“Kiss me,” he slurred.
He was probably harmless, but fear shot through me. He leaned in, his mouth coming toward mine.
I pressed harder against his chest and turned my head away from his lips. “No,” I said, a weird gasping, panicked sound coming from me I’d never heard before. “Get the hell off me.”
“Come on, don’t be like that. I know I’m not the only one feeling this thing between us—”
One minute he was there, the next he was lifted over the bar like a toddler. I stared in shock as Bull held him in the air by his shirt.
“You deaf?” Bull said in a low rumble that I felt from my feet up.
Ezra, still dangling from Bull’s fist, shook his head vigorously.
“You didn’t hear her say no?” Bull said in a soft menacing voice that lifted goose bumps all over me. “Because I was over here and I heard her. So the way I see it, you had to have heard her as well, yes?”
The guy nodded.
“That’s what I thought.” Bull flung him toward his bandmates, who had come back into the bar to get more of their gear and were watching with their jaws slack. “Pack up your shit. Get the fuck out. You won’t be coming back here again.” Then he stood there, arms crossed, watching them rush to gather their stuff.
I watched all of this, mouth open. I’d never seen Bull like that before. His eyes were bright with anger, his nostrils were flaring, and those big rough-skinned hands were curled into fists. He looked brutal and beautiful, and it was probably wrong of me, but I loved it. Loved that he cared enough to do that for me.
The band rushed out of the bar, and Bull locked the door behind them then strode toward me. His nostrils were still flaring and his color was high, and to anyone else he was probably terrifying. Not to me. Never to me.
He stopped a foot in front of me, looking down with those melted-chocolate eyes, doing a sweep of my body. His gaze lingered on my mouth a spilt second before coming back to my eyes, searching mine.
“Okay, sweets?”
Sweets.
Bull was still scaring away my bullies, just like he had when I was ten.
I swallowed, mouth dry. “Yeah…yes. I’m good, really. Thanks for doing that. I realized he was wasted, and I guess I freaked out a bit.”
He was watching me intently, which meant he didn’t miss the way I was shaking, and he cursed, wrapped one of those big paws around the back of my neck, and tugged me forward, pulling me into a bear hug…a Bull hug.
His massive arms came around me, smooshing me against his huge, warm body, his scent filling my head with every breath I took. Up close he smelled even better than I imagined. Like outdoors and whiskey, with a hint of the soap he used. I lifted my arms and wrapped them around him as well, cuddling him back and shuffling forward even more, getting closer, because I couldn’t help myself.
It was everything I’d ever imagined. Better. And I melted against him.
His hand was moving on my back, sliding up and down from the base of my neck to my lower back, doing his best to soothe me. But I didn’t need soothing. I’d gotten a fright, but I really was okay. And the more Bull held me, and the more I breathed him in, the more all right I became.
In fact, my skin was kind of tingling and my heart rate had picked up speed.
His mouth lowered to my ear. “He comes near you again, I’ll snap the fucker in half,” he said.
I shivered, the deep rasp of his voice moving through me, lifting pleasurable goose bumps all over my body, and God, my nipples stiffened, growing tight and achy.
I nodded and shivered again at the feel of his beard against my cheek, his warm breath against my ear. His face was so close, his mouth right there. I could feel his heart beating, thumping heavily. I wanted to shove my hands up under his shirt and feel his hot skin against my palms.
Was it possible? Was he feeling what I was, this thing between us, this heat?
Honestly, I’d never even allowed myself to think my fantasies could become reality, because I was sure I’d only be setting myself up for big-time rejection. But standing with him, thinking about what he’d said to Dane and the way he’d reacted when anyone touched me, made me think that maybe I might be right.
Was he as turned on as I was?
The way he’d been acting since I moved back, how protective of me he was—there had to be more to it than just watching out for his best friend’s little sister. There had to be.
I wanted him. I’d wanted him for longer than I could remember.
