Joker (Hell's Ankhor #8) - Aiden Bates Page 0,42

for a long time, and I care about what he thinks, but he doesn’t get a say in—in this. We haven’t been together in eight years.”

Joker huffed a laugh. “Does he know that?”

“He really was a dick to you, wasn’t he?” I asked.

Joker shrugged. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. But… It did seem to veer into jealous boyfriend territory.”

I cringed. “It wasn’t. He’s… he has some, uh, opinions on my dating history. But only because I’ve made some bad choices.”

“And he thinks I’m a bad choice,” Joker said dully.

“No,” I said immediately, because even if that was true, that wasn’t the point of what I was saying. “He’s got issues with alcohol. He starts… Getting angry, inventing problems, getting in people’s business. It wasn’t about me. Or about you, honestly. It’s just what he does when he drinks.”

Some of the tension bled from Joker’s expression. “So he’s not going to show up at my door with a shotgun?”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. He was just looking to pick a fight, and you were an easy target.”

“You callin’ me easy?” Joker said playfully, and his lips curled into a coy smile again.

“Not exactly the word I would use,” I said. I kissed him again; I kept my arm around his waist and slid the other into his hair, then hitched my thigh up a little to press against his crotch.

Joker groaned into the kiss, and his cock throbbed against my thigh. Desire surged through me when his hands tightened on my hips as he let me guide the kiss. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from him, but this pliant, almost submissive reaction wasn’t it. And I had to admit to myself that I really fucking liked it. Liked the unexpected contrast of him, that he was so bristly and ready to fight until I got my hands on him. Then he went all soft and needy.

I broke the kiss, but only so I could kiss down the smooth line of his jaw, and then his neck, savoring his fucking intoxicating scent. He shivered under my touch.

I kept kissing down his neck as I slid my hands over the muscular planes of his back, then dipped my hands beneath the hem of his shirt to slide across his lower back. His skin was so smooth, and I couldn’t help but scrape my nails across his skin a little, which only made him shiver harder and try to press even closer.

I walked him backward, away from the sign toward a smaller workbench. He stumbled a little but went as I directed, laughing as he bumped into the bench. I gripped his thighs and lifted up.

Joker made a sound that wasn’t too far from a squeak in surprise as I lifted him to deposit him on the edge of the bench.

With Joker seated on the edge of the workbench, he was a few inches above me, and I wrapped a hand around his nape to tug him down for another kiss. I smiled into the kiss, thinking I could really get used to this, when Joker pulled away.

He pressed his lips together a little nervously, even as he kept his arms looped around my neck. “Brennan,” he said. “I… We said we wouldn’t do this.”

My heart jumped into my throat. We said we wouldn’t, but did that mean we didn’t want to?

Or was Joker too afraid?

15

Joker

Brennan’s brow furrowed as his eyes tracked across my face. I’d surprised myself, too, putting the brakes on right when things were getting good, something I couldn’t say I’d ever done before with anyone. He looked a little confused, a little curious, but not disappointed. Or angry. Like—if I stopped things here, maybe we could go back to normal. And the knowledge that he wasn’t annoyed that I’d stopped him gave me the courage to continue.

I kept my arms around his neck, my fingers tangled in the soft hair at the base of his skull. “We said we weren’t going to do this for a reason,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, I remember,” Brennan said. “So we wouldn’t complicate the job, right?”

“Right,” I said.

And that’d worked. I’d never felt so at ease with a guy before. The past few weeks, spending time with Brennan, it was like something tense inside me had released for the first time in years. I loved working on the sign—the sense of purpose and skill it gave me—but it was also so calming just being around Brennan. His low music playing, his laugh, his snacks,