My heart pounds as he crosses the room. “In your dreams, Mackenna,” I bluff.

He only laughs softly and shakes his head. “You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that. But you’ll wear down.”

“Never.”

He leans over and, suddenly, all his male weight is hovering over me, his lips pressing to my ear in the most tender kiss I’ve ever felt.

“No, babe. Always.”

ELEVEN

THERE ARE BULLIES AROUND, AND BY “BULLY” I DON’T MEAN ME

Pandora

The band makes it to a rodeo bar in west Texas. Olivia, Tit, and the other female dancers are flirting with a group of cowboys, and they haven’t so much as glanced in my direction, which leaves me in the guy section—where the Vikings are treating me like some long-lost sister. The only good thing about this is that my new official, and very first, fuck buddy seems to be a little jealous at my side.

“Hands,” he growls when Lex sets his hand on my knee while flexing the length of his arm and showing off his snake tattoo.

“Fuck, you’re kidding, right?” he asks, his eyebrows drawing low over his violet eyes.

“It look like I’m kidding?” Mackenna answers with deceptive softness as he slides his hand proprietarily under my hair to lightly caress the back of my neck.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I scoff, but I’m secretly delighting in this development as I squirm to get free from his hold.

Nobody has ever—ever—made me feel as wanted, protected, and, well . . . annoyed as Mackenna.

But I’m just rolling with it because, well, tonight I feel more of the former than the latter. Maybe because of all the orgasms? He has that ability to relax me with a couple of those . . .

“Hands, Lex,” he growls again, gently squeezing my nape, and I don’t know what it is about his bossiness today, but does he not remember that all there is between us now is sex? He sounds like he sounds in bed.

But he also sounds jealous. He hasn’t got it through that hard skull of his that I don’t mind Lex’s hand on my thigh. It doesn’t give me head-to-toe shivers like Mackenna’s hand on the back of my neck. Right now, in fact, the hand on the back of my neck makes me feel so warm, my bloodstream feels like fire through my veins. Every cell in my body, every pore, is buzzing at the touch, awakened by the way his thumb ring runs up to stroke behind my ear. What do I do with myself when he has such an effect?

Do him again tonight?

Do him until you’ve had so much of him you’ll never want him again?

“Dude, I get it.” Lex finally pulls his hand away and sets his arm out on the table to allow me a full view of the snake curling around his wrist and up his muscled arm.

“I was born the year of the Chinese snake. Symbol is always with me now,” he explains to me.

“Wow,” I say, and Jax, who sits across the booth, opens up his palm, and I can see a snake curling around his thumb too. I lean across the table to investigate while Mackenna’s hand slides down my spine and rests on my butt, where he gives it a little pat.

“So, you’re all into Chinese symbols?” I ask, very much aware of how Mackenna’s hand has slid up my butt to my waist, hooking into my waistband to sit me back down.

I shiver when he slips his fingers under my top, skin to skin, and I think now is a good moment to remind him that I don’t make out in public—and he’s making me want to do just that—but when I turn, the way he’s watching me, the way his silver eyes sear me . . . it makes my thoughts scatter.

“Danger,” that little voice keeps whispering in my head.

I’ve been kicking him out of my room every night, but only after we’ve fucked a couple of times. If he thinks he can use me, and my room, just to get away from the cameras, he’s wrong. If he thinks we’re cuddling after, he’s wrong. But when he leaves, shaking his head at me like it’s a mistake to send him away . . . then I lie alone in bed, not liking it one bit.

“Is your symbol Chinese too?” I ask him now, nodding toward his forearm and the inky, runelike symbols on his tan skin.

His tattoo niggles at my curiosity, and I’m determined to find out what it means.

He smirks. “It’s Kenna-ish. It’s a whole other language. Some say it’s a religion.”

I roll my eyes and cup his wrist, pulling his arm to my lap for me to examine. “What is it? What does it mean?”

“Hell if anyone knows,” Lex says.

