Verek (Savage Kings MC - South Carolina #3) - Lane Hart Page 0,44
him backward about three feet.
“Hey! What the hell!” he exclaims before spinning around with his fists raised. He looks me up and down quickly, noticing my lack of patches. “Who the fuck are you?” he asks, apparently feeling brave.
“Verek!” Tessa warns.
“I’m one of the fuckers who’ll decide if you patch in or not,” I tell him. “Now take your buddy and get lost!”
His wide brown eyes look to Tessa, then to the other kid who shrugs like he doesn’t have a clue if I’m full of shit or telling the truth.
“Go. I’ll be fine,” Tessa tells the boys. “Verek’s a Savage King, or at least I thought he was,” she says, narrowing her emerald eyes at me in a way that says I’ve somehow fucked up.
After a few more seconds of shuffling back and forth on their feet, the two prospects finally give up and go stand with their backs to the wall, facing us just ten or so feet away.
“So you’re back,” Tessa says.
“I’m back,” I agree when I lean my hip against the bar inches away from her so I can drink her in. She looks the same as I remembered, from the curls of her red hair to the dusting of freckles over her porcelain skin and her cute button nose. She smells just as delicious too, like warm vanilla. Not surprisingly, she’s wearing a big green sweater that comes down to her knees and a pair of loose jeans underneath, not showing any skin other than her face and hands.
“Aren’t you worried Roman will spank you if he finds out you talked to me?” she asks, her question feistier than I expected. Is she drunk?
“Roman knows I’m here, and he looked pretty happy to see me,” I tell her, leaving out that I didn’t ask his permission to talk to her nor will I from here on out. That shit is done. Tessa doesn’t live with him anymore, so he doesn’t get a say in whether or not he thinks I’m good enough for her. Which brings me to my most urgent concern. “Are you happy to see me?” I ask.
“No,” she answers too fast to be the truth. “Why would I want to see the man who forgot about me for six months.”
“I missed you and I never forgot about you, not even for a second,” I tell her emphatically. “Roman put me in a tough situation, and he needed time to get the fuck over what we did.”
“Where were you?” she asks, still looking down at her glass and not me.
“Miami.”
“How many girls did you fuck in Miami?”
It’s not that I wasn’t prepared for that question, I’m just caught off guard because she used the f-word so easily. I don’t think I ever heard her cuss before. I know for a fact she never said fuck.
“None,” I tell her honestly.
Rolling her eyes that still won’t look at me she says, “You’re so full of shit.”
“I’m telling the truth. Now, you didn’t ask how many girls tried to fuck me. But the answer to how many I slept with is the same. None. Not a single one.”
For several long seconds, Tessa doesn’t say anything. Then she asks, “Do you want some kind of award for not taking a different woman home every night?”
I think there is much more to that question. She’s obviously taking a shot at me for the night she was taken, finally bringing it up – that I was being stupid while she was being kidnapped, and it’s my fault for not going after her. There’s no amount of apologizing to make up for that. So I don’t even try. I just tell her the truth.
“Sweetheart, you’re the only woman I want to take home.”
“No call for six months and you have the nerve to try that line on me?”
“It’s not a line,” I assure her.
“Uh-huh. Right,” Tessa replies. “Leo, I need another drink!”
“Hey, man,” our youngest member says when he comes over and eyes her empty glass and then me.
“Think she’s had enough?” I ask him.
“I just serve them up. I don’t judge,” he answers.
“Last one, and then I’m taking you home,” I tell Tessa as Leo pours.
“Nice try, but that’s not going to happen. Lucas and Jake will drive me back.” The way she says their name makes them sound too familiar. I don’t like it.
“But I bet you won’t let them sleep inside your apartment,” I argue. “Do they sleep in the hallway or on their bikes?” I question,