Pressing her palms on the counter, Ayda used the surface to lift her body, her top half swinging closer as she kicked out. It was a silent request for a kiss, but the words were my incentive. “Have I told you that I love you today, Tucker?”
“Nope,” I answered, popping the P, even though she had. I was still leaning on my elbow, staring at her like she was something I could devour on the spot.
“I love you.” She pushed that little farther over the counter and pressed her lips against mine. Rocking back, she repeated the cycle all over again until, after the fourth I love you, she slipped her tongue between my lips, ignoring the catcalls that rose around us.
I wasted no time pulling her to me and keeping her there, my tongue assaulting hers with a possession I had no shame in showing. I could never get close enough. There was no such thing as too much when she was kissing me, touching me, or pressed against me. It took two seconds for our kiss to turn desperately hungry, and that was when I picked her up and spun her around, planting her on the stool where Jacob had been sitting before I stepped in between her parted legs.
The men around us grumbled. Deeks made cries of how he couldn’t see his girl doing that. Kenny pretended to be sick. Jedd made himself known for the first time with his wolf whistle. Slater’s cackle filled the air enough to tell me he was turning my name into a joke at whatever table he was sitting at.
I didn’t give a shit. I was alive. I was pumped, and I’dgone through every emotion possible during that day until it had turned into night. All I wanted to do was kiss Ayda and smile against her lips every time we bumped in the wrong direction.
When we eventually pulled away from each other, I pushed both hands through her hair and held her at the back of the neck.
“You okay?”
“Never better,” she said huskily, as Janette slid our food onto the counter beside us. She looked up at me, those blue eyes searching mine, plowing beyond the surface and venturing deep enough so I could feel her there. “Thank you.”
“Be careful what you’re thanking me for. Something tells me I’ve just woken a beast dressed as a skinny coach,” I told her honestly. “He isn’t just going to go away. You ready for another fight?”
Ayda laid her palm flat against my cut and her gaze turned serious. “I’m thanking you for always having my back. Jacob’s not smart enough to cut his losses and run. He’s too proud to take that on the nose and live quietly. I don’t care what words he throws my way, but if he even tries to take our differences out on Tate…” Her eyes flashed. “He’ll find out just how muchI’vechanged.”
“Tate will be safe. Everyone has a skeleton in their closet. I’m gonna find out what Jacob’s is, and I’m going to exploit the fuck out of it.” I pushed my forehead to hers and whispered, “I got skills, darlin’.”
“I know you do. I just hope there’s enough there to crush him like the bug he is.”
“No one is ever that confident without having a colorful history.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Then let’s look, and when we find whatever it is, let’s nail his ass to the wall.”
“I love it when you get violent,” I whispered as I brushed my lips over hers.
“I love it when you encourage me,” she said, nipping my bottom lip.
The sound of yelling from outside the diner pulled everyone’s attention, including ours, away from what they were doing. Jacob’s frustrated shouting and ranting filled the air before he cursed The Hounds in every which way imaginable.
And while everyone else in the diner laughed and cheered at the way we’d screwed him over, I couldn’t help but narrow my eyes and fake a smile as I looked around at them all.
I knew that kid.
I just had to figure out where from.
And why the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention when I thought about those green eyes staring back at me.
Chapter Ten
AYDA
If there was a word for something bigger than hate, which was also much less impassioned, that’s what I needed to describe how I felt about Jacob Hove being the coach of the Babylon Bulldogs football team. He’d never been a huge fan of my kid brother when we’d been teenagers. Tate had wanted to play football since he was old enough to hold pigskin in his hands, so he’d idolized my high school boyfriend because he’d been one of the best players on the team at the time. Unfortunately, Jacob had been more interested in getting his hands up my skirt, and he’d found it annoying that this kid, almost ten years our junior, would hide from us behind the first thing he could find and only make himself known by giggling before running away, knowing full well I would follow him.
After Mom and Dad died, and Jacob had sent me his breakup email, Tate had changed his whole perspective on Jacob, and the hero worship had turned into a deep loathing. Every time Tate’s classmates had brought up Jacob’s name as the best player the school had ever seen, Tate would snort and get his punishment for his insubordination by doing laps. All for his big sister’s honor. This was the very reason I had to be the one to tell him what was coming. The season may haveended for the Bulldogs, but that didn’t mean practice was over. They would bring in Jacob as soon as they could so the team would get used to him long before the new season started, and with the MC at his back, Tate was having a harder time keeping his opinion to himself these days.
To sweeten Tate up a little, I’d brought him and Libby burgers, fries, and one of Janette’s apple pies, with a tub of vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. He was always a little more cooperative with a full stomach—so were most of The Hut’s inhabitants, come to think of it. I found him and Libby in the room that had been set aside for me. I let them, as well as Sloane and the twins, in there to do homework and watch TV. I’d bought him a new video gaming system for Christmas, which he had hooked up as well.
“Hungry?” I asked, swinging around the doorframe with the bag of food dangling from one finger. Drew had gone to sort something out before he came to help me try to explain how we were going to handle this, so I was on my own for now.
“Always,” Tate said, glancing over his shoulder at me. He had the game controller in his hands and his forearms balanced on his knees as he played. Libby was on her stomach on the bed next to him, half-heartedly reading some fashion magazine that was barely holding her interest. Pressing the menu button that called a map to the screen, he made a grabby hand at the bag of food, his big frame no longer fitting his youthful face as he grinned up at me. “Come on, sis, don’t hold out on me. I smell the apple pie from here.”
Libby laughed, rolling to her side and propping her head up with one hand, her smile bright. After the incident at the warehouse, the two of them had been on rocky ground for awhile, but they’d pushed through their differences, made up, and though she hated him spending time with Sloane, she never complained aloud. Sloane had needed a friend, and that was all Tate had been for her.
