She also had the kind of figure that made you think of blown-up skirts on subway grates.
She was all hips, ass, and tits, with a narrow waist. And she used that killer body to her advantage. That night, she was dressed in a pencil skirt and a tucked-in, low-cut wine-colored top.
When she leaned forward to pass a drink, you could just barely see the tip of a under-bust tattoo down her shirt.
She had a full sleeve down one of her arms too. And a dainty little nose ring.
“Oh, goddamn,” she hissed, fanning herself with her hand. “I think we have some fresh meat,” she added, making me follow her gaze toward the door.
And in walked a newer crew of men.
The bikers.
Out of the ten or fifteen eligible guys I’d mentioned earlier, these Henchmen dudes made up four of them.
Even though, to be honest, their president scared the absolute crap out of me, so I wasn’t sure if he counted. I guess he did if you were into that sort of thing.
But, yeah, they were all hot.
Slash, the president, with all those scars down his face. Sway, the ladies’ man, with his charming smile and abundance of tattoos. Crow, with his mysterious vibe. Then, finally, there was Detroit. Which, surely, was some sort of road name. He was a massive wall of a man with rich, dark skin, a square face and a serious brow.
All stupidly handsome.
But Nyx was right.
There was someone new with them as they walked in.
Well, new to them.
Not to me.
Oh, no.
That was my girlhood crush walking right back into my life.
Judge, everyone called him.
But his real name was Jasser. Or Jass, as most of his close friends would have called him.
I looked up his name once. Because, yes, I had been that smitten with the guy. And it meant “fearless,” which suited him all too well.
He was the epitome of sexy. Tall, fit, tattooed, with this olive-toned skin thanks to his Middle Eastern heritage, and incredible light green eyes.
Last I heard, he was thrown in prison for battery on a police officer.
Though, I imagined, there was a lot more to the story than that. Since half the cops in town were as crooked as a fish hook.
I hadn’t seen him for a while before he went away. My brothers had shipped me off to a distant cousin’s house in L.A. when something to do with their “business” was going sideways, and they were worried about something happening to me because of it.
Even miles and miles away, my stupid seventeen-year-old heart longed for some day when I might be old enough for him to look at me twice.
Well, I was certainly old enough now, wasn’t I?
I’d just celebrated the big twenty-one a few months ago, in fact.
Plenty old enough for a second look. And a third.
“Oh, girl, those are hearts I see in your eyes,” Nyx said, giving me a raised-brow look.
“I had the biggest crush on him before he got locked up,” I admitted.
“And yet you’re still fresh as a daisy because…”
“Because I was seventeen,” I told her.
“Ah. Well, you’re not seventeen anymore,” she said, taking the drink from my hand to deliver it herself. “Go get plucked, Dell. I’ll keep Cillian distracted.”
If anyone could manage that, it was her.
“You’re my favorite person in the world,” I told her. “How do I look?”
“As gorgeous as ever,” she told me, so sure, even as I turned toward the mirror on the back bar to check for myself.
I wasn’t like Nyx.
I didn’t have that sexy, mysterious look.
But I liked to think I was at least, you know, cute.
I’d inherited lighter features. Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin that tended to get pink in the cheeks if I was embarrassed or even overheated.
As for the body, well, I didn’t get the sexpot curves either.
I was, as Nyx would say it, pocket-sized. I was shorter, more petite in frame. And while I had a subtle flair to the hip and at least a hint of an ass, I had never managed to grow out of the itty-bitty-titty category.
Still.
Cute.
Certainly cute enough to interest a guy straight out of jail, I was sure.
I mean, I just wanted him to give me a once-over. I could die a happy, virginal woman, if that man would just look at me like a woman, and not completely dismiss me as a child.
As much as, you know, I wouldn’t mind getting “plucked” by him.
That would be a younger me’s dream come true, in fact.
Taking a deep breath, I readjusted my shirt so my The Bog logo was up over one breast, then grabbed my pad and pen, and made my way out from behind the bar.
We didn’t always serve the tables. The place was busy. It was easier for them to just walk up to the bar to order.