I wanted to take back some of the control, but my dick wasn’t really reacting to her even after the hallway strip show. Maybe frenzied sex would wake my dick up.
“Knees.”
Like a house of cards, she collapsed and went for my cock with only one thing in mind; pleasuring me. I leaned my head back against the wall and shut my eyes, listening to the wet slurping of ‘darlin’,’ but totally imagining someone else.
As soon as I pictured Bailey on her knees for me in Hawaii, my dick became impossibly hard. “Fuck.”
I was angry and pissed off, frustrated that she was breaching my senses when I was trying to fuck her out of them. Worryingly, my cock was still searching for the one girl I was desperately trying to forget.
“Off!” With a pop she did as I demanded and released me from her mouth.
“Condom,” she rasped, and as I was reaching around for my wallet to find one, she was already tearing one off a string of them held in her purse.
Needing Bailey in my head to get hard was pissing me off enough, but I was definitely not trusting some two-bit hookup bitch with the protection tools. As I slapped the condom out of her hands and commenced with my own, she just shrugged her shoulders and waited for me to get gloved up. A small bit of respect for her poked at my brain, you had to respect a girl for going after what she wanted, it wasn’t only men who needed to get laid these days.
I let her watch me pull my belt from the loops of my pants and then pushed her to the bed. Before she could complain, her ass was in the air and I was looping her upper arms to her thighs. I wanted what I wanted, and her getting handsy or involved in the action wasn’t in my plans tonight.
Most decent girls would have protested, but this little toy only pushed her ass up higher for me. There was no foreplay, this was about pure, raw fucking and I was chasing a brutal rhythm.
“Harder,” she breathed out.
The woman who had last demanded that from me breached my mind again, causing the rage to swell. Darlin’ got just what she’d asked for, with more than a little bit of aggression thrown in for good fun.
When she finally came with all the expected theatrics, I let my load loose, feeling only mildly entertained. I unclasped the belt from her body, and she collapsed in a pile. I pulled my pants up, but only closed the clasp as I lifted her up and put her feet to the floor. Fortunately, she was satisfied, at least one of us was, and she reached for her dress, throwing it over her head.
“Thanks.” She smiled, reached up on her toes to kiss me and then headed for the door.
I hadn’t even got the used condom off my fucking dick before she’d cut and run. I shouldn’t be complaining that she’d got her rocks off and left, no one wanted that post orgasm, awkward chat, but this was the other extreme and I wasn’t used to someone else taking the departure lead. I did the kicking out.
Something else that she-devil Bailey Roach had done to me, lulled me into a false sense of romance and security.
My dick reminded me of its sticky prison and was itching to be set free, and thankfully, I managed to wrap the condom in tissue paper and discard it without looking in the bathroom mirror.
Flicking on the shower, I got rid of my clothes, desperate to wash Darlin’ off me, and that was when I made the mistake of glancing at my reflection. It was so fucking sad and depressing that I couldn’t even muster up being angry anymore.
I just fucking missed Bailey Roach.
It was that simple.
I missed what she’d tempted me with. I missed how she made me feel and how it felt to be with her.
It was like grieving but without the death.
Unable to look at the sad ass bastard I’d become, the rage finally stepped forward and took over. Hurtling my fist towards the face in the mirror removed my sad ass reflection instantly.
The problem was I knew the source of my despair wasn’t going to be as easy to remove, Bailey was already scattered and embedded like shards of broken glass in every corner of my mind and heart, body and soul.
Chapter Eighteen
More coffee and donuts the next morning didn’t help.
Bishop was right, if I carried on eating that way, I’d have a gut. I wouldn’t need a mirror to tell me that my definition was becoming a little soft around the middle.
Bishop nodded towards my hands. “Should I be worried about your cut knuckles, or more importantly, who was on the receiving end?”
“No.”
“No asshole lying somewhere in an ER or dark alley?” If Bishop was anything, he was persistent.
I ignored him.
Irritatingly, he carried on. “Is there a bitch’s body somewhere I need to deal with?”
“No. An accident with the mirror while shaving.”
Bishop looked at me, then looked at my beard, and smirked.
“Whatever. They’ll charge it to my card.” I didn’t care. I could afford to replace all their mirrors and buy the place, if I felt so inclined.
“If not being with her does this to you, then fuck Jameson and go for it.”
“Says the man who wouldn’t let me fuck his sister either.” I leaned forward and like a child, spun the volume knob on the radio until the noise of it bounced off the head lining of the car’s interior.
Bishop leaned forward like a frustrated parent and turned it down, which was surprising, after my last comment I expected his head to explode, but he wasn’t biting. “You either have to go for it or get it out of your system and I’m not talking about busting up mirrors.”
“I did. Didn’t work.” There I’d admitted it to someone, although which one I was admitting to, he wouldn’t know.
“Then back to my original suggestion, sort it out with Bailey.”
“I repeat,” I growled. “Would you be offering the same advice if the girl was Bella?”
“Low fucking blow, brother.”
“Thought not,” I mumbled, going for smug, but not quite feeling it.
