All for nothing. He’d been Joseph’s all along, and the guy had still hated him.
Something shuddered through him that he didn’t recognize, but he ignored it, concentrating instead on the silence and the blankness, because they were the only two things holding him together right at this particular moment in time. Jesus, if he let go of them…
“Get out, Ava,” he grated out. “I’m not in the mood right now.”
But she only looked right back at him. “No. I’m not going anywhere.”
Another shudder of that weird thing he didn’t understand, and he thought it might be anger, but it felt more complicated than that, wrapped up in too many other things for him to figure out. It was also dangerous and he didn’t want to let it out, not with her around, not when he had no fucking idea what he would do.
He tried to reach for his usual store of bullshit, but he couldn’t think of what to say. It was like that part of himself had gone, the usual comebacks and quips vanished completely out of his head. That shuddering thing lurched in response, and he had to take a sharp breath. Fuck, his hands were going numb too. What the hell was the matter with him?
“You don’t want to be around me right now,” he said flatly. “And I sure as hell don’t want to be around you. So how about you do the both of us a fucking solid and get out of the fucking car?”
“No,” Ava insisted. “Not after that. You look like you’re in shock.”
“I’m not in fucking shock!” The words came out of him far louder than he’d intended and he had to grip the wheel tighter, as if that would turn the volume down or something. “Like I said,” he said more quietly, “I’m not in fucking shock. Troy not being my dad isn’t a big deal.”
The streetlight washed her face with a strange white glow, making her freckles visible under her makeup, turning her copper eyes almost silver. With her red curls and white outfit, she didn’t look much like the wholesome cop who’d walked into Sugar Daddy’s that first night. She looked…fuck, like the kind of hottie who knew her way around a pole and a man’s cock.
Except the look in her eyes wasn’t a stripper’s mix of come-on and boredom. No, Ava was looking at him as if she actually gave a shit. And it made that weird shuddering reaction inside him even more intense.
“Come inside, Rush.”
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck do you think you can do for me?” The edge of the steering wheel dug into his fingers. “Give me milk and cookies? Well, I hate to break it to you, that’s not gonna fix things this time.”
A deep crease appeared between her red-gold brows. “What are you going to do, then? Where are you going to go?”
He had no idea. He had no idea about anything. The blankness seemed to stretch out inside him like a highway heading straight into the dark. There seemed to be no end to it. Because he didn’t know what to do or where to go. All he knew was that it was all pointless. Every single thing he’d done had been because he’d believed a lie. And now that the lie had been revealed, what did he have left?
Nothing.
“To Sugar Daddy’s,” he said, because that was the first thing that occurred to him. Hell, maybe if he drank enough and buried his cock in enough pussy, he’d figure out what the hell he was supposed to do next. “Find Candy. Get drunk, then get fucked.”
Ava stared at him a long minute, searching his face for God knew what. “No,” she said for what seemed like the millionth annoying time. “Stay here with me instead.”
That weird emotion shuddered through him so hard it felt like someone had struck him with an ax, and he had to grind his teeth together to hold himself still. “Are you kidding me?” he demanded hoarsely, trying to shove the emotion away. “You’re not what I fucking want right now.”
She’d gone very pale, her freckles standing out on her skin like a sprinkle of golden sand. “I may not be what you want. But I think I might be what you need.”
He didn’t want to move, not even a little, because that strange emotional reaction was getting stronger and stronger, and he was afraid any movement at all would make it escape.
“If you want to get drunk,” Ava went on when he didn’t say anything, “there’s Dad’s brandy. And if you want to…to get fucked, well…” Her gaze was very direct. “There’s me.”
His instinct was to say Fuck no. Because there was no way he should be anywhere near her, not when he was feeling like this, when his whole life had fallen down around his ears and was still in the process of smashing him into little pieces. He didn’t want to be around anyone who knew him, most especially not her.
Why? Because then she’ll figure out what a piece of shit you are? Why the fuck should you care?
After all, his old man hadn’t, so why should he?
“You’re right,” he said, the ghost of his own mocking self edging the words. “Hell, why pay for it when I’ve got everything I need right here and for free?” He reached forward and turned off the engine. “Show me what you got, then.”
She didn’t even blink. “Not in the car. Let’s find a bed this time.”
He lifted a shoulder. Didn’t matter to him where it was as long as he could bury everything inside her.
They both got out of the truck, Rush following her up the stairs to the front door. Ava fumbled for her keys, unlocking the door and pushing it open. He came in after her, kicking the door shut behind him. She’d put down her purse and was heading down the hallway, but he reached for her, his hands landing on her hips, holding her still.
“Where the fuck are you going?” he murmured, because if she was going to offer this, then he wanted it now, no screwing around.
“I was going to get you something to drink.” Her voice was slightly breathless.
Rush pulled her back against him, fitting the round curve of her ass against his groin, the soft, giving pressure of it exactly the kind of thing his cock really liked. And right on cue, he felt himself get hard.
Oh yeah, she was right. This was what he needed. A warm body and a wet pussy.
You need her.
The weird emotion began to uncoil inside him, an aching, hungry thing that he tried to shove away, because this wasn’t about emotion. This was about distraction. This was about escape.
