“Nova,” the soft, feminine voice curled around me like smoke, faintly exotic and heady as grade-A B.C. marijuana.
I shifted enough to look over my shoulder at Lila. She was watchin’ me with big, dark eyes, her breasts swellin’ over her low-cut top as she breathed quick, panicked or aroused, I couldn’t tell the in the near dark.
“Nova,” she repeated. “Don’t hurt your hands. He’s not worth it.”
Her words moved through me in an odd way, pingin’ against dead ends and roundin’ tight corners until they slotted into a hole in my chest I’d never thought to stop up.
A hole that said I wasn’t good enough.
That, at the end of the day, I was good looks and charm, bad choices and fuck ups.
But here was Lila watchin’ me beat a man’s face in like the monster I was capable of bein’, and she wasn’t disgusted or angry.
She was fuckin’ concerned, worried I’d hurt my hands, the tools of my passion and persuasion.
I blinked at her, ignorin’ the way the motherfucker beneath my knee moaned and grumbled. Our eyes locked with a near audible click, and everythin’ fell away around us. ’Cause it was just that way with us, and it always had been, Lila and me, tucked up in our own world where only our rules applied.
There were no labels there.
Not even any expectations other than one: that we took care of each other.
That was the first, last, and only commandment between us, and Lila was provin’ it right there.
A different kinda heat moved through me then, the same flicker of it glintin’ in her eyes as she slowly smiled.
And I was done.
So I looked down at the motherfucker who’d put his hands on her and sneered into his face. “You touch a goddamn hair on her hair or the head of any of the other women here ever again without their fuckin’ consent, I’ll burn your cut with you in it, got it?”
“Got it,” he agreed even though his face was mottled red with angry humiliation.
I didn’t give a fuck about his feelin’s.
I’d be pissed if he laid a finger on any of the women who didn’t want it, ’cause that was not the way we ran shit as a club, and there was no way in hell I’d feel remorse for beatin’ his ugly mug in for touchin’ Li.
Only I was allowed to do that.
I jumped down from the table, jerked my chin up at Z who was watchin’ the whole thing with a scowl, ignored the rest of the crowd circled around us, and then ducked to gently hit Lila in the hip with my shoulder before lifting her up, up, over my back.
“Nova!” she screeched as I carted her off toward the clubhouse.
“Lila,” I said, calm as fuck. “You flirtin’ with that guy to get a rise outta me?”
Silence, just the stomp of my boots up the concrete stairs and the noise of the party inside the clubhouse surrounded us as I stormed a path through the bodies to the hall that led to the bunk rooms.
“Mostly no,” she finally ventured, not protestin’ me carryin’ her anymore.
She was bracin’.
Smart girl.
“Well, congrats, you got one,” I growled as I pushed open the door of the first free room I found and slammed it shut behind me.
I dropped her to the bed, let her bounce on the mattress once, then crawled over her, cagin’ her beneath my heavy body, securin’ her hands over her head.
My voice was a soft rasp as I drew my nose along the length of hers and warned, “You know what happens when naïve little girls play with fuckin’ fire, Lila?”
She gasped as I pushed a knee tight to her sex and ground in.
“They get to feel the burn of a real man’s wrath,” I threatened.
She blinked up at me, a little dazed, a lot aroused, the heady mix of lust and anger scorchin’ through me ampin’ higher.
I moved quick, liftin’ her up and haulin’ her over my lap as I took a seat at the edge of the bed and pinned her against my legs.
“Nova,” she protested, but there was a shake in her voice that undercut her denial.
She liked bein’ over my knee.
“Told you last time you played games with me, leavin’ me cold and alone in bed, I’d tan your ass you did it again.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Fuckin’ deadly,” I bit out as I kneaded the firm flesh of her ass over her silky dress. “I’m gonna spank this sweet ass until it’s cherry red so you feel me for days afterward. Then maybe you won’t be so quick to forget the man currently occupyin’ your bed.”
“Nova,” she breathed, but the protest drowned in a heavy moan as I dipped my fingers beneath her skirt and slowly raised it to expose her rounded cheeks.