“What did he look like?” Ralph asks.
“I told you, tall, muscular…”
“No, doll. Hair color? Any tattoos?”
“Oh, right. His hair was like a reddish-brown, curly and he had that same skull guy tattooed on his back along with some other stuff. Nice touch with adding those for authenticity…”
“Doll, that wasn’t a stripper. I believe the guy you’re describing is named Roman, the president of the Savage Kings MC. Give the phone back to Duke! I’ll send you a full refund. So, so sorry for the confusion!”
“Okay?” I mutter while giving the man his phone. He speaks quietly to his boss while looking at me with concern filling his eyes, like a doctor about to tell you that your condition is terminal.
When he hangs up the phone, he says, “Do you have any photos from last night?”
“Ah, yeah, I think so,” I admit with only a slight blush on my cheeks. A man that sexy doesn’t come around very often. “Just a second.”
I go and grab my phone from the charger in the kitchen. On the walk back, I pull up my camera roll and scroll through to a picture more focused on the biker’s face rather than his various body parts.
“This is him,” I say, holding up the screen for him to see.
“Whoa!” he exclaims. “It is him! Come to think of it, don’t the Savage Kings own this house?”
“Um, I don’t know who the Savage Kings are, but I rented it from a realty company.”
“That’s…I’m outta here,” he says. “Good luck, and lock the doors!”
“What?” I say as he rushes out of the house, the screen slamming behind him. I push it open to yell after him, “Who are the Savage Kings?”
“The bikers who run this city!” he yells back as he hurries down the wooden steps. “They own a ton of shit, hotels, bars, clubs.”
“Clubs?” I repeat. Like the one he invited me to tonight?
“Yeah, like Fluid, the nightclub down on the boardwalk. See ya!” the guy calls back before he disappears.
“Who was that?” Tessa asks when she comes over to the open door.
“That was…” I start, unsure how to explain this. “Last night, the biker, he wasn’t a stripper.”
“Sure he was! He was hot, he took off his clothes, and he did some dirty, dirty dancing for us.”
“Yeah, he did all that stripper stuff, but he wasn’t from the company, so what the heck was he doing here?” I ask aloud.
“Well, what did he say when he showed up?”
“Um, I think he started with, ‘I believe you know why I’m here’, and then it snowballed from there until I told him to go get naked. Do you think I bullied some guy into taking his clothes off for us?”
“Huh. No clue,” she says while chewing on the corner of her bottom lip before breaking into a grin. “But if he is not a stripper, then he missed his calling in life.”
“Apparently he’s a real biker, like in a motorcycle club.”
“So his ink was real? Damnnn. That makes him even hotter.”
Biting on my thumbnail, I finally admit to her, “He invited me, us, to his club tonight.”
“Shut up!” she exclaims.
“He said he would put my name on the VIP list.”
“How did he know your name?” Tessa asks.
“I guess he remembered it from when you were asking him to sleep with me for money!”
“Oh, right. Sorry! I was toasted,” she says with a giggle. “So, are we going out tonight or what?”
“It’s already late...”
“Charlotte, honey. It’s only nine-thirty on a Friday night. We could all be ready in an hour, and I bet the place doesn’t even get going until after midnight.”
“I don’t know,” I start.
“Stop thinking! No excuses, girl. We are going out!” she declares. “It’s my bachelorette weekend, and I want to dance. Ladies, get your hair and makeup done, because we’re going out dancing!” she yells as she jogs off to tell the rest of our group.
Well, the bride-to-be wants it; and as the maid-of-honor, I’m bound to her wishes.
And yeah, I’m a little excited about the possibility of seeing the biker again, mostly because I want him to explain what the heck happened last night and why he was really here before I strong-armed him into taking off his clothes.
Roman
I’m leaning on the bar between Marcus and Winston waiting on a refill when one of the twins, either Cannon or Conrad, taps me on the shoulder. “Hey, prez, that woman you wanted us to put on the VIP list just showed up with her friends.” It has to be Conrad; even though he and his brother are physically identical, Cannon has a voice that booms across the entire club. His brother is more soft-spoken.
“Thanks, Conrad.” I nod to him as I turn to look around the club. It doesn’t take me long to spot Charlotte. She stalks right up to me at the bar, having apparently followed Conrad directly to me.
“Hey! You came!” I say in shock as a smile spreads across my face. I feel it start to slip as soon as the woman starts speaking.
“Why did you pretend to be a stripper?” Charlotte demands when she pokes me in the chest. Marcus and Winston nearly spray their beers before they both start coughing and choking on them. “Well? Answer me!” she demands.
Before I can figure out how to explain, she turns to the guys and says, “I have pictures. You all want to see them?”
I snatch her phone from her hand to stop her before she can present it to Marcus or Winston. My boys don’t need to ever see that much of me.
“Aw, let us see, prez,” Marcus whines, but I ignore him.
“Give me my phone back and answer my question!” Charlotte shouts over the music.
“Come on,” I tell her, grabbing her wrist to try and pull her out on the deck. Of course, she immediately resists, practically grinding her heels into the hardwood floor to root herself. “Please?” I
