Ranger (Iron Battalion MC #4)

Chapter 1 - Ranger

RANGER

Seven Months Ago

“On the hunt for your next conquest?”

I grinned at Ghost as I bellied up to the bar. “You know what to pour me.”

Those little eyeballs above his mask rolled as he reached for a whiskey glass. “Got your eye on anyone yet?”

I turned around, sliding my elbows on top of the bar behind me. I loved this fucking place, and I loved that Ghost owned it.

I’d been kicked out of every other bar in the surrounding towns.

“Here,” Ghost said.

I reached over my shoulder and took the drink from him. “Thanks.”

“Try not to fuck up my bathroom again, would you?” he asked as he went about cleaning down the bar. “Hate it when those fucking toilet paper dispensers get ruined.”

I tossed him a wink over my shoulder. “I’ll just take up space in your janitorial closet again.”

He shot me a look. “If the broom handles smell like pussy when I go to clean, I’m beating your ass.”

I barked with laughter as I tossed back the whiskey and handed the glass over my shoulder. “Another to sip on.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ghost muttered.

After he got me my second round, I meandered over to the spot where I usually perch.

He had a booth in the back corner that wasn’t under any sort of light, and for the longest time, I just figured he sat there during break.

Maybe pulled his mask down when no one was looking.

Maybe it was his thinking spot or some shit.

It was a great scouting perch, too.

“Aaaaall right,” I grunted as I eased myself down into the booth. “Who do we have here tonight?”

I scanned the bar, taking stock of all the beautiful women that seemed to flock to this place. Ghost’s bar was the only bar in town. Sure, there were restaurants that sold alcohol, but they weren’t bars. They weren’t places people could gather and enjoy one another.

I loved it when girls got together on the floor while dancing and enjoyed one another.

I chuckled as I watched a group of girls laughing while they swayed their hips. Hair flouncing, drinks sloshing onto the floor, and asses swiveling in ways that made my mouth run dry.

I loved a woman with some meat on her bones.

Most of the girls who filtered in and out were copy-paste. Which was fine, I suppose, but I wasn’t in the mood for stereotypes.

I wanted something unique tonight.

I almost gave up the hunt after my third whiskey.

I sipped them slowly to make sure I wasn’t out of my mind, but I always gave myself three drinks in any bar I walked into.

Three drinks to walk into a woman’s life for the night.

And if after three drinks there was no one? That was always my cue to go home.

I almost went home disappointed, of all things.

Until I saw her sitting there.

She wasn’t on the dance floor with the music.

Men didn’t flock to her, trying to buy her drinks.

Instead, she sat there, the darkness of the booth on the other side of the bar covering her.

But even through the darkness, I saw the etchings of a woman with a lot of love to give.

Cute little cheeks that were a bit flushed from whatever she was drinking.

Round framed glasses that slid down, to which she pushed up the bridge of her nose.

She picked up her head and those icy blue eyes scanned the bar, and I wondered if she was waiting for someone.

But when that beautiful gaze of hers dropped back to her seemingly untouched glass of wine, I stood.

Time to make my move.

She didn’t even look up when I approached her, and the closer I got, the more details my eyes found appealing.

She had this pale skin. Not sickly pale, but just on the white side of tan.

She clearly enjoyed going outside when the time was right.

I wondered if she’d ever been on the back of a bike before.

I ventured a ‘no’ in that department. The cardigan and sundress she wore told me that she probably didn’t venture much out of her comfort zone.

Hell, this bar was probably the most hoppin’ her life ever got.

That idea made me smile when I approached her booth and she looked up at me.

Goddamn it, those eyes of hers.

“Mind if I sit?” I asked.

She studied me for a really long time. So long, in fact, that I almost expected her to turn me down. I even braced myself for the rejection before she let that voice of hers free.

A voice I knew I’d never forget.

“Sure, if you’d like.”

“I’d love,” I said as I slid into the booth seat in front of her.

She went back to staring into her glass of what I now realized was red wine.

“Not good?” I asked as I thumbed over my shoulder. “I know the guy that owns the bar. I could get you another one.”

She just shook her head softly before she picked up the glass and mechanically brought it to her lips. Those plumped, glossed up lips of hers wrapped around the edge of that glass, and I felt my cock kick in my pants.

I had to get this woman under me.

