Page 55 of The Sentinels

"I didn't ask you to come," I snapped, settling back against the pillows. It was the truth. Like the other two had, she'd just showed up to play fucking nurse. What the hell had Tanner been thinking when he’d sent his strippers over to take care of me? I'd only relented about accepting help but I hadn't thought that he'd actually go through with it, he knew how I felt.

"Tanner said—"

"I don't give a fuck what he said! I didn't ask for any of you to come here." I didn't have women in my house, and my brothers knew it. Candy stood there, indecision on her face, her tits rising and falling with her breaths. The sight didn't even make my dick jerk. "And put some fucking clothes on!"

It fucking pissed me off that I now had a situation to take care of with Emerson.

"I only took them off to so I could help you shower." She reached for her thong at the foot of my bed and slipped it on. "I don't know why you're being so mean."

"This is how I am," I growled, thinking about Emerson in the kitchen and wondering what was going through her mind.

"Not when we're fucking," Candy said, shooting me a wink as she snapped on her lacey bra. "Maybe that's what you need, Ace. If you don't want to fuck I can always relieve some of your tension with a blowjob." She hesitated, staring at me expectantly, all but licking her lips.

I glared at her. Why wasn’t she getting the message that I wanted her gone? Did she need me to spell it out for her? "I'm not interested in fucking you again. Now get out of my house." I laid back and closed my eyes, praying that when I opened them again she would be gone.

I hoped that Emerson didn't go with her.

I'd specifically told my brothers that I didn't want Emerson there after they'd suggested that she be called. I didn't need anyone. I hated being laid up, and I knew that I'd be a terrible patient. Emerson didn't need me snapping at her and revealing what a really uncaring bastard I could be. I was better off alone. But their solution had been to send some of the strippers to take care of me.

Hell, I didn't need taking care of. Sure, I was fucking weak and in constant fucking pain, but I could get by on my own. I'd fucking done it before. But if I had to have a woman there, I wanted it to be Emerson. One time with her, and the woman had ruined me for anyone else. Her hands were the only hands that I wanted on me. I'd told her that I’d claimed her, and I'd meant it.

I should have made myself clearer to my brothers. Now the whole thing was a fucking mess.

I listened as Candy continued dressing, and then to the sound of her heels clicking against my hardwood floors as she walked away. By the sound of the rapid tap she was pissed, but I didn't give a fuck. She could take it up with Tanner if she wanted to, but I knew that she wouldn't. She wouldn't find sympathy with him, or with any of my brothers, for that matter. The girls at his bar knew that if they got involved with any of us, it was about the sex and that was all.

I had to deal with Emerson. I got up from the bed and made my way to the kitchen. As I grew near, the aroma of something good reached me. Other than Mrs. Bearden, I couldn't recall the last time a woman had been in my kitchen. When I rounded the corner and saw Emerson, I paused to admire her movements. To say that she was pissed was putting it mildly. She was muttering beneath her breath, slamming things around. Her back was to me, and I couldn't stop my eyes from falling to take in the way that her cute little ass jiggled with her angry movements.

I'd just had a naked woman pressed against me, and yet it was the sight of Emerson's ass shaking in her short shorts that got me hard as fuck. The woman was dangerous. I waited until she noticed me before I went any further into the room.

"You shouldn't be out of bed," she said, whipping back to the stove.

"I'm good," I grumbled, going to the dining room table and pulling out a chair to sit down.

"Candy left." She grabbed a spatula and removed a sandwich of some kind out of a skillet. She plopped it down onto a plate and turned back to me. "I hope you like grilled cheese and tomato."

Ignoring the sandwich that she set down in front of me, I met her eyes. Fuck. She'd been crying. "I didn't want any of them here," I said. "I didn't wantyouhere." Her eyes flared at that. "Not because I don't want you, Emerson, but because I don't need anyone." I grasped her hand and pulled her forcefully down onto my lap. I felt her resistance, but I easily overpowered it. "But never doubt that I want you, baby girl."

"Along with every other woman," she said bitterly, a green fire of hurt glittering in her eyes. She settled on my lap, but her stiffness revealed that she didn't want to be there. "I can't compete with them, Ace. I don't want to. I've watched you take every stripper and most of the servers out to fuck them in the back alley. I've watched you with them inside the bar. I know what kind of man you are, and knowing that, I still became infatuated with you. I still let you fuck me. Now I've become another notch on your bedpost—" Suddenly she was choking up. "Coming here and seeing you with Candy opened my eyes."

Her unshed tears gutted me, because I was the reason for them. I wasn't used to having to explain myself to anyone, especially a woman, but I found myself saying, "Nothing happened, with any of them, baby. A misunderstanding with my brothers caused this fucking mess. They know I've claimed you—"

"What does that even mean?" she snapped, losing patience.

"It means you're my woman, Emerson." I was growing hard beneath her slight weight, but I ignored it. "Those other women mean nothing to me. I fucked them, yeah, and I'm not going to fucking apologize for that. Most of them aren't the kind of women you remember after the deed is done."

She stared at me long and hard, the wheels working behind those mesmerizing eyes. "And I’m different?"

I released a resigned breath. "Fuck yes, you're different. That's part of the reason I kept you at arm's length for so long. Something warned me that you were going to mean trouble for me, that if I gave in and fucked you like I wanted to there'd be no turning back." I tucked her hair behind her ear, holding her gaze. "A forty-seven-year-old man doesn't do infatuation, but trust me, it went both ways. Only I fought it."

She snorted, the first sign that her anger was dissolving. "You didn't fight the blowjobs very hard."

I grinned. "I'm not going to apologize for that, either, baby girl. You have a sweet--" I leaned in and said the words against her pillowy lips, "--talented little mouth on you." I closed my mouth over hers for a hard kiss. I kept it brief, even though I wanted to devour her sweetness, absorb it into my blood until I was a better man. A softer man. My dick throbbed beneath her ass. It didn't help when Emerson began to squirm. "As much as I want to fuck you right now, we need to finish this conversation."

She laughed. "You've always struck me as the quiet one."

"When it counts, I use my words," I admitted. Not much had counted until now. "I want this settled between us once and for all, and then they'll be no more talk about it. If there is, there will be trouble, Emerson. You understand that?"

She didn't back down. "Depends on what you have to say, biker man." She had the nerve to tilt that obstinate little chin.

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