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I blinked. He was right. I was angry because I’d wanted to comfort him with soothing touches and gentle, caring actions. Not just sex.
But Viper wanted sex and nothing else.
He hadn’t lied. He hadn’t promised me something just to get into my pants and then redacted. No. He’d been honest from the start.
Then why does this feel so bad?
“You almost punched one of your brothers because he called me tail. And yet, you’re treating me like I’m nothing more than that,” I said. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s about respect. Smoke doesn’t get to talk about you that way. I wanted everyone to know that.”
“Why do I feel like I’m playing a game I don’t know the rules to?” I asked.
“Rules? You don’t even know what the gameis,” he said. “You’re too young to—”
“Not my age again, please, I beg you.”
“No. Listen. You’re young, and you’re inexperienced. You said you understood what we were doing. You said you got that this was just sex. That we were going to let this run its course. But we’re not in a relationship.”
Everything he said was true, but the real danger was that my heart was cracking open for a man who neither wanted me long term, nor could promise me that. I talked a big game. I was all bravado. But if you hit my armor just right, you’d get to the sensitive part of me.
I raised my brows. “I may be young, but I’m not stupid. Thisisa relationship, Viper. Whether you want it to be or not. We’re exclusive. We might be causal, and our time together might be finite, but you’re the one who said you’d take care of me and the baby if I got pregnant.”
“Because I’m not a shitbag.”
There was no way I was going to admit that I was hurt—and I wasn’t sure I even had the right to be. He’d never promised me anything, and yet the more time we spent together, the more I liked him. Really liked him.
I had to take control back. I had to show him that I wasn’t in danger of falling for him. I had to show him that when we ended this, I wasn’t going to be a broken shell of a woman who fell apart when another man disappointed her.
“You want comfort the way you want it?” I dropped to my knees and reached for his fly. “I can do that.”
Chapter25
I wrotea fake number down on a coaster and slid it to the tipsy guy across the bar. “There you go, sugar. Text me.”
He beamed. “I will.”
I winked at him and then watched him saunter away to the table with all his friends. He waved the coaster around like a war trophy.
“That makes what?” Mia asked. “Five guys you’ve slipped a fake number to tonight?”
“Six,” I said absently.
“Impressive.” She rinsed a few pint glasses in the sink and set them to dry. “Viper looks more and more pissed every time you do it.”
“Does he? I hadn’t noticed,” I lied.
Oh, I’d noticed. I’d noticed every time his jaw clenched when a customer asked to buy me a shot. I noticed when he flexed his sore knuckles like he wanted to punch out every man who spoke to me.
So, I’d made it my mission to flirt harder, smile brighter, and be as effortlessly charming as my personality would allow.
It paid off.
Not only was the tip jar already full and it wasn’t even nine, but I’d succeeded in making Viper violently jealous.
“Careful,” I said to him as I refilled his water.
“Careful what?” he rumbled.
