Scarred heart

2

“Just relaxing,” Scar said in the end, cooling his neck with the empty bottle.

Dean’s

mouth stretched into a wider smile, and he slapped Scar’s back. “Only your

dick’s relaxed, am I right?”

Scar

forced himself to smile, and his gaze trailed over the cluster of sofas and

chairs the party spun around. At the beginning of this evening, Scar’s closest

friend, Knight, and his girlfriend, Jordan, had seemed back to normal, but the

mood must have deteriorated throughout the last few minutes, because they now

sat turning away from one another and alternated hissing over their shoulders.

Sometimes,

Scar considered dipping his toe into finding a regular partner—if there was a

man interested in him enough—because then he could actually teach a guy how to

touch him and not have to do it over and over again every time, like he would

have to with every new casual lover.

People

didn’t want to put effort into a heavily tattooed man with burns and a shady

life when there were so many easy lays to be had at the click of a button. And

then Scar thought of Knight and Jordan’s relationship and shuddered,

immediately losing interest in any kind of romance. Being with someone would

only bring him more trouble and annoyance than remaining celibate ever could.

Dean

groaned. “Are you in one of your moods again?”

“My

moods?” Scar asked, as if he didn’t know what his father meant. Dean was the

kind of guy who believed not smiling all the time made you sulky. And Scar was

just fine. He felt completely normal. Watching couples who actually had a

romantic and s****l connection had only hurt him in the first few months after

he realized he wasn’t ever going to have that again. He was thick-skinned now,

and he had the scars to prove it.

Dean

raised his hands in mock-defeat and laughed. “Okay, okay. At least get yourself

another beer.”

Scar

squeezed his hand around the bottle, stopping only when he realized that cuts

were the last thing he needed in his collection of imperfections.

With

the music so loud they all needed to shout in order to hear each other. Scar

hadn’t noticed a fight starting on the other side of the vast room, but two men

shoving each other eventually caught his attention and pulled him away from

Dean. One was their VP, Davy, the other—Leo, a newcomer who got invited by one

of the girls.

Barely

anyone noticed what was going on yet, with the band playing almost too loudly,

but Scar was on it, rushing through the middle of the crowd of people engaged

in a mating dance that would soon move to the sofas or to the bedrooms nearby.

“The

fuck is this, anyway?” Leo yelled and pushed at Davy so hard. Davy’s favorite

racoon hat fell off. Things were about to get ugly.

Davy’s

eyes opened wide in fury. “You don’t come to an orgy and expect to only be

covered in p***y. A guy stroked your shoulder! Get over yourself,

motherfucker!”

Not

this again. Scar wasn’t in charge of vetting new people, but at times like

these, he wished he were. That he could handle it all himself if some of his

brothers lacked the sense of responsibility required for the job and allowed

some homophobic trash in the clubhouse. At least this fight would give him

something to do instead of sulking that he hadn’t gotten any action for so

long.

The

music stopped. First the guitar and on the bass, with the drums going strong in

the silence for another two seconds before the guy realized things were heating

up beyond the stage. Leo’s voice was loud and clear in the void left behind by

the lack of heavy metal.

“You

call yourself a biker club? You’re all a bunch of d**k-loving p*****s,” he

growled and tossed a bottle at the wall, his intoxicated body swaying to regain

balance following the rapid movement. The bottle broke into a million pieces,

but the sound of shattered glass drowned in the onslaught of shouting and noise

as the bikers turned their attention to the insults thrown at them.

Joker

pushed a girl off his lap and stood up, jumping over the backseat of the

leather sofa, nimble like an acrobat in his bright green shirt that surely hid

a collection of weapons that could be used on the offender who’d come here to

break club rules.

“We’re

outlaws. We do what the f**k we want! You have a problem with me f*****g a guy

when I feel like it? Maybe my d**k should go into your ass then and show you

what it’s like, huh? Wanna be converted?” Joker hissed, pushing back his

bright, spiky hair that had gotten slightly tousled throughout the party.

Leo’s

eyes went wide, and before Scar could get to him, the fucker pulled out a gun.

A small thing, one of those women was encouraged to carry in their handbags,

but no matter how small the firearm, it could do a lot of damage. “You better

stay the f**k away!”