Or, at the very least, Valhalla.
“No, I’m not,” I hissed, glancing from the caramel-skinned, tattooed, bald-headed and utterly delicious biker to stare at the man I’d been catching glimpses of all night. When my eyes locked on his piercing stare, directed at me, as if he’d been watching and waiting for me to meet his, I darted my gaze away to meet Lucky’s amused irises. They were lighter, more mischievous and a lot younger than my mystery man.
My?
At what point in this night did I claim him mine?
The fifth stare?
The fiftieth?
Or the first?
“You are, darlin’, and it breaks my heart that you’re usin’ me as a human shield. ‘My body is a wonderland,’ to quote John Mayer, and I’ll not have it used for such purposes,” Lucky stated seriously, hand on his chest in mock shock.
“How is it possible for you to quote John Mayer and be in a motorcycle club that pretty much runs on masculinity instead of gasoline?” I teased, forcing myself not to look in the direction I knew he was.
“I’m a multifaceted man,” he defended. He stepped forward, his eyes flickering with the trademark seduction he’d been using on me since I was sixteen.
Well, me and every other girl with a vagina and legs.
“Plus, I’m very confident in my masculinity and my wondrous body that you’re currently using as a shield,” he continued, tilting his head with interest. “And I’m very intrigued as to why you’re doing so. I mean, you’re finally getting flustered over a man at one of these things.” He tapped my head. “I thought your programming didn’t allow for that, Cyber,” he teased.
I glared at him. Cyber was Lucky’s nickname for me since he was baffled that I was the only woman who wouldn’t jump into bed with him. Or any of his brothers.
Apart from Rosie, and Ashley, both of whom had known him since he was a skinny runaway with demons at his back. We considered him a brother.
A hot one, to be sure.
And also, a total dork.
One who wouldn’t hesitate to kill a man if he looked at me, Ashley or Rosie the wrong way.
“Just because I don’t want to have the wondrous experience of having to visit my gyno for just looking at your bedsheets doesn’t mean I’m a nun. Or a lesbian. Or a cyborg,” I told him.
“No, I disagree. I mean, you’re in the face of true manly beauty, and you’re too busy trying to both hide from and spy on our newest visitor that you probably couldn’t even tell me how many veins I have in my neck.”
I rolled my eyes. “How would anyone know that?”
He grinned. “Because that’s where women imagine their mouths while looking at me.” He waggled his brows in a good imitation of Rosie. “Amongst other places.”
“You’re a pig,” I informed him.
“And everyone loves bacon,” he countered.
I sipped my drink in response.
“You’re not curious, then?” he probed, folding his arms and grinning so his harsh male features softened, revealing the puppy dog he actually was.
If you had asked me before I met Lucky if the Devil could still be bad and good at the same time, I would have told you the Devil didn’t exist. That was, after all, the greatest trick he’d ever pulled. I glanced around, my eyes touching on Bull, leaning on his knees and dangling a beer bottle between his forefingers, watching the fire.
The Devil existed. In all of these men.
He just wasn’t entirely bad.
I glanced to Cade, his dark eyes watching his wife while he moved his daughter in his arms just enough to reveal the Glock shoved into the waistband of his jeans.
He wasn’t entirely good either.
I moved my attention back to the smiling devil in front of me, studiously avoiding the place in the crowd where fire burned at my temples.
“I’m not curious?” I repeated. “About what syphilis feels like?” I shook my head. “But I ever get that way, yours will be the first door I knock on,” I replied sweetly.
He laughed, something he did easily and often.
He killed too. Something I knew he also did easily and often.
But that didn’t make me love him any less.
It didn’t make me love any of them any less.
Especially when Bull was the one who pulled the trigger on… him.
That’s why I loved him the most; somehow it had created an intangible connection between us. A comradery, maybe. These men had all shared blood, bathed in it. But Bull and I, what we had lost was more than blood.
Me? A piece of my soul so small I could build around it. Sure, it would never be whole—it was broken and mangled, if I was being honest—but I’d be able to laugh with Lucky as I was now. I could smile and enjoy the taste of the sweetness of this life.