Bishop went quiet and I watched as he checked his mirrors and swerved to the side of the road braking at speed. In a few seconds he’d pulled off a dusty emergency stop and swung his door open. “Get out,” he beckoned.
I looked at him through the windshield as he rolled up his shirt sleeves. I knew that look on his face and understood his tactic. It was what we were trained to do.
Spill the beans or fight it out. Doing neither wasn’t an option. Bottling shit up made us sloppy, careless and in my position, I couldn’t afford to be either.
Dealing with it like this was what I was used to. “Let’s fucking do this.” My blood spiked hungry for the outlet he was offering.
“You get one good hit to my face, and I’ll give you a free shot,” he taunted.
“I get one good hit in and I won’t need another.”
We duked our fists and began to circle each other on the side of the road, looking completely ridiculous. Two grown men in suit pants and business shirts, getting ready to grapple shit out.
“Make your move, Boss.” Bishop smirked.
We were an even match, we always had been, he was my brother from another mother, and he knew my moves and exactly how to counter them.
“She’s suffering too,” he whispered, throwing me completely off my game and my whole body stilled.
“Fuck you say?”
“Bailey. Looks like her whole world has fucking imploded. Whatever is going on, one of you needs to man the fuck up and call it or sort it before it consumes you both.”
The words weren’t making any sense, my brain was still computing that Bishop, my right hand man, had intervened in my personal business. It was then that I finally lunged at him, and expecting it, he deftly side stepped, whipped an elbow up and drove it into my back. The sharp rap to my kidney caused me to stumble and roar in frustration.
“What happened, Zane?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
I rushed him again, but my fighting tactic was way off, this was what she did to me. All I could think a
bout was Bailey. My strategizing, my fight training, my goddamn brain had upped and left all because I was consumed by her and her alone.
And I couldn’t let that happen. My father always taught me that pussy would come and go, but family and business, that shit lasted beyond a lifetime.
“What the fuck is wrong with you. Other shit is going down, and I need your head in the game, brother.”
I swung a punch which he blocked and followed with a back hand to my jaw. It was nothing serious, none of it was going to hurt me. He was playing it defensively, just like I would if the roles were reversed.
“I had it and lost it,” I panted and swung again.
“Had what?”
Saying it hurt my pride, but it felt better, not weak like I expected. It was cathartic, like smashing up the Hawaii house.
“She’s the only thing I ever wanted but never took. I chanced it. I put myself out there and she fucking called it.”
“Then move on.”
“To what?”
“Whatever the fuck it takes to put her in the rearview.”
“How?” I roared and leaned against the side of the car, flexing my still crusty knuckles from last night.
“You know exactly what it takes to be us. You just don’t want to do it.” As astute as ever, my friend called it. “Turn her, make her family, real fucking family, or end it, Zane. Before she’s the end of you.”
Giving up was nearly unthinkable, but not as unthinkable as turning her into something cold and dangerous like me.
“Do it, Zane. This life—”
“Exactly. This life…” I was blunt in my interruption. “It’s not for her.”
His eyes flashed but not with anger, with relief. I’d always suspected that he was only still in this for me, but that look told me Bishop knew where his loyalty was, and he’d be in this until his heart stopped, or mine.
“Either stop being a pussy and fight for her—”
“Jameson.” I interrupted with the one word that explained everything.
“Stop being a pussy and letting him dictate your life. Bailey’s life.”
I stopped.
For a brief second, I considered it, truly making her mine, but then years of how my mother suffered loving my father, and his commitment to the family business flashed before me. Decades of how she was never really the priority in his life and what that did to her, became pitifully apparent. I loved Bailey, but by saving her from that, did it prove I loved her more than I wanted to admit?
I think so. It was that simple.
She deserved someone who would hang the moon and stars in their own backyard if she asked them, and I couldn’t do that. I had too much responsibility and she would never be safe because of me.
“No. It’s better this way,” I breathed. Feeling the words spill from me like poison, but knowing they were the truth.
Bishop knew he’d worked me to a more settled place for now. “Good. Can we liven this shit up a bit now, this road trip sucks, and all because you’re man-struating.”
“Fucker.”
And just like that we were done.
And if there was one thing I was known for, it was making a decision and seeing it through.
A couple of hours after our confrontation, we’d pulled in at some dodgy roadside diner where we’d eaten some questionable food. Finally getting back on the road, our fight was forgotten, but the reason behind it still pecked at my brain when Bish nudged me.
“You actually gonna answer that?” he asked, glancing away from the road to me.
My cell had been red hot, with Jameson going to his usual efforts to get hold of me. For some reason though he wasn’t taking the hints and giving up when I refused to answer.
“No.”
“Who is it, anyway?” He watched me reject Jameson’s sixth attempt and repocket my cell. As I did so, his cell, which was linked to the car’s audio system sprang into life.
“Bastard,” I grumbled.
“Jameson,” Bishop answered, by pushing the buttons on his steering wheel before I could figure out how to reject it on the car’s console.
