Page 9 of Riding Dirty

Yeah. She doesn’t fuckin’ understand, but I’m done talking. I got a meeting to go to. “Leave her alone,” I remind her before I turn around and walk away from her.

Fuck.

Maybe I should stay here and keep an eye on things. I don’t have the time for it, though, and if I send someone else to Fat Boys bar, that could make the prospective client uneasy. I move toward the exit when I see Dare standing with his head bent, talking to a prospect.

I detour and make my way over to them, arriving just as the prospect walks away. I don’t ask him what that was about. It doesn’t matter, and it has nothing to do with me. I’ve got to stay focused, and with that focus, I need his help.

“You good?” Dare asks.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “I got a meeting with someone who called me, but it’s the cleaners’ first day, and I wanted to be here to show them where to go and where not to go.”

Dare chuckles. “Pretty sure I could handle that for you. Anything else?”

“Actually, there is,” I begin.

Then I continue to tell him everything that just happened between me and Velvet. It’s not that I think Velvet is going to do something to hurt Elodie or her employee; it’s that it isn’t her place to say or do a goddamn thing.

Nothing.

“I’ll make sure nobody bothers them. They’re here for a job, and that’s what they’ll do.”

I grunt, then lift my hand, sliding my fingers through my hair before I tug on the ends slightly. That’s my tell, and I know it because Dare’s mood shifts instantly. He’s waiting for me to say something, voice concern or worry. Whatever the case, he’s bracing for it.

“One of us is going to need to get an old lady or something soon.”

Dare’s eyes widen, then he bursts out into laughter, like a full-on fucking belly laugh that lasts a solid thirty seconds. When he finally gets his shit together, I almost ask him if he’s okay but decide against being a smart-ass.

“I’m not joking, Dare. We got these clubwhores running around like they own the place. Shit will get out of hand.”

Dare’s smile stays firmly planted on his lips, but he doesn’t laugh again. In fact, he agrees with me. At least partially.

“Maybe we have a meeting about the roles each part of the club has, the working cog speech.”

Rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I bring my gaze back to meet his, my lips twitching into a smirk before I let out a snort. “Brother, I fuckin’ hate that speech. I thought you retired it after your dad retired?”

He chuckles again. “Not a bad speech. He just gave it too often. I’ll schedule the meeting. I’ll text you.”

Turning away from him, I give him a wave as I walk toward the door, and then I slip outside, straddle my bike, and ride toward Fat Boys bar while trying not to think about that sexy little cleaner on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floors. Ass in the air, tits swaying with the movement of her arm.

Fuck. Me.

I’m in deep shit.

CHAPTER

SIX

ELODIE

Pulling up to the gate, I wait for the man at the little guard shack, which is really just a rectangle with a window. Actually, it looks like one of those ticket booths that you have to walk up to at the fair.

The little door opens, and I watch a hulking man walk over to me. He’s not the same one who was there last week when I came here for my meeting, but he’s wearing the same uniform. Jeans, T-shirt, leather vest, and boots, along with a scruffy face and a hard-ass look on it.

Hot.

“You the cleaner?” he asks, extending his index finger and pointing to the magnet on the side of my car. It reads: Dirty Little Secrets Cleaning Service, in big red letters.

“I’m not sure how you figured that out, but that’s who we are,” Alex quips beside me.