by Penny Dee
“You heard me. I said, get the fuck out.”
She slowly removed the cigarette from between her lips, her eyes fixed firmly on mine. “And exactly who the fuck do you think you are?”
I murdered her with my eyes. “I’m the bitch who is going to teach you some fucking manners if you don’t get the fuck out of my face.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Is that right?”
“That’s right. You don’t get to treat people like that, so take your shitty attitude and get the fuck out of here.”
She sighed dramatically. “I wonder what the boys would say about that? Should we ask them?”
“I’m confident they’ll see my point of view.”
Her face darkened. “You think they’ll pick you over me?”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“Oh, don’t kid yourself. That’s exactly what it’s about.”
“No, this is about you treating people like something you stepped in.”
She made a tsk-tsk noise followed by a condescending shake of her head. “You poor thing. You really think you mean something to them, don’t you? Well, let me tell you something, girlfriend. You mean nothing to them. The boys. Bull. Especially Bull. In fact, you’re his little pity project. A lost little mouse who needed a job because she couldn’t find one on her own.” She pulled a sad face. But then it hardened and her eyes narrowed. “He’s not attracted to you. He feels sorry for you! Oh, you might think he wants to fuck you. But, honey, you’re not his type.” Her eyes glittered over my hair, while her fingers raked through her blonde tresses. “Everyone knows he prefers blondes. Look at his wife. The woman he compares every other woman to. She was blonde and beautiful, while you’re so…well, you’re nothing like her.” She leaned closer and whispered. “And, honey, you reek of desperation.”
I slowly leaned down on the bar, somehow managing to keep my cool, my voice low and unsafe. “And you reek of contaminated pussy and bad manners, you ridiculous bitch. Now get. The fuck. Out.”
She stood and picked up her purse, a nasty smirk spreading across her lips. “I’ll be back. But in the meantime, just remember this. While your panties are getting all wet for Bull, he doesn’t see you as anyone other than someone who needs fixing. He feels sorry for you, desperado.” She wiggled her fingers at me. “See you later.”
Laughing, she walked away and I felt my chest tighten with anger.
You’re his little pity project.
He feels sorry for you.
Her words lingered in me.
The strong and rational part of me told me she was wrong. That Tiffani was nothing but poison.
But the other part of me—the place where my pride and self-respect existed—burned with a sudden questioning.
Was she right?
Is that what Bull thought of me?
Did he see me as someone who needed fixing?
Was this crazy sexual attraction all in my head, and he saw me as nothing more than a pity project?
Someone to toy with?
Hot on the tail of this morning’s encounter at the gas station, the humiliation spread through me like a firestorm, and I reacted before I had the sense to stop myself.
Feeling hot with hurt pride, I stormed out of the bar and into his office.
He was sitting at his desk and he looked up when I burst in.
“I’m not some pathetic project,” I blurted out.
I was uncharacteristically worked up, and the words tumbled out of my mouth with embarrassing ease. I stormed over to his desk and thrust a pointed finger onto his desktop. “I’m not some little bird with a broken wing that needs you to fix her!”
I didn’t know why I was so worked up. This shouldn’t matter to me, because at the end of the day, we were nothing. He was just some guy who’d given me a job. And as long as I did that well, what did it matter what he thought of me?
Yet for reasons beyond my understanding, the thought of him seeing me as nothing more than a pet project was painfully humiliating.
I wasn’t a damn project.
I wasn’t broken.
He didn’t know who the fuck he was dealing with.
I watched as he slowly removed his dark glasses and rose to his feet with a dangerous calmness.
His gaze slid over me, his face chiseled and full of heat.
When he rounded his desk and came toward me, I trembled beneath his magnetic eyes. They were wild and bright, and full of warning. And suddenly, my boiling emotion left me, and I felt myself being pulled toward that mesmerizing gaze.
I backed away until I felt timber touch my back.
“Is that what you really believe?” he asked, coming closer.
I was pressed up against the door with nowhere to go, and he was coming toward me wearing an expression of danger and barely restrained need.
I wasn’t scared.
I was fucking turned on.
And it made me wild with anger.
He didn’t stop when he reached me. Instead, he leaned over me and pressed his elbows against the closed door above me, caging me in with his big arms and the hard wall of muscle that was his body.
“Is that what you think, little bird?” He growled in my ear.
His warmth, his scent, his fucking everything washed over me like warm water, softening my fight and making me want to give in to the lust pumping through my veins.
“You think I want you here because I want to fix you?” He brushed his cheek against mine, and a violent shiver rolled through me. “I don’t want to fix you, little bird. I want to fuck you.”
His words both appalled and excited me.
“And I think you want to fuck me, too,” he growled.
He was right. I wanted him to touch me. Christ, I wanted him to touch me so bad.
But my mouth said otherwise. “And like I told you, I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
I felt flushed with anger and…desire.
