Either way, tonight isn’t the night for any more revelations or arguments, so I smile sweetly at Troy’s comment and let him pay for dinner. A moment later, we have our food piled onto plastic trays that we’re carrying carefully across the moonlit lawn.
“You want to sit over here?” He points to a few empty picnic tables near the edge of the bandstand, where a crowd is gathered around the stage listening to bluegrass.
I nod and follow behind, a sense of guilt overtaking me, despite the fact that this isn’t a date. It’s almost like my heart doesn’t want to be anywhere without Reed. That’s the part I need to force myself through. If I want him in my life, I have to keep a healthy distance. I can’t get so close that he’s pinning me against a wall again, making me moan. I can’t get so close that my pussythrobs constantly with thoughts of stretching around his thick cock.
Good Lord, I need to get a grip.
Troy and I sit at the picnic table furthest from the bandstand, a lantern hung on a post nearby spilling amber light across the warped wood.
“I’ve been thinking about this burger for weeks,” Troy says, peeling back the wrapper already spotted with mustard. He sits next to me, his arm brushing against mine as he swings his leg over the edge of the table and settles his plate down in front of him. “Well, not half as excited as I was to meet you. I was really eager to get to this weekend. That’s why I took an early flight. You’re so easy to talk to and I wanted to get as much time with you as I could.”
“Well,” I grin, taking a sip of my soda, “that’s because I silently judge. Everyone thinks I’m agreeable, but really, I’m playing a little game of categorization in my head.”
He raises a brow and bites into his burger with a groan. “How’s that work?”
“Well,” I say, lifting my corn up to my mouth, “I listen and I sort. It’s a hobby.”
“And what are the categories?”
I shrug and take a bite, letting the butter drip down my chin. I don’t mean for it to happen, but it’s dripping fast. A moment later, Troy’s got a napkin against my chin, cleaning me up.
I hate it! I don’t know why I hate it… I just do!
My skin is crawling as I stand from the table, my heart racing irrationally fast, my head spinning relentlessly. The crowd is loud, and the band is announcing something about the start of the moonlight spin. I need to keep it together, but my heart keeps flashing back to the way Reed lifted me up against the wall, the way he kept saying he was going to clean me up.
I miss him.
I miss Reed.
“You alright?” Troy stands from the table, his massive frame entirely too close for comfort.
I push his hand away instinctively and stare up at him, fully ready to end the night with a lie about a stomachache, but out of the corner of my eye I catch a massive, beast of a man covered in ink, his gaze dark like he’s going to snap.
It’s Daddy, and I have a feeling I’m in trouble.
Chapter Ten
Reed
The music is loud, the crowds are overwhelming, and there’s a man with his fucking hands on my kitten.
What the fuck?
Why is she here? She’s supposed to be at home, in bed, thinking about me. Not down here, in the middle of the damn night, with this asshole’s hands all over her.
I stop in my tracks and stare at them, my shoulders square, my jaw locked, my chest tight. The music is duller now, the crowd like a blur circling around us.
I stalk forward, my body reacting before my mind catches up.
Her eyes widen with each step I take, and the old fuck, who I see now is Troy, turns toward me, his gaze also getting wider. Normal people would probably offer some sort of explanation here, but I can’t speak. Nothing I have to say would make any sense.
I don’t own Nikki. I have no right to do what I’m doing, but I can’t stop myself.
It’s barbaric, primal, territorial, and wrong. These revelations should slow me down, but I’m only moving faster.
Immediately, I can tell this Troy fuck doesn’t often meet people like me. I feel his fear in the way he stares, in the way hebacks away, allowing me, a strange man, to lift the woman he’s with up onto his shoulders and walk away.
What kind of a man lets that happen? What kind of a man stands by while another man hauls the woman he’s with away? He doesn’t know who I am, or what I’m capable of. I could be a serial killer, a fucking maniac. I could be anyone and Troy just stands there like a little bitch.
