Free Strip You Bare by Maisey Yates Page B

Micah nor Blue responded, both continued out of the Priory. Micah started to walk down toward the mansion, but Blue stopped. He said nothing, but Micah knew it was his signal to stop too.
    “What, Leon?” He used his given name on purpose.
    “If you hurt my cousin, I’ll skin you alive, make a jacket out of you, and ride down Bourbon Street wearing you like my new colors. So we’re clear.”
    “If I hurt her? You mean if I bang her?” Micah laughed. “What are you, her overprotective dad? Since when do you care about shit like that?”
    “Usually? I don’t. But Sarah isn’t Sophie, or Alice, or even Billie. She’s not one of the chicks we used to take back to the clubhouse. She’s not a part of this world. You have no idea how protected they would have kept her. She’s got to be naïve as hell. She doesn’t know what kind of man you are.”
    “She’s a grown woman, she’ll make her own decisions. If she wants to suck me off, I’m hardly going to say no.”
    “I’m starting to think you have an active death wish.”
    “If I did, I would have left already. But I genuinely believe Ajax would cut my tattoo off, so here I am.”
    “Is that the only reason you’re still here?”
    Micah cleared his throat. “For Priest. That’s the beginning and end of it. I . . . I don’t know what you get out of this life. I don’t know, I don’t care. But understand it didn’t do the same thing for me. It kept me from dying for a while, but in the end it would’ve killed me. But Priest was a father to me when nobody else was. For all that he was a bad guy, he was good to me. And whoever killed him . . . I want them to pay. Don’t tell Ajax I said that.” Micah turned away and kept on walking. He stopped when Blue spoke again, but didn’t turn.
    “Glad to hear it. But I’ll still fucking kill you if you hurt her.”
    “Then I won’t.”
    He had a feeling they both knew that was a lie.
    “What are you still doing here, princess?”
    Sarah turned at the sound of that familiar voice that created an instant response in her body. It was strange how quickly she knew him. But no one sounded like Micah. His voice was everything he was. Grit. Depth. Honesty.
    She could hear all of that in the sound of his voice, and it made her wonder what was wrong with her, since she couldn’t tell if her best friends were being nice or bitchy half the time in a twenty-minute phone call, never mind a greeting.
    She was so tired of it. Tired of all of it. He would help. He would strip all these layers away she couldn’t seem to take off on her own. He could be the one to shatter her.
    “I don’t know why I’m here,” she said.
Liar
.
    She needed to cling to that harder now, to make it all the more satisfying when he took her. Because that was what she wanted. For him to take control. For him to strip her completely.
    “Oh, honey, don’t try that with me. Not when I can see straight through that sweet little look on your face. You aren’t here for nothing. And unless the cleaning crew is still hiding out, I think it’s for me.”
    She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. He knew.
    “No,” she said, her voice echoing in the entryway.
    He advanced on her then, a dark flame in his eyes. He reached out and gripped her chin, and her breath froze in the center of her throat, a restless surge bursting through her. Arousal. Complete and total. Blotting out everything else.
    His grip hurt, and she was afraid of what he might do. Afraid of what she might do. But it didn’t matter. Not when walking away was so much scarier. Walking right back into that perfectly pressed mint-julep world, when she could stay here and ride the hurricane.
    “You’re so pretty. But you’re
such
a fucking liar,” he said, his tone soft, deadly. “You know exactly why you’re here. Wearing that prim little dress like it doesn’t show your tits and how pretty your ass is. Like you didn’t come back here so I’d shove it up your hips and bury myself