When Killyama had given her the picture, T.A. had almost dropped it from her nervous hand. The sexual intensity Dalton Andrews projected wasn’t for the unwary. A woman needed a chance to catch her breath, and she had nearly become lightheaded when she had seen him sitting at the bar next to Whip.
It was her survival instinct that had been honed from an early age that had kept her from making an ass of herself and asking him for an autograph.
The farther away she drove from the club, the more she began feeling bad for Dalton. She had always been the most mellow of her crew. The SOB probably just wanted to be left alone to grieve, out of sight of his grown kids. He wasn’t burying his head in a bottle. The eyes she had stared into had been cold-stone sober. No, Dalton was grieving silently on his own terms. He was like a bear that had gone off to hibernate and lick his wounds; until he felt ready to face the world and his kids again.
She wished now that she hadn’t agreed to encroach onto his bereavement. She soothed herself with the truth that it had been awhile since Oceane’s death, and the dude was really going to lose his ass if he let his business go under.
“Besides.” T.A. shrugged, talking out loud to herself. “It’s not like what I did is going to make a fucking difference anyway.”
2
Dalton watched the woman strut away.
“Tell me exactly why in the fuck you didn’t snap her neck for doing that?”
His lips quirked in a smile at Whip’s anger. “I like a woman with attitude.”
Giving him an exasperated sigh, Whip sat down next to him at the bar. “Jesus, you haven’t had a hard-on for any of the bitches that have been throwing themselves at you since you got here, and the first one that scrambled your nuts, you like?”
“She was cute.”
“It took everything I had not to laugh about the fucker suing her.”
The two men were laughing at the absurd boast when Nails and Dagger came up behind them.
“You wanted us?” Nails was the first one brave enough to ask at Whip’s glare.
“No.”
Dalton nearly choked on his beer when they stared at him in confusion at Whip’s answer.
“But she said you did.”
“She lied to you. Get back to your post and take Blade with you. At least he’s smart enough to know when a bitch is lying to him.”
They took off, leaving Whip staring at them sorrowfully.
“Those two don’t have a brain between them. I miss the good old days when the men were scared as fuck to fuck up.”
Dalton laughed. “You do a pretty good job.”
“Not like when Big Papa and you led them.”
“Those days are long gone; Big Papa is still in prison, and if I hadn’t straightened my shit out, I would be dead or sitting in the jail cell next to him.”
“I doubt that. No one could catch you on your bike. You were a mean motherfucker. That shit you could do on that bike was crazy as fuck. Fender tried one of your tricks and totaled his bike.”
Dalton shook his head. When he had earned his nickname, he was young and stupid as hell. The problem with youth was, you thought you would live forever. Accidents and sickness happened to others. He was reckless and foolhardy; it was Oceane who had brought him to earth with a thud. He had fallen in love with her at a single glance.
She used to joke that it was lust at first sight, but it wasn’t. From the moment their eyes met, it was unexplainable how she affected him. It was her looks that had him asking her to dance in that seedy nightclub she had talked her chaperone into taking her to when she had come to the States to visit, but the second he had touched her, the sparks between them had been undeniable. Her stay in Florida had only been for a week, and she had sneaked out several times with her escort threatening to call her parents, even though she was eighteen. Oceane had left him standing at the airport with a broken heart, promising to come back.
Their calls hadn’t alleviated the loneliness at being separated. As soon as he arranged for a passport, he had taken off after her. They had been married in France, but his wife sensed he missed home, so they returned to the States with him jobless and Oceane flying back and forth to high-paying gigs.
It was during one of her modeling assignments that he crashed and nearly died. Oceane had flown back immediately. Her face when she had come into the ICU was one he still remembered. She didn’t even give him a chance to explain how he had wrecked. She had told him she was pregnant. She didn’t cry and plead with him to stop riding; she just sat down by his side and told him she didn’t want to raise their child alone.