My ovaries exploded a little while listening to Hyde talk about his daughter. And him trying to say balayage and trying to keep up with what his daughter wanted only helped that explosion along.
While I’d been playing it cool, trying not to bombard him with questions about his life, I suddenly couldn’t contain myself any longer. It wasn’t how I usually operated, and I figured it would soon shed some light on whether Hyde really was ready to date me or not. “You guys had Charlie young. I’m figuring you for about thirty-five or so.”
“Thirty-six.”
I smiled. “You just earnt points for not asking me how old I am. But FYI, I’m thirty-one. When’s your birthday?” If there was one thing I was anal about, it was keeping track of the birthdays of those in my life. I liked to make sure their days were special.
His eyes darkened. “May seven, but I don’t ever celebrate it.”
“Why not?”
He reached for the whisky in front of him. He’d ordered a drink earlier but hadn’t actually drunk any of it, which seemed odd. However, at that question, he drank half the glass.
“We never celebrated it when I was growing up, so I’ve continued that tradition.” It was like he had to rip those words from his soul. The pain in them sat heavy between us, and I knew this wasn’t a conversation I should continue. Not tonight.
“Okay, so changing the subject a little, why did you decide to join Storm?” I’d always wondered what made men choose the biker life.
He drained his glass of whisky and sat forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Let’s talk about you, sugar. You always been a tattoo artist?”
I would rather he’d answered my question, but I got the distinct impression Hyde didn’t share personal stuff easily. I could be patient; I just hoped it wouldn’t take him long to open up to me. “Yeah, and I’d always wanted my own shop, so I bought it three years ago when the previous owner put it on the market for cheap.”
“That—”
He was cut off when another asshole spilt some of his drink on me as he walked by our table. Drunkenly stumbling along, he grinned at me and said, “Sorry about that, baby.” He stopped and let his gaze drop to my chest, whistling low as he did so. “Damn, you shouldn’t be allowed out in public. Those tits—”
Hyde shoved his chair back and stood, towering over the asshole. His anger oozed from every pore, scaring me a little. “You need to keep your eyes and your fucking mouth closed when you walk past my woman.” He didn’t bellow his order, but rather it came out in a low, murderous tone that anyone would have trouble misunderstanding.
The asshole held his hands up defensively, backing away from Hyde. “Sorry, dude, it’s just hard not to notice a beautiful woman when I see one.”
Hyde hissed. It looked like he was about to go to battle. “Back the fuck up and stop fucking talking.”
The guy nodded madly and was turning to leave when a friend of his joined us. “What’s going on, Kenny?”
Kenny, the asshole who spilt his drink, tried to pull his friend away. “Nothing. It’s all good, man.”
His friend shrugged out of his hold and eyed Hyde. “I’m not fucking intimidated by some biker asshole. You think you can come in here and threaten us just because he looked at your slut the wrong way?”
Hyde’s fist connected with the friend’s cheek, causing him to stumble back. Without giving him a chance to recover and walk away from the situation, Hyde kept going, punching him over and over.
I jumped to my feet and yelled, “Hyde! Stop it! He’s not worth it.”
My requests for him to stop were futile. The other guy fought back, turning this into a bloody and violent fight. I’d seen plenty of fights in my life, but Hyde took it to a whole new level. It wasn’t until security got involved, three of them yanking Hyde from the fight, that it calmed down. By then, they were both covered in blood, and I was so done with this night it wasn’t funny.
I didn’t wait around for him to deal with security. I picked up my clutch and stalked outside in search of a taxi. Fucking bikers. I knew they were bad news, so why the fuck did I let my guard down and let one in? As far as I was concerned, this was the first date from hell, and I wasn’t convinced there would be another date for us.
Chapter 26
Hyde
Fuck.
I’d managed to fuck this night right up. I’d thought bringing Monroe to a fucking pub on game night was the worst mistake I could have made. That was during dinner when I saw the disappointment sitting on her face. Turned out I was wrong. The worst mistake I could have made was letting some motherfucker get to me when he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
Jealousy wasn’t something I was used to. Hell, this was the first time in my life I’d ever experienced it. Seeing another man even glance sideways at Monroe caused a nuclear reaction in my fucking head. I’d fought like fuck not to react to the asshole who mentioned her tits, but when his friend referred to her as a slut, I saw fucking red.
And then I’d lost my shit.
And my woman.
After cleaning myself up, I headed over to her house. She stood in front of me now, at her front door, a bewildered look on her face.
“I don’t want to talk to you tonight,” she said as she pulled her sexy dark-red robe around her. It was distracting as hell because it barely covered her thighs and revealed enough cleavage to get me hard, but now wasn’t the time to be distracted, so I kept my eyes off her body.
“I fucked up, Roe.”
“You think?”
I shoved my fingers through my hair. Fuck. “Let me in so we can talk.”
“I told you that I didn’t want to talk tonight. I need some space to figure out how I’m thinking.”
I didn’t know much about women, but I knew giving her that space would lead nowhere good. “No.”
Her eyes bulged. “You’re kidding me, right? You screw up and then you refuse to give me some space to process what I saw tonight?”
“Fuck, I’m sorry you saw that, sugar. I let that asshole get to me when I should have just told him to fuck off and left it at that.”
“Tell me something, Hyde. Is that standard behaviour for you? Because if fighting is something you do a lot of, I’m not interested in going any further with this.”
I clenched my jaw. “Not usually.” There was no point bringing up my past, because it was exactly that—the past, not the present.
“So does not usually mean you do it sometimes?”
“It means that sometimes it’s called for.”
“Often it’s not. Just so you know.”
I was a fan of Monroe’s attitude but not when it came flying at me like this. This just pissed me off. “There are some things you don’t know about that do require my fists. Let’s just leave it at that. All you need to know is that I don’t usually get them out in this kind of situation.”
She fell silent for a moment. When she crossed her arms over her chest, I knew she was shutting down on me. “I’m getting the drift. You should go. There’s no way you’re getting in my pants tonight.”