Shane (Mallick Brothers 1)

So, yeah.

That was apparently that.

And as I let myself into my apartment, I tried like hell to convince myself that it was for the best.

But there was no denying the weird, swirling feeling in my stomach as I roughly wiped off my makeup, peeled off my clothes, threw on a tee, cleared the contents of my bed onto the floor, and curled in under the covers.

That swirling feeling?

It felt a hell of a lot like disappointment.NINEShaneLet’s just say it wasn’t a real great first date. And considering I hadn’t had a real first date in, say, ever, I wasn’t exactly a happy camper for the week that followed. Now, that was great for business because we had several guys welshing on their financial agreements and I really enjoyed having the outlet for my anger. Healthy? No. But I sure as fuck felt a little better after my fists collided with things.

I was sitting in Chaz’s, my dad’s bar, nursing my beer because I knew getting drunk would only get me in an even shittier mood. Beside that fact, there was a literal hurricane going on outside. The last thing I needed was to drive home without all my wits about me when tree branches were flying everywhere and the rain and wind made vision more of a wish than an actuality. I probably should have headed home when the weatherman finally got his head out of his ass and gave us a definitive answer about how severe we would be hit. But, then again, I wasn’t the only one at Chaz’s who wasn’t worried about the commute. It was actually decently busy, considering.

“So you fucked it up with Lea, huh?” Mark asked, sidling into the stool to my right. “Explains the sour as fuck mood you’ve been in all week.”

“Don’t want to talk about this, Mark,” I warned, my mood already too dark.

“I think I’d be pretty pissy too if I fucked it up with a chick like that. I mean she blows most of the girls around here out of the water. What’d you do to send her away?”

I heard myself snort as I shook my head, looking at my reflection in the mirror sunken into the back bar. That was the problem, really. I could have accepted it easier if I knew I had just been my usual dick self and ran her off. But I had taken her out on a date for fuck’s sake. I actually stopped to buy her effing flowers before I manned up and realized that was way too cheesy. I put some effort in. Why? I couldn’t tell you. There was just something about Lea. There was something in the way she carried herself, the way she tried and failed to repress herself, in her hardass attitude that it was painfully clear was there to keep you from seeing what was really underneath. Because if there was one thing I knew about women, it was that no matter how hard and thick that outer shell might be, there was always some softness underneath. And for reasons I couldn’t even begin to understand, I wanted to see her softness.

“Bet you didn’t even get any before she tossed you,” Mark said, always wholly unconcerned about poking sleeping bears.

Yeah, the sex, that was another thing.

She just… gave me everything. There was usually at least a small amount of restraint in most women I had known- an unwillingness to let themselves be too loud, to curse, to demand things, to get fully and completely wrapped up in the moment without even a thought to restraint or insecurity.

And the thing was, it was just a quick fuck in a parking lot. I didn’t even get to drag it out, completely torture her with the promise of release before I snatched it away again, over and over until she couldn’t take it anymore and I finally gave it to her. I wanted to see and feel and hear that. I wanted more.

She sure as hell made it clear that she didn’t.

“Mark, enough,” I snapped, feeling the familiar heating in my blood, the urge to start throwing punches. It wouldn’t take much to push me over the edge.

“Since you struck out, and she obviously likes the look of us,” he went on and I knew where he was heading and, well, there would be repercussions. “Maybe I will try my luck with her. Give her some real Mallick charm…”

He lost the rest of his sentence because he suddenly found my fist colliding with the side of his face. The crunch radiated up my arm in a familiar way as his body, unprepared for impact, flew off the stool. He landed on the ground hard, his air knocked out of him. But that didn’t stop him from smiling up at me, blood trickling from his lip. “Oh, it’s on, mother fucker. I’ve owed you an ass kicking since you convinced Izzy to call me Miss Markie.”