Born Wild

When he clicked off the phone, he turned to find Bill watching him with an expression like a bio-hazardous waste sign. “Let me guess,” Bill said. “The motor is broken on the Bat Cave door. Again.”

Mac just smiled and nodded, taking a page from Ace’s book and batting his lashes.

“Shit,” Bill cursed, yanking the steering wheel on the Hummer, maneuvering the beast into a cramped parking space on the side of the street. Slamming the giant SUV out of gear and switching off the engine, he ran a hand through his hair and muttered again, “Shit.”

“I’m sensing a theme here,” Eve piped up from the back seat, and Mac turned to explain what the problem was and, as a result, what all the only possible solution entailed.

“Well,” she shrugged, “I guess you can drop me back at my cousin’s condo, or…” She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose I could go to my dad’s house. At least that’d stop him from calling me every five seconds.”

Bill shot Mac a sharp look.

“Yeah, well, here’s the thing,” he said, wracking his brain for a way to serve her this bitter pill of truth so that it went down smoothly. Then he realized this was a situation where it was probably best to avoid the truth—at least the whole truth—altogether. “We’d feel a lot better if we stashed you with someone we know and trust.”

“Why?” Her brows formed a perfect V.

Good Lord, the woman was determined to make him perjure himself. He shrugged. “It’s just better if you stay away from your usual spots.”

“Oh.” She nodded, her face clearing. “That makes sense.” And he was going straight to hell for being a liar- liar-pants-on-fire. “Okay, so where to?”

Mac glanced at Bill, proposing, “Shell and Snake’s house? There’s a key to their place in the glove box and —”

“Boss would skin us, fillet us, cook us, eat us, and then use our bones as toothpicks if we involved his sister and his nephew in anything even remotely dangerous,” Bill stated. “And that’d be a cakewalk compared to what Snake would do to us once he comes back from Mali.”

Mac knew the guy wasn’t just being dramatic. Boss, like any good big brother, was extremely overprotective of his sister and her son. And Snake? Well, let’s just say that when it came to his wife and child and their safety, the man lived up to his code name. Deadly.

“Okay, so that leaves us with…” He made a rolling motion with his hand, encouraging Bill to offer another option since none of the rest of the Knights had family—or even close friends—living nearby.

“Red Delilah’s,” Bill said, and Mac’s hand stopped turning as every cell in his body started running around like a blind dog in a meat factory. Delilah Fairchild, the owner of the biker bar Bill had just named, was everything Mac’d spent his whole life avoiding.

First, she was beautiful. Okay, that wasn’t really true. She was beyond beautiful. From her deep auburn hair and her green eyes that tilted up at the corners, giving her the look of a guileful feline and making it appear as if she were privy to the world’s secrets, to her slow, sultry smile that informed everyone around her she wouldn’t be sharing with any of them, she was, bar none, the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. And that was before you got to her body. Because, damn, Mother Nature had given her a set of curves guaranteed to lower any male IQ from within a hundred yards.

Next, she was used to getting any man she wanted. Any man. And that kind of power warped a person’s psyche. He knew that from experience.

And last, but certainly not least, in any situation he’d seen her involved in, she’d come out on top. Whether it was bar brawls, raucous drunks, or bums who couldn’t pay, she was somehow able to manipulate all sides into the middle and get what she wanted from anybody just by being herself. And that crazy ability made every instinct in him yell loud and clear to stay far, far away from her.

Unfortunately, she seemed determined he should do just the opposite. She was a big ol’ scoop of sweet, melting, strawberry ice cream, and she was constantly daring him, daring him, to take a bite. She flirted with everyone, that was her nature, but she flat- out propositioned him every chance she got. And he was terrified he might one day, in a moment of weakness and unbearable horniness, take her up on one of those offers.

Which would be bad. For many reasons…

“I’m not sure Eve will be comfortable hanging out in—” he began but was cut off when Eve said, “Oh, no. That’ll be good. I’ve met Delilah a couple of times. I like her.”

Yeah, who doesn’t?

“Perfect,” Bill restarted the engine. “It’s all set, then. We’ll drop her at Delilah’s then go get wet.”

Oh, goody. This day just keeps getting better and better…

Chapter Ten

Red Delilah’s Biker Bar

4:38 p.m.

Delilah Fairchild liked four things: her motorcycle, her bar, her double-barreled shotgun—those folks who treated her right only saw the business ends of her motorcycle and bar—and Sunday nights.

Because Sunday nights were calm, at least when compared to the usual biker bar bullshit and chaos, and they allowed her a much-needed break. Tonight would be filled with the “usuals.” The usual customers; those barflies who preferred to spend the last night of the weekend bellied up to a length of nicely polished mahogany. The usual drinks; whiskey and beer, both cheap and straight up. And the usual music on the jukebox; eighties hair bands and hard-driving rockabilly.

For her, this was a little slice of heaven.

And yup, she didn’t know if that was poetic or just plain sad…

Running a dishtowel over the ring of condensation left behind by the empty Budweiser bottle she tossed into the thirty-gallon recycling can—the loud clink let her know she was about a twelve-pack away from needing to empty the sucker—she asked Buzzard, her most loyal and loveable patron, “Another round?”

“Keep ’em comin’, doll face,” Buzzard gave her his standard reply, flashing his gold tooth at her as he wiped a couple of stray droplets of beer from the scraggly gray hairs of his beard.

She’d just popped the top on another bottle of the King of Beers when the front door banged open. Late afternoon sunlight spilled into the place, highlighting the red vinyl booths, the buckets of unshelled peanuts sitting beside the tables, and the rough wooden slats of the flooring.

She set the fresh beer in front of Buzzard and moved toward the end of the bar and the empty seats that were the likely landing points of the new arrivals. But she’d gone no more than three steps when the fifth thing she liked—she’d totally forgotten to include him on her earlier list; where had her head been?—stepped out of the ray of sunlight and waltzed into view.

Okay, maybe not waltzed. Bryan “Mac” McMillan didn’t waltz. He swaggered, or maybe stalked was a better word, walking with an efficiency that spoke of his previous career as an FBI agent as opposed to his current career as a motorcycle mechanic.

And, yup, there had to be a story there. Just like she knew there had to be a story behind all the men at the custom motorcycle shop known as Black Knights Inc. But she found herself only interested in Mac’s tale…or was that tail?

She snorted, smiling at her own wit right before her lips curved into a frown.

No matter how much she liked Mac, no matter how much his sense of humor, his solid build, and his dauntless loyalty to his friends appealed to her, Mac always treated her like she was covered in poison ivy. And, for the life of her, she couldn’t fathom why that should be. As far as she knew, she’d never done anything to garner his scorn. From day one, she’d been nothing but smiles and come-ons, so what was his deal?

She narrowed her eyes as she watched his approach, racking her brain and trying to figure it all out. As