Patriot (Hades Abyss MC 6) - Harley Wylde Page 0,3
was now a chilly forty degrees outside. For a place that stayed over one hundred degrees in the summer, it might as well have been ten below zero. I clutched my leather jacket tighter and stomped my booted feet to warm up a little.
Music blasted from the building and I could hear the crowd inside. Not only was there a line of bikes across the front, but quite a few cars were parked in the lot too. I’d wanted to go to the clubhouse several times since Patriot had brought me here, to see what it looked like on a typical night, but I always chickened out. I knew they didn’t want me inside, and Patriot would likely blow a gasket when he found out what I was about to do. This was the closest I’d come to actually going inside when a party was in full swing. I approached the building and put my hand to the door.
Come on, MaryAnne. Stop being a chicken.
I pushed my way inside and fought back a cough as I sucked in a lungful of smoke. I waved my hand in front of my face and surveyed the room. No one had noticed me yet. It wasn’t like I was wearing a disguise. I went up to the bar and smiled at Riley. His eyebrows rose and he scanned the room before focusing on me again.
“Patriot know you’re here?” he asked.
I sank my teeth into my bottom lip and shook my head. Was he going to make me leave? He looked around again, his muscles tensing. Riley took a step back and pulled a clear soda from one of the mini fridges, poured it into a glass, added grenadine and mixed it before he topped it with two cherries. He handed me the glass and I eyed it a moment.
“I’m not giving you alcohol,” he said. “Why the hell did you come here tonight?”
I didn’t know how to answer his question so I took a swallow of my drink and pretended I hadn’t heard him. I felt heat along my back and a citrus scent filled my nose. I used the mirror behind the bar to see who it was and tried not to grimace when I saw Smoke practically on top of me. He braced an arm on the bar beside me and leaned in closer.
“Are you trying to piss off Patriot? Stop flirting with Riley and take your ass home.”
My back straightened and I slowly turned my head to look at him. “I’m not here to flirt with Riley, or anyone else.”
“Look around you, MaryAnne. What the fuck do you think women come here to do? Because it’s not sit at the fucking bar drinking whatever the hell Riley gave you.”
“It’s a Shirley Temple,” I said. At least, I thought that’s what he’d made. I’d never looked up how you actually made one, but I’d read a book where the heroine only drank Shirley Temples.
“Girl, unless you want to be bent over a table and fucked, you need to leave.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. A buzzing sound filled my ears and my hand shook, causing my drink to slosh all over the bar top. Riley cursed and leapt over it, heading into the crowd as darkness crept along the edges of my vision. I couldn’t breathe. Everything started spinning, and I felt myself sway on the stool. It could have been seconds or minutes that passed. Time had no meaning.
I heard a door slam into the wall and everything around me went silent.
“What the fuck did you do?” Patriot roared.
I felt strong arms close around me and I cried out, tensing and clawing at whoever had grabbed me. Lips pressed close to my ear and the scent of leather and motor oil filled my nose, calming me a little.
“Easy, Little Bit. I’ve got you,” Patriot said, his voice soft and low. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
“Fuck, man. I was only trying to get her to leave. I knew you’d be pissed to find her here,” Smoke said. “She wouldn’t listen to reason so I tried to scare her enough to send her running home.”
“She was having a Goddamn panic attack. What did you say to her?” Patriot demanded.
“Nothing! Christ, I told her to look around, that women only came here for one reason. I knew she wasn’t up for that. Hell, we all know it,” Smoke said.
My heartrate slowed and I sucked in a lungful of air, then