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“Hell of a first impression, huh,” he said with a jerk of his head toward the door Stella just stormed out of. He held out his hand. “The name’s Tweak. I saw you upstairs earlier, but I figured it was safer to wait until Hunter cooled down to introduce myself. Stella might threaten my manhood, but that crazy fucker would smile while he sawed it off.”
Despite his laid-back nature and nonthreatening vibe, the sensation of a million spider legs crawling over my skin hit me long before I placed my hand in his. He firmly clasped it, the effect multiplying, before his hand fell to his side. I’d become a master at suppressing the tiny shivers that took over my body every time a man touched me, no matter how innocently, but I still worried every time that somebody would notice.
Instead of disappearing into the shop like I hoped he would, he made himself comfortable against the wall beside my desk. He cocked his head to the side, studying me, and unlike Hunter, his stare made me want to crawl into a hole and never come out.
“Just out of curiosity, on a scale from one to five, how seriously should I take Stella’s dick threat?”
“Ten, easy.”
Balls. I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.
“Damn.” He smiled, one dimple engraving his cheek. “Want to take a second to think about your answer, maybe?”
“Sorry.” The skin on my face felt tight and warm. Crap. While other women had “resting bitch face,” something I envied, I had “blush at the drop of a hat.” “Sometimes I’m a little too blunt.”
“Nah, you’re probably right. I better play it safe and call her tonight, in case she doesn’t piece together why I purposely started shit with her today. Otherwise, I might end up with a pink bike like Ryder.” He shuddered. “That shit was funny because it wasn’t my bike. The girl might not hold a grudge, but she’s extremely inventive with payback.”
If this were a rerun ofHow I Met Your Mother, the narrator would show for the audience Tweak’s hot-to-crazy ratio on Barney’s graph. Ideally, you wanted to be above the diagonal line, indicating that you were more hot than crazy. At the moment, Tweak was falling below that line.
“Fix your face, young lady, it’s not what it looks like.”
Damn my “what the fuck” expression. Oh, well, at least he didn’t seem pissed.
“Stella has a lot of pent-up anger and it’s kinda hard to say fuck off to someone who’s no longer here. If she kept holding all that shit inside, eventually she’d wind up stroking out on me in the garage. Then I’d have to deal with a pissed off Mad Dog, and trust me, you do not want that.”
Ok, that actually seemed more sweet than crazy. Wait a second. Did they, or didn’t they, just have a lover’s spat? Now I was all sorts of confused, but I wasn’t about to ask.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Hey, it’s almost quitting time, anyway. What do you say we head upstairs and see if Cherry wants to play a game of pool?”
Yeah, that was a hard pass. There was always one thing I could rely on to get myself out of situations like this—my clumsiness.
“I hate to disappoint you, but the last time I played, my stick hit more balls around the table than it did on the table. I’m afraid physical activities and I aren’t exactly simpatico.”
He covered his junk and winced. “Ouch. Ok, so pool is definitely out.”
This was the part where men usually fled, as fast as their legs would carry them and with a hand covering their dick. However, Tweak didn’t seem bothered, nor was he eager to escape my company. There had to be something in the water here. On the upside, I didn’t have the same reaction to Tweak that I did to Hunter. One malfunction of my mind fuckery was about all I could handle in a day.
“I know,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “We can play a video game. Cherry won’t want to play with us, but my nuts won’t be in danger, and all you have to do is wiggle those pretty little fingers of yours.”
Damn him for guessing my only weakness. If Tweak had some kind of ulterior motive for asking me to play a video game, I couldn’t imagine what it might be. If sex had been his goal, he would have suggested we play in his room or something along those lines. That was the one thing I actually liked about the male population; they were never coy about their perversions.
Hell, maybe I could use him as a distraction. Zone out, forget about Hunter for a little while, and rid myself of this budding obsession. Probably not going to happen, but a girl could dream. Decision made.
“You had me at video game.”
When I looked up from the screen, multiple sets of male eyes stared back at me, and I tried to tamp down my fight-or-flight response. I needed to get accustomed to having men around twenty-four seven, and not just when I was at the office. Stella gave me the impression earlier that she avoided coming upstairs, so other than my sister, and maybe Valentina, men were all I was likely to run into around the clubhouse.
A man who could pass for the lumberjack in theBrawnycommercials smiled, his straight white teeth startling against his dark beard. He nudged the man next to him in the side with his elbow.
“Gunner, you ever see him play video games with a woman before?”
There was more on Gunner in the DEA files than any of the other guys because of his military service. He was six foot three, with light brown hair and blue eyes. He’d had the same girlfriend since high school, one Patricia Avery. His military record said he suffered from bouts of PTSD from the action he’d seen in Afghanistan. It was little wonder, considering he was the only one from his platoon to make it home alive.
“Can’t say that I have.” Gunner cocked his head to the side, his hair falling into his eyes. “It’s like watching an ape learn how to use a fork.”
“Fuck off, assholes.” Tweak’s words were harsh, but when I turned to look over at him, he was grinning. “She’s the only girl I’ve ever met that can kick my ass atCall of Duty. Seriously, come watch this shit.”
