Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Shelly
A n hour later, Shelly was having the time of her life. Crash was hilarious, regaling her with stories of growing up in the forests and rocky hills of the upper peninsula of Michigan with his brother as well as tales of his brother’s biker buddies and the shenanigans they get into. He spoke of his plans to prospect for the club in the near future, and his hopes to be a part of the found family. There was no doubt in her mind that he loved his brother something fierce, and that the sentiment was returned. She was a little jealous of the bond they shared. It had to be nice for a person to know that no matter what happened in one’s life they were never left to face it alone. To know that at their back was not only a sibling that would do anything for them but also a pack of loyal bikers who would take on the world in the name of brotherhood.
The twinkle in his blue eyes as he spoke had her wishing she had been there for each of his stories. The humor and fondness she witnessed was genuine, and she wanted to see what he was picturing in his mind. She wanted to see the landscape, the people, the bikes, the cars, the stunts they performed, and the pranks they pulled on each other. Shelly wanted to experience his joy with him.
“What?” He grinned and took a drink of his whiskey.
She shrugged and did the same before she answered, “Just thinking how beautiful you are as you reminisce.”
“Beautiful?” He scoffed. “Been called a lot of things in my life. Beautiful has never been one of them.”
“Well, now it has, biker boy.” Shelly set her glass of whiskey down on the table and stood, giving him a wink before she made her way to the bar just a few feet away. Waving down the bartender, she wasn’t surprised when she felt Crash press against her back.
“If you think you’re paying for shit, you’re wrong,” he said into her ear, his voice sending shivers up her spine.
She rolled her eyes. “I was going to put it on your tab.”
“Good.”
The bartender stopped in front of her. He was a blond man, who looked to be in his mid-twenties, with light brown eyes, an average build, and tattoos up and down both forearms. “What can I getcha?”
“I need two shots that are half tequila and half fireball.” When the bartender raised a brow, she grinned. “Trust me.”
“What the lady wants, the lady gets,” the bartender replies. “Anything else, sir?”
“Two Snakebites. All four on my tab.”
“You got it.”
As the man went about making the shots, Shelly leaned back and let Crash kiss up her neck as his hands played at her hips and her abdomen. He was an affectionate man, always giving her a caress or a kiss or a hug, but it never felt suffocating. It felt sweet and comforting… nice .
“Tell me… What do you want out of this life?”
Shelly turned around in his arms and looked up at him. “What everyone wants out of life. Home. Family. To be loved. A place in this world. A purpose. Memories. Experiences. Joy. Fun.” She shrugged. “It all. I want it all. ”
His expression was dead serious, his brows pulled together, when he asked, “What if I told you I wanted to give all of it to you?”
Shelly just stared at him for a long moment. Then she said, “That’s the whiskey talking.” It had to be. They barely knew each other. As much as she liked him and hoped that it was the beginning of something, she didn’t want to be that girl who believed something a man told her on the first night, only to be surprised when she never saw him again.
He shook his head slowly. “It’s the man talking, but I’ll prove it to you. I don’t mind.”
A throat cleared behind her, jolting Shelly out of the hypnotic pull of Crash’s sexy eyes and alluring promises.
“Thanks, man,” Crash said to the bartender before he let go of her and manhandled the four shot glasses and headed back for their table.
Taking a few moments to regain her composure, Shelly trailed behind him.
Could it be so simple that the man of her dreams and the answer to how she’d spend her future had walked right up to her table in the middle of a nightmare date and saved her?
Crash
An hour later, Crash had taken a moment to step outside the back of the pub to make a call to his brother. He wasn’t just close to his brother. Arrow, Trey Adler, was his best friend, and he wanted to share the news that he found his mate. He dialed the number and put the phone to his ear.
“Crash, bro, tell me you don’t need bail,” the older man said on the other end of the line.
He was only younger by seven years, but Crash was used to Arrow treating him like a grown child rather than a brother. Crash didn’t take it as an insult. He knew it came from a place of love, and he appreciated that Arrow cared about him enough to watch out for him and had for his entire life.
“No bail needed.” Crash chuckled. “I found her, Arrow. My mate. I found her. And, fuck, bro, she’s gorgeous. Smart. Funny. Quick-witted.”
