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Ridiculous? Definitely. Silly? Absolutely. Was she fooling herself with faux comforts to stave off the inevitable pain when the truth bomb was dropped? Uh yup!
Just then, something fluttered across his features before his expression was shuttered.
He cleared his throat, then sat up. She fell back on to the bed and pulled the sheet up to cover her nakedness—too bad there wasn’t a sheet in the world big enough to cover her sudden bout of self-consciousness.
Naked as the day he was born, Patriot slipped from the bed and strode toward his pile of clothes on the floor.
What was going on?
Suddenly, all the uncertainties, self-deprecation, and feelings of inadequacy and self-disgust roared back. She was fat, ugly, a laughingstock among the club women, but just moments ago, she’d felt beautiful, desirable, wanted. But now….
She watched as Patriot pulled on his jeans without looking in her direction, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her fat ass lying in the bed, naked beneath the sheet.
Nausea spiked, and the urge to rush to the bathroom to puke and hide hit her hard. She swallowed it down, the voice inside her head, the one that was always logical and analytical, told her to stop and take a freaking breath.
Her gaze on Patriot, she noticed the jerkiness of his movements as he bent to pick up his discarded t-shirt, then practically shoved it on over his head. He seemed…not mad, exactly, but…frustrated?
What the hell happened? She’d mentioned what Stephie saw, and now he was pulling away. That’s what he was doing…pulling away.
Would he try to forget what they’d just done? Was there really nothing going on between him and Jaime, and if that was true, why the sudden mood change—and for that matter, why was he hanging out all over town with a woman he wanted nothing to do with?
ELEVEN
Shit. The last thing he wanted to do after finally having Cilla in his arms was explain why the fuck he was “playing boyfriend” with the woman who was already fucking shit up with Cilla.
If he’d just come clean with Stallion years ago, he wouldn’t be in the mess he was in now. But was Cilla right? Would Stallion understand his fuck up? Would he realize that shit happened, and that Patriot was fucking heartsick about it, even years later? Or would the man, rightfully, beat the shit out of him, then cut him off, effectively murdering twenty years of brotherhood?
His belly roiled as he pulled his t-shirt on. Shit. He couldn’t think about this now, not with a gorgeous, naked Cilla in the bed, watching him silently lose his shit.
He turned to look over his shoulder at her.
Fuck.
She looked fucking breathtaking, sitting there, her hair a “just fucked” mess, her face, neck, and chest flushed pink with exertion and desire. His cock jerked, growing hard once more, wanting in there again, to pound his precious into the mattress. But the look in her eyes killed his hard on in a blink.
She looked wary…vulnerable…and embarrassed. Her small, delicate hands were white where they clutched the sheet against her body, keeping her lushness hidden from his sight. What was there for her to be embarrassed by? She was fucking magnificent, like a goddess sent to earth to enthrall worshippers—but his greedy ass was the only one allowed to worship this goddess.
Mine.
He swung around to face her, his gaze intense on hers. She stiffened under his attention.
She was obviously anxious, and probably a little uncertain, especially since she was inexperienced in the ways of being with a man like him. Understandably, she was a little nervous, feeling a little self-conscious. He knew Cilla had a bad time with bitches with a mean streak, and that she saw herself as every bad thing they said about her, but, surely, after what they’d just done together, after how fucking much he enjoyed her body, she couldn’t still believe what those women said. Right?
He needed to assuage her fears, get her out of her head.
He thought out the pizza that was probably dried out and hard as a rock in the warm oven. “You hungry?” he asked, desperate to get that look of weariness from her face.
She furrowed her brow, her eyes snapping with fire. “That’s it?” she blurted, disbelief tinting her voice.
It was his turn to furrow his brows, confused at the sharpness of her tone. “What? After what we just did in that bed, I was expecting you to be as ravenous as I am.” He tipped his head to the side, his gaze hungrily skimming over her naked shoulders, the hard points of her nipples poking through the thin fabric of the sheet, and the deliciously pink flesh of her cheeks. Goddamn, just looking at her cheeks made him hard as fuck.
She shook her head, her messy hair brushing over the shoulders he wanted to kiss and nibble once more. He wanted to leave a mark?—
“I told you that Stephie saw you and Jaime looking cozy, I asked you about it…and then you popped out of bed like a spring poked you in the butt,” she said, the hand not holding the sheet across her tits, shoved hair out of her face, the movements showing her exasperation.
Shit. Fuck! What the hell could he say to get her to drop it, at least for now? At least until he could figure shit out.
He grunted, scrubbing a calloused hand down his face.
