Chapter Six #3
“Really? Have you run that theory past Lexie? Because last I heard, she was doing pretty well with her new company and her new home.”
Temper bubbled inside Roxie’s veins like a poison potion.
She’d been spoiling for a fight, and she’d just walked into one.
She’d never liked the Underhills, save for Blaire.
She and Landers had gone round once before, and although she’d walked away the winner, she’d left feeling like her guts had been put through a grinder.
Her fingers dug into her hips. Lexie may have been adopted growing up, but Roxie didn’t envy her.
“Do you have any idea what that did to my parents? Her leaving like that?” Landers hissed. “They’re crushed.”
“Crushed?” Roxie coughed. “There’s an easy way to keep her around. Show her some support. Show her you care about her.”
“You’re one to talk.” He jabbed his finger towards the door where the cops had just left. “If you cared about how your actions affected her, you’d stop acting like such a skank.”
Whoa.
“Skank?” Roxie’s eyes narrowed to razor-thin slits. He wanted to play that game again?
At the slur, conversation around them halted and the noisy bar went from a din to a soft roar. A nasty sultriness went through Roxie, and she deliberately reached out to stroke the guy’s chest. Her fingertips moved over gym-hardened pecs across his somewhat impressive abs down towards his—
His eyes widened like a deer in the headlights. It was that split second later that he jerked out of her reach.
Or rather, he was jerked out of her reach.
Billy had the angry prepster by the back of the collar. The fancy blazer Landers wore was hitched up towards his ears and looking wrinkled.
“You sick bitch,” Landers spat.
“You might want to be more careful who you call names,” Billy said threateningly into the younger man’s ear.
Billy. How he’d gotten into the bar and within five feet of her without warning bells flaring was beyond Roxie. Yet here he was, in all his glory.
Big, tough, and so incensed, his leather jacket looked ready to burst off his shoulders.
Her lips pursed into a tight knot. Billy, looking rough and sexy, firing up her nerve endings, was the last thing she wanted right now.
“Hey,” she called. “I can fight my own battles.”
Billy’s fierce gaze flashed down to meet her own, and they collided like lasers. Sparking and heating. Roxie nearly took a step back, not in fear but surprise. She’d seen easygoing Billy angry before.
This was something else.
He hitched Landers’ jacket higher, making the guy go up on the tiptoes of his expensive loafers. When the East Sider tried to swing an elbow backwards, Billy pulled his arm into a chicken wing.
“Apologize to the pretty lady.”
Roxie rolled her eyes even as she shook with temper. Everyone was staring. The place was wall-to-wall people, many of whom she’d never seen before. This was not the ambience she wanted to establish for her place—especially not on the first night she was in charge.
She pointed towards the door. “Out, both of you.”
Landers’ feet shuffled against the wooden floor as Billy started dragging him away. “Wait until I tell Lexie what you’ve done.”
“Yeah? Well, you’ll have to get through Cam first to speak with her,” Roxie tossed back.
Say what she would about the Hatchet Man, Cam would make sure Landers was civil when he spoke with his sister.
Although Lexie hadn’t wanted to go up on that billboard in the first place…
Roxie’s stomach twisted.
Turning away from the scene, she marched across the bar back towards the kitchen. The last thing she saw out of the corner of her eye was Skeeter opening the door to let the two fighting men out.
Dragging her hands through her hair, she let out a frustrated scream.
Men. You couldn’t live with them, but a vibrator didn’t feel nearly as good.
Whitey stepped into her path when she neared the kitchen. “You okay there, Rox?”
“I’m fine.” She let out another puff of air and patted the regular on the shoulder. “Thanks.”
Using both hands, she shoved the swinging doors to the kitchen open.
Steam and the aroma of hamburgers hit her full in the face, turning her stomach.
Behind her, she heard the volume of conversation crank back up.
She’d certainly given her customers something to talk about, and, Lord knew, bikers were as bad as a knitting club when it came to gossip.
She stomped towards her office, becoming even unhappier when the clunk of her heels against the floor didn’t sound quite right. Damn old boots. Her toes felt pinched, just like her eyes.
Tears were threatening.
She was just so angry… and frustrated… and tired… and scared…
That billboard had caused Lexie a lot of heartache with her adoptive family.
She’d never meant to bring all that up again.
Lexie was just starting to establish a new type of relationship with the Underhills, and Roxie didn’t want to jeopardize that.
More importantly, she didn’t want her sister to be upset with her.
But Lexie hadn’t exactly been happy when she’d driven off today with the police hot on her heels.
Bracing her hands against the desk, Roxie bent at the waist and tried to find her breath.
Landers Underhill couldn’t break the bond she shared with her triplet.
She trusted Lexie. They were solid, she thought, but she’d never had sisters before.
She was afraid to test things, especially when Landers had known Lexie longer and also thought of her as his sibling.
Roxie rubbed her throbbing temple. She loved that billboard, but she didn’t want it to tear them apart. Any of them. What should she do? Should she call Lexie right now? Or was she making too much of things?
The noise from the bar wouldn’t leave her alone. The bump of the bass penetrated the walls and even the kitchen sounded noisy. She heard the heavy thud of footsteps coming towards the door.
Muttering a curse, she straightened and swung her hair over her shoulder. She braced herself for Skeeter to barge in to make sure she was okay. First the cops, then the scuffle, and… Oh, God. Underhill had said something about a television crew. Had they caught all that?
The knock on the door was more like a boom, but the door swung open before she could respond.
“Skee—”
It wasn’t Skeeter.
Roxie stiffened when she saw Billy fired up, breathing hard, and overwhelmingly male.
Oh yeah, add horny to the list of things she was feeling.
Her chin came up as he closed the door behind him.
Their gazes locked. The air in the tiny room pulsed with hot anger.
The honeymoon period between them was over.