Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6)(33)

“Aha!” Tobias accused. “I thought this was where I’d find you! Someone told me you went to some typical jizzmonger biker rally, and had the nerve to bring along my woman!”

Well, “jizzmonger” and “biker” weren’t two words you’d use together around there if you wanted to stay on this side of the veil. But I guess the bikers could see that Tobias was a man scorned, and soon after they started for him, they hung back and laughed.

Wolf sputtered, regaining his equilibrium. His Run-a-Mucca pin was all knocked askew, and his cock-eyed do-rag made him look like a pirate. “Well! Tracy is her own woman, you lily-livered sack of shit! Maybe she didn’t want to be with a skinny nerd who looks like Pokey.”

Tobias jammed his hands onto his narrow hips. I couldn’t believe he’d had the gall—or the ignorance—to wear a white patent leather belt to a motorcycle rally. “That’s Gumby, you moron! Pokey is the horse. And you’re so damned ugly that Hello Kitty said goodbye to you.”

The bikers gathered around and murmured their appreciation of this fine, sharply-honed insult. Tobias finally looked around as though aware of his surroundings for the first time, his face draining of all his rage.

Wolf, too, became mortified that he seemed to be losing the battle. “Oh yeah? Well, tell your mom that I need change from yesterday, you dumbass!”

When the crowd roared their appreciation, Tobias became enraged again. He took three furious, jerky steps toward Wolf. “I’d watch what I was saying, School Band Boy. You don’t even have an ass. It’s like you used butt-be-gone on your rear when you should’ve used chia-butt.” And he poked Wolf in the chest.

That was when all hell broke loose. Wolf took a swing at Tobias’ head, but Tobias adroitly ducked. Wolf spun around and wound up sort of softly hitting a burly guy in the upper arm. Another guy held Wolf still by his shoulders, giving Tobias an easy shot at him. Tobias gave Wolf the ol’ one-two punch in the gut he’d probably learned from cartoons.

In the uproar someone stepped on my foot. “Hey!” I yelled, trying to shove the heavyset girl off me.

“Don’t yell at me, you bitch,” sneered the scary-looking bitch with black lipstick and at least fourteen facial piercings.

I wasn’t afraid—I really wasn’t. But someone stepped between us, his back to the bitch, and that was fine with me.

Fox held up his hands in the surrender position.

And then he winked at me. And I knew everything was going to be all right.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN




FOX


“Open your eyes,” Lola used to tell me. “Open your eyes to what’s really going on, Travis.”

Blindness had been my undoing.

That phrase “open your eyes” stuck in my gut now as I watched Pippa Lofting stalk away. She had every right to ask my real name. I knew hers. Quid pro quo and all that. How many women let you f*ck them without knowing your name?

Then it struck me that I did want to f*ck her. That would make her the first woman I wanted to actually have sex with, if you didn’t count the endless hookers and hangers-on of Ortelio Jones. The first real woman. The first woman who would dare to ask my birth name.

Pippa had every right to want to know more about me. She knew next to nothing. She knew I’d been a lawyer before resorting to killing people with a different sort of instrument, and that was about it. Just the knowledge of either sort of career would be enough to put most women off, but not Pippa. She had stuck adoringly by my side. She didn’t just want me for a bodyguard, that was obvious. She wanted me for a lover.

I followed her at a safe distance. Watched her crash into a biker, bounce off a few other folks like a ping-pong ball, ready to hit back if anyone harmed her.

Then I saw her meet up with Wolf and Tracy. I was glad she’d be safe with good, solid friends, but something told me to stick around. I knew why when I saw Tobias Weingarten come flailing like a banshee out of the crowd. I moved close enough to hear Wolf yell that he would “kick his butt so hard his * will be up between his shoulder blades.”

The crowd was egging them on to a dangerous level. By the time I moved in close enough to act as a shield between Pippa and a hard chick who might’ve gone head to head with her, Tobias had actually connected a few feeble punches to Wolf’s solar plexus. I wasn’t worried. Wolf could more than handle him, if those bikers would let him go.

I did something really stupid and corny I hadn’t done in two years. I winked at Pippa. I don’t know why. It just seemed the thing to do, to reassure her I was there, that I meant her no harm. Although God f*cking knows, I’ve always been far from harmless.

“Hey, you’re in my way,” said Pippa, straining to see past my shoulder. “You’re missing the fight of the century.”

So I bent my knees and circled her waist with my hands. I set her little boots on top of mine so she had a boost up, a front row seat.

The guys had let Wolf go by now. Before, Wolf had just been toying with Tobias. Now I could tell he was enraged. “Where’d you get those clothes, nerd boy? At the toilet store? I was going to tell you a joke about my dick but it’s too long.”

“Oh yeah?” answered Tobias, rolling up the sleeves of his tight turtleneck. He seemed the sort to wear a turtleneck no matter what the weather. “Well, I—I—I would tell you a joke about your *, but you’ll never get it.”