His body was so close, I could feel the brush of his cut against my breasts, and the sweet whisper of his breath against my cheek.
“Are you sure about that?” His voice was deep and rough.
And challenging enough that I got ready to fight back.
“This is my job,” I said thickly. “I can’t afford to throw it away by giving into my urges like some stupid schoolgirl.”
He exhaled roughly in my ear. “But giving in is so much more fun.”
“I mean it, Bull.”
“Tell me you don’t want me.” His lips were close. So close. And I could smell the rich scent of his skin, and it was driving me crazy with need. And he knew it. “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you.” The tip of his nose brushed mine. “Tell me you don’t want me to touch you.”
I was seconds from shattering my resolve and giving in. Because he was too much to resist, and my attraction to him was too damn potent to fight anymore. It had been forever since I’d been touched, and my body ached and throbbed with need, demanding I give in to him.
“I don’t,” I breathed. But it was a lie, and the word snagged in my throat.
“Tell me you want me as much as I want you,” he whispered, pressing his big body against me so I was utterly pinned to the door.
“I…I…”
But he ignored me and pressed his face to mine, and my heart sped up, kicking wildly in my chest.
“It’s alright, little bird, I can wait,” he whispered, and I felt him breathe in deeply as if he were absorbing a part of me into him. “Because I know sooner or later you’ll give in to those urges, and you’ll be screaming my name when I make you come.”
Placing my palms flat on his chest, I pushed him back. “Seriously?” His arrogance was beyond words. “You really are the most arrogant man.”
He grinned, but it was dark and wicked. “You say arrogant, I say confident.”
“No, I say, Fuck you, Bull.” I pushed him in his stupid rock-hard chest. “I’m not some club girl who’ll drop her panties because you’re so ridiculo
usly hot. So, give it up.”
I stormed out, angrier than when I first stormed in.
Thankfully, the bar was empty now, so I didn’t have to hide my anger and frustration, and my arousal, as I got back to work and tried to forget about my feelings for the man who signed my paychecks.
BULL
She’s a fucking firecracker.
Storming into my office and pointing her finger at me.
Fixing me with those big dark eyes full of wildfire.
Fuck. The moment she slammed her finger into my chest, I was turned on and fucking hard…just like that.
I didn’t usually come on strong like I did with her yesterday. But something about this woman brought out a need in me. A need to be close. A need to touch.
A need to have her up against the wall of my office.
I’d spent a lifetime resisting women by building a wall so high, no one was ever getting over it. Yet somehow, this woman, this siren, was getting under my skin by simply pointing her goddamn finger at me and telling me off.
It was a first for me, and I had no idea what to make of it.
So I forced her out of my head. Forced myself to think about club business and revenge. I needed to keep my head pointed in the right direction. Because we were getting more and more intel on Gimmel Martel every day, and I had to keep on top of it all. It was like the fat rising to the surface from the bowels of the criminal underbelly of our county. It meant I had to focus. Meant I would be away from the clubhouse and a certain distraction while I investigated them.
Every lead had to be followed up.
Every nook needed to be checked.
Every rock turned over.
But damn if I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
Deciding I needed a distraction, I kicked back from my desk and grabbed my bike keys from the desk. Taking the Harley out to the backroads and letting her fly was a good way to clear the fog from my mind and rattle the sexual tension from my body.
But when I left my office, I walked straight into the one person I was trying to get off my mind.
She was in the showcase corridor, standing in front of the Wall of Fallen Family. Her hands shoved into the back pockets of her tight denim shorts, her perfect tits pressed tight against a shirt that was open just enough to get a tease of what was underneath.
She licked her lips, and my body reacted accordingly.
Fuck.
As I walked up behind her, visions of spending the afternoon making her moan hit me in the cock.
“I didn’t know about your wife,” she said without looking away from the photographs that lined the wall.
Her words brought my carnal thoughts to an abrupt standstill, and the lust moving through me ground to a sudden halt.
I looked up at the picture of Wendy smiling back at me, and braced myself for the familiar ache to knot in my chest.
“That was taken a week before she died,” I said, my voice suddenly craggy
This was a conversation I wasn’t expecting.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I swallowed thickly. “Me too.”
She turned around, and I could see by the look on her face that she knew how it felt to lose someone you loved.
“I know how hard it is,” she said.
“Your parents?”
She looked away. “And others.”
“Want to talk about it?” I gently lifted her chin with a finger so she would look at me.
But she was a tough little heart, and she was going to take some time to crack. Instead, she raised a challenging eyebrow at me. “Do you?”
Our gazes fused, and that familiar urge to kiss her washed through me.
But despite the recent heated looks from across the room, the coy smiles and raw lust lighting up her eyes whenever we were around each other, she wasn’t ready to give in to her own urges yet. And I’d given her my word, I was going to wait until she was ready.
“You’re right. Let’s change the subject.” I stepped away from her, my plans for an afternoon ride vanishing like smoke. “Come on, I’m in the mood for shooting some pool. Do you play?”
