“Good thing your boys were around. You should come in and get an ice cream treat from my cooler before you go home,” Mrs. C instructs the two other men.
“We’re making sure that Fortune stays safe,” Easy grins. “But I’ll be in for my ice cream treat.”
After Eric leaves, Judge hauls a chair over and places it in front of the desk. “Michigan. Easy. You two take Miss Annie home.”
He drops his ass onto the desk and takes out a wicked-looking knife from his pocket and proceeds to lay that on his knee. Easy saunters over to the table where he’d been sitting, picks up the Lee Child book and hands it to Judge. “I didn’t get past Chapter One so let me know if the French president eventually bites it.”
At Annie’s wide-eyed surprise, Easy responds, “Told you I read the series.”
She sniffs and puts her small nose up. “I never said you didn’t.”
“Go on, Annie. I can handle it,” I urge. Whatever needs to be said between Judge and me could do without witnesses. Annie scurries off and I am soon alone in the small library with Judge, his lethal knife and the books.
“I want to know what happened, why you’re here. Why you sent one of your men here and what the mess was outside. Start talking or get out.”
Judge shifts in the chair and raises one ankle to prop on the opposite knee. “Let’s see. A couple of punks with Nazi tattoos on their necks decided to spray-paint your car with a couple of poorly spelled insults. Michigan, who’d been watching the library, saw it happen and apprehended the two. He zip-tied their wrists and ankles and left them lying on the sidewalk while he called me. I called you a couple of times but you didn’t want to answer. These guys are probably patches for the skinhead gang up north. We think they’re trafficking meth down the river and that Schmidt turns a blind eye in return for a cut of the money and favors like getting revenge against a woman who scorned him—which is why Schmidthead wandered inside instead of taking the trash out.”
“You believed something was going to happen which is why you sent Easy inside and your…Michigan outside.”
He nods.
“Why didn’t you say something to me on the ride in?” I hold up my hand before he can answer. “And don’t tell me you didn’t want to worry me.”
He settles back into his chair but doesn’t respond.
“Well?” I ask impatiently. I want to reach over, grab the hardcover and give Judge a good thunk on the top of his head.
He rubs a hand over his jaw. “I can’t say anything that you’re going to want to hear at this point.”
“You can’t order me around. I’m not your son or daughter. I slept with you once. It was good. Real good and I’d like to do it again, but I’m not climbing back into bed with you if you think I’m your property.”
He sighs. “You know that’s not what those words mean. Wearing your old man’s cut, being an old lady, isn’t about being a slave to that man. It gives the man the right to protect you and it makes sure everyone else knows that there’s a heavy boot and a hard fist on the other end of the leather.”
“Then why aren’t you warning me about the potential dangers that I should be on the lookout for and why are you coming here and telling me what to do in a place where I’m in charge?” I press a shaking hand against my nose. Did I pick wrong again?
“Baby.” He stands and then vaults over the wooden divide once again. “What’s happening to you is my fault and I want to be able to make things right for you. If you’d broken it off with Schmidthead and dated the coffee maker down the street, Schmidt wouldn’t ever have leaned on the mayor. You wouldn’t have shitheads vandalizing your car and I wouldn’t be worried about your safety. So this is all on me and I take care of my own.”
He tries to put his arms around me but I push him back. “That may be but you’re undermining my authority and making me look weak.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“Judge, if I walked into your club and reprimanded some patch who’d stepped out of line, how would that look?”
He exhales heavily and then reaches up to brush a lock of my hair out of my eyes. His touch sends a zing of electricity down my spine. Even in argument, I still find him hot as hell. His amazing intuition picks up on this and his eyes darken in response.
“It’d be bad and I’m sorry. I’m not trying to take away your authority. I like that you stand up to me.” He grins. “It makes your bedroom submission a helluva lot sexier.”
“All right. Then let’s make an agreement that in the library I’m in charge.”
His big body crowds me. “And if you need some attention during a lunch break? Who’s in charge then?”
I run a hand over the edge of his cut, the leather buttery soft from years of use. “I am,” I whisper as his head descends. “Because I can always say no.”
I don’t get anything more out because his mouth is over mine, his tongue pressing insistently between my teeth. We tangle for a few hot, heady moments. The tightness of my skirt prevents any good pressure against my sex but Judge is undeterred. He bends his knees and places a firm hand at the top of my butt and pulls me against his hard erection but the rub of his thick, denim-covered flesh only teases rather than satisfies.
He breaks away from my mouth to trail his lips along my jaw and behind my ear. “I’ll never give you a reason to say it. That’s not arrogance talking, only truth.”
Shuddering, I manage to stiffen my spine and step away. I smooth my hair back. “No customers behind the circulation desk.”
For a moment, I feel like he will disagree, but he doesn’t. He winks and walks around the end. I work, sorting through the suggestion cards patrons have left and Judge prowls the stacks.
“You have Car and Driver?” he asks in surprise.
“We also carry a selection of new movies and digital books,” I respond proudly.
“Glad to see my tax dollars are doing something worthwhile.” He settles at the same table Easy did and I realize that it’s the perfect position to see the entry door, the emergency exit and my office.
Whatever Easy does for the club, it involves strategy and planning.
“Tell me about the Death Lords,” I ask.
“What do you want to know?” He turns toward me and pushes the magazines he was pretending to be interested in away.
“How’d you come up with the name? You guys one percenters?”
He stretches his legs out, scoots his ass toward the edge of the chair and leans back, hands clasped behind his head. The shiny knife is still lying on my counter but I have no doubt he’s armed and dangerous even in this relaxed pose. “My granddad was from southern Minnesota. A nice town.” He names a large town down in Southern Minnesota near the Iowa and South Dakota borders. “You know of it?”
“I can place it on a map but I’ve never been,” I admit.
He shrugs. “It’s a nice enough place. Anyway, my granddad was drafted and served in the Vietnam War. When he came back home he didn’t recognize anyone. It was a bad time for vets. Back then, even in his hometown, there were people who di
dn’t like anyone who had anything to do with fighting. He wasn’t spit on like other vets were but people were careful around him and it wasn’t home anymore. He hooked up with a couple other vets and they moved up here to Fortune. They were still in a familiar place but far enough away from everything that they didn’t have to pretend that they fit in. They fixed up their own motorcycles and then some other vets joined them and soon they had a posse of broken-down vets and bikes.”
“How’d the name Death Lords come about?”
“Because death ruled them except when they were on the road. My granddad said that the road was the one place where the devil couldn’t catch them. They dominated the asphalt on their two tires and metal frames.”
I envision three long-haired grandpas on bikes motoring down the road and smile. “Your grandfather sounds like a closet romantic.”
“He loved his bike, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I roll my eyes at his response. “He must have loved a woman if he had your dad.”
“From the sounds of it he loved too many women. The club raised my dad.”
“Are your folks passed on?”
“Nope. Granddad is kicking it in Arizona. Says that he’s tired of the tit-freezing winters and my dad lives in the Cities with his latest woman.”
“No woman in your life?” I’m fishing, a tiny bit. In his forties, I find it hard to believe that he hasn’t had one big romance in his life. I’m leaning on the desk, work abandoned and totally caught up in our conversation. Sharing isn’t a problem for him and that is absolutely refreshing.
“Wrecker’s mom died when he was four, of breast cancer, but my mom and dad were great in the sack and hated each other out of it. She eventually got on the back of a nomad and took off. My grandma never married my granddad because he couldn’t keep his dick to himself. She died a couple of years before Wrecker went into the pen.” He looks up at the clock. “You about ready to go?”