Chapter 10 One More Thing in Common
One More Thing in Common
Ryan
This night couldn’t end fast enough. I thought being stuck in a room in the middle of nowhere was torture, but no, this was real torture.
Having her on the back of my bike, in the clubhouse, in my room, and soon in my bed…
but not being able to do a damn thing with her because I’d told her she’d be safe here.
Yeah, I had a masochistic streak all right.
Then I’d almost told her she was mine.
Good God.
I couldn’t have a woman right now. I may have earned my patch, but working for Lark felt like I’d signed on to be a never-ending prospect for him.
That wasn’t totally true.
He ran the three of us ragged in an effort make us feel just how grueling and harsh the restaurant and bar industry really was.
I didn’t want to add a woman into the mix right now. Definitely not one like Ivy, who not only wasn’t from my world, but also deserved a stable man who lived in her world.
Watching her interacting with Killian though, practically barring him at the door, some instinct in me said she could hack it around here. Not just hack it, but even fit in with brothers and their ol’ ladies.
Shit.
I quickly put on my tank and pulled on my jeans.
I’d forgotten to grab a clean pair, but I’d take care of that while Ivy showered.
The way she looked at me earlier had me fighting off kissing her.
And for her to think I wasn’t attracted to her.
That was ridiculous… then again, she thought she wasn’t as gorgeous as my sister.
I was exactly the man who could show her reality.
I stepped out of the bathroom to find her watching Monday Night Football with a hip propped on my bed.
“You could take your shoes off and get comfortable, Ivy,” I murmured as I wandered to dresser.
“I didn’t want to mess up your bed, especially since I need to shower,” she said.
With a pair of socks in hand, I sat on the edge of the bed opposite her, and tugged them on. “Let’s go get you some ice, or I can run down and get it while you shower.”
She stood. “No, I’m curious about this building. It’s deceptively large.”
“That’s the damn truth,” I muttered, shoving my feet into my boots.
“Why do you say it like that?”
I chuckled. “As a prospect, we had to scrub every inch of flooring and all kinds of other chores to maintain the clubhouse. Trust me, you figure out how big this place is real fast that way.”
Once we were downstairs, I grabbed her hand and led her into the common room. Not many brothers hung out here on Monday nights, so I didn’t expect for there to be anything too wild and crazy happening.
Killian, Tundra, Rafferty, and I normally played a pool every Monday night.
Now that Rafferty and Alexandra were serious, he’d been hit and miss around here.
As we rounded the corner of the bar, I saw Rafferty lining up the cue ball to break a fresh rack and Tundra stood to the side holding a cue stick.
Tundra was older than us by about twenty years, and his eyes narrowed on Ivy. “What the hell happened to her?”
“Who is she?” Tic asked.
Tic also stood holding a cue stick. They must have asked him to fill in for me.
He earned his patch around the same time as me, Killian, and Rafferty, but he’d started prospecting before us.
I didn’t trust him. It took him longer to patch into the club.
He loved the club lifestyle, but he rarely listened to the rest of us – about anything.
It was one thing to march to the beat of his own drum, but it was a whole other thing to ignore his brothers.
It rubbed me the wrong way, and I despised that he’d taken an interest in Ivy. I had to shut that down.
I stopped and twisted my head toward him. “She’s Ivy, and she’s off-limits to you.”
His brows shot up. “Is she now?”
“Yeah. It’s not a challenge. Forget you even saw her.”
Tic opened his mouth, but Tundra cut him off. “Leave it, man.”
Tundra wandered to the bar while I loaded ice into a plastic bag. “This have something to do with you being late?”
I nodded. “Those assholes who caused two fights at the bar when we first opened came back around. They saw her making an approach, and one of them cornered her and pulled a gun. I got in between them, but never pulled my piece. I should have just shot the asshole—”
Tundra shook his head. “No. That would’ve gone bad fast.”
I sighed. “Then one of the others came out and had a gun trained on her. They took us to a run-down dump way out near Sanderson.”
Tundra’s jaw ticked and he looked away. “Where are they now?”
