LITMIR.BIZ

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when the door opened with a bang and Smoke strode in.

      Carl, who owned Lucky’s Bar, wasn’t a fan of the Knights, and he didn’t much like Smoke and the other brothers hanging around. He could make life difficult for me when he was in the mood, so Smoke tended to steer clear of Lucky’s whenever I was working.

      Though tonight it looked as if he had something important to say.

      Dear God, if it was about that blow job again, I’d get security to haul his ass out of there myself.

      ‘Hey, Cat.’

      His deep, husky voice rolled over me as he approached the bar and I had no idea why I found myself staring at him like a complete idiot. Because there was no reason to stare—none at all. Not when he was dressed like he normally was, in black boots, worn black jeans and a faded black T-shirt, his cut over the top. Nothing special, nothing fancy.

      Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

      Looking at how the cotton of his T-shirt pulled over the hard muscles of his chest and biceps, how the waistband of his jeans sat low on his lean hips, how one corner of his mouth curved in a sexy half smile, how black his eyes were and how they drew me in, made me feel like I was drowning.

      What was wrong with me? It was like he was projecting some kind of electric field, sensitising my skin, making it prickle with awareness and a heat that was totally unwelcome.

      No. Just no. The weirdness of a couple of nights ago was fresh in my mind, and I’d been hoping that it would have all gone away and everything would be like it was.

      Seemed I was destined for disappointment.

      Smoke leaned his elbows on the bar and raised an eyebrow without saying anything.

      I jerked my gaze away, busying myself with folding some of the cleaning cloths we kept behind the bar for drying glasses.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ The question came out quick and graceless, but I couldn’t seem to moderate my tone.

      If he took offence, or even noticed, he didn’t show it.

      ‘I got to talk to you.’

      ‘Now? I’m in the middle of work.’

      ‘It’s important.’

      I folded the cloth in half, lining up the edges and making sure they met. ‘Can’t it wait? You know Carl doesn’t like you hanging around.’

      ‘Yeah, but, like I said, this is important. It’s about Annie and you.’

      I couldn’t avoid his gaze any longer—avoiding it was already strange enough as it was. Bracing myself, I finally looked up and met his dark eyes.

      There it was again, that electric shiver moving over my skin like static.

      Crazy. He was here to talk about something important, to do with Annie and me, and all I could think about was my physical reaction to him.

      I had to get a grip. I had to put this stupid...whatever it was...to one side and forget about it. I wasn’t getting involved with a biker—not after the lesson my dad had taught my mom, let alone the fact that the biker in question was my best friend. So there wasn’t any point fixating on this irrational attraction.

      I was over men—possibly for good.

      I had to let it go.

      ‘Okay?’ I leaned a hip against the bar. ‘So what’s the deal?’

      ‘I’ve figured out a way to make sure Grant never comes near you or Annie.’

      I blinked, my heart leaping inside my chest. ‘Seriously?’

      ‘I’m always serious, kitten.’ He didn’t smile, and there was an intense look on his face. ‘Especially when it comes to you two and your safety.’

      I let the kitten go, sagging against the bar in relief. ‘How? What did you do?’

      He still didn’t smile, which maybe should have clued me in to the fact that what he was going to say next wasn’t going to make my life any easier.

      ‘You’re not going to like it.’

      The relief ebbed, my muscles tensing. ‘What exactly am I not going to like?’

      ‘It involves the Knights.’

      Smoke was always like this when he was telling me stuff I didn’t want to hear. Calm. Direct. Straight-up. Laying out the unpleasant facts so I knew exactly where I stood.

      ‘It involves you and Annie being under their protection.’

      My first instinct was no fucking way in hell. I hated the MC and didn’t want to have anything to do with them—and I especially didn’t want any child of mine anywhere near them.

      ‘I told you I didn’t want to involve—’

      ‘I know what you told me. But hear me out, okay?’

      I bit down on my protest. I didn’t want to hear him out, but if he’d gone to the trouble of figuring out a way to help Annie, then the least I could do was listen.

      ‘Fine. So how are Annie and me going to be under their protection? We’re not part of the club.’

      He shifted on his feet, and if I hadn’t known any better, I would have said he looked uncertain. Which was strange, because Smoke was never uncertain.

      ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s the hard part. To be under their protection you have to be a club member.’

      ‘How? Unless they’re suddenly recruiting women?’ I put a little sarcasm into that last part, because obviously no outlaw MC would allow women to be full members.

      Smoke ignored that, gazing at me in a very focused, very intent way. It made that electric current stronger, lifting all the hairs along the back of my neck and my forearms, making me short of breath.

      ‘There’s one way,’ he murmured. ‘If you’re my old lady, you’ll have the full protection of the club and so would Annie.’

      Shock held me still. I had no idea what to say—no idea what to even think.

      First there was the whole issue of the club. Then there was being his old lady... He couldn’t be serious.

      But he wasn’t smiling. And the look in his eyes... Shit, I knew that look. He always had it when he meant to do something and he was going to do it whether I liked it or not. He’d always been a guy who liked his own way, and he got it enough that it made him unhappy when he didn’t.

      ‘You’re not serious, right?’ I tried to sound normal and not like a shaky little girl.

      ‘Yeah, I’m serious.’

      Of course he was. He was never anything but.

      ‘You and me will be together as long as it takes for Grant to get off your back, but it won’t be real or anything.’ He stopped all of a sudden, as if he’d meant to say something else and held himself back at the last minute. ‘We only have to make it look believable to the club.’

      Make it look believable.

      What the hell did that mean?

      You know what it means, idiot.

      Heat shot through me—a flare like a lighted match held against my skin. I tried like hell to ignore it. To concentrate on the facts instead.

      ‘So,’ I said carefully, busying myself with folding the cloths again. ‘Let me get this straight. You think that if you make me your old lady, the club will protect me and Annie from Justin.’

      ‘I don’t think. I know.’ He said it like the gospel truth, handed down from God himself.

      ‘I thought your president didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the police chief. If Justin comes after Annie and the club stops him...’ I let the sentence

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