His angry eyes sliced to me.

“You’re on the back of my bike.”

“Let me go!” I yelled.

“Hardy, let her go,” Rayne stated.

He and Superman Damian were also there.

Fantastic.

“Do me a favor,” Buck said to Tia, ignoring Rayne. “Get her purse.”

“Are you nuts?” Tia screeched, the last word so high it was a wonder all the glass in Rayne Scott’s very nice apartment complex didn’t explode.

“Let me go!” I shouted, pulling against Buck’s arm, and he looked back down at me.

“You’re in love with me,” he declared.

“Not anymore,” I shot back.

“Darlin’, you can’t fall outta love in one night.”

“Why not?” I returned. “I fell into it in one night.”

Buck blinked slowly.

Then he grinned.

All his anger gone.

Vanished—poof!— in one second.

Then, because the universe hated me, his other arm closed around me, he bent his head and he kissed me.

That’s right.

He kissed me

Long, hard, deep and open-mouthed.

And weak, stupid me, I let him.

When his mouth released mine, I was holding on to his shoulders and it was me who was blinking, and I did it so much I finally blinked sense into myself.

“Let me go,” I whispered.

“I was a dick,” he whispered back.

“Yes, that’s why you need to let me go.”

“Clara, baby, I’ve told you, I’m not lettin’ you go.”

“You were mean to me.”

“You pissed me off.”

“So?”

“You told me you were okay with me fuckin’ other women.”

“I did not!” I snapped. “I told you that’s the way the biker babes told me I was supposed to be.”

“Yeah, babe, and that was fucked.”

“Gotta say, I like this guy’s style,” Superman Damian put in at this point.

“Damian!” Tia shrieked.

“Tia, honey, look at him. He’s into her,” Damian replied.

“I don’t care! You don’t carry a woman out of an apartment. That’s crazy!”

“I’ve carried you places,” Damian returned.

“Yes, but I was bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds.”

Multiple?

Damian looked at Buck. “Bro, you want me to shoot her? It’ll help you get an in with her best friend.”

“Pass,” Buck replied, sounding amused.

Amused!

“Oh my God,” Tia muttered, glaring at Damian.

“Is this really happening?” I asked Rayne.

Rayne shook his head, but he answered, “Yes.”

God!

I looked back at Buck and yelled, “Let me go!”

“Babe,” was his response.

Ugh!

“She wants you to let her go!” Tia shouted.

“Honey, look at her,” Damian urged. “Your friend spent all night crying about this guy.”

On no.

Was it that obvious?

“And?” Tia shot back.

Darn.

It was that obvious.

“Tia, beautiful,” Damian said quietly, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her close. “Look at her. She’s right where she wants to be.”

I glared at Damian.

Tia studied me.

“Do you mind?” Buck requested, then finished, “Privacy.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Rayne muttered.

Tia kept studying me.

I kept glaring at Damian.

Damian drew her back, murmuring, “Let’s go.”

Tia looked at him, then at me, then she made her decision.

“I’ll be right upstairs.”

I turned my glare to her.

She pulled in her lips and bit them as Damian moved her to the stairs.

Rayne didn’t move.

He planted his fists on his hips and his eyes were locked on me.

“Scott, you need to find your own woman,” Buck stated.

Rayne’s eyes cut to him, and he clipped, “Bite me.”

Then he looked at me again and his gaze dropped to Buck’s arms around me. A muscle jumped in his cheek and his gaze came back to mine.

Then he made a decision.

“It doesn’t go your way, sweetheart, all you gotta do is yell.”

Fantastic.

Even the police were deserting me.

I didn’t respond because I didn’t get a chance. Rayne turned and jogged up the stairs.

When he disappeared from sight, I kept my attention on the stairs.

Buck’s hand cupped the side of my face and forced it forward just as he tipped it back and dipped his close.

“You been cryin’?” he asked gently.

“No.”

His eyes roamed my face then caught mine again before he whispered, “Liar.”

“Buck, seriously, let me go.”

“I was a dick.”

“You already said that.”

“Now you need to get over it and get your ass on the back of my bike.”

He wasn’t annoying.

He was infuriating!

“You said some mean things.”

“And you already said that.”

“They were mean, Buck, awful. Below the belt. You accused me of using you.”

His arms got tighter and his face got closer.

“Clara, baby, we were havin’ a good night. No,” he shook his head once, “not a good night, a fuckin’ great one.”

I felt my chest get tight.

He was right. We were.

The best.

Making love. Sharing souls. Accepting each other just as we were.

The kind of night that changed lives and altered worlds.

“Then Nails crashes our party and you lose it and tell me you love me in the middle of a rant at the same time tellin’ me you’re okay with me fuckin’ other women,” Buck regrettably continued.

“I didn’t actually say that, Buck. I was ranting because I didn’t want to say it.”

“Yeah, babe, but look at it this way. Last night, I gave you me. You didn’t ask for it, but I gave it to you. And when I did, you didn’t fuckin’ hesitate with showin’ me that givin’ you me was as important to you as it was to me. And you said words to me, Toots, words that meant a fuckin’ lot. Words that, if you were in my bed, on my bike, believin’ in me the way you do, would mean I’d have had the balls to move on what Aces was doin’ and I’d have done that a long time ago. Then, not an hour later, you’re tellin’ me you’re happy to give pieces of me away. Important pieces. That pissed me off, Clara. The things you said, the way you were, that meant somethin’ to me, and then you gave it away.”

“I didn’t,” I whispered.

“I took it that way,” he pointed out the obvious.

“You were wrong,” I told him.

“Yeah, I was. And I got pissed and said some shit that was jacked because of it.”

“Stuff comes out when you’re angry, honest stuff, and that tells me somewhere in the back of your head you think I’ve been using you.”

“Stuff comes out when you’re angry, Clara, stupid, jacked-up stuff that you say just because you’re angry and you don’t mean a fuckin’ word. You hurt and then, no matter it’s wrong, you can’t stop yourself. You hurt so much, you wanna strike back.”