Chapter Two
The rest of my shift passed in a blur. I served beers, poured mixed drinks, shot down the people who hit on me, and struggled to stay focused, my thoughts circling like water rushing down a drain.
What was up with Jakob’s cryptic question about when I got off work?
Was it his subtle way of telling me he didn’t want to answer me in a packed bar? Was I supposed to wait for him?
I checked my watch. We’d closed at two a.m., but I had to get through my nightly checklist before I could even think about leaving. It was almost three now. My chores were done, and I just finished showing Nina four different ways to break someone’s hold if they grab your wrist.
I glanced out the front window. There was no sign of Jakob’s bike in the parking lot.
My coworkers were slipping out the back door one by one, and I wasn’t about to stick around and wait for him by myself.
This bar wasn’t in the best part of town, and even with my years of hand-to-hand combat training, I didn’t relish the idea of putting my skills to use against a drunken biker who probably had a knife or a gun on them.
“You coming, Krista?” Tiny asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
A few minutes later, I stepped from the air-conditioned bar out into the sultry heat of night.
It might have only been early May, but in southern Texas, summer started in April and lasted right through November.
Deep heat had descended on the small town of Kearny a few weeks ago, smothering us in its warm embrace.
The hum of insects from the nearby trees was deafening.
Humidity hung heavy in the air, making my movements feel slow and lethargic.
What didn’t help was my exhaustion. I hadn’t escaped unscathed from my time in the military, and my scarred body felt battered and bruised from being on my feet for so long.
I said goodbye to my coworkers and moved toward my car with halting, stiff gracelessness.
One of the reasons Gran and I chose to settle in this town, aside from the allegedly stellar nursing home, was because of the nearby military hospital.
I had an appointment with my physical therapist there in a few days, and it couldn’t come soon enough.
I slipped inside my car, locked the doors, and headed home.
Visiting hours at the nursing home were from ten a.m. to five p.m. After what Jakob said, I wanted to get there when the doors opened, which meant I’d be lucky if I got five hours of shut-eye.
At least I never had trouble falling asleep.
Combat vets are known for their ability to pass out anywhere, and I was no exception.
I eased to a stop at a red light two blocks from the bar.
An engine thundered to life nearby and roared into the night like a lion claiming its kill.
A few seconds later, a motorcycle pulled up next to me.
It was loud enough to be a Harley, but when I glanced over at it, I saw VICTORY splashed across the side of the gas tank.
Its rider wore a skullcap helmet and goggles, but I knew from the beard alone that it was Jakob.
He turned toward me and jerked his head to the left in a distinct command to follow him.
Okay, then.
The light flashed green. No one else was on the road, so I threw my blinker on and turned, trailing the bike as Jakob wound up a side street.
I wasn’t an idiot. Yes, I lusted after Jakob’s body and magnetic sexual energy, but the truth was I knew nothing about the guy. He could be a complete psychopath.
I kept one hand on the wheel and popped open my center console with the other.
Inside was a 9mm I’d purchased when I was still in the service.
As an aerial gunner, I didn’t go for the bells and whistles of flashier handguns; I went for sturdy design and a robust reputation.
This brand wasn’t super popular, but the reviews for it were stellar.
The writers over at Guns froze another in a solid block of ice, then defrosted it beneath the blazing sun; and tossed another from a ten-story building.
All three guns fired over a thousand rounds without failing afterward.
No, the gun wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.
I stashed it in my purse as I pulled into a small residential parking lot behind Jakob.
He cut his engine and slipped his goggles and helmet off. One long leg swung over the back of the bike, and then he was moving toward me with quick, sure strides.
I left my car running and kept the doors locked as I rolled my window down. “Well, this isn’t weird or anything.”
Jakob leaned forward and rested his elbows on my window frame. The smell of him hit my nose: leather and motor oil and a hint of dark cologne. This close, his eyes were startlingly blue, like he’d captured an arctic sky in his gaze.
