Ripped
Page 41“Who’s there?” he teases me.
“You just ordered for me without even asking me what I wanted.”
He leans back with a smirk. “All right, Pandora. What was it you wanted?” He lifts one eyebrow, and god, the things I want to do to that smirk. Kiss it. Lick it. Bite it. All of it.
“The mandarin salad and the seared scallops,” I finally admit, hating that he’s making me smile back at him.
“And what did I order?”
That.
Smirk.
God!
All of a sudden I’m hungry, and it’s just for that damn smirk of his. I’ve loved mandarins and sea scallops my whole life—since the days we used to steal away to the docks. And deep inside my brain, I keep hearing a silly little voice saying, “He remembers.”
How can something so insignificant turn me to mush?
“I could have wanted something else,” I argue, still smiling.
He cocks an eyebrow, still smirking at me. “But you don’t. Trust me, I know what you want, Pink.”
God help me, I want to kiss that smirk. To kiss him so hard, I’ll be the one smirking back at him afterward. Instead, Brooke kicks me under the table and gives me the universal going-to-the-bathroom-to-discuss-the-guys sign.
Fine.
We excuse ourselves, and as soon as we’re out of earshot, she’s on me—anxious to know what’s going on.
“What’s been happening?!” Brooke asks as we storm into the bathroom.
In her short black dress and sky-high heels, she looks like a million bucks. I go stare into the mirror and look like . . . me. Like some angry little crow out to attack—pink streak and all. Brooke’s face is lit up like from the inside. Like she knows she’s worth something. To someone. Like she sleeps well at night because she’s sleeping next to a blue-eyed man who looks at her like he’s both coddling and fucking her in his mind. And that’s hot.
“Pan!” Brooke says, with that radiance surrounding her and those gold eyes boring into me. “You need to tell me. I did not know you even knew this guy. Now he sits there, ordering for you, knowing things I didn’t even know about you—”
“For real? You’re fucking the Crack Bikini terrible threes?” Brooke asks, as disbelieving as me.
“The main one. But not for long.”
“But you like him! Ohmigod!”
I scowl. “No, I don’t!”
“Yes. You do!” she counters. “And he definitely likes you. I’m really digging the way he steals those long looks at you. Long looks, like his eyes are taking in all of your face, your temples, your eyes, your nose, your lips, your chin. Every time he looks at you it’s like he takes in every inch of your face before he looks away. You make him smile too.”
“He just does that to irritate me!” I cry, getting truly agitated by the excitement and fear Brooke’s words are creating in me.
“No, he does not do it to irritate you. And how can you say that when you don’t even notice when he does it?”
“He’s a man-slut, Brooke. He looks at my mouth because he likes me doing stuff with it. I bet he’s thinking dirty thoughts,” I say. A memory of him feeding me his cock flashes through me, and I can’t quite quell the bolt rushing through my body.
She laughs, then shrugs. “Maybe. Personally, I love it when Remington thinks dirty thoughts about me when we’re with others. I can see it in his eyes. Sometimes I just brush my body against his to confirm my suspicions, and I love it when the evidence just slams into me and he growls.”
I raise my eyebrows, then laugh. “Do you stop having sex with Remy when you have a baby?”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m just curious how . . . couples live when they have babies.”
She grins, then her eyes gain a dreamy little sparkle in them as she admits, “We used to struggle when Racer didn’t sleep all night. We needed to steal every one of our moments together. But Racer’s such a good baby . . .” Her smile widens. “If anything, Remington is even more primal and possessive now. Just the thought of me being his makes him want me. Badly. Hell, if you sit down and say something about me and refer to me as his wife, you’ll see what it does to him.”
“Shit, I have to do that.”
She grins happily. “Okay! But I get to pick on Mackenna too.”
The guys are sitting down in their places—Mackenna drinking a beer, Remington plain water. I notice them watching us return. My body heats up through Mackenna’s stare alone, but I don’t want it to, so instead I watch Brooke grin at Remington, his gaze sliding appreciatively over her figure. She leans over and kisses the top of his spiky dark hair before sitting down.
“Melanie and I have really missed your wife, Remy,” I promptly say as I sit.
“What?” I ask him, distracted.
He grins and slides his hand deep into Brooke’s hair, still looking at me, and I almost hear Brooke purr in her seat. “Did my wife tell you I like you calling her mine?”
“Yes!” Brooke laughs, but he moves really fast for such a big man, and he quiets her with a kiss. On the mouth.
For a full second, they’re kissing. Not with tongue, but really locked—like Mackenna and I aren’t even here. His hands splay on the back of her head, hers sliding up his neck.
“Is that what you wanted?” Remington then asks as he looks softly down at her.
The powerful way they stare at each other and the way he starts rubbing her lip with the pad of his thumb make me ache inside. A raw, hot sensation takes over me, and I blame it for making me ache all over when Mackenna takes my hand in his. I blame it for making me feel even blacker, hotter, more empty when Mackenna’s fingers twine with mine, filling my chest with something I’m scared to feel again.
I should move away, but in reality, I want him closer. I need him nearer. Because I could have had that with him. We could have had a family. And as Remington chuckles as Brooke admits that she told me to tease him, and he starts teasing her about how she loves picking on him, Mackenna tips my head around to his in that proprietary, strangely sexy way he has.
Silver eyes capture mine.
“Nice to know you have a heart,” he murmurs with tender eyes and an even more tender smile, and I can hardly stand that he noticed. “That doesn’t make you weak, baby. It makes you human.”
“I was not programmed to have feelings. It just wasn’t coded into my hard drive,” I lie, struggling to return to my grumpy, defensive self.
“So, how’d you two meet?” Brooke asks, and when I remember that I agreed to let her poke back at Mackenna, I want to groan, but instead I decide to answer for us. Just to make sure we remain in safe territory.
“In school. We used to go out in secret,” I mumble.
“In secret, why?” This is from Brooke, and she’s genuinely outraged.
“Mackenna’s father went to jail,” I say quietly, turning the spoon on my place setting, over and over.
“Oh no,” says Brooke, her eyes wide, “and your mom—”
“She put him there,” Mackenna finishes for her, his voice not betraying any emotion.
Silence.
He reaches for Brooke’s hand, both of them now solely looking at Mackenna. “How old were you when that happened?”
“Seventeen. Doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Pan,” Brooke whispers, her attention coming back to me in full force. “All this time you knew him and didn’t even say. And he was singing about you!”
With a rumbling laugh, Mackenna reaches out to retrieve the knife from my place setting with that adorable, kissable smirk that’s driving me nuts. “Please don’t even mention that. She has . . . exceptions to that song.”
“Because it’s a lie!”
He groans and rolls his eyes.
“So it was you, then,” Brooke laughingly tells him. “The man we all wanted to hang for ruining her life.”
“Don’t, Brooke,” I warn.
“She pine for me?” Mackenna asks, his voice growing thick—like it sometimes does when he asks about me. He seems superinterested, his predatory, wolfish gaze glimmering full force.
“Don’t. No! Don’t say anything, Brooke.”
“No, she doesn’t get sad,” Brooke admits, with a curl of her lips. “She gets mad.”
“Oh, she’s mad at me, all right,” Mackenna agrees.
I groan and bang my palm to my head, but in the end, we all burst out laughing.
♥ ♥ ♥
AFTER DINNER WE part ways, and Mackenna’s eyes are somber as we head back to the parking lot. “Enjoy that?”