Griffin (Ruthless MC 3)

I’d almost call him pretty, but he’s covered all his conventional handsomeness with tattoos. They cover his entire neck and extend down from underneath his jacket sleeves to cover the back of his hands. He even has a few on his face: a black rose sitting directly above his left razor-sharp cheekbone and some lettering underneath his right eye.

Other than his beauty and tats, I can’t see anything that screams, “Okay, everyone, treat me special!” though. He doesn’t even have a president patch on his jacket, like Waylon and Hades.

I bend sideways to ask Candy, “Is there some reason people are acting like this guy’s such a big deal?”

She laughs like I’ve told a joke.

“You’re so funny,” she tells me—right before she breaks off to say, “Hey, Rockstar!”

“Call me Griff.”

He answers her, but his dark-blue eyes laser in on me.

My stomach swoops—in the way it does when I’m nervous and don’t quite know what to do with myself—which is crazy.

No matter how wild and confident I act inside the roadhouse as Red, I’m still Boring Bernice outside of it. And the person I am in real life would never dream of being attracted to somebody who looks like this guy.

Things Boring Bernice would never approve of:

1.The kind of biker criminals who frequent roadhouses.

2.Biker criminals with face tattoos.

So, I have no idea why my heart stops and my stomach starts doing acrobatics when his eyes find mine.

“What can I get for you, Griff,” Candy asks, interrupting my stare-fest.

Somehow Candy manages to make the common bar question sound like a request to take her upstairs, especially when she places both her hands on the serving station’s bar top and strikes a sultry pose.

I’ve never been to the second floor of the roadhouse myself. Allie warned me against making the trip up there unless I was looking to confuse guys about my willingness to sleep with them. Which I wasn’t.

Red is just a mask, a character to scratch an itch I’ve never indulged and get me the kind of money I need to go to New York City. And yes, it’s fun playing her. And yes, she makes me feel free for the first time in my entire adult life. But actually sleeping with one of these guys would be taking it a step too far. I couldn’t do that.

I peek over at the biker from the beer tap. Could I?

My heart skitters and skips a few beats.

“This one owes me a beer,” Griff answers Candy. He has one of those accents that Kiki calls country adjacent. It lopes like a Southerner’s but doesn’t twang and hum like somebody born and raised in the south.

“On her,” he adds. Then he shifts his eyes back to me.

I squirm under his burn of a gaze, uncomfortable and embarrassed for reasons I can’t quite explain.

“I’ll get that beer for you,” Candy offers, even though I’m already in position at the taps. “I don’t mind. What are you drinking?”

“Gran Patron,” he answers, even though that’s a tequila, not a beer. And I’m pretty sure we don’t have it in stock.

“Nestor keeps a couple of bottles special for me in his office,” he explains to Candy. “Can you go get it and take it straight to the Reapers' table? Just tell Waylon I sent you, and he’ll take care of your tip.”

“Sure thing,” Candy answers. Her voice is eager and bright, even though she’s the manager, not one of the servers. And she rushes off to fulfill the order before I can offer to do it myself.

Not the nicest move since that means I won’t get the tip from the premium bottle of tequila. I can feel myself slipping back into the role of Boring Bernice. The background character in everyone else’s story.

But, okay, whatever. There are plenty of other bikers here to serve.

Since Griff doesn’t want his free beer, I turn back to the main side of the bar, push back my shoulders, and paste a welcoming smile on my face. As Allie advised on my first day, “Big smiles and big tits get big tips.”

“Hold up. Where you going?” Griff grabs my arm before I can leave.

And when he touches me, my heart doesn’t just skitter. It stops. But I play it cool.

I take back my arm and tell him, “Hey, I’ve got other customers needing drinks before I go home, run myself a nice bath, and put on the latest Roxxy Roxx album.”

He wrinkles his nose, like he’s smelled something weird. “You still listen to whole albums?”

“Yes, and I still buy CDs too,” I admit. “Though I prefer vinyl, especially when it comes to Roxxy Roxx.”

I laugh at his mystified look. And I really should get back to my customers, but I have to ask, “Speaking of CDs, how did you know that song from Grace of my Heart?”