“Shit, Crash, that’s great. She know?”
He sighed, knowing what his brother was asking about. Arrow wasn’t just talking about the mate factor of the situation. He wanted to know if Lucky knew about shifters. “Not yet.”
“So, she’s not one of us.”
“No. As far as I can tell, she’s human.” He was positive she wasn’t a fellow shifter, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a vampire or a witch. It also didn’t mean she wasn’t a champion of the gods. Some of them were technically shifters, but they were granted gifts that made detecting them difficult. Even so, he didn’t believe she was any of them.
“Make sure you know she’s down for the ride before you tell her, Crash. Not all mates are okay with it. It happens.”
Crash nodded, even though Arrow couldn’t see him. Intellectually, he knew that some mates just weren’t able to handle the realities of shifters. Although their personality and the personality of the shifter were perfect for each other, that didn’t mean the human was able to handle the other consequences attached to having a spouse who went furry every once in a while. Some mates even freaked out at the knowledge and ran in fear.
“I know. I will. But can you just be happy for me?”
Arrow laughed. “I am. I’m just also your brother. What’s her name?”
“Shelly, but I call her Lucky.”
“You would.”
Crash chuckled. “I’m gonna head back to my woman. Love ya, bro.”
“Check in. Can’t wait to meet her. Love ya.”
After ending the call, Crash yanked open the back door of the pub and walked down the hall with a grin on his face, excited for the future.
***
The woman was hitting every green flag he could think of if he sat down to compile a list of factors that made up his idea of the perfect woman — Beauty, brains, humor, curves, flirtatious, clever, strong, engaging conversationalist, open-minded, compassionate, and kind. Lucky was all those things and so much more. He was stunned and a bit overwhelmed by their connection as he watched her laugh at some stupid joke he had just told. Her amusement lit up her face and made her green eyes sparkle, and the sound of her voice and her laughter that came from her perfect lips was like soothing music to his ears. Crash wanted to make Lucky look and sound that way as often as he could.
“Why do you keep staring at me like that?” she asked as her laughter started to die down.
“Because you’re stunning,” he admitted.
A beautiful blush graced her cheeks as her gaze dropped down to the tabletop. “Thank you.”
“Just being honest.” Crash reached out and took one of her hands in his, gently pulling her closer as he leaned in. When she looked his way again, he gazed into her eyes for a long moment before he took her lips in a slow, deep kiss, caressing her tongue with his own, enjoying the sizzle the touch sent through his body. He was grateful that the pub had chosen the small round tables, allowing them to sit close enough for the contact. She hadn’t been sitting directly across from him, more to the side than directly across, but even if she had been, the table wasn’t enough of a deterrent to stop him from getting a taste of her glorious lips.
His tiger purred at the contact, but he knew the cat wasn’t happy that he hadn’t pushed to complete the bond. She was his mate, his perfect partner, a person picked for him by the gods. To his tiger, that was all that was needed to be known. Crash knew it was much more complicated than that, and consent was very much a thing.
As much as he didn’t want to, he ended the kiss with a groan and pulled back. “When I get you naked, things are gonna get explosive,” he growled low.
Lucky chuckled. “Promises. Promises.”
Crash sat back in his chair and cleared his throat. “What do you want to do now?”
“Wanna play a game?” Lucky asked with a grin.
He narrowed his eyes on her, suspicious of that grin, but he wasn’t going to back down from whatever challenge she was about to issue him. “Let’s do it.”
Lucky grabbed one of the empty shot glasses and set it in the middle of the cleared space of the table between them. She held out a hand to him, palm up, and said, “Quarter.”
Crash reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a handful of change. After retrieving a quarter, he put the rest back in his pocket and handed the requested coin to Lucky.
“Okay. Low-consequence questions. We’ll take turns. If you make the quarter in the glass, you get to ask the question and I answer. If you miss, you take a shot and have to answer a question the other asks.”
“What if I don’t want to answer?” Crash asked. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t tell her, but he wanted all the rules before he headed down this road.
“Shots, of course,” she replied, as if it was obvious.
Crash chuckled and turned to wave to the bartender. When he got his attention, he shouted for a bottle of Jack. He was already feeling loose, but there was no way he was ready to call it a night. He was having too much fun with Lucky. Although he was looking forward to the grand finale of their perfect off-the-cuff date, Crash wanted them both to get as much out of it as they could.
