Chapter 10
TEN
brOOKLYN
I’d been thinking about Gunner all day, hardly being able to concentrate on work.
By the evening, I’d forgotten about the incident from the morning when Viper and the other guys from the club had turned up at the diner.
Now, all I could think about was seeing Gunner again.
I felt safe around him, and even though I knew I couldn’t really tell him what was going on in my life, I knew I would feel assured just having him around me.
Sometime before, my phone had beeped with a text message from him. I’d smiled as I read it.
See you at Temple Bar at seven
That was all he had said, but it was enough to keep me going for the rest of the day.
I’d canceled my shift at PJ’s already and was hoping against hope that Viper or one of the guys wouldn’t turn up there tonight.
If they did, they would know I was lying about work, and a whole different world of trouble would descend upon me.
But I was feeling brave today. I didn’t mind taking the risk …
just as long as I got to see Gunner again.
At home, I took time with getting dressed for the night.
I wore sleek black denim pants, which I knew accentuated my curves since I also knew how much Gunner liked looking at my ass, and a corset-style red and black lace top, which I found at the back of my wardrobe.
It pushed up my breasts and deepened my cleavage, and as I put it on, I couldn’t believe how conscious I was of making Gunner look at me.
I liked being watched by him. I put on a matching red lipstick, black heels and a chunky statement necklace before I ran my fingers through my curls to fluff them into position.
Then, with my heels clicking against the pavement, I walked the couple of blocks to Temple Bar.
Even though it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since I last saw Gunner, to me, it felt like an eternity.
When I entered the bar, it was empty as usual.
I looked around and saw him at the same table we were at the previous night, and his eyes glowed when he caught sight of me.
He looked delicious in his black leather jacket and gray cotton T-shirt.
Every time I looked at the muscles he sported, it turned me on, and as I weaved around the tables towards him, I could feel my pulse quickening.
There was something about this guy that I couldn’t shake off.
It was more than how hot he was in bed, or how he looked at me like he was undressing me…
no, it was something else. It was how he made me feel about myself when we weren’t touching. Nobody had done that to me before.
He stood up when I approached him and held out the chair for me like a gentleman. I sat down beside him and noticed that a gin and tonic was waiting for me already.
“You’ve gotta stop walking like that,” he said, sitting back down beside me. I smiled at him.
“It’s how I walk,” I said as Gunner was grinning.
“But your hips sway and that ass moves, and I want to flip you over the table and take you here,” he said calmly, like he was reading out the menu at a fancy restaurant. I bit down on my lip as I imagined him doing it and then shook my head to drive those thoughts away.
“Remember how we decided to get to know each other tonight?” I asked him and picked up the cold glass. He was still grinning, and his blue eyes were shining. I knew the kind of control he could exercise with just his mouth, and it made the knots in my belly tighten.
“All right. What do you want to know?” he asked and drank from his bottle of beer quickly.
“Everything…I don’t know. You’ve told me nothing about yourself,” I said and tucked in a few stray curls behind my ears.
Gunner was looking at me again, and I felt goosebumps erupt on my skin.
I wondered how long we would last, sitting like this beside each other and trying to have an actual date…
before we ran out of this place and fucked in his car again.
“Hmm…there isn’t much to know. I’m just a simple guy, Brooklyn,” he said, and I arched an eyebrow at him.
“Just a simple guy? You’re anything but simple, Gunner,” I said. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, I’m not very good at this opening up thing…so I don’t know where to begin,” he said. I took in a deep breath and cleared my throat.
“All right, why don’t I start so that you get an idea?” I said with a laugh, and he nodded his head. I shifted in my seat and placed my arms on the table, and I saw the way his gaze dropped to my breasts. We weren’t going to last very long.
“Okay, I work at a diner in the mornings, and as you already know, at PJ’s in the night,” I offered him.
Gunner nodded his head again, but he was still silent so I widened my eyes at him.
“This is where you tell me what you do,” I said.
He flashed me a look, which confused me.
Again, it seemed like he didn’t want to discuss his personal life.
I was determined tonight, though. Why had he suggested this date if he didn’t want to talk about himself?
