The guy was everything that would have been exactly my type four years ago.
Before a six-foot-four man with a chest twice the size of this guy’s, with forearms that rippled with muscle, a thick neck, and a lower body that should have inspired sculpture makers into recreating it, strolled into my life.
Screw it. I was going to hide in the bathroom.
The thought had barely occurred to me when a man sitting at the bar turned in his stool and stood up.
I realized I knew that body. That head shape. I knew that height.
And as the familiar body turned and started heading in the direction of where I was sitting, I stayed there. The lights hid a lot of the nicest bits of him, but I knew who it was. I would always know who he was.
And he had a pissed-off look on his face.
What the hell was he doing here? How did he know…
He didn’t say a word as he pulled out the seat opposite of the one I was in and slid into it. In the dark, I couldn’t see those amazing teal-colored eyes, but I could tell where they were focused. I could see the slant of his eyebrows.
Yep. He was definitely pissed.
And honestly, I had definitely never been less pissed.
Never.
He was here. Here.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, feeling the tension in my stomach unraveling slowly.
He planted his elbows on the table between us and crossed his arms as he answered, “You know what I’m here for.”
I held my breath, and then I lied… hope and love blooming inside of me so quickly I couldn’t help but want to mess with this man. “No, I don’t.”
His voice was a low, low growl of, “Yeah, you do.”
“You’re making sure I don’t get kidnapped again?” I deadpanned as seriously as possible. Why did this feel like the easiest thing in the world now? Messing with him? Giving him crap? “Or are you stalking me now?
He blinked. Then he took a deep breath… and his cheek went up a millimeter in the blink of an eye. “Not funny, Luna.”
I couldn’t help the smile that instantly came over my face as I spoke again, not letting this go, not planning on ever letting this go. “I don’t need a babysitter, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
That cheek went up another millimeter. “You’re right there, baby girl. You don’t need a babysitter. ’Specially not when the dumbass you’re meeting up with didn’t look old enough for you.”
I processed his words… but then processed them right back out and focused only on the important part. “When did you see him?”
He smiled at me. “Before you showed up.”
I didn’t need to glance around the bar to make sure the man still wasn’t hanging around. I knew he wasn’t. How he even knew who to look for was beyond me, but it didn’t matter. Not even a little bit. I also had a feeling I knew exactly what had happened, but I needed to make sure. I tipped my head closer to him. “Where did he go?”
He shrugged a rounded shoulder. “Somewhere not here.”
Uh.
“I told him to get the fuck out,” he kept going unapologetically. “Told him you weren’t going to be meeting him tonight or any other night, and he might as well go hit up someone else’s girl because he wasn’t getting mine.”
My heart shouldn’t have started racing at him referring to me as his. It shouldn’t. I knew that. I definitely shouldn’t have gotten goose bumps all over my arms and back.
But that was exactly what happened.
I let the thrill go through me before I decided that messing with him was too much fun. Messing with him would always be too much fun. “Rip, you had no right to do that—”
“I had every right to.”
He could say those words to me every day for the rest of my life and they wouldn’t get old.
He proved it when he leaned forward and slid me the most heated look I might ever see in my life. “Yeah, I did, Luna. You wanna go out to eat? I’ll take you. You wanna go out and get a Sprite? Tell me. You want to watch a fucking movie? I’ll take you to the goddamn movies. If you want to go to beat the shit out of your cousin again, I’ll fucking take you. You want to meet someone to be your best friend and your fucking partner? I’m right fucking here, baby girl.”
Oh hell.
Oh freaking hell.
“How many times I gotta tell you I just like being around you?” he asked, his voice lowering as his gaze roamed over what was my stupefied face. Because what other face could I have when the man I’d liked for years was running off my dates and sitting here telling me he’d take me on any dates I wanted to go on?
None. There was no other face.
“I can do this same thing a hundred times, Luna, this running off your dates thing, but it’s never gonna happen. I’ll tell you right now, I’m not going to have a problem telling them off. I’ve got into a lot of fucking fights in my life, and I’m starting to think it was all to get me ready for you,” he threatened.
I sucked in a breath and just sat there, looking at him, feeling overjoyed and terrified equally. Wanting this more than I wanted anything, but still…
“What if you change your mind? I’ll have to find another job because I won’t be able to look at you. I can barely look at you now,” I admitted to him, this low-level feeling that might have been terror, but was more than likely adrenaline, running through my veins steadily.
This beautiful man gave me the most earnest expression I had ever seen. “Luna, why the hell would I do something that stupid?”
I fisted my hand. “You don’t—you’ve never even had a girlfriend.”
“So? Want me to lie and tell you I’ve had a couple dozen? Or you good with knowing it’ll only be you?”
Well.
Hell.
“You’re too young. You’re too sweet. You’re too good for me. But I’m done standing around trying to suck up all the goodness you make me feel without you even knowing, Luna. You are my girl. Just you. Nobody else ever has or will be.”
I sucked in a breath and lifted my face to look at his. “I am?”
He nodded, his expression something different than any other I’d ever seen before.
“Really?”
“Really,” he agreed, his smile soft and almost shy.
I bit my bottom lip and couldn’t help but wring my hands as he centered on me so intensely it made me want to hold my breath. You only miss all the shots you don’t take, Lenny had said. I had always told myself that nothing and no one scared me because I had seen the worst in people.
But I had also seen the best, hadn’t I?
“You know everything that matters, Luna. Only thing you don’t is what happened with the cops that day you lied for me. I was with Gio, and he fucked up his sister’s boyfriend because he hit her. I didn’t do shit, but I was there. His family did the same for him. That’s why they came. They needed somebody to try and blame, but I swear I didn’t do shit.”
There it was, and it was exactly the kind of thing I might have expected if I’d thought about it. “I know, Rip. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.”
Those eyes penetrated mine as he said, so carefully, “You wanna know something else, all you gotta do is ask, and I’ll tell you. I’ve already warned you about the rest and you’re still here.”
He made it seem so easy. Could it be that easy?
“Rip?” I asked him carefully, my apprehension disappearing by the second.
“Yeah?”
I swallowed and made myself look him in those blue-green eyes. “Do you like me, or is it more than that?”
He took a deep breath before responding. “Get out of here with me and I’ll tell you.”
*
The ride back to his place didn’t take long at all considering the unending traffic even in the evening.
Rip had offered to drive us over to his home, but I hadn’t wanted to leave my car in the bar’s lot, so I followed behind, watching the road as we turned onto a sleepy street in north Houston with spaced-out single-story homes and driveways filled with cars.