“So, it looks like it’s just you and me now, cowboy.” Susie’s seductive whisper slid over him while her slender fingers snaked up his arm.
He’d always wondered what it meant to have an out of body experience. Now he knew. He glanced down at Susie, feeling like a bystander watching a train crash into another one head on at two hundred miles per hour.
The woman looked the same as always with her beautiful, golden blond hair, those piercing brown eyes, and those sinfully red lips, but for the life of him, Luke couldn’t understand what he had been drawn to about her. Before he could give it another second’s thought the other object of Susie’s sexual infatuation chose that moment to walk up to the table and based on the look on his face, Cole was none too happy to see Luke.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Cole barked, glaring down at Luke, never even acknowledging Susie.
“What are you talking about?” Luke pushed to his feet, needing to get some height on Cole in order to deal with the man’s anger. In all the time that he had known him, he had never seen Cole mad enough that his hands were balled into fists at his side. If Luke looked close enough, he’d probably see steam coming out of his ears.
“Cole, honey, what’s wrong?” Susie interrupted.
As though seeing her for the first time, Cole glanced over at the woman at the table, but his attention didn’t stray for long before he locked that penetrating stare back on Luke. “Sierra just stormed out of here. In tears. Although she didn’t bother to tell me why, my money’s on you.”
The thought of Sierra crying tore at Luke’s heart. If he was a smart man, which he was, he would high tail it out of the club and find her. Apparently his intellect had taken a back seat to the rage boiling just beneath the surface. “If I remember right, you lost your right to stick your nose into my business.”
Cole laughed. The man actually laughed, but his eyes showed no reflection of humor. “I don’t give a fuck about you.” Cole’s tone was deceptively calm, standing toe to toe with Luke. “It’s her I care about.”
“Her? You’re going to stand here and tell me you care about her? You abandoned her, remember? You abandoned both of us.” Wow, where the hell had that come from?
“Abandoned?” Cole’s body went stone still. “I stayed away from her. Because of you. And then the second you invite me over, I’m there. And you want to tell me I’m the one who abandoned you?”
Cole jabbed a finger in Luke’s chest, and the sudden, intense reaction to the other man’s anger was shocking. Luke instinctively reared back, his fist clenched, every muscle geared up for a fight. His brain registered what he was doing, but a fraction of a second before impact, someone’s steel hard grip latched onto Luke’s arm and pulled him back, causing him to stumble.
“Not here, damnit.” Logan’s tense words broke through the red haze that consumed him. Pulling out of Logan’s grip, Luke stepped forward, getting right in Cole’s face again.
“We’ve got some things to talk about, you and me.” Cole stated matter-of-factly, not giving an inch. “It’s time we took care of that.”
Luke processed the words, he even understood what Cole was telling him, but all of a sudden nothing seemed to matter except for one thing. Getting to Sierra.
“Luke? What’s going on?” Susie’s husky voice broke the strained silence that settled between the two men despite the loud music pounding through the sound system.
Tunnel vision consumed him, and he could only focus on the man standing inches away.
“Tell her.” Cole stated through clinched teeth.
“Tell her what?” Luke’s irritation level was reaching the critical point.
“Start with how you sent Sierra out of here crying.”
“Sierra?” Susie asked, looking bemused. “Not Sierra Sellers, I hope. Please don’t tell me that you’ve lowered your standards…”
Luke cut her off before the words could come out. He gripped Susie’s slim arm, jerking her to face him.
“Don’t.” The word came out more as a snarl, but Luke couldn’t contain his temper. “Don’t say another fucking word about her. You’re damn lucky she’s even given you the time of day. And if I hear one more fucking word out of your mouth, you’ll be out of my club so fast your head will spin.”
Susie’s eyes widened, locked with his and he swore he saw… Oh, hell, the woman was turned on by all of this? Good Lord. His suspicions were confirmed a second later when her eyes lowered. Her admission of surrender.