Page 23 of Meant for You

What did he see when he looked at me? Did he see the scared, heartbroken girl or did he see the woman I’d become?

I wanted to know the answer to that so badly I almost said it out loud.

He huffed out a breath and pulled me back in. “You were always beautiful, but now…shit,” he said roughly. “Every fucker in this bar wants a piece of you, baby girl.”

Baby girl.

He’d started calling me that when I was twelve.

I laughed and shook my head, pulling back to look up at him again. “You’re seeing things. No one’s looking at me.”

His hand slid higher, fingers going deeper into my hair. “You’re every guy in this room’s wet dream, Eves, and I want to poke their fucking eyes out.”

What about you? The thought took me by surprise. I ignored it and shook the ridiculous thought from my head, grinning up at him. “I think you wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to me.”

He’d always been that way, like he held me on this higher plane. Like I was something special, untouchable, something precious to be protected. His words didn’t come from a place of desire for me. No, it was that fierce instinct to protect me, that’s all.

The same thing inside him that had him driving to Rutherford and doing what he had, attacking a boy who’d planned to hurt me.

“Nah, you’re perfect,” he said.

Sometimes I thought he truly believed that. “Far from it.” If he kept seeing me as some breakable, untouchable thing, nothing would ever change. I’d be stuck in that role created for me by everyone else. A role I was sick of playing.

His gaze moved over my face. “You are to me.”

What could I say to that? “See? Rose-colored glasses.” I was determined to show him I wasn’t so perfect, even if it killed me.

“You got something going on with Tanner?” he said roughly against my ear.

I stilled, but he kept moving. “Um…no? I mean, we went on a date, and it…didn’t go well.” And I’d been kind of hoping he’d ask me out again despite bleeding all over his truck. But I kept that part to myself.

“So…what?” Dane said low. “That’s who you want to practice dating for?”

Maybe. Though I thought it might be a lost cause now. “He seemed nice.”

Dane grunted, and I rested my head back on his chest.

Something hard brushed my ear, and I jerked back and looked up at him. “Are your nipples pierced?”

He chuckled and nodded.

“Both of them?”

“Yeah.”

He pulled me back against him, and I tried to control the urge to yank up his shirt and take a closer look. We stayed like that until the song ended.

I wished it hadn’t.

When I lifted my head again, Lila and Riff were beside us. My friend’s face was flaming red, and Riff was looking down at her with that same wolfish expression.

I took her hand, trying to control my own racing heart, and headed back to the bar. The guys followed us.

We stayed and danced, with the guys watching on, until the band finished just after one in the morning. I noticed Dane had stopped drinking after we arrived. When the last song ended, I made my way back to him.

“You want a ride home?” he said.

Lila’s sister lived in Rocktown and we were going to crash at her place, but being alone with Dane would give me the chance to find out what he’d decided about my dating lessons.