Page 32 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Chapter Twelve

I have butterflies.

Big, brutal, vicious butterflies flapping their wings in my tummy and doing it so forcefully that I might actually fly away.

Because tomorrow is here and tomorrow is when he said I was coming with him.

So we can have sex. So I can have sex with the man I’ve been obsessed with for years. Who also happens to be my stepbrother.

I think I should tell him. I should tell him who I really am and how we’re connected.

But then if I do tell him and he changes his mind about things, and I know he will because I’m a stupid stinking liar who’s been lying to him and his siblings for years now, what will happen to his game?

What will happen to his whole plan about moving on?

Although to be fair, I don’t even know if his plan will work.

I know he thinks it will, but what if I can’t make him move on?

Or he has sex with me and realizes, meh, she isn’t all that after all .

Because aren’t virgins bad at sex, or is that just a myth that I heard somewhere?

Suffice to say, I have thought about it a lot. I’ve overthought it and I’m really, really nervous. And getting more so because he’s late.

He’s never late. In fact, there have been a couple of times when he’s been early.

Which always threw me, because my shift starts at 5PM and in order to make it on time, he’d have to leave his practice by 3:00.

And if he’s early, then even earlier than 3:00, and don’t his coaches mind?

Maybe I can ask him about that. He did agree to talk to me, and maybe this could be one of the topics we could cover.

Among other things that I listed in my notebook.

Yes, I made a list of things I want to talk to him about.

But that isn’t going to matter if he doesn’t show up. But why wouldn’t he show up? He would . He wanted this. Then something occurs to me: what if he’s in trouble? Oh my God, what if he got in an accident ? What if he’s lying in a ditch somewhere…

“So what’s your name?”

I hear the question from one of the guests at the table I’m serving drinks to and my runaway thoughts break. “Uh, Jupiter.”

It’s a group of three guys, all wearing dress shirts and ties, telling me they probably came here straight from work. Which is most of the guys here, blowing off steam after hours. One of them, however, is eyeing me with special interest.

While I’ve never liked being the center of anyone’s attention at this club, I absolutely hate it tonight.

I’m back to wearing my normal attire, a lacy top with spaghetti straps that shows a sliver of my belly and my belly button ring—the silver hoop one that he likes—and a short skirt with my favorite heels.

I have my hair in a high ponytail with my halo in place.

And I hate how this stranger’s eyes slide over my body, lingering in places that don’t belong to him.

“That’s a pretty name,” he comments.

I throw him a small smile, hoping it doesn’t look too fake, and set down the last of the drinks. “Will that be all?”

“What time do you get off?” he asks, leaning forward.

He’s sitting in the middle of the booth, between his other two friends, and I’m glad he’s not close enough to touch me. I hug the tray to my torso, hiding my body from his eyes. “We’re not allowed to go out with customers.”

Before the guy who’s hitting on me can say anything else, his friend who’s closest to me scoffs. “Are you fucking serious?”

I step back a bit and lie, “Uh, yeah. My boss doesn’t like us to fraternize with the guests.”

The friend scoffs again. “This is a fucking strip club, sweetheart. Fraternization is in the job description.”

It gets my back up. “Well, it’s not in mine, so if you don’t have anything else you want to order, I’ll be going now.”

I’m ready to do just that when the other friend—not the one who hit on me or even the one who just got upset about me saying no—grabs hold of my wrist and stops me.

While he looks the same as the other two, dress shirt and a tie, his dark hair slicked back and polished, he’s bigger than his friends and I’m not going to lie, his size strikes a chord of fear in me.

I know we’re in a crowded club and there’s security and all that, but these situations are always so scary to me.

“Can you please let go of me?” I ask, trying to keep my voice stern.

He tightens his grip instead. “My friend here asked you a question and you blew him off. Not a very good idea for a waitress who makes most of her money via tips.”

I fist my hand in his grip. “Look, I don’t want you to touch me. Can you just?—”

“Let her go.”

I freeze at the voice coming from behind me.

It’s rough and thick. Too calm and somehow still threatening.

It sends my heart pounding in my chest. It sends those butterflies in my tummy careening, beating their wings viciously.

And despite all the chaos and the mayhem in my body, his arrival, at last, lets me breathe easy.

Thank God he’s here. Thank God he’s safe .

