“Crazy fucker,” he muttered.
“He’s a Serpent,” his partner said. “They’re all batshit. Violent, too. I hear they’ve got an illegal fighting ring.” He shook me a little. “You know anything about that?”
“Thought I was supposed to remain silent?”
“Smartass,” he grumbled.
“He’ll tell Sarge what she wants to know. The DA will make him an offer he can’t refuse. They always roll on their buddies when it gets too hot. Don’t you, Serpent?”
I remained silent.
Let them book me. Let them ask their questions. I wasn’t saying shit.
Puck had gotten away. He’d be okay. That was all that mattered.
Whatever happened next, that made it all worth it.
Seven years, ten months, and three days later …
A throbbing bass line, pulsing lights, and sweaty bodies made the nightclub into a living, breathing,heavingcreature. Lust filled the air, intoxicating. I was already half hard in my jeans and I hadn’t even touched a guy yet.
Then again, I hadn’t wanted to touch most of the guys in prison. A few furtive hookups when I got desperate—but nothing regular since Syd, a very sweet inmate who’d been released two years before me.
I caught the eye of a gorgeous willowy guy. Blond, wavy hair, damp with sweat and falling over his blue eyes. That was the kind of sweet you didn’t find in state prison.
I licked my lips and trailed my gaze down his body, over the mesh tank top exposing toned arms and flashes of his pale chest and dusky nipples, the booty shorts barely covering his ass, and long legs I wanted wrapped around my head. My mouth watered with the urge to lick him while he melted on my tongue like ice cream.
His gaze wandered over my body too, taking in the dark scruff on my face, the white tee that practically glowed under these lights and exposed the ink running down my arms, the black jeans that were tight in the thighs, the belt chain that draped right down near my crotch.
He slid the tip of his pink tongue over his full bottom lip.
Oh yeah, he liked what he saw.
I hadn’t even made it to the bar yet, but I hadn’t come out tonight to drink. I’d much rather eye fuck the cutie across the room.
I was starting a new work program tomorrow, sometransitional crap my parole officer talked me into trying in Riverton, Nebraska, a tiny hole-in-the-wall town. Who knew if I’d findanyqueer men there? Definitely none willing to live openly, and I was done with that secretive shit.
I’d hidden for Puck. Fought for him.
Gone to prison for him.
And what had he done for me?
A month into my sentence, he’d shown up to tell me he was hooking up with that biker hag, Lana, who threw herself at every available dick. He was done playing around with men.
Playing. Like I’d risked my life for him, gone to prison for him, for nothing but agame. I’d joined the Serpents to be with him when I was barely eighteen.
He knew I was devoted.
I’d begged him to reconsider, tried to remind him of what we meant to each other. He didn’t have to be celibate for me. He only had to beloyalin his heart. But he couldn’t do that.
He wouldn’t.
I shook off the thoughts. There was no room for Puck here. Not now, not when I had caught the eye of a sexy little thing who was breaking away from his group of friends to approach me.
My blood ran hot at the thought of his tight, supple body against mine.
He stepped in close, placing one hand on my chest as he went on his tiptoes to speak into my ear. “I could feel your stare from across the club.”