Free Retribution: A Motorcycle Club Romance by Sienna Valentine

make up some note for the door.”
He lumbered off toward the small alcove in back that served as Owen’s makeshift
office.
     
    Will watched him go, then turned and
looked straight at Eva. She held his gaze a moment, simply because she couldn’t
help it. Then she turned away and finished the half-pint she had poured herself
in three deep swallows.
     
    Will walked up to the bar. “Mind
pouring me one?” He lowered himself back into the seat he’d been in before.
     
    Eva nodded and tried not to look at
him. Maybe it was her frightened brain trying to find a distraction, but once
she started looking at Will’s gorgeous face, she never wanted to tear her eyes
away. She lifted a clean glass and pulled the draught handle, watching the beer
intently until she placed it in front of the intense man sitting across from
her.
     
    He wrapped huge, scruff, scar-covered
hands around the cold glass. His knuckles still trickled blood. I cannot
believe this is the type of man who’s revving my engine… Eva thought as her
gaze wandered up his muscled forearms and shoulders until it landed on his
face. Will stared down into his beer glass, unaware she watched.
     
    Not knowing what else to do with
herself, Eva poured another beer in her own glass. She took two big drinks.
“Thanks… for, uh, for helping with those men,” she said.
     
    The way Will looked up at her so
suddenly, Eva was sure she had interrupted some thought. “Didn’t have a choice,
really. Some dogs need to be put down.”
     
    The coldness in his voice gave Eva an
honest shiver. “Does that mean you’re going to kill them when they come back?”
     
    Will fell silent a moment, and Eva’s
heart nearly stopped. Christ. What have we gotten ourselves into?
     
    “Only if it comes to that,” said
Will. But something in his eyes had a different answer when he looked up at
her.
     
    Eva swallowed hard, her throat tight.
She licked her lips and saw Will’s gaze focus on her mouth as he watched. He
stared at her lips and almost unconsciously ran a tongue over his own. How
can I be so turned on and so terrified at the same time?
     
    A distracting silence fell between
them. Eva heard the office phone ring in the back room, and then stop ringing.
She cleared her throat. “So, have you… I guess you do this a lot?” asked Eva
gently.
     
    “Do what? Save strangers from thugs?
Yeah, I’m a regular Batman,” he said with a bitter laugh. He took a drink.
     
    “Well, it doesn’t seem like the first
fight you’ve been in, is all.”
     
    “And it won’t be the last,” he said. His
eyes went heavy when he said it, staring down at the bar.
     
    Sure is a warm and fuzzy
guy . “Are you from around here?”
     
    Will looked up at her, right into her
eyes with his own deep brown ones, which served to send a jolt of heat right
from her neck all the way down to her thighs. “Eva, was it?”
     
     “Yes.”
     
    “Eva,” he said, holding her gaze,
speaking deliberately. “I’m not the kind of fucking guy you chat up with small
talk and try to wiggle inside by being friendly, okay?” His expression became
some mockery of a smile, like sarcasm incarnate. “Ten minutes ago I was
snapping a man’s arm a few feet from where you read a book without a care in
the world. Do you try to pet dogs that have just gotten out of a fighting pit,
too?”
     
    Eva’s face flushed with embarrassed
anger. She felt emotion rising up from deep in her chest, that same vengeful
feeling she used to get when boys from outside the neighborhood would try to
mess with her walking home from school. Her Pa used to tell her it was their
Irish fire—and Eva felt it burning now. “Christ, aren’t you a real tough guy? Breaking
a man’s arm isn’t enough, you’ve gotta be a bastard to a woman who hasn’t done
a thing to you, too?”
     
    Will gave her an eye roll and drank
his beer. “A tough guy’s what you need, lady, not a cuddly teddy bear. So why
don’t you just fuck off and