Page 196 of Rebellious

“Kaia didn’t buy that fucking jewelry. Your mother did.”

“I don’t care, fuck face,” she cried, an emotional wreck. “He wanted me to have them. He wanted to show how important I was to him. Meanwhile, you can’t even trust me enough not to risk you if we start going together.”

“We are not fucking doing this, Rebel. We aren’t. You’re not risking my fucking cock to have your goddamn way. You’re a spoiled little brat who only—”

She shoved him. “Shut up, Diesel. Okay? Stop saying what I am or am not. It doesn’t matter since I’m not changing your mind.”

Diesel growled, huffed, covered his face, and huffed again, like the fucking wolf who huffed and puffed and blew those houses down. “Let’s skip everything we’ve already discussed. Morals. Decency. The law. My castration or death. It’s a big ask of me that I believe you wouldn’t go ballistic if you walked into the club and saw another woman on my lap.”

“Why the fuck would she be there?”

“Exactly, Rebel. Your reaction is the exact fucking reason you’d blow my goddamn cover. And then it wouldn’t be for fuck-all except your bruised pride.”

“That isn’t true!”

“The fuck it isn’t. If you’re giving Kaia a pass, I’d expect the same courtesy.”

“I’m not giving him a fucking pass! I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. There’s a difference. It matters to me. It would matter to me if you were with another girl. It matters to me if Kaia sleeps with someone else, but he won’t. I trust him,” she said, feeling those words to her soul. “Maybe…maybe…if this hadn’t happened to me. It did, though. I just want to feel normal again.”

Diesel’s expression closed, which she hated, because she knew that meant he was shutting down, preparing to hurt her—

Bending, he brushed his lips across her cheek, closer to her mouth then he’d ever been. She swallowed, braced her hands on his chest, and lifted her gaze to his.

He gave her the tiniest smile. “I brought food to you as your big brother. Hoping for a reset of the other night and our inappropriate texts.”

Spit and swallow crossed her mind again. His penis as she’d seen it. Flaccid. She blushed again.

“Neither you nor I can go there,” he told her. “To what we discussed. It’s our secret.”

She knew it had to be and wished she’d never told Kaia. “Okay.”

Once again, he studied her face, his gaze shuttered, his lids heavy. “You’ve given me a lot to consider, sweetheart,” he said, and walked out, leaving her alone to ponder those words.

Rebel only had a limited amount of time to put on a very special birthday party for Axel. Momma never confirmed whether she’d return early, so Rebel planned to go all out for her little brother.

Not long after Diesel left, she took her unopened sandwich and barely touched fries to the kitchen, along with her tablet to continue going through her checklists. She managed to force the sandwich in her, even though her argument with conversation with Diesel left her with little appetite. If Axel hadn’t been depending on her, she would’ve stayed in her room and gave into her misery.

She’d just copied another list of items from her tablet and shared it with her phone, pasting it in a message to Kaia, when Bishop walked in and froze.

“Uh, hey, Reb.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he glanced over his shoulder toward the door. “I thought you’d be resting.”

Sitting at the breakfast bar, she sipped lemonade and laid her phone down, smiling at the cute biker. He had rich brown skin and onyx eyes with a smooth nose that complemented his wide mouth and expressive face. He had dreadlocks like Uncle Mort and Uncle Digger, though they were shorter. He’d started growing them because of how deeply he admired his sponsor. “Are you about to cook? I promise I won’t get in the way.”

He hesitated before he finally nodded and headed to the refrigerator.

Rebel tracked his movements, admiring the way his jeans hugged his butt and his cut stretched over his wide shoulders. “How’ve you been? It seems like we never get to talk.”

Opening the refrigerator, he studied the contents, keeping his back to her. “We don’t. I’ve been busy here and at the club.”

She waited until he decided to close the doors. Except he didn’t. He continued staring into the refrigerator. It was crowded, so she could’ve given him a pass if he didn’t know his way around a kitchen and didn’t follow a set routine. He planned his menus in advance so he’d know exactly what he wanted out of the refrigerator.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Rebel.”

“You’re letting all of the cold air out.” She didn’t know what else to say, so she used one of the arguments she was always given whenever she was little and wanted to play in the refrigerator. “You should close the doors.”

He slammed the door shut but didn’t turn around. After talking to Diesel and still being confused over Kaia, Bishop’s attitude hurt her. Somehow, she refrained from crying. Since Saturday, she’d shed a lot of tears. That had to stop.