If I pulled away, he’d let me go and I might never get another chance to find out for sure. Nerves took off in my belly like a startled flock of birds as I fisted his shirt at his sides and turned my head just a little so my lips brushed his skin, the smooth bit of his cheek just above his beard. “Thank you, Logan,” I said.
Bull stilled, the muscles under my hands tensing up.
I kissed that smooth skin again. “For everything.”
He shifted, about to pull back—I knew it with the way he tensed even more—but before he could do that, while he was still bent low enough for me to reach his mouth, I got up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his.
He didn’t kiss me back, but he didn’t move away either.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known,” I said against his insanely soft, firm lips, then kissed him again.
One of those growls rolled up from his chest and his arms banded tighter around me for a split second before he jerked his head back, breaking our tentative lip-lock.
I stumbled a little when he released me and stepped back abruptly.
I grabbed the bar for support. “Bull?”
He shoved his fingers through his hair then gripped the back of his neck. “What the fuck was that?” he rasped. “Christ, Quinn.”
Heat immediately burned my cheeks. “I just…I thought…” Wrong obviously.
His hands went to his hips and he was breathing heavily, color high. His gaze moved over me, then shot down to his feet. “Fuck,” he said again.
Oh God.
Oh God, no.
He didn’t want me. And I’d just made a complete fool of myself. “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have done that…I was just…I…” Yeah, I had nothing.
And neither did Bull.
So I spun and ran from the bar, ignoring him when he called after me.
Chapter Three
Bull
I walked out of my office and into the bar, scanning the room, seeking Quinn out since her shift started twenty minutes ago.
I frowned at the relief I felt when I saw her moving across the room, a tray of drinks balanced in her hand.
Yeah, things were weird between us, but I liked to know that she’d arrived safe. Usually she’d stop by my office and let me know, fire some smart-assed comment at me, then chuckle at my reaction.
She hadn’t done that for close to a week.
Five days she’d come in, got to work, and pretended like I didn’t exist.
She looked tired. Shit, she’d looked tired the last three months.
I stomped farther into the room and moved some tables back that had been pushed together the night before by a large group. I noted Quinn stayed as far away from me as she could while I did it.
I lifted one of the tables and carried it to its usual spot, then the chairs, with maybe a little more aggression than was necessary, but fuck, there was this tension vibrating through me I didn’t know what to do with.
Dot, one of the other waitresses, walked by and glanced at me, giving me a nervous smile, then rushed away. I frowned and looked around the room. Quinn wasn’t the only one giving me a wide berth.
Awesome. Now I was terrifying my staff.
They didn’t need me out here making them nervous. I headed back to my office where I could scowl in peace. I knew exactly why I was pissed off, and that just pissed me off more.
I shut the door behind me and sat at my desk.
“Shit.” I missed those smart-assed comments from
Quinn.
And I hated that she was avoiding me.
That kiss. My gut gripped tight at the memory. Christ, I’d almost kissed her back. What the fuck was that? It had shocked the shit out of me, that split second when I’d tightened my hold on her, when I’d contemplated tugging her closer instead of pulling away.
When the urge to kiss her back almost won out.
God knew where it had come from. I didn’t have those kinds of feelings for her, never had. She was Mase’s kid sister, that was it. Maybe we’d grown a little closer lately, kind of like friends, I guess, or at least friendly.
And yeah, her lips had felt nice, and she’d smelled really good, and her body had been all warm and soft, and, fuck…curvy. But they could have been anyone’s lips. Her body could have been anyone’s and I would have reacted the same, right?
The problem was I hadn’t had a woman in a while, and when Quinn kissed me, I got confused, that’s all. That’s all it was.
I shot to my feet, shoved my fingers through my hair, and paced to the other side of the room. We needed to forget it happened, move on, get things back to the way they were. I fucking hated all this weirdness between us. Christ, I hadn’t been sleeping, and, yeah, my mood had been foul.
