Page 42 of Give You Up

“Like hell you could stop me, Pixie Dust.”

After shooting the breeze with the guys and creaming them in a game of darts, I drove home and chilled until Shades closed.

I walk to her with my thumbs hooked in the pockets of my jeans, my eyes taking in how sexy she looks in her black slacks and white buttoned-up shirt that stretches sinfully across her chest.

“How was your shift?” We meet near her car. Holding on to her waist, I turn her around and walk her backward until I have her resting against her blacked-out Honda Accord.

“Playing referee.”

I cock a brow. She explains.

“Midnight and Riley, the server with the long black hair, they can go at it like mortal enemies.”

“They’re part of your crew?”

She nods.

“But they don’t get along?”

“Not tonight. Usually Midnight leaves Riley to do her job, but with the level of testosterone in the bar, he went overly possessive on her, and that pissed her off.”

“If I were in his shoes and it was you those guys were looking at with hunger in their eyes, I’d go ape-shit too.”

“So you’re saying they weren’t looking at me like that?”

The uncertainty in her voice is what I remember well, a piece leftover from the shy girl I once knew. I grasp her chin and tip her head up until she is looking me in the eye.

“They stared so long and hard and with such heat in their eyes, I was ready to knock heads together, Syn.”

“Really?”

“Yes, baby. You are one sexy chick.”

She smiles. Runs the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip, lingering on that sliver of metal that glints beneath the parking lot lights and the moonlight. Jesus, her ring will be cool on my mouth, the tip of my tongue.

“Syn. Babe.” I lower my head and am about to slide my mouth over hers, but some ass-wipe whoops and hollers from where he is sitting inside his Jeep with the windows rolled down.

I glance up and glare at Syn’s friend. “He should mind his own business. Leave you the fuck alone.”

“Where I go, he goes. Don’t ever forget that.”

“How about I have a lapse in memory?”

“Taron.”

“Okay, baby, for you, I’ll let him hang around. But he needs to keep his hands off you.”

“Taron. He’s my friend.”

“I’m your friend.”

“That is as yet to be determined.”

“If I’m your friend, do I get to touch you?”

“In afriendlyway.”

“What’s considered friendly?” I ask.

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