“Figure you’re with him.”
“Yeah.”
“You listening, motherfucker?”
For the second time today, it irked that the people closest to me knew me like I was linked to their DNA.
“He’s listening,” Bishop laughed knowing full well the point I was making by continuing to ignore him.
“That dinner date. Location’s changed, it’s at Bailey’s.”
I felt my heart trip at hearing her name. I would work on that, so it didn’t feel like it was being ripped out, just sort of torn instead. It would die eventually.
Hopefully.
“We won’t be back,” Bishop answered, giving me an out. “We’re on the road.”
“You’ll be back. Gran decrees it so and she’s not a fan of Bailey’s new man. She’s relying on Zane to make him… uncomfortable and scram.”
Bishop looked at me with a raised brow. I knew he was testing me, but all I wanted to do was torture the person who thought he was man enough to follow me into her bed.
Gran was a force to be reckoned with. Bailey usually ignored Jameson’s protests about whichever twat she was dating, but when gran started to enlist my help to see them off it became fun for him to watch.
If the cock-sure pissant ever thought that he was in with a real chance of becoming ‘Mr. Bailey Roach’ Gran and I had been known to become an amusing double act. My role had been to get the prick in a dark corner of the house and alert them to the danger of dating Bailey, then Gran stepped in to swing the final blow to their ego. And, like the gentleman I was, when they pissed their pants and ran, I’d always let Gran take the credit.
Not this time though.
This time she was going to get a message. They were all going to get the message.
“Like I said,” Bishop repeated, “we may not be—”
“I’ll be there,” I cut him off, finally entering the conversation and ending the call abruptly. “Turn this heap around. We’ll take turns behind the wheel.”
“You sure about this?”
“Oh yeah. Time to cut out the cancer,” I mumbled.
I was going to blow this whole charade to hell.
Fuck Jameson, he couldn’t expect me to be on hand to deal with her fuck ups one minute and then slap me down for wanting her the next.
Fuck Bailey, she couldn’t taunt and tease me one minute and then discard me the next.
The Roach twins were going to get a taste of my mood and I only hoped Gran didn’t hate me too much for it.
Bishop waited for the radio station to kick back in before he mumbled, “If I was a betting man, I’d say he might not be expecting this Zane at dinner.”
“Guess both the Roach twins are in for a shock then.”
I looked out over the landscape rushing by, my brain spinning over the possibilities of what could be again.
“You know she’s playing you right?” he questioned.
“Used to it. Only her game time just ran out.”
“Almost wished I’d got a seat at that table myself.”
Then a plan hit me. “Gonna ask a favor.”
“I’m listening.”
“Need to borrow Bella to come to a family dinner with me.”
For the second time that day, Bishop screeched the car to a stop and this time, I didn’t think he’d wait for me to get out. I was pretty sure he’d peel back my car door and drag me out. But he didn’t, he just looked at me. “You hurt her, we won’t ever make it back from that.”
“Not gonna touch her. Well not seriously anyway.”
“You lay a finger on her, brother or boss it won’t matter. I’ll make you eat your own gun.” The venom in his eyes told me he was serious. No second chances, no misunderstandings.
If I mistreated his sister in my quest to get one up on Bailey, I’d lose. This could be the mother of all disruptions.
N
o matter who I was, no one fucked around with Bella Bishop.
Chapter Nineteen
My plan was probably a bad one and judging by the way Bishop was keen to slice my balls off and feed them to me, I wasn’t going to disagree with him. I was never good at dealing with my rage in the best of circumstances, but on occasions where I knew someone was trying to push my buttons, well… that rage was already on a loose leash. I did agree that it was best that he let Bella know what the fuck was going on, I owed her that. Plus, it stopped her getting the wrong idea and Bishop dragging me to the woods in the early hours of the morning and leaving my body in a shallow grave. He was more than capable; I’d seen him do it multiple times.
When people joked and said they knew where the bodies were buried, in our case we were deadly serious.
So, in the spirit of being open I agreed to a car and a driver, what I didn’t realize until that car and driver arrived was that it was fucking Bishop.
“Do you not trust me?” I asked with a smirk.
“With her. Fuck no.”
“I thought you told her the game plan.”
He nodded his head and the look in his eyes told me there was no way I was getting rid of him. “This fucked-up game of yours goes south, I know exactly what will happen. Bailey will push your buttons and you won’t ease up until you’ve proved your point and whatever that looks like in your head, won’t involve my baby sister.”
Sighing, I grabbed my jacket and keys and stepped out of the door. “I promised you I wouldn’t.”
Bishop stepped up real close to me, normally having my space invaded like that would have started a chain reaction. One that would keep going until I’d won the power battle and they were no longer there, but this was Bishop.
“She’s the only thing in my world that’s not fucked up and it’s gonna stay that way,” he ground out.
We drove to Bella’s house, and when he pulled up behind her Prius, Bishop shook his head again. “Could buy her anything she wants, and she chooses that piece of shit.”
“No one’ll jack it.”
“Even the carjackers think it’s a piece of shit.”
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