“Okay. I’m going now, you deviant. And for that, I’m not thanking you for the muffin. I will eat it though, because your muffins are the bomb.”
“Yes. Yes, they are,” she said and headed back behind the counter.
I turned around and jolted to a stop.
Leaning against the wall behind me, muscled tattooed arms crossed, worn jeans hugging his long, lean body, looking rougher, harder, than before he left, was Jesse. His gorgeous bright green eyes watched me from under the brim of his ball cap.
I hadn’t seen him since that day a week ago. And I wasn’t prepared to see him again now.
He pushed away from the wall and closed the distance between us, moving in so close I had to tip my head back to hold his gaze.
Heat hit my face, and my heart raced. “What are you doing here, Grifter?” The words were out before I could stop them.
His expression didn’t change, but his body tensed.
“Nice to see you, too, Bambi.”
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “I take it you found your brother?”
He lifted a brow.
“Dane mentioned you were looking for him.”
“Yeah, I found him.” His nostrils flared. “You’d know that if…” A puff of air escaped him in a humorless kind of laugh. “Whatever.” He looked up. “Adds, coffee, black.”
“Coming up,” my friend called.
He kept his gaze trained forward as if I wasn’t standing right there in front of him.
I needed to get the hell out of there. I tried to step around him as he shifted to the side. I quickly stepped the other way and rushed around him, flustered, angry, hurt.
“Have a good time the other night, Bambi? On your date?”
I stopped in my tracks, my face flaming hotter as I turned back to him.
He was facing me, a smirk curling his lips. “Brooks, right?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Nice guy.”
I cleared my throat. Not liking the way he emphasized the word nice, like it was a bad word. “He is.” What else could I say?
He moved close, or more swaggered, and leaned in. I couldn’t move, was trapped by those beautiful green eyes that seemed so out of place on the hard male in front of me.
He took off his hat, turned it around, and put it back on, like I’d seen him do many times. Somehow, he made the simple act utterly sexy. I hated that I still had to fight a shiver when he was this close.
He leaned in some more and his mouth brushed my ear. “He ask permission before he takes your mouth? Before he gets your tits out? Before he goes down on you, Bambi? Is that what a gentleman does?”
I sucked in a startled breath. He was being purposely crude. I wasn’t sure why, but he was trying to hurt me. My confused, traitorous body heated up at his dirty words even as shame burned through me.
“That’s what you wanted, right? A guy to hold your hand and make you feel like a princess. A guy who’d fuck you…sorry, make love to you with the lights off. Who’d apologize when he got carried away and pounded you into the mattress. That’s what you wanted, right, Lila?”
I rocked back, like he’d hit me.
Not long ago, I would have turned and run away. Not anymore.
Anger fired through me as old hurt and humiliation mixed with new. I was done letting him hurt me. With letting anyone hurt me. I straightened my spine and took a step back so that I could see his face, and he could see mine.
I shoved my glasses higher. “At least when I’m in his bed, he knows it’s me. And he certainly doesn’t have any trouble getting it up,” I fired back.
He flinched. It was subtle, but I didn’t miss it.
Lies, all of it. I’d never been in Brooks’s bed. I hadn’t gotten him naked, either, but Jesse didn’t need to know that.
His eyes hardened, now chips of ice boring into me.
I stared back, breathing hard.
“Um…your coffee,” Addie said to Grifter.
He sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, yanked some cash from his pocket, handed it to her, then snatched his drink and strode out.
Addie turned to me, mouth hanging open.
“Don’t ask,” I said, voice shaking along with the rest of me.
“Oh, I’m asking.”
“Adds…”
“Drinks tonight.”
“I’m not sure…”
“It’s Friday, no work tomorrow. After what I just witnessed, I’d say we’re in serious need of a girls’ night.”
I loved my girls, I did. But talking about this wasn’t something I wanted to do. But Addie was already on her phone rounding up the troops.
Crap.
Looked like we were having a girls’ night tonight.
Chapter Five
Jesse
I strode away, cursing myself. Lila had just handed me my ass. I’d been a giant dick to her, and she’d cut me off at the knees. I deserved it. I did. But I was jealous as shit and there’d been no holding it in.
The thought of Brooks-fucking-Jackson sticking his micro penis anywhere near Lila made me want to punch something, preferably him.
He’d had Lila under him.
He knew the sounds she made when she came, the way her pussy tasted, the color of her sweet little nipples when she was turned on.
He got to talk to her, tease her, make her laugh. He got to have those big brown eyes looking at him like he’d hung the motherfucking stars. She’d looked at me like that once. And she’d seen me. More than anyone else ever had.
I hadn’t been ready for her to see all of me. I hadn’t wanted her anywhere near Trip. And I sure as hell didn’t want her near my psychotic old man.
I curled my fingers into a tight fist.
I hated this. It fucking sucked. Yes, I sounded like a whiny, little bitch. But I didn’t give a shit. She should be mine. She should still be mine.
I shoved the door open to Rocktown Ink and was hit by a wall of sound as I walked in. Music thumped through the speakers and Dane was at the counter, head bobbing as he sketched in his pad.
“Yo.”
Nothing.
I flicked his ear. “Yo.”
Dane lifted his head, scowling, then smiled wide and cheesy and turned down the tunes.
“Hey! I was listening to that!” Trix yelled from somewhere in the shop.
“Riff’s here!” Dane called back.
“So? Turn my damn music back up,” she hollered.
Huh. I was starting to think Trix wasn’t my biggest fan.
The curtain to Cal’s room snapped open and he scowled. “Would you all stop fucking yelling,” he yelled.
His gaze slid to me, and he gave me a chin lift. I gave him one back, then he shut himself back in with his client, and the buzz of tattoo machines started back up along with the music.
Dane came around the counter now, pulling me in, thumping my back.
“At least someone’s happy to see me,” I muttered.
“Who’ve you been pissing off?”
Lila chose that moment to walk past the window, and I couldn’t stop my gaze from following her. She was wearing one of her clingy skirts, hugging her hips and thighs, and a white shirt with tiny purple spots all over it. She looked sexy as fuck and cute as a button. Dane’s gaze followed mine, catching sight of her as well as she speed-walked by with her head down.