“Our stock price took a hit. We sell educational children’s toys. We can’t be associated with that filthy billboard.”
Filthy? Roxie’s jaw tightened a notch. “Your company lost value because it lost its Marketing VP.”
She narrowed her eyes when a thought occurred to her. “Or is that what this is really all about? You losing Lexie as your Girl Friday?”
A swath of perfectly cut blond hair swung forward onto the pretty boy’s forehead. “She’s my sister more than she is yours. Ever since you showed up, you’ve been nothing but trouble for her.”
“Really? Have you run that theory past Lexie? Because last I heard, she was doing pretty well with her new company and her new home.”
Temper bubbled inside Roxie’s veins like a poison potion. She’d been spoiling for a fight, and she’d just walked into one. She’d never liked the Underhills, save for Blaire. She and Landers had gone round once before, and although she’d walked away the winner, she’d left feeling like her guts had been put through a grinder.
Her fingers dug into her hips. Lexie may have been adopted growing up, but Roxie didn’t envy her.
“Do you have any idea what that did to my parents? Her leaving like that?” Landers hissed. “They’re crushed.”
“Crushed?” Roxie coughed. “There’s an easy way to keep her around. Show her some support. Show her you care about her.”
“You’re one to talk.” He jabbed his finger towards the door where the cops had just left. “If you cared about how your actions affected her, you’d stop acting like such a skank.”
Whoa.
“Skank?” Roxie’s eyes narrowed to razor-thin slits. He wanted to play that game again?
At the slur, conversation around them halted and the noisy bar went from a din to a soft roar. A nasty sultriness went through Roxie, and she deliberately reached out to stroke the guy’s chest. Her fingertips moved over gym-hardened pecs across his somewhat impressive abs down towards his—
His eyes widened like a deer in the headlights. It was that split second later that he jerked out of her reach.
Or rather, he was jerked out of her reach.
Billy had the angry prepster by the back of the collar. The fancy blazer Landers wore was hitched up towards his ears and looking wrinkled.
“You sick bitch,” Landers spat.
“You might want to be more careful who you call names,” Billy said threateningly into the younger man’s ear.
Billy. How he’d gotten into the bar and within five feet of her without warning bells flaring was beyond Roxie. Yet there he was, in all his glory.
Big, tough, and so incensed, his leather jacket looked ready to burst off his shoulders.
Her lips pursed into a tight knot. Billy, looking rough and sexy, firing up her nerve endings, was the last thing she wanted right now.
“Hey,” she called. “I can fight my own battles.”
Billy’s fierce gaze flashed down to meet her own, and they collided like lasers. Sparking and heating. Roxie nearly took a step back, not in fear but surprise. She’d seen easygoing Billy angry before.
This was something else.
He hitched Landers’ jacket higher, making the guy go up on the tiptoes of his expensive loafers. When the East Sider tried to swing an elbow backwards, Billy pulled his arm into a chicken wing.
“Apologize to the pretty lady.”
Roxie rolled her eyes even as she shook with temper. Everyone was staring. The place was wall-to-wall people, many of whom she’d never seen before. This was not the ambience she wanted to establish for her place—especially not on the first night she was in charge.
She pointed towards the door. “Out, both of you.”
Landers’ feet shuffled against the wooden floor as Billy started dragging him away. “Wait until I tell Lexie what you’ve done.”
“Yeah? Well, you’ll have to get through Cam first to speak with her,” Roxie tossed back.
Say what she would about the Hatchet Man, Cam would make sure Landers was civil when he spoke with his sister.
Although Lexie hadn’t wanted to go up on that billboard in the first place…
Roxie’s stomach twisted.
Turning away from the scene, she marched across the bar back towards the kitchen. The last thing she saw out of the corner of her eye was Skeeter opening the door to let the two fighting men out.
Dragging her hands through her hair, she let out a frustrated scream.
