Page 30 of Daddy Issues

“Too bad she’s already someone’s ole lady. Just a drunk slut like her mother.” She’d waited until she had the car between us before showing her true colors.

I hadn’t ever considered myself a slut. So shocked she said it, I just stood there with my mouth open.

Jester’s smile fell. “Watch your motherfucking mouth, lady. I’ve had about enough.” He dropped his arm, rounded the hood, and advanced on her until she backed into her driver’s door. “Whatever you think you know, bitch, you don’t. Kenna’s never been a patch’s ole lady, but any damn one of us would be proud to have her.”

Looming to his full height over her, he sneered. “More than I can say for you.”

She was half sinking to her knees when he walked away, tucking his arm back around me. He pulled me closer, letting his hand slide down so that his fingers brushed my hip, as he draped David’s cut over his shoulder, and called back to her. “You really should educate yourself if you’re going to hang around here. Even if she was still shacked up with Ghost, what’s his, is mine.” Then he winked at her. “Rules are rules.”

Guiding me with his hand on my hip, we walked toward the door. “David might kill you.” I hissed but didn’t pull away from his touch. The warmth of Jester’s fingers, his closeness, feltgood. Better than good. Would I fuck the whole table?Absolutely not. But Puck? Jester? Whatever disappointment I’d felt had disappeared.

Oh, hell yes.

The door closed behind us and in a way on Nadine. Whatever court she thought she held here, Jester had just smacked her crown off her head.

“Nah, he ain’t gonna remember shit. That’s the only reason she’s flapping her dick sucker.”

Puck was back inside, one hip resting on the table pool table, deep in conversation with Cam and Merc. He turned his head and caught my gaze. I shivered, thinking about what we’d almost done in the bathroom. Then he looked away with a slight smirk.

“Hey, what’s Puck’s deal?” I asked Jester as he moved to hang David’s cut on the designated place on the wall.

Jester laughed, tossing his head back and shaking out his hair before twisting it up and slapping the dark tie in it.

“Darlin, he’d be first in line to fuck your brains out if he wasn’t such a glutton for punishment. I don’t think he’s fucked anyone since he ditched what’s her face.

I gawked at him. “What the fuck?”

“No shit—” He sighed—“Big guy just likes torturing himself.”

I snorted.

“Kenna, he’s wanted to bag you for years.”

“He’s had every opportunity,” I pointed out.

“Has he though?” Jester held his arms wide. “He was with that white-trash bitch, then you were with Ghost, then…”

“What?” I pushed against his chest when he trailed off. “Then the frat party ruined me?”

My skin went cold. Once again, the whiskey made my lips loose.

His face went hard, cold, and the chill that ran from my skin up my spine was more arousing than anything he could have said. The royal flush tattoo across his throat shifted as his jawtightened. “Not a chance. Keep those fucking demons out of your head.”

Jester hadn’t been in the room, but he’d been there. I could remember the way he’d stroked my face before Puck had put me in that cop car.

“But it’s true, isn’t? I’m tainted now.” That was the fear. The real reason I’d stayed away.

“Keep it up and I’m going to show you what it means to be tainted and used.” His voice was edgy, in a way that spoke to a part of me that pushed away all the fear and self-doubt.

He backed me up toward the bar, a stool bouncing against my knees. I glanced at Puck, who studied us but made no move to rescue me. Because I wasn’t in any real danger—at least, not any I didn’t want to be in. Hashing out all the things that tormented me with someone I’d trusted for years…was freeing, arousing, and stripped away all my inhibitions.

“How are you going to do that?” That my voice didn’t tremble was a miracle.

“Darlin’…” He bent down, hovering so close that his breath heated the side of my neck, my ear. “You say the word and I’ll turn that ass the prettiest shade of pink it’s ever been.”

The sexy bastard knew what he was doing, because he left me standing there wet and trembling as he sauntered back to the corner booth where he held court. Nadine’s friends would probably run right back to her about it.

Good.

---