Rebel (Renegades #2)(11)
Author: Skye Jordan

She did worry about him, dammit. She didn’t look at the waiter when she said, “Cosmo, please.”

Wes’s hand slid off her neck, leaving it cold…and empty.

“Moving away from your Sexy Bitch?” The waiter’s familiar voice held an edge of humor, and Rubi immediately knew who was serving them. She reserved a certain drink for each club she visited—one of her quirky compulsions.

A sense of equilibrium crept in. She pulled off her sunglasses and smiled up at the head bartender of Stilettos, a club she hit when she was feeling particularly unsettled…or, okay, desperate…and needed something quick and dirty.

She stood and gave Roméo a hug. “Hey.”

His black hair was still long, his lip and eyebrow piercings subdued with simple silver studs. “Haven’t seen you for a while. You look…”—his dark eyes darted to Wes, then back to Rubi, and his smile turned sly—“tousled.”

She ignored the innuendo. “Why are you working here?”

“Picking up some hours. Bills, you know?”

No, she didn’t know. Money she’d always had, and would always have traded any day over the last twenty-five years for real parents. But she did know all about financial struggle through Lexi, so she nodded.

She introduced everyone around the table. The men shook hands.

“I’m on at Stilettos tonight,” Roméo said to Rubi. “A lot of people have been asking about you. You should come by and say hi.”

As soon as the club’s name was hanging in the air, dread settled in her gut. She lowered to her seat, her gaze searching out Lexi’s, and Rubi found her friend already staring at her with the same alarm in her eyes that danced in Rubi’s gut. But then…this might be a good thing. A way to illustrate to Wes that she wasn’t really what he thought or what he wanted.

“Stilettos?” Rachel said. “Really? Isn’t that a sex club?”

Roméo seemed to find this amusing, his grin growing. He shrugged, as if that didn’t fully describe the club—which it didn’t. “That’s what it’s known for, yeah.”

“Sounds good,” Rubi said. Couldn’t hurt to get rid of some of this pent-up frustration. “I’ll stop by.”

Rachel gasped and reached across the table to cover Rubi’s hand. “Can I come? You can pretend you don’t know me.”

Rubi laughed. “You? Really?”

“Yes, me,” she said, sitting back with a scandalous little smirk. “I told you, I’m not as innocent as I may look—a little like Wes, here.”

“Stick close to Rubi if it’s your first time there,” Roméo said. “Once you learn the ropes—so to speak—you’ll be fine. And a hit. You may not be as innocent as you look, but that makes what you’ve got going extra hot.” He glanced around the table casually, as if this were a normal conversation. “Do you know what you want, or do you all need a minute?”

“Just a minute,” Rubi said.

When Roméo moved on to another table, Rubi forced her gaze to stay on the menu. Her stomach burned with discomfort. She didn’t need to see Wes’s face to know his outward ease had vanished. Tension radiated off him like electromagnetic waves.

“Rubi?” Lexi’s voice pulled her distant gaze from the menu. Roméo was back, setting down her cosmo. Jesus, how long had she been lost in her own head? “Do you know what you want?”

A new freaking brain. One without these hang-ups.

Rubi smiled at Roméo. “Salad.”

He smirked. “Honey, we’ve got twelve different salads.”

Crap. She scanned quickly and found one with candied pecans. When he turned away with their orders, Rubi picked up her cosmo and had to force herself not to down it in one gulp.

“You hang out at a sex club?” Wes asked, his voice deep…and irritated.

Rubi’s throat tightened around her drink, and she had to force herself to swallow.

“It’s only a sex club in the back,” Lexi was quick to point out. She turned that angelic smile on Wes. “I’ve been there. Out front, it’s just like a regular club. You know, a bar, dance floor.”

“You’ve been to Stilettos?” Jax asked, a strange smile on his face as he looked down at Lexi. Her pale cheeks burst into color.

“I took her,” Rubi said, clearing her throat when her voice emerged raspy. “A tease, really. She’d promised me a thank-you drink for recovering one of her crashed programs, and I took her to Stilettos. She didn’t know what kind of club it was.” Rubi took another sip of her drink and raised one shoulder. “That was the same night you broke out of your comfort zone and met Jax. Remember? Not all bad, I guess.”

“But you don’t stay in the front at Stilettos,” Wes said, his voice filled with accusation. “Do you?”

“Dude,” Jax said, voice a low undertone. “Not the place.”

“Lighten up,” Rachel added. “You’re one to talk, Mr. Speed Demon. Like you don’t do anything crazy on a daily basis.”

Wes ignored them, his expectant gaze locked on Rubi’s face.

A combination of frustration, regret, and anger swirled in her gut. She paused before answering, just an extra second to get her emotions under control. The more she showed, the more he’d think she cared. And that would not help the situation.

She twirled the liquid in her glass, took a breath, and forced her gaze to meet his. His eyes were as dark as she’d expected, the color of an impending storm ready to break. “Why don’t you just ask me what you really want to know, Wes?” When his jaw tightened without answering, she asked what he wouldn’t. “Do I have sex with strangers at the club?”

His eyes darkened beneath a hooded brow of anger.

She smiled, trying to act like his judgment didn’t hurt, but she was pretty sure she’d only managed a smirk. “Not that it’s your business, but, no, Wes. I don’t have sex at Stilettos.”

His expression remained a cross between anger and disbelief. Rubi tipped her drink back and finished it off.

Wes’s cell rang. He scrambled to pull it from his pocket and glanced down at the display. “Sorry, it’s my mom.” And pushed back from the table, answering with a soft, “Hey, Mama.”

His tone, so filled with concern and love, squeezed a strange pleasure-filled pain into Rubi’s chest, but she set it aside as she watched him wander to the edge of the patio. “Is he moody today, or is that my imagination?”