Men. You couldn’t live with them, but a vibrator didn’t feel nearly as good.
Whitey stepped into her path when she neared the kitchen. “You okay there, Rox?”
“I’m fine.” She let out another puff of air and patted the regular on the shoulder. “Thanks.”
Using both hands, she shoved the swinging doors to the kitchen open. Steam and the aroma of hamburgers hit her full in the face, turning her stomach. Behind her, she heard the volume of conversation crank back up. She’d certainly given her customers something to talk about, and, Lord knew, bikers were as bad as a knitting club when it came to gossip.
She stomped towards her office, becoming even unhappier when the clunk of her heels against the floor didn’t sound quite right. Damn old boots. Her toes felt pinched, just like her eyes.
Tears were threatening.
She was just so angry… and frustrated… and tired… and scared…
That billboard had caused Lexie a lot of heartache with her adoptive family. She’d never meant to bring all that up again. Lexie was just starting to establish a new type of relationship with the Underhills, and Roxie didn’t want to jeopardize that. More importantly, she didn’t want her sister to be upset with her.
But Lexie hadn’t exactly been happy when she’d driven off today with the police hot on her heels.
Bracing her hands against the desk, Roxie bent at the waist and tried to find her breath. Landers Underhill couldn’t break the bond she shared with her triplet. She trusted Lexie. They were solid, she thought, but she’d never had sisters before. She was afraid to test things, especially when Landers had known Lexie longer and also thought of her as his sibling.
Roxie rubbed her throbbing temple. She loved that billboard, but she didn’t want it to tear them apart. Any of them. What should she do? Should she call Lexie right now? Or was she making too much of things?
The noise from the bar wouldn’t leave her alone. The bump of the bass penetrated the walls and even the kitchen sounded noisy. She heard the heavy thud of footsteps coming towards the door.
Muttering a curse, she straightened and swung her hair over her shoulder. She braced herself for Skeeter to barge in to make sure she was okay. First the cops, then the scuffle, and… Oh, God. Underhill had said something about a television crew. Had they caught all that?
The knock on the door was more like a boom, but the door swung open before she could respond.
“Skee—”
It wasn’t Skeeter.
Roxie stiffened when she saw Billy fired up, breathing hard, and overwhelmingly male.
Oh yeah, add horny to the list of things she was feeling.
Her chin came up as he closed the door behind him.
Their gazes locked. The air in the tiny room pulsed with hot anger.
The honeymoon period between them was over.
Chapter Seven
“When were you going to tell me you were seeing someone?”
Billy got in the first jab of what felt like was going to be a rip-roaring go-around, but as prepared as Roxie was for a fight, she wasn’t prepared for that. “Seeing someone?”
What the hell was he talking about?
He ripped off his jacket and threw it on the chair in front of her desk. His biceps were bulging in that sexy Harley T-shirt he wore, and the pulse in his neck pounded so hard, she could see it.
And want to lick it.
Damn it. Not fair.
“Roxie,” he said tightly. “You slept with me while you were involved with
that white-collar prick?”
White collar…? Oh, sweet jalapeños. “Landers Underhill? Are you nuts?”
It was so damn funny, she would have laughed if she hadn’t been so offended.
“Oh, my God,” she snapped. “He’s Lexie’s brother, on the adopted side. I have nothing to do with him.”
Billy took another step forward, his heavy boots clomping against the pockmarked floor. His hair was mussed and red slashes colored his cheekbones. “You were reaching for his crotch.”
“Because it grosses him out!” Frustrated beyond belief, Roxie rounded her desk. Screw the position of power. She pulled both hands through her hair, ruffling the curls so they were even wilder. “I look like his big sister. I wasn’t making a pass. The haughty jerk needed to be taken down a peg. It was a kiss-off.”
It was Billy’s turn to rake his hand through his hair, leaving brown tufts sticking out this way and that. He turned away, roaming the small office like a caged tiger as his chest rose and fell. “Unbelievable. You have the damnedest way of turning things inside out.”
