“HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING mind?” I growl at Lacey.
What the hell did I ever see in her?
Easy. She was easy.
Well, she was easy until she was anything but.
When I heard from a mutual friend she would be here tonight to celebrate her friend Hannah’s birthday, I hadn’t thought much of it until the plan to take Nikki out had hatched. Never, not once, did I think she would get violent. The hostess, the same one I had stopped by to talk to earlier and make sure we had a seat at the same table as Lacey, rushes over.
“Are you okay?” she questions Nikki, dabbing her with some napkins, not that it does any good.
Nikki, though, doesn’t even look fazed. She only spares me a second before answering the hostess, but I can hear the laughter in her voice. Laughter? Fucking hell, does this woman ever do what I expect?
That’s about when it all goes tits up.
Lacey’s salad hits Nikki in the chest, the ginger dressing and lettuce sticking to her. I stand the second I see her move, my chair tumbling to the ground just in time to stop Lacey from reaching Nikki. No doubt, we’ve got the whole damn room’s attention at this point. Lacey is going nuts trying to get past me. I catch her hand, maybe arm, right in the jaw, but it just pisses me off more.
“Shut your fucking mouth, woman,” I demand, my voice hard and unforgiving. Lacey, though, ignores me and somehow gets an empty plate in her hand, swinging it quicker than I can stop it and dropping it on Nikki’s head. I’ve never wanted to hurt a woman more. “You touch her one more fucking time, and I’m not going to hold her back when she’s had enough.” Do I know if Nikki is the kind of woman to defend herself? Not really, but I have a feeling I’m not wrong.
“You really need a muzzle.”
When Nikki’s snarky remark hits my ears, I fight back a grin. That’s my girl. Fuck, my girl?
“He’s mine,” Lacey snarls at Nikki.
Maneuvering my hold on Lacey, I turn her so that her back is to me and both of her wrists are in my grasp. She tries to kick me but just ends up kicking her own leg.
“Mon colibri, get your purse,” I say over my shoulder. “And do me a favor and call the police after you take some cash out of my wallet to cover the inconveniences.”
Lacey only gets more animated after that request. I ignore her, apologize to the staff surrounding us, and feel Nikki’s hand reach into my back pocket for my wallet. I don’t wait for her to put it back; instead, I lead Lacey out of the restaurant. If Nikki isn’t right behind me, she won’t be far. I don’t like leaving the damage control to her, but right now, all I want is this piece of trash away from her.
When we step outside, I give a little shove and release Lacey. She doesn’t stumble but turns and tries to get in my face. I place one hand on her chest to keep her from getting too close. Unfortunately for me, she was able to get one of her nails into the skin on my neck first.
“Has this bullshit been hiding inside since I met you? Because I gotta say, Lacey, had I known you were this fucking crazy, I would have scraped you off long before I finally did.”
“You fucking love me, you asshole.”
“You’re even more unstable if you think that’s true.”
“Yeah?” she screams. “Then why is your ring on my finger?” She holds out her hand, and I’m stunned silent for a second when I see she’s still wearing that damn ring.
“Probably because he was nice enough to let you keep it. Maybe he thought you could buy a new personality with the money you got from pawning it.”
Nikki steps up to my side, pushing my wallet back into my pants. Well, saved by the fucking bell.
“You … you bitch!”
“You know, someone once told me you can win more fights with intelligence instead of resorting to animalistic tendencies and words that belong in the garbage.” She steps a little closer to Lacey and turns her head as I feel her gaze on me. I look down only when I know I have Lacey contained. “Of course, those garbage words are pretty amazing when they’re coming from you and you’re saying them while you’re between my legs, honey bunch.”
“You call the cops?” I ask, ignoring another of her stupid pet names. Fuck if I’ll admit, they’re growing on me. Just like all the other quirky things that are one hundred percent Nicole Clark.
She nods.