Once the bartender dropped off the bottle and brought Crash his tab so he could cash out, making it very clear that they wouldn’t be getting any more drinks from him, Lucky and Crash started their little game.
Lucky bounced the quarter off the table, and it clinked as it landed in the shot glass. She grinned as she looked over at him.
Crash narrowed his eyes at her and smiled back. “Why do I have a feeling I was just lured into a trap?”
“I get to ask the question, not you.” She fished the quarter out of the glass and twirled it between her fingers. “Thunderstorms or snowstorms?”
His head jerked back at the ridiculousness of the question. It was not what he expected her to ask. He wasn’t sure what he expected to come from her mouth, but a weather preference question was not it. Chuckling at the absurdity, he scratched at the edge of the facial hair on his cheek and answered, “Uh… Well, that’s a good question. Alone? Thunderstorms, because there’s something soothing about listening to the rain and the thunder. With you? Snowstorms, because that would imply that it was cold and there would be a need for cuddling.”
“We could cuddle during a thunderstorm,” she replied.
He felt the need to purr out loud, but he swallowed it down and cleared his throat. “I’d like to amend my answer. Definitely thunderstorms.”
The satisfied smirk on her face had his jeans getting a bit too tight again. He ignored it as he watched her rest her elbow on the table, fold her wrist back, and hold out the quarter to him, held between her pointer and middle fingers.
Wanting her to feel just as turned on as he was, he bent forward and opened his mouth. Extending his tongue, he used it to pull the quarter slowly from her fingers into his mouth while maintaining eye contact with her. The gasp she gave as his tongue dragged against the sides of her fingers was beyond satisfying. He held the quarter between his teeth and nabbed it with his own fingers.
“My turn.” He bounced the quarter off the table and watched as the coin hit the rim of the shot glass, spun, and slid off the side, landing on the tabletop. “Fuck.”
Lucky giggled as she grabbed the bottle of bourbon and poured him a shot in another glass. Handing it over to him, she asked, “Cake or pie?”
Crash threw the shot back. Once the warm liquid worked its way down his throat and settled in his gut, he replied, “What kind of question is that? Dessert is dessert.”
She shrugged and nodded. “Fair.” Then she nabbed the quarter and bounced that fucker off the table and landed it right inside the damn shot glass.
“What in the hell is this magic you possess, woman?” Crash demanded.
Laughing harder, she answered, “I’m Irish, biker boy. My granddaddy thought teaching me quarters was quality time when I was eight. Obviously, he didn’t give me liquor. We used apple juice, but still.” Fishing out the quarter, she bit her lip and looked up as if she was contemplating her next question.
“I walked into a damn trap. I knew it.”
“Suck it up, buttercup.” She sat back in her chair and rested her feet on his thigh, one ankle crossed over the other. “Reverse cowgirl or doggy-style?”
Crash damn near choked on his own tongue at her question. He cleared his throat again, then he ran his fingers through his hair as he chuckled and tried his best not to picture the dark-haired bombshell across from him in either of those positions. “Uh… I’m not averse to either, but if I had to choose… doggy-style. Although, I prefer to see my woman’s face as I’m fucking her.”
“No any-pussy-will-do in your world?”
He shrugged. “I hang with bikers. Of course there is. There just isn’t for me. I’m… selective .”
“Noted.” The twinkle was back in her eye, but it was from something altogether different from humor, and Crash couldn’t wait to explore it further. He considered ending their little game and heading back to the hotel, but she handed over the quarter and gave him a smile. The curl of her lips made him put off the idea for a little longer. He liked making her look like that.
Taking the quarter, he tried again, and somehow, he managed to sink it. “Nice. Shit. I have to ask a question.”
Lucky laughed. “That’s how it goes.”
“Favorite animal?”
Without missing a beat, Lucky replied, “Tigers are beautiful.”
Once again, Crash was swallowing down a purr and sending up prayers of thanks to the gods.
Just as with every time before, Lucky sunk the quarter on her next bounce and smiled as she looked over at him. “If you were to come home and find a live penguin in your freezer, what would you do?”
All Crash could do was stare at her and blink. What kind of question is that?