We needed to put this aside, forget all about it—so I could sleep, so she’d go back to her usual smart-assed self. Teasing and joking with me and being happy and shit.
And it was up to me to fix it.
* * *
Quinn
Bull had been in his office the whole night. He was avoiding me again. He’d been doing that all week. I guess I couldn’t blame him. I’d thrown myself at him. He was probably terrified I’d do it again. Force my unwelcome, obviously unpleasant lips on his and try to make him kiss me.
My face heated.
What the hell had I been thinking? Was I so messed up after my last shitty relationship that I’d confused concern and comfort with desire? No wonder I never saw the signs, subtle or not, that my relationships were about to fall apart. All four of them.
My first real boyfriend, Travis, the guy I’d let punch my V-card who I thought I was madly in love with, had dropped me home after prom and then slept with someone else. She’d told me the next day that I was dumped while he skulked in the distance, too afraid to tell me himself. The second betrayal was Patrick. We’d been dating eight months, he’d assured me we were exclusive, but when I arrived at his apartment early to surprise him, I found him kissing his other girlfriend goodbye at his door.
Then there was Ross. He was just the nicest guy—well, I thought so. We’d had so much in common and I really thought we had this amazing connection. I was falling for him, hard. We’d been dating six months when I found him in the parking lot of the bar I worked in, in his car, getting a blow job from another woman.
And the final kick in the guts, the one that hurt the most: walking in on Bevan, my fiancé of twelve months, having sex with another woman in our bed—our neighbor, a woman I’d spent time with, had gotten to know.
Obviously not as well as Bevan.
I just hadn’t been enough, for him, for any of them.
So yeah, the universe could stop throwing assholes at me now, thanks. I’d gotten the message loud and clear. Love wasn’t in the cards for me. Stop looking.
And now I’d scared away Bull as well.
I should have found another job as soon as it happened, and if I had experience doing anything else, I might have. Hell, maybe I should’ve just packed up and gone back to Portland.
But the idea of going back, of possibly bumping into Bevan, made me feel queasy.
A couple had just sat in my section, so I forced a smile, took their order, and headed for the bar. I glanced up and stumbled a little when I saw Bull standing there. We’d managed to avoid talking to each other for five days, mainly because Bull had stayed in his office during my shifts, but it looked like my luck had run out.
Plastering a smile on my face that probably looked fake as hell but was all I could muster right then, and ignoring the humiliation burning my cheeks and the butterflies flapping like hell in my belly, I put my tray on the bar and rested my elbows on the wooden surface. “Hey, Bull.”
His brown-eyed gaze hit mine, and my belly did this involuntary swooping thing that just made me blush harder.
His brows lowered. “How you doin’?” he said, all deep and rumbly.
“All good here! You?” I didn’t meet his eyes and sounded waaaaay too cheery, utterly false, but it was too late to change tactics. I had to follow through with this whole insanely-happy-nothing-to-see-here shtick.
The way Bull was looking at me, yeah, he thought I was nuts.
Too much teeth. I was definitely flashing too much teeth. I tamped it down a bit. “Right, well, I need a Coors Light and a Rainier, please.”
“You look tired,” he muttered as he got them.
“Do I?” Not going there.
He frowned harder.
Yep, this was as awkward as I’d imagined. Only another three hours of this nightmare to go. Yay!
He put them on my tray, and I slid it off the bar, about to bolt.
“Quinn,” he said in a way that made it clear he wanted me to look at him.
Goddammit. I forced my eyes to meet his again. “Yep.”
He shoved his fingers in his hair—and going by the looks of it, he’d been doing that a lot—then he planted his big hands on the bar between us. “I’m your boss. We have to work together.”
I froze and made myself nod in agreement.
He straightened and crossed his arms. “Good. So let’s put this shit from the other night behind us, yeah?”
Ouch.