“I’m sorry our night ended this way,” I tell her, not wanting her to think I wanted this to happen. I figured we would show up and Lacey would get the point and see that I was actually not wasting away for her.
She waves me off, shrugging and smiling at Lacey. “Don’t be. You’re not the one in charge of her rabies shots.”
“Fuck, you’re cute.”
“You know, you don’t need to hold her back from me,” she tells me, still looking at Lacey, who is red in the face from the yelling we’re both ignoring. I glance up at the restaurant quickly and see we’ve brought an audience out here with us. Looks like we’re more entertaining than the chefs tonight. How did I not see this coming? “Drop your hand, Shane.”
“Fuck that,” I answer immediately with a frown, not understanding why she would want this bitch free.
“Release her, Shane. Now.”
“Not a chance in hell I’m letting her near you, chèrie.”
“You never called me that!” Lacey screams.
“Shut the fuck up,” I grunt toward her.
“Shane, I’m asking you one more time. Be a good boy and let her go, and I promise I’ll let you do whatever you want later for a reward.”
I let my hand fall instantly but move to pull Nikki into my arms at the same second Lacey charges, turning so that she hits air and not Nik. Never once did I think that the woman I was trying to protect would be able to move quicker than I could, though. By the time I finish our spin, Nikki’s out of my arms and face to face with the woman I stupidly thought I could spend the rest of my life with.
“Touch me. I dare you,” she taunts Lacey.
I reach out to take Nikki back in my arms, but again, she evades me.
“I’ll do more than touch you,” Lacey yells, spit flying from her mouth.
I can feel the animal inside me pacing in agitation while I lose complete control of the situation. Lacey swings, Nikki ducks, and in a move straight out of a kung fu movie, Nikki has Lacey on her back in the grass with one tiny little foot right on Lacey’s chest.
“I knew you were stupid for letting him go, but I didn’t think you were stupid enough to fall for the good old dare trick. Lacey, is it? Whatever, doesn’t matter. Listen to me now because the next time this happens, he won’t be able to keep me from you. You let him go, and I will never be as stupid as you. You might have a ring he gave you, but it stopped being more than a hunk of metal and a rock the second y’all broke up OVER a year ago. Stop being a pathetic excuse for a woman sniffing after a man who doesn’t want you, and move the heck on.”
I hear the sirens, but I’m unable to do more than watch Nikki defend herself—and me.
“He’ll always be mine,” Lacey gasps, winded from her fall.
Nikki throws her head back, her long blond hair shaking down her back. My hands itch, wanting it in my fist while I take her hard.
“He let you go and didn’t want you back. If you ask me, he never was yours to begin with.”
“He will be back. Mark my words.” For the first time, a little of Lacey’s confidence cracks, and I see that she isn’t as confident as she would like us to believe.
“Wrong. He’s got me now, and I won’t ever do anything to screw up what we have. Whatever you think it was you shared, we’ve got that and then some. You ever seen what it looks like when two people find their forever? Well, open your eyes, sweetheart, because it’s right in front of you.”
Even knowing she’s acting, her words hit something inside me that makes my chest warm and my heart pound. I clench my fists when that sensation gets more intense. Nikki steps back at the same time the flashing lights paint the outside of the restaurant. Stepping into my hold, she doesn’t look away from Lacey as she rolls and climbs to her feet.
She wasn’t wrong; my ex never was the brightest crayon in the box. She shows everyone watching that when she leaps forward and punches Nikki right in the eye two seconds after the officer steps out of his car.
“Jesus.” I look up and see the officer, one I recognize quickly from his connection to Nate, as he frowns down at Lacey, and the other officer with him handcuffs her. “You know, Nik, I thought you might be exaggerating when I heard it was you who called this in.”
“Would I do that?” Nikki laughs, curling even more into my side. I tighten my hold, not wanting any space between us. Not letting myself question that.
He just laughs, moving Lacey away from us. I tune him out while he says something into his radio then addresses Lacey. My eyes only for one woman. And the crazy woman just smiles up at me, one red eye and all.
