Fallon felt the muscles of Rafe’s body tense beneath her as he cut his eyes to Claire.
And it threw her.
Was he ashamed of her? Was he embarrassed by her?
“So let me get this straight. You took two sluts home from that shit bar last Friday, then took home this stripper Saturday? What’s next, Rafe?”
Tension worked through Rafe and his body infinitesimally jerked forward. He was trying desperately, and nearly failing, to keep his temper in check. Unfortunately for Claire, Fallon didn’t need to harbor the same restraint as Rafe, and she was more than happy to give her something to chew on.
Fallon lifted his hands from her thighs and hopped off his lap. “You crawled into bed with a man who was claimed by someone else,” she said, surprisingly calm as she slowly stalked toward her until they were almost chest to surgically enhanced chest. “So does that make you any better than the two ‘sluts’ Rafe screwed? Or does that just make you a slut?”
Claire’s blue eyes rolled to the back of her head. “Oh, please. Like Dex was ever serious with her. She’s nothing but a pathetic, strung-out stripper.”
Fallon had never hit anyone in her entire life. So when her palm rose behind her head and landed hard on the side of Claire’s face, she gasped. It was an involuntary reaction. She hadn’t planned on slapping her, but that didn’t mean she regretted it either.
“You don’t know the first thing about her,” Fallon snapped as Claire stood wide-eyed and stunned with her head now leaning into Dexter’s armpit for support.
“And you—” she barked, pointing her finger at Dexter. “You’re a stupid asshole. If you even step one foot onto the sidewalk in front of my club, I’ll have George on your ass before you can blink.”
She whipped to the side. “And, Bridgette, is it?” Fallon said, continuing her little rant as she turned toward the small woman next to Claire. She was older than Fallon, but not by much. She couldn’t be more than thirty. And she was beautiful in a simple way. Plain and natural and simple. An innocent kind of beautiful. But Fallon knew better than to believe that facade. “You don’t deserve him. You didn’t before and you sure as hell don’t now.”
“And I suppose you believe you deserve him?” Bridgette retorted. “You don’t know a damn thing about what I deserve, little girl.” Ahh, there was the fire she had to possess in order to cheat on her husband and string along another man without blinking an eye.
Fallon’s hand still stung from the contact it’d made with Claire’s cheek and she balled it into a fist at her side. “I know you deserve to feel every ounce of heartbreak that you inflicted on the people who cared about you when you were too fucking selfish to care for them back. Yes, I know your dirty little secret. Rafe should have never touched you, but you’re the one who’s married. And I hope for his sake he breaks your heart right here and now.”
She turned quickly and faced Stella, shock and worry and confusion flinching across her face. “I’m so sorry to make a scene at your home,” she apologized. “It was good to meet you.”
Stella winked. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. You come visit me anytime. I’m always up for a little entertainment.”
Fallon returned her smile.
Rafe’s protective hands skirted down her arms from behind; then he embedded a gentle kiss on the side of her neck. The calm his touch imbued her with slowed her breathing, only making her blood boil more. She tried to pull away from him but his hands tightened and he spun her around.
“Babe?”
Looking up at him, she focused on the spatter of moisture that had accumulated near his hairline and the tight pinch in his black eyebrows. She didn’t look in his eyes. She knew if she did she wouldn’t be able to look away. “Say what you need to say to her. Then take me back to my house.” She yanked her arms from his hold and stormed off.
• • •
Rafe stood for a couple of heartbeats too long before understanding hit him like a fist to the gut and it registered that Fallon was pissed . . . at him. Women could be the most complicated creatures, but, goddammit, they were worth the crazy. Most of them.
Rafe’s feet moved quickly after her but they froze midstep as Bridgette’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm.
His eyes immediately shifted to her hand, to her touch that he had been fucking craving since he’d seen her last, two years ago. Then they lifted, and he saw in her eyes the same innocent, beautiful look that had branded him the first damn time he’d looked in them.
And he hesitated.