“You’re going down, Goldie,” Tenn says from across the table.
Mallory actually chimes out, “Kick her ass, baby.”
I ignore her and give a gracious swipe of my hand toward the green felt. “Then, by all means… take me down.”
And much to my utter shock, Tenn proceeds to run the entire fucking table. He sinks shot after shot… striped ball after striped ball falling prey to the corner and side pockets. He doesn’t look at me once but concentrates on the game, stalking around the table and calculating his best move. In just a matter of a few minutes, the table is completely devoid of stripes and the only shot left is the eight ball.
He taps the far corner pocket right in front of me, his eyes lifting up to mine. He gives me a hard, appraising stare before he lets the cue stick go. I watch as the cue ball—almost as if in slow motion—hits the eight ball perfectly and it assuredly sinks into the pocket, garnering him the win.
My jaw drops, and this time, my mouth stays open.
He just won.
He just gave up the chance to be with me. He just gave up a fucking blow job, and let me tell you… I give stellar fucking blow jobs.
Tenn casually places the cue stick on the table and walks up to me. I would expect him to have a smirk on his face, but his eyes are deadly serious. “I win. Now you have to answer my question.”
“What?” I ask in confusion, because I’m still boggled that he didn’t throw the game.
“My question,” he repeats. “I want to know the name of the man that hurt you. I want the name of the fucker that made you want to use men and toss them away like yesterday’s garbage.”
My face flames red with mortification, not because he called me a user of men. But red with embarrassment that he has seemingly figured me all out. That he has managed to narrow down my entire existence to just one small name.
Taking in a deep breath, I let it out shakily. I try to resolve my voice but it quakes with unease as I deny him. “There’s no name.”
Tenn’s eyes flick back and forth between mine, probing deep for a hint of veracity. I hold his gaze, refusing to drop my eyes that are sagging under the weight of the untruth I just told. When it’s clear that I won’t give him what he wants, his eyes turn sad. “That’s a lie, Casey.”
I refuse to acknowledge the truth of that actual statement, so I just lift my chin up higher in defiance.
Tenn looks at me just a moment more, and then tips his head to me. “Well… thanks for the game. You have a nice night, Goldie.”
My head swivels to follow him as he steps past me and walks up to Mallory. He touches her shoulder and leans down toward her ear. “You want to get out of here?”
A loud, angry buzzing sound starts in my ears as I realize that Tenn is walking away from me. That he’s getting ready to leave with a woman whose name is so stupid, it doesn’t even bear repeating. He’s going to leave and I’m never going to see him again, and while it scares the shit out of me, I have this feeling deep down inside that I’d be making a colossal mistake if I let him walk away.
Tenn takes Mallory by the hand and holds his other out for Kyle to bump fists. “Later, dude,” he says, and then Tenn doesn’t even spare me a glance as he turns to head out the door.
He takes one step away from me, then another, and I before I can stop myself, I yell out, “Wait.”
Tenn immediately halts in his tracks, drops Mallory’s hand, and turns to look at me. I stride up to him, stopping when we’re toe to toe. His eyebrows rise in question, and his face is open and accepting.
Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and say, “His name is Jeff.”
Chapter 8
Tenn
The fucker’s name is Jeff.
I want to hunt him down and kill him, because whatever he’s done, he’s taken a beautiful woman and made her lose herself.
Casey stares at me a moment, her eyes wide and vulnerable. I imagine Casey doesn’t suffer vulnerability well, so I’m not surprised when she drops her face and pushes past Mallory and me toward the bar. I watch as she runs behind it and grabs her purse. The other bartender says something to her but she ignores him and rushes out, straight down the hall that leads to the front door.
Shit… didn’t expect her to run that fast.
“I’m sorry… I gotta go,” I tell Mallory as I spin toward the door.
She latches onto my arm, and her eyes narrow at me. “What the hell, Tenn?”
“I’m really sorry,” I mutter as I pull my arm away and start weaving my way through the crowd in pursuit of Casey. I’ve lost sight of her so I pick up my pace, actually bumping shoulders with a few people.
When I burst out the door, I see nothing but cars in the parking lot. I look left, then right, and see a flash of golden hair bouncing as Casey runs toward her Jeep. Thankfully, my legs are longer than hers are and I manage to catch her just as she’s reaching for her door handle.
My hand latches on to her elbow. “Wait a minute, Goldie. Where are you going?”
“Home,” she says as she tries to jerk herself from my grasp, so I tighten my grip.
“Just wait,” I tell her as I turn her to face me.
Rather than pull away from me again, she surprisingly steps into me and lifts up on her tiptoes, her lip curled in a snarl. “Don’t ask, Tenn. I’m not telling you another fucking thing about him.”
She looks like a wildcat, eyes all wide and feral, her hair streaming over her shoulders in messy disarray, cheeks flushed red. I can tell there will be no reasoning with her, so I do the next best thing by taking her shoulders and pulling her closer to me. I slam my mouth onto hers and kiss the fuck out of her.
Casey struggles for all of two seconds, and then her arms are wrapped around my neck and she’s kissing me back.
Desperately.
Her soft body melts into mine, and lust shoots down to my dick when she moans softly into my mouth.
Only three seconds away from pushing her up against her Jeep and fucking her in the parking lot, I pull away. Her chest is rapidly rising and falling and her eyes are filled with confusion. I bring a hand to the side of her face and cup it, running my thumb over the modelesque swell of her cheekbone.
“I mean it,” she says in warning, her eyes looking like a caged animal again. “I won’t talk about him.”
“We don’t have to,” I assure her with a reassuring smile. “But let’s get out of here… go get a cup of coffee or something. We can talk about something else.”
“Like what?” she asks suspiciously.
Leaning in, I kiss her on the forehead and don’t miss the subtle sigh that yields from her. Sensing her need for something normal to ground her, I grab Casey’s hand and start pulling her toward my motorcycle. “It’s a nice night. We can talk about the weather if you want to.”
I sip at my coffee and look around the diner. It’s nearly empty, and the sign on the front says they close at nine PM. Plenty of time for us to sit for a bit and talk.
“Me and my girlfriends do breakfast here every Monday,” Casey says out of the blue, and my gaze slides back to her. It’s the first thing she’s said since we left the bar.
“Oh, yeah? What are they like?”
Tenderness morphs Casey’s face and her eyes go soft, telling me what I’ve suspected from the start… that she has a big heart. “Well… there’s my best friend since I was a kid…. Gabby. She’s engaged to my brother, Hunter.”
“He’s the one that owns The Last Call, right?”
“Yup. And then there’s Alyssa. She’s engaged to my brother Brody, who is Hunter’s twin.”
“And he’s the one that spent some time in prison?” I ask.
Casey’s eyebrows rise in question, so I supply her before she can ask. “Kyle told me. I guess Andrea filled him in on the whole group.”