The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) by May Ellis Daniels Page A

He’s holding the pool cue clasped tight in his hands, leaning into it in a way that’s nothing if not damn sexy, and the thought crosses my mind that I’m going to take this bad-boy biker Prez home with me tonight.  
    “Your shot,” I say quietly.  
    Aaron blinks and gives his head a tiny, nearly imperceptible shake.
    Listen, I’m old enough to be close to happy with how I look. There’s only so much you can change and at a certain point in your life you have to say fuck it—if they’re not interested for whatever reason, find another one.
    There’s plenty out there. Time to grow up, girlie.  
    But I’ve seen how guys look at the real knock-outs. The one-in-a-million movie stars and models. How they glaze over, as if the only thing in the world that matters is that one woman’s beauty.  
    I never, ever expected to be looked at in that way.  
    Devoured.  
    But that’s how this gorgeous man was looking at me a second ago, and he just gave his head a shake to snap himself out of it. Oh yeah. You can bet more than that C-note on the table I’m leaving with him tonight.
    There’s a longish silence that verges on awkward as he checks the next shot, so I ask him about the life of an outlaw biker. “Is it all booze, bitches and blow like they say?”
    “About sums it up,” he says.
    “Must get kind of boring.”
    “I have simple needs.”
    Simple needs. I like that.  
    He takes his shot, finally sinks one, then flukes on a cross-table Hail Mary that somehow comes through.  
    “Nice one,” I say, meaning it.
    He shrugs. “Just warming up.”
    Me too , I think, trying to take my eyes off him. It feels very warm in the bar. I keep meaning to go over and check on Trish, then I keep forgetting.  
    He misses the shot.  
    I sink until I’m at the eight.
    “You’re a fucking shark,” Aaron says, flicking the corner of the C-note and downing his scotch.  
    “A predator,” I say, laughing. “Built for one thing. To school leather cut wearing biker dudes.”
    I bring the cue back for the shot that’ll win, and right as I slam it forward Aaron says, “Not used to entertaining pigs in my establishment.”
    The cue bounces off the ball and digs into the burgundy felt, tearing a three inch hole in the fabric.  
    “I’m sorry?” is all I can think to say.
    Aaron reaches out over the table and runs his fingers along the ragged edge of torn felt. “I have a nose for this sort of thing. Y’know. Biker dude instinct.”
    “Yeah. Well. Keep your fucking hundred bucks, bucko.” I make to leave, and he snatches my wrist, holding me so hard it hurts.
    “Lets play out the game.”
    “Piss off.”
    “You on the clock? No. Didn’t think so. Lets play out the game.”  
    He’s holding me real close, and I smell him again, the sharp, fresh scent of warm pine needles in the evening woods, and him being so close and holding me tight and the smell…everything in my mind is screaming to tear my arm from him and run the hell on out of there.  
    But my body? The whoring little minx.  
    She wants him, and worse, she likes how he’s holding me. Against my will. Like if he wanted to he could—
    “Let me go,” I say, my voice flat and even.  
    He does. But he doesn’t apologize.  
    “Your shot,” I say, and this time he does smile, a broad grin that shines like a star and I wonder how often that smile comes out, and for who. “Does it bother you? That I’m a cop?”
    “Not in the slightest.”  
    Ok, so maybe he’s a pretty good liar after all, because it has to bother him, and yet it looks like it really doesn’t. He chalks up the cue for what is likely his final shot and asks, “Why’d you do it? Become a lawman ?”
    “Is that a genuine question?” I dunno. I didn’t mean for that to sound as bitchy as it did.
    He shrugs. “I don’t ask about shit I’m not interested in.”
    “A real straight-shooter. Got’cha.”
    “I’ve just always been curious. About the type. You like sweatin’