Unless…is that what Tessa wants?
For all I know, she’s dating again and doesn’t mind being touched by a man, or two of them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I want her to live her life the way she should have before those fuckers hurt her. It just sucks to know that I may be too late.
Time to find out.
As I walk over to the bar, I hear the guy on Tessa’s left say, “You ready to go home?” and nearly lay him out.
Instead, I grab the neck of his cut and yank him backward about three feet.
“Hey! What the hell!” he exclaims before spinning around with his fists raised. He looks me up and down quickly, noticing my lack of patches. “Who the fuck are you?” he asks, apparently feeling brave.
“Verek!” Tessa warns.
“I’m one of the fuckers who’ll decide if you patch in or not,” I tell him. “Now take your buddy and get lost!”
His wide brown eyes look to Tessa, then to the other kid who shrugs like he doesn’t have a clue if I’m full of shit or telling the truth.
“Go. I’ll be fine,” Tessa tells the boys. “Verek’s a Savage King, or at least I thought he was,” she says, narrowing her emerald eyes at me in a way that says I’ve somehow fucked up.
After a few more seconds of shuffling back and forth on their feet, the two prospects finally give up and go stand with their backs to the wall, facing us just ten or so feet away.
“So you’re back,” Tessa says.
“I’m back,” I agree when I lean my hip against the bar inches away from her so I can drink her in. She looks the same as I remembered, from the curls of her red hair to the dusting of freckles over her porcelain skin and her cute button nose. She smells just as delicious too, like warm vanilla. Not surprisingly, she’s wearing a big green sweater that comes down to her knees and a pair of loose jeans underneath, not showing any skin other than her face and hands.
“Aren’t you worried Roman will spank you if he finds out you talked to me?” she asks, her question feistier than I expected. Is she drunk?
“Roman knows I’m here, and he looked pretty happy to see me,” I tell her, leaving out that I didn’t ask his permission to talk to her nor will I from here on out. That shit is done. Tessa doesn’t live with him anymore, so he doesn’t get a say in whether or not he thinks I’m good enough for her. Which brings me to my most urgent concern. “Are you happy to see me?” I ask.
“No,” she answers too fast to be the truth. “Why would I want to see the man who forgot about me for six months?”
“I missed you and I never forgot about you, not even for a second,” I tell her emphatically. “Roman put me in a tough situation, and he needed time to get the fuck over what we did.”
“Where were you?” she asks, still looking down at her glass and not me.
“Miami.”
“How many girls did you fuck in Miami?”
It’s not that I wasn’t prepared for that question, I’m just caught off guard because she used the f-word so easily. I don’t think I ever heard her cuss before. I know for a fact she never said fuck.
“None,” I tell her honestly.
Rolling her eyes that still won’t look at me she says, “You’re so full of shit.”
“I’m telling the truth. Now, you didn’t ask how many girls tried to fuck me. But the answer to how many I slept with is the same. None. Not a single one.”
For several long seconds, Tessa doesn’t say anything. Then she asks, “Do you want some kind of award for not taking a different woman home every night?”
I think there is much more to that question. She’s obviously taking a shot at me for the night she was taken, finally bringing it up – that I was being stupid while she was being kidnapped, and it’s my fault for not going after her. There’s no amount of apologizing to make up for that. So I don’t even try. I just tell her the truth.
“Sweetheart, you’re the only woman I want to take home.”
“No call for six months and you have the nerve to try that line on me?”
“It’s not a line,” I assure her.
“Uh-huh. Right,” Tessa replies. “Leo, I need another drink!”
“Hey, man,” our youngest member says when he comes over and eyes her empty glass and then me.
“Think she’s had enough?” I ask him.
“I just serve them up. I don’t judge,” he answers.
“Last one, and then I’m taking you home,” I tell Tessa as Leo pours.
“Nice try, but that’s not going to happen. Lucas and Jake will drive me back.” The way she says their names makes them sound too familiar. I don’t like it.
“But I bet you won’t let them sleep inside your apartment,” I argue. “Do they sleep in the hallway or on their bikes?” I question, but Tessa remains silent.
Thankfully, as Leo slides her only half-full glass toward her, he gives me the answer I wanted, “Roman’s making the prospects take shifts sleeping inside a tent in the side yard of the apartment building.”
“Sleeping outside in winter,” I remark loudly with a grin as I glance over my shoulder at the two boys briefly, both staring daggers in my back. “I’ll wave to them from your window,” I say, assuming Roman would insist on her having at least a second-floor apartment for safety.
“You’re not staying with me tonight,” Tessa says bluntly.
“Sweetheart, you know you’ll sleep better if I’m there. Have you stayed on your own, or has Charlotte been crashing with you?” I ask. Her tightening jaw is my answer. Sliding closer to her, but still not touching her side, I add quietly, “As you already know, I’m capable of keeping my hands to myself. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
Tessa rolls that idea around before she turns to me and says the last thing I expected. “What if I want you to sleep in my bed with me?”
I’m not the only one shocked by her sudden, head-spinning change of heart. Leo drops a fucking lowball glass, shattering it on the floor. Thankfully, we were out of the blast zone.
“I’ll still sleep on the sofa because I’m guessing you’ve lost count of how many drinks you’ve had. Not only are you pissed at me, but you’re also drunk, aren’t you?”
Tessa wets her lips, but her eyes stay on mine when her fingertips reach out and run a line down the center of my chest and abs. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Lower my…inhibitions.”
“It’s not your inhibitions I’m worried about, and you know it,” I respond when I gently remove her hand from my stomach just for a chance to touch her. Lifting her knuckles to my lips, I place a kiss on them but don’t release my hold afterward as I rub my thumb back and forth over her smooth skin.
From the corner of my eye, I see the boys bristle before one of them grows the balls to come up beside of us.
“You okay with him, Miss Singleton?” he asks, which means he’s fully aware of her limits, which has me raising my opinion of him, even though I want to tell him to fuck off.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Tessa asks without taking her eyes off me, eyes that are growing heavy either from exhaustion or something else entirely. “Do you know how many men he killed for me?” she mumbles, making it clear it’s the alcohol talking. Sober Tessa would never bring that up in public.