Page 72 of Manhattan Tormentor

“Finn,” dad calls as I take my escape and I pause with my back to him in the doorway. “Remember what I said.”

I breathe long and deep, anger pulsing through my arms.

He knows he’s got me locked in and doesn’t care. The crux of Jeremy Maverick’s life is he doesn’t care.

Fuck you, Dad.

“I’ll be here next week.”

“And?”

“I’ll have good fucking news for you.”

“That’s what I like to hear, son. Drive safe.”

Yeah, and fuck you, too.

I stride out, leaving the scent of home and authority behind me. Meeting up with Bates and Preston inMacNam’sbar for some normalcy. They have a drink waiting for me and it’s gone within a few seconds.

I’m merry as a priest on a holy day a few hours later. Preston is holding court, regaling us with some shit he’s getting into at college. It might be the liquor talking, but I find him funny tonight for the first time.

Sprawled in the booth, my legs stretched out in front of me, I adjust the black Nike cap on my head when I feel it.

It’s a stinging in my spine and then a tightening in my gut, and I know before I scan the bar what it is.

My body alerting me that the curse of my life is walking into the bar with three other people. His sister and Thatcher. Then the third… it’sherwho has my back teeth grinding to dust.

The blonde chippy I’ve seen him with before is all over him like herpes. Not that Sage takes any notice, it still grabs at my belly.

What’s that all about? If I can switch teams, does that mean Fierro has too? He said he hasn’t fucked a girl. Did that change?

“Are you growling?” Bates knocks my shoulder.

“What? No. Shut up.” I take the bottle to my lips to put out the burning jealousy in my belly. After a long swallow, I take my eyes to their table.

“You sound like a kicked dog,” he chuckles. I give no response.

We haven’t called each other in days. That thing between us is more than done, I made sure of it. Not that I haven’t wanted to call him.

Seeing him now, my fingers throb to grab his hair and get him on his knees.Take my dick out. That’s all I’d have to say to see the flare of lust in his eyes. That turned me on harder than any girl-on-girl porno ever has.Can we go again?I still hear those words rattling through my skull, torturing me. I’d bet anything no one at that table knows what a savage Fierro is for sex. How into it he gets. His sounds and clawing hands, the way the little vampire uses the front of my hair to control my head while he bites me.

I wrench my gaze away before someone notices, and for a while it works. For a while I pretend he’s not in the same room as me.

Not long after, Paris and Sofia rock up. I stop Sofia from sitting on me by glowering at her. She pouts but plonks her ass by Preston, talking about whatever boring shit chicks talk about.

I have no long-term interest in Sofia. We had fun together in the past, but that’s as far as it goes for me. It wouldn’t occur to her to tell her daddy that she can choose her own husband. She’s been raised with an unlimited allowance and the instruction to always do as she’s told. With the right amount of designer purses, this chick will do anything her daddy says.

She glances over and smiles shyly. I don’t smile back and it doesn’t stop her from sliding over to my side of the booth. “You’re quiet over here, you wanna go somewhere else?”

“I hear we’re having a family pow wow next weekend.”

She nods like a chihuahua. “Yeah, mom told me earlier. She reeled off a bunch of do’s and don’ts. It’ll be fine.”

Blondie practically sitting in Sage’s lap, he knocks her hand away from his hair, but I’m already seething inside. Ready to bite each of her fingers off for daring to put her greedy mitts on him.

The horny Manhattan princess can get her sticky fingers off Fierro.

He’staken.

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