This was about trying to forget that piece of paper lying on the floor telling him that his whole fucking life had been a gigantic waste of time.
“I don’t want a drink.” He flexed his hips, pushing the ridge of his cock against her. “I want you fucking naked already.” Tightening his grip on her, he turned her toward the stairs and gave her a little push. “Upstairs. Your room.”
She didn’t protest, starting forward, wobbling a bit on her heels as she began to climb. He knew he should let go of her to make it easier, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was as if he needed something to hold on to for sanity’s sake and she was it.
Reaching the top of the stairs, she went down the hallway, only to pause outside her bedroom door. “There’s only a single bed.”
Like he didn’t know that. It had only been a few days since he’d woken up in it, the world’s worst hangover beating down the walls of his skull. He didn’t care. If anything, it only made this whole thing hotter. Debauching the sheriff’s little girl in her own pink and white bedroom? Fuck yeah. And besides, why should he make the effort to be a good guy anyway? There wasn’t any reason to. Sure, she apparently thought there was still something good inside him, but she was wrong.
He was a bad motherfucker through and through.
“Inside,” he ordered, urging her forward so that she had no choice but to open the door and step through the doorway.
So much pink and white shit. Those fucking cop posters on the wall. Jesus, this was going to be perfect. Getting her naked and spreading her out on the bed, doing all the things he wanted with her. Doing them and not giving a shit about anything. Finally.
The blankness inside him was beginning to recede, leaving room for that complicated anger
to bubble up inside him, but he shoved it hard away, concentrating instead on the lust that was shooting fire through him, that was making him breathless, because that was easier, simpler.
Ava turned as he kicked the door shut, but he didn’t waste any time. “Get your clothes off, right fucking now.”
She didn’t protest, her hands going to that stupid top and shrugging it up and off. There was no bra under it, and when her tits bounced free, the lust inside him turned over, tightening.
He reached for his own T-shirt, pulling it over his head before dropping it carelessly on the floor. Then he took off his boots, kicking them aside, his hands moving to the zipper on his jeans.
Ava had reached for the ties of her sandals, but there was no way he was letting her take those off. They were sexy as fuck. “No,” he ordered. “Leave them on.”
She straightened, the look in her eyes assessing, as if she was weighing whether to obey him or not. Then she gave a small shrug and pushed down her skirt instead, taking her panties right along with them.
Desire hit him like a sucker punch, like that fucking wrecking ball again, knocking through the ruins of his life and collapsing everything that had remained standing the first time around. It left him almost shaking, and he didn’t know why.
This was supposed to be a distraction. This was supposed to make him feel good. But he didn’t feel good; he felt raw and desperate. He felt that anger crawling through the cracks Troy’s revelation had left in him, through the cold blankness that had filled him since leaving the ranch. Anger and grief and an aching need for something he didn’t have a name for.
Yeah, you do. The name you’re looking for is Ava.
“Get on the fucking bed.” He tried to think of something else to say, something mocking and stupid and rude, but it was like reaching into the darkness and groping around for something that wasn’t there.
Again she did what she was told, going over to her bed and lying down on it, all pink skin and gold freckles and the glowing embers of her hair.
She’s right. It’s not someone you need. It’s her.
The little girl with the red curls and the shy smile. Chattering to him about her mother, then asking him questions about his mom. Telling him about her dolls and what she’d done at school that day, looking at him as if she didn’t see the badness in him. As if it wasn’t even there…
Savagely he ripped down his zipper and shoved his jeans and boxers off, trying to ignore the voice in his head and the memories, because he didn’t need her. He didn’t need anyone and he never had. And after what he’d learned tonight, he’d never fucking need anyone ever again.
She could have walked away and left you to marinate in your own self-pity, you fucking coward. But she didn’t. She’s here and she’s here for you. When has anyone anywhere been there for you?
The question echoed in his head and he tried not to listen to it, because he didn’t want to know the answer. Because that would be admitting something he didn’t want to feel. Something complicated and huge and painful. Something he wasn’t ready for and would never be ready for.
So instead he crossed to the bed, looking down at her.
Christ, she was a pretty thing, all white skin and freckles, with glints of gold in her copper eyes. But that gaze of hers was too open, too vulnerable, reminding him that she wasn’t just some stripper he’d picked up for a good time. She was Ava, the sheriff’s daughter. The girl he used to babysit. The woman who ignored all that shit he spouted, who was stubborn and determined, and loyal. The woman who seemed to see something in him, though what, he didn’t have any fucking clue.
And she was wrong anyway. There was nothing in him. Nothing at all. No one else had seen it; why should she?
Ah, fuck, don’t listen if you don’t want to, but here’s the answer anyway. No one’s ever been there for you, shithead. No one at all. Yet here she is, spreading her legs for you, letting you do whatever you like to her.
But he shook his head because he didn’t want to be reminded of who she was to him, still less that she was in any way special. He didn’t want to be reminded that he cared.
Instead he got onto the bed, put his hands on her knees, spread them wide, and pushed the voice of his goddamn conscience way the fuck out of his head.