Gunner shrugged his shoulders.
“I do a bit of this and that, I suppose. I just got out of the military, so I haven’t really plunged full time into the job market yet,” he said. I giggled, because I couldn’t exactly imagine him doing any kind of “job.”
“Okay, fair enough. Well, let’s see…I live alone in a one bedroom,” I said, and this time, he smiled at me.
“You know already that I live alone,” he said. I blushed and dropped my gaze to my lap.
“Okay, how about friends? Who do you hang out with?” I asked to keep the questions going. I wanted to avoid drifting into dangerous territory of discussing what happened in his apartment. Gunner shrugged his shoulders again.
“I’m pretty sure you don’t know the people I hang out with, Brooklyn,” he said in a more serious voice, and I crossed my brows at him, getting annoyed.
“How do you know who I know and don’t know?” I asked him, leaning over the table towards him, and Gunner shot me another one of his looks. His blue eyes had turned dark and stormy, but I was determined to hold my ground.
“Well, if you do know them, then maybe you shouldn’t,” he said, not making a move towards me.
“Maybe you don’t really know me, Gunner. Or the kind of person I am,” I suggested, and he stared at me lazily.
“I didn’t say that I did,” he said.
“So, then you shouldn’t make judgments about what people are bad for me,” I said and sat back in my chair. I was beginning to feel frustrated with him, because he was giving me so little to go on.
“I may not know you at all, Brooklyn, but don’t blame me for wanting to look out for you. Of course, I don’t want to overstep my boundaries,” he said. I shook my head then squinted at him.
“Why are you so resistant to just telling me who you hang out with? Why do you hang out with them if they’re so bad?” I asked. Then Gunner looked around the bar as though he was making sure we weren’t being watched.
“I didn’t say they were bad. I just said that I hoped you weren’t hanging around with them, that’s all,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and looked away from him.
This was proving to be impossible. It was so difficult to get any information from him.
We’d been sitting there for a while now, and I still had nothing on him.
“Fine. It seems like I have to be the one making all the revelations around here. I hang around with the Dragon Knights crowd, if you’re interested,” I said with a huff and crossed my arms over my breasts.
I knew that was a little childish of me, but I couldn’t help it.
Gunner’s lack of interest in this conversation was annoying me.
When I looked back at him, I noticed that he was glaring at me like I had told him something terrible.
“Do you know who they are? They’re a motorcycle club,” I offered to him.
“I know who they are!” Gunner snapped.
I knew the kind of reputation the Dragon Knights’ had in these parts, but I was family to them; I knew they weren’t as bad as people assumed they were. They were brash and rude—maybe sometimes violent—but they were also the only family I had.
“Okay, so there,” I said to him. Gunner brought his face closer to mine over the table now, and I could see that he was clenching his jaw.
“What are you doing hanging around with the Dragon Knights, Brooklyn?” he asked, and I looked away from him, my nostrils flaring.
“Well, they’re like family to me,” I said, sensing his eyes on me.
“Brooklyn, look at me!” he snapped, and even though there was a loud din in the bar around us, Gunner’s voice was high. I jerked my head around to him and then rolled my eyes when I saw how angry he looked.
“Relax, Gunner…they’re cool. I’m like a sister to them. I know how this sounds, but if you grew up around guys like them, you’d know what I know,” I said, but I could see that his shoulders were heaving. His biceps looked just as clenched as his jaws were.
“Oh yeah? And what is it that I would know?” he asked. I pushed a curl away from my eye, trying to assemble my words. If anyone, I assumed that it would have been Gunner who would understand me and why I associated with the Dragon Knights.
“That they’re just like everyone else. They just have a different way of life, that’s all,” I said, choosing my words wisely. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to reveal to him that my father and brother had both belonged to the club as well. Gunner looked distressed enough.
“You need to stop hanging around with them, Brooklyn. Right now,” he said in a lower guttural growl. I crossed my brows at him.
“What are you talking about?” I asked him. Gunner let out a deep sigh, like he was trying to control some kind of building up rage.
“You heard what I said, Brooklyn. You have to stop seeing them,” he said as I scoffed in disbelief.