Jax (Titan #9)(23)

"Not a thing," she whispered.

His chin ducked to her ear, brushing against her skin as the stubble from his chin connected with her neck. "Liar."

She smelled like sweet perfume and addictive flowers, as though she had spent her time shopping in Colombia's flower markets today rather than doing anything with the drug cartel.

A hand clamped down on Jax's shoulder, and he swung around, fist balled, only stopping when Seven snapped at the other man's name. Skull.

"This guy bothering you?" Skull had crossbones stitched on his leather cut where others had a name, and he snarled as though still looking for a fight.

Seven blew him off. "You need to chill out."

Skull. The names this group had… Jax worked hard not to laugh.

Skull twisted toward Jax. "What's your problem?"

"No problem," Seven reiterated. "He's a friend."

"Doesn't seem like much of a friend," Skull said.

Jax was one drunk biker away from having enough with Mayhem. "Neither do you, jackass. But you don't see me running my mouth."

"Both of you, stop," Seven ordered, pushing her way in between them. "Don't be stupid."

Skull looked down at Seven as though she needed to reaffirm that Jax wasn't bothering her. "You sure?"

"I'm positive," Seven swore and made a cross over her heart. "Don't worry about him. He's like the annoying little brother that just needs attention. Good or bad, I handle Jax how I handle my kids when they misbehave. Similar to how I'm about to handle you. Read me?"

Did Seven just say 'my kids'? He opened his mouth but thought better of it.

Skull sneered but listened like Seven told him to. "You change your opinion on this one, you find me."

But Jax was far past the alpha standoff with the dickhead. Seven had kids? And she said he needed attention? Nope. He didn't want attention; he just wanted her.

His eyes narrowed, wondering what else he'd missed about her. Not knowing if her nips were pierces was one thing, but this was like being blindsided. How did somebody have children and a friend not know? …Because they weren't really friends.

Jax ran a hand over his face. "I gotta go. See you."

Too much spun in his mind, and Skull grumbled behind his back that he shouldn't have walked into a Mayhem bar to start.

"Right." Jax grabbed an abandoned beer bottle and tossed it over his shoulder, listening to it shatter on the ground as he kept walking. It didn't make him feel any better.

Seven's cold laugh carried through the biker crowd. "Bad attention for the win."

Yeah, said the woman who needed just as much attention as he did with her pink hair and piercings.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Fifteen minutes of Hawke and Tex giving Seven hell was about fifteen more minutes than Seven could handle. At least Skull had wandered off to be with his group of drunks.

She popped another piece of fried sweet dough into her mouth. She had no idea what it was, but once she started, she couldn't stop eating it. "You both realize that you're not my keeper, right?"

"Yeah, but then what fun would we have?" Hawke asked and bumped fists with Tex like they were twelve and not the leaders of Mayhem.

"If I was interested in Jax, I don't need your thumbs up."

"You're not." Tex snorted then guzzled down the rest of his beer. "Piss poor match."

Hawke nodded. "They go together like bikes and oil slicks."

"Unfinished chrome and a week in the rain."

"You guys are dicks." Seven pointed her finger at Hawke then Tex. "And not dicks in the cool 'I want to hang out with you and grab a beer' kind of way. The kind where you're giving me a headache and I want to get out of here."

"Fine, go, get outta here. You're a buzzkill, anyway."

If Seven hadn't thought that Hawke would get some satisfaction out of her tossing the bird at him, she would have thrown up both middle fingers. But that would've only made him beam. "I'm calling the night. Try not to bring home anything that will give you scabies."

She turned on her heel and left to the sound of the two drunkards ribbing, their poor match comparisons getting worse and worse.

The last thing Seven wanted to do was go to her hotel room, sit there, and think about Jax and his attitude problem and all the ways he had nailed how she might react to him. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was a Navy SEAL and everything to do with him walking up to her in a bar full of bikers and giving no fucks as he wrapped his arms around her and make her melt.

He had to have known what a dominant act like that would do to her inside, and she hated it. Hated him? Yes, hated him for reading her so well.

The night was unexpectedly cold and quiet. She slowed in front of a swank hotel. Their clientele would cater to anyone but Mayhem and military rogues, and there wasn't a motorcycle in sight. Only a bellman standing outside even at the late hour and a Mercedes awaiting valet service. She mentally willed there to be a menu of drinks inside in which somebody had put considerable thought into. Even if that wasn't the case, this wasn't the kind of place where anyone could toss a beer bottle and let it shatter without security being called.

Seven took a deep breath that was straight out of a meditation chant and changed her path from wherever she was going to straight inside that hotel.