Page 73 of Ridin’ Dirty

“Everything okay?” asked Max, capturing my attention.

“Yeah,” I said on a sigh. “I need another beer, though.”

Max turned her smile on Tex, and he was up and over the bar in a second.

We both laughed.

He was down bad.

Poor guy.

It was another ten minutes before I saw Pistol again. When he emerged from the back, I could tell he was freshly showered—his blond curls darkened in their damp state. Under his kutte he had on a dark green, linen button-up, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, the top four buttons left undone. Like most of his shirts, it clung to his shoulders and biceps so well, if he put on any more muscle, he’d bust a seam.

He caught me staring as he made his way to the bar.

Rather than shy away from the truth that I was checking him out, I kept at it as I pulled another sip from my bottle.

I swear he smirked before he winked as he walked by, stepping behind the bar to grab himself a drink. I hid my smile with another sip of beer, totally reading into our silent exchange.

Either he knew I saw Cherry after he turned her away, or he liked the way I ogled him—completely seeing beyond his bruises and his cuts.

I didn’t care which version was the truth.

His wink was a green light that meant only one thing.

Game on.

He didn’t plan on sitting around and shooting the shit with his brothers that night. Between working on his Road King and attending round tables with the ranked members of the club in the aftermath of Tuesday night, he’d been home late and out early most of the week. Until that afternoon, the only glimpse of Lyla he’d seen for the past two days was when she was sleeping. Tonight, he wanted more.

But he didn’t anticipate this.

He wasn’t ready to put any weight on his desire to get home before the clock struck midnight any more than he was ready to define what it meant when he pulled into Viv’s, saw Lyla standing opposite a man wearing the wrong kutte, and decided without even so much as a fully developed thought his next move required her body pressed into his and his lips against her skin.

Didn’t matter that his face was still on the mend. Didn’t matter that the ache he still felt in his side was on account of the bruised knuckled bastard who towered over Lyla. Didn’t matter that circumstances what they were, Pistol couldn’t so much as lift a finger against the King.

The only thing that mattered was Lyla.

His eyes locked in on her from where he sat across the room, and he could almost smell the berry scent of her hair, sending a reminder to his groin that he’d known her once, and he wanted to know her again.

Curiosity.

It was curiosity that had him nursing his third beer as the night wore on, unwilling to go home so long as Lyla kept casting those blue eyes his direction whenever she damn well pleased.

“I don’t know how you could possibly forget, but she’s wearin’ your ring, brother,” said Rooster, pulling Pistol from his thoughts. “You want her, get off your ass.”

When it came to relationships, Rooster was far from a glowing example worth imitating. He, like Nighthawk, was one of the few men Pistol knew who married his ol’ lady. The way those two treated each other sometimes made him wonder what the fuck it was all for, other than misery loving company.

Then again, misery and marriage were not synonymous in his mind. Not at present, anyway. And Rooster wasn’t wrong.

Pistol didn’t bother trying to pretend he had any interest in whatever conversation was happening around him. He glanced down at the bottle in his hand, downed what was left, then got up from where he sat and headed for the bar. He was halfway there when Lyla saw him coming. As she did every other time she caught his eye, she held on with the same sexy confidence she exuded that first night.

This time, rather than making his way behind the bar, he went straight for his target. He set aside his bottle, then propped a hand on the bar on either side of his wife, caging her in. She didn’t even flinch but tilted her head back so as not to lose his eyes.

“How long you plan on keepin’ this up?”

He saw it as she tried to fight a smile.

She won. Barely.