Always His (Crazed Devotion #1) (10 page)

“You need to come to Alabama on leave. You and Luke.” I knew it was a long shot, but it sure would be nice to see them.

“Yeah, maybe we’ll do that,” Ben said with a chuckle. “You got any pretty ladies there that can help persuade us?”

“As a matter a fact,” I said as I watched Liz approach, “I know one that needs a little taming.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me as she stopped only a couple feet away. “Ain’t no man that can tame me, Ryker, you know that. I’m a free spirit.” She winked as she took my phone from my hand. Her eyes glimmered with mischief while she listened to whatever Ben had intended to say to me.

“Oh is that right?” she said. “I’m pretty interested in finding out how that plan of yours plays out. Name the date, darlin’, and I’ll be sure to wear something lacy and see-through.”

She barked out a laugh at whatever Ben said in return, and they bantered for a few minutes before she handed my phone back to me. “I like that man. He isn’t scared of me.”

She winked and walked inside, leaving me holding my phone and wondering what in the hell just happened. Lifting it back to my ear, I could hear Ben laughing, and I knew I had just started something explosive. “She’s a handful,” I said.

“She sounds like it. Makes me wanna hop on a plane to Alabama and find out if she’s being honest about the lacy-and-see-through shit.”

“Oh she’s being honest. That girl is wild.” Liz was a fireball. There was never a dull moment when she was around.

“I’ll set something up whenever I can get my leave. And I’ll check with Luke too,” Ben said, sounding more excited than he had when I originally mentioned them visiting.

“Sounds good, man, just let me know,” I said before ending the call.

It was Friday night, and Lucy’s was starting to get busy. When I entered and found Nicole standing next to a table of three guys, I tried not to let it bother me. But what I really wanted to do was walk straight up to that table, grip her hips, and spin her around into a kiss. Without giving her a chance to argue, I wanted to claim her in front of everyone in the bar.

In time
, I told myself. The last thing I wanted to do was piss her off when this was all still so new and fresh.

“Feeling the need to piss on her leg?” I turned in surprise at the question. Elle stood at my side with a knowing smile on her face. She held her tray of drinks away from her body as she hip-checked me.

“Who are those guys?” I asked, turning back to look toward the table once again.

“Regulars,” she used as an explanation. A laugh fell from her lips when I narrowed my eyes, waiting for more. “Damn, don’t get all possessive.” She shifted on her feet and looked back toward the table. “The guy in the white T-shirt is Jimmy. He tries his luck with Nicole on a regular basis but never gets anywhere. He’s a harmless flirt; seriously, he’s nothing to worry about. The hairy man in the flannel is Edgar, his brother. He likes to look, but the man rarely speaks more than two words at a time, his favorite two-word combination being
Bud Light
.”

“What about the guy that can’t keep his hand off Nicole’s back?” It was taking all the restraint I had not to walk over to him and drop him on his ass for thinking it was all right to touch her.

“Keegan,” she said, as if that was enough of an explanation.

“Elle, did you forget I’ve been gone for close to five years?” I asked without looking away from the sorry fuck. “‘Keegan’ doesn’t mean shit.”

“You don’t remember Keegan from school?” she asked.

I let my high school years roll through my mind, trying to remember everyone from those days. When I shook my head she sighed.

“Keegan Murphy,” she replied, and the name set an alarm off in my mind.

“Tyler’s little brother,” I growled. Little punk turned out to be bigger than Tyler. But his size didn’t intimidate me. “Well it looks like Keegan needs a blast from the past. Both he and his brother need to understand the shit they pull ain’t fucking happening anymore.” I didn’t wait for her response; I had a point to prove. I may still be working to make things with Nicole more concrete, but letting some asshole fondle her wasn’t going to happen.

“Y
ou can’t judge me by my brother’s screw-ups. He and I are not the same man.” Keegan was drunk, and I was trying my best to allow his words to roll right off me. But the asshole was even more persistent with a few drinks running through his veins.

“Like I said, I’m not interested. I wasn’t last month, and I won’t be next week.” I moved out of his reach and sat Edgar’s beer down in front of him. He offered me a pleased smile as he lifted it and took a swig.

“One night’s all I need,” Keegan added, which only made me roll my eyes. Jimmy caught the gesture and snickered.

“Let it go, Keegan, you’re only embarrassing yourself.” I turned and came face-to-face with Ryker. I jumped in surprise, and he encircled my waist with his arm.

