The Bad Boys of Summer (17 page)

S
he must have been lost
in her thoughts for longer than a moment, because through the muffled sound of blood crashing in her ears, she heard him ask if she was ignoring him.

“
N
o
,” she responded, coming back to herself. She centered the moment by holding on to her anger. “Just stay the hell away from me, Jase.”

B
efore he could respond
, Maggie stormed around his big frame and headed for the roadhouse. The silence in the gravel behind her betrayed that Jase didn’t follow right away. Maggie was glad for it.

B
y the time
she got the bartender to serve her, Maggie’s anger had died a bit. The roadhouse jumped with line dancers, dart-throwers, mechanical bull-riders, and a crowd of frat boys celebrating something or other with endless pitchers of cheap draft beer. They co-mingled with bikers from at least three MCs that Maggie could recognize, including a few Black Dogs from a chapter north of Howlett. The room was a smoky, noisy mess, and perfect for the restless part of Maggie’s soul that needed care now more than ever. She loved the way she could melt anonymously into a place like this. She downed her first shot of whiskey and pint of beer in a rush, and then ordered another pair immediately.

M
aggie tried
her damnedest to get lost in the moment and mood of the bar, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t sink into it. She hoped Jase had decided to stay outside to attend to his guard duties, even though she could feel his eyes on her back as she sat at the bar. This was such a fucked-up development. She laughed coldly to herself when she wondered how Henry would feel after her bodyguard killed her before her hunters got the chance.

J
ase would never hurt me
. The thought came out of nowhere from the quiet part of her mind, but it made Maggie roll her eyes at her own naivety and order another shot. Drake wasn’t the only one who had never seen Jase as angry as he had been that moment at the den. Maggie would never admit to anyone how truly scared she had been when he stepped up to her.

S
till
, his anger felt so unfair. Was she the first woman to break a man’s heart? Or the first restless teenage girl, torn between two different longings? Didn’t he know that she had broken her own heart, too? She was barely 19 when she left, practically still a kid. Jase wasn’t much older. Kids make mistakes.
God knows I’ve made more than my fair share.

H
e wasn’t there
to see the long and torturous nights those first few months in Eagleton. He didn’t hear the neighbors knocking on her apartment door to check on her because her heartbroken sobbing was loud enough to penetrate the walls. He never had to feel the deep loneliness of being in a new place, without so much as a friend to call on the phone for familiar comfort.

M
aggie felt
all that pain rushing back, but it was mixed with a strange sensation, a pull to turn and see the man she had been missing for so many years, who was finally in the same room with her again. She missed Jase. She had always missed Jase.

T
his can’t keep up
, she realized. Jase as her bodyguard was only going to end in pure agony. She had to find a way to get rid of him. His loyalty to the MC was obviously strong enough to override his hatred of Maggie, but if his anger reached a tipping point, maybe he would demand a different duty from Henry himself.

M
aggie looked
down both sides of the huge oak bar. The few faces she could see were not ideal for her needs. She picked up her beer and took a walkabout into the dark edges of the roadhouse, sliding around tables and pushing through groups of drunk, happy people. On the dance floor, people were lit up like little disco balls from the pulsing lights above. She couldn’t see Jase, but she knew he was watching her, stalking her like a hawk. She was counting on it.

M
aggie headed
over to the corner filled with drunk frat boys. She ignored the drinking games and bad karaoke and chugging contests and walked over to one who was leaning against a wall, eyeballing the girls on the dance floor. He was blonde and tan and had probably never touched an engine or a gun in his short, dull life. He was Jase’s opposite.

“
H
ey
,” said Maggie as she walked up within a foot of him. At first, he seemed surprised, but that melted quickly into a seductive warmness when he saw the look in her eyes.

“
H
i there
,” he said.

“
L
ooking for something
?” she nodded her head back towards the dance floor, then put one hand on his chest as the other tipped the rest of her beer into her mouth.

“
I
think
I just found it,” he said with a grin. His hands snaked around her waist and one wasted no time getting a good handful of her ample ass and thighs. She tipped her head up to him and he obliged her with a deep but sloppy French kiss. Already she could feel his growing hardness as he pressed her against his body.

S
he had obviously found
the horniest frat boy in the group; within seconds he was practically groping her right out in the middle of the bar. She stopped him just before he tried to sneak a peek down her shirt, slowed him down a bit with some sensual kisses that ended with his lip between her teeth. Once she was certain her point had been made to anyone who may have been watching them, she took the frat boy’s hand and led him through the maze of the roadhouse, heading for the bathrooms at the back. She could’ve just stopped the charade there and sent him on his way, but Maggie figured she deserved a good fuck after a day like today.

M
aggie
and the frat boy stumbled into the handicapped stall at the end of the row, making out along the way. She managed to lock the stall door before he tugged her shirt over her head and began greedily cupping her breasts, sticking a hand into her bra. The feel of his mouth and tongue on her neck was too much pleasure, and Maggie moaned out loud, eliciting giggles from someone in another stall. She reached down and wrapped her hand around a hard, thick erection begging to be released from the board shorts it was trapped in.

