Page 12 of Sin for You

“All good here! You?” I didn’t meet his eyes and sounded waaaaay too cheery, utterly false, but it was too late to change tactics. I had to follow through with this whole insanely-happy-nothing-to-see-here shtick.

The way Bull was looking at me, yeah, he thought I was nuts.

Too much teeth. I was definitely flashing too much teeth. I tamped it down a bit. “Right, well, I need a Coors Light and a Rainier, please.”

“You look tired,” he muttered as he got them.

“Do I?” Not going there.

He frowned harder.

Yep, this was as awkward as I’d imagined. Only another three hours of this nightmare to go. Yay!

He put them on my tray, and I slid it off the bar, about to bolt.

“Quinn,” he said in a way that made it clear he wanted me to look at him.

Goddammit. I forced my eyes to meet his again. “Yep.”

He shoved his fingers in his hair—and going by the looks of it, he’d been doing that a lot—then he planted his big hands on the bar between us. “I’m your boss. We have to work together.”

I froze and made myself nod in agreement.

He straightened and crossed his arms. “Good. So let’s put this shit from the other night behind us, yeah?”

Ouch.

Well, that hurt more than I thought it would. My failed pass at him, that he so eloquently referred to as shit, needed to be put behind us. As if I needed more confirmation that Bull was utterly indifferent to me.

“Absolutely,” I said, giving him a tight smile. “We’re adults. Shit happens, right?” His brows lowered. “And seriously, you can stop hiding in your office. You’re safe. It was just a weak moment, that’s all. It’s been a long time between…” Fucks. Good, hard, no-holds-barred fucking. “Dates,” I choked. Not that I’d experienced the kind of sex I imagined Bull was capable of dishing out. Zaps of electricity shot through my belly. Nope. Don’t think about it. Never going to happen. “I promise not to jump you again.”

Okay, maybe that came out a little more bitter than I’d intended, but whatever. Bull didn’t care, and it was time I didn’t either. I ignored his frown and went to deliver my drinks.

* * *

The next two nights I pretended everything was back to normal. And I’d almost convinced myself it actually was.

Monday nights were always pretty quiet, and we usually used the downtime to restock the bar fridges early for the next night. And that’s exactly what I was doing until the door opened and a group of bikers walked in. One of them, who appeared to be the leader, walked straight to Bull and took his hand. They shook, thumping each other’s backs, and Bull looked happy to see the guy.

I glanced up at Dane, who was sitting at the bar in front of me, distracted by his phone. “Does Bull know him?”

Bull was such a straight-up kind of guy, and the biker in the leather vest with Ramblers MC across his back was kind of…well, scary. I mean, Rocktown residents were used to bikers. The Ramblers passed through here fairly regularly and had been riding through our town for as long as I could remember. But I wasn’t naive or uninformed. I knew these bikers didn’t follow the rules everyone else did.

“That’s Dice,” Dane said. “Him and Bull were in prison together.” A haunted look shifted through Dane’s eyes. I noticed that happened a lot when the past was brought up. The easy smiles, the jokes, the sarcasm vanished. “They got tight when they were inside, watched out for each other. Now Dice comes to Bull whenever he wants ink done.”

Bull was an extremely talented tattoo artist. Most definitely a man of many talents was our Bull. You wouldn’t look at him and think he had this incredible artistic side, but he did. His work was exquisite. I’d been trying to talk him into doing something for me since I got back. I had yet to succeed.

My belly twisted weirdly. It was easy to forget Bull went to prison for a year when he was just twenty-one. I hated to think about it. How terrifying that must have been for him.

The group, Bull included, headed to one of the tables and sat down.

Dane glanced over and frowned.

“What?” I said.

“Just watch him tonight, yeah? He always drinks too much when they come to town and he starts dwelling on shit.”

I wasn’t sure what I could do. “You can’t stay?”