Well, that hurt more than I thought it would. My failed pass at him, that he so eloquently referred to as shit, needed to be put behind us. As if I needed more confirmation that Bull was utterly indifferent to me.
“Absolutely,” I said, giving him a tight smile. “We’re adults. Shit happens, right?” His brows lowered. “And seriously, you can stop hiding in your office. You’re safe. It was just a weak moment, that’s all. It’s been a long time between…” Fucks. Good, hard, no-holds-barred fucking. “Dates,” I choked. Not that I’d experienced the kind of sex I imagined Bull was capable of dishing out. Zaps of electricity shot through my belly. Nope. Don’t think about it. Never going to happen. “I promise not to jump you again.”
Okay, maybe that came out a little more bitter than I’d intended, but whatever. Bull didn’t care, and it was time I didn’t either. I ignored his frown and went to deliver my drinks.
* * *
The next two nights I pretended everything was back to normal. And I’d almost convinced myself it actually was.
Monday nights were always pretty quiet, and we usually used the downtime to restock the bar fridges early for the next night. And that’s exactly what I was doing until the door opened and a group of bikers walked in. One of them, who appeared to be the leader, walked straight to Bull and took his hand. They shook, thumping each other’s backs, and Bull looked happy to see the guy.
I glanced up at Dane, who was sitting at the bar in front of me, distracted by his phone. “Does Bull know him?”
Bull was such a straight-up kind of guy, and the biker in the leather vest with Ramblers MC across his back was kind of…well, scary. I mean, Rocktown residents were used to bikers. The Ramblers passed through here fairly regularly and had been riding through our town for as long as I could remember. But I wasn’t naive or uninformed. I knew these bikers didn’t follow the rules everyone else did.
“That’s Dice,” Dane said. “Him and Bull were in prison together.” A haunted look shifted through Dane’s eyes. I noticed that happened a lot when the past was brought up. The easy smiles, the jokes, the sarcasm vanished. “They got tight when they were inside, watched out for each other. Now Dice comes to Bull whenever he wants ink done.”
Bull was an extremely talented tattoo artist. Most definitely a man of many ta
lents was our Bull. You wouldn’t look at him and think he had this incredible artistic side, but he did. His work was exquisite. I’d been trying to talk him into doing something for me since I got back. I had yet to succeed.
My belly twisted weirdly. It was easy to forget Bull went to prison for a year when he was just twenty-one. I hated to think about it. How terrifying that must have been for him.
The group, Bull included, headed to one of the tables and sat down.
Dane glanced over and frowned.
“What?” I said.
“Just watch him tonight, yeah? He always drinks too much when they come to town and he starts dwelling on shit.”
I wasn’t sure what I could do. “You can’t stay?”
“Nah, I have a bachelorette party to go to.”
I raised my brows.
“Hey, it’s a work thing. The bride wants a ‘piercing station,’” he said, making air quotes with his fingers. He shrugged. “It’s good money.”
“I’m sure being surrounded by a bunch of women will be a terrible hardship for you.”
He winked and stood, still missing that spark, the wicked smile, then tilted his head toward Bull. “You’ll watch him for me?”
What could I say? “Yeah, of course.” Before he could leave, I motioned to his face and the split in his lip, the light bruising under his left eye. “Um…are you okay?”
“Just a stupid fight. S’all good.”
“You should put an ice pack on that eye.”
“Don’t worry about me. I always bounce back.”
He winked and walked out. Dot hustled over. “Can you help me take these over?” she asked, loading two trays with beers.
“Sure thing.”
She chewed her lip. “Last time they came, I was stuck here until two in the morning, and I have a date tonight. I was going to ask Bull if I could leave early.”
My shift was due to end in an hour, but after what I’d promised Dane, I knew I couldn’t leave. “I’ll stay,” I said to her. “You okay here for another hour?”
SIN FOR YOU: ROCKTOWN INK, BOOK TWO Page 3