Page 18 of Rough

The thought of riding a bike that was meant for someone who weighed 150 pounds and was five foot five was laughable.

And aggravating.

“My fucking knees will be up to my ears on that little fucker. I can’t stretch out on a Sporty.”

“Guess you can walk.” He chuckled a low laugh. “Or ride in a fucking cage.”

I stared blankly at my scratched up bike. My previous thoughts of fucking Tegan over an operating table faded and were replaced with ones of tying her up and making her my sexual slave.

I fixed my eyes on the shitty little bike sitting in the corner of the shop. It had been sitting there collecting dust for years. There was no doubt if I chose to ride the Sportster, the entire club would be laughing at me the entire time.

But I had no other options.

“I’ll ride the fucking Sporty,” I fumed.

But someone’s going to pay for it.

Dearly.

SEVEN

Tegan

Marcus lived next door to me. He was a southern California native, extremely petite, and gay. He was very animated, and his personality could only be described as flamboyant. I found him as entertaining to watch as he was to listen to. We hit it off as soon as I moved into the apartment complex. Within a few months, we were best friends.

He worked as a waiter at an upscale restaurant, and spent most of his earnings on clothes. I’d never seen him wear the same outfit twice. He was dressed in brick-red skinny jeans, a blue V-neck tee that fit him as if it were custom tailored, and gray sneakers. His ensemble added some much-needed color to my otherwise dull kitchen.

Although he’d been aware of my wreck since it happened, I had just shared Pee Bee’s clubs name with him. Now sitting across from me at the kitchen table, he frantically searched the internet for any information he could find.

He swept his thumb across the screen of his phone every sixty seconds or so. After five minutes – and a wide array of facial expressions – he looked up and met my curious gaze.

His mouth flopped open. The phone slid from his hand, fell into his lap, and then bounced onto the floor.

“Oh. My. Gawwwwwd,” he said, acting like he had no idea the phone had fallen.

“What?”

“You are soooo not a girl.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Really?” His eyebrow arched. “Who meets a big bad biker that has Filthy Fuckers on his leather and doesn’t Google it? Tell me. Who?”

“My phone was turned off. I couldn’t.”

He stood up and pointed his slender finger at my purse. “You can now. You could have yesterday.”

“I guess I didn’t care. And I don’t care.”

He shot me a sideways look. “Case in point, T-girl. Case in point. You didn’t care. Girls care. They’re curious. You’re an anomaly. A glitch in the otherwise curious world of women. You’ve got a fucked up chromosome or something.”

“Whatever. Why’d you say oh my god?”

“I use it like a conjunction. Be more specific.”

“When you dropped your phone. You said oh my god, and then you dropped it.”

“Oh, then. Well…” He flopped down into his seat, leaned toward the center of the table, and looked me in the eye. “They’re trouble. Big trouble.”