“I didn’t want anyone overhearing at the bar,” he said. “Wanna cut the engine and follow me up? Better if anyone watching us thinks we’re fucking instead of trading secrets.”
And there went my thoughts, straight into the gutter.
He took my momentary breathlessness as hesitation. “I’m not a threat to you,” he said. “That’d be like hurting a family member.”
I shook my head to clear the fog of lust from my mind. Did he just say something about us being related? “What?”
He pulled up his right jacket sleeve just enough to reveal a length of corded forearm. The whorls of ink I’d spotted earlier were the tattered edges of a stylized specter’s cloak. Over the grim creature, the words DEATH WAITS IN THE DARK were written in stark black font.
I lifted my eyes to his. “You were a Night Stalker?”
He held my gaze and nodded.
Well, I’ll be damned. Jakob was airborne, like me, only from a special-operations Army helicopter regiment that flew into enemy territory at night, low and fast. I was stationed with a unit of Night Stalkers in Syria.
They were some of the craziest motherfuckers in spec-ops. And that was saying something.
It didn’t make me instantly trust him, but I no longer worried I’d have to shoot him.
Only 1 percent of Americans serve their country.
It does make you family, in a way, part of a small percentage of the population that’s been joined together with others from all walks of life, ready to fight and die to keep everyone else free.
The fact that we were both airborne combat meant we belonged to an even smaller group of individuals.
It was a tight-knit community, and word got around in it.
If he hurt me, he’d be excised from it like a cancerous growth at best. At worst, someone might really do a flyover and drop a bellyful of iron onto his head.
Something in my face must have given my thoughts away because he straightened and took a step back, hands loose at his sides, waiting.
I rolled the window up, turned my car off, grabbed my purse, and got out.
His hands landed on the roof on either side of me, caging me in, and I barely had enough room to turn and face him after shutting my door.
I stared up at him from inches away. A nearby streetlight cast its anemic glow over us, and the dim illumination did nothing to make him look less dangerous.
His brows shaded his eyes, turning them into twin pools of cerulean.
Suddenly the nickname the Viking made a whole lot of sense.
Shave the sides of his head to the scalp, add a few bloodstains, and smear some stylized runes across his skin, and he’d be all set to go terrorize an eighth-century English village.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“We need to sell the lie,” he said, leaning closer.
Right. The lie that we were fucking.
Oh boy.
“Sure,” I said, settling back against my door.
Approval lit his eyes, like he was impressed that instead of arguing with him, I chose to go along with this weirdness. Little did he know that I was all for anything that brought his big body closer to mine.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, why all the deception?
And why did he think he was being watched in the first place?
Was he some sort of undercover agent who had infiltrated the club?
I looked him over, taking my time. He didn’t seem like a narc.
In fact, from everything I knew about him, he was all too happy in his role as an enforcer for the Kings.
Was it something else? A rival gang or a rift inside the club?
My questions cut off when he closed the distance between us.
At five ten I was pretty tall, but I still had to look up at him.
His beard tickled my cheek as he leaned in.
I shivered when his lips brushed the shell of my ear.
I’d wanted to be close to him all night.
Hell, if I was honest, I’d been dreaming about this since the first time I laid eyes on him, and who knew when I might get another shot?
Screw it.
I turned my head and nuzzled his neck. The smell of his cologne was stronger here, dark, heady, spice and musk and the slight tang of citrus. It paired well with leather.
“Why do you walk with a limp?” he asked.
I blinked, surprised out of my dirty thoughts for the second time in less than five minutes. “You ever heard of small talk, Jakob?”
His breath warmed my neck when he answered. “Never saw the point of small talk. It’s just useless words people throw around while they wait for someone to say something meaningful.”
Well, shit, when he put it like that…
“My right leg is basically bionic,” I said. “Hip replacement, pins holding my knee together, steel grafted to my shin and femur, you get the drift. I was medically discharged because of it.”
“Combat wound?” he asked.
I nodded, knowing he would feel my answer because of our proximity.