Page 1 of Bitter’s Sweet

Chapter One

Bitter

The dark makes liars out of everybody.

A woman will say she ain’t scared in the dark, right up until my mouth is at her ear and my hand is at her throat, not squeezing hard, just enough to remind her I’m there. Just enough to remind her she wanted this when she climbed in with me.

“Lord,” she breathes, her nails digging into my shoulder. “You always this cocky?”

I grin against her throat. “Only when I’m right.”

“You ain’t right.”

“No, ma’am. I’m Bitter Adams. Whole different problem.”

She laughs, then catches that laugh in her teeth when I move just right. The sound turns soft and broken in the dark between us, and I soak it up like gospel from a sinner’s mouth. I like that part. The change. That little second when a woman quits pretending she is in charge of herself and gives in to what I already knew.

I’m good at a few things in this life. Riding. Fighting. Burying trouble. And making a woman forget she ever had sense.

“You run that mouth too much,” she whispers.

“You liked my mouth five minutes ago.”

“I liked what it was doing.”

“Still does tricks.”

She swats my shoulder, but there ain’t much strength behind it. Her breath is still coming too fast. Her legs are wrapped around me like I’m the last warm thing left in Tennessee, and maybe for her, for this one little wicked minute, I am.

We’re packed in tight, the kind of tight that makes every movement count. The air smells like fresh-cut cedar, varnish, satin, and her perfume, something sweet and expensive that doesn’t belong in this room. Or maybe it does. Pretty things end up in strange places all the time. Hell, around the Grave Prowlers, strange places are pretty much a business model.

She came into the clubhouse with two of her friends, wearing heels too tall for the gravel lot and a dress short enough to make every brother in the room forget basic manners. I saw her at the bar laughing with Ghoul and Sweeney like she had no idea those men would bet on anything from fistfights to how long a possum could play dead. She had a bright mouth, sharp eyes, and the kind of confidence that makes a man want to test the foundation underneath it.

So I did.

She said she liked danger.

I told her danger was just a word women used before they learned better.

She told me I looked like I needed humbling.

I told her to take her shot.

That was an hour ago.

She lost.

“I bet you ain’t never had a man in a place like this before,” I tell her.

Her laugh comes out shaky this time. “I don’t even know where we are. It was dark, remember?”

“I remember you were too busy kissing me to notice. But I guarantee you this is your first time here.”

“You don’t even know where I’ve been before.”

“I know you ain’t been here.”

“How you know?”