—
Ava tried to keep still. Tried to lie there and relax, but it was impossible.
Rush’s large, warm hands were on her knees and she quivered, unable to stop herself as he pushed them even wider.
He was just so…God. He was everything.
He’d seen her naked before, but she hadn’t seen him. And now he was and she finally got why women went out of their heads for naked men.
She’d never understood it before. Intellectually, yes, but she’d never really felt it herself, had never met a man she was interested in seeing naked. She’d been too busy proving herself at school or at the academy, too busy trying to be the cop her mother had been, to think about men and their nakedness.
Until now. Until Rush knelt between her thighs without a stitch of clothing on him.
Her heartbeat was going insane and she couldn’t stop looking at him.
He was a work of art, every muscle perfectly outlined beneath his inked-up golden skin. Shoulders, chest, the hard six-pack of his abs, the grooves down the side of his hips, all of it beautifully delineated and begging to be touched. Stroked. Caressed.
And then there was his lean waist, the thrust of his cock, and the thick muscle of his thighs as he knelt on the bed…
All of him was beautiful.
The lights were on in the room, catching the gold strands in his hair and making the snaking marks of his scars more obvious. He had them on his torso too, scattered over his skin, small round ones and then long, thin ones.
Something inside her lurched. Had he gotten those in jail? Or before? Who had done that to him? Who had hurt him?
She wanted to ask, but when her gaze finally returned to his, all the questions died in her throat. There was a hard look on his face, his jaw was tight, and he seemed strangely detached. None of the lazy heat that normally glittered in his eyes was there, and he’d gone quiet again. He didn’t look at her face either, his gaze dipping between her thighs.
He urged her knees wider apart, staring down intently at her exposed sex. The position made her feel embarrassed and vulnerable, the muscles in her thighs tightening in an instinctive need to close her legs. But she tried to relax instead, digging her fingers into the sheets beneath her and holding on tight.
She was here for a reason. Sure, part of it was because she wanted him—ever since he’d had her in his truck, she’d been hoping the evening would end up in bed in some way. But another part was doing this not for herself but for him. Because he needed her. And since he wasn’t a milk-and-cookies kind of guy, she had to give him something else. Herself.
Rush’s hands slid up her thighs, sending her heart rocketing around inside her chest and making her breathing accelerate. He was still looking down between her legs, that horrible set expression on his face. There were no smiles, no husky laughs, no cocky, arrogant grins sent in her direction. No outrageous, filthy things murmured in his dark honeyed voice. It was like he’d turned into someone else.
She didn’t like it. For some reason it scared her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, unable to keep quiet any longer. “I mean, I know you were shocked about Troy. But…isn’t it a good thing he’s not your dad?”
Rush didn’t respond immediately. He kept his gaze between her legs, sliding his hands higher, his fingers brushing the folds of her sex. That hard look remained on his face, and yet his touch was gentle, the caress making her thighs quiver. “Sure, it’s a good thing,” he replied softly. “It’s fucking great.” His fingers shifted and she felt him spread her open, her breath catching in her throat as he did so.
“You…don’t s-seem like it’s great,” she pointed out thickly, trying to focus on his face and not what his hands w
ere doing.
His thumbs eased up, stroking over her tender flesh, and she jerked in his grip, an electric shock of pleasure chasing in its wake. “Well, it’s a little difficult to be positive about the fact that your whole fucking life has been a lie.” His thumbs swept down, stroking, sending another arc of pleasure through her. “But I’m sure I’ll come around to the idea eventually.”
She blinked, digging her fingers into the mattress harder, trying to process what he’d said through the slowly gathering haze of pleasure. “What do you mean, your whole life is a lie?”
One thumb shifted, pressing as he dragged it up the center of her sex, making her hips jerk again, tearing a soft groan from her. “You’re talking too much, honey.”
“And y-you’re not talking enough.”
The movement of his thumb paused and he looked up finally. She met his gaze, trying to see past that strange, scary detachment, trying to see through to the man she knew was behind it. The man she wanted.
“What?” he said coldly. “You prefer me talking shit and grinning like a fucking tool? Well, news flash, honey. I’m not that guy. He’s just an asshole I tried on for size, and now I’m over it.” Blue glittered deep in his gaze, icy and bright. “This is who I am, and if you don’t like it, just say the word and I’m out of here.” As he spoke, he stroked the length of her sex again with his thumb, a lazy, slow movement that was somehow at odds with the look on his face and the cold words he said.
Ava fought the tremor that shook her, focusing on him, on the icy glitter in his eyes. No, this wasn’t him, no matter what he said. But somehow the reassuring man with the warm smile who’d held her hand at Troy’s ranch had disappeared and she didn’t know how to get him back.
He shifted all of a sudden, putting one hand down beside her head and leaning over her. She tensed, the heat of his massive, muscular body moving over her skin like the hot Texas sun on a dry June day. That detached gaze of his looked down into her eyes, watching her as he moved his free hand, the pad of his thumb circling around the entrance to her body. She shivered, sucking in a harsh breath as the touch sent sparks of pleasure through her.
Take Me Harder Page 24