by V. Theia
“Paige?”
“Ten-eighty, please.” She said, looking at a spot over his shoulder. He gave a twenty and told her to keep the change. She slammed it into the tip jar and then regretted her temper.
So what if he didn’t mention last night. Sex was never a big deal to guys.
“Have a good day,” she told him over her shoulder.
“Hey, can you look at me?” She did. And saw confusion in his eyes. “You left early this morning?” Oh… “I guess the pills knocked me out, sorry about that. You should’ve took the bed though.”
What the… what? He was acting like he didn’t even know what happened between them last night. Here Paige was all tied in sexual knots and Reaper was his typical aloof self.
Confusion stung her nose and she dared ask. “Do you remember last night?”
“Burgers, bad TV, you asking me a dozen questions, and passing out? Yeah.”
Oh.
My.
God.
The color drained from Paige’s face and Reaper must have noticed because his eyebrows dropped, lips slackened.
“Seriously? Are you just messing with me now for shits and laughs?”
“Paige, what’re you talking about? Did I say something last night?” The way he asked… in that cautious way would have ordinarily made her assume he had something to hide, but her brain was too busy flailing and spewing out curse words. “If I did, just ignore me, alright? The headache meds are strong as fuck and I pass out like I’m dead and hardly remember anything. It’s why I hate taking them.”
Okay. Paige did another tour of the OH-MY-GODS.
She’d taken advantage of him.
He’d been in pain, probably deliriously from his meds and she’d absolutely taken advantage of a man who didn’t know what he was doing.
“Okay. I need to tell you something and I don’t want you to freak out.” Or send me to jail. Could she go to jail for having an orgasm on his hands and kissing him so hard until her lips felt numb? “We kinda fooled around last night.” She blurted; cheeks flamed. Reaper’s two dark eyebrows shot up into his hat and she was surprised to see smolder coasting his eyes before he pressed both hands into the counter, leaning toward her. “I didn’t know you’d get freaking memory loss or whatever because of your pills. You fell asleep before we did… you know… the deed.” She whispered, mortification making all her limbs unworkable, she couldn’t even look him in the eye.
The last thing she expected was for Reaper to throw his head back and start roaring with laughter.
Paige did the only thing her panicked brain told her to do.
She fled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“He sometimes needed a reminder he wasn’t in charge of his life.” - Reaper
Even as Reaper watched Paige practically leap out from behind the counter and take off for the door like her tiny little butt was on fire, he went on laughing.
Couldn’t help it.
His ribs ached by the time he stopped and wiped a hand down his face.
Of all the fucking luck.
The goddamn irony.
He saw it clearly as if that fated bitch had backhanded him across his cheek.
He grinned to himself, the smile fading over time as Lucie eyed him warily. She probably wondered what he’d done to chase off the ever-reliable Paige.
He couldn’t tell the young girl anything.
Couldn’t tell anyone.
The fucking irony that he didn’t initially remember the first time he got his hands on his girl again… he chuckled and scratched fingers in his hair under the skull cap.
It wasn’t altogether true, what Paige had told him. He didn’t not remember…he’d experienced snippets in his head all damn day and he was sure he could taste her. Her intoxicating moans, the ferocious ways she’d sucked on his tongue and writhed on his lap.
He’d thought he’d dreamed it all.
With so many sex dreams piled in his head, he could be forgiven for thinking last night was just another out of reach fantasy. Fucking hell, the way she’d stroked his cock… wasn’t a dream after all.
Now he knew differently, and his body flamed alive. Cock pulsing, heart banging.
His phone rang and he answered it without looking. “Need you in the shop, papi. Just got a Hummer in that needs more than my hands on it.”
“Not yet.” He told Capone. There wasn’t a hope in hell he was moving from this stool until he saw Paige again. “I’ll be there in a while.”
“Let me guess, having pancakes with diner girl?”
Normally he wouldn’t have answered. Reaper had gotten used to keeping shit to himself, careful never to disclose too much. He rarely drank enough to get a bird drunk let alone a fully-grown man weighing one-ninety. Booze gave him loose emotional lips.
“Hoping to,” he told him. “Later, Cap.” And with a smile twitching his lips, Reaper held up his coffee mug for Lucie to refill and settled in to wait for Paige.
She couldn’t stay gone forever.
Could she? This place would crumble without her.
Meanwhile, he fed all those dirty recaps through his mind and felt himself grow hard.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Like how many inches are we talking? Do we need two rulers?” - Zara
“It’s not funny.” Paige huffed, stubbing both thumbs into her eye sockets.
Mortification still rode her hard some twenty minutes later.
The two women she was with cackled, not caring for her plight that she’d practically assaulted a man. “Seriously, I could go to jail. Can you see me in the prison laundry? I’d be boiled alive in the dryers because I wouldn’t give big Sal my pudding cup. I happen to like banana pudding, Sal! Oh, my god, I’m going to jail, aren’t I?”
Winter and Zara dissolved all over again into fresh giggling.
