Page 33 of The Biker and the Baker
He scoffs. “All in your head, Sweet P. Women are precious jewels.Allwomen. I could never hate one.”
Yeah, right.“Why would you even want to go there? We work together.”
He appears confused by this question. “What does our work relationship have to do with anything?”
Is he serious right now?“Look, I’m not interested, okay?”
“You say that while looking at me like you want to lick me like a popsicle.”
Dear God, the man is relentless. “Am I some kind of a challenge to you or something? A bet, maybe?”
He frowns in thought, and there’s a long pause, as if he’s making sure of his words this time around. “I’m thirty-six, and I’ve never claimed a woman as mine before. Didn’t care about having a ‘girlfriend’ not even when I was a pimply teen. But you…you…intrigue me. You’ve got my complete interest. Might make me sound like a dog, but my interest in women has always been purely sexual, nothing else. With you, it’s different. You’ve got me wanting toexplorewith you. Being around you is…I dunno. I dunno how to explain it. Intoxicating? Yeah, I think that’s the word.”
Am I supposed to be flattered by that?“So, in other words, I’m the girl you marry for her intellectual intelligence, the girl who stays home performing her wifely duties but is never getting fucked, while the side piece that you’re ‘sexually’ attracted to gets all the dicking. Hmm, I see.”
His expression is one of utter bewilderment. “Huh?”
“Never mind.” I take a sip of my cocktail and glance around in search of Lissa. I spot her under a sprawling willow tree sipping beer with Mice, her hand lingering on his bicep as she throws her head back and laughs at something he’s saying. She’s so gone over that man. She also totally screwed me over by leaving me here to Onyx’s predatory claws.
“P,” Onyx says, placing his hand over mine on the table.
At his touch, a jolt of something indescribable darts through me, causing an audible hitch in my throat. I swiftly snatch my hand from beneath his.
“I wanna—” he starts, but someone calls out to him. “Yo, Nyx. C’mere a minute.”
I expel a relieved breath, but as he stands to leave, he gives me a look that sayswe’re not done.
Once he’s gone, I press my forearms to the table, lean forward, and tell Cookie and Leyana, who’ve been watching us from across the table the entire time, “Onyx and I aren’treallytogether. He only did that to get back at me. Just so you know.”
“Get back at you how?” Leyana asks.
A sigh flows from me. “I ran into him in a candy shop. He was babysitting two little boys and they were driving him nuts, so I invited him to my niece’s birthday party. Obviously it was a family affair and he was a stranger, so I fibbed and told them he was my boyfriend.”
“Ah,” Leyana says. “You’rethe Indian lady with the nose ring.”
“Huh?”
“Those two little boys he was with are mine,” she explains. “When I asked them about the party bags they came home with that day, they told me they got it from the ‘Indian lady with the nose ring’. I never got around to asking Onyx more about it. But he’s been helping out with those kids since we adopted them and loves them like his own, so I knew he’d never put them in danger.”
“Oh. Well, they were…um, a delight.”
Both women guffaw at this.
“I think you pronounced ‘little shits’ wrong,” Cookie says with a snicker.
“No need to be polite,” Leyana tells me through a laugh. “I’m aware the twins are misbehaving miscreants.”
To Cookie, I say, “I just wanted to clear the air about Onyx and me, so you don’t have to worry about my work being affected ‘in the event of’ or anything”
“I’m not worried. You seem like a strong woman with a good head on her shoulders.” She drains the last of her beer. “But I also know my nephew. He’s set his sights on you and he ain't letting up. You might not be his girl right now, but you will be. Welcome to the family.”
Is she serious?
Before I can respond to that, she’s up from her chair and moving toward the cooler box where all the men are gathered.
“You should know, Cookie’s not a friendly person,” Leyana says, pulling my attention to her. “If she invited you here, it’s because she sees something the rest of us don’t yet. So, congrats. You just got her stamp of approval. And that’s not easy to come by. Ask anyone here.”
What? There’s nothing to approve of!“But…but it’s not real. Onyx and I…we hate each other.”
