Page 5 of Mile High With the Bikers
“Fine by me.” Shrapnel grins. “You want us naked, we'll oblige.”
She blinks, like it didn’t quite occur to her that from our point of view, any amount of getting naked with her was a step in the right fucking direction.
I laugh. “If you’re that desperate to see how far this ink goes, who are we to stop you? Deal me in.”
Shocked or not, Rory is too competitive to back down. “Good. Yeah, good.” She passes out the cards, her movements quick and efficient. “Lowest hand, one piece of clothing?”
“Sounds good to me.” Maybe there fucking is a God, because my hand comes up three kings, right off the bat.
With lowest hand losing, there's no reason to fold, so we're all in. I pull two cards that do nothing for me. She pulls three, so probably a pair. I don't even care what Shrapnel and Diesel pull. They don’t have shit I haven’t seen before. But Rory here? That’s a tight little package I wouldn’t mind seeing unwrapped.
Diesel puts down a pair of fives. Shrapnel's got nothing but an ace. He chuckles, knowing he might be the one to start stripping. I put my cards down and grin. “Three kings. I like the implication of that.”
She rolls her eyes, then puts down an eight of hearts. A four of hearts, a ten, a three. Finally, the queen. Her eyes spark and her voice is music as she declares, “Hearts flush, queen high.”
And here I thought my innuendo game was solid.
Shrapnel groans and shrugs off his cut.
The game is on.
3
RORY
Bull crosseshis arms over his broad torso to capture the hem of his T-shirt with both hands and peel it up, revealing a broad expanse of tattooed skin that's stretched over the first actual six pack I've seen in my life. Is he even real?
I’m glad I have a few years of practice keeping my cool, but I'm pretty sure I've already bitten over way more than I can chew. Why did I let them get to me? Bull threw out the bait and I took it, hook, line and sinker.
If anyone comes back here and finds us like this, me playing cards with three partly dressed bikers, I'll be so, so dead. And maybe them, but definitely me. Even worse than that, Dad will give me that look that says: ‘Why did I even bother with you?’
I hate that I care. He can be distant, but he has the type of personality where, when heisfocused on you, it’s like you’re the most interesting thing in the world. My memories of the nights we spent together working on some programming puzzle that was stumping him are like precious jewels.
But the thing about jewels is that even though they’re beautiful, you can’t survive on them. I was already on the breaking point before this trip. The rude man who slipped me five hundred dollars did me a bigger favor than he knew. It’s more than enough to get me out of town without a trail, and once I’m out of town… I don’t know, but I’ll be able to breathe again.
Bull’s shirt hits the floor, and the view of him in nothing but his jeans is even more distracting than I imagined it would be. He really is built like a tree, massive and strong, with just enough padding over those cords of muscle to look like he’d give the best hugs and not count pizza slices. He settles back into his chair, one massive arm over the back of Diesel’s seat, looking like he's posing just for me. And when my eyes follow the trail of soft chest hair that narrows into a dark stripe past his shallow belly button and into his jeans, it's impossible not to notice the bulge down one of the legs.
Holy crap.
To my left, Shrapnel has his shirt on still, but he lost his jeans already, exposing powerful thighs with only his boxer briefs covering an impressive bulge of his own. If I squint, I think I might be able to make out the actual outline of his?—
I tear my eyes away, just to find Diesel on the other side. He opted to take off his shirt before his biker vest, and now he's got it back on, bare-chested underneath. There's a big bleeding heart tattoo over his heart, the blood inked so expertly that I feel like I could reach out and scoop it up with my fingertip.
Breathe!
My entire sexual history can be boiled down to making out in empty classrooms during the few coed events at my high school.When they brought the girls and boys classes together for special occasions to prepare all the little future ambassadors for formal dancing and dining. We’d take turns sneaking away while the others stood watch. It was awkward and weird, but all we had.
That and Eamon, the intern that I spent a summer working with at nineteen. Sweet, starstruck Eamon. He was so thrilled to be working fortheConnor Whittaker, and thought I was the same. He was more than happy to help me figure out what I’d been missing in the bed department—not a lot as it turned out. When his internship ended, I was happy to erase his security clearance and move on with my life. Nice guy, but nobody wants to sit around listening to someone who sounds like they would rather be with your father.
These guys arenotEamons. Maybe that's exactly why I’m risking it, because I know my plan could collapse completely, and I don’t know where that will leave me. What’s the saying? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die?
I lose a hand. It was bound to happen. Skill only gets you so far in poker, especially when you have to commit every round. The way all three of the guys grin like wolves when it's finally my turn to take something off has me doing all sorts of mental math. What is something big enough to be interesting but not so much that I’m moving too fast?
“What's it gonna be?” Diesel's voice is sinfully low as his deep blue eyes strip me before I even move.
I pop the top button of my low-cut blazer. With the white blouse under, it's not going to show anything but maybe the vague outline of my bra, but I’m starting to understand the appeal of strip poker. It’s a game, but it feels intimate. The hot pool ofexcitement in my belly doesn’t know the difference between this and the first nervous reveal to a new lover.
Lovers.
