Page 5 of Ride Hard
The man held up his hands and backed away, muttering a halfheartedapology.
“Ugh,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You want me to have sex after that? This place is enough to turn any womancelibate.”
“Hot stuff is staring at us.” She pouted and nudged me with her shoulder. “Go for a ride…just a littleone.”
“I’m not touchinghim.”
Even if he weren’t here to kidnap me ‘for my protection,’ getting mixed up with a guy who looked like an underwear model and hung out by himself in dark corners of strip clubs was not what I needed right now. What I needed was peace and quiet to study for my midterms. A cocky cock with the worst timing was the fastest way rile up my innerbitch.
Speakingof…
“I’ll be right back,” I said, waving Yvette off when she got excited on mybehalf.
Rounding the end of the bar, I strode across the club, ignoring the sidelong glances, and stopped in front of a smug looking Chaser. He wanted a confrontation, so here itwas.
Snatching the bottle of beer out of his hand, Iglared.
“I wasn’t finished with that,” hecomplained.
“You’re hogging the table,” I declared. “And I can guarantee your beer is flat and tastes like shit at room temperature. You may as well be drinking old-manpiss.”
“He warned me about this,” he said, lounging back in the booth, looking sexy as hell. All that was missing was me crawling up hisbody.
“Excuse me?” I felt my cheeks redden and thanked God we were in the club where it was dark, and he couldn’tsee.
“You’re a handful. Can see it already.” He was undressing me with his eyes—which made me a little hot to my utter distress—and my flush deepened as his hand moved toward hiscrotch.
“Asshole.” Holding up the bottle, I tipped the beer into his lap. “How’s that for a wetpatch?”
People around us snickered as Chaser held out his hands in mockdefeat.
“There are worse things in the world than smelling like beer and having a wetcock.”
“Yeah? Like a turf war for men with little dicks?” I sneered and slammed my fist on top of the table and tossed the empty beer bottle athim.
He caught it against his chest and laughed. It was the wrong thing to do, but luckily for him, there was a table betweenus.
“Get out of my face, Chaser.” I snarled. “Go back to my father like the little bitch you are, and you tell him the same words I told him seven years ago when he sent another fucker like you after me. I’d rather asphyxiate on my own vomit than lay eyes on him ever again.He doesn’t exist to me. You gotit?”
“So, was it immaculateconception?”
“Excuse me?” My mouth fellopen.
“When people ask you about your father, do you tell them the stalk dropped you off on your mommy’sdoorstep?”
“My mom is dead, you piece of shit. Why do you think I ranaway?”
Turning on my heel, I stalked across the club, seething so hard I almost spontaneously combusted. When I calmed down enough to check if Chaser was still there or not, the booth wasempty.
Good. He was bad for myhealth.
* * *
Stuffinga French fry into my mouth, I chewed and thumped out another sentence. My poorlaptop.
My nights off went like this. Go to the local fast-food joint, order the cheapest meal they had, and commandeer a table for a minimum of two to three hours. Then pack as much course work in as I could before walking the five blocks home in the dark, looking as tough as I could so I wouldn’t be mugged. Hopefully. My computer was a piece of shit, but twenty bucks was twenty bucks aroundhere.
After six months, I’d become a regular fixture, and management didn’t hassle me anymore. As long as I wasn’t running drugs to their customers or casing the joint to prepare for an armed robbery, they didn’t mind me hanging out. Once they twigged I was trying to study, they really didn’tmind.
