She took her time sauntering over to her doorway, and he got that she was always going to be a handful. That there was never going to be a surrender, not from this woman. And that might even be why he couldn’t take his goddamned eyes off her for even a second.

Sophie turned to look at him, very slowly, and in that moment Ajax didn’t know what he wanted more. To get the hell away from any woman who could look at him like that or to get up close to that expression on her face instead. Tough and cool at once, like she could chew nails and though she knew he wasn’t made of metal, was already sinking her teeth in deep.

Of course, that image only made his cock ache even more.

“Are we dating?” she asked coolly, after a moment or so of that look. Not the slightest bit afraid of him, unlike all the assholes he’d spent the night joyfully reeducating. It was as good as her tongue in his mouth, her hands on his cock. Hot and carnal, and he’d never know how he managed to sit there and smirk at her instead of closing the distance between them and testing that theory.

“I don’t date, babe. I fuck.”

“I ask because you sound like a guilty boyfriend,” she replied in that same fuck you tone of voice. “And I don’t need your shit, Sean. I said exactly one sentence. I wasn’t planning a fucking wedding. You might want to take it down a notch.”

And then she strolled into her room without a backward glance over her bare shoulder and closed her bedroom door behind her.

Quietly. In case he’d missed that she was flipping him the bird.

Ajax sat there and took it, because the other alternative was taking the door down and teaching her some manners—which would only end one way. He knew that. His cock knew that. Sophie probably knew it, too.

You’re either pussy whipped or you’re not, he snarled at himself.

And since he refused to live in a world where he was pussy whipped in any way, where some woman could get in his head when all he wanted was to get in her pants, he had no other option but to sit there and prove that he wasn’t.

Whether to Sophie or to himself, Ajax didn’t know.

—

That night, Sophie went out hard.

She worked her usual shift behind the bar at the Priory and this time, she was a lot smarter about it. She sent a different bartender over to deal with the steady stream of tough-looking men who came in and took up residence in that dark far corner with Ajax and Blue and the obviously reluctant Prince. She acted as if she didn’t notice when the fourth of the four brothers who’d been sent away ten years ago, Cash, showed up and made his way over to them—also dressed in civilian clothes and with an unhappy look on his face. She pretended it was the way it always had been back in the day, when her father had held court there and she’d been ordered more than once to keep her eyes to herself and to mind her own business.

Nothing that happens over there is any of your concern, angel, her dad had told her gruffly. You keep your nose out of club business.

Sophie had always found that hard. She’d preferred these last few years when there was almost no club left. But tonight it was easy, because she’d had more than she could stand of the Deacons of Bourbon Street in general and their swaggering ass of a VP in particular. She was not a junkie, she told herself sternly. She was not her mother, in thrall and addicted to something she knew she could never control. She’d been grieving, that was all. Ajax was one long night, nothing more. So when she finished her shift she went upstairs and poured herself into her most revealing dress, because it was time to prove how little one night mattered in the scheme of things.

The dress was ridiculously hot. What little of it there was clung to her body but left large cutout holes everywhere else. On purpose. This meant she showed acres and acres of skin—more than she’d showed when she’d wandered through the French Quarter in pasties and hot pants, in fact. This also meant no underwear. At all. Sophie eyed herself in her bedroom mirror and then she strapped on very high, very sleek sandals to complete the look.

Skank factor ten, she told herself. Perfect, in other words, for the night she had in mind. A night that would not include Ajax or his attitude problem.

She put on a whole lot of smoky eye makeup, blew her hair out big and a little bit wild so it slithered around her when she moved, and then she headed out to make the most of a Thursday night on Bourbon Street.

Because Sophie had understood one thing very clearly this morning when she’d opened her bedroom door to get an eyeful of Ajax, sprawled out on her living room sofa like a vengeful god in a moment of uneasy rest. His blue eyes had been wild, his hands freshly battered, and she’d learned a few things about herself in that stunning moment when all she’d been able to do was look at him.

All that crap she’d been telling herself her whole life? About how much she hated bikers and the life and the things they did and the violence they trailed along behind them like the smell of garbage on a Louisiana summer morning?

Bullshit. It was all bullshit.

Because all it had taken was one look at Ajax, a little bit bloody and oozing his over-the-top maleness and sheer aggression from every pore—and Sophie had been so wet, so hot, so achingly aroused that she’d been a little bit shocked Ajax hadn’t been able to see it from across the room.

It had horrified her, but that had only made her nipples pull tight and ache too, and she’d had no choice but to march herself into the kitchen to conceal her reaction—even as her pulse shuddered through her and her legs felt weak beneath her—or retreat into her bedroom as if he’d hurt her feelings.

Which he had, but what did that matter? That was who he was. She’d known that going in. All she could do was throw his shit back in his face, because like hell would she roll over and play dead like everyone else he encountered probably did. Like hell. Her daddy hadn’t raised a little bitch.

Priest had taught her not to crumple in the face of overwhelming masculine aggression—not even his own.

You show fear, you might as well lie down and play dead, angel, he’d told her more than once while she’d been growing up. And God knows what will happen to you then.

Fuck you, she’d retorted once, memorably. She’d been about twenty. Her father had stared at her in open astonishment, and Sophie had laughed. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?

Good girl, he’d grunted at her, but those eyes of his, green like hers, had gleamed. Now watch your fucking mouth.

It had been a long day with a lot of deeply unwelcome honesty, after that moment with Ajax. Sophie had taken her time getting dressed and when she’d left her room again, Ajax had been passed out on the couch, looking something like ten years younger, if no sweeter, without that trademark scowl on his face. And so absurdly beautiful, stretched out there in the morning light, that Sophie found she had a lump in her throat as she’d sneaked past him.

The whole day had been like that. Sophie had been forced to confront a whole mess of things she hadn’t wanted to face. Like the police, who wanted to talk to her about the funeral tomorrow, because they were expecting a shitload of bikers and didn’t want any trouble.

“You can understand our position,” the officer had said, standing a little too close to Sophie in the funeral director’s office, his pudgy hand on his weapon like he expected that to intimidate her. Idiot. She’d literally fucked scarier dudes than he could dream of becoming, without blinking. “We don’t want a situation.”

Sophie had smiled at him, not particularly nicely, and he’d clenched that gun even harder. “That’s a little bit like staring up at a big, black thundercloud and hoping for a sunny day, don’t you think?”