Undeniable (Undeniable, #1)(28)

“Frankie! I can’t breathe! Get off!”

Grunting, he pushed himself up a few inches. “I’m tryin’, babe, but you’re not lettin’ me back in.”

“Ahhh!” I yelled, shoving him as hard as I could—which wasn’t very hard, but I did manage to shove him off to the side, so I was able to roll away.

Frankie rolled, too, reaching for me. I jumped backward and slapped his hands away. Glaring at him, I headed into the bathroom to dress.

“Remind me why we had to sleep at the club?” I asked, stepping into my underwear, and then slipping my jersey cotton sheath dress over my head.

“Got a meetin’ this mornin’.”

I pulled my hair up and turned on the faucet. Scooping water in my hands, I started washing my face. “So why did I have to stay at the club?”

“Can’t sleep without you, babe.”

Grabbing Frankie’s toothbrush, I loaded it with toothpaste and shoved it in my mouth.

“What’s the meeting about?” I mumbled around the toothbrush.

“Bunch of MCs havin’ trouble with Angelo Buonarroti. Seems the douchebag put out a coupla bids for the same jobs. Things got messy; brothers got buried. Need to get this shit straightened out. Maybe Buonarroti needs to go to ground. We’ll see.”

I spit, rinsed the toothbrush, and put it back in its holder. Then I grabbed my makeup bag and set to work making myself look presentable.

“Gonna go have breakfast with Kami while you’re working.”

“At her place?”

I leaned forward, dotting some cover-up underneath my eyes. “Probably.”

“Don’t like that f*cker she married,” Frankie muttered.

I grinned. “Who does?”

Chase Henderson was a high-paid lawyer for a very successful leading law firm and had made partner by the age of twenty-five. We all went to prep school together, but he went to Harvard, whereas Kami and I stayed in Manhattan to attend NYU. Their parents had arranged their marriage a long time ago. It was ridiculously old-school, but it wasn’t unheard of in their circle. There were many wealthy political families that still practiced arranged marriages.

Chase was extraordinarily good-looking in an all-American Calvin Klein underwear model kind of way. Never once had I seen him not clean-shaven and without one of many designer outfits on. He never had a single gelled hair out of place and always wore a pissed-off, haughty expression. There was nothing simple or comfortable about him. He reminded me of a house that was too expensive, too new, too clean, and too perfect to feel comfortable in.

Kami despised him.

She had been cheating on him with her personal trainer since they got home from their honeymoon. He cheated on her with a variety of women, none of whom lasted longer than a few weeks, if that.

It was ridiculous.

“Don’t like the way he looks at you, babe.”

I snorted. “Frankie, you don’t like anyone looking at me. Period. You didn’t like my college professors looking at me when I raised my hand. Remember Professor Reynolds? Daddy had to pay him off big-time for the beating you gave him. Besides, Chase thinks I’m biker trash.”

“Bitch, get a f*ckin’ clue!” Frankie yelled. “Asshole looks at you like he’s f*ckin’ starvin’, and you’re a goddamn steak!”

Letting my hair down, I rolled my eyes. Men. Always hungry.

“Don’t you have a meeting to get to?”

“Waitin’ for your sweet ass, so I can walk you out.”

I shook my head and smiled at him.

Frankie was a great-looking man. Long brown hair, a scruffy beard, a body made for sex, and covered in tattoos and sexy scars. He was good in bed, too. A good combination of attentive and demanding, and he didn’t stray. This I knew because wherever I was—at home, at the clubhouse, in the supermarket, in the shower—Frankie was there, too. Or somewhere nearby. Or on his way there. Or Skyping me. Or tracking me through my cell phone with his cell phone.

Three years ago, I came home from Montana and was met with insanity the likes of which I’d never seen before. The club was in an uproar—first, because I was missing and second, because Frankie completely flipped his shit and was beating on anyone who got near him, beating himself with the butt of his gun, bashing his head and fists into walls until they bled, and screaming, swearing, and cursing me to hell.

Ignoring my father’s temper tantrum and responsibility speech, I went straight to Frankie’s room and found him curled up in a corner covered in blood.

“Shit,” I muttered, getting to my knees beside him.

“Frankie,” I whispered. “Baby, look at me.”

He moved fast. His hands shot out and gripped both my forearms. Dragging me down to the floor, he rolled over on top of me. Blood-encrusted eyelids blinked down at me.

“Eva,” he croaked. “Where the f*ck have you been?”

“I just needed some breathing room, baby. I’m sorry I left you.”

He cupped my cheeks, ran his fingers through my hair, then down to my shoulders, and up and down my arms. Before I knew it, his hands were all over me, pulling the top of my sundress down, baring my breasts. He took one in his hand and the other in his mouth.

“Fuck,” I breathed. “Frankie, no…”

“Not waitin’ anymore, babe,” he muttered around my breast. Lifting his hips, he pulled the hem of my dress up.