Edison (The Henchmen MC 10)

"Why would I want to come to a biker compound?" I asked, going for light, but there was an edge to my voice that I was praying he didn't know me well enough to pick up on.

"Drinks? Pizza? A chance to bust the balls of a bunch of probies who have been getting off way too fucking light lately. Come on. I know I got you at that last bit. You know it."

"As much as I do so love to take a male ego down a notch or fifty, I don't think that will be happening," I said as I rang up his bottles, wanting to move this along, uncomfortable.

Cyrus handed me cash as Meryl moved in to load the bottles into an empty beer box.

"No?" he asked, and there was something in his tone that I didn't trust. "Well," he said, picking up the box, "okay then. I will just have to tell everyone you didn't want to come."

Everyone.

Everyone.

We both knew he didn't mean that.

He meant Edison.

This bastard set me up.

I had a feeling that they didn't have a pressing need for whiskey or vodka. Oh no. He came with the sole purpose of trying to trap me into a situation he damn well knew I didn't want to be a part of.

If you had told me when I was training with him that he had the potential to be a devious little jackass, I would have said not a chance in hell.

Apparently, I didn't know him at all.

"You're a real shit, do you know that, Cy?" I asked, staring daggers at him.

"See? There's that spunk we need."

"Did you ever stop to consider that conning a woman into coming to your compound full of untraceable guns was maybe not the best idea?"

He gave me a wink, pushing his back into the front door to press it open

"I'll wait by the gates for ya. The guys are gonna love you."

Since when did men start trying to play matchmaker?

Didn't these bikers have like clubwhores to fuck and drunken target practice to conduct?

What, just because word got back that we'd hit the sheets, suddenly they needed to make it something more than that?

"Looks like you have an exciting evening planned," Niblet said, nodding his head, likely at the idea of one lone woman at a biker club late at night, and all the filthy things that that could entail.

"Sorry to burst your bubble here, Niblet, but no one is running a train on me tonight. Get that fucking pervy ass look off your face."

I could just not go.

No one was twisting my arm, not really.

So what if he went back and told Edison that he had invited me, and I didn't want to come?

Maybe I had somewhere to be in the morning.

Maybe I had a different man to take to my bed later.

Maybe I just didn't want to fucking come.

What did it matter what Edison thought?

Why did I care that he would know that the reason I turned it down was mostly because of him?

He was just a fuck, damnit.

His opinion of me shouldn't have mattered.

Why did it, then?

Because there was no denying that it did, not as I climbed in my car and drove off in the direction of the industrial part of town instead of toward my much closer home.

It fucking mattered to me that he didn't think I was a chickenshit, that he didn't think he got the upper hand, that he didn't think I was so weak as not to be able to spend one night in his presence.

Maybe I just wanted to prove that my guards were still perfectly in place.

Or maybe, a little voice whispered as I climbed out of the car parked in front of their compound, Cyrus waiting at the gate as promised, just maybe... I simply wanted to see him again.

The compound was about what you would expect except that it was relatively clean considering how many men lived there. There was a bar, a pool table, a seating area with a scuffed coffee table from kicked-up boots, and a TV so big that you could very likely see it from half a freaking football field away. I pulled at the sides of my motorcycle jacket, a somewhat self-conscious gesture, the likes of which I wasn't exactly known for.

My eyes drifted over the men gathered in the common area. Of all of them, I recognized Pagan who sent me a brow raise, like he knew what was going on, knew I was only there to save face. I couldn't quite tell if he approved of that or not.

All the others were new faces to me.

There were two equally tall men, one with dark hair, gray eyes, and some really nice bone structure. The other was dark-skinned, brown-eyed, and had some arm muscles that were begging for freedom from their sleeves.