It was my birthday.
And clearly my club brothers thought I needed to get laid.
Hence the hot escort.
But it wasn’t going to happen.
I mean, I appreciated the gesture, but I had no desire to participate.
I didn’t want a party to celebrate my thirty-ninth birthday. But when I had arrived at the clubhouse, one was already in full swing. After a few tense weeks, my brothers were hell-bent on having some fun, and my birthday was the perfect outlet.
Tonight, things were going to get wild.
And if the beautiful woman climbing all over me had her way, she was about to get wild with me.
I ripped my mouth from her and gently pushed her away.
“Okay, you need to take it easy,” I said. “This isn’t going to—”
She cut me off with her lips and thrust her tongue into my mouth again, trying to coax a response from me. But she wasn’t going to get one.
Again, I pushed her away. “This isn’t happening.”
She leaned back and looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“This… you and me… ”
She looked wounded by the rejection and I felt like an ass.
“Look, you’re gorgeous. You really are. But I don’t want—”
“Are you saying you don’t want to fuck me?” She raised an eyebrow at me.
And I had a feeling she wasn’t used to being told no.
“I’m saying I wasn’t expecting this.”
She leaned closer and grazed my ear with her lips. “When they told me it was for you, I told them I’d do it for free.”
Again, I gently pushed her away. I needed to keep her at arm’s length to avoid another lip assault. “And that’s really kind of you, but I don’t want to fuck you.”
Her brows slammed together and she gave me a dark look as she climbed off my lap. “Fine. But just so you know, they insisted on paying me, and I don’t do refunds.”
And here I thought she was doing it for free.
“I’m sure that will be fine.”
She gathered up her belongings but paused to look over at me. “You want to know something? I was really looking forward to it. You’re a hottie, Ruger. All the girls at The Den think so.” The Den was the brothel the Kings of Mayhem owned.
She walked over, and in a surprising move, planted a kiss on the top of my head. “Whoever she is, I hope she realizes how lucky she is.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised.
She smiled. “The girl you’re in love with.”
I chuckled. “No, no… you’ve got the wrong—”
“Deny it all you like. But I know the look of a guy who’s pussy-whipped, it’s written all over your handsome face. Happy birthday, Ruger. Go home to your girl.”
And with that, she left the room and closed the door behind her.
I waited for a moment, sitting on the end of the bed with my head a mess, before I got up.
In the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and gargled with mouthwash to get the taste of vanilla and cherry out of my mouth.
She was wrong.
I wasn’t in love.
I wasn’t.
Leaning over the sink, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
Since last night, thoughts of wanting to kiss Chastity had simmered beneath every conscious thought.
I groaned.
Hell, who was I kidding.
It wasn’t just thoughts of kissing her invading my every waking moment. Because I didn’t just want to kiss her. I was aching to touch her, and it was slowly killing me.
Being my birthday, she had sent me a couple of text messages, but my responses had been short and non-committal because I needed to catch a breath and untangle the mess in my head. And that meant staying as far away from her as possible.
But as it turned out, that was worse.
Because when I wasn’t near her, I was wishing I was.
Fuck. I needed to get out there and have a good time.
The way I saw it, tonight I had a choice. I could get shitfaced with the boys. And hell, it was my birthday. I should get that drunk with my brothers and have a good time. Even if the thought of waking up in the dead of night, hungover and filled with the ache of loneliness in my clubhouse room was as appealing as a knee to the balls.
Or I could go home, and sleep in my bed, knowing the girl of my dreams was sleeping only yards away from me in another room.
One of them was pure torture.
And it wasn’t the one involving a painful hangover.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
“Well, birthday guy, what’s it going to be?”
Leaving my room, I made it through the throng of people celebrating my birthday without me, and climbing on my bike, I headed for home.
It was late when I got back to the house. The porch light was on, so I knew Chastity was home. There was no point trying to pretend my chest didn’t fill with warmth knowing she was inside. I was getting tired of fighting what I really felt. It was easier to recognize it and then accept I was a sonofabitch for feeling it.