I find a table in the corner where I can keep an eye on the bar and the dance floor, which isn’t easy with the piss-poor lighting, but I will make it work. The girls are at the bar, ordering shots and making sure Meg gets enough to celebrate her birthday properly. I can hear them shouting and laughing from here, and it makes me smile. I’m glad I can give this to them. My backup crew is mostly people who made so much money working for me, they’ve gotten out of the clubbing business, either by starting their own businesses, going back to school, or investing, but they like coming in from time to time, and they’re good at their jobs.
I hope Meg really did like the necklace. I wanted to give her the special bracelet I’d picked out for her, but I was afraid a lot of people would see and ask about the charms, and that is just between Meg and me for now. The necklace was nice, too, and I think she was surprised.
My eyes gravitate to Meg. She looks sexy with her shirt tied up so her flat stomach is showing. When she takes the most recent shot set before her, she wrinkles up her nose, and I almost laugh.
I watch from the shadows as the girls continue to have a good time. The waitresses who come by to ask if I want anything get shooed away without another glance. The redhead in the black skirt is the only woman I’m interested in, and I’m staying sober to make sure she has a good time.
We’ve only been there for about an hour when the first predators start closing in. I see a group of five guys checking out my girls from across the bar. At first, they keep their distance, only pointing and laughing at what I can assume are lewd jokes they are making to one another. But as they creep closer, like lions going after their prey, my hackles go up.
One of them, a tall, lanky guy with his shirt unbuttoned almost to his navel, starts dancing next to Meg. She is a little tipsy at this point and doesn’t notice him at first, but Sadie does.
I can’t hear her from this far away, but I know that look as she yells at him, gesturing for him to get lost. Meg turns to look at him, stunned, and moves closer to Sadie. The guy laughs and puts his hands up, but he doesn’t really back away, and as soon as the girls are back to dancing again, he makes another move. This time, his friends are even closer.
I am out of my seat and moving through the crowd like a skilled motorcyclist weaving through the turns on a mountain pass.
My plan is to simply tell him that the ladies said no, but when I see him grab Meg by the hips and pull her against him so that he can grind into her, my plan changes. Without a second thought, I grab hold of the guy’s arm and rip it up and off of her, twisting it until I hear a loud cracking noise, and he screams out in agony.
“I think the ladies said they didn’t want to fucking dance with you, jackass!” I shout at him as I toss him to the ground and slam my boot into his gut.
“What the fuck!” one of his friends shouts as the four of them come at me. A couple of them appear to be in decent shape, but one is short and pudgy, and the other is almost as rail thin as the guy I just laid out. His bones should crack nicely when I break them as well.
Everything happens in a flash as I move to protect my girls. Fists fly at me, but I dodge them, throwing my own. I punch the first guy in the jaw while I simultaneously kick out against another, sending him tumbling backward into another dancer. That guy turns around, pissed, and now, the dancer is punching him.
In the meantime, Chubby comes running at me full speed, trying to ram his head into my gut. I catch him and launch my knee into his groin a few times before I have to let him go to send the thin guy’s nose through the back of his skull.
A fight has broken out all around us now, and all I can think about is getting the girls out of there safely. “Come on, girls!” I say, taking Allie by the hand and looping my arm around Meg’s waist. I see Sadie and Mia are already headed toward the door, but Allie always gets petrified in these sorts of situations, like she can’t even move, and Meg is staring at me with saucers for eyes.
“Let’s go,” I say.
“Your lip is bleeding,” she tells me, but I don’t let go to feel it. I guess one of those assholes landed a punch after all.
“My car’s not far from the door!” I shout to her in response, and the five of us manage to get out the door as the bouncers are running toward the place where the majority of the fighting is going on.
Once we are outside, we have to navigate around the streams of other people running for their cars, but I know the girls are safe now. “Watch out for the vomit!” Sadie shouts, dodging a puddle, and that makes everyone laugh.
“Leave your car, and I’ll send Brandon and Omar to get it,” I tell Allie, who is jogging along with me in a daze. I let go of her long enough to pull my keys out and unlock the SUV, as well as start the engine, but then I grab her again and pull her along. Meg is right beside me, still shocked, and the other two girls are far enough ahead that they’re climbing into the backseat by the time we arrive.
I help Allie into the back while Meg climbs into the passenger seat, which makes me smile. That’s right where she belongs.
As soon as we’re all loaded, I throw the vehicle into reverse and head out of the parking lot as quickly as I can. I don’t know if McDuff will know I started this fight or not, but I don’t feel like having words with him, not on a night when we are supposed to be celebrating Meg’s birthday.
“Party’s over!” Sadie laments from her spot behind me. “It’s too bad those guys had to be such assholes. We were having fun!”
“I know!” Mia agrees. “And we never got to do those shots out of Meghan’s belly button.”
My eyes widen as I glance over at her. She tucks some hair behind her ear and looks away, her face turning the same shade as her crimson shirt. I can only imagine how sexy it would be to see the other girls doing shots out of her belly button. Fuck. I wanna try. My cock’s getting hard just thinking about it.
I know what we need to do, and I don’t think twice about it. I’m not going to be dropping them off at their various apartments. No, we are heading back to Club Limelight.
“I can’t believe you did that, Hunter!” Allie’s voice is the most slurred of all of them. “You kicked those guyses azzes.”
“That was pretty cool,” Mia agrees. “But when you broke that guy’s arm, and the bone snapped, that was nasty.”
“That made me want to hurl!” Sadie agrees, and they all start laughing.
I steal another glance at Meg, trying to determine what she thought of me coming to the rescue, but she’s looking out the window, and I think her mind must be on other things. It’s too bad we have company in the backseat. Her hand is sitting on the edge of her seat, and my fingers tingle with the desire to reach over and slip her hand into mine.
It’s about midnight when I pull into a parking spot at the front of the club. We’ll go in the main door, like partiers, not like we work there. “What are we doing?” Meg asks me, but I don’t answer her. Instead, I get out, opening Sadie’s door before I go around to open the other back door and then open Meg’s and offer her my hand.