fled with her tail between her legs from a ten-year-old girl.
My laughter quickly dies when I feel eyes on me. My pulse starts racing as I look over and see Jaxon’s eyes on me. They’ve been on me this entire time.
He’s sitting at the table with Gage on one side of him and his brother Beckham on the other side. The men are talking, but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to any of it. He’s completely focused on me.
“Do you need anything else?” I ask Nixie as I pick up the tray of beers.
“I’m good, thanks,” she says as she munches on her burger.
With my stomach in knots, I head over to the table and start handing out beers. When I get to Jaxon, he grabs my wrist and pulls me onto his knee.
I gasp at the brazen act. Guys have tried to do this to me, but I always slapped them away or fought my way off.
But here I am, sitting on his knee, submitting to his will, wishing we were alone in this broken-down bar.
I inhale deep and my lungs are filled with his rich masculine scent of aftershave mixed with exhaust. It sends a damp pulse throbbing between my legs.
“Watch yourself, Jaxon,” Ranger warns. “The last guy who tried that on Stella got a mug broken over his head.”
His big sexy arms tighten around me like he’s never going to let me go.
“Let her go,” Troy commands from the head of the table. “Stella is a good girl.”
Now that all of the attention is on me, I catch myself and push off him. “Yeah, I’m a good girl,” I say as I get back to my feet, wishing I was still on his lap.
His eyes are still locked on me, undressing me, eye-fucking me, peering into my soul. “I bet you are,” he whispers as he licks his bottom lip.
I quickly head back to the bar where it’s safe. I’m not thinking good girl thoughts now. Not anymore.
“Look at you,” Roxanne says with a giggle. “You look as tuned up as a Harley rolling out of Maddox’s shop.”
“I’m not,” I lie as I hurry behind the bar and take a deep breath. I have never reacted to a man like that before. Ever.
Not ten seconds have passed before Jaxon walks over. He leans onto the bar, standing beside his niece, Nixie, but looking only at me.
“You don’t want to sit on my knee?”
“No,” I lie.
“Do you want to sit somewhere else?”
“Why?” I ask as I narrow my eyes onto him, knowing exactly what he means. “You want to kiss my ass?”
“I do,” he says with a heated look that nearly melts me. “Among other places.”
“Whoa!” Nixie says with an incredulous look. “Ten-year-old alert! I can hear you, ya know?”
Jaxon frowns as he turns to her. “Will you wipe it from your brain if I order you another strawberry milkshake?”
“I’m already trying to wipe it from my brain,” she mutters.
“One more strawberry milkshake for the little lady,” Jaxon says to Roxanne. I shiver as he turns his attention back to me. “Do you have a man?”
I lean back on the beer fridge and cross my arms over my chest. “Why would I need one of those?”
“To hold you at night. Make you coffee in bed. Make your back arch. Run you a bath. Make you see God. I can go on…”
“Oh, are you still talking?” I ask with a grin. “I tuned you out a while ago.”
Nixie giggles beside him.
“What are you laughing at?” he asks her.
“She’s not interested, Uncle J.” I smile at the cute girl who’s shaking her head. She’s cute but dead wrong.
“How do you know?” Jaxon asks her. “Maybe she’s playing hard to get.”
“Stella is impossible to get,” Roxanne says as she dumps strawberry ice cream into the blender. “She doesn’t want to date anyone, even though she thinks you’re really cute.”
His sexy eyes fall back onto me as he grins.
God, that grin…
“Oh, she does?” he says as he wipes a hand over his bearded chin. “I think she’s cute too. Very cute.”
Nixie is still shaking her head as she eats her fries. “You’re hopeless.”
“What?” he says to her. “I think I’m doing pretty good.”
Roxanne shoots her hand up like she’s in the first row at primary school. “Me too!”
“She’s not from the 1920s, Jaxon,” Nixie says with a frown. “This is 2020. Women don’t want ogre men who will grab and harass them. They want partners who challenge their intellect and