Then again, they also seemed to love the silent mountain in front of me, also known as Jack. Rugged and imposing, sure, but there was nothing pretty about the Viking.
Of course, he had a woman who would scare the hell out of any girl who thought they could tempt him. They couldn’t, of course. The man was hooked. Plus, Janet would scratch their eyes out if they even tried. Her temperament was well-known around town, so he didn’t deal with too much hassle these days from the girls who hung around looking for biker meat.
The truth was, they offered themselves to all of us on a frequent basis. The younger, unmarried guys might take advantage sometimes—Hell knows, Callaway used to—but hardly any of the group were still single. Me and Drake, Kyle, who was one of my crew and a Marine on leave, and Nick, one of the second-year prospects we’d all welcomed into the fold.
Mostly, we just liked hazing him. He barely reacted. He was an uber-relaxed Southern boy with a twang in his voice who always looked like he’d just ridden in on a horse. His just happened to be metal.
There was no rough stuff with the hazing anymore, though. Dev had put his foot down after what happened to Whiskey. And that had been before my time, while I was serving.
But we still loved fucking with the prospects and anyone who seemed to take themselves a little too seriously. It was an unspoken rule—get too high on yourself, and we were here to cut you down to size. We considered it our duty to keep each other honest and humble.
Some of us were harder to get to than others.
Cal and Lucky were still trying to figure out a way to prank Jack, for example. I could have told them that the only way in hell that was ever going to happen was if they enlisted Janet to be in on the joke.
That woman could prank the fucking FBI. She was that devious. Yeah, the men of the Devil’s Riders might be big and strong, but the women were the truly fierce ones.
Kaylie, Janet, Sally, Becky, Molly, and Kirstin, AKA Angel, were like lionesses, protecting their pride. I was just lucky to be included in the Devil’s Riders family. And I would never forget it.
Family wasn’t the sort of thing you should ever take for granted.
Donahue skedaddled when a couple of giggling young women approached the bar. I took their order and then made a round of tropical drinks for them. They were lucky the bar was well-stocked. Drake, Kyle, Nick, and the other prospects were doing a really good job with the grunt work around here.
I might even tell them that if they didn’t piss me off for a day or two.
Donnie only came back to lean against the bar when the girls were gone. I gave him a smirk. He was so scared of upsetting his wife that he literally ran when he saw women on the prowl. I could have told him that ignoring them completely was the best way to avoid them.
Running just made them more aggressive.
The truth was, the club girls had given up on me, for the most part. I was polite but firm when approached for sex. What I wanted in a woman was different from what they were offering. I wanted someone shy. Someone real but still sweet. I wanted a girl who hadn’t been around the block a million times. Ladylike and feminine.
I didn’t have a type beyond that. I wasn’t the kind of guy to pick apart women or qualify them by body part. I wasn’t an ‘ass man’ or a ‘boob man’. I wasn’t the type to go looking for a girl, either. In the past, girls had always fallen into my lap. But maybe it was time.
I wasn’t meeting pretty girl-next-door types hanging around with these degenerates, that was for sure.
Between work and the clubhouse, I wasn’t interacting with anyone. I certainly wasn’t meeting a lot of sweet little peaches. Even worse, Donnie had started dropping hints about setting me up. It was embarrassing to think my cousin thought I had no game. He acted like I couldn’t find my own woman.
The truth was, I just hadn’t bothered to try.
Chapter 2
Suzanna
The sound of bulldozers nearly broke my concentration as I carefully lowered the seedling into the dirt. Planting them at this stage was a very delicate operation. I’d nurtured the plucky little sprouts from germination, and now they were ready to start growing on their own. As long as I didn’t squash them by accident!
“Oh, for the love of—” I hissed as I readjusted the fragile little plant so it was sitting high on the manure I’d piled up below the fragile root ball.
“You just ignore those noisy machines now. They won’t be here forever. Just enjoy the sun and all that yummy compost I mixed into your soil!”