So when the man yelling looked relieved, I didn’t understand why. Obviously, he’d never spoken to Dex before because if he had, he would have known the look on his face was the opposite of anything that could resemble salvation or relief of any kind.

“Bro, your two drones here are trying to charge me an arm and f**king leg for my piece!” Pissed Off Guy said with that same relieved smirk on his face. “Can’t I get a hook-up for being a new customer?”

Dex had closed the distance between his office and my desk by the time the guy finished talking. At that point, he was standing right next to me, seven inches of space between us. If I moved my arm, it would touch the muscular tattooed thigh he’d shown me days before. The muscular thigh then made me wonder, for all of a microsecond what kind of piercing Dex had on his penis before I snapped myself out of it. Somehow I'd gone from a relatively content virgin to a woman who was constantly thinking about pierced gen**als and ni**les.

“No, bro, I won’t, and if I did, I wouldn’t give it to someone who comes into my f**kin’ shop, hollerin’ and callin’ my employees little shits and whatever the f**k you were gonna call Ritz,” he ground out with a slight grumble to his voice.

Pissed Off Guy sagged, shaking his head in a way that told me he didn’t think this conversation with Dex was over. “Aww, c’mon, bro.”

“Get the f**k out before I throw your ass outta here, bro,” The Dick warned.

Ooh, wheee. I somehow caught Blue’s gaze and we each made our eyes wide.

Dex inhaled a long, deep breath through his nose. “You got five seconds to get the hell out.”

There was no room for interpretation. I would have left and taken my carbon footprints with me. Dex was pretty scary when he was pissed off—though Dex on a daily basis was pretty scary. I used to think it was all that ink on his arms but it totally wasn't. Since he usually wore t-shirts, his tats were always visible. All that black and gray on tanned skin was the first thing your eyes went to when speaking to Dex. Now, the more I got to know him, the more I realized that it wasn’t just the tattoos that made him intimidating.

Dex was a scary ass**le period. He just radiated this pure “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” attitude, and that was scary. You couldn’t control or anticipate a person who didn’t care. They were wildcards. Add that in with his Dyna and his tattoos, and yeah—intimidating on the outside.

When the Pissed Off Guy held his arms out in a what-the-hell gesture, Dex shook his head.

“Five,” he started counting. “Four, three—“

“God. Fuck you guys and f**k this f**kin’ overpriced bullshit!” Pissed Off Guy’s voice had taken a slightly shrieking edge to it.

“Two—“

With all the class in the world, the guy shot us a one-finger salute and got the hell out.

Well.

Long, warm fingers wrapped around the back of my neck as Dex dropped down to his haunches, eye level with me. “You all right, Ritz?” His bright blue eyes were on mine, all traces of annoyance gone from his features.

“Yeah,” I told him. “He was just pretty dumb and rude.”

The smile he gave me in return was so soft it was hard to understand how his mood went from one side of the linear line to the other in seconds. It also reminded me of exactly what I’d told him on the ride back from Houston. The kindest, grumpy ass man in all of Texas.

“Yeah, he was,” he agreed. Dex’s fingers gave my neck a squeeze. The action made my throat close up momentarily. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a Coke.”

Like I was going to tell him no.

“You want a pop?” he asked Blue as he turned around.

She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “I’m good.”

I followed after him, waiting patiently while he put in the dollar bills to get our drinks. He popped the lid for me, handing over the drink with a frustrated smile.

"I can't stand ass**les like that," he grunted. "What I wanna do is go beat his f**kin' ass."

Both my eyebrows went up. "Calm your horses. It's not worth you getting into trouble," I reminded him of what Shane had hinted at back in Houston. “Or messing up your hands, dumb-bum.”

“Dumb-bum?” He blinked.

I shrugged. “Yeah. What would you do if you broke a couple fingers?”

“Babe, you only break fingers if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Blinking slowly, I opened my mouth and closed it. “I know you’re not kidding and yet…”

The corner of Dex's mouth tilted up, but it wasn't a smile of amusement exactly, it was more of a knowing smirk. "Babe."

“I’m being serious. You have to take care of yourself. Keep that rage under control.”

“I’m good.”

The look I gave him was half disbelieving, half resigned. Then the opportunity hit me, and I stopped caring. “You weren’t good this morning.”

He scowled. I hit the battleship!

“What happened?”

“Nothin’ important. Don’t worry about it.”

What was it about that saying that grated on my nerves? I should shut up. I should mind my own business. The only thing was, I didn’t want to. “Did a bird poop on your bedroom window?”

Dex’s cheek ticked up in agitation. “Smart ass.” He blew out a long breath from between his lips. “My pa called my sis askin’ for money to buy new shoes.”

“Okay…”

Then he burst out unexpectedly, “And the dumbass gave it to him!” He squeezed his eyes shut, thumb and index finger pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t get what the hell is wrong with ‘em. I can sleep at night knowin’ he’s runnin’ around with holes in his shoes.”

Well, what could I say? Don’t be mad? Please. No way. If he disliked his dad half as much as I disliked mine, then...yeah. That didn’t mean I had to let him wallow in his frustrations even if it seemed to have passed. “There’s nothing you can do about it now though, is there?”

When his cheek ticked up again, I lifted both of my shoulders and wiggled my fingers. “Just let it go, your highness. Just let it all go.”

The look he gave me could have seared the flesh off of my muscles and made me break into hives if I hadn’t recognized that little gleam in his eye that assured me he would never physically hurt me. Yell at me? Sure. Call me names I’d use on my future dog? Yeah. But hurt me? Nah.

“Babe?”

“Yeah?”

“Get your ass back up front.”

Oh.

~ * ~ *

“I like having you around,” Slim told me while we were seated on the couch, waiting for Blue and Dex to finish up whatever they were doing for closing.

“Why?” I asked him carefully, smiling a little.

“Because Dex is hilarious when he’s pissed off.”

I gave him my best bug eyes. “You like seeing him mad like that?”

He nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Trust me, you know Dex a few years like we do, him getting pissed is like an early Christmas present. He never gets riled up enough to lose it at Pins. Mayhem is another story but here? Never.”