by Jenika Snow
Evernight Publishing
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2013 Jenika Snow
ISBN: 978-1-77130-468-9
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: Cheryl Harper
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
This is for JC and CC. Thanks for helping me pick the title that was the starting point for these characters' story. I don't know what I'd do without you two.
FALLING FOR TROUBLE
Jenika Snow
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Six years ago
Sophia sat on the old, half broken deck, her feet dangling off the sides, the cool water lapping at her toes. Sometimes if she just closed her eyes, she could imagine herself in another world, one where everything was good and right. The only problem was she eventually had to open her eyes and come face-to-face with reality.
“You’re thinking again, Kid.” Abe sat beside her, nudging his shoulder against hers. Even at sixteen Abe was big, with hard lines of muscles and long limbs. They had been through a lot together, and if not for him, she would have crumbled at the first opportunity.
Sophia turned and looked at him, the setting sun causing a swatch of golden color to slash across his too-handsome face. Just looking at him caused Sophia’s heart to race. Dark hair swooped across his forehead, and his eyes, so blue they almost seemed unreal, stared back at her. He was trouble with a capital T.
There wasn’t a girl in town that didn’t want Abe Rochester, and there wasn’t a girl he didn’t like to give that time to…well, except her. He didn’t look at her like he did the other girls: all half-lidded gazes, smooth words, and a smile that dropped panties left and right. No, Abe looked at her like a little sister, and for the first time in her life she thought that really sucked.
“Thinking is about all I can do anymore.” She smiled, not really knowing what she meant by that comment or if it even made any sense. Being around Abe seemed to cause the wires in her brain to malfunction all at once. It was like overnight she had realized she cared for him as more than her best friend.
His big hand covered hers and she turned her gaze back toward the pond. The sun was just starting to set and the light hit the water, casting tiny crystalline shards across the silky top.
“One day all of this isn’t going to matter, Sophie girl.” His hand tightened on hers and she moved closer, resting her head on his shoulder. “The shitty things that happened to you, the asshats that think they can mess with you, everything, Soph.” She knew he was right. “I’m always going to look out for you, Kidd, always.”
Sophia didn’t doubt Abe’s words, but there was always doubt inside of her, always the fear that her life would always be like this.
“You think too hard, Soph.”
She lifted her head and looked up at him. “Sometimes you can’t just erase what happened and look for a brighter future.”
Pain danced behind his eyes and he looked away. His jaw tightened. For several long moments nothing was said, but the emotions were thick enough to suffocate her.
“I know, but when life gives you an ugly hand, you have to lean on the people that love you and hope that they will see you through.” He looked at her again and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Sophia, and that will never change. Even if I have to try with my last breath, I’m going to make things better for you.”
She really hoped that was the truth, but sometimes the ugliness in people’s lives didn’t stay in the past.
****
Present day
“Hey, baby. How ’bout you and me go back to your place for a little fun?”
Sophia rolled her eyes as she poured three shots of Crown. The woman who spoke sidled up to Abe, her best friend for as long as could remember. She wore a top that looked like it belonged on the beach and a jean skirt so short there was no doubt in Sophia’s mind that she’d get a clear shot of her pussy when she bent over.
She slid one of the shots to Abe and he smiled in thanks. The girl, who she thought was named Maxine or Maxi…something like that, rubbed her huge tits on Abe’s thick, tattooed arm. He looked over at her and let his eyes travel over her scantily clad body. Despite that this wasn’t uncommon behavior for Abe, Sophia hated watching it all go down. This was the regular whenever Abe came to Tiny’s, the bar she worked at. He was a gorgeous man, all six foot three inches of him. His muscles and tattoos tended to make guys leery of him, but there was always that one drunken asshole that thought he could take Abe. Obviously they didn’t know Abe’s reputation. There were a few times he got a shiner, but if Sophia was being honest, he had deserved them. When he screwed around with another man’s girlfriend, it tended to piss off the boyfriend, and when alcohol was in the mix, people thought they were invincible.
Abe Rochester was considered the town bad boy. He may have been dubbed “Trouble”, but Sophia knew a different side of him, a side that wasn’t drunk every other day, getting into brawls, and fucking anything with a pussy. He was the boy she had followed to the fishing hole when they were ten, the guy that held her when she was fifteen and crying because Frankie Gutten had called her ugly, and the same one that beat the shit out of Frankie for saying she was ugly. He was also her best friend and the one she had to all but carry home on several occasions because he was too drunk to find his way. How many times had she taken off his shirt and shoes and tucked his grown ass in bed? Too many too count, but she would continue to do it because she was a fool in love with her best friend.
“How much do I owe ya, Kid?” Abe took his wallet out and pulled out a twenty before handing it over to Sophia. She hated when he called her Kid, a silly nickname he had given her when they were little. She supposed the nickname was inevitable since her name was Sophia Kidd, and she’d prefer Abe use it than some asshole trying to be witty. She was bound to have someone calling her that.
