She shook her head and raised her bottle to her lips. Fucking perfect lips they were as well. Pink and fat—no doubt soft too. Fucking perfect for…
She downed half of her beer, just like I had, and I twitched beneath my towel because it was damn hot watching a woman down beer like that. Especially when she dragged the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe away the excess beer. Fuck that was hot.
“I’m Laney. Not just Gauge’s kid,” she said. “And I’m a big fucking girl who can take care of herself, but if you’re afraid of big bad Gauge…”
My eyes widened and I snorted out a laugh, more than happy when she let out a sigh and then retorted with her own laugh.
“I’m not afraid of shit,” I replied.
“Everyone’s afraid of something,” she said with a shake of her head.
I quirked an eyebrow. She was right; everyone was afraid of something, but then most people hadn’t lived the life I had.
Laney sighed. “Whatever, look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t take my shit out on you. Gauge just makes me so fucking mad.” She screwed up her hands and scowled again, but she looked cute when she was angry, not scary, so I couldn’t help but smile again.
“Gauge?” I asked and she nodded. “I think dads are meant to make us mad,” I joked, but the joke fell bitterly between us.
I swallowed and started to sweat, not sure what to say then, and Skinny was still staring at us, waiting to see if I was going to make a move on her and practically salivating down himself as he stared at her ass perched on the edge of the stool.
“Name’s Jesse,” I said. “That was my brother Butch that you just almost killed with the door.”
“Sorry about that too,” she said, her cheeks turning pink and making me think how pink they’d be after she came. “He was just collateral damage.”
I shrugged and laughed. “If he wasn’t so hungover, he would have had quicker reflexes, so we’ll just blame him for the near-death experience and call it quits,” I replied, enjoying the shy smile that crept up her face.
“Near-death experiences seem to follow me around,” she said, turning suddenly wistful and looking away.
She was beautiful even when she was sad. Maybe more so. Because when her expression cleared of all the other conflicting emotions, it left her skin smooth for me to see the truth of who she was underneath it all. And what I saw in her was so close to my own feelings that it startled me.
“You sound like me now,” I said, and she watched me intently, her gaze almost seeing into my soul.
“You’re always here,” she suddenly said, her mask slipping back into place just as quickly as it had fallen.
I shrugged again. “It’s where I live.”
A small frown came across her forehead and I wanted to reach out and smooth it out with the pad of my thumb, but thought better of it.
“You live here? I thought this was just like a meet place or something, and that everyone lived somewhere else,” she asked bluntly.
I chugged some more beer, not really wanting to get into it, yet with her I felt like the truth was the only good enough answer to give. And if I was going to be truthful with anyone, I wanted it to be her.
“Butch and I, we’re brothers and we came to live here when we were little kids. Hardy’s our dad and we uhh, well, neither of us get along with good ole’ dad. Never have, and I doubt we ever will.” The images swirled just below the surface, but I refused to give too much thought to them.
“Why? Where’s your mom?” She knew as soon as she’d asked the question what the answer should be, though I wasn’t sure how because I wasn’t exactly an emotional guy. “Shit, I’m sorry! You don’t have to answer that.” Her cheeks flushed pink and she looked away, embarrassed.
“It’s okay, it doesn’t bother me. My mom died when I was real young and I don’t remember much about her anymore. Hardy took me and my brother in, but since he was here practically every night, working until real late, it just made sense to fix us up with permanent bedrooms here. Everyone in the club raised us, so we have a big-ass family, which has its upsides as well as its downsides,” I chuckled.
I wanted to ask about her, about what things she enjoyed doing, what things she hated doing. I wanted to know everything from her favorite childhood memory to her favorite band. She was pussy-whipping me without me even getting a scent of her on my fingers. It was fucking ridiculous. No,Iwas fucking ridiculous, yet there was nothing I could do to stop the patheticness from shining bright like a three-hundred-watt bulb in the black of night.
I took another drink of my beer and tried to calm myself down before I said or did something stupid. She looked back to me, her gaze watching the bottle at my mouth. She swallowed when I did, and I swear to God I think we shared a fucking Hallmark moment.
She looked away first, and I cleared my throat and scrambled for something to say to break the awkward silence that had fallen between us again.
“Why were you so upset?” I asked bluntly, because I needed to break the tension between us because all I could think about right then was her nipples and how painfully hard I felt below my towel.
“What?” she asked, turning to look back at me.
“Before—when you got here, you were upset. Why?”
