Page 2 of The Kings of Kearny

Nina elbowed me. “The Viking strikes again.”

“Why is everyone so afraid of him?” I asked.

A guy nearby hailed her, indicating a round of shots.

“One sec, Bill,” she said, grabbing glasses for him and his buddies. She sent me a look as she poured their whiskey. “I keep forgetting you’re new here.”

I frowned. “Three months is new?”

She barked a low, throaty laugh. Several patrons turned to stare at her. I couldn’t blame them. I was mostly heterosexual, but every time she laughed like that, a little shiver of awareness ran through me.

“Honey, three years is still new in this town,” she said. She finished pouring and handed the shots over to Bill with a megawatt smile. “Thanks for being patient, sweetie.”

The grizzled old biker went pink in the cheeks. “No problem, Nina.” He tipped her ten bucks for her trouble, and it made me wonder if maybe I should smile more.

“Can I get some ice?” someone asked from behind me.

I turned and saw Jakob settling his large frame onto one of my empty barstools. His left cheek was red and starting to swell. The scowl on his face made him look even less approachable than usual—not an easy feat. This was only the third time he’d spoken to me, and of course he had to be pissed off when it happened. So much for my harebrained idea to hit on him tonight.

“Sure thing,” I said. We kept stacks of clean towels on a shelf beneath the bar. I snagged one, filled the middle with ice, and tied off the extra cloth. With one final tug on the knot, I handed it over to him. “Here you go.”

He reached out, but instead of taking it from me, he grabbed my wrist, so fast that I barely registered the movement. I sucked in a sharp breath. His skin was warm, grip firm, fingers long enough to wrap all the way around my wrist. Yes, I wanted this man to touch me, but that desire was now warring with my irritation over him laying hands on me without asking first.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I said.

He pushed up the sleeve of my T-shirt with his other hand, callused fingers roughing over my skin, raising goose bumps in their wake, stopping only when he revealed the tattoo on my upper arm. It was a stylized AC-130 gunship flying in front of a skull.

“You’re ex-military?” he asked.

“Yes.” Demonstrating one of the skills I learned when I was in, I wrenched my arm up and around, breaking his hold on me. “And if you ever grab me like that again, I’ll call in a favor and have a Maverick dropped on your house.”

His pale blue eyes rose to mine, glinting like frost in the overhead light. “That’s a big-ass bomb.”

“I don’t fuck around,” I said, a hint of warning in my tone. “You want your ice or what?”

In answer, he snagged it from me. “Air Force?”

I nodded. “Aerial gunner.”

He looked me over like he was trying to picture it. I prepared myself for a sexist comment.

“Sorry for grabbing you,” he said instead.

The tension in my shoulders eased a little. “Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” he said, holding my gaze.

Weirdly, I believed him.

Another biker in my section lifted her glass in the universal symbol forI’ll have another.I left Jakob to refill it. My shoulder brushed Nina’s as I walked toward the draft beer station.

“You’ll have to show me that move,” she said.

“Soon as our shift is over,” I told her.

Working around rough men and women didn’t come without risk, and I’d been teaching her some basic self-defense. It looked like tonight’s lesson would be on how to break holds.

“Here you go,” I said, passing the beer to the woman who ordered it. “On your tab?”

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