She took the twenty and handed him his change. He shook his head and stood. Abe always gave her the change as a tip even if the bill had been two bucks and he gave her a twenty. She’d learned early on that it would do no good to argue with him, so she smiled and tucked the money in her back pocket. Maybe he thought it was her small fee for putting up with his shit over and over again. She smiled at her thoughts.
He stood and grabbed Maxi or whatever her name was around the waist. The light hit her seriously bad dye job. The dark roots stood out on top of Maxi’s head, and Sophia could see that she was far older than she originally appeared.
Lines crinkled around her eyes and mouth, but the woman had attempted to cover it up with a thick layer of foundation. The end result made her look like some kind of wax mannequin. It was so not attractive, but then again Abe wasn’t the type to care so much what the face looked like. What he focused on was what was between her legs. Disgust slammed into Sophia at the thought that he was taking home yet another random girl. This was the third one of the week, and there were still four more days to go.
“You good, Kid?” Abe looked over his shoulder at her and she nodded. He always asked her this before he left the bar. Well, when he was sober enough to actually walk out.
Tiny’s was only a few blocks from his house, a small cottage-style home that his parents left him when they both died in a car accident years ago. On the
nights he knew he wasn’t going to be getting drunk, he took his Harley out, a beautiful FXDC Dyna Super Glide that he had customized himself. Sophia wasn’t into motorcycles like that, but there was something darkly sexy about seeing Abe ride up on that machine, his white T-shirt and tattoos, worn denim jeans, and black boots making him appear as dangerous as he really was.
He turned around and leaned over the counter to kiss Sophia on the cheek. He could be sweet when he wanted to. He stalked out, the tattoos covering his back visible through his shirt.
“Girl, when are you going to tell him?”
Sophia looked away and finished drying the glasses she’d just washed. Steph, the other bartender, wiped down the counter beside her. “I mean, it’s clear as day you got it bad for that boy, yet you don’t have the balls to tell him. Why?”
Sophia turned and stared at the other woman. Steph was in her late thirties, but the world had not been good to her. Weathered and rough, she looked like the kind of woman who’d ride on the back of a chopper, her eighties-style hair blowing behind her and her tits practically hanging out. Steph had lost her husband, a big guy named Zachariah, a year ago. Sophia didn’t know the details, but she knew he had been in some kind of motorcycle club. There had been rumors floating around their small town about illegal shit happening with rival clubs and how Zachariah had died as a result of that. For a long time Steph had been in bad shape over it, and rightly so, but each day she got better.
Sighing loudly, Sophia didn’t know how to respond. Everyone knew how close she and Abe were. Hell, she had lived in this shitty little town her whole life. With a mother who had cared more about her next fix than her daughter and a father who had left before she was born, Sophia learned the hard way how to get through life. Abe had been there through it all. Sophia didn’t want to think where she would be right now if Abe hadn’t been in her life.
“Listen to me, honey.” Steph leaned in close and the smell of stale cigarettes wafted over Sophia. Being so close to Steph showed her just how worn out the woman really was.
Her gray eyes were hard and spoke of a thousand different lives. She knew her way around the world and pushed away anyone that was in her way. She didn’t give a shit if people got hurt. Sophia sometimes wished she could be like that, so hard and unworried about what others thought. She wasn’t made that way, though.
She cared what others thought of her and hated that she had to see girls fawning over Abe on a nightly basis, that he didn’t push them off, and that he always took them home. Sophia was a fool to think there was more to him than what was projected on the outside. He was rough and gritty, didn’t give two shits about what others thought, and lived his life to the fullest.
There had been so many times throughout their lives that Abe had been her shoulder to cry on, her personal bodyguard, and the only person that had showed her any kind of affection. All those nights staring up at the stars, holding her hand like he thought she would float away and never come back. Or those times she’d rested her head on his chest and they’d talked for hours about their fears and what they wanted out of life. It was all those things and more that she thought of when the bad stuff reared up.
The truth was, Sophia loved Abe with all her heart, was madly in love with him, yet she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. For years she had suffered with her feelings, knowing that there was no way he felt the same for her. Abe only saw her as a little sister, the awkward and gangly teenager, despite the fact they were both twenty-two.
She didn’t bother denying her feelings to Steph. Hell, she had admitted as much in the backroom after closing when shots of Patrón were being passed around. But Steph was good people and would never sell her out to anyone.
“It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. Even if he did have feelings for me, Abe isn’t the type of guy to settle down and I am not the type of girl to share.” Sophia shook her head and put the last glass away. “Besides, it’s pretty damn clear there are no feelings for me where Abe is concerned. I’ve known him pretty much my whole life, and he’s never hinted at feeling anything for me besides brotherly love.”
