His coffee-stained smile is gone in an instant and so is mine as I am jerked backward and Ransom steps in to take my place.
I would have fallen on my ass had he not reacted so quickly and grabbed ahold of my arm at the last second. Turning ferocious eyes gone black on the man, who now wears a look that is a cross between surprised, pissed off, and a touch frightened, Ransom growls a warning that makes even me shiver.
“If you ever touch her again, I’ll rip that filthy hand off and shove it so far up your ass you’ll spend the rest of your life wiping it with a stump. Are we clear?”
The man nods, his wide eyes unblinking. Ransom holds his gaze for a few beats more, and then he turns on me. With his hand still firmly wrapped around my arm, he hustles me away. The bathrooms are just beyond the bar, and I muster a half-hearted smile so Bernice doesn’t sick security on us.
Fear is a very real factor here as I am bundled into the men’s bathroom. An older man stands in front of the sinks, washing his hands, and when Ransom aims his death glare on him and tells him to hit the road, he doesn’t waste a second thinking about it.
Once we’re alone, I am crowded against the wall. Ransom’s tall, solid frame is heavy and borderline oppressive. But when he gathers my hands over my head and begins tearing at my skirt until it is gathered around my waist, my labored breaths are no longer a result of fear.
“Are you mad at me?” I gasp as his fingers find my hot center and plunge inside, working my internal temperature up so high I feel as though I could combust.
Burying his face in the curve between my neck and shoulder, he rasps against my skin, “I’m mad at that fucker for putting his hands on what’s mine.”
That doesn’t really answer my question, but I figure it’s probably the only one I’m going to get. His teeth scrape down my throat and he licks my collarbone as he works his way lower to the swell of my breasts. It’s difficult to think when he’s kissing me like this.
“My boss isn’t going to be happy if he hears you chased off one of his customers. You know, we have security for that sort of thing.”
Releasing a low, frustrated growl, Ransom tears the flimsy hunter green thong from my body as if it’s made of paper, and insinuates himself between my thighs. The move places the hardest part of him right against my core. I moan from the contact.
“Fuck security. They’re slow and lazy.”
“They’re effective when they need to be.”
“I just pulled one of their workers off the floor and forced her into the bathroom after threatening a patron. Listen.” He pauses, tilting his head. His eyes have a dangerous gleam in them when he looks back at me. “I don’t hear the pitter patter of little feet coming to the rescue, do you?”
I roll my eyes. “That’s because I told Bernice I was fine.”
“I didn’t hear you say a word.”
I smirk. “Haven’t you heard? Women don’t need words to communicate effectively.”
“The only woman I grew up with was my mom. Guess I didn’t learn that skill.”
I love the smile that blooms on his face. It’s cute and teasing and it sets off little creases around his eyes that remind me of his more playful, easygoing side. I like this side, too, though, and right now, it has my hormones raging.
I moan into his mouth as he kisses me, his tongue plunging past my lips to slide over mine. Releasing my hands, Ransom grabs the backs of my thighs and hoists me up. Like a perfectly choreographed dance, I wrap my legs around his lean hips and tunnel my fingers into his hair, pulling him so I can taste his mouth as he burrows a hand between our bodies and unzips his fly.
His hard length nudges my opening and our kiss becomes more aggressive. I’m panting for oxygen when he tears his mouth from mine. I whimper, needing more of him, but he stops everything.
When I realize that he’s not going any further, I peel my eyes open to find him staring at me with intense concentration.
“No one touches you but me.”
My brows pull down at the sudden change I’m witnessing in him. “Okay,” I say, stretching the word out.
“I mean it. You’re mine. What happened out there? You make sure that never happens again.”
A part of me perks up, irritated that he thinks he can tell me what to do. “Do you realize who you’re talking to? I’m a stripper. It happens.”
He shakes his head slowly. “You’re not getting it. I don’t care who you are or what you do, that doesn’t happen again. I don’t share, understand? You’re mine, and as mine, the only hands that touch this ass belong to me.”
I don’t know whether to be upset or overjoyed at his caveman behavior. “Are you claiming me?”
“Honey, I claimed you the first time I saw you dance on that stage.” His mouth crashes over mine. Our teeth bang together from the force of our passion. With one brutal thrust of his hips, Ransom is inside of me. I cry out as my body instantly releases, my muscles milking him with such force that Ransom follows right behind me.
Our mingled breaths echo in the room as we float back down to earth. His heartbeat drums against my chest, and I hold him tighter to my breasts. There’s nothing better than post-coital Ransom. For a few, brief moments, he’s completely mine. It’s in these moments, when he’s at his softest, that a woman could lose her way.
But Ransom puts an end to those troubling thoughts when he pulls back and sets me on my feet. I am a mess. My clothes are bunched around my waist, my underwear hanging in useless strings, and his cum is leaking down my thighs. He didn’t use a condom this time, and I thank whoever is listening above that I had enough sense to get on birth control. When I look at myself in the mirror, there is cherry red lipstick smeared across my face, which is the icing to my disheveled state.
The same goes for Ransom, but even rumpled and stained crimson, he is completely edible.
“You know, as much as I enjoy these little rendezvous, we really must stop meeting up like this,” I say as I begin cleaning myself up.
After zipping himself back up, Ransom positions himself beside the sink, lifting one arm in the air to press against the wall. With his suit jacket hanging open to expose the white shirt beneath and the expensive silver buckle on the black leather belt circling his narrow waist, he looks like he belongs on the cover of GQ.
“What do you mean?”
“I say, for public decency’s sake, we should probably keep our activities confined to a bed. Yours perhaps? I’ve never seen your apartment.”
Instantly, he throws up an invisible wall and I know I’ve said the wrong thing, pushed him too hard. “And you won’t.”
His harsh tone confounds me and I watch in disbelief as he straightens. Refusing to look at me as he fastens the single button on his jacket and walks toward the door.
“You’ll forgive me,” he says firmly, “but I have business to attend to.”
My mouth gapes open, but no words come out. After what we just did, I thought we were in a good place.
When am I going to learn that sex isn’t a magic fix? It doesn’t mend relationships. Rather, it’s like plugging a hole in a sinking ship with caulk—utterly ineffective. As soon as you stop filling the hole, it begins leaking again.
Once I put myself back together again enough to return to the floor, I don’t bother looking around for him. Ransom is long gone and I’m not in the mood to chase after him. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe this is the wake-up call I need to realize that it’s time to let go of something that was never going to be.
NINETEEN
I can’t get the strange look Ransom shot me, when I declined his invitation to meet him after class, out of my head. It’s almost as if he didn’t understand why I might be upset with him. At the very least, he should recognize that walking away from a woman in the middle of a discussion, directly following hot and heavy sex, is definite grounds for a problem. That he doesn’t shouldn’t be a surprise to me, but it is. I was just starting to get used to New Ransom, and then Old, Callous Ransom reared his head again.