W
hen his hand
appeared between her legs, rubbing, Maggie felt like she might come right then and there. It had been so long since she was touched that way—with actual longing and desire. She closed her eyes and got lost in the moment until she heard the front door of the bathroom pushed open hard enough to hit the wall. A woman’s protests went ignored. The hand between her legs was rubbing, making her wet. It was all she wanted to think about. But what was wrong? What—

“
M
aggie
!” Jase’s voice echoed through the bathroom. Before she could react, the stall door exploded inward with enough force to bend the latch beyond repair. She and the frat boy both let out a surprised cry, and he did his best to shield her from the shrapnel that came flying in.

J
ase stood in the doorway
, a hulking figure of rage and jealousy. He was twice the size of the college kid who didn’t put up an ounce of resistance when Jase reached in and grabbed him by his polo collar. He growled in his face to get the fuck out, and then pushed him hard towards the bathroom door. The frat boy hesitated just a minute as he looked at Maggie before he fled. A woman with golden hair watched the whole thing as she huddled in a corner near the sink, then boldly told Jase she was going to get the manager before she fled.

T
hey stood there staring
at each other for what felt like an eternity. Maggie didn’t even remember that she was shirtless, standing in front of her ex in just a bra and jeans, trying to slow down her heart and her breathing.

S
he had figured
Jase would seethe quietly to himself all night at the bar and demand a transfer from Henry in the morning. She looked at the dangling, broken latch, realizing she had misjudged the hell out of the situation.

“
W
hat the fuck
do you think you’re doing?” she said with deep anger.

“
I
could ask
you the same thing! Some assholes are hunting you and your bright idea is to fuck some rando at the roadhouse? Do you care about your own life or not?”

“
O
h please
!” said Maggie, finally noticing her shirt on the floor and trying to act casual as she bent to gather it up. “Don’t act like this is some concern for my safety, Saint Jase. You could have waited at the fucking door. We both know you tossed that kid out of here because you don’t want anyone else down my pants.”

J
ase’s face
turned red and he stepped towards her a few feet. Maggie was far too angry to back down. She stood in front of him, shirtless and vulnerable, her pale skin probably still bearing the red marks from the frat boy’s eager hands and lips. In a bitter internal monologue, she hoped Jase saw them, too.

“
I
don’t give
a fuck about your pants and who might be in them. I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it whether you like it or not,” he retorted.

“
K
eeping
me from getting dick is not your job,” said Maggie, throwing her shirt over her head.

T
he muscles
in his jaw clenched. “Well it sure as shit isn’t my job to
help
you get dick, either,” said Jase.

M
aggie rolled
her eyes and pushed past him just as the golden-haired woman and a round man in a dress shirt entered the ladies room. The man gave Jase a shocked look.

“
S
ince you’re
on the clock, you can deal with this,” said Maggie as she thumbed at who she assumed was the manager. “I’ll be waiting at the bar.”

“
T
he hell you will
,” said Jase. As she left the restroom, she heard him speak to the manager. “I don’t have time for this. Put it on the MC’s tab.”

“
L
ook
, you fellas are great customers but you can’t just be busting up my equipment!” said the manager.

“
D
id you hear me
?” said Jase, his voice getting louder. “Charge it to the fucking MC.”

M
aggie was halfway down
the hall before he caught up with her bee-lining for the bar. Jase grabbed her arm and began to pull her towards the front door. “We’re fucking done with playtime, Maggie.”

“
H
ey
, you bastard! Let me go!” Maggie tried to squirm her way free, but Jase’s hand was big enough to wrap nearly the whole way around her arm, and he was so much stronger than her that it was laughable. She resisted as much as she could, yet both of them knew he was going to get his way.

J
ase dragged
her outside and back to the driver’s side of her SUV in the parking lot before he finally released her arm. She instinctively rubbed the sore spot it had left. “Get in, drive home, or I will take you home myself.” He pointed at her, then at the car.

“
W
hat the fuck
is your problem, Jase?” said Maggie.

“
Y
ou’re my problem
!” Jase yelled loud enough that some curious bystanders had begun to watch from the porch of the roadhouse. “You always have to make things so fucking difficult, Maggie. You don’t give a shit about anyone else or how they feel.”

“
I
make things difficult
?” she screamed back. “No one made you bust into that bathroom stall, Jase! You did that on your own!”

“
I
promised
your father I would make sure you don’t get your stupid ass killed, and I’m going to keep that promise. I don’t give a fuck about anything else.” Jase lowered his voice and stepped up to her again, backing her against the SUV door. He bent low to her face and she could smell the whiskey on his breath. “I don’t care who you fuck. I don’t care about you anymore, period. But you’re not getting killed on my watch. Understood?”

M
ore than anything
else that night, Maggie knew she would replay those last few lines in her worst dreams for months to come.
I don’t care about you anymore. I don’t care who you fuck. I don’t care about you anymore.
She was just buzzed enough that she couldn’t stop the pain from radiating out to pulse through her whole body. It must have shown on her face, because for a split second, she saw Jase’s expression soften, worried.

I
don’t care
about you anymore.
She felt tears begin to burn her eyes.

“
Y
eah
, I get it,” said Maggie. She yanked her car keys out of her pocket and turned to climb in the SUV as Jase moved back to dodge the door opening. She didn’t look at him again as she started the engine and headed out of the parking lot.