Page 5 of Saber's Claim
The last thing a woman like that needs is a man like me crowding her.
So for three weeks, I drank my coffee. Left my money. Kept my mouth shut.
Then the man she’s running from showed up.
Razor called me. He’d had a prospect parked across the street from the diner every shift since I started showing up. The kid saw a man walk in, and Shelby went rigid behind the counter.
Took me four minutes to get there. I have never ridden faster in my life.
I don’t think about what I said to him. I don’t think about the piss running down his leg or the way he couldn’t get out the door fast enough. I think about the way she looked at me after.
Like I’d given her the safety she’d been craving.
I had Joker run his plates before he hit the highway. Name, phone number, and home address. Everything we needed. Razor called him from a blocked number and made sure the message stuck.
That was three days ago.
Now I visit the diner at night. Mornings were for watching her. Nights are for making sure nobody else is.
I’m in the booth at nine-thirty on a Tuesday, and there are four customers left in the diner. Shelby is wiping down the counter in circles that don’t accomplish anything. She’s been wiping the same spot for two minutes.
She’s thinking about me. I’d bet my bike on it.
I shouldn’t fucking want that. She’s got damage I can’t fix, and I’m the Prez of an outlaw MC. I’ve killed men. I’ve ordered hits over a phone call and slept like a baby after. My hands will never be clean.
And when she looks at me with those green eyes like I’m something safe, it makes me want to be the man she thinks I am.
I’m not that man. Not even close.
But I’m in the booth anyway.
She crosses the floor with the pot. I slide my mug forward and keep my eyes on the window. If I look at her while she’s this close, I’ll say something. If I say something, I’ll reach for her. If I reach for her, I won’t stop, and she deserves a man who asks before he takes.
Her knuckles brush mine on the mug. Same as every time. The same half-second of skin that gets my dick harder than any sweetbutt on her knees ever has.
She lingers. One beat longer than yesterday.
Then she’s gone, and I’m holding a cup of coffee that tastes like battery acid.
Closing is at ten. I walk out at nine-fifty-five and meet Razor at my bike in the back lot.
Razor is leaning against his Harley with a cigarette between his teeth. He’s my road captain, my right hand, and one of the only men in the club who’ll tell me when I’m being an asshole.
“You eat anything in there, or did you drink four cups of shitty coffee and stare at the waitress for an hour?”
“Three cups.”
“We’ve got a problem.” He drops the cigarette and crushes it under his boot. “Got word that two Crimson Warriors parked across the highway about twenty minutes ago. Haven’t moved.”
Crimson Warriors don’t come to Ash Valley to sightsee. “Who?”
“Bull. And some other asshole I don’t recognize.”
“They dismount?”
“Not yet. Joker’s got eyes on them from the gas station.”
I pull my phone and text Joker.