“Out of the picture,” I muttered and tied off the bag of ice.
Tundra locked eyes with me. “You’re in the clubhouse, Nickel. I’m your brother, say it straight.”
I handed the bag to Ivy, but kept my gaze on Tundra. “Two of them are dead, but at least one other person knows or soon will know they’re gone because someone named Rusty was calling the shots.”
“Why’d they take you two?” Rafferty asked, sidling up to Tundra.
“They think I’m one of Lark’s kids,” I said. I glanced at Ivy holding the bag of ice. “Put that to your face, woman.”
She raised the bag to her temple, but shook her head while doing it. “Pretty sure this is a lost cause, Nickel.”
I shot her some side-eye because deep down I preferred her calling me Ryan.
“Why did you bring her here?” Rafferty asked. “Pretty sure she can ice that bruise at home.”
“I’m a realtor, and there’s a magnet on my car that lists my name and phone number. They shouldn’t be able to find my address that way, but Ryan, I mean Nickel, didn’t want to take that chance.”
Tundra’s lips quirked into a small smile. “Always better to be safe than sorry.”
I went behind the bar and put down a pint glass. “You want anything to drink, Ivy? There’s a half a bottle of red wine back here, but who knows how long it’s been sitting around. Or there’s some white wine—”
“Or tequila helps with bruises,” Tundra said.
Ivy laughed. “It does not.”
Tundra leaned forward. “How would you know? I’m guessing you’ve never had a shiner before.”
Was he flirting with my woman?
Dammit. She wasn’t mine.
Ivy pulled the ice away for a moment. “No, I haven’t, but I’ve had tequila before and those headaches almost rival the one I’ve got right now.”
I narrowed an eye at her. “You said it was getting better.”
She shot me a small smile. “Yes, but being on your motorcycle had everything to do with that.”
I had a sudden urge to throw her over my shoulder and ride as far as my Triumph would take us. Rather than give into the urge, I forced myself to ask, “Do you want something to drink? Otherwise, I’ll grab you a water.”
She shrugged a shoulder, which drew my attention to the line of her collarbones which were on full display in her wide-necked blouse.
“This is a bad idea, but after this day, I don’t give a damn. I could go for vodka and cranberry or I’m good with vodka and a twist of lemon or a lime if you’ve got that,” she said.
We were more than good with that. My favorite liquor was vodka. I went to the side-by-side fridge and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. A lemon and a lime sat on the counter close by, I grabbed both. When I turned around, I saw Ivy watching me.
I nodded at her.
“You forgot glasses,” Tundra said.
My eyes slid toward him. “Got some in my room.”
“No ice?” he asked.
“This has been in the freezer.”
“Not gonna socialize?” Tundra kept at me.
I fought off a frown. “So you can flirt with her some more? We’ll pass.”
Tundra roared with laughter. My anger flared because nothing about this was funny.
Tundra clapped a large burly hand on my shoulder. “Nickel, when I’m flirtin’ with your woman, you’ll fuckin’ know it.”
“Whatever. If you’re around, you’ll see us in the morning,” I muttered.
Ivy reached out and took the fruit from me. I jerked my head toward the other side of the room and she walked in front of me. The way Tic eyed her up and down didn’t escape me, but I kept my reaction in check.
I shifted the vodka bottle so I could hold her hand before she got out of the common room.
From the corner of my eye I saw her head turn and I looked down the dim hallway.
Another biker and one of the club groupies were halfway down the corridor making out.
She’d pushed forward and had him up against the wall, and he had both hands wrapped around the globes of her ass.
She pulled away and kissed his neck. In the dim light, I recognized Killian.
“Goddammit,” I hissed.
“What?” Ivy whispered, twisting her head around to me.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s go,” I whispered, and hurried us up the stairs.
Inside my room, I put the vodka on my dresser and took the lime and lemon from her.
She put a hand on her hip. “What was that all about?”
I moved to my closet to grab a towel, then went to my bed and picked up the black t-shirt I’d left there. I held them out to her. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. You need to shower before you have a cocktail. Here’s a towel for you, there’s a washcloth in the bathroom.”
