Page 10 of The Kings of Kearny

Chapter Four

“Excuse me?” I said, setting my beer down. “No way in hell am I staying here tonight. I need to go home and feed my dog.”

Lie. I didn’t have a dog, but he didn’t know that. This was just a desperate bid to escape. I couldn’t stay here with him. He wasn’t safe from me. Clearly there was some deeply disturbing shit going on in his life. Someone in his position probably wasn’t thinking about sex; they were more concerned with survival. I’d always had an issue with being a little too blunt, and I didn’t trust myself not to proposition him if I couch-crashed.

Jakob frowned. “You don’t have a dog.”

I froze.Danger. Danger, Will Robinson.“Uh, yes, I do.”

He prowled over to me, stopping close enough that the toes of our shoes touched. If he was trying to intimidate me, he failed spectacularly. His broad shoulders filled my sight, and I had to physically restrain myself from reaching out to touch his chest just to see if it was as hard as it looked.

“No, you don’t,” he said, low and insistent. “You live in a tiny studio apartment in a building that doesn’t allow pets.”

I forced myself to step away from him.Lusting after a potential stalker isn’t mentally healthy, Krista. “How do you know where I live?”

“Charley asked me to check you out when you applied for the bartender position.”

An image of him rummaging through my underwear drawer flashed through my mind. I found it far less disturbing than I should have. “And you were going to tell me about the fact that you’ve stalked me when?”

He sent me a flat look. “I didn’t stalk you. We check out every new arrival to Kearny, especially people who will have access to the club. You think we haven’t had undercover feds try to slip into town? We had to know you weren’t law enforcement before letting you into our bar.”

Okay, fine, that made sense.

“I’m still not staying here,” I said.

He picked his beer up, but instead of taking another sip, he turned and dumped it down the kitchen drain. He set the empty bottle in the sink and faced me, crossing his arms over his chest. My gaze dropped to where his biceps strained against the sleeves of his shirt. Just one good flex and they might rip.

Flex, damn you.

“Daniel thinks we’re fucking,” he said, unaware of my mental gutter dive. “How would it look if you slunk out of here five seconds after he left? He’d know something was up.”

“Then I’ll stay long enough to convince him.” I looked Jakob over. Between his spartan apartment and no-nonsense persona, sex with him would probably be both mind-blowingandtime-friendly. “What should we say, half an hour?”

He dropped his gaze and looked me over in return, the ice in his eyes melting. “Two, at least.”

My mouth went dry.Focus, Krista, we’re just talking hypotheticals here.“Why the need for so much deception?”

A muscle along his jaw jumped out in sharp relief. “You don’t need to know.”

From the look on his face, there was nothing else I could say to make him talk. Both of us had been through SERE school—survive, evade, resist, and escape. The military had trained us to endure interrogation and keep our mouths shut. I wasn’t going to get anything out of him about why Daniel broke in or any revelations about who Mike might be. At least not without duct tape, a set of pliers, and a soundproof room.

This was MC business. Since I didn’t wear their leathers, I didn’t get to know. And really, it was probably best I didn’t. The answer might reference the Kings’ illegal activities, and I had no desire to be an accomplice to any of their crimes.

I took another swig of beer. “Well, this isn’t how I saw my night going.”

“How did you see your night going?” he asked, his voice gaining a rough edge.

I blinked, caught off guard. Daniel wasn’t here anymore. There was no one to perform for, but Jakob’s hardcore persona was slipping away in front of my eyes, replaced by something much more tempting. His pale gaze took me in slowly, languidly, his focus lingering over my breasts and the swell of my hips.

Holy shit, maybe hewasthinking about sex.

I saw an open challenge in his eyes when they lifted back to mine, like he didn’t expect me to answer him honestly. I’d never backed away from a fight in my life, and I’d be damned if I started now. He wanted to know how I saw my night going? Fine. I’d tell him.

“Worst-case scenario, I went to bed alone and horny,” I said.

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