“We’ll soon see.”
“I promise I’ll be gentle.”
She gave me a wicked look. “No need. I like it a little rough, remember?”
I bit back a groan.
My desire for this woman…I had a feeling it was going to be the death of me.
TAYLOR
“You and I should talk.”
Bull looked up from his desk. “This is twice in two days that you’ve burst into my office. I’m sensing a pattern.”
“I think we should lay our cards on the table.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Go on.”
“You’re right. I am attracted to you, and it’s damn distracting. But I need you to know that I can’t afford for it to go any further.”
“It sounds like this might be up for negotiations.”
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure what I said meant the complete opposite.”
He rose to his feet, his mesmerizing gaze warming my skin from across the room. “What’s it going to take to get you to give in to me?”
Despite myself, I smiled at his arrogance. “A lobotomy.”
His lips twitched. “Give me one night and I’ll change your mind.”
“I told you, I don’t do one-night stands.”
“And I told you I don’t date,” he said, walking over to stand in front of me.
“Neither do I.”
“So, we’re on the same page.”
I pressed my palm against his rock-hard chest. “No, we’re on very different pages.”
“How so?”
“You want to fuck me until you’ve had your fill. And I don’t want to sleep with my boss.”
His eyes were full of heat. “Oh, darlin’, I promise you, there’ll be no sleeping involved.”
I raised an eyebrow at his cockiness. “And I promise you, there’ll be no fucking involved, either.”
I moved away from him. Because being that close to him was dangerous.
“It could be uncomplicated and mutually enjoyable for both of us.” He was completely at ease as he leaned against his desk, his big fingers gripping the edge, and his silver wallet chain dangling against his black pants.
“So I’ve heard.”
A hint of a smile touched his lips, and a lustful shiver ran through me when I let myself imagine the way they would feel moving over mine.
“I didn’t think gossip would be your thing,” he said.
“It’s not. But working here, I see a lot. I hear what they say about you…see the lust in their eyes. You’re powerful. Women fall all over themselves to get close to you. Every club girl out there wants your attention. Hell, every soccer mom wants to drop their good-girl panties and ride you in the backseat of their SUVs. And why not? You’re fucking hot. You’re the king of kings.”
“I’m also fucking great in bed.”
My eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’re trying so hard with me? I don’t want you, so I’m a challenge?”
He started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
He stood up and walked over to me, towering above me. “Darlin’, you want me, you’re just not ready to admit it yet.”
His arrogance was astounding.
And kind of sexy.
Not that I’d ever admit it.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Is that so?”
“It’s written all over your face.”
His smile disappeared, replaced by heat and seduction as his eyes glittered all over me.
“You think you keep your cards close to your chest, but you don’t. Your body tells me everything I need to know.”
When his fingers found the curve of my jaw, my hands fell to my side and I trembled beneath his tenderness.
His gaze was searing.
His touch merciless in its pleasure.
His voice luxuriously dark and seducti
ve.
“Like the way you clench your teeth so hard your jaw ticks because you know you’re fighting a losing battle.”
His fingertips whispered across my cheek, until his thumb found my mouth and glided over the delicate skin of my lower lip.
“The way you bite down on your lip when you know you shouldn’t want something but you can’t help it, because you want it so bad you can taste it.”
I had to resist drawing him into my mouth, because the way he was looking at me had me spellbound.
But before I could part my lips, his fingers trailed down the curve of my throat and over the slope of my collarbone toward the swell of my breast.
And Christ, I wanted him to touch me there.
Every cell of my being screamed for him to push my tank top down and secure those glorious lips over my tight, aching nipples.
My lips parted with want.
My pulse raged in my neck.
I had to squeeze my legs together to quell the aching throb.
I wanted him to take my breasts in his big hands.
I wanted him to torturously suck each nipple.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he pressed his palm to the spot over my heart and secured his eyes to mine. “The way your heart beats faster whenever we’re close.”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry. I looked away but he lifted my chin so I had no choice but to meet his gaze, and in that moment, I was a goner. I felt my cheeks flush. He was going to kiss me and I wanted him to.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” he said hoarsely. “And I’ll show you how your body is telling me you’re lying.”
Without thinking, I bit down on my lip and he groaned. It was all he needed. With a growl, he sank his lips to mine and kissed me with a searing passion. Shock and excitement took a backseat to the pleasure of his mouth moving luxuriously over mine, and I whimpered. His lips were soft and luscious, his tongue confident and commanding, both of them driving me toward a dizzying mindlessness.
With a moan, I melted against him, powerless to stop, and when he felt my surrender, he took the kiss deeper, dragging his fingers through my hair and tilting my head back.
His lips dropped to my jaw, and slid along my arched throat, and I gasped at the sensation. It was like I was drunk and high, and every touch was amplified with primal pleasure.