Rush (Carolina Bad Boys, #5)(3)

The only spare flesh was on her ass, in her hips, and her tits, which I was pretty fucking sure I’d never stared at before—and probably shouldn’t start now.

“Get a long enough look?” Her eyes, the color of polished silver, slanted up at me.

Shy. Couldn’t even remember why I’d given her that nickname. Maybe to distance myself. Not that there’d ever been or ever would be anything between me and Miss Shiloh Lockhart of the downtown Charleston Lockharts.

“Been a long time.” I aimed a grin at her. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I know Sadie.”

“Everyone knows Sadie,” Kinkaid muttered.

I heard the assholes all around making the usual sly off-color comments about the possibility of us hooking up. Towing Shy to the table designated as private, I sent an unmistakable scowl to my brethren to make sure they backed off and laid off.

“Where you been, girl?” I held out a chair for her.

And everyone in the place sounded off with wolf whistles.

The message. They didn’t get it.

Surprise.

“Where’d you get them fancy manners, Handsome?” Brodie chuckled, holding a very pregnant Ashe in front of him.

I already knew my fingers were gonna get a workout tonight as I flipped him the stiff bird.

“Paris.” Shy sat down. “Then Italy. Then, um . . . studying fashion.”

A ripple of testosterone-fueled energy filled the room when she stroked the tip of her tongue across her full bottom lip.

These fucking guys. They weren’t gonna get their hands on Shy, because I’d break ’em first. No goddamn lie.

I sat next to her, screening her body with my bigger form. “Fashion, huh? What brings you back to Chucktown then?”

“I’m starting my own pop-up shop.”

“How’s it you know Sadie?”

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” She looked over, her large gray eyes luminous, and the gold bangles on her wrist shifted when she laid a hand over mine. “Isn’t it my turn yet?”

I withdrew my hand. Friends and neighbors, that was what we’d always been. She was like a kid sister to me.

But at that moment? Shy looked something close to pretty serious danger.

Sexy danger at that.





Chapter Two


Shy No More





“MAYBE,” I HEDGED.

“Oh, good.” Shy’s features screwed up, just enough to be even more . . . adorable, but then she released a light laugh. “First question: are you going to buy me a drink, Max?”

“Depends on how hard you like your liquor. The beer probably won’t kill you though.”

I expected her to ask for some fancy cocktail—a goddamn lemon drop or mojito or something—but Shiloh tapped her nails on the table and said, “Bourbon. Neat.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“Oh. You thought I’d turned into a daiquiri kind of girl?”

Chuckling, I shook my head. Calling over to Coletrane, I added one for myself to the order.

Dickhead presented the drinks a minute later with a flourish of a towel and a dip from his waist. With his giant chains at the neck and wrists offsetting his at your service service.

He gave two thumbs up behind Shiloh’s back as he departed.

The weirdest shit about the MC. The bad-mouthed, loudmouthed fuckheads all thought they were matchmakers. I narrowed my eyes at Cole, Mr. eHarmony wannabe.

After taking more than a delicate sip of her drink, Shy regarded me. “You’re part of the club then?”

Her palm smoothed up my black leather cut with the Retribution patch on my chest.

“Not really South of Broad material anymore.” I sipped more slowly, feeling the heat that beat off of her.

Denying its warmth on my skin.

“I blew your cover? No one here knew you as Maxwell Rush?” She pearled her tongue along her lips again, the wafting scent of bourbon billowing around us.

And her perfume. Or was it just her? Her skin? Her brightness?

Tucking my chin against my chest, I lowered my eyes. “They call me Handsome.”

With her hands drawing down my arms to the leather cuffs at my wrists, she whispered, “Handsome, is it?”

She came close to me, her hair—those sunshiny locks—whisking silkily against my shoulder.

“I’m not.” A muscle ticked at the back of my jaw.

Shiloh wasn’t gonna affect me like this. I could hook up with someone else at night’s end, take a random woman back to my place, get her off, fuck her to oblivion. Wake up in the morning—intact.

Shy and I had too much history, a past I couldn’t afford to revisit.

“You really shouldn’t be here.”

She tossed back the rest of her bourbon. “I’m pretty sure I can go wherever I want. I’m legal and everything.”

I’d never seen her as anything more than a girl before. Wasn’t about to start now.

“And you are, actually.” She picked up the hanging thread of conversation I lost track of as soon as she skimmed her fingertips back up the muscles of my arms to reach my shoulders.

I chewed ice between my teeth, hoping it would cool everything burning in my veins. “I’m what?”