“That was fun.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, pulling her into my arms and pressing my lips to her eye. I move my hand to the back of her head and press her against my chest while I look over her head as Liam puts my ex in the back of his patrol car.
After he finishes questioning the witnesses, he walks back to us and shakes his head with a grin at Nikki. We had moved to lean against my car while he got his statements, waiting for our turn.
“Haven’t seen you around in a while, squirt.”
“The school year started back up and I’ve been busy keeping the youth of America from boredom. How are Megan and the kids?”
“They’re great,” he answers, his whole demeanor changing at the mention of his wife and children. I don’t know him too well, but I know enough through Nate that I wouldn’t call him a stranger. “You pressing charges?”
Nikki says no at the same time I say yes. She looks up, studies me for a second, and then nods. She shocks the shit out of me when she looks back at Liam and ignores me as if I’m not even there.
“You’ll have to forgive Shane; he doesn’t like it when someone messes with his girl. My precious, he’s like that.”
“Your girl,” he repeats, looking at me with lips twitching with amusement, but his eyes hold a lot of questions.
“Thanks for coming,” she continues, ignoring the two men at her side and completely clueless to the heat in his stare. “If you don’t mind, I’m really hungry, and I was promised a meal before a great night of fun at his place. Do you have something where I can write my statement down?”
Who the hell is this woman?
“Yeah, Nik,” he says, shaking his head at her with a small smile. He walks away and opens the trunk of his patrol car, returning a moment later with an incident form. “Fill this out and I’ll let you know if I have any follow-up questions later so you two can get out of here. I’m sure Megan’s going to want more than I can give her when she hears about this, though, so I’d expect a call from her before me.”
Thirty minutes later, we’re back in my car. Lacey might have lucked out with Nikki refusing to press charges, but unfortunately for her, Liam still placed her under arrest for disorderly conduct since he witnessed her erratic behavior firsthand—not to mention her physically putting her hands on Nikki with the intent to harm. She won’t even spend the night in jail; I’m sure Daddy’s princess will have him bailing her out immediately, but there isn’t shit I can do about that. I make a mental note to let the bouncers at Dirty know Lacey is officially banned from the club, something I should have done sooner. Had I, then maybe she wouldn’t be so fucked in the head thinking I would take her back.
I glance over at Nikki, her hair now dry from the drink, but the dressing from the salad still staining her top. She’s wearing a small smirk on her lips, not even fazed by the events of the night.
“Hey!” She jerks up straighter and points forward. “Taco Bell?”
“Do you ever do what someone would expect you to do?”
She giggles. “Never, handsome. Never.”
Dangerous game, indeed.
“So …” Nikki mumbles around a mouth full of her burrito. “You were engaged?”
I finish chewing the bite I had just taken and wash it down with a drink before answering. “Not really.”
“Explain that.”
“I was with her for a few years. She moved here with me when Nate opened Dirty and I took the job he offered. We’d talked about marriage before, but nothing serious and more me entertaining her when she would bring it up. When I gave her that ring, it was more of a one day we might kind of thing because I was honestly sick of her bitching about it. It was never an engagement ring, and she knew that. I think I always knew we weren’t right for each other, and it was easier to dust off our troubles with shiny shit than put up with her screaming all the time.”
“You bought her a ring with no intention of marrying her? Harsh, Kingston, harsh.”
“Not my finest moment,” I agree. “But I didn’t lead her on. She knew what it was.”
“So what happened? You weren’t ready to break it off with her then, clearly, but what happened to end things for y’all?”
I lean back in my seat, looking around the empty dining area of our local Taco Bell. None of the employees are paying us any attention. We might as well be in our own world.
“She fucked someone else.”
“Ouch. Been there. I take it she didn’t stay with him long?”
I let a grunted huff. “Her. She didn’t stay with her for long and correct.”
