Stryker glanced over his shoulder, first at Brock and then at Gunner, jerking his head forward as if to tell them to follow the guy who ran into me.
I furrowed my brow, Blaze all but forgotten. “Hey.” I snapped my fingers in front of Stryker’s face. “No. You don’t get to tell the school to bother me and then try to stick up for me here.” I wasn’t sure what they were playing at, but I couldn’t figure them out and that infuriated me.
Blaze shoved close to Stryker, his eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here, Jameson? This is Timbercreek territory.” He was a good two inches shorter than Stryker and the difference in the muscle mass was noticeable. Blaze didn’t even care that Stryker held me. In fact, he didn’t give me the time of day as he locked himself into a pissing contest with Stryker.
Brock and Gunner disappeared in the direction of the guy who had bumped and I had a sickening feeling that I needed to check on Sara. Maybe Blaze was making her feel the same way he was trying to make me feel. Why else would she cry at The Pike?
Stryker flexed his muscles and stepped around me, closer to Blaze. Narrowing his eyes, he growled, “Stay out of my way, Timbercreek.” Was he talking to me or Blaze? I stepped out of the way as he continued. “You might whimper like a little-″ A crash loud enough to carry over the music came from the direction of the bar, grabbing both their attention.
Pushing past them, I went in search of Sara or Gunner and Brock. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it certainly wasn’t what I’d planned. I didn’t have any answers around Sara, but at least I knew what Blaze was really like.
The look in Stryker’s eyes concerned me. I wasn’t interested in the burning want his expression sent through me and I certainly didn’t appreciate his confusing double standards – did he want to protect me or did he want to hurt me?
Nothing made sense. I wasn’t going to stand around and wait for him to make up his mind or to attempt to explain it. I didn’t have the energy for either.
Chapter 9
Stryker
Blaze Divers needed his face bashed in, but I wouldn’t have another chance to get revenge on the guy who dared put Gray in danger. I had to go right then and join Gunner and Brock. Shoving past the idiot who upset Gray, I thundered through the moshing crowd, making a beeline for where my cousins had followed the guy.
The dancers parted for me without conscious thought and I didn’t think twice about it. The fury brewing inside me had tumbled onto my face and into my muscles. I wasn’t taking anything tonight.
How dare Gray go into Timbercreek territory when she was now a Jameson student? I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. She’d disappeared the rest of the day at school. Gunner and Brock had both reported her absent and no one had seen her since the little display during first period. We saw her leave her place when we rode by to check on her. Following her took little discussion. We all wanted to make sure she was safe – regardless of the crap we’d sent her way.
She had to learn. We had to teach her. The only way she was going to stay safe, was if she fell in line. The only ones to get her there were us. Before I could deal with Gray, I had to deal with the little shit who’d run her over.
All of that meant, I needed to teach him a lesson. It might not be Jameson territory, but that didn’t mean we were going to allow disrespect.
I reached the Employees Only sign and pushed through the swinging doors. I wasn’t an employee but I also didn’t care what any sign said.
Fluorescent light bulbs glared onto the shiny concrete flooring of the narrow hall. Brick walls painted an obscene yellow bounced back Gunner and Brock’s furious tones and the other guy’s nonchalance. I wasn’t stupid. He was scared.
But he was thinking he could take two of them or maybe he thought they didn’t look that mad. Or even more obvious, he didn’t recognize them with their hats on.
He hadn’t seen me. When I came into eyeshot, his fear would kick in and survival would be the main thing on his mind. I strode toward him, taking my time with a determined pace. With a half-smile that had no humor in the curves, I jerked my chin in greeting to my cousins.
Then I turned my gaze to the idiot who thought he could get away with pushing Gray down.
Stringy hair hanging in his pale eyes, the man shook his head back and met my gaze with insolence… until he recognized me. “Um, Stryker. I… That was you out there? I didn’t think it really would be you here. I…” He stuttered like he knew just what he’d done and hoped to get out of it.
I reached out and clapped my hand on his shoulder like we were the best of friends and squeezed. And squeezed.
He squeaked and tried dropping his shoulder out of my grip. I spoke soft and slow so he didn’t miss anything. “You touched Gray Asher and you didn’t apologize. That was your first mistake. I’ll let it go that you were disrespectful to me.” I got it, it was crowded and dark. He didn’t recognize me.
But he knew he pushed her over. He knew what he’d done and he didn’t care. He had to pay for that.
“I’m sorry. I can apologize to her right now. Where is she? I’ll do it.” He nodded his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing with his gulping.
“Don’t bother.” Gray’s voice pulled my attention from the pissant in my grip. I whipped my eyes in an arc to watch her approaching from the door we’d gone through.
The guy’s eyes widened, watching her come down the hallway. He snapped his gaze to me and then took in Gunner and Brock with their arms splayed at their sides and pure anger hardening the angles of their faces.
We didn’t make a great welcoming committee and this guy had no idea what was going on.
“You shouldn’t be down here.” I ground out through clenched teeth. I didn’t want her in any more danger than she’d already put herself.