Although my relief only lasts for a second when I sense him move behind me. He’s so close that I can feel his heat. I can feel the strength of his chest, his anger as he growls, “Let her the fuck go.”

And then he steps to the side, coming into my view, and leans over the guy holding my hand captive. Before I can blink, or any of us can, he strikes his arm out and wraps his fingers around my captor’s neck, continuing, “Or lose your hand.”

While the guy’s eyes get wider, he finally loosens his hold enough that I’m able to snatch my hand back before turning to Shepard. His face is hard and angry, harder and angrier than I’ve ever seen before, and he’s yet to let the other guy go.

Before I can ask him to, he murmurs, almost in a casual voice, “Or maybe option three: you lose it anyway.” His fingers tighten around the guy’s neck as he continues, “Because you had the fucking audacity to touch her when she didn’t want you to.”

The guy is shaking as he sputters, “I-I didn’t… She… You’re… You’re the Wrecking T-Thorn, aren’t you?”

His other friends chime in as well, simultaneously afraid and awed, but I don’t care about what they’re saying. All I care about is Shepard and getting him away before he does something drastic in the middle of a crowded club.

“Shepard, please,” I say, grabbing the sleeve of his t-shirt. “Let him go. Just let him go, please .”

I notice his biceps bulging as he addresses the douchebag who grabbed me, “Yeah, I am. Maybe I can show you why they call me that.”

Before the guy can utter anything else, I pull at Shepard’s sleeve, trying to dislodge his grip. But even with two hands, all I can do is barely shake him. “Shepard, no. Please. Just let him go. Let him go.”

He finally turns to me, his eyes dark and narrowed, almost drugged with bloodlust. “He touched you.”

“I don’t care,” I tell him, and I truly don’t.

His nostrils flare in anger and if anything, my words have made him angrier. “He shouldn’t have touched you. You didn’t want it.”

If he won’t move away from the guy and come to me, I’ll go closer. I’ll plaster my body against his, telling him with every inch of it that all I want is him, not his anger on my behalf. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

“He needs a lesson,” he insists, his eyes still clouded over.

I let go of his sleeve and cup his jaw, ignoring everything, the choking sounds coming from the guy, the gasps of his friends at the table as I say, “No, he doesn’t. Let him go. Please. For me. Do it for me.”

For a few seconds, I think I’ve asked too much of him.

He won’t do it, and he definitely won’t do it for the reason I’ve asked him to.

We may share a connection and I may be his distraction that he desperately needs, but I don’t rank all that high in his life.

Just as I feel the sting of rejection settling in, he lets the guy go.

I hear the sounds of crashing and thudding in the background, mixed in with some grunts and groans.

But I only have eyes for him as he straightens up and towers over me.

And before the world can intrude on us more, I grab his hand and pull him away from the table.

I drag him across the floor and through the crowd.

I take him where I always do when he’s all agitated and angry.

When he’s breathing the way he’s breathing now, fast and wild, and when his heat is threatening to burn even me.

Our usual room is empty, but I don’t give him a chance to open it for me like he usually does.

I get to the knob, turn it and enter, all in one breath.

But that’s all the leeway he’ll give me because as soon as the door closes behind us with a thud, he pulls on my hand, causing me to crash against his hard body.

He spins us both around a second later and pins me to the door, putting his entire weight into it.

He presses his chest into mine and his abs into my belly.

He even goes so far as to force me to spread my legs so he can fit himself between them.

So he can push into my pelvis with his. Not that I mind, I welcome it.

In fact, I go one step further. I go on my tiptoes and wind my leg around his densely muscled thigh.

I arch my back and tilt my hips so he can fit even better.

Like we’re two pieces of the same puzzle. Or maybe we aren’t puzzle pieces at all, we’re mutual destruction. I’m his strawberry and he’s my sharp teeth. He’ll eat me up piece by piece, and I’ll kill the poison running through his veins.

Whatever we are though, I know we can’t get enough of each other. I know I’m gobbling him up with my eyes and he’s doing the same. I’m pulling at his hair and fisting his t-shirt, and he’s kneading my waist, tugging at my hair.

“You were scared,” he growls.

I swallow, tugging at his shirt. “A l-little, but?—”

He squeezes my flesh, making it hurt. “No, a lot.”

“I-I’m fine though. I’m?—”