“How ‘bout you go grab a ruler, we all line up and you get on your knees to measure them?” Rev suggested. If she did it naked, it would be even better.
“How about no?”
“Then how about you turn around and march that luscious ass back where you belong in the office.”
“So you can stare at it?”
Rev shrugged. “Of course. I know you work it so we watch it. Don’t even bother to fuckin’ deny it.”
She wiggled her eyebrows and her hips. “Do I?”
“Ever wonder how many loads have been shot into a fist with you, that ass, and your mouth in mind?”
She blew him a noisy kiss. “I’m glad I can be of service.”
He snorted at her teasing. “Go, Reilly.”
“I didn’t come out here to bust your microballs.”
He waited.
“I came out here to give you a message.”
He frowned, pulled a rag from his coverall’s pocket and wiped off his grimy hands. “What message?”
She held out her hand. Within her fingers was one of those pink pages off the notepad she used for phone messages.
He stared at it. Anyone who knew him called or texted his cell phone. Who the fuck would be calling the garage to get ahold of him?
This couldn’t be good.
Her fuckable lips took a downward turn. “Well, I’m assuming this message is for you.”
He snagged the slip of paper from her fingers and glanced at it.
“Isn’t your last name Rivers?” she asked, sidling up to him and bumping his hip with hers.
“Yeah.”
“Who is Michael Schmidt?”
“That’s who they asked for?”
“Yes.” He could feel her nosy gaze on him as she said, “I thought your real name was Mickey Rivers.”
“Yeah.”
She pointed to the name on the paper he held. “Then who is Michael?”
He stared at her handwriting and the blood drained from his face. “Go away, nosy.”
She stepped back and said sharply, “You’re welcome, Rev.”
He glanced up to see her chewing on her bottom lip. “Thanks,” he said distractedly. Not only from the message but from what she was doing.
He crumpled up the pink paper in his fingers, stared at the wrinkled ball and scratched the back of his neck.
He took a couple of deep breaths and glanced up again.
Reilly still stood there with her green eyes locked on him. “You okay?”
“Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?” he asked, doing his best to hide any reaction he was having or about to have. Actually, he wasn’t even sure how he felt. His thoughts had been thrown into a blender and the button for the highest speed pushed.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He had.
“Do you know who that is?”
He sure did. “Didn’t I fuckin’ tell you to go the fuck away?” he snapped. “Leave me the fuck alone, Reilly.”
She was not the kind of woman who would break down from simply being told to fuck off. Hell no. She had almost been killed by her former asshole boyfriend because she didn’t know how to back down, even if it was in her best interest and for her safety to do so. Like Rev, if you told Reilly not to do something, she did it anyway to prove she could.
That attitude was why she had been beaten to within an inch of her life.
Why she bore a scar along her temple.
Why she was hospitalized by that motherfucker douchebag. The man, in the end, she torched while he was still breathing.
She ended up getting the final revenge.
She ended up pushing that button on the incinerator because she could.
She ended up killing that abusive motherfucker because she wanted to.
Even so, no valid argument existed that the bastard didn’t deserve every second of that suffering.
Rev wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t walked away after that, brushing her hands together while wearing a big shit-eating grin.
Though, none of them, not one, who witnessed what happened would ever be able to forget it. Even her sister had puked right afterward and quickly left town to try to deal with it and everything else that had gone on that day.
Reilly acted like it never happened. Like it had been just another day in Manning Grove. She never talked about it and no one brought it up around her, either.
But today, for some reason, when he told her to get fucking lost, something crossed her face he wasn’t sure he actually saw. A possible illusion. Maybe in his shock of reading the name on the paper he now fisted, he had only imagined that flash of hurt.
It was there, then it was gone.
“You’re a dick,” came from Whip, who was now standing there watching the two of them, his jaw tight and his hands on his hips.
No matter what a pain in the ass Reilly was, they all were protective of her. Not because she was Reese’s baby sister, but because she was now a part of their club. She was deeply entrenched in the Fury sisterhood, even though she wasn’t an ol’ lady.
She had wanted it and made it happen. It didn’t matter what anyone, including Reese, thought about it.
That was also the reason she was always someone’s backpack on the club runs. No one but regulars or ol’ ladies were usually included. Reilly didn’t fit either of those two titles. Nobody was fucking her, even though most of them wanted to.
At least once.
Maybe twice.
“Was there a fuckin’ point where you thought I wasn’t?” he barked at Whip. He closed his eyes and ground out a, “Fuck.”
He took a deep breath, then a second. When he opened his eyes, he expected Reilly to have gone back to her office. Expected her to get far away from him since he was acting like a miserable prick.
But he was having a hard time concentrating on anything but that name and phone number in the center of the wad of paper.
He was surprised she still stood there. But then, nobody was more stubborn than Reilly.
Okay, maybe her older sister Reese. He didn’t know how Deacon put up with her, even as hot as she was. But the man was happy. Reese must be hella hot in bed for the man to deal with that battle axe.
But it wasn’t Reese standing before him. Instead, it was Reilly, whose hand automatically went up to pull her blonde hair forward to cover the scar on her temple. She did it all the time without thinking. No matter how often she was told that the scar didn’t take away from her looks, she still self-consciously tried to cover it.
He reached up to snag her wrist and pull her hand away. Once he released it, she dropped it to her side. She blinked her big fucking green eyes up at him in surprise when he tucked the strand of hair she’d been pulling at behind her ear, instead, totally exposing the still slightly pink line along her right temple from her forehead to the top of her cheekbone.
“Sorry,” he whispered. He was sorry for being such a dick when she didn’t deserve it.
It was more than that. He was also sorry that her asshole boyfriend had bashed her head open with some kind of fucking knickknack leaving that scar while trying to kill her.
Reilly blinked once, twice, then whispered, “What?”
Normally, he would smile at her shock at him apologizing but he just couldn’t drum one up. Not right now.
No, right now his head hurt, and he needed to go outside to clear it. And to get away from all of the curious eyes turned their way. Not only from how he acted but by what was currently happening between him and Reilly.