She snapped her amazing eyes my direction and narrowed her long-lashed lids. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
The guy in front of me seemed to sense a shift in the dichotomy. He slid out from the focal point of my threesome and sidled toward Gray, simpering with his shoulders slouched forward. “Hey, girl. I didn’t mean to push you down.” He moved closer, wrapping his arm around Gray’s back.
I stiffened, stepping forward to bash his face in. How dare he touch Gray in any way? I’d specifically told the school and the neighboring schools that no one was to touch Gray, no matter what. Before I could take the guy’s head off, Gunner reached out and grabbed my elbow. I shot a glance his direction and paused at the slight shake of his head.
He steadied me and usually kept me from doing things that I would later regret. How could pummeling this guy be something I would regret?
But I held back. Not because I did what Gunner told me, but because he was usually right.
From my left, a rumble in Brock’s chest told me he wasn’t happy waiting either. At least I knew the boys had my back and I could trust them.
Keeping us in his peripheral vision, the idiot turned to Gray and leaned in, his lips perilously close to her smooth cheek.
Something flashed in her eyes and she snapped. In two quick slams she pelted his sternum with the point of her elbow and jammed her foot on his instep. I almost winced. She knew how to use that foot; I’d witnessed that first hand.
The guy groaned, tightening his hold around her and dragging her down on top of him as he fell to the ground. “You stupid ho!”
The last syllable burst out of him on another moan when Gray lifted her head and slammed the back of it into the guy’s face. Before I could do anything to help her, she flipped over and kneed the guy in the lower ribs. He curled onto his side in the fetal position, his face red as he struggled to breathe.
Smoothing her hair as she pushed to her feet, Gray stared down at the guy who attempted to escape a beating but had ended up getting more than he probably would have gotten from us. Her shoulders barely moved and I couldn’t help being impressed. She’d beaten the boxing team’s best cardio fighter and she hadn’t been breathing heavy then, either.
A moment of silence spread between us while the downed guy tried catching his breath. Gray waited for him to stand and he avoided her eyes as he ran off down the hall. His footsteps pattered like a coward.
When the doors closed, she turned and eyed us each with suspicion and no little amount of disgust. Good. If she hated me, things would be so much easier. She could use that hate to keep herself away from me and all of the bad that surrounded me. She wouldn’t be broken or lost or feel sadness.
The strength in her shoulders was on display with the halter-style top. I hated that anyone could see her skin. Grinding my teeth together, I ignored my need to offer her a coat or a shirt, something, anything to cover up. How dare anyone look at her. I wanted to rip the eyes out of anyone who did.
Would Gunner let me do that much at least? Who was I kidding? If I really wanted to do it, no one could stop me – cousin or not.
Gray folded her arms, tightening the material of her shirt across her chest, anchoring my attention on her form. If I was seeing her tight nipples, then I had no doubt my cousins could see. That bothered me, when I’d never felt like that before about them and a girl. I didn’t get jealous.
I couldn’t explain why jealousy coursed through me then and never before.
We stared at each other. How would I tell Gunner and Brock to look away from her chest? It was hard when she commanded our attention. I narrowed my eyes, ready to ream her for coming there in the first place.
She beat me to it. “What are you doing? This isn’t a game. I’ve been at your stupid school less than a week and you think you can scare me out? It doesn’t work that way.” She stepped closer, pressing her finger into the center of my chest. The contact was intense, ripping through me with a fire I wanted to do something about – even there in that hall with my boys watching me. She glanced to the side, taking in Brock, then to the other side and studying Gunner.
Lowering her voice, she shook her head. “I didn’t do anything to you. Nothing. And you set the school on me? Fine. Do your worst. I’ll take what you’re dishing out, but don’t expect me to sit back and do nothing in return.” She raised her hand, running her finger up my chest in a tantalizing scrawl that scorched my skin through the t-shirt I wore. She looked at me with her eyelids half-mast and her lower lip glistening with dampness.
I’d never admit the chill that spread over me, clenching me in its fist. She had no idea the power she had over me. I refused to give it any credence. Even when she leaned forward, running her finger further up my neck and around until she tracked her nail through my hair and down to my earlobe. Her breathing had picked up and she held my gaze with hers.
She was more affected than she wanted to be. Brushing her chest against me, Gray widened her eyes when she moved against my lap.
Cocking an eyebrow, I tilted my head to the side and murmured, “Don’t start something you’re not going to finish, little bear.” The Timbercreek mascot was a bear and it seemed more appropriate for the moment.
A flash of anger lit her eyes tempered with something I couldn’t put my finger on, but I had a feeling it was an echo of my own cravings. She stared at me, courageously staying where she was and not backing up. She had no idea what her nearness was doing to me and I had to make sure she never found out.
After a second, her whisper carried to me across the short distance between us. “Why are you messing with me, Stryker?” The sound was broken and unsure, like she had more to lose than a couple friends and a homecoming queen nomination.
She didn’t know what we stood to lose, if she came into the school with her unfettered lack of fear. If she came onto the boxing team and was allowed to compete. She had no idea what we could lose, what she could lose. We weren’t playing games, but she seemed to think we were messing around.
