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He sinks his fingers into my forearm and pulls me away from our audience. We step out a back door, and just like I did to Ryn, he pushes me against the concrete block exterior. Rank garbage wafts in the air around us. I almost choke on it.
Johnny gets in my face, his lips thin, practically quivering with anger. “Do not ever fucking reject me.”
I swallow. There’s that rage I would’ve bet was simmering underneath the surface at all times. My own indignation rises. I want to tell him to get fucked, but I’m caught because I can’t do that. I still need to have a way to get to Big Daddy K.
God, I fucking hate this.
Any other guy who would have done this to me could’ve expected to get his ass kicked. But this asshole? I can’t do anything to. I just have to sit back and take it.
I don’t have to play the part of hurt girlfriend for the next words to come out of my mouth. “You said I was your girl.”
“I also said I can’t have you yet,” he seethes. “Do you think I’m just going to sit back and wait?”
Actually, yes. Any girl would fucking think that.
“Yes,” I hiss, holding back about seventy-five percent of what I really want to say.
He laughs in my face, then takes his hands off me. Until he did that, I didn’t realize how much pressure he was putting on me. I’m going to have a bruise on my shoulder from him slamming me into the wall. Asshole.
“Did you think I was going to abstain from sex while waiting for you, Kyla?” He smirks. “That’s not going to happen. I’ll be discreet. Hell, I was being fucking discreet. No one else would’ve known if you’d just stayed away. Now, all those women know what happened,” he says, pointing back inside. “If you were going to be embarrassed, you shouldn’t have made a big deal about it.”
“Theyknew, Johnny,” I tell him.Does he think they’re all fucking idiots?“And you think Ryn would’ve kept her mouth shut after we left?”
“She would’ve if she knows what’s good for her.” He moves toward me again, and my back hits the wall in an effort to stay away from him. “No one disrespects my girl.”
I snap my mouth shut. Is he even listening to himself?Hedisrespected me.
He slides his arm around me, pulling me toward him. My hips graze his and his raging erection. “You’re the one who made it known what we were doing.” He tips my head back, running his hands through my hair and tugging at the ends to expose my neck. He drops a kiss there. “Otherwise, no one would’ve been the wiser. You could’ve still had your cred. The bitch still could’ve had her dignity. I would’ve gotten off, and we would all be happy. Now I have to go in and fix this. Shut these bitches up before they spread the word to everyone in town, making you look like just another side piece. That’s not what I want. I want all these slaves to look up to you. I want them to revere you. I want them to know that if they fuck with you, they’re fucking with the Crew. I can’t do that if you blow everything for me, do you understand?”
I nod.
I don’t know what it says about me that I understand what he’s doing. I get the code they all live by. I’m not saying I agree with it. Johnny thinks he wants me, but he doesn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t fuck around on me, and he wouldn’t let his father make some lame ass rule about not touching me until he moved up.
Big Daddy K’s rule actually works in my favor, but my pride took a blow today, I guess. That’s the only way I can explain the mixture of emotions swirling inside me.
He pulls away, puts his hand through mine, and we walk back into the shop. Everyone is waiting for us near the front. Rocket takes charge, addressing Magnum. “Did anyone leave or make any calls?”
Before Magnum can answer, Lynette says, “Of course not. We would never do that.”
Ryn keeps sending me frightened looks. I kind of want to punch her in the goddamned face. It’s girls like her who make other girls crazy. What part of understanding another guy is off-limits do some women not understand?
Also, what the hell am I doing still getting caught up in this shit? I shouldn’t care he was fucking someone else.
Instead of taking Lynette’s word for it, Rocket continues to look at Magnum until he answers in the affirmative. “All clear,” he says.
“Excellent. Can you take Kyla out to the car? I’ll be out in a minute.”
Magnum nods and waits for me by the big front entrance. Outside, everything seems to be passing normally on the street. No one out there is involved in the shit going down in here. Warped senses of responsibility and rules.
So, it’s okay for him to fuck around? That’s what he’s saying. I bet it’s not the same for me. I bet if I ever touched someone else, he’d kill me.
Brawler pulling me back into his hard body earlier flits through my head. If Johnny knew that happened, he’d kill us both.
Johnny kisses my hand again, and I keep my chin up as I walk toward Magnum. He opens the door for me, and we step out onto the sidewalk. I pause for a minute as the fresh air and rays of sun hits me. I need to soak as much as I can in because I have a feeling nothing will feel as real as this does while I’m inside the Crew. Magnum moves around me to open the door. I peek up at him. “I could’ve gotten that.”
He grunts in response. He acts all moody, but he wanted me to see what Johnny was doing. Out of all of them in there, he was on my side. The girls were too scared to say anything. Ryn was obviously just looking out for herself. Everyone wants to catch Johnny’s eye.
I turn to get into the car, my head about to explode with all the different nuances of everyone’s behavior around the Crew, but Magnum’s hand on my back stops me. “Shit. You’re hurt.”