She wasn’t the only one.
Her foot rocked up and down, her heel digging into the floor. It made her arch scream, and honestly, she felt like letting out a roar.
Crap on a cracker. How had things gotten so out of hand?
“How bad did you mess him up?” she asked.
Billy pivoted on a dime. “So you do care about his pretty mug.”
Her mouth literally dropped open before snapping closed again. “You’re one to talk, Baby Face.”
Steam practically poured out of Billy’s ears. He’d suffered his share of ribbing for his movie star looks, and it was only getting worse as he grew older.
Or better.
It all depended on who was looking at it, and she’d been looking really closely.
Roxie flung her hands in the air. “Lexie’s going to kill me. Just tell me, was there blood? How much did the television crew catch?”
“Son of a… I didn’t hurt your guy.”
“Ohmigod, he’s not my guy.”
She punctuated the words by stomping right up to the big numbskull. The rumble of heavy bass on the jukebox boomed through the floorboards, and the clank of dishes rang like bells for a boxing match. The tiny twelve-by-twelve-feet room was overheated and way too small for the two of them to be in this mood.
Roxie didn’t care. Her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head back to watch him as she deliberately poked him in the chest. She didn’t want to, but she noticed the difference between him and the rich boy with even that light touch. Her ex was taller, hotter, darker, and… oh yeah, harder. This close to him, her senses sang. Her mouth watered for the taste of his kisses, and the musky scent of his aftershave was mixed with sweat and the distinct cast of motor oil.
Her knees wobbled. Damn it, he’d been working on someone’s car.
There was something so sexy picturing him bent over an engine, that fine ass just waiting for a squeeze.
She shook her head abruptly, lifting her chin. “Why do you care anyway?”
Because she distinctly remembered him pulling away when she’d tried to squeeze his tight ass earlier today.
His lips flattened. “I just do.”
She got right in his face. “So you don’t want me, but nobody else can have me either?”
With him hovering over her, she knew she didn’t intimidate him, but she could get under his skin. She knew she’d burrowed deep when his big hands clapped over her waist.
He bent down until his nose nearly brushed against hers. “I never said I didn’t want you.”
“You didn’t have to say it.” As sharp as her words were, she tried not to let the hurt show. Today had been the first time he’d ever pulled away from her.
Was that how he felt when she did it?
The gnawing pain in her chest was uncomfortable, and her fingers curled into her palms. At least she wasn’t a tease. She always pulled away after they had sex, not before.
Resentment clawed at her throat. No doubt his way was “probably for the best.”
She jerked back from him, but those muscles in his arms weren’t just for show. He pulled her back to him so fast, their thighs crashed and her breasts flattened against his chest. It made her more self-aware than when she’d been purposefully flaunting her curves to the cops.
Her soft expulsion of air mixed with his hot breaths, and her head tilted back further when he fisted his hand in her hair.
“The problem is,” he growled low and rough, “I want you too much.”
In one smooth motion, he turned and pinned her against the door. His weight pressed against her, holding her in place as his head dropped. The kiss he gave her was filled with so much intensity, Roxie’s head spun. Anger, need, frustration, resentment… Emotion bounced around the room like a ping-pong ball until she didn’t know from where it emanated.
His mouth was hot as he ate at hers, his tongue pressing deep. She met him, heat with heat. She wasn’t some sweet innocent he could dominate.
He wanted to sex it out?
She could do that.
Sliding both hands down to his jeans, she gave his butt a hungry squeeze. His hips bucked forward, and she felt his erection.
“You want to play with fire?” he asked.
“You’re the one who’ll get burned, Billy Cannon.”
“Don’t I know it,” he growled. Still, he caught her by the hips and hefted her higher. It lifted her feet off the ground, and her thighs tightened deliciously at the feel of his masculine power. Tired of dangling against the door, she wrapped her legs around his waist.
