Better When He's Bad (Welcome to the Point #1)(34)

He gave me a sharp look and then noticed the other woman checking him out. Where my brother would have smiled at her, maybe offered her a little wink or something, Bax just stared at her until she had no choice but to look away.

“I had to win because you were there.”

I handed him stuff as he tossed it on the belt. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You fight until one guy is down, like out, unconscious or dead. If I lost, then you would be in that club and Nassir would have served you up to the wolves. Benny, Novak, whoever he thought he could hand you over to, and get the most out of it. He knew I wouldn’t lose.”

I just looked at him like he had suddenly sprouted horns.

“That other guy had a knife. He could’ve won.”

“But he didn’t.”

I growled a little, which made him smirk at me. “I knew I should’ve ignored that text. How would Novak even get ahold of my number to set you up like that?”

He lifted a shoulder and handed a bunch of bills over to the cashier.

“Criminals always seem to have the information they need. Come on, we need to stop somewhere so I can grab a new hoodie and some T-shirts.” He rolled his gaze over me and a grin kicked up the side of his mouth. “You should let me buy you some pants that actually fit.”

I wanted him to keep his mind out of my pants altogether. I helped him haul all our stuff to the car.

“Where have you been staying? I mean, you have nothing at your mom’s house, and even if you’ve been bouncing from bed to bed in the weeks you’ve been out, you have to have someplace to land eventually.”

He looked at me over the trunk as he slammed it closed. “I have a place I keep in the Point. A crash pad where all my crap is at. I haven’t really been in a different bed every night. I tend to stick with tried and true.”

I gave him a chilly look as he pulled open the door for me to slide in. “I don’t think that makes it any better.”

He just shrugged again and closed the door. “A guy has needs, but so does a girl. She just needs the right person to make her hot enough to ask for them to be met.”

He wasn’t an overly talkative guy, which was a good thing. When he put his mind to it, he could spin words in a way that was hard to argue with.

“I’ve never met a guy I wanted to ask.” I muttered it under my breath, hoping he might not hear me. Of course he did, though, and just laughed at me.

“That’s because you haven’t figured out what it is you need yet. You will, though.”

I looked out the window and openly sulked as he drove us to a small outlet mall halfway between the heart of downtown and the street where the bungalow was located. I was going to be stubborn and sit in the car while he went in and got what he needed, but I should have figured out by now that Bax got what Bax wanted because he bodily lifted me out of the passenger seat and pinned me to the side of the car. I was pouting and he was laughing down at me.

“You can have as big of a fit as you want, Copper-Top. I think you’re cute when you pout.” He put his thumb on the center of my bottom lip and pressed down. I snapped at him with my teeth and then forgot my name because he bent his head down and kissed me.

His lip was still split on the bottom, so there was a weird scrape of raw skin mixed with the soft press of his mouth against mine. He forced his tongue in to tangle with my own, and unbidden, my arms ended up wrapped around his neck while he pressed into me. His teeth worried along the curve of my lower lip, and my heart started pounding with the press and retreat of his mouth. This was mimicked by the slight press of his lean hips where they were pressed against my own. I gasped and he took full advantage by pressing farther into me and twisting his tongue even farther with my own. Kisses shouldn’t make you want to crawl inside the other person, but oh man, his sure did.

When he pulled back his bottom lip, it was slick with moisture and blood. His eyes glittered like jewels and there was no pretending that I wasn’t pressing up on the tips of my toes as high as I could get to reach all of him or that my hands were clutching desperately at his broad shoulders.

“If I had to guess what you needed from me right now, what do you think that would be?”

I wanted to knee him in the groin, but he shifted just in time and clasped my hand in his much larger, more battered one.

“Let’s get some stuff and go put the groceries away.”

I had a sneaking suspicion “put the groceries away” was code for “break into that box of condoms.” I was getting run over by him, and I wasn’t sure if I should be thrilled or terrified by it.

CHAPTER 7

Bax

I NEVER MET A girl who was more stubborn, more complicated, or more fun to rile up than this one. She came by that redheaded temper naturally. I tried twice to get her to let me buy her a pair of pants that would actually fit her tiny waist and long-ass legs, but she just gave me a dirty look and wandered off. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was mad I wanted to spend blood money on her, or because she was pissed I didn’t like her tomboy look. It didn’t really bother me, I could see she was hiding in plain sight now, and I felt it was like my duty as a red-blooded male to get her over it. After getting just a peek at what she was covering up with all those ugly, baggy clothes, I knew it wasn’t right for her to feel like she had to blend into the drab and dreary of all that was the Point.