Her curse was, she found the former intriguing and the latter just plain hot.

Low in her belly, something pulsed hard. Then ached.

“Not what I asked, babe.”

Sophie didn’t understand how she could want him like this when at the same time, she felt scraped raw inside. Hollowed out, and he’d done it with his own blunt fingers and all those big, tough rings. Worse, she’d let him.

She’d stood by and let assholes like him do things like this to her all her life. Well, that was done. She was done.

“I’m going somewhere I’m not collateral damage in one more asshole outlaw’s sad and brutal life that has nothing to do with me anyway,” she threw at him. “That’s where the fuck I’m going, Ajax. Let me guess. You have a problem with that, too.”

Chapter 14

“Please tell me this is not how you deal with shit,” Ajax growled. He pushed himself off the wall and he started toward her, rubbing his hand against that place where his chest felt like it gaped wide open, like he’d been fucking shot, and how could she not get that? She’d held the fucking gun herself. “You shoot your fucking mouth off like that when we both know you know better and then you run away like a goddamn child?”

That broken look on her face that he didn’t like at all shifted to a flash of temper, and prick that he was, he liked it a whole lot better.

“You got something to say to me, Sophie? Say it. I’m all ears.”

“Did I stutter back in the Priory?” she threw at him. “My bad. Let me try again. Fuck. You.”

Ajax laughed, and he could see from her face that it sounded about as harsh as it felt.

“I ever strike you as a reasonable man, babe?” She folded her arms as he came at her, not giving an inch, and he hated that he could find that so damned hot when he was legitimately pissed at her. “You laboring under some impression that I’m not three seconds away from kicking your ass halfway to Texas?”

Sophie glared back at him, her mouth set in a flat line. “Don’t threaten me, asshole.”

“You should know better, baby. I don’t make threats.”

She rolled her eyes. She didn’t look the least bit afraid of him or even remotely intimidated, not even when he was coming at her down the middle of Bourbon Street like a goddamned freight train. Tourists leapt aside and dove for cover, but Sophie only glared at him.

And as pissed as he was, it still made his cock twitch, that traitorous little shit.

He shook his head, still feeling the slap of her betrayal back in the bar. He hadn’t expected that kind of bullshit from her. Cash, Prince—they’d put a lot of work into pretending they were shiny new people with bright new lives, and who knew what people like that would do to keep that shine going? But Sophie was different. Sophie belonged right here. With him. He thought she knew that.

How the fuck could she not know that?

“First of all,” he gritted out, “you know better than to take that tone with me in front of the club. You know it won’t fly. It’s disrespectful and it’s bullshit. And second of all, you should know that no matter what the fuck your father did or didn’t do with his goddamned will, the club is not going to leave you hanging. I’m not going to leave you hanging. Which I’m sure he knew. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Forgive me.” Her tone was like acid and there was no give on that pretty face of hers, no matter how close he got to her. He couldn’t help but admire her balls, even as he kind of wanted to wipe that tough-girl expression off and make her sob. The way she did when she called out Oh my God and then came all over him. “The next time my father dies and leaves my entire life and everything that matters to me to four people he hasn’t laid eyes on in ten years, I’ll be sure to think more about your feelings.”

Ajax thought his head might fucking explode, and maybe it did, because Sophie’s eyes widened and she backed up when he got within touching distance. And he wasn’t going to lie to himself. The part of him that was never going to be anything but a bayou trash piece of shit liked it. A little healthy concern for her own well-being might go a long way.

“If I were you”—and he was stalking her now, watching her through narrowed eyes as she moved too fast and a little too unsteadily away from him, backing herself up on the nearest uneven curb and nearly slamming into a lamppost—“I’d spend a little more time worrying about my feelings and a little less time feeling sorry for yourself because your daddy didn’t love you the way you think he should have. Newsflash, little girl. Fathers suck. Grow the fuck up and deal with it.”

Her mouth fell open and she slowed her backward scramble, which wasn’t smart at all, because he was on her then. He jumped that same curb and got directly in her face.

“My god,” she whispered, her voice shaking, but he could see it was from temper, not any kind of pain, “you’re a fucking monster.”

“I’ve never been anything else,” Ajax told her with stark, harsh honesty. Then he ducked, plowed his shoulder into her belly so the air left her in a little oof, and hauled her up and over his shoulder as he straightened. “And guess what, babe? It’s not about to change. This is the whole fucking package.”

He smacked his hand down hard on her ass and she jolted against him and then, predictably, started punching him in the back where she hung over him. She even packed a pretty decent punch, for a girl.

And of course that made his cock want to do its own kind of punching.

Ajax wheeled around and started back toward home, staring down anyone who dared look at him twice in that particularly grim and unsmiling way he’d learned a long time ago. Fuck with me, I’m begging you, he thought when a fat fucker with a face redder than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers T-shirt straining over his beer belly frowned at him. But the bitch looked away, because that was what bitches always did. Always.

Sophie squirmed and fought, and he dealt with her kicking by clamping her legs down with one arm. He let the punches rain down where they would. Like a fucking massage.

“Keep it up,” he growled at her as he ducked back in the alley that led to the courtyard behind the Priory. “You’re just pissing me off more.”

“So what?” Thump. Thump thump. He could feel her getting hot and agitated against him as she tried to roll off him and kept failing to move much at all. “When are you ever not pissed off? How would I tell the difference?”

Ajax stopped halfway down the alley, well into the shadows, and tipped her over and onto the ground. She looked dizzy when her feet hit, and he didn’t care. Dizzy was fine with him. He backed her hard into the wall and caged her there, his face in hers.

“I don’t think this is how you want to play this, Sophie, but it makes no difference to me. Cry. Fight. Call me names. Punch me with your little hands and see which one of us that hurts more. Run away and see how long it takes me to catch up with you. Who cares? It’s all going to end the same.”

“One of us dead?” she threw at him, sounding tough and furious and unintimidated, even though he could see that wild pulse right there in her throat and knew she was faking it. “I nominate you.”

“Yeah?” Ajax held her in place with his chest against hers and a hand in her thick hair. He reached down, grabbing a fistful of her skirt and then another, getting all that fucking fabric out of his way. “How wet are you right now?”

She flinched, made a hissing sort of sound, and then bucked against him. “Get off me.”

“That’s what I thought.” He didn’t stop. He pulled the skirt up and then he slid his hand down to cup that cunt of hers, so white hot and juicy he could hear it when he shoved his fingers beneath her panties and then stroked his way over her clit with a rough urgency. She moaned, long and low. “You hate me. I can tell.”