Chapter 5
Raeleen
Ipoked my head in through the doorway and looked around.
My eyes widened as I stepped inside The Berserker’s Rage clubhouse.
No one was ever allowed in here. Harlow had been trying to get invited in for years, ever since Cypher had settled here and created the club.
No surprise, she was nosey and pushy. What was a surprise was that she hadn’t charmed her way in yet.
Clasping my hands together in front of me, I wandered further into the building.
It didn’t look like what I’d expect of a biker clubhouse.
There were no naked women draped over the tables.
Though there was a huge bar on one side of the room.
There were tables and couches and a massive pool table in one area. “Hello?” I called out.
My voice echoed around the room and I glanced around curiously. I was just about to go back outside when Warrant came down the hallway on the wall the bar was on.
“There you are,” he said with a grin.
“Um…” I gave him a weak smile. “Ainsley asked me to meet her here.” She’d texted me about half an hour ago.
“Actually, I did,” he replied.
Blinking at him, I stammered, “Wh-what?”
“I used her phone to text you.”
“Why?”
“Two reasons,” he said, motioning for me to come closer, “I don’t have your number, and you might not have come if I’d asked you to meet me here.”
He was right. On both counts. I stepped closer to him, wondering what was going on. “Why am I here?” I knew how devious and mischievous Warrant was, so I was on high alert, I just didn’t know why.
He grinned at me. “Want a drink?” He walked over to the bar and poured two shots before I could answer.
“Does Ains know about this?” I asked, uncertain of what his intentions were. Warrant seemed like a really good guy and he was head over heels for Ainsley, as far as I could tell, but I didn’t know him well.
“She does, but she said she didn’t want to have anything to do with this,” he clarified.
Of course that explained nothing to me. “With what?” I took the shot glass he handed me automatically.
“Drink that,” he ordered. “It’ll help relax you.”
Losing my patience, I scowled at him. “What’s going on, Warrant?”
“There she is,” he said, his grin spreading over his face. “I knew there had to be a feisty side in there somewhere. Otherwise you wouldn’t have nearly ripped that guy’s wrist off his arm last night.”
Blowing out a frustrated breath, I downed the shot. He was up to something and I was playing right into it. I promptly wheezed as the breath was knocked out of my lungs and my eyes started watering. “What is that?” I rasped.
“Moonshine,” he replied. “Rotor makes the shit in his bathtub. Strong enough to take the hair off a cat.”
He wasn’t kidding. My lip curled up as I thought about the fact that I’d just drank something that a man had brewed up in the same place he washed his balls.
“Don’t worry, he sanitizes the hell out of the tub before he makes a batch.” He motioned toward the bar. “Want another?”
“God no,” I replied with a shake of my head. “My lungs have only just now started working again.”
Warrant laughed. “Yeah, this is a damn good batch.”
“Wait, where does he shower when he’s making a batch?”
“He doesn’t. It’s a trade-off.”
I shook my head in disbelief, unsure of what was happening. “What-”
“The fuck is it you need help with, Warrant?” Pyre barked as he shoved open a door on the wall opposite the bar.
This place was like a maze, there were doorways and hallways everywhere. The building was massive from the outside, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
Pyre froze as he caught sight of us. His eyes narrowed as he looked from me to his friend. “You fucking bastard.”
“Hey, Pyre,” Warrant said in a friendly voice even though Pyre looked, and sounded, like he wanted to murder him.
Unease built inside me because I had a feeling this tension between them was about me. I shouldn’t be here. It didn’t matter that I’d been invited. Or that I thought it was my friend asking me to stop by, I shouldn’t have come.
“You’ve met Rae…right?” Warrant asked, completely undisturbed by the death glare Pyre was giving him.
How did Ainsley put up with this on a daily basis?
He reached over and gave me a little shove in Pyre’s direction.
“Ainsley got caught up with something, but she’ll be here any minute.
Then the girls are heading out for lunch. ”
We were?
“Cypher just shot me a text though and needs to see me. Can you hang out with Rae until Ains shows up?” Warrant didn’t bother to wait for Pyre to answer or for me to ask any questions, he just took off down the hallway he’d appeared out of at a suspiciously fast pace.
I glanced back at Pyre once Warrant disappeared. “Hi.”
He sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. I nibbled my lower lip wondering why he was reacting this way. It had to be me, right? He almost never spoke to me. Anytime I saw him around town he’d just nod at me then high tail it in the opposite direction.
Kinda like you do when you see him.
“Hey,” he finally said.
His deep voice made my stomach flutter. He was standing there in jeans, boots, a black t-shirt, and his cut. Nothing fancy, but he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. And he looked resentful to have to be waiting with me.
“I can wait outside,” I told him, pointing toward the door. “You don’t have to stay here with me.”
“It’s fine.” He walked over to the bar, grabbed the shot Warrant never drank and downed it. Then he made a face. I wondered if the alcohol had burned that split in his lip. “Shit.” He looked at the glass in my hand. “Did Warrant give you Rotor’s moonshine?”
“Yes.”
His eyebrows shot up. “And you’re still standing?” He grinned. “That’s impressive.”
I swallowed because his smile was doing funny things to my insides. Hesitantly, I smiled back. “It may have worn off my stomach lining,” I admitted.
He barked out a laugh. “It’ll do that… Want another?”
“No, thank you.” I fidgeted with the shot glass as he poured another and drank it. I watched his throat work as he swallowed.
How pathetic am I?
I was basically obsessed with this guy—though I’d never admit that to him—and he had to drink just to be in the same room as me. “Thank you,” I blurted out when the silence stretched on too long.
He looked over at me in confusion. “For what?”
“For helping me last night.”
He turned his back to the bar and leaned against it, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. “Looked like you had it under control.”
My mouth dropped open. “Then why did you start that fight?”
“Didn’t start it,” he said. “That fucker pushed me.”
He’d been so close to the cowboy their noses had nearly touched, but I didn’t point that out. “That’s…true. But-”
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Do what?” I asked.
“The wrist lock.”
“Is that what it’s called?” I wondered out loud.
“That’s one name for it,” he said, sounding amused.
“My brothers showed it to me before I left home for college,” I told him. I wasn’t sure why I was telling him this. Surely he didn’t care. But the words kept tumbling out of my mouth without my permission. “They said they weren’t going to send me off to Boston without a few ways to defend myself.”
“You’re from Massachusetts?”
I shook my head. “Pennsylvania,” I replied. “Why did you fight those men last night?” I asked, ending his line of questioning. Talking about home was a distraction. I needed answers. To know what his motivation had been.
He shrugged. “Bastards didn’t seem to understand the concept of no. We don’t let people come into our town if they can’t fucking behave themselves.”
The guys had been outsiders, probably from one of the other small towns nearby. Sentinel was still bigger than a lot of the surrounding towns and drew in a lot of people. Sometimes the seasonal cowboys came here hoping to get drunk and laid. It hardly ever worked, the girls here knew the routine.
“So you would’ve helped any woman he’d hit on in that situation?”
Where did that question come from? It was supposed to be an inside thought.
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” I replied, wondering if he could hear the disappointment in my tone. What was wrong with me today? It didn’t matter that I’d had a crush on Pyre for years. I shouldn’t want him to start fights for me.
I’d also never been the kind of girl to flirt with a guy, or throw myself at one. Somewhere along the line I’d gotten braver and a part of me wanted to know if he’d helped me out of obligation, or because it was me. That part was the one talking right now.
He’d never given me any indication that he was interested.
I was only going to hurt my own feelings by continuing this line of questioning.
“I’m sure the women of Sentinel really appreciate that,” I told him.
“I really do. So again, thank you.” I locked down any emotion and made sure my response was neutral.
He shoved off the bar, making all the moisture in my mouth dry up as he stalked closer to me. “Do you?” he growled.
I had to fight the urge to back up. The way he was looking at me was unsettling.
Not in a way that made me think he was going to hurt me.
More like I needed to squeeze my thighs together to ease the sudden ache there.
I had to be imagining it, but he was looking at me like he wanted to eat me up.
“O-of course.” I was tempted to run, but only if he’d chase me.
“How much?”
“What?” I asked, shocked about the implications of this conversation. I had to be reading him wrong. This man didn’t ever seem to want to be in the same area as me. Something I’d accepted long ago was that most men didn’t. I wasn’t their type. And that was fine. I didn’t hold it against them.