Steph didn’t say anything, just stared at her with eyes that knew far too much. She opened her mouth to say something, but a whole slew of customers swarmed the bar and started throwing out drink orders. This was the distraction Sophia needed. It certainly helped her not think about what Abe was doing right now with Maxi, or Macie, or whatever the hell her name was.
Chapter Two
It was going on nine in the morning, and despite that it was still early in Abe time, Sophia walked up his front steps and knocked on the door. Although Abe had told her to just walk in, that knocking on his door was for people that weren’t her, she did it for two reasons. One, she wanted to be polite because she would expect the same kind of treatment, from Abe or anyone else. Two, she wanted to give whatever female he had dragged home the previous night time to throw on clothes. She had learned long ago that she shouldn’t walk in on Abe Rochester. It didn’t matter that his bedroom was at the far corner of the house because she had seen him and his nightly conquests on the couch, the floor, and even the kitchen table, both passed out cold and buck naked.
Several long moments passed and finally she heard shuffling on the other side of the door. It was pulled open and a very tired, disheveled, and extremely good-looking Abe stood on the other side. He only wore a pair of boxer briefs. They were white and left nothing to the imagination. Although she had seen Abe naked plenty of times, either swimming at the lake or by accidentally walking in on him the morning after he had been with some girl, she never could get over how everything was so…impressive.
Dark brown hair, cut short but long enough that he could run his hands through it, stuck up slightly around his head. He was big and muscular, so very muscular. She supposed that was what happened when a man worked at a mechanics shop, lifting heavy engines and pushing metal around.
His arms were covered in tattoos, so many that only bits and pieces of his tanned flesh were visible through the ink. His chest had tattoos also, one on each pec and another that snaked around his side and disappeared to his back. She knew the back was just as impressive as the front, all hard lines of sinew and tendon that moved, with sharp lines and dark ink that covered the flesh. All in all, he looked sexy and dangerous, and every time she saw him, her panties became so wet they chafed.
“Kid?” His voice was deep and rough, the kind that she imagined made all the girls roll over in the morning and spread their legs. He scrubbed a hand over his face and blinked a few times, his eyes opening wider despite the bright sun. She could get lost in those blue depths. They were light, so very blue and clear that they reminded her of still waters.
“Damn, girl, do you ever sleep in?” He stepped aside and she entered. He smelled like booze and sex, and she fought the bile rising in her throat. It wasn’t that it was a particularly unpleasant scent, but knowing he smelled like sex because of what he did last night, probably all night long, made her queasy.
“Why do you act surprised when I show up?” Abe wasn’t the type of guy to cuddle with his “women” after sex. She had seen them do the walk of shame as early as seven in the morning. That was, of course, when she used to come over earlier than nine. She had since learned that, if she didn’t want to see, she needed to start making later trips to his house.
“I’m not surprised, sweetheart.” He sat at the kitchen table and rested his head in his hands. “You know I’m glad to see you, always.” He lifted his head and smiled at her. “Hangover and all.” He winked and she felt her insides melt. Of course she didn’t let it show on the outside.
At first she had been coming over to make sure he was alright and still alive. She would make him breakfast and get him back to the land of the living, and then it just kind of turned into their thing.
“I take it Maxi’s gone?” She opened the fridge to get the ingredients for an omelet.
“Who?”
She glanced
over her shoulder and cocked a brow at him.
“Oh, you mean the girl that I fucked last night.”
Sophia turned away from him just as she winced.
“Do you have to be so damn crass?” She knew her voice sounded hard, but she couldn’t help it. Jealousy was an ugly bitch.
“Sorry, Kid. I kicked her ass out at the crack of dawn.”
She was used to the way he was and a part of her felt really bad for those girls, but those girls knew how Abe Rochester was. Everyone in three neighboring towns knew exactly that he was the bad boy. Despite all of that they flocked to him like bees to honey.
She exhaled and put the ingredients on the counter before grabbing a knife and mixing bowl. He now rested his head on the table, and she knew he had to feel like shit, although he had been relatively fine when he’d left Tiny’s.
“You drank more when you got home, didn’t you?” She started cutting up the peppers and tomatoes and tossing them in the bowl. He didn’t answer right away but she heard him sigh. She cut up the ham and threw that in as well. The eggs were next and then a little splash of milk. She always added a little milk.
He finally made an affirmative noise and she shook her head. After pouring the eggs into the pan, she grabbed a spatula. When the omelet was done, she cut it in half, poured him a full glass of water, and grabbed two ibuprofens. She set the plate, glass, and two oblong brown pills in front of him and took her seat. He looked up at her, and even in his very hung-over state, he was the most handsome man she had ever seen.
“Go on, stud, eat.” She tended to tease him about his promiscuous ways, but she did it to compensate for how she really felt. It was just easier that way. He made a face at the food and grabbed the water and pills first.