Ruled: New for 2018! A hot bad boy biker romance story that breaks all the rules. Perfect for fans of Darker!. Anne Marsh

the band drops a romantic number on us. This is perfect. Still, when the band segues into a faster song, I pop out of his hold.

      “Little girls’ room,” I tell him and he nods.

      I make a pit stop at our table for my shoes, which turns out to be the best decision I’ve made all night. The bathrooms are at the end of a narrow, dirty, dark hallway. Every time I pick my feet up, a sticky, crunching sound assaults my ears and I make a mental note to Lysol the bottom of my shoes when I get home. I do my business as quickly as I can, wash my hands and exit. Clearly, the casino wants its ladies out on the main floor or knocking back drinks at the bar, because absolutely nothing about the grimy, dark facilities encourages you to linger. This place has a pee-and-get-the-hell-out vibe.

      When I come out, turns out the night has at least one surprise in store for me. Rev is leaning against the wall opposite the door, beer bottle held loosely in his hand. He raises the bottle in a silent salute when he sees me. He doesn’t look surprised to see me, although I hadn’t pegged him for the club scene. When he takes a swallow from the longneck, the muscles in his throat working, I start wondering what he’d taste like.

      “Hey,” he says, and my feet immediately cease their forward momentum. I have no idea how he does that to me.

      “Hey yourself.” I gesture toward him. “You waiting for someone or do you regularly stake out the women’s room?”

      We’ve only met once before, but somehow I already know he’s not the kind of guy who holds his girl’s purse while she pees. Plus, I was the only gal in the restroom, so I’ve kind of already answered my question.

      A slow smile touches his face. “Saw you out there on the dance floor. Bought you a beer.” He starts to hand me the second beer bottle and then pauses. “You like that lime crap?”

      I make a face before I can stop myself. “Not really.”

      “Good call.” He flicks the offending lime toward a nearby trash can and then swipes his thumb over the mouth of the bottle before passing it to me. “Gotcha covered.”

      Free beer is always good, right? We drink in strangely companionable silence for a moment.

      “You come here often?” I joke lamely when the whole not-speaking thing starts to feel uncomfortable.

      He bumps my shoulder companionably with his, gesturing toward the dance floor with his bottle. “Worse places to hang out.”

      “True,” I agree. “But I hadn’t pegged you for a clubber.”

      He takes another swallow of his beer. “I like watching.”

      He’d said he’d spotted me on the dance floor earlier—did he watch me? Did he like what he saw? Is that what this beer is about, or is he still trying to track down Rocker and he figures buttering me up is a shortcut? Since there’s no way to know for certain, I decide to just enjoy the scenery for now because looking at Rev is pretty darn awesome. I let my gaze trail the length of his body, taking him all in—and there’s lots to admire. His faded jeans hug powerful thighs and the T-shirt beneath his leather vest outlines a chest that promises to be downright perfect. Whatever the man does with his free time, he doesn’t sit around on his ass all day. His big body radiates power, deadly but relaxed enough for now that I don’t sprint for the dance floor or the safety in numbers it offers—which makes me as stupid as the slowest gazelle in the pack, because Rev is a predator and we both know it.

      About three inches from the bottom of my beer, the band starts in on one of my favorite songs, making my feet itch to be out there on the dance floor. A lazy smile tugs at the corner of Rev’s mouth. Whatever he is tonight, he’s in no rush and somehow I’m in no hurry to return to Jack, either. When my buzz dies down, this will probably worry me.

      His shoulder bumps mine gently. “You in a dancing mood tonight, princess?”

      “You dance?” Shoot. I sound breathless.

      He takes another swig from his bottle. “Do I look like I dance?”

      “Uh—no?” I inspect him again, looking for any reason to say yes. “But you’ve got two feet, right? It’s not hard.”

      He looks down at me, reaching out to circle my wrist with his fingers. Heat shoots through me. Jack and Samantha probably think I’ve fallen in or gotten lost, and yet I don’t want to move away from Rev. Of course, he’s hot and I’m buzzing, but even so I know that standing here with him is a bad idea.

      “Come on.” He tugs me out of the hallway, then heads for one of the booths lining the side of the bar. Stupidly, I follow along. I do manage to fish in my purse and find my phone so that I can shoot off a quick text to Samantha.

      Met friend. BRB.

      Friend is a misnomer, but since Samantha didn’t spot Rev at the birthday party, she wouldn’t know who he is anyhow.

      Rev slides my purse down my arm and tosses it toward the back of the booth. The little pink square at the end of a silver chain doesn’t hold much. I slide in after it and then wonder if I’ve made a mistake. Now the only way out is through Rev. Not that I really think he’d hurt me, but I barely know him.

      “You look nice,” he says, snagging my phone and sliding in after me. Somehow, I’m not surprised when he looks down and reads the message I just sent.

      “Thanks. Maybe we should talk about boundaries.”

      He looks up and winks at me. “If you’ve got hard limits, you tell me.”

      Did that sound sexual to anyone else?

      “We what you said?” He gestures toward the phone in his hand and then tucks it into my purse.

      “Friends?”

      “Yeah,” he says. My beer is mysteriously empty, so I snag his and help myself to a drink. “Never had a girl friend before.”

      “I’ll go easy on you,” I tell him and finish off his beer.

      His fingers graze the bare skin above my knee. “You here with someone?”

      My pulse rockets into overdrive.

      “Kind of.” I blurt the words out. Think them over. “Not really. Yes. No.”

      He gives me a slow smile. “Hard to be all of those things.”

      “I’m here with friends,” I say firmly.

      He nods thoughtfully. “You should know that if you stay here, I’m gonna want a taste of you.”

      I stiffen before I can stop myself. This is not the kind of thing you discuss with an almost total stranger. “You did not just say that.”

      His fingers move a little higher. I slap them and only end up smacking myself. Real smooth. “That’s disgusting.”

      His grin gets broader. “You not a fan of oral, Evie?”

      Great. Now my face and my pussy are on fire.

      “Not really my thing.” I blurt the words out before I can think them through.

      “Why not?” He sounds thoughtful, rather than pissed off or offended, so I tell him the truth.

      “I’ve tried it, but it wasn’t all that.” I give my previous boyfriends full points for enthusiasm, but oral sex just isn’t the fireworks-inducing pleasure that my Cosmo assures me it is. I can and have lived without it for years. There’s just something about the enthusiastic licking and the slurping that put me off. Reminds me of puppy dogs or something, and that’s not sexy at all.

      Rev gives me a look. He’s totally still, but somehow I get the feeling he’s about to pounce. “We really friends?”

      “I think so.” I nod cautiously. Probably shouldn’t have finished his beer because now the room whirls gently around me and a pillow sounds like nirvana. Bet Rev would let me put my head on his chest. Bet he’d let me do a lot of things.