Stephanie Tyler - Vipers Run

For a little while, I didn’t feel like a pretender. This is what the Benson women did. I might not belong in this world, but at least I got to be me, didn’t have to fake anything.

When there was a lull, I couldn’t help but scan the crowd for him. If he’d noticed me behind the bar, I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to flirt with anyone but him. And so I didn’t. Not in the traditional sense anyway, but when Amelia cranked the music up, I got up onto the bar and started dancing.

For Cage.

When Cage heard the catcalls, he looked up and saw Calla. Dancing. On top of the goddamned bar. She was laughing too, having found a group of women to dance with, and he sat back in his chair and watched her letting loose and having fun, because she was twenty-goddamned-three and obviously hadn’t had enough of it. Her hair had come out of the knot she’d tied it in earlier when she’d become the in-demand bartender, and now she was reaching under her shirt, pulling out a lacy bra and twirling it.

He could see her peaked nipples through her white cotton shirt. Someone would soak the girls with water soon enough, and he’d watch that show. Because other men could look, but they couldn’t fucking touch, and it didn’t matter what he’d told her about that.

The thing was, she knew it. He could tell. But if she wanted to play this game, to prove whatever it was to both of them, who was he to argue? Either way, she’d be in his bed tonight, and sooner than later.

She was in control. Protected. Worshipped by Cage’s eyes. She was safe here, for the moment, and she wasn’t being judged for taking her bra off, dancing wildly. No, the crowd wanted more from her and the two other women she was up there with . . . and she had all the power.

And he’d tried his best to give her space, to give himself distance. It wasn’t working, and it never would. She was his. He’d known it from day one, so why he’d bothered to fight it was beyond him.

She got down off the bar and danced her way over to him, threw a leg over his. The woman he’d been talking to glared at her, but Calla smiled at her, then brought her mouth down on Cage’s.

“Done fucking teasing me, babe?”

“Not even close,” she murmured.

“You could suck me off right here.”

“Wouldn’t we get arrested?”

“Never happened before.”

“How many women have sucked you off in this bar, Cage?”

“I’m a wise enough man to not answer that question.” He dug into her pocket and pulled out several phone numbers—he’d seen some guys handing them to her—and crumpled them before dunking them in his beer mug. “If you’re out looking to get laid, that’s not going to fly.”

“You agreed that we didn’t own each other,” Calla reminded him.

“You agreed—I never did, so take a walk back through your memory bank, sweetheart. You want to fuck, I’m right here. I’m not letting someone else fuck what’s mine.”

“I’m not—”

“Mine,” he repeated firmly, backing her against the wall, his knee sliding between her jean-clad legs. Her thighs clamped around his in an effort to stop it from pushing against her sex, but it was useless. “I’ll get it through your head however I have to, even if it means fucking you right here in the middle of the bar.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You think no one’s seen that before?”

“You’re a goddamned caveman.”

“And you’re a cocktease.” He looked over her shoulder and saw Rocco motioning to him. Urgently. “I’ve gotta take care of a few things. Tals’ll take you back to the apartment.”

She looked pissed. He was pissed too, but he wasn’t exactly sure why. But now wasn’t the time to pick it apart, not when he saw Tals throw himself into the crowd of skinheads outside the bar.

“Jesus Christ, what happened to waiting at the town border?” Bear asked. “They’ve got a lot of nerve coming in here.”

“Then we gotta make sure they never want to come back,” Cage growled. Although reluctant to leave Calla, he’d been furious enough to do so, and he recognized this opportunity for what it was . . .

Tals had found their fight.

I stared out the window at the melee in the middle of the street. Last call had people pouring out half an hour earlier. At this point, there was a skeleton crew of men, including Cage, and the fight looked brutal—on the skinheads’ end. The MC guys seemed to be doing just fine.

I refused to turn away, as if doing so would cause any of the MC guys to get hurt. I’d seen fights before—teenagers in bars, an occasional punch thrown—but melees like this were reserved for the movies.

This was no movie. This was my real life now—and the skinheads who’d come into Vipers territory were bringing it back up.

“Amelia, what the hell?” I asked. But it wasn’t Amelia. It was Hot Blond Butt. And she looked worried.

“They’re the guys who were caught here a couple of weeks ago. They’re pushing meth for the Heathens in Skulls Creek,” she said. “My kid goes to the middle school. He told me he saw these guys trying to sell there too.”

She glanced at me, like she was waiting for a judgment.

Instead, I told her, “Cage came back to try to help.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

“Maybe. But that’s not going to change any of this.” I looked back outside. The Vipers were outnumbered, but it didn’t seem to matter. I saw the glint of something metal—Blond Butt did too, because she grabbed my forearm and we both could only helplessly watch the Vipers defend their town.

With all the tension, I hadn’t noticed the sirens in the distance. Now they were close enough for me to see the flashing lights coming down the street parallel to the bar.

“You’ve got to go,” Blond Butt told me.

“I’m Calla,” I said.

She smirked. “I know.” Then, “I’m Allie. My old man’s Jimbo. I’ll keep an eye on them.”

“Are they going to jail?”

“For a little while at least,” she said. “Go. They’ll try to question you.”

I’m assuming she’d been questioned a lot. For me, right now, it could be the worst thing. And when I turned around, I saw Rocco was waiting for me by the back door. I was waiting for Amelia to grab my jacket.

She handed it to me, staring around me and out the window toward the fight. “That’s a beautiful thing.”

“The fighting?”

“Yes. So primal. God, I love it when they kick some ass.” She turned to me. “By the way, this whole tension between you and Cage? It’s him.”

“I guess that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“It’s supposed to make you stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Amelia leaned into me. “They don’t like to break down their walls or let us in, darlin’, but I hate to break it to you. You’re already over the goddamned wall, so stop fucking it up.”

I was quiet on the ride back to Cage’s. Rocco didn’t press for conversation, just put the music on loud enough to drown out my thoughts for the short trip. He walked me up, made sure I got into the apartment all right. I took a shower and was just pulling on a flannel shirt of Cage’s I’d found when I heard him come into the apartment.

I practically ran out there, in my bra and underwear and my shirt unbuttoned, only thinking that he could’ve brought someone back here with him, when it was too late. He stared at me and I pulled the shirt around me, because my nudity was distracting him and the way he watched me was distracting me. We had our own fight to finish, dammit.

“Are you all right?”

“Do I not look all right?” he asked. He had a day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks. A cut above his eyebrow that had been stitched. His hands looked like they’d gone a few rounds, but other than that . . . No, he looked good .