Free Revved Up Soul: A MC Romance by Liz K. Lorde Page B

bratty.
    “Yeah me too there Hazelnut.”
    Jasmine sighed, “Just tell me what the hell that means – you’re stubborn as all hell.”
    “That you turn something that I actually somehow enjoy into something that I despise, in this case? My general existence,” he gave her a quick wave then, shut the door, and then a clicking noise could be heard. Wow he wasn’t joking, Jasmine thought. She reached for the handle and turned it, “Don’t be such a jackass,” she called out, leaning suddenly as the door unexpectedly opened. Whoa. Jasmine ‘stepped’ inside and quickly balanced her person.
    Turning to face her, the lines on Augustus’ face shifted as if to say ‘come on’.
    Jasmine brushed back a strand of her raven hair. “Uhm, didn’t you l—”
    “Oh don’t go feeling special now. I locked the hell out of that fickle thing, but you know, when you’re the Dean of Medicine you can’t be assed to fix something like that,” he laughed derisively. “Because it’s,” he did air quotes, “not in the budget.”
    “Some man you are,” she quipped. “Fix it yourself.”
    The man whined, “That hurts you know, being pigeon holed into a gender identity, what if I don’t know how?”
    “Pay someone else to do it?” Her pager buzzed in her coat. Damn.
    Augustus sighed and moved over to his red leather chair, sinking back into it. “It’s the principal of things, Darla.
    “Jasmine,” she corrected sharply.
    “Yeah whatever,” he waved a hand with such an impressive nonchalance that she wondered if, in his head, that Jasmine might have not even been there. “It’s Corey’s job to fix it, not mine. It locks most of the time, if and when by some stroke of luck it doesn’t work – then let’s toss it up to the big G deciding there was a reason for it. Because, you know, he has time for that and not curing the cancers that he’s okay with having exist.” Augustus was rubbing his temples aggressively at this point, the veins in his neck poking out. “You’re sending me into a rage.”
    Jasmine shrugged. “Fix your shit, Gus.” She turned on her heel and started to walk away.
    “You start calling me that and I’ll start to play real nasty,” he threatened from behind her, a real anger lacing his voice. “You hear me?”
    “Nope,” she called back, not bothering to close the man’s door. “Not over all that hypocrisy .”
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWELVE
    Luke
     
    The lights had cast a foreboding and soft orange hue against the round table. It was a beast of a creation, wrought iron legs decorated with detailed etchings of Norse runes kept the massive wooden structure upright. The circle of wood was made of a resplendent and ages old cedar, lacquered lovingly by the forefathers of the club into a fine polish that partially reflected the faces of the men that sat its chairs. Many people’s death warrants had been signed on this table. More still would, Luke mused, bringing his hands together.
    Smoke danced through the air aimlessly before the president himself, Allen Knight, lit up a cigar of his own. A shiver ran down Luke’s spine – he knew it wasn’t right what he did on the way here. If anyone knew what he was doing on that road . . .
    Gabriel, directly across from Luke, turned his head away from the smoke. He and Luke were the few that did not partake – save for when they really needed it. Gabriel had brown hair that cascaded to his shoulders, quite possibly the most ‘pretty boy’ of the whole club, it curtained his face in such a way that it made him look as if he were only nineteen. He was of course twenty and six. The man had a long, pointed nose that gave him a touch of regality, and his cheekbones were high, very prominent; Gabriel’s eyes were dark as chocolates and deep as bottomless pits, to Luke, they made him look all the more thoughtful, pensive even.
    Directly to the left, sat Robert ‘Chains’ Knight, vice president of the MC and son of