Ryder: MC Biker Romance (Great Wolves Motorcycle Club Book 8) by Jayne Blue

not “her” to
me. To me, her hair was long and totally beached out. Shows you what I knew. My
mind flashed on her hair, her neck, kissing her in my pup tent.
    The shoes she
mentioned were sky high heels. She was teetering in them. Instead of the
t-shirt and jeans from my memory of her, she was in a flowered dress that showed
off her gorgeous legs. She pulled her cardigan in around her body. It felt like
she was trying to hide from me.
    “What’s taking him
so long?” she said under her breath.
    “I won’t bite.”
    She looked up at me,
and her eyes were filling up with tears. I swear.
    “Please.” The
bartender showed up with two drinks. Some red Cosmo bullshit for her and an old
fashioned martini for someone else.
    “Put it on The
Judge’s tab,” she said and picked up the drinks.
    “Can’t we at least
talk a minute?” I said, and she shook her head no. She turned so fast a little
of the Cosmo splashed down and landed on the floor. I watched her weave through
the crowd with the drinks. I wasn’t letting her get away that easily.
    I was at least a
head or two taller than everybody in the joint, so I tracked her from a
distance. She didn’t turn back to look at me, and I slowly moved forward to see
where she was taking the damn drinks.
    Jules stepped up
to a table on a riser. It was somehow easier to see than the rest of the entire
place. It had the effect of putting Jules, and the man I assumed was The Judge on
display.
    The Judge looked
old enough to be her grandfather. He had thinning gray hair but was trim other
than a little punch in the gut. There was an air of power about him that was
unmistakable. He expected people to wait on him. And he expected them to watch
as Jules put the drink in front of him. I sure as shit was watching this shit
show.
    The Judge put his
hand on her ass, and I thought I was going to explode. He pulled her forward,
and she leaned down to kiss him. To fucking kiss him!
    I didn’t have a
bad temper. I thought I was even-keeled. Especially in the crowd, I rode with.
But I surged forward. I was going to get his hands off her. Goddamn it.
    I don’t know how
many steps I’d taken in that direction when I felt an iron grip on my arm.
    “What the fuck?” I
spit the words out. It was Cruz.
    “Calm down,” he
said under his breath and tightened his grip. I clenched my jaw. I was about
half a second away from punching him. Punching The Judge. Punching the wall.
Something.
    “Let me go.”
    “Ridge said you
were up here meeting Juliet Maldonado.”
    “You know her?”
    “Everyone here
knows her. She’s Sonny Maldonado’s daughter and he gave her to The Judge.”
    “What the fuck
hell?”
    “Look. If you want
to get thrown in jail or get all of us shot at by tonight you’ll go over there
and act like you have some sort of claim on her.”
    “I…” I didn’t have
a claim. It sunk in. I didn’t. I also didn’t have a clue.
    I tried to look
away. The Judge sat with a hand on Jules’s knee. He rubbed it. She let him.
    I started feeling
more and more like she’d played me.
    “I need you to
tell me all you know about her.”
    “First, you’re
going to come back to the table and stop looking like a fucking gorilla ready
to square off with a silverback.” Cruz pulled me from my spot, and I took one
more look.
    Jules looked up at
me in that instant. I watched as she grabbed The Judge’s hand and stopped him
from sliding up her thigh. Was this for my benefit? I wanted to cut his hand
fucking off.
    Jules closed her
eyes tight and turned back to The Judge.
    What the fucking
hell had just happened to my life?

Chapter Fourteen
     
    Jules
     
    Richard had no
idea that I’d just encountered Ryder. But I was completely unsettled. Scared.
And heart sick all over again.
    Why was he here?
    I’d been so
careful with Violet. A friend of mine from art school shipped my designs to her
from Washington. She really had no way to track me here.
    Richard stroked my
knee. His fingers