Page 35 of Queen of Anarchy (Dirty Broken Savages 2)

Kicking that woman out didn’t make me feel better. It didn’t tamp down the torrent of emotions rushing through me. All of that is still inside me. My head is full of angry buzzing, like a hive of bees got kicked over and is trying to defend itself and its territory. I’m not thinking, not stopping to consider anything, just reacting to the way I feel and the heat of the anger coursing through my veins.

Ash stands there with his arms folded over his chest, glaring at me.

Two can play that game, so I glare back, giving him the full force of how pissed off I am. “What the fuck was that?” I demand. “Any random bitch will do, is that it?”

His eyes narrow, his brows snapping down in a frown. He left his glasses upstairs in his bedroom, and I can see every shade of gold, amber, and brown in his irises.

“This is what you wanted, right?” he shoots back. “What happened between us was nothing. Just sex and no big deal. I wanted another lay, and I didn’t feel like having seconds.”

It’s like a slap in the face hearing him say that. Throwing my words back in my face and then making it seem like I’m nothing. Like he used me and now he’s done.

“Oh, fuck you,” I spit at him, acid in my tone. “We all know that’s never stopped you before. Nothing with a pulse is safe from your dick, apparently.”

He drops his arms, hands balled up into fists at his side. Part of me wishes he would hit me. Or try to anyway. That he’d lash out, so I could lash out right back and get rid of some of this sharp anger in my body.

“I don’t tap anything that’s not willing,” he retorts, taking a step back. “And what I do with my dick isn’t any of your business. You made it pretty damn clear how you feel about it, so I don’t know what your fucking issue is.”

“My issue is you!”

He snorts and turns to walk away, heading toward the kitchen. There’s a little voice in the back of my head that warns me I should let this go, but it’s drowned out in a torrent by everything else in me urging me to follow Ash.

My feet move as if they’ve got a will of their own, and I stalk after him into the kitchen. As soon as he hears me coming, he turns and gives me a disgusted look.

“What?” he snaps. “What the hell are you doing? Haven’t you fucked up my afternoon enough already?”

“You’re one to talk. I’m sure everyone just fucking loves coming home to the sound of you sticking your dick in the first thing that caught your eye today.”

“You are such a goddamn hypocrite, I swear to fuck, River.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me!” He takes a step toward me this time. “You made it pretty damn clear that I was just another fuck for you. So what the hell does it matter to you if I bring other women back here?”

“It just does,” I mutter, chest heaving as I pant for breath. The anger just grows in me the more he pushes, and I can feel something building and building, like it’s about to reach a snapping point.

“That’s not an answer,” Ash shoots back. “Why does it matter, River? All this time I’ve been trying to get it to matter to you, and you go and pull that shit at the gala. Now all of a sudden you care who I’m putting my dick in.”

I shake my head, and he steps closer again. There’s not much distance between us now. I can see the anger in his face so clearly, but I don’t back down. I can’t, now that we’ve started this.

“Why does it matter?” he demands again. “What the fuck is your problem? You just don’t want me to sleep with anyone now? You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either?”

“I didn’t say that!” The words burst out of me with force, and I take a shuddering breath.

“Then what are you saying?” he practically roars. Like he’s sick of this, like he needs an answer. “What the fuck is this about then?”

“She doesn’t get to touch what’s mine!”

The kitchen is silent after those words explode out of me, leaving the lingering echo of the sentiment in the air. I almost wish I could take them back as soon as they’re out, but it’s definitely too late for that.

Ash stares at me for a second, like he’s trying to process what he just heard, and then he closes the distance between us in a few steps and grabs my chin with one hand.

I meet his gaze defiantly, breathing hard through my nose.

For a second, his grip on my chin tightens so much that I can feel his fingers digging into my jaw. Then he pulls me closer and crushes his lips to mine in a hard, hot kiss.

The press of his lips against mine sparks the heat between us that’s always been there. Even when I wanted nothing to do with him, there was always chemistry between us, impossible to deny, no matter how much I tried to ignore it.

He reaches down to grope at my hips and my ass, and I drag my hands down his bare chest as we kiss, mouths and tongues battling over and over again.

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