“Are you fucking serious?”
“I am. I’m not in a place for whatever this is, and I don’t have time for it. I should have been clearer about my intentions before you—”
“Before I what?” She poked a hard finger in my chest. “Before I wrapped my lips around your cock?”
I tried to swat her finger away but grabbed and held it instead. “Yeah, before that.”
She leaned in and made a strangled sound in her throat. “I don’t know whether to kiss you or smack you.”
“You don’t want me, Kenna.” I laughed without humor, for the first time being honest. “Whatever is going on here is some misplaced sense of hero worship. You’re going to wake up tomorrow and realize you’re a lot better than whatever we’ve got going on.”
“And that should be my decision, shouldn’t it?” Tugging her hand from mine, she folded her arms and stamped a booted foot. I couldn’t help but let my gaze wander from the top edge of the leather, over several inches of creamy thigh before my flannel shirt cut off my view.
Jesus. She was wearing my shirt. But when I thought of taking it off of her, it wasn’t to keep, but to spread it out on the sand outside and fuck her until we were both too spent to be angry.
I was a fucking asshole.
“You don’t get to just do things to me, then toss me away like I don’t matter. That makes you no better than Ghost.”
She might as well have smacked me. My chest tightened with anger. I was a lot of things, but I’d never hurt her like that. Never put her in the positions he did. Hell, I didn’t even want her at Miller’s tonight.
This needed to end.
“I’m not anything like that. Kenna, I’mnotyour boyfriend. I should have made that clear up front. I’m sorry for that.”
Then her eyes flashed hot. “Maybe Iwillask Jester to take me home.” She teetered on her tiptoes, her face hovering just under mine, and she snarled. “We both know he’ll actually fuck me.”
She made it two steps before I grabbed her arm and yanked her back against my chest. Jealousy, white hot, clawed at my rib cage. “No, he won’t.” I growled.
The sexy little brat shook free of my arm but turned so that her body was pressed against me. “We’ll see about that.” She pushed free and stomped all the way back to him.
I didn’t chase her, I couldn’t. She was so fucking beautiful. Even when she pulled Jester down and whispered in his ear. He grinned a little before she went back to her friends.
As soon as he could pry himself away from the contingency of groupies that hovered around him, Jester strolled over to me. “What you do to piss her off?”
I grunted.
“Listen, brother, I don’t need you to tell me she’s off limits. But you need to wrap that up before someone else does.”
“Fuck you.”
“More like fuck her. Work it out and get her out of your system.” Then he grinned wide. “Trust me, that’s a hot little piece of pussy you won’t be disappointed with.”
I nearly hit him, had to fist my hand on the bar to keep from doing just that. Maybe he was right. But I knew better, once would never be enough.
“I can’t.”
“Brother…” He shook his head with mock sadness. “You’re dumb as shit for even thinking you can’t. If it doesn’t happen tonight, it’ll happen tomorrow. And the day after that, and so on. You want each other too bad.”
“Don’t I know it.” I pushed my hair from my face.
He turned serious. “At some point, you have to stop punishing yourself for your baby mama’s shit.”
When I didn’t respond, he didn’t push. My personal life had always stayed that way, but hurricane Jessica had blown throughevery aspect of my life and fucked it all up. I was just now putting the pieces back together.
Eli was happy. We had a home, I had a thriving business, and the MC. Then here came Kenna, reminding me of the things I hadn’t had in a long time. Things I wanted really fucking bad, but couldn’t let myself have.
***