24. Lilah
24
LILAH
I sat at the bar and tried not to feel like a child as I nursed my third Shirley Temple. To be fair, I’d wanted coffee or tea or literally anything hot that would thaw my bones after the two hours I’d spent watching the guys surf, but the bar didn’t have coffee and I didn’t drink (I’d learned my lesson), so Shirley Temples it was.
It wasn’t a hot drink, but the heat of the bar and the bodies crammed into it — surfers who’d exited the water with the Bastards when they’d finished riding waves and a bunch of random locals — had finally warmed me up.
After the last month, I never wanted to be cold again.
Not that I gave Rafe the satisfaction of hearing me complain. My teeth were practically chattering when Nolan emerged from the water, asking if I was freezing, but I’d forced a smile and said I was fine, then tried to ignore the smug expression on Rafe’s face that called me a liar.
Now we were at a local dive bar, the Bastards laughing it up by one of the pool tables with a group of guys wearing swim trunks and flip-flops like it was July instead of April.
The Bastards looked like they were having fun — except for Rafe, who never looked like he was having fun — but they were obviously not cut from the same cloth as the carefree beach bros in the bar. The beach bros were lean and wiry, their faces open and optimistic.
Rafe looked like he was expecting trouble at any second, and every few minutes, Nolan’s gaze slid to the entrance of the bar like he was some kind of bouncer. Even Jude — curious, open, quiet Jude — had a wary stance, his body slightly coiled, like he was ready to spring into action. They looked like what they were — former soldiers — although I wondered if anyone else could see it.
I lifted my glass and drank from the straw in my Shirley Temple. It was watered down from the melting ice but I didn’t want to ask for another. I was kind of hoping we were almost done, but as far as I knew, the Bastards still hadn’t talked to their cyber contact.
I looked around the bar, trying to find the silver-haired woman who’d emerged from the water with them. I didn’t know for sure she was the one they’d asked to access the cameras around the Dive, but they’d used the pronoun “she” when talking about their contact and the silver-haired woman had been the only woman in the bunch.
Except whoever she was, she was gone now, and I was stuck in another dive bar in another town, reliving the way Nolan had made me come while I drank my weight in ginger ale and grenadine and hoped for extra cherries.
Oof.
I guess it could have been worse. The bar was warm at least, and so far everyone had been well behaved, although that might have been because of the way the Bastards had surrounded me on the way in.
The message had been implied but clear: hands off.
I was outwardly annoyed, but inside? Well, inside I had to admit to feeling a little flush of pleasure. It was dumb — the Bastards had clearly taken some kind of protective interest in me because of what they’d done in high school — but sometimes feelings were dumb and there was still nothing you could do about them.
The bar didn’t have a sign outside, but inside a big blue neon sign screamed brEAKERS from one end of the large main room, a wave underneath the word like it was being carried on the surf.
There was a smaller room in the back, but almost everyone was crammed into the big front room, its walls made of rough-hewn wood, an array of ocean-related miscellany mounted to them — license plates that looked like they’d been battered by the sea, fishing nets, driftwood, even an actual jaw with razor-sharp teeth that looked like it might have belonged to a shark.
An older guy worked the bar, his dark hair streaked with gray. He watched over the place like a wary parent, his piercing blue eyes roaming the crowd like a beacon looking for potential trouble.
His eyes met mine and he walked the length of the bar to where I sat at one end, like he’d read my mind and knew I’d been cataloging him. “Want another?”
“Um… no, thanks,” I said. I already had to pee.
He cut a glance at the Bastards and the other guys standing around the pool table. “Waiting for your friends?”
Denying it was a reflex. “They’re not my friends.”
“If you say so. Let me know if you change your mind.” He headed back for the other end of the bar.
I got up and threaded my way through the room, past the smaller room at the back, and down a hall leading to the restrooms.
The women’s restroom was empty (a miracle). I used the bathroom and washed my hands, studying my face in the mirror behind the sinks, wondering if I looked different now that I’d made out with Nolan. Maybe it was my imagination — or maybe it was just the salt air at the beach — but I thought my green eyes looked brighter, my cheeks pinker.
I looked alive. I felt alive too.
I dried my hands and walked out of the restroom, then ran smack into an immoveable wall of muscle that almost knocked me off my feet.
“Sorry,” I said instinctively.
I’d barely registered that I’d run into Rafe when he pushed me into a shadowy vestibule in the hall.
“What are you doing?” I shoved at him but even I could admit it was half-hearted. I hadn’t been this close to Rafe since the night at Brandon MIller’s party, and I hadn’t exactly been sober then.
But now? Now I was stone-cold sober and more than aware of the fact that Rafe’s body was pressed to mine, his storm-cloud eyes glassy, almost like he had a fever.
He braced his hands on either side of my head and lowered his head to neck. “What are you doing?” he asked against my throat.
“I… I was in the bathroom.” I should have told him to fuck off, but I was too distracted by his hot breath on my neck, the slide of his nose behind my ear.
My nipples got hard when he dropped a hand to my throat, stroking his thumb over my pulse as his breath caressed my neck, my jaw, my cheek.
“You don’t even know you do?” he asked, his voice full of torment.
“Know what?” I breathed as he touched his lips to my cheek.
“What you’re fucking doing to me,” he murmured, moving closer to my lips.
His free hand came up to one of my tits, his mouth touching the corner of mine, and all at once my head cleared.
Rafe did not get to touch me. And he sure as hell didn’t get to kiss me.
I reached into my pocket and removed my knife, extended it, and held it against his dick, big and hard in his jeans.
He froze.
“Maybe we can talk about it,” I said, “after we talk about what you did to me.”
He lifted his head to look into my eyes. “You should be careful starting games you don’t want to finish.”
There was a threat in his voice, but instead of scaring me, a shiver of anticipation ran up my spine.
I put pressure on the knife against his dick. “Who said I don’t want to finish it?”
I thought he might be mad, but when he stepped away I was surprised to see that he was grinning.
“Be careful what you wish for, Lilah.”
I watched him disappear down the hall, my breath coming fast and shallow, a fire burning between my thighs.
What the actual fuck?
I waited for my breathing to return to normal, then continued into the bar, but when I looked at the group by the pool table, the Bastards were gone. The other guys were still there, drinking and laughing while half-heartedly playing pool, but my three giant roommates — including the one whose junk had been at the end of my knife — were no longer in there.
I found them in the smaller back room, sitting around one of the tables with the silver-haired woman, who was tapping on an open laptop and looked more like a girl now that I could see her face. The music was quieter here, more of a vibration than a cohesive sound, although I did make out the muffled lyrics to “Welcome to the Jungle.”
Jude turned to look at me as I crossed the room to join them, like he’d sensed me there. “Speak of the devil.”
“Is that why you’re hiding from me?” I hated the defensiveness in my voice but that was how I always felt around them: on guard and ready to fight.
“We’re not hiding from you.” He got up and pulled over a chair from another table. “We’re just not used to having a… partner.”
“She’s not a partner,” Rafe said.
Jude rolled his eyes. “Take a seat, boss. We’ll catch you up.”