“How much do you appreciate me taking care of that shithead for you last night?”
Okay. That had come out as kind of a…purr. I didn’t know how else to describe it. “A…lot.”
He was standing as close to me now as he’d been standing to the cowboy last night.
I had to tilt my head to look up at him.
He had to be at least six-three or more.
Much taller than me anyway. If I took a deep breath my nipples might brush against his body.
The shiver that would course throughout my whole body if that happened might make me collapse right here.
Though with my hands clasped in front of me once again, I was in more danger of those grazing against a more intimate part of his body. I looked up into his bright blue eyes.
From the minute I’d walked into this clubhouse I’d been confused and it didn’t seem like that was going to be going away any time soon. Pyre was giving me emotional whiplash right now.
“Enough to-”
My body was screaming out a long list of answers, none of them good. Well, they were good for my body, but my morals…
“I’m so sorry!” Ainsley skidded to a halt as she rushed in the room. Her eyes widened as she spotted us standing so close together. “Jeez, now I’m really sorry.” She widened her eyes at me, like what did I just walk in on?
I wish I knew.
Pyre had turned his head to look at her. He glanced back down at me. “Too bad.”
Too bad what? For that matter, enough to what? My body was ready to thank him for sure.
I wanted to ask him, but he was already striding away from me. He opened the door he’d come out of and headed down the stairs behind it.
“What was that?” Ains asked with a laugh as she came up to me.
“I have no idea,” I muttered, confused and insanely turned on.
“Warrant, that asshole, just now told me that he’d invited you here so we could go have lunch. I felt bad for making you wait so long until I came in and saw Pyre nearly kissing you.”
“He was not,” I told her.
“Looked like he wanted to,” she argued.
I opened my mouth, then shut it. Was she right?
She must have read the question on my face. My brothers had always teased me that you could read every thought in my expressions.
“He’s always been into you.”
I blinked at her in shock. “He has?”
She shrugged. “According to Warrant and the others, yeah. None of them have any idea why he’s never made a move on you though.”
“I thought he hated me,” I admitted, falling into step with her as she began walking outside.
She laughed. “He definitely doesn’t hate you, Rae.”
I wasn’t so sure she was right, but secretly I sort of hoped she was. Then again, I wasn’t sure what I’d do if she was. I didn’t know much about Pyre, but I knew rumors of how these bikers were. I wasn’t going to be a one-night stand for anyone. Maybe he’d be more like Warrant?
“I don’t know,” I told her as we walked to her car. “Most men don’t like women like me.”
Her brows shot up. “The sweet drop-dead gorgeous kind?”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. “The kind who work with dead bodies for a living.”
And occasionally talks to them. That was usually a deal breaker.
“Eh, who cares about that?” she asked. “Besides, that crazy bastard has body parts in jars down in the basement. You two should get along just fine.”
I froze in the act of getting into the passenger seat. We stared at each other over the top of the car. “He does?”
“According to Warrant,” she said with a shrug.
“Why?” I asked.
“I haven’t seen them with my own eyes, so who knows? Could be Warrant just giving Pyre shit. He was a Navy Hospital Corpsman and is the team’s medic. He could just be yanking his chain.” She shrugged again and got into the car. The fact that she was so nonchalant about it though…
I had no idea that was what Pyre had done in the military.
That would mean he wasn’t squeamish about blood and gore.
He could even likely be a gifted surgeon, though not all Hospital Corpsmen went the surgeon route for their specialties.
One of my brothers had joined the Navy and had thought about becoming one.
He’d ultimately chosen something else, but I knew enough about it to know it was impressive.
Ainsley started up another topic of conversation as we drove to our usual café for lunch.
I kept up with her, answering when appropriate, but in the back of my mind I couldn’t help wondering if Pyre had been about to kiss me like she thought.
Had I been reading him wrong all these years?
Was it possible that he might be interested in me?
Shaking away the questions, I followed her into the café and waved at our friends.
She’d called them all to meet us for an impromptu lunch.
I hoped Ains didn’t mention anything to the others.
They’d never let me live it down and I wasn’t even sure anything had been about to happen.
Either way, I was glad for the distraction.
This group of women would help me think of something other than the sexy biker.