“Hey, baby,” he whispered just before leaning in and placing a gentle kiss against my lips. The gesture caught me completely off guard. Chills covered my arms and neck almost instantly.

He pulled back entirely too quick, and I followed him with my lips, which made that cocky smirk appear again. The distance between us gave me time to clear my head, and I looked back over my shoulder and found all three guys at the table watching us curiously. Before the end of the night, everyone in town would know Ryker had just staked a claim, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Yes, we had slept together, and yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have let things go that far, but it was too late to go back. But before we made things official and threw it in everybody’s face, I’d hoped we could take some time to figure things out ourselves. I really wasn’t sure what we were myself. That and I was still angry about how he left me. It would take a whole lot more than one amazing round of sex to make that anger dissipate.

“Well son of a bitch, if it ain’t Ryker Daniels.” I closed my eyes tightly at the sound of Keegan’s voice from behind me. “Tyler’s gonna love this shit.”

The mention of Tyler immediately had me on the offense. “He doesn’t have a say-so when it comes to me and my life.”

I faced Keegan as he stood, pulling his phone out of his back pocket. “No, but he does have a say-so on who his daughter spends time with.”

I stepped closer. “He lost that chance when he chose drinking and women over her. He doesn’t give a shit about her, and you know it.”

“We’ll see” was all he said before he tipped his beer up and finished it. I watched in silence as he turned around and walked from the bar with his phone in his hand.

When Ryker placed his hand on my shoulder, I tensed and spun around to face him. “What the hell were you thinking?”

He arched an eyebrow, and that damn cocky smile pulled at the corner of his lips. “I was thinking I was happy as a pig in mud when I saw you over here.”

I didn’t return his smile. Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for him to stop being a smartass.

“Fine,” he said. “When I saw Keegan messing with ya, it pissed me off.”

“So you decided to stalk over here and add fuel to the fire?” I asked.

“No, I decided I watched him flirt long enough.”

Ryker had always been such a possessive man. He didn’t seem to understand the shit he’d just started. Once Keegan found Tyler and fired him up, it would only make my life harder. I didn’t want to hide what Ryker and I were, but breaking the news to Tyler in a different manner would have maybe made things a little easier for him take.

Standing there in the center of the bar, I decided arguing wouldn’t get me anywhere. And an audience wasn’t going to help matters any, either.

I had busied myself for the last two hours, avoiding Ryker’s stares and the tension building between us. I knew we had to talk, but this wasn’t the place or time.

“He looks like he lost his best friend.” I didn’t even look at Elle when she spoke. She obviously knew what had happened; I think everyone in the bar was talking about it. Arab was a small place where everyone knew everything about one another’s lives. They fed on gossip, and Ryker and I just gave them a new topic for a while.

“In his defense, he held out as long as he could,” Elle added.

I was busy making drinks for a couple girls, who, I might add, kept eyeing Ryker. But each time I looked up, I only found him watching me. When I placed the drinks in front of them, I set the glasses down just a little harder than I intended, and they jumped in surprise. Had they been paying attention instead of drooling over the man that had the ability to irritate me and work me up all at the same time, they wouldn’t have been so jumpy.

“That’ll be six fifty,” I said without smiling.

The blonde pulled out a twenty from her bra. Yeah, it took everything I had not to roll my eyes. “Can you send another bottle to the guy on the end?” she said as her gaze floated back toward Ryker. “Tell him it’s from us.” She giggled. Yep, actually fucking giggled.

I took the twenty from her hand and added the cost of a Coors to her bill, then gave her the change. Holding back a few choice words I would have loved to sling her way, I pulled out a beer and popped the top.

Ryker watched me approach the other end of the bar and just stared at the bottle when I held it out.

“From the girls at the end,” I said in response to his questioning stare. “I think they’re both willing to allow you to thank them for their gesture of kindness.”

He took the beer from me as he looked past me to the girls. He offered a tilt of his head and that damn panty-melting smile of his. “I bet neither of them would mind if I kissed them in front of a group of people,” he said without looking back at me.

He was trying to get under my skin, but I refused to let it work. “I don’t think there’s much they wouldn’t let you do to them in front of an audience. Maybe you should go talk to them and find out.”

“Nic,” he said as I walked away without looking back.

About an hour before closing, I went to the back to get a few bottles of liquor we were running low on. As I climbed up the stepladder to grab the tequila from the top shelf, I was startled by the sound of the door shutting behind me. I whipped around so fast I almost lost my balance and grabbed on to the shelf to steady myself.