Under Locke (48 page)

The sudden image of Dex's face was my second warning. He'd kill me.

And if he happened to walk out and see me talking to Liam, he'd probably kill us both. Or, at least beat the crap out of the other man, which was something he had no business doing because of his record and his career.

Did I really want to risk him getting in trouble just because I'd been an idiot?

No. I didn't.

I also didn't want to offend Liam more than necessary but I had a feeling that he was the type of person who didn't deal with rejection well. Which meant I was totally screwed. But better to save myself from the devil I knew than the one I didn't.

"How much does he owe you?"

"The same thing he did last time," Liam snickered. "But I'll take you for six months in exchange for some more time."

What. The. Ef.

Any sense I had in handling the biker gently went right out the friggin' window. Six months with me in exchange for an extension? My virginity. My pride. My honor. My friggin' common sense.

No.

Absolutely no.

If I
didn’t
let my ex pop my cherry after we'd dated for four months, then I sure as hell wasn't going to let this manipulative jackass do it.

"No." I told him calmly. There was no, "No, thank you." No, "I appreciate the offer, but no." None of that. Nothing to ease my way out of the situation.

Sonny would never forgive me for doing something so stupid for him, and especially not for the sperm donor. Most importantly, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. I wasn't a prostitute and I wasn't a pawn in whatever game this psychopath wanted to play.

His eyes flashed in brief anger. "No?" he scoffed, incredulous. "You're telling me no?"

Well, there was no graceful way out of this. "My dad doesn't give a crap about any of his kids." I watched him carefully, seeing that he wasn't taking that as enough of an excuse. There was only one thing left to do: lie. Desperate times call for desperate measures, dang it. "Either way I don't think you'd want sloppy seconds."

"What?"

I needed to end this conversation three minutes ago. "I'm with Dex." That was better than saying I'm Dex's, wasn't it? That sounded too possessive. Too permanent and the situation I was in was neither.

The carefully controlled mask that had graced Liam's face morphed into one that barely contained the irritation lurking behind his eyes. He was pissed. "Locke?"

I nodded.

Liam wasn't just pissed, he was
incredibly
pissed. He straightened to his full height and visibly ground his teeth. "You're right. I'm not a fan of Widows' seconds." He raked his gaze over me one more time. "Didn't know you messed around with trash like Locke, doll."

Trash? He thought Dex was trash?

If there was a word to describe the facial expression that came over me it had to be described as a sneer. I knew in my gut that I shouldn't say anything back to him. He'd been fine and relatively decent before but did that mean he was harmless? No way.

Trying to diffuse the situation I gave me a shaky smile. "Thank you for the offer. I hope you get your money back soon."

The words had barely gotten out of my mouth before grabbing my bag off the floor like a lifeline and
darting into Pins
. I may have burst through the door a little
t
oo loudly, catching Slim's confused expression over his shoulder while he worked.

"You all right?" he asked before focusing back on the tablet below him.

I looked around to make sure Dex wasn't nearby and let out a deep breath. "I'm fine." I wasn't. At least not completely.

What I needed to do was catch my breath and decide whether or not to tell someone that Liam had been outside propositioning me. I didn't want to. My gut said it was a bad idea but wouldn't it be a worse idea for me to keep my mouth shut? Of that I wasn't positive.

Craaaaap!

I hustled down the hallway toward the break room, briefly glancing into the office to see Dex on the phone. That was okay. That was better than okay. It gave me time to keep thinking through what I was going to do, if I did anything.

Keep your mouth shut, Ris
, my logical brain said.

Tell him, Ris
, the other half—the emotional half—egged on.

Double friggin' crap.

I forced my wrap down though I'd magically lost my appetite for once. It took me longer than it would have if I'd still been starving but I didn't care. With my trash in the garbage I walked out of the kitchen slowly, still debating whether or not to say something to Dex. As I came to the office doorway, I found him sitting at his desk, drawing.

I wasn't going to lie anymore, I'd told myself months ago. I
’d failed that, so at least I’d keep it to a minimum.

Oh lord. My fingers shook a little as I knocked on the door faintly.

"Hey."

Those dark blue eyes flicked up in my direction, Dex ducking his head just a bit. "Come in, babe."

The two steps in felt like I was going to the gallows. I started wringing my hands as I stood awkwardly to the side of the chairs in front of his desk. He'd looked back down at what he was drawing, which was the only way I managed to start talking.

"Liam was just outside," I rushed out. "He offered to give my dad an extension if I went with him."

At the mention of the biker's name, Dex's pencil stopped its movement in midair. His entire body tightened, strained, and shifted in ripples of muscle and stress. It was the fact he kept his face down that worried me.

