“So you’re not convincin’ me that you don’t know he doesn’t want in there,” Gage continued, his voice thick. Rough. Full of sex. As if he could taste it in the air. His eyes roamed over every inch of me like a brutal and physical caress. Then they stopped pointedly on my hips before meeting my eyes. “And he’s not getting in there.” There was a promise in his voice, a concrete and certain one.
“And why is it that you think you have any say on who gets in where?” I demanded, my hackles rising on principle. I let my anger take the reins. It was rather welcome. Yeah, Gage was hot. Actually he was something else entirely. Just like whatever it was between us.
Inexplicable.
Impossible.
But that didn’t change the fact that he’d known me less than twenty-four hours. So he didn’t get to stare at my crotch—that was staring at him pretty freaking hard—like he owned it and then speak like he owned it too.
No matter how much I wanted him to own it.
That was not how I was going to let it go.
He wasn’t going to own me.
He stepped forward.
I stepped back.
Because no matter what I wanted from the man, I wasn’t ready for the promise in his eyes as he approached me.
“You know why,” he purred, taking another step forward.
I took another step back and my back hit the hard wood of the door.
Just when I thought he’d cage me in with his arms, he stopped, eyes seeming to turn pure black. “You know there’s only one man who’s getting into that pussy that I’m guessin’ is sweet as honey and as greedy as my cock,” he murmured, his voice gravel, a freaking siren song to the pulsating need between my thighs.
My heart beat in my throat and my knees at the same time. I had never in my not-so-experienced sexual life had anyone talk like that to me. Not even when they were inside me. I didn’t like dirty talk; I much preferred to seek out my orgasm in silence.
And I chose my men in regards to that preference. Sensible. Well dressed. Pleasing to look at. But safe.
Turned out I did like dirty talk.
It just had to come from the right man.
Or the so very wrong one.
“You can’t speak to me like that,” I breathed, my words a limp protest.
“Can speak to my woman however the fuck I want,” he challenged. “However the fuck she wants me to.”
He leaned forward and I couldn’t stop myself from inhaling. He smelled of smoke, of soap, and of a scent that was so purely male, so purely him, I would’ve breathed it in my whole life if I could.
“And I know you want me to speak to you exactly like that. Can see it in your eyes.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “I can fucking taste it in the air.”
“I’m not your woman,” I lied fiercely, clutching onto the last of my control. The last of my fight. Because I knew I was somehow his. Like in all those stupid movies and books I’d scoffed at, sure those things didn’t happen in real life.
I wasn’t entirely sure I was in real life.
In the real world.
Or maybe I hadn’t been.
Until now.
Gage’s face was granite. “You are. You know it. And I’m not doing this shit. Shit I’ve seen five times over, my brothers fighting for bullshit reasons, running around wasting time with battles.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not afraid of a fight, or a battle. And I’ll fight for you, make no doubt about it. But there’s gonna be none of that shit. You’re agreeing right now that this is somethin’ between us. That you’re my woman.”
His words curled around me, cutting at my skin. Because they weren’t gentle, tender, romantic. No, they were harsh, sharp, almost ugly in their delivery. And that’s how I knew they were true.
Because if it wasn’t ugly, it wasn’t the truth.
Still, I was going to argue it. But of course he wasn’t going to let me.
“Now, you’re gonna walk your ass out the door and get in the car with the fuckin’ pig—the very last time you’re in an enclosed space with an asshole who wants what’s mine,” he rasped, stepping forward so our bodies almost brushed.
Almost.
He caught himself just before that happened.
“You can educate him on how to back the fuck off. Maybe use the numbers you’re so fond of. Like how 100 percent of the men who look at you the way he does die if they do it more than once,” he continued.
I blinked. “You’re not going to kill a police officer for looking at me,” I whispered. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough,” he clipped. “I know you’d risk your life to swerve for a fucking dog in the middle of the night. I know that instead of sitting in the car and waiting for someone to help you, you get yourself out of that car and prepare yourself to walk six fucking miles, possibly battling a concussion and a hefty amount of pain.” His eyes flickered over me, as if he was cataloguing every inch of that pain. And not just my visible bruises. “Then you fuckin’ sass the biker who corners you on an abandoned highway, despite being vulnerable as fuck. You sure don’t fucking act vulnerable. You got on the back of my bike, even though you knew what I was.”