Ripped (Real, #5)(49)

He rubs a hand down my back and trails it lower. “I think you’re hot despite your lips. I like red better. So you’re possessive about your accessories, what about the rest of you?”

He squeezes my ass.

Alarm skids through me. “Hey, we were being morose at the bar. What the hell happened to being plain old morose at the damn bar?”

He grins. “See that other guy?” He nods in the direction of Leo as he watches us from next to a big black camera. “He offered compensation if we made the night interesting for your crowd.”

“Is that so?” Leo. Ohmigod. What a douche bag.

I remove Cowboy’s hand from my ass and consider slapping him and having Leo put that in his precious movie. Cowboy squeezes my ass again. I’m getting ready to knee him in the balls when I hear Lex’s voice call out in a friendly way, “Hey, bud, you don’t want to lose that hand, trust me.”

In the opposite of a friendly way, the cowboy is suddenly pinned back on the bar with a jolt that sends a couple glasses rattling.

“You touch her again, I’m ripping your guts out through your throat.” Mackenna pushes him back against the bar even harder.

“Kenna!” Jax grabs his arms and tries to stop him.

“Fucking let go,” Kenna growls as he yanks his arms free.

I look at Leo in disbelief. He was setting up Mackenna for a show. Their precious manager would let a mass murderer in here if it would get him buzz for his precious movie. Wow. I really don’t even know what I’m doing here anymore. What am I doing? Magnolia is alone with my mother, my mother is suspicious, Mackenna is in my head, he’s in my f*cking bed. He’s getting into a bar fight because of me, as if he’s my . . . boyfriend still. Like all those years. Oh god.

I stalk across the bar, when a familiar hand with bracelets and silver rings catches me by the elbow.

“Hey, come here, look at me,” Mackenna says, and he pulls me to his side. As much as I don’t want to, I tremble at the instant release of feeling warm and safe with his arm around me as he leads me to some sort of storage room, where we find peace and quiet.

“So,” he demands.

I scowl.

“What’s going on, baby?”

Seeing him visually checking me to see if I’m all right, I scowl harder.

“You planned to stay at the bar all night?” he asks.

“I was having fun, actually,” I bait.

“Oh yeah? That sure looked like fun for that motherf*cker.” He cracks the knuckles of one hand, then the other, a violence I’ve never seen before roiling in his eyes. “Where did you run off to before?”

“I was calling home.”

He looks incredulous. “You call home in the middle of a bar?”

“Mother called me,” I mumble.

“And you can’t make her wait?”

“No, ’cause it makes it worse! It makes her suspicious, and she doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Of course not,” he agrees, his entire countenance hard.

“Stop questioning me, *, I’m not yours to command!” I push past him, and he stops me. I squirm in his hold, whining, “Let go.”

“You still dancing to any tune she sings?” he asks. “Are you?” he commands.

I don’t know if I can take the frustrated disappointment in his eyes.

“Do you crave her love so much you’d sacrifice your own dreams and everything you want to please her?” he continues.

I can’t answer.

“She’s not the only one willing and able to protect you from anything, Pandora. Anything!”

A door slams shut nearby, and Lionel walks in. A chill seems to spread. Mackenna’s eyebrows crease in contempt. “You’ve gone too far, Leo,” Mackenna whispers, a low threat.

“Kenna, relax. Where’s your sense of humor?”

A muscle flexes angrily in Mackenna’s jaw. “It’ll come back when I have my fist where I want it on your face.” Reaching out to me, he hooks a finger into the loops of my jeans and tugs me to his side. “I’m taking her back to the hotel. No cameras.”

“One camera. Just one,” Leo pleads.

“Fuck you, Leo.”

Mackenna pulls me angrily out of there, and I follow. One of the camera guys is stumbling behind us. “And f*ck you too, Noah.” Mackenna flips the camera. The call with my mother reminds me of why Mackenna and I can never be.

I should tell him right now.

Stop this right now.

But knowing I have to stop it makes me want it all the more.

“I don’t need you to give some * a purple eye for me anymore,” I huff as he guides me outside.

“Great. Now you choose to be chatty,” he grumbles.

We slide into the hotel limo, and he looks at me as Noah climbs in next to him, camera and all. Silence settles in the car. Mackenna stares at Noah in quiet rage, then at me. I meet his gaze, because backing down is a sign of weakness and I can’t stand him to know he makes my knees weak.

His eyes flick to my lips. I can almost taste him. Each of the two hundred kisses he gave me in our teens, and the dozens he’s given me since I’ve been with him again. He kisses so well. I used to name his kisses. The sleepy kiss and the smiling kiss, the seductive kiss and the laughing kiss. Right now he looks like he wants to Kiss Me To Death. He looks concentrated like he’s kissing me in his head.