He was bigger than her and stronger, but she knew he’d never hurt her. That didn’t mean she didn’t like to wrestle with him.
And he’d riled her up enough today to deserve whatever he got.
“You can’t come in here and act all possessive.” She wasn’t a fool. She knew half of her clientele were in lust with her.
His mouth was on her neck. “Don’t ask me to stand by while some asshole berates you.”
When his tongue touched that soft spot beneath her ear, she shivered. Okay, that seemed reasonable.
She wove her fingers through the hair at the back of his head to hold him right where he was. “You left me hanging earlier today, Billy.”
The nuzzling stopped, and she felt the tension in his body.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
That was it? She wasn’t one who accepted apologies easily, especially without a reason. Her fingers tightened on his hair, tugging at the roots, but then he was kissing her again. Hotter, deeper, with more of that anger he’d shown before.
Only as his hands swept over her body, she realized that anger wasn’t directed at her.
His touch was hungry as it glided under her tank top. His thumb dipped into her bellybutton, and her stomach squeezed at the erotic feeling. He traced her ribs and then the band of her bra. The tank stretched, but apparently not enough. He pulled it over her head, catching her hair and the necklace she wore. The long strands blinded her as they tumbled back down, and the chain dug into her neck before the weight of the charm settled between her breasts. This time, metal against skin.
Billy’s big hands were already handling her curves, and that was all she could see as she looked downward. His machine-scarred, rough fingers looked sexy and male against her hot pink bra. The slick Lycra was the only thing that stood between him and her feminine secrets.
Roxie swept back her hair. She rested her arm atop her head and against the door, deliberately arching into his erotic hold. Oh, it felt good to be touched. Her skin tingled when his rough fingertips brushed against the edges of the sexy lingerie, and her nipples beaded hard.
“Hot pink,” he said with a rasp. “No wonder the librarian was jealous.”
“White is boring.”
“Not on you, it isn’t.” He squeezed possessively. “Do the panties match?”
She smiled at him dangerously,
squirming in his touch. “What panties?”
His eyes narrowed to slits as he traced the pendant between her breasts, and Roxie’s breaths went short. She could barely stand the heat coming off his hands. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like when he stripped her bare.
“So beautiful,” he murmured.
She arched into his touch. He still wanted her. She’d told herself over and over that she’d moved on. But to be wanted… even for a little while…
She inhaled deeply when he freed the front clasp of her bra. His thumb stroked hotly over her nipple, making it ache, before he settled his mouth over her. The tugging resonated deep between her legs.
“Billy,” she moaned.
Weaving her fingers through his hair, she clenched him to her. Her head rolled against the door as her hips rocked up to meet him.
She was riding atop the hard knot in his jeans, but she wanted him inside her. She wanted him stroking her deep and hard.
Hands frantic, she pulled his T-shirt upward. Her nails scraped over hot, firm flesh. He gave up her nipple to briefly whip the Harley tee over his head. She dropped it so she could touch skin. She fanned her fingers over the muscles of his back, loving it when they stirred and clenched. He latched onto her other breast, and she let out a cry.
She was so tired of being alone, the tough independent one. She’d learned to protect herself, to guard her heart, but she’d seen what her sisters had. Just for a little while, she could pretend. She could take comfort—pleasure—in another.
Her thighs tightened around his hips, and he let out a deep grunt.
“Billy,” she whispered into his ear. “I need you.”
He pulled back, but she didn’t let him go far. His forehead rested against her breastbone, and her nipples ached as his hot breaths stroked over them.
“I can’t keep doing this, Roxie.”
“Don’t you stop again,” she warned. She stroked her hand down his chest towards his jeans. “Don’t you do it.”
Billy knew he should stay away. She knew his triggers better than he did. He’d spent the afternoon taking apart an engine, but he’d analyzed himself even more deeply. He couldn’t keep punishing himself like this.
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