Devin
Sasquatch thumped his fist on the bar causing both her and Scott to jump. When she looked up, her eyes clashed with stony-brown ones. He was not in a good mood all of a sudden, but why? They’d just been laughing together.
“Oh, Scott, this is my friend, um, Jasper.” At the same time, he said, “Sasquatch.”
So much for no colors. If the road name Sasquatch didn’t scream big bad biker boy, then his tree trunk biceps and dark brooding aura would. The man was the epitome of what Hollywood portrayed bikers as.
“Yeah, sooo, Sasquatch, this is Scott.”
Scott’s eyes went wide and he leaned on the bar.
“Well, Jasper Sasquatch, can I get you a drink?” Devin just rolled her eyes.
Scott was a shameless flirt with anyone and everyone.
He was comfortable with who he was in a way that left her in awe but made her a little jealous.
He embraced life and himself, that was what she wanted for herself.
Hell, isn’t that what everyone wanted?
Scott wasn’t perfect, he’d confided in her of some pretty dark things he’d done in his life, but he moved on instead of repeatedly kicking himself for them.
That was the part she was most envious of, his ability to forgive and move on, even himself.
“Two beers,” Sasquatch ordered. When Scott plopped them on the scarred surface, Squatch picked them up then turned to Devin. “Come.”
Again, she rolled her eyes. At the rate she was doing that, they were going to actually stick like that, just as her first-grade teacher, Mrs. Letson, said they would.
“Just a sec.”
She turned her focus back to Scott. “How’s Ray?”
“He’s good, chica. Been a good week. As a matter of fact, he should come stomping through those doors any second, especially when he catches the scent of tall, dark, and broody over there. You know how some people have gaydar? Well, Pops has bikerdar.”
Devin suppressed a laugh. “Ray’s stomping days are long behind him.” She paused. “You used good twice. Did he really have a good week or a not so bad one?”
“No, I mean good. I think the new pain management and therapy are working. Of course, he refuses to admit that some ‘modern day mumbo jumbo’ is actually to credit.” He air-quoted the four words and took on a gruff effect to his voice like Ray’s.
A wave of guilt washed over her, threatening to pull her under. Ray reminded her of someone she’d left behind.
“You better go join Bigfoot over there before he cracks a molar.” She followed Scott’s gaze and saw Squatch sitting at a table in the corner with his jaw clenched and white knuckling the brown bottle.
“He really is a good looking man, do you think he’s stick straight or could he bend a little?” Scott asked wistfully as he wiped down the bar.
“Sorry, but I don’t think he’s flexible.”
“Huh.” He sighed disappointedly. “More’s the pity. But that just means I’m not standing in the way of you riding that man like you’re in an old western and getting run out of town by Wyatt Earp.”
Scott chuckled.
“Instead, I think maybe I’ll shoot my shot with the cougar down there at the end of the bar drinking Chardonnay.”
Scott nodded toward the far right to an older woman Devin hadn’t noticed when she’d come in.
She watched as Scott reached into an underbar cooler and filled a wineglass from a cheap box hidden there.
When she gave him a pointed look, he whisper-snarked, “What? You didn’t think Pops would actually buy a bottle of wine for this place, did ya? I grabbed this at the grocery store just in case, and who knows, it might pay off yet.”
Scott sauntered down to the bar and slid the glass across the wooden surface and proceeded to shamelessly flirt up the lady who had a good twenty years on him.
Devin diverted her attention back to the man sitting at the table with two beers. There was a cloud of smoke hovering by the ceiling giving him a dangerous appearance as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Devin hadn’t looked at Squatch as anything other than the club enforcer, her brother’s brother. Since Lucas had patched it. Since Lucas had patched in. If she were being honest with herself, she’d crushed on him once upon a time, but that was just wistful thinking.
Honestly, she’d never looked at anyone deeper than surface level since she’d been in Utah, including friends. Scott was the exception, but he wasn’t club adjacent nor did he know her family, so he was safe… easy.
Looking deeper meant getting invested, and she didn’t deserve the kind of relationships that the Royal Bastards offered.
Devin and Harmon were becoming closer since she’d moved in with her. Plus, she’d also spent time with the ol’ ladies and members, but she couldn’t tell you much about them that wasn’t public knowledge.
Surface shit, like music they listened to and what their favorite foods were. Those things that could be discovered by simply spending time around someone, not with them.