Brock and Gunner pulled in tight around her, their chests almost hitting her bare arms. She glanced at them and I hated that her eyes were anywhere but on me. After a moment, she looked back at me, pain in her expression that hid behind the shutters of her eyes. “Why do you care?”
I couldn’t care. Her question forced a bark of cruel laughter from my lips and I snarled. “What makes you think I care, little girl? You’re nothing but an irritant. Stay out of our way and do what’s expected and everything will be fine.” We turned to leave her in that hallway, but I spun back and snapped my fingers. “The Pike is a Timbercreek hangout. You go to Jameson now. You can hang out at Curly’s. That’s what is acceptable. We won’t catch you here again.”
She better understand I meant what I said. Her crossover into Timbercreek territory wouldn’t be tolerated. The fact that we’d even shown up like we had was sure to cause waves, but Blaze and his friends wouldn’t be stupid enough to start anything. We were all underage and as much as the bouncers looked the other way, cops wouldn’t. No one wanted to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We all had to work together to keep the peace. No matter how much we wanted to bash each other’s faces in.
Gray watched us walk off. I could feel her gaze searing a hole in my back and prodding the hard ache in my lap. She couldn’t control me. She wouldn’t. I had to get in her head worse than she was in mine, but how?
The guys and I pushed out the doors, back into the dancing area. The music that pounded just outside the doors surrounded us. Gray would come out that way and she’d see me. I had to make sure she saw how replaceable she really was. I had to convince myself I wasn’t distracted by the sassy brunette who didn’t know what was good for her.
We pushed our way through the crowd who had shifted their dance style from moshing to grinding with the change in the tempo of the song. Women danced with women, men with men, and everything in between.
I didn’t care. I wasn’t interested. Gunner and Brock moved off to the sides, each claiming a woman with curves and a desperate aura around their moves. The females would ignore their ages because they didn’t want to be alone and they’d get taken in by the way the guys looked and there would be a definite cougar thing going on.
We always took advantage at Curly’s. The women were tougher in Idaho, stronger, like they had no doubt they were in charge and they knew it.
I had a feeling Gray was from Idaho and didn’t know it.
Pressing my shoulder blades against a wall jutting out by the bleachers, I turned and folded my arms across my chest. I wanted to see her join the melee, see how she interacted with the other people in the dance area.
A red head with curves for days approached me, her eyes sultry and deep. She hooked her finger toward me and kept coming my way, not waiting for me to accept or decline.
The doors opened, spilling the fluorescent lighting into the dance area and silhouetting Gray’s tiny waist and firm hips. She was a package of surprise.
She scanned the crowd, letting the doors close behind her.
Our eyes connected and I didn’t look away as the red head danced against me, rubbing herself all over me and turning around to do it all over again.
Gray lifted her chin as she took in the scene. Her eyes flicked to Gunner and Brock and something told me I’d finally gotten to her. She would see that I didn’t need her to satisfy my hungers. That I actually wanted more than just her.
If I could get her to believe that, then I was a better liar than even I thought I could be.
Disappointment shaded the challenge in her eyes and I let myself feel the excitement of the moment as we continued staring each other down from across the dance floor. I put my hand on the red head’s shoulder and eased her down in a twisting dance and then let her back up, controlling the moment as Gray watched me.
I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t only controlling the dancing woman; I was controlling Gray as well.
Confident in my role, I let the red head continue to grind on me. My arousal had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the watchful gaze of Gray and her enigmatic blue eyes focused on me. I didn’t even drop my arms from my chest. What
would Gray do next? I’d stumped her. I knew it. There was nothing for her to do, except accept my win.
Then she stepped onto the floor, lifting her arms above her head and shaking her hips to the beat of the music as she slid into the vicinity of a group of girls wearing the colors of Timbercreek. They knew her and didn’t turn her away. Gray fit in, she was in her element, and she knew it. Why would she leave her school where she obviously had a spot to come to Jameson where everything was rough?
She couldn’t go back now. Not with both schools aware that she’d traded sides. There was something in her story I had to find out. It wouldn’t take long, but I suddenly didn’t want to wait.
Her hips gyrated with the music, the beat taking over and her eyelids drifted shut as the tempo took over. Brock grumbled something I couldn’t make out, but did I need to? He watched her, as I did, and for the first time in a long time, I wanted to reach out and pop his jaw with my fist.
I didn’t want to share and with Gray, I couldn’t even claim her as mine.
Not yet, anyway.
Chapter 10
Gray
I danced with whoever was closest and I danced with myself. Running my hands up and down my body, gyrating with the rhythm of the music, I almost forgot the game Stryker and I played. Almost.
The red head dancing on him could have been a shadow for all her worth. I could see in his eyes he wanted me, or something to do with me.
Brock and Gunner held the hips of other women who danced against them, as if they controlled their movements. I was aware of all three, but most acutely aware of Stryker and the way his eyes narrowed, following my hands as I ran my fingers through my hair.
Twisting to the side, I looked away from the cousins. I couldn’t breathe with the intensity in Stryker’s eyes, as if he could devour me in one bite.
Her Challengers: A high school bully romance (Bad Boys of Jameson High Book 1) Page 8
