Page 1 of King of Clubs
Chapter One
Black Bear Lodge in Lake Tahoe
There’s a biker at the bar.
One with eyes like molten chocolate and a smile made for sin. He sits at the opposite end from Sara, clad in a white cable knit sweater, his black leather cut nowhere in sight. Dark ink contrasts against his skin, the King of Clubs shrouded in flames on one side of his slender neck and an ornate crown resting against his pulse point on the other. Sara knows what they mean.
His club: The Outlaw Royales.
His rank: President.
Not one of the chapters she’s familiar with but probably a closer one.
His gaze flickers up to meet hers, his lips turning up into a handsome smile. His palm runs over the top of his shaved head, his phone vibrating alongside the whiskey glass in his hand, diverting his attention.
Sara tucks a strand of ruby hair back behind her ear, her focus returning to the pictorial article she’s completing on behalf of GET INKED magazine. The feature is a photographic profile on Reese Mahew, a tattoo artist that works out of Lake Monster and uses colouring so bold that he’s generated his own signaturestyling. It’s the reason she’s at Black Bear Lodge four days after Christmas, ignoring the decorations that are still thrusting the holiday into the face of every single guest that walks through those doors.
The truth is she doesn’t have anywhere else to be. There’s no family; her friends are all settled, and she can’t stand the idea of another seasonal blind date. The people in her life, they’re well-meaning but they don’t understand that being alone isn’t the same as being lonely, that you can enjoy your own company. She has no commitments, which is why she’s decided to stay on a little longer at the Lodge before she moves onto her next assignment out of the country. She has a suite with a superb view of the dense, snow-covered pines and a jacuzzi bathtub she intends to spend the next couple of hours soaking in once she sends this piece off to the editor.
A drink appears in front of her when she closes the laptop, a crystal lowball half filled with amber liquid.
“Van Winkle,” the bartender tells her. “Twelve Year Special Reserve.”
Expensive with a smooth taste. She can appreciate a man who knows his whiskey. She raises the glass to her lips, taking a sip and the subtle tones of vanilla, caramel and lightly toasted nuts blossom on her tongue. She swallows, savouring the warmth cascading through her chest as the biker tips his glass towards her in greeting and Sara rises to her feet to join him.
That’s how it starts, this thing between her and Leon Martinez. A glass of top shelf whiskey on a Chesterfield couch with Sara laughing so hard her ribs hurt.
“So, what brings you here?” she asks him, drawing her legs up underneath her. Her arm comes to rest on the back of the couch, the sleeve of her sweater riding up towards her elbow.Leon’s fingertips trail across her bare skin, sending a rush of anticipation chasing through her nerve endings.
“My daughter Melina,” he says softly, his eyes warm in the light from the glow of the fire crackling in the hearth. “She’s always wanted to go sledding and we don’t get much snow where I’m from in Sunridge. We went to that place further up the mountain, you know the Heavenly Ski Resort?”
Sunridge makes sense, it’s a small town just on the border with Nevada allowing access to any business that needs conducting Las Vegas ways. Everyone knows each other in those desert towns and the business is always a little shady.
“I’ve been up to the Heavenly Resort a few times and it turns out I’m terrible at winter sports. I’ve tried most of them, but I always end up on my ass, flailing around while the instructor has to pick me up out of the snow,” Sara tells him. Leon laughs and it’s a rich, genuine sound, one that she feels all the way down to her bones.
“Yeah, I discovered the same thing,” he confides, his thumb trailing over the silver stacker rings on her left hand. “My daughter took to it like she was born to do it but me… I was fucking terrible. We had a lot of fun together on the sleds but everything else…”
He shakes his head.
“I’m not made for the cold weather. Her mother, my ex, picked her up this afternoon so I have a free night tonight.”
His thumb smooths over her wrist, tracing over the tattoo of a laurel wreath inked into her skin, the one she’d gotten after she’d won an award for her photography collection ‘The Ancient Art of Irezumi – Japan’s Secretive Tattoo Culture’.
“I know this work.” Leon says, his fingertip tapping on the crisp leaves. “Duke Salvadore out of Pinehurst?”
“He’s done all my tattoos,” Sara tells him and Leon’s interest piques, his gaze straying to the contours of her navy-blue sweater. She imagines his hands straying underneath it, ghosting over the ink that adorns her body.
“The Tattoo Journalist,” he recalls, his dark eyebrows furrowing into a frown. “The two of you used to be a thing.”
“A couple of years ago,” she admits, watching as his fingertips trail across her palm, following her lifeline.
His fingers link with hers, settling into the grooves of her knuckles. His own silver rings clack against hers, the symbol of a playing card club stamped into the glossy black onyx.
“No lingering feelings?” he questions, and she shakes her head with a wry smile.
“He needed someone more present and that just wasn’t me,” she tells him, cradling her whiskey glass against her chest.
“Ah,” Leon says, nodding his head in understanding. “That’s the reason my marriage fell apart; I wasn’t very present. I’m a good father, a decent President but a shitty husband. We co-parent and she’ll always be the mother of my child but…”
