I’m not sure what she heard in my voice, but she knew I needed her to help me out, and for once she wasn’t going to give me shit and leave me hanging ‘for my own good’.

“Thanks, Gram. I’ll see you soon. Love you.”

“Love you, too. Get your ass home,” she told me and then disconnected.

When I looked up at the room, eight eyes were watching me closely, and it looked like the man who’d saved me had gone pale. I looked around the room, trying to figure out what the problem was, when the man by the door barked out a sharp laugh.

“Holy fuck, Romeo. You decide to play fuckin’ knight in shining armor, and the bitch you bring home is jailbait.”

Chapter 3

Callie

The Protector didn’t say anything as he moved around the room. He pulled two hoodies out of a duffel bag at the foot of the bed and handed me one as he pulled off his vest.

“Put that on. It’s gonna be cold on the bike,” he instructed, most of his words muffled as he pulled the sweatshirt over his head and then threaded his arms back through the vest. When he lifted his arms, his black Metallica t-shirt raised just enough that I could see some sort of tattoo across the bottom of his stomach. I quickly looked away before he could catch me staring.

I put the sweatshirt on and took a deep breath, noticing it smelled like him. His scent was a mixture of leather and surprisingly, Armani cologne. It was almost ironic, those two scents mixed together. Who was this guy?

As soon as I had the sweatshirt on, I stood up and he handed me my purse so I could sling it over my shoulder. I knew that I should check my cell phone for messages, but I just didn’t think I could take any more drama. I decided to wait and see who had called once I was safe at Gram’s; I’d deal with everything then.

I was lost in my head, trying to decide how I was going to explain everything to my parents when the Protector’s voice cut through the silence in the room. Half of his mouth was pulled up in a smile, his eyes were crinkled at the corners when he looked at me, and I just knew I’d been thinking out loud.

My face burned in mortification as they watched me, but I straightened my shoulders and tilted my chin up as if they hadn’t just heard me talking to myself.

“I’m Grease,” he mumbled, lifting his arm out to shake my hand. As soon as I took hold, he gestured with his other to the men in the room. “That’s Dragon by the dresser.”

“Hey,” Dragon called out quietly, busy messing with the phone in his hands.

“His voice isn’t usually like that,” Grease shared, a genuine full-blown smile on his face. “Got strep-throat from some chick with kids.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dragon spat back, looking up from his phone.

With a smile in his voice, he introduced the last two in the room. “That’s Tommy Gun by the door. The guy with the Mohawk is my brother Deke.”

The men both lifted their chins at me, watching me from their sides of the room, but didn’t say a word.

He stopped talking as I nodded to the guys around the room, but he never let go of my hand, and I didn’t try to pull away.

“I’m Calliope. Callie,” I replied nervously, wondering if I should have given them a fake name. It’s not like Calliope is a popular name, it wouldn’t be hard to find me if they were looking. Then I realized that Grease would be driving me to my Gram’s house, so it’s not like giving them my real name would’ve mattered anyway.

“What kind of name is Grease?” I asked as he pulled me out of the room, following the other men as they strode down the stairs to the back parking lot. He was pulling me quickly, and my legs weren’t quite up to the pace he was keeping, so I kept stumbling over nonexistent dips in the concrete.

“Only name you’re gonna get,” he answered, pausing for a second so I could catch up with his long strides.

As we made our way out to the bikes, Grease never let go of my hand. I thought that maybe he was afraid I’d take off if he didn’t have a hold on me, but when I glanced up at the expression on his face, I knew differently. I wasn’t sure what happened in the room that I didn’t notice, but the hand-holding was for the men’s benefit, not mine. He was staking his claim.

“Stand right here. Don’t move,” he ordered, placing me next to a big black Harley.

“Um, okay…” I answered, wondering why we weren’t getting on the bike.

He answered the question in my voice by walking six feet away to where the rest of the men were huddled at the far end of the bikes. I couldn’t hear a word they were saying, but the body language of Dragon and Tommy Gun led me to believe that they weren’t happy with whatever Grease was telling them. When my eyes moved to Deke, I noticed he was watching me, completely ignoring the conversation going on around him. When he smiled at me, his entire face changed and I smiled back, wondering why he’d given me such a weird feeling before. He seemed nice enough.

Grease caught our little interaction and slapped Deke on the back of his head, breaking our eye contact. After a few more words, he broke away from the group and walked toward me.

While I stood waiting for him, I finally grasped how very bad this could potentially go for me. I was climbing on the back of a motorcycle with a man I’d never met before. The whole night had turned into some after school special, a warning for kids who disobeyed their parents and drank alcohol. My hands started to shake, so I stuffed them in the front pocket of the hoodie that was hanging down covering my shorts. If there was any question about how I could handle myself against these men, the fact that the sweatshirt I borrowed hung to the middle of my thighs gave a pretty clear answer. If any of them decided that I was easy pickings, they would be correct. I was completely defenseless.