“Stay here,” he said close to her ear so she could hear him. His warm breath made her loose hair tickle her ear. Between that and his closeness, it caused a shiver to shoot through her.
He released her hand, shot her a look that clearly said not to disobey his order to stay where she was and he moved down the back of the bar to talk to one of the bartenders who was busy hustling his ass off serving customers.
He wasn’t the only one. She blinked to make sure she was seeing correctly, but all three men behind the bar were wearing the same vests as Ozzy’s.
Or at least, sort of. Two of them didn’t have the same patches on the back. They didn’t have top patches and their bottom patches said PROSPECT instead of PENNSYLVANIA. But the large center insignia was the same.
Was Crazy Pete’s some sort of biker bar? Had it always been one?
“Hey there,” came from her right and a little too close for comfort. She turned to see a guy standing not even a foot away, near the end of the bar. The only thing separating them was the hinged portion Ozzy had dropped back in place once they were both behind the bar.
“Hello,” she politely answered back, then shot a quick glance to where Ozzy was having one of the bartenders, a really handsome man with dark hair and an equally dark beard, pour two drinks. Shay noticed the patches on the back of the bartender’s vest didn’t say PROSPECT like the other two. His were exactly like Ozzy’s.
She quickly glanced around to see how many people in the crowd wore similar vests.
None that she could see. Just the men working.
Weird. So, was it a biker bar, or was it just a bar where bikers worked?
“What’s your name?” the tall guy shouted over the music, leaning even closer.
“I’m here with someone,” she answered. Usually saying that got some men to back off.
His eyebrows pinned together and he frowned. “Just asking your name. And just because you came with someone doesn’t mean you’ll be leaving with him.”
Clearly her go-to technique didn’t work with this guy.
“You’re really hot.”
Suddenly she was experiencing déjà vu. It was taking her back to dancing with her drunk classmate earlier. “Thank you?”
She turned away and before she could take a step to put more space between them, he grabbed her arm and yanked her back. Not so gently, either.
What the hell? She jerked her arm but his grip tightened. “Let me go.”
“You one of those biker bitches?”
“I—”
Two drinks appeared on the bar next to her and she felt a furnace at her back. “Yeah, she’s one of those biker bitches and you know what happens when some ass-wipe touches a biker’s property?”
Ozzy’s growled response had her holding her breath. She didn’t want to be caught in the middle of some unnecessary fight.
“No, what happens?” the guy had the nerve to ask.
The fingers gripping Shay’s arm were ripped from her and the man screamed as Ozzy twisted those same fingers in a direction that they normally shouldn’t go.
Suddenly, the bartender who made their drinks was flanking her other side. “Problem here?”
“This fucker’s touchin’ somethin’ that don’t belong to him,” Ozzy informed him calmly while now cranking the man’s whole hand in an awkward position.
“You’re going to break my hand!” he shouted with a grimace.
Shay read the name “Dodge” on the front of the bartender’s vest when he turned toward her to ask, “He ask if he could touch you?”
Shay shook her head. “No, I told him to release me.”
Dodge turned back to the man. “Sounds like you touched somethin’ that don’t belong to you, then.”
He glanced toward the front of the bar, raised his tattooed arm above the crowd and waved someone over. In less than thirty seconds, a tall man, also wearing a vest, appeared out of nowhere. He had a noticeable scar along his jawline that separated the wiry hairs of his beard. He also had a faded tattoo of what might be a teardrop near his one eye. Wasn’t that the sign of someone who had committed murder?
Whether it was or wasn’t, he was one scary looking dude.
“Scar here’s gonna escort you outside,” Dodge told the drunk.
Scar? Shay guessed that fit the man. But it was kind of like her classmates calling her Shy instead of Shay. While the name fit her at the time, it was only used to be mean.
“I’m not ready to leave yet. My friends—”
As soon as Scar grabbed the man by the front of the throat—with a grip that didn’t appear close to being gentle—Ozzy released the man’s hand and said, “Have a great fuckin’ night, asshole, and don’t come back. Get this motherfucker out of here,” he ordered Scar.
The man stumbled as Scar steered him by the neck back in the direction he appeared from.