Mess Me Up
Page 27

Jolene turned and raised a brow at the insolent man. “Yeah?”
“Did you ever bring those cookies out here?”
She pointed to a box at the end of the table. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Joe jogged over, pecked her on the cheek, and took off with the box of cookies before Jolene could knee him in the balls like he deserved.
But watching Jolene as she watched Joe run away, I didn’t see the anger I’d expected. I saw…longing.
Probably much like the look on my own face when I thought of Izzy.
Which made me scowl.
I couldn’t let myself depend on another person again.
They left.
Always.
When you needed them most, they left.
My parents had done it. My grandmother had done it. My best friend had done it. Then my son had done it.
I wasn’t going down that road for a fifth time. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… well apparently, I’m a dumbass.
I came to my feet with my head and balls pounding, wincing as I took a step toward the water jug that’d been set up on the sideline by Jolene. That first step produced a sharp pain that ran all the way down my leg courtesy of my balls.
“Are you okay?” Izzy touched my arm hesitantly.
I nodded once, swallowing through the lump that had formed in my throat as I realized how much Izzy was already beginning to mean to me. “Fine. Just need to walk it off.”
“Here!” Joe shoved the cookies at me, which I in turned handed to Izzy without looking at her.
Izzy, or at least I thought it was Izzy, took them but I didn’t turn around to make sure.
Instead, I walked over to the water jug and filled one of the paper cups that was stacked on the table next to it.
After downing three cups of water, I finally turned and heard the conversation going on behind me.
“…want to go to eat with you. Where are y’all going?” Joe asked. “I’ll bring Jolene along. It’ll be like a party!”
Izzy was staring at Joe like he was a bug. “But nobody invited you, Joe.”
Joe’s grin started to fade, and Izzy started to laugh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I was just joking, I swear! You can come—we’d love for you to come. But you do know that his MC brothers are going, too, right? Apparently, this place that we’re going to has really good crawfish, and they’re doing one of those fundraisers where they donate money for each pound of crawfish someone consumes.”
I felt my lips twitch, loving the way Izzy teased one of my friends as if she did it every day. As if Joe was just a regular person to her—which he was. But he was also one of the most eligible bachelors in the world thanks to his pretty face. It wasn’t often that I saw ol’ Joe Blow teased.
“I’ve never had crawfish,” Joe said, sounding intrigued. “How do you eat them?”
I then listened through Izzy’s two-minute explanation as she explained how to eat a crawfish.
“And then, after you pull all of the meat out of the body, you suck their heads so you get all the spices out,” she finished.
Everyone blinked, including me.
But I didn’t blink because of her impromptu crawfish eating lesson. No, my reaction was because of the visual I got when she started talking about sucking heads.
Speaking of heads, the one in my loose shorts was starting to thicken.
My balls also gave a pulse of need, which was quickly followed by a pulse of pain shooting through my lower abdominals.
Hopefully I hadn’t broken myself, because that would really suck.
Especially with the way Izzy was strutting her ass in front of all these men, making me feel things that I didn’t want to feel.
***
My mood hadn’t improved by the time we were eating our crawfish. Watching her eat her food had wreaked all kinds of havoc on my nerves.
The way she was talking to everyone, acting like she couldn’t feel the anger rolling off of me in waves, was driving me insane.
It was when she leaned over the table and touched Wade’s hair because they were talking about how soft it was that I almost lost it.
Shoving my half-eaten food away, I latched onto Izzy’s wrist and tugged. “Can you come help me for a second?”
I didn’t give her a chance to really answer, and instead, I started pulling her from her chair and dragging her where I wanted her to go.
I also didn’t miss the knowing looks that the other men at our table shot me as I tugged her away, nor did I miss the looks from the two women in the place. Wade’s ex-wife, who’d come in with another man and sat next to our table, and Jolene, who’d been sitting with us and was forced to come by Joe.
I didn’t care.
Izzy was driving me fucking insane, and I had a pressing need that was getting more serious by the second.
Something only Izzy could fix at this point.
“Rome, what are you doing?” Izzy asked, coming along with me without hesitation.
“I have a problem,” I said.
“What kind of…umph!” she squeaked as I pushed her into the men’s bathroom, which, luckily, was only a single stall, and slammed the door. “Rome, what…”
The rest of whatever she was going to say was lost on her lips as I pressed her up against the wall and slammed my mouth down onto hers.
That was when she finally understood, and not once did she protest.
Not when I was slipping those tight-ass shorts off her, or when I picked her up as I unzipped myself. Not even when I thrust into her after testing her readiness and fucked her so hard that her back would likely sport bruises from my haste.
But I just couldn’t stop. Couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t stop wanting her.
Couldn’t stop needing her.
“Rome,” she whispered into my mouth. “Oh, God. I’m going to come.”
I realized right then that not only did I want her and need her, but I loved her.
Chapter 15
Quit posting your problems on the internet. Go to a bar like a normal person.
-Rome to Linc
Izzy
“Can I borrow your truck today?” I asked sweetly.
Rome looked over at me. “Why?”
He’d been acting really weird lately, and although nothing overt had changed between us or with how he treated me or acted around me, I could still tell something was off. Whatever it was that was bothering him, though, he was doing his damnedest to hide it.
“Because I want to go get something, and it’s two hours away.” I paused. “I’ll also need to borrow you, too. I don’t drive, remember?”
He sat up from his sprawl on the couch.
“You really need to learn how to do that.” He paused, sounding sort of miffed. “I don’t like that you have to walk everywhere.”
Well that made two of us, but I had to do what I had to do.
I shrugged. “I’ve been doing it for forever. I don’t need a car right now, and although I do want to get one at some point, I have to have my license first.”
“Then get your license,” he countered.
I gave him a droll look. “To get my license, I have to have some sort of driver’s education. Then I have to take a test in a car, and I don’t have a car. Not to mention, I don’t have the money to get a car right now.”
I was still recovering from the hit I took when I chose to hand off Senator Antilles to my parents’ cleaning business. They had no problem taking him on, and they didn’t even say thank you.
But whatever.
Two hundred dollars a week less sucked ass, and I wasn’t doing well.
“Why don’t you have any money?” he suddenly asked. “You don’t have Senator Antilles’s place anymore, but I know you don’t come cheap, and you clean at least eight other houses a week just as big if not bigger than Antilles’ house, so what’s going on?”
I leaned against the arm of the couch and stared at him, wondering if he was going to judge me for what I was going to say.
“I pay my brother’s mortgage,” I explained.
“Your brother who has two teenagers who could help, a wife who also works, and a job with your parents?” he clarified, starting to get angry.
I shook my head. “No. The other one. Slate. The one in jail.”