After that, everything seemed to move in fast forward. The guy was only a few inches away, his face full of determination and a lust that scared the hell out of me. I yelped again. There was something in his eyes that told me that, if he caught me, he would hurt me.
His fingers latched on to my ankle, and I couldn’t control my scream of fright as he tugged me toward him with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible with just one hand.
I kicked out at him with my free foot, but when I came into contact with nothingness, I realized that the guy had been jerked away from me. In the blink of an eye, he was there one second and gone the next.
Swallowing the next scream that had been about to leave my throat, I lifted my head and met the green gaze of a man far more dangerous than the one who had just tried to snatch me. Only this one held my stupid heart in his huge hands.
Chapter 16
Raider
I wasn’t in the mood to babysit a bunch of strippers tonight, but Bash had given the order, and I had no choice but to accept it. But first, I had a stop to make.
The entire club was on alert for Fontana. Bash had upped the security on everything, especially our females. The most obvious target would have been Raven and Flick, since Raven was the MC president’s wife and Flick was Ciro Donati’s cousin, though not many people knew that outside of our immediate family. But while everyone was rushing to make sure that all the other females were safe, I couldn’t stop worrying about Quinn.
I figured Colt had her covered, but I couldn’t accept that he was the one to protect my female.
While the others went on ahead to Paradise City, I drove by Quinn’s house.
As I had expected, Colt’s hog was parked in the driveway. I stopped a few yards away and just sat there, watching the house for a long while. There was only one light on, in the living room I suspected. I hoped to catch a glimpse of her, but there was no movement that I could see from within.
Cursing myself for being ten kinds of a fool, and a pussy, I started my hog and headed over to Paradise City.
It wasn’t surprising to see a decent crowd at the strip club, but the parking lot was overflowing with cars from people from every walk of life. There were beat up old clunkers, flashy Mercedes, and everything in between. No wonder Spider and Bash had wanted more security.
As I headed into the club, I saw a new bouncer standing at the door. He stopped me when I started to go in without speaking to him.
“I gotta pat you down, man,” the short but beefy man told me.
I pointed to my cut. “Boss sent me over to help with security. You don’t have to do shit.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, man. MC gets in for free, but Topaz says I pat down everyone.” When I just stood there, glaring menacingly at him, he sighed. “Look, the other five brothers didn’t give me any grief. I’m just trying to do my job here, man.”
Gritting my teeth, I didn’t argue with him. I let him do what he was expected to do. When he felt my gun in the holster under my cut, he started to take it away from me.
I caught his wrist. “Touch it, and you’ll see exactly what kind of a hole it can leave in a man’s belly.”
The bouncer grimaced but backed up a step and finally let me through.
Straightening my cut, I walked into the club and headed toward the bar where the other five brothers were already drinking a beer and chatting up a few of the girls. As I moved toward them, I caught a familiar scent and stopped dead in my tracks.
Fuck, now the smell of Quinn’s skin was starting to haunt me. The room seemed to be full of the honeysuckle and sunshine fragrance, making me dizzy with the thought of how good it had tasted on my tongue, how good she had felt in my arms.
Closing my eyes for only a few seconds, I breathed in deeply, savoring the scent. Then I forced myself to move forward again.
Creed saw me first and picked up a fresh beer from the bar top. “There you are. Thought you got lost or something, man.”
“Had something to do,” was all I told him as I took the beer and swallowed half of it.
“Fuck, what is that smell? I think I’m in love with whoever is wearing it.” Warden turned toward the crowd that was watching the girl now on stage.
Creed sniffed the air. “Smells like something Quinn always wears. Hey, we need to go by the diner tomorrow. I haven’t seen that girl in forever.”
Creed was taller than me by a few inches, probably wider than me, too. I liked him, respected him, but there were times I wanted to punch him in his too handsome face. Right now was one of those times.
Had he always been into Quinn?
I tipped my beer back, swallowing the rest in a few gulps, before slamming the glass bottle on bar top.