I had to have those lips wrapped around me.

“No, it’s okay,” she said, breaking me out of my trance as she sat her glass down. “I’m just sipping tonight.”

“Nothing wrong with that. Whatcha sippin’?”

“Some sort of moscato.”

“Ah, the sweet wines.”

She gave me a soft snicker, which sort of tugged a smile across her face. But I wasn’t having any of that half-assed nonsense.

She deserved a real smile.

“Anything in particular bring you out tonight?” I asked.

She looked at me with a wary expression, so I decided on a different route. “I’m—”

She cut me off. “No offense, but I’m really not looking to learn about someone tonight.”

I nodded slowly. “Just trying to get out of your head?”

She scoffed. “Just trying to forget.”

My eyes ran along her features. The curve of her cheeks. The slope of her broad shoulders. The hefty tits that I saw beneath that loose cardigan around her shoulders. She needed to forget something?

I had something that could help.

“All right,” I said as I leaned my forearms onto the booth table in front of us, “then I’ll shoot my shot and cut the bullshit.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “What?”

I gave her a soft smile. “You need to forget. I need something else to focus on. I rode my bike here, so I’m not sober enough to drive back. But I know something that would sober me up just fine.”

She tilted her head. “You do?”

My grin crooked into a sly smile. “I do. And if you’d like to join me in the back hallway in about ten or so minutes, I will show you.”

I didn’t give her a chance to answer me. I didn’t give her a chance to reject or approve either way. She was clearly not wanting to beat around the bush with her evening, so I did just that. If she wanted to take me up on the offer, she’d come and find me herself.

And if all else failed, I was right by the back exit and could make a quick escape without Ghost giving me shit.

I stood up from the booth seat and I felt those icy blue eyes of hers on me. I cleared my throat before I turned toward the bar, only to find Ghost cleaning a glass and shaking his head at me. I nodded toward him, then I took off toward the back hallway where the bathrooms were.

Which also just so happened to be where the supply closet was.

I made my exit with no one in the bar being any the wiser about it. Women were always so hung up on that shit, what other people might think if they engaged in mindless hookups. I got it, though. Double standards, and all that shit.

I hoped that she didn’t let that get into her head.

I slipped into the supply closet and left the door cracked, then I got to work.

Ghost never organized this fucking thing, but it sure as hell had room in it.

Converted, it could’ve been a second fucking bathroom, or even a small kitchen if he wanted to start pumping out appetizers to go with his funky ass seasonal drink combinations.

I mean, what the fuck was a Gogi berry appletini, anyway?

To be honest, I figured she wouldn’t come.

We didn’t even exchange names, for fuck’s sake.

But I still put in the work. Even if it was going to end in rejection, women still deserved men to put in the work, and a lot of men on this planet had lost sight of that.

Putting in the work wasn’t a reflection on the caliber of woman, it was a reflection on the caliber of man who chose her.

Or wanted to choose her.

Fucking hell, I wanted that woman to choose me tonight.

I got everything in the closet scooted back.

I cleared off one of the metal racks, just in case she let me pin her to it.

I didn’t want to knock any of Ghost’s shit over.

The last time I left a mess in this closet for him to clean, I woke up the next morning, pinned to my fucking bed with his voice growling in my ear.

Not quite the way I wanted to start my morning, lemme tell ya.

I clicked on the storage closet light to give the ground one last look before I clicked it off. And no sooner had the light gone off…

Knock, knock, knock.

Oh fuck yeah.

It was showtime.

“Fancy meeting you here,” I said as I grabbed the knob for the door and cracked it open.

Those pale blue eyes darted up and down the hallway before she quickly slipped into the closet. She bumped against me a bit before backing up.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

I chuckled as I closed the door. “No apologies needed.”

And then, just to make sure no one busted in on us, I locked the door as well.

Only for her breath to hitch.

“You’re all right,” I said as I found the outline of her body through the darkness. “Just don’t want anyone barging in on us is all. But you can unlock it if you prefer.”

I heard her swallow audibly. “No, good thinking. Thank you.”

I reached up, and it took me a moment to find her face. I allowed my hand to slide along her soft, pliant cheek, and it made me wonder how men could enjoy anything other than a pillowy woman. She was so soft, and so warm.

I knew she’d feel great pinned to the metal shelving behind me.

“So, I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said softly.