Dex had closed the distance between his office and my desk by the time the guy finished talking. At that point, he was standing right next to me, seven inches of space between us. If I moved my arm, it would touch the muscular tattooed thigh he’d shown me days before. The muscular thigh then made me wonder, for all of a microsecond what kind of piercing Dex had on his penis before I snapped myself out of it. Somehow I'd gone from a relatively content virgin to a woman who was constantly thinking about pierced genitals and nipples.
“No, bro, I won’t, and if I did, I wouldn’t give it to someone who comes into my fuckin’ shop, hollerin’ and callin’ my employees little shits and whatever the fuck you were gonna call Ritz,” he ground out with a slight grumble to his voice.
Pissed Off Guy sagged, shaking his head in a way that told me he didn’t think this conversation with Dex was over. “Aww, c’mon, bro.”
“Get the fuck out before I throw your ass outta here, bro,” The Dick warned.
Ooh, wheee. I somehow caught Blue’s gaze and we each made our eyes wide.
Dex inhaled a long, deep breath through his nose. “You got five seconds to get the hell out.”
There was no room for interpretation. I would have left and taken my carbon footprints with me. Dex was pretty scary when he was pissed off—though Dex on a daily basis was pretty scary. I used to think it was all that ink on his arms but it totally wasn't. Since he usually wore t-shirts, his tats were always visible. All that black and gray on tanned skin was the first thing your eyes went to when speaking to Dex. Now, the more I got to know him, the more I realized that it wasn’t just the tattoos that made him intimidating.
Dex was a scary asshole period. He just radiated this pure “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” attitude, and that was scary. You couldn’t control or anticipate a person who didn’t care. They were wildcards. Add that in with his Dyna and his tattoos, and yeah—intimidating on the outside.
When the Pissed Off Guy held his arms out in a what-the-hell gesture, Dex shook his head.
“Five,” he started counting. “Four, three—“
“God. Fuck you guys and fuck this fuckin’ overpriced bullshit!” Pissed Off Guy’s voice had taken a slightly shrieking edge to it.
“Two—“
With all the class in the world, the guy shot us a one-finger salute and got the hell out.
Well.
Long, warm fingers wrapped around the back of my neck as Dex dropped down to his haunches, eye level with me. “You all right, Ritz?” His bright blue eyes were on mine, all traces of annoyance gone from his features.
“Yeah,” I told him. “He was just pretty dumb and rude.”
The smile he gave me in return was so soft it was hard to understand how his mood went from one side of the linear line to the other in seconds. It also reminded me of exactly what I’d told him on the ride back from Houston. The kindest, grumpy ass man in all of Texas.
“Yeah, he was,” he agreed. Dex’s fingers gave my neck a squeeze. The action made my throat close up momentarily. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a Coke.”
Like I was going to tell him no.
“You want a pop?” he asked Blue as he turned around.
She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “I’m good.”
I followed after him, waiting patiently while he put in the dollar bills to get our drinks. He popped the lid for me, handing over the drink with a frustrated smile.
"I can't stand assholes like that," he grunted. "What I wanna do is go beat his fuckin' ass."
Both my eyebrows went up. "Calm your horses. It's not worth you getting into trouble," I reminded him of what Shane had hinted at back in Houston. “Or messing up your hands, dumb-bum.”
“Dumb-bum?” He blinked.
I shrugged. “Yeah. What would you do if you broke a couple fingers?”
“Babe, you only break fingers if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Blinking slowly, I opened my mouth and closed it. “I know you’re not kidding and yet…”
The corner of Dex's mouth tilted up, but it wasn't a smile of amusement exactly, it was more of a knowing smirk. "Babe."
“I’m being serious. You have to take care of yourself. Keep that rage under control.”
“I’m good.”
The look I gave him was half disbelieving, half resigned. Then the opportunity hit me, and I stopped caring. “You weren’t good this morning.”
He scowled. I hit the battleship!
“What happened?”