Her head reared back. “That seems over the top, too.”
I chuckled silently. “It’s not over the top if I’d rather you shower with all your wits about you. That’s being safe.”
She tipped her head to concede the point. “What was the problem downstairs? Two people were making out, which isn’t something I haven’t seen before.”
“It was about to become much more, Ives.”
She shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it. I mean, I’m not a voyeur, but your reaction was… over the top.”
I tipped my head back for a moment. “Not if you consider that was Killian down there, and I’d rather not see him gettin’ some.”
“Oh. Well, that makes more sense. At least you don’t think I’m a prude or so delicate I need to be protected from seeing people making out.”
I closed my eyes, turned my head a tick, then held up my hands before I looked her in the eye. “Please, go take your shower. It’s getting late.”
While she showered, I checked my phone. I had a string of texts from Mickayla.
What the hell! How did you get taken from in front of the bar?
Hello?
This is no time to ignore your triplet, Ry.
The last message came in an hour ago. I wondered how she knew about it so fast when Killian hadn’t known.
I sent her a text to set her mind at ease.
She responded instantly.
The only good thing is that I hear you followed a certain woman home.
I rolled my eyes and sent her back a GIF that said ‘goodnight.’
I bet it will be.
It isn’t like that. Now I need to get some sleep.
I put my phone away and went to my desk in the corner of the room. In a large drawer, I had two highball glasses and I pulled them out. I should have had a prospect bring me a bucket of ice, but I hadn’t wanted to give Tundra another reason to give me shit.
It had surprised me when Ivy suggested vodka over tequila since that was my go-to liquor, too. I poured two fingers into each glass when I heard the bathroom door open.
I looked over my shoulder and swallowed. She wore my t-shirt and it hit at her mid-thigh. Her legs were long and curvy, making my hands itch to touch them.
She put her duffel bag next to the bed. “Please tell me you didn’t do anything else to that vodka. I saw that it’s Tito’s and really it just needs a squirt of lime for me.”
I grinned. “Nope, haven’t done anything to your glass yet. Get over here, and you can doctor it yourself… or I’ll do it.”
She chuckled and sidled up to the dresser. “We forgot to grab a knife downstairs, so I’m not sure how we’re going to manage this.”
I pulled my pocket knife out of my pocket and put it on the dresser in front of her. “You can cut it if you want. I cleaned the blade earlier in the bathroom when I got dressed. I’m more of a gimlet man, but there’s no lime juice down there because we used it all last night.”
Her eyes widened and she looked up at me. “Wow. We have one more thing in common then, I guess.”
My brows arched. “One more?”
“I’m not exactly counting, but so far we have three things in common. Being abducted, apparently a mutual attraction, and our drink preference.”
Every time I thought she couldn’t stir up trouble, she went and did it again.
I left her comment alone and twisted a hand at the lime. “You gonna take care of that, or should I?”
She held her hands up. “Have at it. I don’t want to get juice all over your dresser.”
My dirty mind served up visions of her getting a different kind of juice all over my dresser. I took a deep breath and exhaled before I grabbed the lime and cut it in half.
I handed her one half. “Have at it, Ivy.”
While she fiddled with the lime, I squeezed as much out of the other half as I could, careful not to get seeds in the glass.
“Geez, you must have strong hand muscles,” she said, carefully putting the other half on the dresser.
I grabbed that half and squeezed the rest into my glass. “Yeah. It’s important to have strong hands when you’re dealing with drunks.”
She raised her glass to mine. “Here’s to escaping that creepy house.”
I tapped my glass against hers and took a sip.
She slammed hers back. “All right. Hit me again, Nickel.”
“You aren’t getting drunk, woman.”
Her head tilted. “Not trying to get drunk. But, I’d say today calls for two cocktails, not one.”
I poured a single finger of vodka into her glass. “There you go. That’s it, Ivy.”
“Cool,” she said, and sipped at it, then wandered to my bed.