Lessons in Corruption (The Fallen Men 1)

“Crazy cool,” I affirmed in a conspiratorial whisper.

She beamed at me.

“You know, I left William the same day I saw King in the parking lot of Mac’s Grocer for the first time,” I said into the ensuing silence.

The whiskey had made me uncharacteristically communicative.

The girls loved it.

I didn’t know if I’d be as big a fan in the morning.

“Fuck off,” Hannah said, because she was coarse but also awesome.

“No, seriously,” I laughed nervously but I’d already committed to telling them. “I was getting groceries and thinking about how my night was going to be the same as every other night I’d had for the last eight years, make William dinner, read then go to bed, only since I’d started working again, we’d probably have an awkward conversation added in about how I shouldn’t have started working again. I didn’t even realize how boring and sad I was until I saw him and Mute intimidate some preppy college guys.”

I shrugged and frowned into the bottom of my empty glass when I went to take another sip. “Saw him and it hit me between the eyes like a lightning strike. Even if I never saw him again after that, he would always be the guy who changed my life.”

“Wow,” Cleo sighed with her head on her hands. “That’s so romantic.”

“Be more romantic if my woman actually said shit like that to my face instead of gabbing about it with her girls.”

I froze with my empty glass halfway to my mouth (I’d been about to lick the remnants of sweet and sour foam from the inside rim). The women at the table, all loose with liquor and easy with good friendship, grew alert.

“King,” I said in a voice that was more breath than sound as I turned to find him standing beside our big booth table.

He was wearing an indecently tight round neck tee as he usually did when he wasn’t in uniform, and his rumpled halo of gold hair was down around his broad shoulders. The way he stood with his hands in his back pockets presented the insane breadth of his chest like a billboard for male beauty and I licked my lips at the sight of it. When I brought my eyes back up to his, they practically glowed in the dark like the neon blues light art behind him.

“Time to go, babe,” he ordered darkly.

I gulped loudly and lowered my glass to the table. “I think, um, we were all going to get another drink.”

“Darlin’,” Lila said as she tried to hide her smile, “your man wants to go, you go.”

Instantly, I frowned. “What if I want to stay? I’m having fun and I’ve never had real girlfriends before. I like it.”

Collectively, the hard but beautiful faces of the biker babes, Tay (who was somehow only a pseudo biker babe), and Harleigh Rose (who was too young and bright to be hard) softened in empathy.

The sight of it burned down my throat whiskey hot. I wasn’t sure if it was a good feeling or bad.

“We’ll be here, you need another girl’s night,” Cleo said, reaching across the table to give my hand a squeeze.

“And we’ll be seeing you Friday at the BBQ in that smokin’ hot new outfit,” Hannah added with a waggle of her tattooed eyebrows. “You see it, King, won’t want your woman to leave the house.”

“Definitely time to go, Queen,” King repeated, his impatience fraying at the edges like rope.

I had the ridiculous urge to ask him to bind my body with his rope-like words, to bend it and secure into new shapes using just the weight of that tone. Desire must have flashed across my face because he was reaching over Tayline to lift me forcibly out of my seat.

I let him because I loved the way he did it, like I was nothing but a feather. He settled me on my feet, snagged my purse and coat from Tayline’s outstretched hands then settled one arm over me. Every time he did that, it felt like a mantle of power across my shoulders.

“Careful,” I said even though I loved the gesture, because we were in public even though we were outside of town at the biker bar.

His lips twitched. “You don’t want to be careful,”

I rubbed my legs together to relieve the sudden ache between them.

“Right,” he said with a nod.

I watched him drop my stuff into Tayline’s lap again and then his arms were around me, one banded across my back and the other in its spot under my hair.

“Been four hours and I already miss this fuckin’ mouth,” he muttered before he close his lips over my mouth and ate at it.

Lust rushed through my veins, enlivened by the alcohol I’d consumed. I was drunk on my new favorite cocktail, Canadian maple syrup, Canadian rye whiskey and the seriously delicious taste of all-Canadian guy.