"I told him no. I told him I was with you," I blabbed out.

Oh boy.

The way he slowly looked up at me could
hav
e been creepy, but for some reason it just fell short. Instead, he pushed his chair back roughly, smacking the wall with the back of it. In a growl, he rounded the desk and pointed at the chair I stood in front of. "Wait," he said and stormed out the door.

Fudgsicle sticks.

I shoul
d ha
ve listened to him and waited, but I didn't. I was out the door and going after him a split second later. If Liam was dumb enough to still be outside in front of Dex's shop, on Widowmaker territory, he was a dead man. Or at least a bloody one.

But it wasn't his being that I cared about.

It was the moron running after him that I didn't want to get in trouble.

I could only imagine what Dex had to look like as he ran out of the shop that had the employees and the clients captivated. The door was barely swinging shut when I jogged up to it.

Dex was stalking toward the end of the block, a phone held up to his ear, and I could hear him barking something ugly and low into the end.

Shit.

I gathered up my guts and followed after him, catching bits and pieces of "Motherfucker—at Pins—lost his fuckin' mind—Ritz!"

Oh boy.

The moment he thrust his cell phone into his pocket and made
way
to start stomping across the street, I slid my finger through the belt loops at the back of his jeans and tugged. "Charlie."

Miraculously, h
e paused.

"Hey, he's gone," I told him in the most soothing voice I could come up with. My free hand settled on the small of his back. "Calm down."

Dex turned to look at me over his shoulder before gradually turning around, the tips of his boots pressing against the tips of my flats. For once, that carefully blank expression was missing. In its place, Dex's mouth was pulled back in a tight snarl. His eyes narrowed.

Yeah, he was pissed.

I smiled at him, hoping that it would calm him down, and I tugged at his belt loop again. "Chill out." I used the same words he'd used on me so long ago. "Nothing happened."

"Ritz," he gritted out. "He came here. To my shop. On my territory. And tried to fuckin' get you to go with him." He bared his teeth. "That's not fuckin' nothin'."

Sometimes I just wanted to roll my eyes at him. "But he's gone, and I don't want you to get in trouble."

Okay, he was still pissed.

"And I'm here with you, not him, so it doesn't matter."

He stared at me for a long moment, his gaze hard. Then his hands were cupping my face. He tipped my head back to nip at my upper lip, sucking it between his.

Oh my crap.

Dex moved to do the same to my bottom one before I reacted. Before I tried to kiss him back the same way he was kissing me, with the dull edges of my teeth catching his bottom lip. He tilted my head even further back, arching me against him as he wrapped an arm around my waist.

His hot tongue slipped into my mouth the first chance he got, brushing against mine with more force, more possession, tha
n
I knew what to do with. But it didn't matter that I'd only kissed three people before him. That his experience more than likely eclipsed mine by hundreds, because he moaned into my mouth. He pulled me tighter against him, gripped my waist more strongly than he needed to.

The kiss was a claim.

His tongue dueled mine in a way that was completely friggin' inappropriate on a busy public street. His hard body curled over me, consuming me.

And I loved it. I let it happen. I sucked his tongue into my mouth like I knew what I was doing. Like I'd cease to exist if he didn't bite my lip again.

"Iris." He gently bit the soft place between my jaw and throat column.

Holy, holy, holy crap.

I was going to go up in a pile of flames. A burning inferno
that rivaled hell,
that would be worth every second of pain to have Dex's mouth so aggressively on mine.

He bit down again before nuzzling the line of my jaw. "You're mine." His lower body pressed into my stomach. Hard, he was so
hard.
"Your mouth, your face, your ass, your pussy, Ritz. You're all mine."

Me, who had never even kissed another person in public, was panting. Ready to give everything and more to the man that scared the crap out of me.

And if it wouldn't have been for the throat clearing that yanked me so abruptly from the sexual daze I was in, I would
ha
ve gladly stayed there with his tongue in my throat and his teeth at my jaw forever.

"Uhh, Dex?"

He sucked my lip one last time, hard, into his mouth before pulling his mouth away reluctantly.

The sound of that same throat clearing came from behind me again.

"Dex, Luther's on the phone." It was Slim talking. Slim that was clearing his throat.

Slim that had caught us making out. In the middle of the sidewalk. In the middle of the day.

Oh
. No.

The ginger had a smug look on his face and I really don’t think I imagined him mouthing, “I knew it,” at me.

I'm sure my face turned a kaleidoscope of reds and pinks as I tried to take a step back and away from Dex, but when he kept his arm tight around my waist, it was useless.