Reckless Temptations (Tempted #4)(34)

No one owned me.

I pulled out, setting her down on her feet before tucking my swollen cock back into my jeans. Lauren repositioned her dress, tugging the hem down her legs and shoved her breasts back in place. I looked down at her bare feet then lifted my eyes to hers as she pushed her glasses onto her nose.

She looked shocked, as if she had just woken up from a bad dream and didn’t know where she was. I bent down, picked up one shoe and glanced around for the other. Then I remembered when and where she threw it at me. I stepped around the corner of the building into the parking lot and recovered the lost heel.

“Riggs! There you are,” Wolf shouted across the lot. “Pops is looking for you. He found you a match in the ring,” he hollered.

Oh fuck! I forgot about that.

“I’ll be right there!” I yelled as I picked up Lauren’s shoe. I straightened up and turned around. Lauren took the shoe from my hand and slipped it on her bare foot.

“Lauren,” I started, not really knowing what to say.

“I’ve got to go,” she interrupted, closing her eyes before pointing her finger toward the Dog Pound. “Mia is inside,” she said in a whisper, looking all around the parking lot but not at me. “Can you please tell her I’m leaving? I don’t want to go back inside,” she pleaded softly.

I cupped her chin, turning her head so that her eyes were forced to lock with mine.

“Take a deep breath,” I ordered.

She inhaled sharply, slowly releasing a deep breath.

“Very good,” I encouraged. “We’re good. It’s just sex. We’re still Kitten and Tiger,” I reassured.

Lauren was a good girl. She’s probably never had a fling, much less a cheap one on the side of a building. She was a girl you spooned not one you walked away from to go win a fight. She deserved more, but I wasn’t the guy to give it to her so I did the right thing and calmed her down.

I lied to her.

We weren’t still Kitten and Tiger.

We were nothing.

“Kitten and Tiger,” she repeated, taking another breath before a smile worked her swollen lips. “Still friends,” she affirmed.

“Still friends,” I lied.

What a fucking night.

Join an MC, they said.

It will be fun, they said.

They were fucking liars.





Chapter Eleven





So much for being the smart girl.

I was the biggest fool to ever walk the face of the Earth, or possibly the most inexperienced one. As much as I hated to admit it, my brother was right. In not so many words, he warned me that this would happen. But that’s what you get when a girl like me plays with the big dogs. I should never have gone to Riggs’ patch party. I should have been smarter. I should have realized I was way out of my league setting my sights on a guy like him.

But I wasn’t thinking.

Riggs robbed me of my sanity that first night I laid eyes on him. He made me want things I had no business wanting someone like him. I was so jaded that I actually believe he liked me. Imagine that? A sexy guy like him, a patched member of a motorcycle club, a man who had women dropping to their knees with the snap of his fingers.

I didn’t attract guys like Riggs, and even if I did, there was no way he’d stick. I was so angry with myself because I knew all of this, and still; I set myself up for the way I was now feeling. I just couldn’t resist him despite the warning bells signaling he was all wrong for me.

Believing him when he said nothing would change, that we were still just Kitten and Tiger—that took the cake, labeling me the dumbest girl ever.

Stupid, stupid girl.

Sex changes things.

Sex in a parking lot, against a wall, destroys things.

And still, knowing that, I tried to analyze why things changed. He claimed it was just sex, making it sound so casual, like it was nothing. I went home that night and drilled those things into my head, making light of it because he promised we’d still be friends. I pushed the memories of him inside of me away, forgetting the way I felt alive, and for the first time I came with hardly any effort from my partner.

The next morning, I texted him like I usually did asking him how his first day with a patch felt. Corny? Maybe, but at least I didn’t meow again. I still can’t believe I did that.

Riggs never answered my text that morning, and I made an excuse, telling myself he was too hung over and probably had slept in.

So, I sent him another text later that night, securing the end of Kitten and Tiger, by declaring him my Prince Charming because he found my other shoe after I threw it.

Guess what?

Prince Charming didn’t answer that one either.

I didn’t text him after that for two days—every time I felt the urge Mia came through with a tub of tiramisu gelato. I think the first few days were just as rough on her but she redeemed herself as my best friend. She made a dartboard and taped a picture of a tiger to the bullseye. That was fun for a while.

Until it wasn’t.

I lost my job at The Pink Pussycat and he was the first person I wanted to tell. And not because he and Mia were the only people who knew where I really worked, but because I knew he’d make me feel better about being laid off on top of everything else.

And so I called him.

It went to voicemail.

I hung up.