“Fuck,” Cage muttered as he headed back around the bar and took a seat on the stool beside Cox. Pulling a pack of smokes out of his cut, he shook several out and offered one to Cox.

Accepting, the man nodded his thanks and lit it up.

“So, you gonna spill?” Cox asked after blowing out a ring of smoke.

Cage glanced at him. “Spill what?”

“Brother, you took off gunnin’ after the hippie bitch last night and ain’t never came back. I ain’t stupid, so fuckin’ spill. I ain’t gotten ass in almost two months. Gotta live vicariously through my brothers.”

Cage made a face. “You and Kami? Fuckin’ seriously, dude? Since when aren’t you two maulin’ each other like pit bulls in heat?”

“She wants another kid,” Cox muttered and Cage raised his eyebrows.

What was with all these old fuckers wanting more kids lately? Eva and Kami were nearing forty. But seeing as Eva was pregnant, it made sense that Kami would want to be pregnant too. Whatever those two did, they always did it together.

“I got three damn kids already,” Cox continued, “and I ain’t wantin’ no more. So she cut me off. Says I ain’t gettin’ pussy until I agree to shoot her up. And my little dudes ain’t gettin’ near that hungry-ass pussy of hers, not until she stops actin’ crazy. So, motherfuckin’ spill.”

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Cage stubbed out his smoke on the counter ashtray. “I fucked her. The end.”

Cox gaped at him. “The fuckin’ end? Seriously, brother? No fuckin’ details?”

Cage glared at him. “What the fuck kinda details you lookin’ for? Dude, you’re old enough to be her fuckin’ dad, you’ve been knowin’ her since she was just a little kid, and you really want to be hearin’ about her pussy?”

Cox stared at him, unfazed.

“This is Tegen we’re talkin’ about,” Cage continued, starting to feel his temper rise. “Tegen? D’s little girl? Am I hittin’ a nerve yet, fucker?”

Cox lifted his shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “I get what you’re sayin’, brother, but look at it from my point of view. True, I watched that crazy-haired, shit-talkin’ little fucker grow up, then she took off for college and when she showed back up, she looked nothin’ like she used to. So from where I’m standin’, that ain’t Tegen, not our Tegen, that’s a hot piece of ass.”

Cage’s already rising temper flared to life and his arm shot out. Gripping Cox’s shirt collar, he pulled them nose to nose. “My hot piece of ass,” he growled. “Which you do not fuckin’ talk about.”

Cage froze. What?

What the fuck?

Why the fuck…

Where in motherfucking-shit-fucking-hell-fucking bullshit had that come from?

Cox started laughing and Cage abruptly released him.

Forget that he’d called her “his,” he’d actually gotten upset to the point he’d just nearly knocked Cox out for talking about her like she was a club whore when in reality she’d treated him like the whore.

Suddenly, Cage was feeling things he wasn’t used to feeling. He was pissed, yeah. He felt kind of slighted too, and most definitely annoyed. But…

Disappointment. Yeah, when it came to women that was a new one.

Inadequacy. Fuck him. Had he been horrible? Had she not been as into him as he’d been to her?

And…jealousy.

Did she have someone else in Cali? Had she taken off because she’d felt guilty?

Suddenly he was hoping like hell she had someone back home. Because that meant it hadn’t been him that ran her off and…

FUCK.

No, no, he was getting pissed off again thinking about her going home to…who? Her boyfriend? He wracked his brain, trying to think if he’d heard Eva or Danny mention a boyfriend and, shit, he didn’t know, he didn’t pay attention to that shit.

The sound of Cox’s hysterical laughter brought him up short.

“Dude,” Cox choked out, clutching his stomach. “Ripper said once you were hard up for that little shit and I didn’t fuckin’ believe him, but holy Mary, Mother of God, you are! Straight up! You should see the look on your face!”

Cage was considering knocking him out when out of nowhere a hand slammed down on the counter between them and they both glanced up to find Deuce glaring down at them.

“That little shit you’re talkin’ about,” Deuce growled, “is at the fuckin’ gate.”

Both Cage and Cox glanced over at the security monitor and sure enough, there was Tegen’s angry face on the screen. It was obvious she was yelling but since the sound button wasn’t being pressed, nobody could hear what she was saying.

“Jase is with her,” Deuce continued, pointing. He sure was. Slumped face forward into the dashboard and all.

“I ain’t gettin’ him,” Cox said. “That motherfucker is heavy.”