I brush my thumb over the symbols, and it’s only until about a minute of silence has passed that I realize Kenna is eerily still. When he speaks, his voice has deepened, as if my touch and the light way I brush my thumb over his tattoo are far more than a caress to him.

“Means I’m an unlucky bastard,” he leans to whisper in my ear, then, even closer, “Your hair smells of coconut.”

When he looks into my eyes as if expecting an explanation for this, I’m having trouble coming up with something saucy. “It’s the oil I moisturize my hair with, a little drop to any shampoo I use.”

I realize how close we are. One would say we look ready to do each other in public, as if we didn’t do each other several times last night. In fact, every night . . . for the past week.

He’s stroking my nape, and I’m stroking his tattoo, both of us staring, not with animosity, and not with lust. Okay, yes with lust. But also with a lot of curiosity. As though this getting to know each other again is proving far more interesting than either of us imagined.

I feel as though whatever is happening in the bar is secondary. I feel as though the world revolves around the impenetrable bubble of me and him. Nothing matters but his hand holding me by the neck, and his strong, muscled forearm under my palm and fingers.

He’s noticeably relaxed—I guess that happens when you have ten orgasms in two days—but I feel supermushy, and it’s very unlike me. It’s like I’ve been craving him, his contact, his affection, for so long, the intimacy of such a simple act is turning me to putty.

Worse is, he seems just as hungry for this. Edging his body closer, he suddenly presses a kiss into my hair, like he’s wild for coconut.

Gah. It’s one thing to fuck like we do, but this . . . oh god, he just groaned into my hair. He’s kissing the top of my ear and groaning like we’re doing something intensely sexual, rather than just sitting together. I hold back a sound as I feel his nose nuzzling my hair.

“Do you really want to know what that tattoo means?” he rasps, his breath shooting shivers from my ear to my shoes. He eases back, and his eyes feel like incoming bullets. “What will you tell me in exchange?”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to tell me something that’s been bugging me,” he says, scraping a hand over his head.

“What?”

Using his thumb, he angles my head up higher so our eyes hold. “Tell me what made you so mad at everyone.”

“I’m not mad at everyone, I’m just mad at you,” I say. It’s part lie and part truth. But he’s walking straight into the past, and something frozen has just dropped into the pit of my stomach, leaving my veins as cold as icicles.

“Yet the person you’re most mad at is yourself. Isn’t it?” He rubs his silver ring along the bottom of my lip, and I hold on to everything I want to say. Holding it tightly, in an airlocked and lidded box, because once it’s out, I can never take it back.

I can never take it back.

“Dora, come with us!” Tit calls, just in time to save me.

I expel a breath, then take Mackenna’s hand and slowly lower it. “You’re going to have to let me out of the booth, Mackenna.”

“Why? Little girls’ room chat session?” he asks with a cocky lilt. Because I’m so grateful he’s scooting out to let me pass, I grin.

“That’s right. No boys allowed,” I warn.

As I stand, he drops back down. “All right, Pink. Just know I’ll be waiting here to pick up right where we left off.”

“Don’t hold your breath, Wolf. I can find out from the girls what your tattoo means.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” he says, laughing his it’s-so-sexy-it-should-be-illegal laugh.

“Hey, girls,” I greet as I join them.

That’s when my phone starts to ring and my heart stops when I see HER flashing on my phone screen.

My eyes widen. Glancing around for the quietest, most private space I can find, I peer into the men’s restroom, find it empty, and close the door, leaning against it so no guy can come in while I talk.

“Hello?” I answer.

God. I sound like a chicken shit. Like I’m guilty of something.

I’m guilty of lying and more. So much more.

“Pandora?”

“Mom. What’s up?”

“She misses you, she wanted to say hello.”

My eyes turn to the tiny window and a slice of moon outside. Hmm, looks high enough. “It’s past her bedtime.”

“I know, she couldn’t sleep because I’d promised she could talk to you today and I was caught up in a call, but we’re calling now.”

“Right,” I say, thinking, No, actually you’re letting her stay up late watching movies as an excuse to check up on me at this hour and make sure I’m not screwing up my life again.