Recognition hits. I think he’s the guy from The After Party—chiseled jaw and black T-shirt. With his eyes still locked on mine, he reaches for the flyers I posted and rips them all down, causing the paper to tear in one corner and the tack from the other to skitter against the ground.
I want to snatch the flyers from his hand, but something stops me. “Are you interested in boarding a horse? You would only need one of those.” I’m proud of how even my voice is. I extend my arm, expecting him to give me back some of the flyers. He just tilts his head to the side and examines me as if he doesn’t understand why I’m speaking to him. He must really be high.
The fact that he’s staring at me and not responding at all is weird. I take another step away from him. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to put my phone number and address on the paper. What the heck is he even doing here if he is the guy from the club? I’m a good forty miles from Detroit.
“I don’t have a horse yet,” he finally says, looking down at the ground briefly before meeting my eyes again. His voice is deep and a little smoky, which I imagine is from all the weed wafting off of him. “It says you offer lessons, what kind?” he adds, never even looking at the flyers in his hand. It makes me wonder how long he was standing behind me.
“Um, mostly riding, grooming, and care. Do you mind if I put those back up?” I motion for the papers in his hand. I don’t want him to have them. I watch his fist tighten, crinkling the papers, but he extends them to me slowly. I look up at his face before I prepare to take them. He’s sporting a lopsided grin, and it changes everything about him.
“Sorry, I’m a little out of it. I’m baked,” he admits without shame. “You look kind of familiar, and that was throwing me off also.” Gone is the intimidating man with the intense eyes and vacant stare. Even his posture shifts, seeming less imposing.
I take the flyers from him and tack them back up on the board while I keep checking on him over my shoulder. I don’t know how to address the fact that I look familiar. Should I admit I remember him from the bar?
She’s freaked out.I can tell by the way she keeps inching away from me. I usually like when I get a rise out of her, but since my high ass decided it would be a good idea to follow her into the store, I need to play it cool.
“I’m certain I’ve seen you before,” I insist. I saw the flare of recognition in her eyes when she realized she’s seen me previously. It would take a lot more work to convince her she was wrong about recognizing me than it would to make her think it’s just a coincidence that we just ran into each other. As she looks up at me with her big hazel eyes, a plan forms in my head. She’s already mine, she’s been mine since the moment she walked through the doors of my club. I may as well get her used to the idea, and there’s no better time than the present.
“Wait a minute, were you at the club this weekend?” I work hard to infuse my words with emotion. It’s so much harder than allowing everyone to see how apathetic I am.
“The After Party?” she asks softly. She doesn’t know I know her from The Dollhouse.
“Yeah, you were at Jayson’s table.” I hate even saying the fucker’s name to her. I try for a smile, but when her brows furrow, I think it comes off more as a sneer. Fuck. I’m getting this all wrong.
“I guess, my friend is talking to a guy named Jay. So do you live around here?” She cocks her hip to the side and tilts her head. She’s suspicious.
“I have a place not too far from here. You?” I hate this bullshit small talk. I don’t even know how to do it, and it pisses me off. I already know everything about her, and the only thing she needs to know about me is she’s mine in every way.
“My ranch isn’t very far,” she says almost reluctantly. Good girl.
With another woman, I would just be up front and tell her my expectations, and if she’s not on board, I’d advise her to walk. But I don’t have that option with her. I’m going to have to make her like me.Nobody fucking likes me. I’m a prick. They fear me, respect me, but they don’t like me. When I imagined this moment in my head, I always just thought about taking her, not giving her an option, but now as I look at her, I realize I don’t want only her fear or respect—I want her to want me as badly as I want her.
The realization freaks me the fuck out. I reach into my pocket and drag out my phone, pretending I’m getting a text. “I gotta take this, but I was serious about the lessons. I’ll see you around.” I turn and walk away from her without giving her a chance to respond. On my way to the doors, I grab a big ass bag of dog food and chuck it up on my shoulder, recognizing I would need an excuse to be in the store. I feel her eyes on my back, and it makes my blood pump faster.
The chick at the register looks up at me from under her caked eyelashes and bites her lip. I ignore her coy glance and drop the bag on the belt, then pull some cash from my pocket. When she tells me the total, I give her a second glance to make sure I heard her right. Eighty bucks for some dog food? It’s not like I care, but who knew this shit was so expensive?
I hoist the bag back onto my shoulder and leave without looking for her again, even though it fucking kills me. It’s only been a week since she stopped working, and I’ve been sneaking into her house almost every night, yet I still feel like I can’t get enough of her.
I mosey around the store,pretending I need to shop, even though I’ve already accomplished my sole reason for being here. When I glance at him again at the checkout, it dawns on me that I don’t know his name. I decide Jaws seems to fit him. Nicknames are common for me, and that one suits him. Not only does it look like his jawline was sculpted by a master, but there’s something predatory about him, something sharklike. While he’s not paying attention to me, I take a moment to really look at him. The scruff on his jaw is a few shades lighter than his dark hair that’s cut short on the sides and a little longer on top. His profile shows off his full lips, but what was most intriguing about him was his light gray eyes. Intense would an understatement but the fairest way I can think to describe him.
If he would have walked into The Dollhouse, I would have run in the other direction, and that was how I felt when I first turned around, but he’s not from the strip club and there’s something intriguing about him too. Maybe it’s how intense his gray eyes are, or the fact that he didn’t ask my name or really seem interested in anything other than possible riding lessons. I feel like most men only look at me for one thing, but it could be that I’m unfairly judging them for staring at me while I’m almost naked. Most of them only glance at my face, while Jaws kept his eyes trained on mine almost the entire time during our brief, stunted conversation.
I watch him leave the store with a fifty-pound bag of dog food over his shoulder as if it weighs nothing, then I give it a few minutes longer before I exit so I don’t look like I’m stalking him.
The black vehicle I saw earlier is pulling out of the lot as I reach my truck. I notice the circular symbol on the back, proving my Jeep guess was way off. It’s a Mercedes, an expensive one by the looks of it. I’d see cars like that parked in the lot at work sometimes. I always figured they belonged to drug dealers. Maybe I wasn’t so wrong, considering he smelled like a kush dispensary.
Chapter 10
As I’m carrying the dinner dishes to the sink, my phone rings. I set the plates next to the sink and jog over to the table where I left it. There’s no information listed for the caller, not even a phone number. I contemplate not answering and letting it go to voicemail, but the knowledge that I just posted fresh flyers makes me too curious to let it go. “Hello?” I say brightly. There’s a pause that’s so long, I almost hang up, thinking the line is dead, but I try again. “Hello?” I’m a little more hesitant this time.
“Hello,” a gruff male voice responds.
“Can I help you?” I ask when they don’t say anything further.
“Who is it?” Mom questions with her brows furrowed. I wave off her question and listen for a response.
“I told you I was serious about the lessons,” he says. There’s only one person it could be—Jaws. I turn away so my mom can’t see my face. I’m not sure if I’m excited or nervous that he’s calling.
“Oh, okay.” I sound surprised, even though it wasn’t my intention.
