“You can’t let him get away with it.” I turned toward the source of the voice. A pretty, dark-haired woman, curvy in jeans and a tank top, bracelets of silver and beads of different colors traveling up her arms. “I’m Amelia. You’re Calla, yes?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“Calla, look—these guys, they’re going to get away with whatever they can. Some women deal with it. Others can’t. But Cage will never respect you if you don’t fight for him.”

“I would like to punch that bitch out,” I muttered, and Amelia laughed and clapped her hands together once lightly.

“That’s the spirit. But, honey, fists aren’t the way to win this game.” She looked me over. “I see what I bought you fits well. If that’s not to your style, tell me what you need.”

She didn’t question why I couldn’t do my own shopping, didn’t seem to think it was odd at all. So of course, I blurted out, “I told him I wasn’t sure I wanted commitment. I told him we were both free to do what we wanted,” and wondered how the small, dark hallway had suddenly become a confessional.

“So? We’re not allowed to change our minds?” she asked. Then she rummaged in her bag and pulled out a couple of wrapped bracelets. “Here, put these on. It’s onyx and these are worry beads. They’ll help.”

I’d take whatever I could get. I unwrapped it and slid the pretty black and wood beads on my wrist, rubbed it a couple of times with my opposite hand for good luck.

“Who are you dating?” I asked.

“Me? No one,” she said with a smile. “I just work here. Manage the bar. They stopped hiring their own guys because they were drinking too much of the profits.”

“Thanks for being nice to me.”

“The others will, once you’re with one of the guys. Until then . . .” She shrugged, then gave me a crash course in life, MC-style. “MC men fuck whoever they want. Old ladies are expected to be faithful, but most of the time any guy who’s got an old lady’s off the market.”

“Since I’m not attached, I’m a threat,” I said.

“Right. Means all the women hate you on sight, especially because you’re gorgeous.” She glanced at Cage. “My suggestion? If you want him, if you think you made a mistake, it’s time to claim him.”

Yes, I could do that.

I’d grown up between two worlds, not feeling entirely comfortable in either. It was like I didn’t know the entire story behind my life—was I supposed to be a bar chick or a rich girl? And in the end did it really matter? I’d been faking everything for so long it had all become a matter of course.

I understood now, watching Cage, just how much I missed. So much lost time to make up for. Because everything I’d thought I’d wanted at the cabin went straight out the window the first time I saw another woman chatting Cage up. My heart raced in my chest and I wanted to rip him away from her, rip her hair out. And I could’ve flirted with any number of MC members in the bar—and I should’ve.

Instead, I stared behind the bar and said, “Do you need help tonight?”

“Honey, I need help every night. Bar business isn’t my thing. I’m good with numbers, but this other stuff? Preacher promised me he’d find someone to take this over. So go take a spin.”

“We don’t need more help.” A woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties brushed by and went behind the bar. She was all boobs and butt, curvy, undeniably hot. She eyed me like I’d crawled off the bottom of her shoe, then called, “Rich girls don’t know what work is.”

I raised my brows to Amelia and pointed behind the bar. “Mind?”

Amelia held the swinging half door open. The other bartender watched me as I walked through the bar, taking stock of where things were kept and what kinds of liquor, including top shelf, they kept there.

It had been a couple of years since I’d been behind a bar. But in a matter of five minutes, I was pouring drinks and shots. Flirting. Ignoring Cage in favor of having fun.

For a little while, I didn’t feel like a pretender. This is what the Benson women did. I might not belong in this world, but at least I got to be me, didn’t have to fake anything.

When there was a lull, I couldn’t help but scan the crowd for him. If he’d noticed me behind the bar, I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to flirt with anyone but him. And so I didn’t. Not in the traditional sense anyway, but when Amelia cranked the music up, I got up onto the bar and started dancing.

For Cage.

* * *

When Cage heard the catcalls, he looked up and saw Calla. Dancing. On top of the goddamned bar. She was laughing too, having found a group of women to dance with, and he sat back in his chair and watched her letting loose and having fun, because she was twenty-goddamned-three and obviously hadn’t had enough of it. Her hair had come out of the knot she’d tied it in earlier when she’d become the in-demand bartender, and now she was reaching under her shirt, pulling out a lacy bra and twirling it.