Hook was the closest friend inside the club she had, and he was also kinda the exception. However, in his case, what she knew about him, she’d already known before her latest poor choice in men.
That disaster had resulted in her forced emotionally exploitive indentured servitude for lack of a better description. The shame threatened to swallow her whole.
Devin shrugged those thoughts off. She couldn’t go down that road. Not yet. Not in Utah. Some demons required a more personalized exorcism.
The thought that when she left, she wasn’t leaving behind deep connections made her sad. She was connected, but most of it was a one-way street. She’d kept herself apart because she just didn’t like herself all that much and refused anyone the opportunity to see that.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow would be her first step to digging out the root of that self-loathing. She just hoped when she returned, her brother would forgive her for sneaking away to handle it herself. If she had her way, she could come back and make a life for herself in Utah.
She wouldn’t hold her breath though.
“Girlfriend, if you don’t stop staring off into space and walk your ass over there, I’m gonna shoot my shot. And well, I don’t miss,” Scott hissed in her ear as he slipped around her carrying a case of beer.
Devin mentally put all the baggage she’d been rifling through into a box, then duct taped the fuck out of it and tried to look at Sasquatch through Scott’s perspective.
First thing she noted was how borderline painfully handsome he had become. He’d been handsome when she’d first met him years ago, but he’d aged like fine whiskey.
Rugged but with kind eyes. Soft brown that she’d seen go hard when he felt intense emotion.
Sexy barely there laugh lines at the corners of those eyes.
His full kissable lips were framed by a dark beard and mustache.
Damn, there was a lot more to him than just being a Bastard, her brother’s brother, the club enforcer, the man was downright lickable.
For the first time since that rat fink motherfucker ass chigger chained her to the wall to force her compliance, her libido entered the conversation.
Places on her body were tingling that she thought were dead.
Hell, she’d been surrounded by hot bikers for months, including Sasquatch, and nothing, nada.
Even when there were visitors from other clubs and they weren’t warned off of her the way the Provo chapter had been.
They’d tried, oh how they’d tried. Ran the best lines, spun their best game and not even a spark of desire fired inside her.
But the way Squatch was looking at her had something pulsing deep in the epicenter of her desire.
Devin smiled as she walked his way. Noting how tuggable his longer hair looked and for a moment she wanted to touch it, just to know if it was as soft as it looked.
When she sat down, he slid her beer toward her, tapped his bottle neck to hers, then took a pull.
Swigging a drink of her own, she let her eyes linger on his.
The intensity had always caught her off guard.
That was something she had noticed before.
Everything Sasquatch did or felt seemed to be on steroids, amped up. Extreme, one way or the other.
“Why do you look like Little Timmy just kicked sand in your face and swiped your little yellow dump truck?”
The smile that split his lips at her question was blinding.
“I’d have kicked Little Timmy’s ass six ways to Sunday, then eaten his lunch.” He winked and took another swig. “But I would’ve shared his pudding pack with the prettiest girl on the playground. Then she’d hold my hand as we went into third period.”
Devin couldn’t help but laugh. He’d turned her assessment of his sour look into a whole imaginary elementary school victory for himself.
Lord deliver me from alpha men.
“Wow. So you were that much of a ladies’ man, even in first grade?”
He winked and she felt the flutter in her stomach, only tenfold. “Never underestimate the power of a pudding cup.”
Another laugh bubbled up from deep inside her. She hated that she was just now seeing Squatch, really seeing him and of course it was right before she was about to leave without telling anyone.
A slight millisecond of panic reared its head. Why had she brought him here of all places?
Fuck.
Oh, that’s right, it’s probably the whole self-sabotage thing she was trying to medal in, gold to be exact. She couldn’t seem to help herself.
I’ll take self-punishment for five hundred, Alex.
But who was she kidding, he was warned away as much as all the guys were. He’d never cop to being in a bar drinking with her, especially if she could convince him to help her wipe away some memories that just wouldn’t die.
And something told her that his touch could do just that.
“I see your reputation is well earned. The candy stripers haven’t shut up about your… technique.”
“Told you. It’s the pudding cups.”
“You give them pudding cups? Funny, they’ve never once mentioned that. Your dick? Absolutely. Stamina? Ad nauseam. That thing you do with your tongue? Over and over, but pudding? Nope.”