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weighty stare.
    She came to her senses a moment later, the fight leaving her frame. She wasn’t built for conflict. She had no cause to be asking anything of Booker, never mind the truth. “Sorry. Guess you were hoping for something a little more…upbeat.”
    “You apologize too much.”
    Kayla slid against the backrest and pulled a knee to her chest. “Got a lot to apologize for.”
    Booker didn’t argue otherwise, for which she was grateful. He didn’t know the half of it.
    After a moment, he stood, leather sighing beneath him. “I should head out,” he muttered.
    “You still have twenty minutes left on the clock. Buzzer didn’t go off…”
    “Beer’s done,” he replied.
    Stomach fluttering, Kayla bit back the urge to say she could get him another.
    “Hey, Book?”
    He turned slowly, a hand already on the doorknob. He looked bigger from this angle, a larger than life behemoth, the back of which Kayla should’ve been relieved to see.
    “I don’t do that no more,” she got out choppily. “The tricks, I mean.” I just dance on men’s laps.
    Booker flashed her a grin, eyes gleaming like a pair of beads. “Come by the clubhouse tonight.”
    “I have to work.”
    “When you’re done,” he insisted doggedly. It might have been a challenge rather than an order, but then his gaze drifted down her bare thighs and Kayla understood what he meant. “Still owe me that dance.”
    The door swung shut in his wake before Kayla could think of anything to say.

ChapterFour
     
     
     
    Under the flickering, hazy glow of streetlights and armed with vague memories of that morning’s drive, Kayla half hoped she wouldn’t remember the way to the clubhouse.
    Hackby wasn’t big enough to get lost in.
    Once she found the interstate, the rest was child’s play. She heard the music before she saw the bikes lining the dusty stretch of road, the queue of battered trucks and white-bread sedans giving yielding to tricked-out choppers and shiny Harleys.
    She was in the right place. She wasn’t the only one.
    Kayla pulled up on the shoulder, where the dogwood branches reached out like clawed hands. The dashboard clock read fifteen minutes past two. She should’ve been home by now.
    The Mercedes ceased its rattling as she yanked the keys out of the ignition.
    Scrums of beefy men and pretty women went quiet to watch her pass. It was too dark to tell if they were hostile or curious, but Kayla knew she was an outsider. She spurred her feet.
    Inside the roadhouse, country music echoed from an ancient jukebox. Moths circled the drooping light fixtures. Kayla hadn’t noticed the wall of mug shots that made up the length of the bar on her last visit. True, she hadn’t been paying attention to the scenery, but now more than ever she was keenly aware that the Hounds weren’t exactly boy scouts.
    She didn’t realize she was staring now until someone laid a hand on her shoulder. She spun around on her heel, hackles rising.
    Booker quirked an eyebrow. “Easy there…”
    “Sorry,” Kayla breathed, her cheeks burning.
    “S’all right. Crowded in here…”
    “Yeah, you didn’t mention you were planning a party.”
    Booker swept a glance over the crowd milling around the bar, patched kuttes and scantily-clad women filling up the space like flies on a wound. He seemed pleased with what he saw. “Didn’t want to spook you, in case you decided to show after all.”
    “I can’t stay long.”
    “That’s okay.” Booker looked her up and down. “You look like you could use a drink.”
    Kayla didn’t see a reason to turn him down. She was off the clock.
    If she fumbled a little when Booker draped a heavy arm around her shoulders…well, it was just the press of bodies around her, the strange sense of being a fish out of the water. Providentially, the bar was near and the beer plentiful and cold. Other drinkers made room once they noticed that she was with Booker.
    “So these are the buddies you were talking about earlier, huh?