Especially not on knuckles connected to dinner plate-sized hands… hands connected to wrists that were covered by a familiar elastic, tight shirt.
I was pretty sure my mouth must have been partially opened as Rip fell down into the seat hard, his legs spreading wide in a V-shape instantly, his attention straight on the man across from… us.
Across from us.
Ah.
What was he doing here?
“Is this over now?” my boss drawled easily, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back in the chair, somehow making himself look even bigger by spreading out.
The other man frowned. “You lost?”
“Rip,” I started to say, ignoring the man I was supposed to be on a date with, if you could even call it a date since he’d made me pay for my Sprite. “What are you doing here?”
The other man glanced at me. “Who the fuck is this?”
I ignored him again, but Rip wasn’t paying any attention to me. He was staring at my date with a deceptively lazy expression. But there wasn’t a single thing easygoing about his next words. “Time for you to go.”
Time for him to go?
The other man made another face before focusing on me and asking, angrily, “You got a boyfriend?”
Me? A boyfriend?
“I’m none of your business,” Rip kept talking. “You can go home now.”
I wasn’t sure why I reached over, but I did, and touched my boss’s forearm, earning his attention. “What are you doing here?” I just about hissed at him.
Those blue-green eyes slid toward me, still lazily, and his cheek moved just enough to tell me that might have been considered a smile. “Ending this bullshit-ass date you’re on,” he stated, confusing me even more.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” the man asked with a scowl.
His words triggered Rip, because his gaze swept over to the side and he gave the guy a blank look I was pretty familiar with. “You.”
“Me?”
“She’s not interested,” Rip claimed calmly.
The guy decided to include me in the conversation again by swiveling his gaze toward me. “Is he for real?”
I decided to ignore him and tapped my fingers on the bigger man’s forearm. “What are you doing here?”
That cheeky expression fell off, and he just… stared at me. All of him just… focused. Too focused. On me.
“Are you his fucking girl?” the other guy demanded, his pitch going higher.
His girl? Rip’s girl?
My “no” came out at the same time Rip said, “What do you think?”
What do you think?
Was this man, who I hadn’t spoken to in two weeks up until yesterday, implying that I was his girl?
“No,” I told Rip, tapping his forearm again through the material of his compression shirt. “What are you talking about?”
“She is?”
Rip’s expression didn’t falter for a second, but it was the man he had his attention on. “Did I stutter?”
“Are you fucking serious?” the man spat, shoving his chair back before giving me an angry look. “You know what? I don’t have time to deal with this kind of shit. You can fuck off, and she can—”
Rip got to his feet so fast, it was a blur. “You like having all those teeth in your mouth? Or you good with going home, missing a few of them?”
“Fuck—” the other man started.
“Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to finish that sentence,” Rip spit slowly. “I’ve broken fuckboys like you for fun, and now you’re giving me a reason to. You don’t wanna go there. Trust me.”
He’d broken—
Oh shit.
“Fuck you and—” the other guy started to say.
I pushed my chair back instantly, my hand going around the inside of Ripley’s elbow, giving it a tug.
He didn’t move, but I knew he’d felt me when his eyes shifted over to look at me with this crazy expression on his face. That hit me straight in the heart.
“You know, I think it’s time I left.” I squeezed Rip. “We left.”
The guy snarled as he took a step back, paused for a moment, and then took another, like one hadn’t put enough distance between the two men. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I’m done. You need to tell your man it’s you looking to fuck around.”
I could have argued with him or explained that Ripley’s wasn’t my man. He wasn’t anyone’s man. Much less mine.
But…
I didn’t really care that much, especially not when he’d made me feel old and was overall just kind of a prick and a reminder why I had no business finding a date on an app used for mostly hooking up.
Because the only person I could blame for tonight was myself. I had set this date up. I had downloaded the app two nights ago and had agreed to go out with the first person who had invited me. Because I had told myself I was trying to move on.
The jerk skirted around the table, and at the last minute, raised his middle finger at us before basically tucking his tail in and speed walking out of the bar.
“What are you doing?” I hissed at Rip the second the other guy was out of view.
Rip stood there and looked at me, his expression back to blank. “He was a fucking tool, Luna.”
Okay, he had been a tool, but… “If he was or not, what are you doing here?” I asked him, shoving my chair even further back and pretending like I didn’t see the other bar-goers nearby standing there, looking over at us. I was done. I was going home.
“I came to make sure you were all right.”
I was not going to blow his comment out of proportion. I wasn’t, and because I wasn’t, I was able to keep myself nice and calm as I asked, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Rip ignored my words but watched as I grabbed my phone and keys and stuck them into my pockets. “Where’s your car?”
I took a step back. “I didn’t drive.”
He took a step forward, making his way around the table as he said, “Good. I’ll give you a ride home.”
Nope, I still wasn’t going to overthink his comment or his offer. I had no idea what kind of game he was playing—or even when he’d decided he wanted to start playing games, especially by referring to me as his girl all of a sudden—but it wasn’t my problem. I wasn’t going to get all sucked up into him being nice to me now, then, later on, decide he didn’t want to have anything to do with me afterward. I couldn’t handle it. I wouldn’t.
“Thank you for the offer, but I don’t need a ride. I’ll just get a car—”
A hand landed on the small of my back a second before Rip started steering me toward the door, oblivious to the way I was looking up at him like I had no clue who the hell he was.
Because I didn’t.
I didn’t know who this man pushing me through the bar was, showing up and ruining an already crappy date, implying I was his girl, being all nice and protective and jealous and—
I wasn’t doing this. I wasn’t putting myself in this position. I already knew I was weak where Rip was concerned, and that’s why I had to shut this down the instant we were outside.
“You eat already?” he asked just as he led me through the door, the bouncer giving me a curious expression since he’d been seeing me so often lately.
“No.” I tried to slow my steps, but that hand on my back just kept me right on marching through the parking lot. “Rip, I really don’t need a ride. Look, I’m just going to get a—”
“You in the mood for a burger?” he asked just as I spotted his truck parked maybe fifteen feet away under the lights of the lot.
I looked up at him over my shoulder and told my gut to back off. “I’m trying to talk to you. Could you listen, please?”
That had him stopping, his hand sweeping up my spine to stop at my shoulder, and I’d swear he didn’t just look down at me, but his body seemed to curl into mine as his eyebrows went up and he said, “I always listen to you.”
I wasn’t ready for that comment—not right then and, more than likely, not for the rest of my life, especially not when the person saying those words was this man.
The hand on my shoulder trekked even further up, cupping the nape of my neck in a warm, strong grip. “You want to waste money taking a taxi and you’re trying to get out of eating with me, am I right?” he asked softly.
Hell.