Ripped (Real, #5)(46)

“Judging by . . .”—I rock my hips—“I’m guessing a lot?”

He laughs against my breast and it makes his laugh that much hotter. “I want you a hell of a lot more than a lot.” He lifts his face, then his gaze looks haunted. “Pandora . . . ,” he says as if it’s the beginning of something else, his thumb ring running up my rib cage. “What happened?” He studies me. “What happened?”

I close my eyes and breathe deep as a thousand words slam into me. You f*cking left! You broke my heart. I weathered my mother alone. I lost my will to live. I lost what we could have had.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” he says, turning my head by the chin. But I can’t look at him.

I can’t.

Suddenly, there’s a noise outside and a knock. “Hey! Dora! DORRRRA! Hey! We’ve got the alcohol! Open up, bitch!”

I groan.

“That Liv and Tit?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Dude, you’re friends with those two vipers? They want your head on a stake.” He sounds annoyed as f*ck. And now, with this interruption, actually so am I.

“Any other girls around I can hang with? No. So yes, we’re friends.”

He sighs and edges back, then quietly stands. No. No, no, no! I think, panic rushing through me as my body is rocked with shudders of need.

“You want me to go?” he asks.

No. No, I don’t. I don’t.

But once again I sit here, watching him, speechless, and he’s watching me back. “Nod your head if you want me to stay,” he says, softening his voice.

His hands are flexing at his sides as if he’s anxious for my answer. I motion my head, and I’m not sure if it’s a yes or a no. He sighs, then slips his T-shirt over his head. As he heads to the door, panic grips me. He’s not coming back to bed.

“Mackenna!” I yell to stop him—at the exact moment he yanks the door open.

“Take the party elsewhere. She’s got company,” he growls low in his throat.

And slams the door shut in their faces.

I blink, my heart completely motionless in my chest. He turns around to me, his eyes like flames on my skin. “One day, you’ll beg for it.” He jerks his shirt off again.

My heart pounds as he crosses the room. “In your dreams, Mackenna,” I bluff.

He only laughs softly and shakes his head. “You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that. But you’ll wear down.”

“Never.”

He leans over and, suddenly, all his male weight is hovering over me, his lips pressing to my ear in the most tender kiss I’ve ever felt.

“No, babe. Always.”





ELEVEN


THERE ARE BULLIES AROUND, AND BY “BULLY” I DON’T MEAN ME


Pandora


The band makes it to a rodeo bar in west Texas. Olivia, Tit, and the other female dancers are flirting with a group of cowboys, and they haven’t so much as glanced in my direction, which leaves me in the guy section—where the Vikings are treating me like some long-lost sister. The only good thing about this is that my new official, and very first, f*ck buddy seems to be a little jealous at my side.

“Hands,” he growls when Lex sets his hand on my knee while flexing the length of his arm and showing off his snake tattoo.

“Fuck, you’re kidding, right?” he asks, his eyebrows drawing low over his violet eyes.

“It look like I’m kidding?” Mackenna answers with deceptive softness as he slides his hand proprietarily under my hair to lightly caress the back of my neck.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I scoff, but I’m secretly delighting in this development as I squirm to get free from his hold.

Nobody has ever—ever—made me feel as wanted, protected, and, well . . . annoyed as Mackenna.

But I’m just rolling with it because, well, tonight I feel more of the former than the latter. Maybe because of all the orgasms? He has that ability to relax me with a couple of those . . .

“Hands, Lex,” he growls again, gently squeezing my nape, and I don’t know what it is about his bossiness today, but does he not remember that all there is between us now is sex? He sounds like he sounds in bed.

But he also sounds jealous. He hasn’t got it through that hard skull of his that I don’t mind Lex’s hand on my thigh. It doesn’t give me head-to-toe shivers like Mackenna’s hand on the back of my neck. Right now, in fact, the hand on the back of my neck makes me feel so warm, my bloodstream feels like fire through my veins. Every cell in my body, every pore, is buzzing at the touch, awakened by the way his thumb ring runs up to stroke behind my ear. What do I do with myself when he has such an effect?

Do him again tonight?

Do him until you’ve had so much of him you’ll never want him again?

“Dude, I get it.” Lex finally pulls his hand away and sets his arm out on the table to allow me a full view of the snake curling around his wrist and up his muscled arm.

“I was born the year of the Chinese snake. Symbol is always with me now,” he explains to me.

“Wow,” I say, and Jax, who sits across the booth, opens up his palm, and I can see a snake curling around his thumb too. I lean across the table to investigate while Mackenna’s hand slides down my spine and rests on my butt, where he gives it a little pat.