I had the inclination to walk out of that bathroom, clean her up myself and put my mouth exactly where my cock had been. That was the first warning sign.
The second had been to agree to whatever her offer had been when she opened those perfectly plump lips of hers. It didn’t matter what my plans were for today. I was seconds away from canceling them and spending the day with her. So long as it ended with me inside of her again, I wanted to be a part of it.
It couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t let it.
That would be too much like a relationship.
I don’t do relationships.
I’ve never done them.
I don’t want any part of them.
I’ve never had any inclination to want to spend any length of time with the same woman.
I didn’t have a fucked-up childhood.
I had two great parents growing up. They loved each other. I grew up surrounded by love. I wasn’t deprived or abused. I just don’t want to be tied down. I don’t want to answer to anyone. I don’t want to have to call and check in. I don’t want to have to run my plans by anyone else.
I want freedom to do what I want when I want to do it.
Plain and simple.
I want to sleep alone.
I want to fuck who I want and when.
I want variety.
There’s no hidden pain, no suffering, no inner trauma.
There’s nothing to be fixed, nothing broken in me.
But I’ll be damned if that fucking woman last night didn’t make me stutter.
It only happened for a second. Just one slow blink, one misstep, but I fixed that shit quickly, and telling by the way her jaw was hanging open when I walked out of there, I fixed it well.
Bachelorhood restored.
Now all I have to do is stay away from that particular bar for a couple of days, and all is right in my world. It’ll be perfectly fine. There are other bars, not ones as great as that one, but next week, things will be back to normal.
“Are you just going to stand there blocking the damn machine?”
I look over at Brooks. The man is scowling like I’ve personally offended him.
“You seem grouchy this morning,” I mutter, inching away so he can make another cup of coffee. We both seem to have the need to mainline the stuff today. “How’s your ass?”
He shoots me the bird before placing his coffee mug under the machine and dropping a single-serve cup into it. Recently, our covert-ops guy ended up with a dog bite on his ass. He refused to explain how or why it happened, vowing that it occurred on personal time, but I get the feeling it has something to do with the very foul mood he’s been having lately.
“My ass is fine.”
Wren snorts. “Did you try that—”
“I swear to God—”
Wren holds one hand up near his ear in surrender as he grins, lifting his coffee mug to his lips. The man is full of our secrets, but to his credit, he doesn’t seem to share them with others until the news comes out.
Brooks makes his coffee, grumbling to himself before walking away. I’m next at the coffee pot, ignoring the burn of his eye on the side of my head as I make mine.
“Deacon is coming in this morning.”
“Anna just had the baby last night.”
“He has a meeting he couldn’t reschedule,” Wren explains. “He’ll only be in for a little while.”
“Okay,” I say, finished with making my coffee and heading back to the sofa.
I can feel his eyes on me the entire time, and I opt to not engage any further. Yep, the man definitely knows something.
“Wild night?” Wren asks the second I get settled on the couch.
I’m not looking at him, and I don’t lift my eyes, praying he’s talking to someone else.
Before he gets the chance to put me in the spotlight, a door closes down the hall. Finn looks up from his box of junk, a wide smile spreading across his face, green eyes shining. When he starts to slow clap, we all join in. Giving each other a hard time is a rite of passage around here. Jude and Parker walk toward us, and there’s no denying what those two have been up to. Parker’s cheeks are flushed, and not just from embarrassment. Her hair is a mess, and Jude looks like one satisfied man—a man in love with empty balls.
“Yuck it up, fuckers,” Jude mutters, but the smile on his face says it all. He bends low, talking to his woman before making his way over to the coffee pot.
Wren speaks to them for a second before heading to his office, and then it’s Brooks’s turn to approach them. Parker had some shit go down recently with a psychotic stalker who ended up being a misinformed half-brother. I knew BBS was working with her, but I had no damn clue that Jude had any involvement with her past the time he spent one evening watching over her apartment.