the way they said he did, it’s not mine to spend.”

  “So that’s a yes on the allowance.”

  The way he said that—or maybe it was the way he was looking at her—made her feel dirty. Ashamed. She didn’t understand it, but that didn’t keep her stomach from turning over.

  “I want my own money. Not his.”

  Uptown shifted, uncrossing his arms and moving closer to her. It took every little bit of courage Holly had to stand still when all she wanted to do was dive behind the big metal desk.

  “You really did grow up with a politician, didn’t you?” It didn’t seem to require a response, so Holly only watched him, waiting for him to snap and lunge at her. Or whatever scary thing he was about to do. She told herself she should be afraid of him, but she was aware that what she felt was something a lot more like anticipation. “Did he teach you how to avoid the question or did you just pick that up at the dinner table?”

  “Do you know my father?” She frowned at that. “I find it hard to imagine that you all spent a lot of time together, if I’m honest. But then, it turns out I know him about as well as I know you.”

  Again, that hard expression moved over his face, making her breath catch in her throat. It made him look far older than his actual years, which she was pretty sure had him no more than thirty. If that. Still, when his face went cold like that he looked like some kind of ancient, impenetrable stone.

  “Everybody knows Mayor Benny Chambless,” Uptown drawled, his lips curving in some semblance of a smile though there was nothing but that wary hardness in his gaze. “He makes sure of that, doesn’t he?”

  Holly laughed. Okay, maybe she forced it a little bit, but it was still a laugh. “See? You don’t answer the question, either.”

  She kept making mistakes like that, then not realizing it until it was too late. Foremost among them, that none of these people were playing. Katelyn certainly hadn’t been, which Holly would have to think about later. And Uptown’s version of a game was so far beyond her, it had basically ruined her when she was sixteen. It wasn’t as if that afternoon behind the church had faded from her memory in the intervening years.

  Uptown moved toward her again and this time, she wisely stepped back—but of course she’d miscalculated that, too. The desk was right there, hard against the crease where her butt met her thighs. And then he was in front of her and much too close, looking perfectly happy to settle right there, more in her space than not, so she had no choice but to stand where she was, trapped, or put her hands on him to try to move him away. She didn’t need to try the latter to understand that it would not be in her best interests to bridge that gap. Or that if she did, it would not go the way she imagined. He wouldn’t let her shove him away.

  He didn’t touch her or close the remaining, scant distance between them. But that didn’t matter. Holly still broke out in a sweat and she didn’t know if she loved or hated the way his dangerous mouth curved at that. Not that fake quirk of his lips this time. This remarkably unsettling smile was echoed in Uptown’s gaze and sizzled up and down her spine before pooling in a wet, hot throb between her legs.

  “I should probably start my new job, right?” She wanted to sound faintly impatient, maybe a little tough. Worldly and blasé. Instead, she whispered the question like a little girl.

  And he was still so close. Too close.

  “Here’s how this works,” he said very calmly, but being this close to him again made her a little bit dizzy. She could see the way his dark chocolate eyes gleamed. It did not exactly make her think of candy. “You’re under my protection. That’s what you tell anyone who comes at you or tries to cop a feel, okay?”

  Holly bristled. “I don’t need to be protected.”

  “Baby, please. They’ll eat you alive.”

  “Well, so what if they do?” she demanded, glaring at him, that odd thing in her stomach that shouldn’t have been shame—because what did it matter what a biker thought of her—pulling into a taut, hard knot. “What do you care? And besides, Katelyn seems perfectly happy being consumed by the biker world.”

  “You don’t want to be Katelyn.”

  “I love Katelyn,” Holly snapped, because weirdness between them didn’t mean Holly should be disloyal. “She’s been my best friend since we shared a coloring book in kindergarten.”

  “This isn’t fucking kindergarten, babe. Christ.”

  “I’m sure that whatever makes Katelyn happy is good enough for me.” She might have been talking from between her teeth, but she meant it.

  “You know how your girl got her job here?” Uptown reached over then and took the end of her ponytail in his fist, tugging gently on it. It should have been annoying, like a mosquito buzzing around her. It wasn’t. Instead, she could feel that faint pulling sensation…everywhere. “She blew Bart, right here in this office. That was her warm-up, but you know, nothing new for her since she’d been hanging around the clubhouse for a while. Then she banged a couple of brothers on the couch to show her appreciation for being considered. But we doubted her commitment because she always seemed more about the party than getting any work done, so the next night she came back and blew a line of brothers, then let Bart fuck her in the ass over the de
sk while anyone who wanted to watch hung out. She started later that night. Big tips all around.” His head tilted to one side and she couldn’t have described that gleam in his gaze if her life had depended on it. But she could feel it like a punch to her belly. “That about what you had in mind tonight? Because I should tell you, we already knew and liked Katelyn. That was why we kept it mellow. Some of the other girls who work here had a lot more to prove when they came in.”

  Holly thought it was lucky that she couldn’t really process a single thing he’d said. Because it was too much. She remembered hunching over that coloring book with Katelyn when they were little, sharing their crayons even though they’d both wanted the green. She remembered all their sleepovers over the years, lying huddled up in the same bed whispering secrets and dreams into the dark. She didn’t want to think about her friend dispensing blow jobs or anything else. Because if she did, she might have to pay attention to the things her body was doing, as if it was imagining her in all the positions he’d described so nonchalantly. She felt…weird. But she couldn’t let herself think about that.

  “I thought Katelyn belonged to the club,” she said instead.

  “Sure,” Uptown agreed lazily. Or maybe he was just amused at how little Holly knew about his world and Katelyn’s place in it, despite how close she’d claimed she and Katelyn were. Worse, she was sure he could see exactly how red her cheeks were. She could feel the crisp heat in them and had to force herself not to put her hands there and make it worse. “She takes care of us, we take care of her.”

  “And I notice that you left yourself out of that story.” She ignored the flare of heat in her cheeks, particularly when his gaze seemed to sharpen. “Is that a sudden fit of modesty?”

  He tugged on the end of her ponytail, making her chin rise against her will. But when he eased off the pressure, she didn’t lower it.

  “Nothing modest about me. You want to hear who I fuck and how? I’m not shy, princess. But I think you are.”