He could see her peaked nipples through her white cotton shirt. Someone would soak the girls with water soon enough, and he’d watch that show. Because other men could look, but they couldn’t fucking touch, and it didn’t matter what he’d told her about that.

The thing was, she knew it. He could tell. But if she wanted to play this game, to prove whatever it was to both of them, who was he to argue? Either way, she’d be in his bed tonight, and sooner than later.

She was in control. Protected. Worshipped by Cage’s eyes. She was safe here, for the moment, and she wasn’t being judged for taking her bra off, dancing wildly. No, the crowd wanted more from her and the two other women she was up there with . . . and she had all the power.

And he’d tried his best to give her space, to give himself distance. It wasn’t working, and it never would. She was his. He’d known it from day one, so why he’d bothered to fight it was beyond him.

She got down off the bar and danced her way over to him, threw a leg over his. The woman he’d been talking to glared at her, but Calla smiled at her, then brought her mouth down on Cage’s.

“Done fucking teasing me, babe?”

“Not even close,” she murmured.

“You could suck me off right here.”

“Wouldn’t we get arrested?”

“Never happened before.”

“How many women have sucked you off in this bar, Cage?”

“I’m a wise enough man to not answer that question.” He dug into her pocket and pulled out several phone numbers—he’d seen some guys handing them to her—and crumpled them before dunking them in his beer mug. “If you’re out looking to get laid, that’s not going to fly.”

“You agreed that we didn’t own each other,” Calla reminded him.

“You agreed—I never did, so take a walk back through your memory bank, sweetheart. You want to fuck, I’m right here. I’m not letting someone else fuck what’s mine.”

“I’m not—”

“Mine,” he repeated firmly, backing her against the wall, his knee sliding between her jean-clad legs. Her thighs clamped around his in an effort to stop it from pushing against her sex, but it was useless. “I’ll get it through your head however I have to, even if it means fucking you right here in the middle of the bar.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You think no one’s seen that before?”

“You’re a goddamned caveman.”

“And you’re a cocktease.” He looked over her shoulder and saw Rocco motioning to him. Urgently. “I’ve gotta take care of a few things. Tals’ll take you back to the apartment.”

She looked pissed. He was pissed too, but he wasn’t exactly sure why. But now wasn’t the time to pick it apart, not when he saw Tals throw himself into the crowd of skinheads outside the bar.

“Jesus Christ, what happened to waiting at the town border?” Bear asked. “They’ve got a lot of nerve coming in here.”

“Then we gotta make sure they never want to come back,” Cage growled. Although reluctant to leave Calla, he’d been furious enough to do so, and he recognized this opportunity for what it was . . .

Tals had found their fight.

* * *

I stared out the window at the melee in the middle of the street. Last call had people pouring out half an hour earlier. At this point, there was a skeleton crew of men, including Cage, and the fight looked brutal—on the skinheads’ end. The MC guys seemed to be doing just fine.

I refused to turn away, as if doing so would cause any of the MC guys to get hurt. I’d seen fights before—teenagers in bars, an occasional punch thrown—but melees like this were reserved for the movies.

This was no movie. This was my real life now—and the skinheads who’d come into Vipers territory were bringing it back up.

“Amelia, what the hell?” I asked. But it wasn’t Amelia. It was Hot Blond Butt. And she looked worried.

“They’re the guys who were caught here a couple of weeks ago. They’re pushing meth for the Heathens in Skulls Creek,” she said. “My kid goes to the middle school. He told me he saw these guys trying to sell there too.”

She glanced at me, like she was waiting for a judgment.

Instead, I told her, “Cage came back to try to help.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

“Maybe. But that’s not going to change any of this.” I looked back outside. The Vipers were outnumbered, but it didn’t seem to matter. I saw the glint of something metal—Blond Butt did too, because she grabbed my forearm and we both could only helplessly watch the Vipers defend their town.

With all the tension, I hadn’t noticed the sirens in the distance. Now they were close enough for me to see the flashing lights coming down the street parallel to the bar.