“What fuckin’ good are you,” Deuce demanded. “You sit around, drink my fuckin’ booze, eat my fuckin’ food, you’re always talkin’ about Kami this and Kami that, and makin’ my fuckin’ head hurt.”

Cage didn’t hear the rest, he was already out the front door, headed for the gate.

The moment she saw him, Tegen jumped out of Dorothy’s car. “Get this motherfucker out of my mom’s car!” she screamed. “He’s already puked twice and I can’t be certain but he might have shit himself too!”

“Calm the fuck down!” he shouted back as he punched in the sequence of numbers that would open the gate.

“Calm the fuck down?” Tegen shrieked. Cage winced. Jesus fucking Christ, this bitch needed to be strangled.

“He shows up drunk, scaring the crap out of my mom and making her cry, and now he’s puked and possibly shit all over her car, and you want me to calm the fuck down?”

Nostrils flaring, Cage stormed through the open gate and right up into her face.

“Do you ever shut the fuck up?” he growled. “Ever?”

Tegen closed the remaining inch between them. “Only when I’m taking it up the ass,” she hissed.

He was so used to Tegen’s dirty mouth that he’d thought nothing she said could faze him, but he’d been wrong. That statement caught him so far off guard, he nearly fell over. It also made his cock twitch. And a little pissed off. And, why the fuck did she smell so good? Like soap and…breakfast. Damn. He was seriously hungry. For both food and pussy. Her pussy.

“You tryin’ to tell me somethin’?” he asked, pressing into her. As she started to back up, he palmed her back and pulled her flush against him, immediately grabbing hold of her ass and pressing his quickly growing erection into her stomach. The change in her was instantaneous; her eyes widened, her lips parted, and Cage found himself thinking back to last night, when he’d grabbed her in the foyer and then again outside. How every time he would physically touch her, she’d quiet the fuck down and soften, not just verbally but physically.

And suddenly a lot of shit made sense. The way she treated him, always screaming and yelling and spouting off her hard-ass bullshit, always keeping her distance, refusing to be in the same room as him, it could only mean one thing.

Teacup still loved him.

He smiled down at her, watching her drink him in, watching her pupils dilate, and feeling her body relax even further.

“Why are you smiling?” she whispered.

Ha. No fucking way was he that stupid. If he so much as mentioned the L-word to Tegen, he’d have a knee in his groin and a fist in his eye faster than a hooker gave out herpes.

“Stay,” he said, running his hands up and down her body. “Come inside. Back to my room.”

He knew the very moment he’d fucked up. Again. As soon as “my room” had fallen from his mouth, Tegen’s body had gone stiff.

“Let go of me,” she muttered, pushing on his chest.

He didn’t release her. “Don’t start this shit.”

“Fuck you!” she cried, glaring up at him. “I’m not one of your whores!”

“No?” he yelled as she struggled to get free of him but he only tightened his grip. “Then what the fuck are you?”

“To you?” she yelled back. “To you, I’m nothing!”

Cursing, Cage released Tegen and she immediately spun away from him.

“Goddammit, Tegen!” he shouted, running his hands through his hair, hating how crazy she was and worse, how crazy she made him feel. “When are you gonna let that shit go? I was nineteen! I was nine-fuckin’-teen! I don’t even remember it!”

Glittering with rage, Tegen’s eyes went saucer-wide. “You really fucking suck, West!” she spat. “You’re a waste of big dick and a pretty face!”

Cage’s mouth fell open.

What. The. Fuck.

He. Was. Going. To. Kill. Her.

Nostrils flaring, he took a rage-filled, deliberate step in her direction when, “What the motherfuck,” a familiar voice growled. Cage glanced to his left and found his father standing on the opposite side of the car, peering down at Jase and grimacing.

“Wat up, little lovers,” Cox drawled, walking up beside Cage. The asshole glanced between him and Tegen, and grinned.

“You gonna stick around, Tegen?” Cox asked, looking her up and down, his smile full of dirty fucking thoughts, blatantly checking her out, making Cage want to grab the fucker and start ripping all his piercings out. Slowly.

Even so, he couldn’t blame the guy. She looked hot as fuck.

She was wearing a man’s white ribbed beater, the bottom torn off, showing her tattooed midriff, no bra, her nipple piercings showing through the thin material, and shredded bell bottom blue jeans, two sizes too big for her, hung low on her hips. Her dreads had been swept to the side in a long braid that hung over one shoulder and tied together with a beaded strand of hemp.

And she was barefoot, her toes covered in toe rings, which, for some reason, turned him on something fierce.