Nikki’s mouth opens wide, her eyes round. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Do you know any man who would joke about their ex cheating on them with another woman?”
“Well, no.”
I lift my shoulder, not saying anything else. What else is there to say?
“When Seth cheated on me, I blamed myself for a long time. He always told me that he felt like he was sleeping with a dead person because I was apparently that bad in bed. It took me some time to see things clearly. I know now he was lacking and not me. I imagine it’s the same for your situation.”
“You know the sad part,” I tell her, stopping when her phone rings. She doesn’t even look away from me, something that used to drive me nuts with Lacey. She never gave two shits about ignoring me when her phone went off in favor of whatever notification came through. “The sad part is I wasn’t even that upset. She gave me an out from a relationship that was suffocating me.”
“Why didn’t you just break it off with her?”
“You know, I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that. Maybe I was wrong for not ending it before she had a chance to cheat. I thought I loved her, but after we split, I realized what we shared was never close to that. Sure, at a time I cared about her, but love? No.”
Nikki nods, taking another bite.
“I’m sure it’s not a shock that she wasn’t the most level-headed person.”
“Understatement,” she snorts.
“She would get jealous. So fucking jealous. I guess it just wasn’t worth the fallout that I knew would come if I broke it off, so I just kept on, resenting her more and more with each day that passed. The day I caught her with Hannah, I felt nothing but relief.”
“Hannah? You mean the same girl who you said hello to earlier?”
“That would be the one.”
“Wow. That’s some messed-up stuff. Sounds like an episode of The Young and the Restless.”
“Welcome to my life.”
“So that’s why you’re single? Because of what Lacey did to you?”
“Partly,” I tell her honestly, weighing my words while she waits for me to continue. “You know what I do at Dirty when I’m not in my office. When I’m working the bar, which isn’t often anymore, it’s my job to use my sexuality to make the customers feel some kind of rush, the same rush that keeps them coming back day after day. To those women, every time I dance, they think it’s some unspoken promise. It’s not easy for someone to see the man they’re in a relationship with charming other women for a living.”
Nikki brushes it off as no big deal, but I’ve never met a woman who didn’t get jealous when faced with that situation I just described. Ever. None of the guys, with the exception of Nate, are in relationships. Dent had a woman for a while, but just like me and Lacey, she couldn’t handle him working at Dirty.
“I used to strip,” I continue, not sure why I told her that.
“I know.” She smirks. “Nate isn’t shy about his past. He told Em and me a long time ago about how he knew you.”
I narrow my eyes. “That’s it; nothing else to say?”
She places her burrito down and tilts her head at me. “What do you want me to say? I’m not like those little insecure girls you seem to be comparing me to, Shane. I don’t get jealous. If someone is with me, they have all my trust until the day they don’t deserve it anymore. Plus, it’s kind of hot.”
“Kind of hot?” Is this girl for real?
“The idea of my man working hard for his business, using his body to drive women mad enough that they crave him but knowing I’m the one that he comes home to? The only one who gets what he taunts others with. Yeah, that’s hot.”
“Are you real?” I voice the question bouncing around in my mind.
She giggles. Cute as fuck. “I don’t know, honey. How about you take me to one of our homes and find out for yourself how real I am?”
I’m up from the table without having to be told twice. She chuckles the whole time while I toss our trash and grab her hand to pull her from the building. When I have her outside, I spin her body and press her into the side of my car with my hips. I rub my hard-as-fuck cock against her, loving the fuck out of that hum that comes from her parted lips. Her head tips back when I close the distance between our mouths.
Right before mine touches hers, I smirk. “Add honey to the yes column.”
Then I take her mouth, kissing her deep. Giving anyone who drives by a show, I thrust my body against hers slowly, driving us both mad. Her nails bite into the skin exposed from my rolled-up sleeves, and when I pull away from her and we’re both panting heavily, she tightens her hold.
“I thought there was no first date sex,” she gasps, still trying to catch her breath.
“Fuck the first date.”