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Chapter Twelve
Dixon
It smells like salt, sweat, and sex, and not exactly in that order. Music thumps through my body like the reverb from mortar fire, and there’s a bouncer the size of Conan the barbarian watching me with a mix of curiosity and wariness so that I can’t tell if he wants to beat me, eat me, or torture me until he hears the lamentations of the woman beside me. If that’s his intent, good luck to him, because she would probably join in.
“Interesting choice for a meeting place.” Alexandra’s eyes linger on the bouncer, too, but he hardly seems to notice her. No, he’s just interested in me. This is going to be a long night.
“Not my first choice, but Moose insisted.”
“Well, I’m starting to believe you about him not being in your MC. I’ve heard about this place, and Cuff and Chain is definitely not a biker bar.”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Kind of. They’re underground. They do a lot of pop-ups. Well, if pop-ups had ball gags and buckets of lube.”
From the sounds coming through the brick wall — thumping music, moans that rise between song breaks, and a long wail that walks the line between a ululation and a dying goat’s death rattle — I have a disturbingly good idea about what’s happening inside Cuff and Chain. It’s an idea that makes me incredibly uncomfortable around Alexandra. There’s one voice in particular that cuts through the music with a decidedly deep, earthy moan, and it sounds almost exactly like what I imagine her moan to sound like.
Judging by the color in her cheeks, she hears it, too.
“Your friend is running late,” she says.
“Just relax. You’ll get inside soon enough.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s obvious you’re anxious. If you want, you can go inside now and wait for us at the bar.”
“And leave you out here unsupervised?”
"Unsupervised? Do I look like I need a babysitter, Alexandra?"
"You might not need one, but you sure act like it sometimes."
Moose then lumbers into view, his shadow stretching out before him like a bear's. The bouncer instinctively takes a step back and seems to shrink in on himself; Moose is the kind of mountain that moves unchallenged. A mountain that, right now, is wearing a leather getup that leaves little to the imagination.
"Speak of the devil," I say.
Moose grins when he sees us, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
"Dixon, I was so happy when you called, but I didn’t realize we’d have company. If I had known it wasn’t just you and me, I’d have worn a different outfit. Who are you, princess?”
I grin, waiting for Alexandra to bite Moose’s head off for calling her ‘princess.’
Instead, she smiles and extends a hand, which Moose takes and kisses. “Alexandra. And you’re Moose?”
“The one and only,” he says, holding his arms wide for a hug. She steps in willingly and squeezes him like he’s an old friend.
"So nice to meet you, Moose," she says, her voice sweet as honey and not laced with any of the venom like when she speaks to me.
Moose turns to me and throws his arms open wide. "Come here, brother."
I grunt as I'm pulled into the hug that feels like being caught in a landslide. When we finally break apart, I shoot Alexandra a look as she laughs softly at our exchange. "How come he gets to call you ‘princess’ and I don’t?”
“Because he’s not an asshole.”
Moose laughs. “Smokey, I may have been a little upset at first to find out this isn’t the playdate that I thought it was — because, let me tell you, when you called and asked me if I’d help you do a little investigation into the seedier parts of the Costa Oscura underworld and find yourself a particular guy, I had something totally different in mind — but now, well, I’m not so upset. I like her.”
“Dixon, did you lure Moose here under false pretenses?” Alexandra says, grinning.
