Warped (Dueling Devils 4)

“Fair enough.” He stood and held his breath.

Quietly, she sat on a stool and gave him a slow once over.

His heartbeat kicked up a notch. His throat grew thick. She’s one of my own kind, the scarred and wounded. If she doesn’t want me, that’s it. She slid off the stool and his lungs began to work once more.

Her gaze darted around, like she expected someone to come from nowhere.

“Hey.”

Looking troubled, she glanced back over at him.

“I got you, Symone. You’re with me now. You can relax, okay?”

She swallowed hard and nodded her head.

He wanted to wrap an arm around her slender shoulders, but he knew that’d be invading her personal space. He shoved his hands in his pockets to resist temptation and led her down the hallway to the deck out back.

“Oh,” she whispered.

“Not what you expected to see, huh?”

“Not at all.”

“It’s been a year of additions since Pres got married and things became a little more family friendly, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s nice though, says a lot about him.”

Her wistful tone wasn’t lost on him. “Yeah, one thing about us bikers. When we decide to claim someone, we take their happiness pretty damn seriously.”

“Yeah? And all the club stuff here is what? Just a nice distraction the ladies back home don’t need to worry about? I know men. They’re never satisfied with what they have.”

“A little presumptuous to lump us all in the same category, don’t you think?” Monster asked.

“I’ll believe it when I see it with my own eyes.”

“I think when you find the right one, he’ll show you.”

“I think it’ll be a cold day in hell when that happens,” she scoffed.

Well, get ready, because a snow day is coming, baby.

CHAPTER FOUR

Symone blew strands of wayward hair out of her face and finished tallying the last set of numbers. The old girl had been dumb as a box of rocks, which meant their accounting had to be overhauled, starting at the date she was hired six months ago. She hit enter, scribbled the final amount and pushed back from the desk. Her eyes burned from hours of staring at numbers on a computer screen. She closed her eyes and rubbed her eyelids with her fingers, in an attempt to massage the strain away.

God, I should’ve been out of here three hours ago.

“Hey.”

She jumped in the chair.

“Sorry to startle you.” Monster stood in the doorway with his hands up in a comical expression of surrender. His face and hands were smeared with grease and droplets of sweat.

She licked her lips. Something about this man appealed to her on a base level. It wasn’t an experience she’d had before.

“I thought I was the only one left. You’re usually out of here around seven.”

“Yeah, I had to stay and clean up Sarah’s money mess before we got anymore behind.” She shook her head. “I hope she was pretty, because she couldn’t do her job worth a damn.”