Page 43 of Fury
He stared at me for a moment. The dark eyes boring into mine. There was so much depth to them. They were so much more than dark orbs. There was a hint of chocolate, and a touch of gold, and the extra colours made them look textured, like a luxury velvet.
“Heidi,” he prompted.
“Yeah. Course. Don’t touch the back patch. Got it.”
“Come on then, doll.”
The air was hot inside, a surge of bodies bustling, hardly a space in between them. Fury guided me through, gently nudging shoulders, and I watched as his hand never went to a person’s back, always the ball of the shoulder. It didn’t take him much to work through the crowd and with each nudge, people moved, some reaching to shake his hand, some fist bumping, others simply moving. And no one, absolutely no one, patted him on the back.
Eventually we were at the bar, swallowed up by the group with the three laughing skulls on their backs and a mix of women of all ages.
“What you drinking, doll?”
“Double vodka and coke, please?” I asked without hesitation.
Fury looked at me, raising an eyebrow which arced perfectly, pulling the same side of his mouth into a lopsided smile, before nodding some sort of approval. When he handed the drink back to me, it took all my effort not to gulp down half of it. It had been a funny sort of day. A biker funeral, a weird truck, a church yard fuck and now here I was, surrounded by leather and alcohol. What the fuck I was doing, I didn’t know.
“Come on, Heidi. Let me introduce you to some folks,” Fury shouted over the music, the vibrations of both his voice and the heavy beat thrumming in my ears like a dull bass.
He pointed to a table just a little way from the bar to a mix of men in leather and normal looking women.
“This is Indie,” Fury pointed at the man with the greying hair clutching a pint, his other arm wrapped round a petite woman with light ginger hair. She shifted uncomfortably, the shadow of a bruise on her cheek, make-up caked over the spot, but I could see through it.
Next to them was Demon. I’d recognised him from the funeral, but the woman sat beside him I’d not noticed until now. She had long brown hair and rich caramel eyes, but on the right side of her face ran a heavy scar all the way across her right cheekbone. I wasn’t up on wounds, but at a guess it looked like she’d been slashed across the face, and recently. The scar was mostly heeled, but in some places, it looked raw.
And across from them was another petite woman. She was older than the others. Late thirties, maybe even early forties. Blonde hair tumbled into thick blow-dried waves, but she looked tired. No drained. As if something was getting her down. The man she was with cradled her legs over his lap, his hand clutching her leg protectively, or controllingly, I couldn’t tell.
And behind them, at the table with aging men, sat a slim brunette. Her hair went on and on, and I couldn’t see the end at this angle. The vest top she wore pulled tight round her tits, and nearly all her skin was inked, bright and colourful. She glanced across, the man next to her saying something in her ear and both of them looked in our direction. Their eyes landed on me first, before Fury, and back to me again, the tattooed woman glaring now like I was her mortal enemy. I took a long gulp of my drink, the space beside me becoming very empty as Fury stepped away behind me.
“Don’t worry about Tori,” a light voice from beside me broke my thoughts, only just audible over the music. “Come sit with us.”
I hadn’t seen her stand up, my attention taken up with the woman in the other booth that looked like a feral dog, and I was chewing on her bone. The woman tugged at my elbow, gently leading me towards the table and nudging her man’s legs. He stood up, moving out of the space he’d been sitting in moments before.
“Aye, don’t worry about Tori,” the man said as I passed him, as if he’d been involved in the conversation I’d just had with his woman. “She’s just after another brother, now that’s Ste’s gone.”
He reached across me suddenly, grabbing the little blonde by the collar, dragging her towards him, kissing her suddenly. And passionately, right in front of me, mere inches away from my face like I was caught in some sordid biker party threesome. I recoiled, dropping to the cushioned booth, watching the duo suck on each other’s faces above me.
No one around me seemed concerned, bothered, or even remotely interested, as if it was a normal occurrence. I took another gulp of my drink, watching Fury a little further away, talking to two men near the bar. Two identical men. I raised my glass up, studying how much I’d drunk. Maybe they’d given me an extra shot. I fucking hoped so. I was out of my depth here. Seriously out of my depth.
The crowd to my left surged again, moving aside, someone emerging through the herd of leather and back patches. I needed no more light than the dull orange, and the bright bouncing colours of electric blue, purples and reds from a disco ball somewhere overhead, to see she was stunning. Tall and slim. Dark hair falling in long curls all down her back. The black jeans were slit across the thighs, a chain looping across one hip, a tanned torso on show on almost olive skin. Fury turned as she came through the crowd. His face transforming. A huge wide smile taking over, so wide that there was no way to miss those dimples under his beard. I’d never seen him smile like that in the short time I’d known him. Never. This girl meant something to him.
And for the first time in years, I was jealous. A deep, raw, flesh splitting stabbing right in the middle of my stomach. I watched on at the arms that embraced her, as he stooped down slightly, grabbing her tightly, pulling her off her feet. My cheeks burned, and my throat itched. I took another gulp of my drink.
Chapter Twenty One
“I didn’t know you were back?” I asked the woman hanging round my neck.
“Aye. I’m back.”
“For long?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. You know me, Fury. I’ll get itchy feet soon enough.”
“Wanna drink?” I asked, detangling her arms from my neck.
She nodded, and I turned, nudging an unknown leather jacket to one side and tucking her into the gap.
“Did you get to Ste’s funeral?”