Claimed by the Playboy MC President

Unfairly large

Thea

The cool night air hit my skin the second I stepped out of the club and I nearly groaned in relief.

After the suffocating heat, pounding music and the extreme humiliation, the empty street felt like freedom.

Unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing for my temper.

I stalked down the sidewalk, yanking my phone from my pocket hard enough that it almost slipped from my fingers. My thumbs flew across the screen.

Heading back to the shop. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Have fun with Mark. See you tomorrow.

The message sounded much calmer than I felt.

I hit send and shoved the phone back into my pocket before Clara could reply with a hundred worried questions.

By the time the flickering neon sign for Sam’s Moto Repair appeared at the end of the street, my skin was crawling.

The cola had dried into a sugary film that glued the black-and-purple dress to my ribs. I was basically a walking ant magnet.

Gross.

The garage door was still open a few feet and bright fluorescent lights spilled onto the pavement.

Inside, Uncle Sam and his apprentice, Owen were bent over a dismantled engine block, surrounded by tools.

Home.

I ducked under the door. “Hey, guys.”

Sam looked up first, wiping his hands on a rag. His face softened into the warm smile. “Hey, kiddo. You are back early. Have fun tonight?”

I forced a smile onto my face. “It was okay.”

Translation: I survived, nobody died, and I was only ninety percent sure I smelled like a sticky movie-theater floor.

Owen set down his wrench with a loud clank and walked around the table. The moment he got a good look at me, he stopped dead.

“Whoa.” His eyes widened. “Thea, you look… sticky. I mean… pretty but… mess. And kind of like you got run over by a shopping cart.”

Despite everything, a laugh escaped me. “That specific, huh?”

“Very specific.” He said, pointing at the front of my dress. “What happened?”

I leaned against the workbench and sighed. “Long story short… I went to a biker party with Clara. Some drunk i***t grabbed me, his jealous blonde girlfriend decided it was my fault and then she threw a giant cup of soda in my face.”

Owen’s expression darkened instantly. He straightened to his full six feet of awkward limbs and clenched his grease-stained fists.

“You are kidding me.” His voice cracked slightly with outrage. “Why didn’t you call me? I could have gone with you. I could have protected you.”

That did it. I laughed for real this time.

Owen was a high school graduate. But he had been a good company of mine since the day he started apprenticing here.

“Protect me?” I grinned and gave him a shove with my shoulder. “Owen, you still forget which foot goes back when you throw a punch.”

His mouth fell open. “I do not.”

“You absolutely do. First master the self-defense basics I taught you last month. Then you can start training to be as strong as Uncle Sam. Until then, I will handle my own fights.”

Sam barked out a laugh from the other side of the bench. “She has got you there, kid.”

Owen rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed but also relieved that I was joking. “Okay, maybe my fighting skills aren’t exactly elite yet. But I would have tried.”

“I know.” My smile softened for a second. “And for the record, I did handle it.”

His eyes lit up. “You took her down?”

“Let’s just say she is probably going to need an ice pack for her knee.

“Seriously?” he said, sounding equal parts impressed and horrified.

“She grabbed me first,” I said with a shrug. “I finished it.”

But the amusement faded as I looked down at the dress.

The fabric was ruined and smelling aggressively of cheap syrup and clinging to me in all the worst places.

I tugged at the sticky hem and muttered, “Damn it.”

“Go, change and rest now, kid.” Sam barked.

With a nod, I grabbed the towel hanging from the back of a chair and headed for my tiny room. “Goodnight, boys.” I said.

“Goodnight, troublemaker.” Sam called after me.

As soon as I reached my room, I locked the door and started peeling off Clara’s dress. It made a sickening, tacky sound as it separated from my skin.

“Well, you are a disaster!” I muttered.

I stuffed the dress into a plastic grocery bag and tied the handles tight. Tomorrow I would have to drag it to a dry cleaner and beg them to perform a miracle.

God… that b***h. I cursed under my breath.

I scrubbed the sugary residue from my face, neck, and arms with a damp washcloth until my skin turned pink, then pulled on my oldest, softest gray T-shirt.

Finally, comfort!

I practically fell onto the narrow cot against the wall. The springs groaned beneath me as I stretched out and stared at the ceiling, tracing the faint water stains that spread like little maps across the cracked paint.

I was exhausted. Every muscle in my body felt wrung out.

All I wanted was to sleep. To let this entire ridiculous night dissolve into nothing.

But the second I closed my eyes, darkness gave way to a flash of dim red light.

No. Stop.

I rolled over, squeezing my eyes shut tighter but the image was already there, replaying in agonizingly sharp detail.

Opening the wrong door in that loud hallway. The battered leather couch. The half-naked woman with her hands wandering everywhere.

And the man.

I groaned out loud, grabbing my pillow and aggressively pressing it over my face.

I had only been standing in that doorway for a heartbeat before I ran but apparently a heartbeat was all my brain needed to capture every humiliating detail with perfect clarity.

I remembered the broad, powerful cut of his shoulders. I remembered the sharp, carved lines of his abs.

And, to my absolute, mortifying horror, I remembered exactly what else had been fully exposed in the heat of the moment.

My entire face erupted in flames. Beneath my thin blanket, I was blushing so hard my cheeks felt hot.

That man… his d… it was… large. Ridiculously, unfairly large.

It was the kind of intimidating size you only ever read about in those trashy, over-the-top romance paperbacks Clara was always leaving scattered around her living room.

It was the last thing I wanted to be thinking about, yet there it was, stubbornly burned into the back of my mind like a brand.

"Get a grip, Thea," I whispered furiously into the quiet room, tossing the pillow aside.

I was a mechanical engineering freshman. I knew how to rebuild a carburetor blindfolded. I had a clear set of goals, a mountain of tuition to pay and a freshly broken heart from Felix's betrayal just twenty-four hours ago.

I absolutely did not have the time or the energy to lie awake blushing over some random, obscenely well-endowed playboy I accidentally walked in on at a messy biker club.

I punched my mattress to flatten it out, forced my eyes shut again and started mentally listing the firing orders of a V8 engine.

1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2.

Anything to erase the image of the man in the red-lit room.