Page 6 of Daddy Issues

I snorted and made a point of watching the dark-haired dancer who’d been all over me wrap her lush body around the pole now. “I’m not celibate. I have standards.”

He cut me a side eye, but his mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Your standard is currently shoved into a hot pink bikini and fuck me boots.”

She was, and he knew how I felt. He could read me better than anyone. Since moving to Nevada, Jester had appointed himself my closest friend. I hadn’t been able to shake him.

Not that I wanted to until he gave me shit about women.

“Why don’t you?” AP told me to stay away, no one else. He could claim it was because of Ghost. But deep down, I knew there was something else.Because he saw me that night, knew how easy it was for me to earn that Hooligan patch.

“Fuck Kenna?” Jester’s brow raised with serious interest.

“Beats the hell out of you talking about it, all the god-damned time.”

If I couldn’t have her, at least I could watch.

It would be a lie to claim I hadn’t constantly thought about that night, imagined her splayed out naked beneath me—mouth parted, eyes drunk—and not wonder where she’d been. She’d refused to see me after. David said all she did was go to work and stay in her room. I’d worried about her.

Then I find her here, half naked, with men pawing all over her like that night after Desert Lights at the frat house hadn’t even happened, and it pissed me off.

“And you would watch. Kinky bastard.” Jester laughed as he stood and stretched. “Because that’s all you can do.”

I grunted. He wasn’t wrong. AP had ordered me to stay away after that night. We needed Ghost happy until the Preacher shit blew over and Cam was back from Vegas. Anything for the MC, anything to get our brother home where he belonged.

“Exactly.” I’d scratch that itch. And maybe I wouldn’t think about fucking her all the time. Because if I got my hands on her right now—I wouldn’t be any better than the assholes pawing at her.

I rose with him, Merc shaking Val’s hand, before following us out of the room.

Kenna’s voice rose over the music and caught my attention from a roped off area that looked out over the main stage. She seemed fine, her expression amused. But the shrill sound of her voice was something I’d heard before. She was about to lose her shit.

When she’d been a house mouse, before Ghost, that was her tone right before she slugged someone right in the face.

I was halfway to her in several long strides, and the bouncers hadn’t even looked up yet.Fuckers.What welled in my chest wasn’t anger. It was something very different. Darker. Unyielding.

“Come on, baby.” A drunk guy teetered off his stool and into her, grabbing at her breasts as he did.

Impressive. She didn’t go down beneath the weight of him. Kenna was a tough little thing; I’d give her that. Made her sexier. The sort of tight little body that could handle a guy as big as me, who probably liked things as rough as I did.

With one hand, I grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him back toward his stool. “Get the fuck off her.”

The wild surprise on his face would have been funny had he not screwed up his mouth in determination. Drunk enough to test his mettle. Stupid enough to get his ass beat.

“Whoa.” Kenna pushed the tray out in front of her, holding him back. Again, tougher than she looked.

My body vibrated, but I didn’t dare move as she backed up into me.

Jester dodged around me as security scrambled toward us. “Easy, buddy. All a misunderstanding.” He tossed a companionable arm over his shoulder and steered him away from Kenna. “Let me buy you a lap dance and get you some more agreeable ass to latch onto.”

The big Ukrainian security guy drew up short as Jester waved him off. He glanced from me back to Val Soletsky. Who just snorted, then made awrap it upgesture toward Kenna and headed back the other direction.

“Cash out, little one,” the security guy said in heavily accented English.

A pissed off woman is one hell of a turn on. Especially when it was Kenna. She glared at me, smacked me in the chest with the tray, and stormed off in a tiny ball of righteous fury. She paused as she passed Jester, stopping long enough for him to wrap her in a hug.

When she’d kissed him, it had been hot as fuck. That hug, though, sent a flare of jealousy ripping through my body.

The bouncer whistled in a way that translated into any language. He didn’t want to be me.

“She ain’t my problem.” But I wished she was. I moved toward Jester, ignoring the angry man he’d distracted with a naked woman. The club was too confining and made me want to hit something.

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