“The best.”
“Now we need to talk.”
Great. “You need to talk. Not me,” she corrected him.
He grabbed their empty containers, shoved them into one of the empty bags and tossed them into the garbage, but he didn’t settle back next to her. No. He stayed on the other side of the counter, so he was facing her.
She wasn’t going to like this talk.
“He buggin’ you?”
Oh, Jesus. That was not what she was expecting, but she should’ve known. While he wasn’t the type of guy to let a locked door stop him, he also wasn’t a guy who would let another man stop him from getting what he wanted. But that didn’t mean she needed to make it easy for him. “Who?”
He cocked a dark eyebrow. “Who you think?”
He was jealous of Cage. Imagine that. “It’s nothing new, Trip.” Cage always flirted with her, made moves, tried to sweet talk her out of her jeans. While he was admittedly good-looking, he wasn’t her type. Plus, he was a few years younger than her and that just wasn’t her thing. Not to mention, she was avoiding the bad boy types like the plague. “He’s a regular. And I need every regular I can get.”
He reached across the counter and grabbed her chin, holding her gaze when he asked, “He get in there?”
Her brow furrowed as she played dumb. He had no right to ask that. “Get in where?”
“There.”
She wanted to laugh with how ridiculous that was. Like he should care who all she slept with in her lifetime. It wasn’t his business. Just like it wasn’t any of hers who he had sex with for the past twenty years. The problem was, she wasn’t laughing. She was getting annoyed at his line of questioning. “You mean in my bed?”
“In your fuckin’ pussy,” he growled.
She stared at him. Was he for real? “Would it matter if he did?”
Trip’s head jerked back and he released her chin. “Fuck yes. No way I’m havin’ an ol’ lady who’s fucked any of my brothers. No fuckin’ way.”
Trying to keep a lid on her temper, she pushed off the stool and went to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water. “Well, that won’t be a problem.”
“Good.”
She turned and twisted off the cap. “One, I never slept with Cage. Two, I’m not your ol’ lady.”
“Yet.”
Stella shook her head. “No, Trip. You can’t claim me.”
“Already did.”
“You didn’t at the table.”
“Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“Bullshit,” he muttered.
She carefully put her water bottle on the counter and turned toward him. “Thank you for dinner. Now, I need to get back downstairs and make sure Cage isn’t shotgunning beer directly from the tap.”
“He’s fine.” Trip reached out to grab her wrist and Stella jerked it away.
He wasn’t going to start controlling every aspect of her life. “I have no choice about the bar, Trip. But the rest of my life is my own.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m in control, not you.”
His lips flattened. He was struggling. She could read it in his face, in his body language. He was trying to keep from saying whatever he wanted to say so he wouldn’t piss her off any further.
He was going to fail.
She could see his temper spiking. She could see his frustration.
He wanted her, for whatever reason. So, he believed he could have her. With no question.
He was a man who got what he wanted. By sweat or by force.
But she had learned her lesson about men like him. A lesson she should have learned when she was a girl and watched all that shit go down with the original Fury members and the women who were around them. How they were treated. Not only the sweet butts and hang-arounds but their mothers. Hers. Trip’s. All of them.
At the time, she thought that behavior was normal. She later discovered it wasn’t. And once she was free of that environment, she should’ve stayed free.
She didn’t.
Bad boy rockers weren’t much different than bad boy bikers. Only their toys were different.
“You in control, Stella?”
His voice was so low and gravelly when he asked that, a wave of heat rolled through her. A deeper meaning was behind those words, which shouldn’t affect her, but it did.
Her answering, “Yes,” sounded shaky. Because it was. The look in his eyes, like his hunger hadn’t been sated by the food, made everything inside her quiver.
“You sure?’ he asked as he came around the counter and moved to stand behind her.
No. No, she wasn’t sure.
She didn’t turn to look at him. But with how close he was, how his heat radiated against her back, it sent a shiver through her. Her nipples became points, her breasts began to ache, her skin tingled.
He wasn’t touching her, but she wanted him to.
Fuck, did she want him to.
“I need...” What did she need? Damn it. She knew what she needed. She didn’t want to need it. She cleared her throat and quickly finished, “To go back downstairs.”