They grabbed two seats at the bar, and Dawn waved the bartender over with a flip of her long blond hair and the kind of wink that sent Banks’s male customers to their knees.
“Ladies. You here to play or just watching your men?” The bartender’s eyes dropped to Dawn’s cleavage, and she looked over at Arianne and rolled her eyes.
“We’re looking for a talkative waitress to keep the two bikers near the front door busy.” Dawn handed him two crisp twenty dollar bills. “They’re drinking draft.”
He took the money and lifted an eyebrow. “Anything for you?”
“We’re looking for Bunny,” Dawn said.
The bartender tensed and glanced around the pool hall. “Don’t know anyone named Bunny.”
“We heard he’s a man who can get things, and there are things we want.” Dawn leaned forward, giving the bartender a better view, and smiled. “Tell him Dee wants to see him. I’ll make it worth your time.” She whacked Arianne’s leg under the counter and then tugged on Arianne’s purse.
“Uh … yeah … here.” Arianne pulled out a handful of bills and tossed them on the counter.
The bartender stuffed the money in his apron. “I might have seen him around.” He disappeared into the stockroom, and Arianne stared at her friend. “Tell him Dee wants to see him? You’re Dee? And you act like you bribe bartenders every day? Who are you and what did you do with my best friend?”
Dawn stared down at her hands. “I had a very different life when I was with Jimmy. The stuff we did together … Not something I’m proud of and not something I go out of my way to revisit. But if you’ve got the skills—”
“I can’t believe we’ve been friends for so long and there’s so much about your life you’ve never told me.” Arianne raised her voice over the music. “I would never have asked you to help me if I knew you’d be going back to something you left behind.”
“And right there is the reason I didn’t,” Dawn said in a quiet tone. “Yeah, you grew up in the Black Jack clubhouse, but you got a soft heart. Same as Jeff when he’s not high or tweaking on drugs. That time he came to help you look after my girls when I was stuck at work, and he let them dress him up and pretend to be their daddy—” Her voice caught and she looked away. Dawn’s twin girls were the joy and sorrow of her life, and she rarely talked about them.
Pool cues clacked behind them. Someone laughed. The music segued into AC/DC’s “Overdose.” Arianne inhaled the thick acrid smoke and coughed. “Jeff changed. Viper changed him. I’m not sure I really know him anymore.”
“And I’m not sure I know you anymore.” Dawn fiddled with her watch. “From what you said on the phone, it sounds like you’ve broken all your dating rules with Jagger, and you guys are—”
“Nothing.”
“Seriously?” Dawn raised her eyebrow. “You told me it was the best sex you ever had.”
“It was the most intense sex I’ve ever had. With the most intense man I’ve ever met. He seems to think his ‘blood price’ claim means he owns me body and soul. He said he’d never let me leave Conundrum.”
Dawn twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “Maybe that’s his way of saying he doesn’t want you to leave. Most bikers I know aren’t good with expressing emotion.”
Arianne snorted. “What’s so hard about saying, ‘Hey, we had great sex. I like you. Don’t leave’? Why all the drama and scowling and stomping around growling ‘mine’?”
“I don’t know.” Dawn’s lips curled in a smile. “What’s so hard about saying, ‘Hey, we had great sex. I like you. I’ll stay’?”
“Because I don’t know if I can stay.”
“Do you want to stay?”
“I want the option.” Arianne twisted her mother’s ring around her finger. “Before I arranged to buy the passports, I had no option. I ran because the alternative was unbearable, but I always knew he would find me and bring me back. But once I have the passport, I’ll know that if I leave, it will be forever. I want that choice. A real choice. Then I’ll be able to think clearly. I won’t be afraid to make the wrong choice, because I’ll know I have an out if I do.”
Dawn’s face softened. “You must really like him. A few weeks ago, you wouldn’t even have talked about options. You were going. End of story.”
Arianne’s cheeks flushed. “I feel like I know him, understand him. He’s Viper, but with heart, soul, and the kind of body you just want to lick all over.”