in for more than a minute.”
“What are you tryin’ to do right now, Stubbs?”
“I wanted to dance. Ask you out. See if anything comes of it.”
“Wow, you’ve worked on your pickup game. This is a lot different than asking me if I wanna fuck while pinning me against a wall,” I said. “Though… that’s more my thing, honestly.”
I saw Christian’s body jerk. His eyes were aimed at us and I suspected they had been since the song started. Were our voices carrying that much or did my Superman have supersonic hearing?
Stubbs laughed. “I’m tryin’.”
Suddenly, Christian was there, looking down his nose at Stubbs. “Cuttin’ in.”
“Huh?” Stubbs looked at him with a poor attempt at a death stare.
Quite poor in fact compared to the signature Fork death stare I’d had aimed at me a few times.
Fork looked down. From this close it was as if he was looking way down, as if intentionally. “Yup.”
I was thrown, to say the least.
“I don’t think so,” Stubbs said. “I’m sure there’ll be another slow song later.”
Fork got even more in his face. “Step off.”
Stubbs smiled in reply and shrugged before he let go of me.
“Later, Jojo.” He winked.
Christian pulled me to him. I looked up at him in shock as Chase bellowed out the lyrics, “I don’t know who you are but I’m with you…”
Stubbs moved out of sight. Whoa. Smart move really, since Stubbs was maybe 5’9” and lanky where Fork was maybe 6’7” and both muscled and meaty.
“Thanks, man; saved me from beating his face in again.” Rider said.
He and Jenna were suddenly beside us again.
“Smarmy little fuck,” Christian muttered.
Rider fist-bumped him.
Was I in the twilight zone? Jenna gave me wide eyes. Rider looked down at her and she immediately cleared her expression and ran her fingers through his hair. He got lost in her and seemed to forget about us.
Spence and Pippa were dancing far away from us and I didn’t think Spence even saw Stubbs get me on the dancefloor.
Deacon’s eyes were on me and Fork and I couldn’t get a read on them. Ella was smiling with her head against Deacon’s chest and her eyes closed. I doubted she noticed us thus far either.
It was my turn to get a Christian Forker dirty look. He looked down at me. “You kidding me tonight?”
I fluttered my eyelashes.
“This is funny?” he asked.
“What?”
“The fact that you’re tryin’ to piss me off.”
I gave my head an innocent shake. “Not tryin’ to do anything.”
“Justice and now Stubbs? And that asshole up on the stage there’ll be next I’m sure.”
“What are you gettin’ at?” I asked.
His hands were hot on my skin. My face went flushed remembering how his hands felt on my naked body, how they looked cupping my breasts.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he grunted.
He wasn’t exactly light on his feet, but I didn’t care. He wasn’t a dancer but cut in to get me away from Shane Stubbs despite that the whole family was here, more or less the whole club. This said something. Something I’d felt deep down since the day the wind blew through Ella’s kitchen as this man stepped into my vision for the first time.
“Don’t look at you like what?” I asked, biting my lip, looking up at him with a blatant smirk.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t. If you’re trying to suggest I’m trying to make you jealous, you best take a step back and think on it. Stubbs pulled me into a dance. Justice was bein’ just… weirdly flirty. I gave zero signals to earn that from either of them. If you’re thinking I’m trying to make you jealous, it’s clear that it’s more like you don’t like the idea of anyone else’s hands on me.”
He growled at me in reply. I laughed in response. Wow. Bingo. Just the mention of it had him growling. I found myself quite aroused by that.
I put my head on his chest and snuggled in just the way I’d seen Ella do with Deacon.
“Stubbs hit on you regularly?” he asked. ”That why Ride just talked about beating his face in?”
“He was my first kiss,” I said.
I felt him go even stiffer. I looked up.
His face went red. Angry red. His ears, too.
“I was fifteen and he was a prospect. And he didn’t know I was fifteen and Rider ripped him a second asshole.”
“Fucker needs a third.”
I smirked. “But, I’m not underage anymore.”
He flexed his jaw and his fingers around my waist went tighter.
The song ended and Chase piped