“If I’d known I would be this entertained I would have left Rider home with the kids earlier.” Laughed Zara, wiping the corner of her eye.
Seriously no sympathy at all for her plight. She wouldn’t let them be her prison pen pals, nope.
Paige had taken refuge in the library. Now she was hiding out, deciding if she could become a jail hard-ass bitch and sell sexual favors to the guards in return for privileges.
“Can I say something?” Winter’s friend Zara pitched in.
The girls were sitting in one of the reading nooks. It was cozy, with gray armchairs and a low table in between. If she’d been in a better frame of mind, Paige could have totally relaxed there for an hour and talked book boyfriends and Tom Hardy muscles. God, she loved that rough, English man.
Paige nodded, gnawing on the edge of her thumb nail. So much for letting them grow, she was doomed to have short, stubby nails for the rest of her life.
“I know we don’t know each other that well, except for when I drop by the diner for those scrummy coconut scones.”
“Paige makes those.” Added Winter. She was walking along the shelves, putting books back in their rightful places.
“No way? God, I’m addicted. I’d bribe the recipe out of you, but I’m still burning garlic bread so I might have to give it a miss or keep the fire department on speed dial.” The small, blonde fairy-like woman chuckled, and it was only when she moved to tuck her legs underneath her that Paige saw she was pregnant.
Something like pain hit her in the stomach and she didn’t know why. She liked kids and was looking forward to Winter’s twin boys, she’d already designated herself chief babysitter.
But there it was, low in her abdomen, like she was remembering pain.
She shook her head. One problem at a time, Paige.
“So, anyway. You got some from Reaper … let’s bookmark this for details later, girls, because I for one am verrrrry curious about him.” She winked at Paige who blushed a little. “He took his migraine pills.”
“This isn’t a recap of what happened last week on the Great British Bake Off. Get on with it, Zara.” Winter called out from three rows
back.
“I am!” Zara yelled back. “You said he laughed. That isn’t what someone would do if they’re unhappy. He’s probably kicking himself he didn’t remember all the good stuff. To me it sounds like he was thrilled.”
God, it really had been good. So good, amazing, even.
Paige deflated. It made sense, she supposed. He hadn’t appeared to be mad.
“So, no prison then?”
“I doubt it. Unless you go on to commit a spree of crimes between here and the diner.”
Winter walked around the corner, her baby belly much bigger than Zara’s seeing as how she had two boys in there, but she looked so lovely, so happy, that Paige felt a twinge of envy.
“Are we taking the bookmark out now? Because I need the dirty particulars of the amazing sex you had with Reaper.” Zara’s eyes twinkled and she nodded enthusiastically at Winter’s question while sipping on her tea. “And don’t tell us how romantic it was. We want the rough and raw details, lady. Stamina and how filthy he talked.”
“All the bikers have a mouth on them, that’s for sure.” Zara said. “Luckily I’m immune except for my Ambrosio.”
She was not telling them about the surprise yet…enjoyable thumb in her butt.
And then she found herself asking. “I have a question… where do we stand on anal sex?”
“I personally lie down for it.” Winter said with a little wink.
It cracked Paige the hell up, hanging half over the chair laughing until her sides split, the other two joined in and that’s how Winter’s husband discovered them a moment later when he prowled through the doors.
“Oh, fuck. I get scared when Z-girl assembles her crew. Do I have to call in the Prez to break this up before someone gets shiv’ed with a glitter pen?” Snake grinned then winked at his wife who practically swooned right out of her heels.
She loved watching them together… oh not like that, ew. But just being around all their love. Until their friendship, she’d never witnessed a loving relationship like theirs up close. She probably accepted way too many dinner invites at their house, but it was always so cozy over there. Snake adored Winter to the stars and back and it was a lovely thing to see. She took second-hand hits of their love.
If she was honest, seeing them so happy had been the catalyst to joining that stupid dating app. She wanted a piece of what they had.
But now Reaper had made her crush so much larger by letting her know he didn’t want her dating anyone except him.
Well, until he didn’t remember saying it, she groused.
Last night she was dating Reaper.
Today? Not so much.
Crap, she even had a longer history with Carson the veterinarian and Newton the gropey teacher.
Just her flipping luck, she thought and went on watching Winter being smooched on by her hubby.
Her heart pinched again.
She wondered what it was like to be that loved?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“It’s now or never. Time to grab the biker by the horns…eh, handlebars…whatever.” – Paige
Paige’s face pulsed with heat on entering the diner some fifty-three minutes later. She swerved through the tables, clocking everyone who was enjoying their food, but really, she only looked for one face and saw him almost immediately.
Reaper was too big of a presence for her to not notice.
Instantly her insides flamed.
Crap on a cinnamon roll.
It wasn’t like she thought he’d leave, that wasn’t his routine.
Maybe hoped, just until she was less embarrassed…a year or two.
Casual as you like, sitting in his booth with one arm stretched along the back, holding a coffee mug in one hand and watching Paige.
Up until now she’d loved his eyes on her.
