She blinked at him a few times and took a step back. “What did I say?”
“‘You won’t win’? I was a second from pummeling him. Thanks for the vote of fucking confidence.”
“Johnny, seriously? A fistfight? You’re above that.”
“Were we just in the same room?” he asked incredulously. “Did you not hear what he said?”
“Of course I heard. But it’s not worth it. You’re of more use to me here than in a jail cell. Or worse—a hospital bed.”
“That’s not why you stopped me,” he said. “You didn’t think I could take him.”
Lola raked her fingers through her hair. She had too much on her mind to be stroking Johnny’s ego. “Everything happened so fast. If you’d seen the look in his eyes—”
“I did. I was standing right in front of him.”
She shook her head quickly. “You didn’t see what I saw. I said that to protect you. One or both of you could’ve gotten really hurt. You don’t know his background. He could be dangerous.”
“Don’t ever get in the middle like that again,” he said. “You could’ve been the one hurt. I don’t need you to protect me.”
Vero came out from the backroom, whistling with her bag swinging over her arm. “You guys ready to lock up? The others went out the back, and I got somewhere to be.”
“Yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Johnny muttered, walking to the front to shut out the lights.
“What’d the suit want?” Vero asked. “He going to make an offer?”
“No,” Lola snapped, already headed the opposite direction to get her purse from the back. When she returned, the bar was dark and empty. She heard Johnny start the car. On her way out, she remembered Beau’s card on the counter. She went back to throw it away—it was the last thing she wanted to see when they came in the next day.
It was gone.
* * *
Lola rubbed her wrist where her watch had been. Johnny brushed his teeth so hard, she heard the whole thing from where she sat on the edge of their bed.
It was always the normal-looking guys who were deranged. Given her past, she could usually spot them, but this guy, Beau—who seemed to be things she wasn’t used to, like charming and refined—that level of depravity on a guy like him surprised her.
The ride home had been quiet. She’d gone over her brief conversations with Beau for any clue of what was to come. The only thing out of the ordinary was his sudden coldness toward her at the end when she wouldn’t accept his tip.
She’d apologized to Johnny right before they’d gotten out of the car, but he’d sullenly ignored her. Her mind had still been playing catch up. Something in particular had nagged at her—she just couldn’t figure out what.
The faucet stopped and Johnny came out of the ensuite bathroom in his boxers. He leaned in the doorway with his arms crossed. “What interrupted you?”
“What?” Lola asked.
He sighed irritably as if she’d checked out of a conversation she hadn’t known they were having. “He said you guys were interrupted before he could say you were ‘captivating.’ What interrupted you?”
“It was early in the night,” she said, swallowing. “I don’t really remember.”
“Try,” he said.
Lola glanced at her hands. Beau had been standing across from her with his loosened tie and easy grin. Earlier. Before he’d become visibly stiff in those last moments. What had he said to her? That it was hard to get his attention, but that she had it. Such bold disregard for her relationship excited her more than it should. Nobody she knew went after anything that way—except maybe her before she’d settled down with Johnny. “I think he was trying to…to flirt with me, I guess, but you came out from the back,” Lola said. “That’s when I introduced you. He was being a little forward.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve thrown him out.”
“Because I can handle myself,” she said. “Besides, you told me to flirt with him at the end of the night.”
“Not really flirt,” Johnny said tersely. “I meant in a way that he thinks you’re flirting but you’re really not. Whatever.” He pushed off the
doorjamb. “So did you give him a reason to make that offer?”
“Johnny,” she scolded. “It’s me. The woman you love and who loves you back.” She waited, hoping his expression would clear a little. “Of course I didn’t give him a reason. The whole thing was stupid.”
“Come here,” he said.
“What?”
“I said come over here.”
She stood slowly and went to him. He took her chin and kissed her. Her upper lip pinched between their teeth, and she jerked back. “Johnny, stop. We need to talk about this.”
“Later,” he said. With a hand on her shoulder, he gently nudged her toward the bed.
“It’s four in the morning.”
“Yeah.” He pulled her against him by her hips and kissed her again. He ran his hand down her backside and squeezed. “Right now, you know what I want.”
She knew. Most of the time when they had sex, it was after she and Johnny had fallen into bed, or in the late morning when they woke up. Once in a while, though, Johnny got really worked up, and then he liked her on her hands and knees.
She turned around willingly. When Johnny had his rare urges, he didn’t fight them, and she didn’t want him to. Those were the times he went absolutely crazy for her.
She climbed onto the bed in only a long T-shirt. He lifted it up and grabbed her ass in both hands. He rubbed against her. She dropped her forehead toward the mattress as he entered her. His first few thrusts were long and slow as she warmed up to him, but they soon turned quick and hard. It normally took time for her to climax from penetration alone, but she almost always did this way. She became putty in his hands to know he was so consumed, he couldn’t even bother with foreplay.
“That’s it. Damn, Lo,” Johnny said. “You feel good.”
She gasped. “Right there. Don’t stop.”
“You like that?” He ran a hand up her back, then grabbed her hips and pulled her into his next thrust. “Like it hard, baby? How’s that for fucking flirting?”
Her breath caught. He was thinking of Beau, which made her think of Beau. “What?”