Beckham - Olivia T. Turner Page 0,2

this!”

“Why is that good news?” I ask him.

“Hell Fire has a new enforcer. Just got out of prison. Big guy. Unbeatable.”

I just stare at him.

“He hasn’t met you yet,” he says as he slaps my shoulder hard. “We bet. You kick his ass. We make a ton of money. What’s not good news about that?”

That does sound pretty good. It’s been too long since I’ve gotten into a fight.

We moved to this Heartlands’ chapter because the President, Troy Conley, has been trying to turn it clean. We thought it would be better for Nixie to be around a legit club, but that’s meant I’ve had to cage the beast in me. It would be nice to let him out for a night.

“These guys bet big,” Jaxon says with money signs in his eyes. “Do you feel like slamming your fists into something?”

“Always,” I grunt.

“Yes!” Jaxon says as he rushes to the door. “I’ll set it up!”

Nixie is shaking her head as she starts on my other foot. I know what she’s thinking—I should be heading to a bookstore or a singles’ party somewhere to try and meet a good girl, not to a rival biker gang’s clubhouse to do some bare-knuckle fighting.

I sigh as I dip my brush into the nail polish and start another butterfly on the big toe of her other foot.

I don’t know what to tell her. I want what she can see for me. I ache for it. A woman to protect and to hold… To love and to worship…

I would kill to have that.

I’ve seen the way that Stella looks at Jaxon. I wish this world was the type of place where a girl would look at me like that.

But it’s not.

Not for me.

This world is full of disappointment and pain.

And I’m not about to let anyone in to crush the little bit of my soul that I have left.

Chapter Two

Fawn

“This place is amazing!” Nicole says as she skips to the bar in her high leather boots and short skirt.

I feel myself shrinking with every step I take behind her. Amazing is not the word I would use to describe this place. Terrifying, unsafe, and dirty are more suitable words that come to mind.

I close my cardigan and follow her as I memorize the location of the exits.

“Do you always come to places like this?” I ask her when we’re hanging by the bar, waiting for the tattooed bartender to notice us.

I don’t usually hang out with Nicole. We met at work and she invited me to go out with her after our shift at the coffee shop. I was honored at first, but now, I’m thinking it wasn’t the best idea. I didn’t know this place was what she had in mind.

It’s a biker bar/fight club from the looks of it. There’s a cage set up in the back with dozens of men I’d be terrified to cross on the sidewalk all screaming and throwing money around as they watch two huge bloody men pummel each other with their fists.

“It’s my first time!” Nicole says with a grin. “Pretty cool, huh?”

I swallow hard. “Totally.”

She orders two beers from the bartender with the teardrop tattooed under his eye as I look around with my heart pounding.

There’s a biker making out with a trashy looking girl by the cigarette machine. His hand is all the way up her skirt. A bunch of bikers are laughing at a joke as one of them snorts a line of cocaine off the pool table. Drunks are sitting in front of the poker machines, looking half-dead inside as they push buttons and watch different fruits line up.

“Maybe we should go,” I say as I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans.

“We just got here,” Nicole says as she turns around with two beers. She hands me one and I nearly gag when I take a sip. “Let’s see what the night has in store for us.”

That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t want to know what any of these rough-looking men would have in store for me if they got their hands on my body.

Anyway, Nicole is driving and she doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere anytime soon.

“Look at him,” Nicole says, biting her lip as she eye fucks the guy at the end of the bar.

“Him?!” I nearly shout. The guy looks like an actor, but not the heartthrob. He looks like the guy playing Inmate #1. He’s covered in creepy tattoos. His shoulders and the back of his