They burned into her back, along every vertebrae of her spine, almost as if he were willing her to turn around and face her crimes.
“He’s been waiting.” Whispered Lucie… everyone at the counter heard and laughed. “He’s had like four coffees.” She frowned, concerned now she knew he suffered with migraines, he needed to stop all the caffeine. When she glanced over again for the zillionth time in a whole minute, there he was, staring casually, like he had no place to go in the world but sitting at one of her tables.
“Oh, and the boss-man called while you were out. I said you ran to the bank to make change. He wants you to call him back asap and not a minute later.” Lucie mocked his voice.
She got the call over with and came away perplexed and a little relieved. Her job was safe for now. He’d decided to semi-retire and let his daughter take control of the place with a revamp happening in the coming months. With a spring in her step, she bounced back behind the counter, caught those golden lion eyes watching her with his brow hiked high.
Keeping employment gave Paige the burst of confidence she needed.
She pushed her chest out, rounded her shoulders and lowered her eyes.
Reaper was only a man. What was she losing if she said everything she wanted to him? He could reject her. That was it…she’d survive, her heart might bruise, but it too would heal in time. And she’d had worse in her life than a rebuff from a boy she liked.
So with that in mind, she walked the length of the counter, pouring free refills and they watched each other. She even threw in a smile or two. Then when everything quietened down, she approached him, stopped mid-way, her heart going berserk.
God, he was incredibly good looking, she bet he had a ton of woman over at his club throwing themselves at him. How many did he climb into bed with?
She pushed the thought from her head. It had no relevance here.
For the first time in her life she truly grasped what it meant for a single look to kill.
His eyes were laser beams and Paige their target.
For the whole diner to hear, she said. “Either ask me out or stop staring at me, Reaper.” Hands on her hips, she meant business.
He didn’t so much look startled as he did turned on.
Her confidence crawled towards him, panting.
“I mean, you did already declare last night I couldn’t date anyone but you…” she slammed that information down between them, chin back, eyes daring him to deny it.
“I know. I remember.”
Oh.
OH.
Rat-a-tat-tat. Her heart went a little faster when he wrenched up out of the seat, and prowled across the diner, eyes only for her.
When he reached her, he grabbed Paige’s hand and with his free one he lifted the hatch, leading her behind him while he directed a question at a stunned, yet dreamy-looking Lucie. The damn girl needed to drop her crush on Reaper or Paige would cut off all her hair.
“I need a private word with Paige. Can you watch the diner?”
Lucie, that little traitor shivered dramatically. She loved when Reaper used words of more than one syllable.
“Oh, don’t rush. I got things covered,” she called out in a sing-song voice
He closed the door to the back room with a click.
It was Paige who did the shivering now. Not because she was cold, or even because she was locked in the storage room. It was the man approaching her like a jaguar in the wild. A rolling gait, a heated stare. A predatory aura about him. So close she caught the smell of coffee on his breath as it wafted over her cheeks and felt the soft, buttery leather jacket on her bare arm.
Paige tilted her chin back and swallowed slowly.
“This wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I was thinking of a first date.”
Big fat liar. She’d take a storeroom date with Reaper any time. Especially with the way he crowded her against the shelf holding rows and rows of dry ingredients.
Most would call Reaper attractive. He had all the attributes of a gorgeous man with his strong jawline and two-day dusting of facial hair, good teeth and those perfect, kissable lips. Not to mention a body to drown in. But as she stood there, surrounded in his scent an
d masculinity, wondering what he was thinking as he looked at her, only one thing screamed at her as she saw the blazing heat in his eyes and that was; Reaper was set you on fire kind of appealing. He was the reason you needed to carry a change of underwear in your purse.
As Reaper moved an inch closer she realized he had the superpower to freeze her on the spot, she moaned before she could stop the noise, entranced as he reached out a hand and cupped the side of her face. He looked at her for what felt like a week. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember last night the moment I was awake.” She shrugged, what else could she say when her tongue felt so thick in her mouth?
“I should have, ‘cause I smelled like you, Paige.”
Holy freaking cow.
His head came down, brushing their noses together. “I can still hear how you cried when I made you come. I can still see my come dripping off your tits.”
The low, sensual tenor of his voice penetrated through her cotton dress and panties and pressed to that place he owned last night until a tingly shudder pulsed through her clit and the need for spare undies was all too noticeable between her wet thighs.
“You were so fucking sexy, Paige. Incredibly beautiful giving me all your wet shudders.”
His voice was more potent than a bottle of wine. Silkier than melted chocolate. She’d thought about his voice all day, the dirty things he’d said, and she’d loved. She’d never known she’d love being spoken to in that way until all those evocative words came tumbling out of his mouth and sent her pleasure skyrocketing even higher.
The biker gave unbelievable dirty talk.
His gaze ate her alive and didn’t leave any residue left to slop up with a piece of bread.
“You put your thumb in my butt.” She blurted out of nowhere and wanted to scream and retract all those fucking stupid words. Why. Why. Why. Oh, fucking god.