Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,50
the dark skin of his right cheek, swaggered up to her and looked her up and down.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Behind him, she could see people grinning. Okay. Intimidate the outsider. Well, that was fine. She’d been the outsider a lot in her life. Never mind that this behemoth had a good foot of height and at least a hundred pounds of weight over her.
She smiled up at Bigfoot. “I’m Dr. Ryan St. Cloud. Who the fuck are you?”
He scowled down at her for a long moment, and then he threw his head back and laughed. “Good one, Doc. I’m Jenks. Welcome to the VMC. Beer?”
She glanced over at the clock on the wall, surprised. “It’s seven-thirty in the morning!”
“Right. Whiskey?”
A tall woman with short brown hair, golden-brown skin, and the muscular physique of an athlete elbowed Jenks out of the way. “She doesn’t want whiskey for breakfast, you dunderhead. Don’t give our guest the wrong impression of us.”
The Amazon held out her hand. “I’m Marisela Torres. Welcome. Coffee?”
Ryan shook her hand and smiled. “I’d love a cup of coffee. Hold the whiskey. And it’s nice to meet you both.”
Marisela flashed a gorgeous smile. “Same. The dunderhead is my husband. And you’re here with?”
A rush of wind and a chill in the air warned Ryan that Bane had arrived, so she wasn’t surprised when he put an arm around her shoulder. “She’s here with me.”
She knew that voice—or was it Voice? He was projecting his compulsion out to the entire room.
And it pissed her off.
“Maybe you could just pee on my shoe next time,” she said sweetly, moving out from beneath his arm. “I’m sure that would mark your territory.”
Bane slowly turned his head and pinned her with a slightly wide-eyed gaze, which, coming from Mr. Stone Face, must signify total shock.
Marisela burst out laughing. “Guess she told you, Boss. Now stand aside while I get the doc some coffee.”
When the woman strode off toward the bar, Ryan leaned closer to Bane to whisper in his ear. “Are they human or vampires? And you named your club the Vampire Motorcycle Club but you’ll kill me if I give away your secret?”
He casually dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “These are all humans, because having human members is a good front if anyone ever starts to get suspicious,” he murmured, his breath in her ear causing shock waves of pure lust to sizzle down her nerve endings. “And the name? The best place to hide anything is in plain sight.”
Ryan blinked. “Your brain works in fascinating and mysterious ways, doesn’t it?”
Bane didn’t respond but simply stared at her as if she were an especially intriguing puzzle he needed to work out. She shook her head and walked off to join Marisela, who reached over the polished wood and plucked a coffee pot off a warmer, pulled two mugs down from an overhead rack, and poured coffee for them both.
While Marisela did that, Ryan studied the place. It was a large, high-ceilinged room decorated in what she thought of as Ye Old English Pub. Tables with chairs were scattered about, there was a huge stone fireplace, a couple of pool tables, and two dart boards. The twenty or so people in the room were drinking coffee and sitting around in small groups, chatting. Two of the men were playing pool, and two women and a man were shooting darts.
It was the least motorcycle clubby scene she could ever have imagined.
“Not really Sons of Anarchy, is it?” Marisela said, smiling and holding a mug of coffee out to Ryan. “There’s cream and sugar there.”
“Thanks.” Ryan added both sugar and cream and then took a long sip before responding. “I guess so. I don’t know anything about motorcycle gangs—”
“Clubs.”
“I—what?”
Marisela put her mug down on a coaster on the gleaming wood surface of the bar. “Club. We’re a motorcycle club, not a gang. You’re thinking of Hell’s Angels and the scary criminals in movies, right?”
Ryan slowly nodded. “Yeah. I guess I was. But—”
“But?” Marisela’s deep brown eyes studied her.
Ryan leaned closer and spoke very quietly. “I know about the drugs. That’s actually illegal, right?”
“No. It’s heroic,” Marisela said, her smile fading. “Which you’d realize, if you weren’t a rich doctor.”
“Rich?” Ryan’s first impulse was to laugh, thinking of her massive student loan debt, but then she thought about it. It was true, she’d never had to worry about money, or food, or health care.