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Then again, he wasn’t the kind of guy she’d have thought would be interested in banging a Black woman, but he’d been a surprisingly great lay. Like,reallyin sync with her, from the go.
And his looks were right in the middle of her wheelhouse. She couldn’t help it; she really had a thing for men built like craggy mountains, all across the color spectrum. There was not one pretty thing about Eight Ball—scratch that, he had pretty blue eyes. But otherwise, he was scarred and dented, and clearly had a lot of hard miles on him. The celebrity he most resembled was The Thing. But he got all her cylinders firing like a Ferrari.
That first night, she’d clocked him as a son of a bitch right off—he was sarcastic and snarly and the very definition of politically incorrect—but he was just so fuckinghot. Figuring to use that muscle-bound body as a body-temp dildo for a night, she’d bound and gagged the angel on one shoulder and strapped in beside the devil on the other for a wild ride of a night.
Then he’d turned out to bereallygood in bed. Like, attentive and patient, just the right kind of rough, with a Grade-A Prime cock and unbelievable endurance, and … well. The guy would eat ass, for fuck’s sake. One night became two, became three …
For a few weeks, Marcella had thought there might possibly be a decent man under all that muscle, oafishness, and in-your-face bravado.
He’d set her straight soon enough.
Her poor judgment about Eight had changed her life forever, but she didn’t regret it. She’d regretted it for a few months back in the day, but not for more than ten years.
That did not mean, however, that her judgment had not been terrible back then, and she was far too smart a woman to fall into the same trap now, no matter how hot he was—and the intervening years had done nothing to cool that heat.
She’d been pissed for a long time, and then she’d barely thought of him for years. She was pissed again, having him pop up practically out of the blue, thinking he had any right to anything or anyone in her life at this point.
The first time he’d shown up, he’d been fairly decent. Acting like he was surprised to encounter her, he’d even apologized—well, almost—for the way he’d been before.
The second time, as if he’d done some thinking in the meantime, he’d dropped his bomb. She’d thrown it right back in his face, and he’d backed off, but now he seemed determined to dog her until she gave in.
Marcella had no intention of giving in.
“I need to handle something,” she told Dash. “I’ll order at the bar.” Sitting at the bar was almost guaranteed to get her a whole lineup of drinks from fans. Azure didn’t charge the band for booze, but they’d charge the fans who wanted to show their appreciation.
Dash followed the direction of her gaze. “That asshole again? You want me and the guys to handle it?”
Marcella laughed. Her guys were handy in a bar fight, that was true. You didn’t spend almost twenty years in the vagabond bar band scene and not learn how to handle yourself in a drunken brawl. But Eight was a Bull—the fuckingpresidentnow, somehow—he was enormous, he incited brawls for the entertainment value, and fought dirty as fuck.
Azure was a classy joint, and they got a great cut of the door here on top of their booking rate. It would be counterproductive, to put it mildly, for The Lowdowners to try to gang up on that big Bull and tear the club apart in the process.
“No, hon. I got it. But this shit is going to stop, and fuckingnow.”
“Alright,” Dash said. “Tell him Dash says fuck off.”
Marcella chuckled and jumped off the stage. Making her way to the bar took her a minute or two, as fans came up to compliment their first set, or offer a hand-slap or a dap. By the time she reached Eight, he’d cleared the stool at his side and had a gin and tonic waiting for her.
Standing at the stool, Marcella put her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here, Edgar?”
He winced. He hated his name. They’d been together two weeks, almost half their ‘relationship,’ before she’d learned it—by going through his wallet to check out his driver’s license. He’d been extremely pissed off.
Knowing how much he hated it, but not why, Marcella had called him nothing but Edgar to his face from the moment of their breakup.
“You know why I’m here, Marce. I want to talk. I want to work shit out.”
She shook her head. The time for working shit out was 2008.
His broad back and enormous shoulders swelled with a sigh. “He’s my kid, Marcella.”
Now, Marcella laughed. She did it for effect, there was no humor in this situation, but she really sold it. “You crack me up, Edgar. You didn’t give a shit about that when you knocked me up.”
His boulder of a fist slammed on the bartop. “FUCK!I did not ‘knock you up.’It’s not like I rode by and shoved a kid up your cunt. We did it together.”
That was Eight Ball in a nutshell. One-hundred percent son of a bitch. “No, you just told me you’d go halfsies with me when I ‘got rid of it,’ and then ghosted when I said I wanted the baby. Andnow, all these years later, you want in? Suck my dick, Edgar.”
She turned, meaning to ditch the bar and head back to the green room with the band. Eight’s hand clamped around her wrist. The skin of his palms and finger pads was like hardened leather. “Stay, Marcella. Fuckin’talkto me.”
“Get your hand off me, asshole,” she snarled.
