Five Weeks (Seven Series #3)(23)

Warmth touched my cheeks. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Huh?”
“Your neck, Isabelle. There are fingerprint bruises in the places that someone would grab you if they were pinning you to a wall.”
I wriggled free. “And how would you know something like that, Jericho?”
Wrong. Jericho would never lay a hand on a woman, but I was piping mad.
His jaw set. “I may not like you, Isabelle.” He captured my wrist and tugged me a little closer with each statement. “I may be mad as hell for what you did to me all those years ago—making me think something bad had happened to you. I may want to have Jake fire your ass and toss you on the streets. I also may want to stop coming in here so I won’t have to run into you at every turn. But nobody puts his hands on you.”
And there it was. An indirect declaration that Jericho still cared about me, if even a smidge. It could have been sheer principle that I was a woman who had been manhandled—although I hadn’t noticed any bruising when I’d left the house. But the intensity that burned in his eyes left me with a question mark about his feelings for me.
“My life isn’t your business anymore,” I said ruefully.
He let go and turned away, drinking his beer as if I’d never been there.
A knot formed in my stomach as I stared at his back. I wanted to know why he was so upset with me when he was the one who’d destroyed our friendship.
“Izzy, hon, your table is about to have a conniption if you don’t take their order.” Rosie pointed at a group of men who had reached their limit.
“I cut them off. They’ve had too much to drink and I’m not going to be responsible for them driving home drunk and killing someone.”
“Then bring them an order of hamburgers, but if you don’t shake your ass over there, they’re going to cause trouble.”
Jericho slid a half-interested glance over his shoulder.
I pressed my lips together and approached my table. “Now, how about I bring out some cheeseburgers?”
A hand slapped my ass. “How about I have a taste of this juicy burger?”
“Don’t put your hand on me again,” I said in a tight voice.
“Whoa. Those redheads like to give orders,” a guy in a leather jacket said with a deep chuckle. “A fiery temper in the sack warms the cockles of my heart every time.”
“She can warm my cockles,” the man to my left said, cupping his leathery hand around the back of my thigh. “I love a girl who looks sweet in the face. I bet you’d look real sweet down on your knees.”
“I think you’ve had too much to drink. Why don’t you—”
I gasped when someone snatched the back of my shirt and hauled me aside. I gripped a chair to keep from falling and looked up at Jericho, who lit up a cigarette with a flick of his silver lighter.
“Who invited you?” one of the guys spat.
I shouted for Denver when the men rose from the table. Jericho kept his cool, taking a long drag of his cigarette before blowing smoke in their faces.
My heart raced. What do I do? We didn’t have bouncers in this bar; that job had been left to the bartender and a few guys in the kitchen.
Reno, Wheeler, and Trevor materialized behind Jericho without a word. My table seemed more concerned with the likes of Wheeler, who folded his arms and incinerated them with his molten gaze. Jericho’s brothers took a stance that left no question they were a pack—and a pack lived, ate, and fought together. I didn’t know what kind of animals the idiots at my table were, but they looked intimidated.
Jericho pulled another drag from his cigarette and smashed the butt in the ashtray. “Why don’t you walk outta here before we take matters into our own hands? I don’t like seeing greedy men putting their hands on a woman disrespectfully, and neither do my brothers. Don’t fuck with the Weston pack.”
To my surprise, the men spat a few obscenities and cowardly walked away.
“They must have been deer,” Trevor said with a cocky laugh.
“More like chickens,” Wheeler suggested, his arms still crossed.
Trevor looked disappointed as he turned away. “Well, I got my wolf all amped up for nothing. How about next time we don’t deliver a threat and just beat their sorry asses?”
Reno chuckled and messed up Trevor’s hair. “Some battles aren’t worth fighting.”
As the men dispersed, a warm feeling slid over my body when I looked up at Jericho. His eyes were hooded and low, but when he melted me with a possessive gaze, my feet cemented to the floor.
He moved toward me with the grace of a panther—slow and predatory. The external noise from the bar faded away, and all I heard were his silken words as he caressed the ends of my hair, looking at it between his fingers.