“Did you see Jep’s face once Nate was through with him?”
Giving up my ruse, I put my phone down and look at him. “Nate did that? I thought you did.”
Turning his head to look at me, he asks, “Did you want me to? I was going to but Nate beat me to it.”
Musing over his question, I shake my head. “I thought you hurt him because he told me what you said. Why did Nate hurt him?”
“Because he laid hands on you without your consent.”
Shrugging off his simple reasoning, embarrassment builds within me. “I’m kinda used to being touched at your gym without giving my permission.”
Hooligan swings himself in a seated position, reaching forward and dragging my seat closer to him. It makes a scraping sound as it slides across the polished wood floor, making me cringe. Taking my hand, he strokes my knuckles. “I’m really fucking sorry about what I did to you. If I’d known your age, I would’ve kept my hands to myself. Fuck, I should have asked you before I let it get out of hand, regardless of how old you are.”
Yanking my hand free, I sit upright. My tone is cross as I set him straight. “I’m talking about Nate in the locker room that day. Not you.”
Drawing my knees up to my chest, I hug them to me. “You’re the only one I want to touch me. So don’t apologize. And stop using my age as an excuse. I’m perfectly legal already so I’m well within my rights to sleep with who I want. You don’t have to let me down easy. I’m a big girl and you’re not the only man in the world.”
My patience is thin at the best of times, and after tonight it’s non-existent. My temper flares, sparks, then catches alight in the space of half a second, and I climb to my feet. Leaning over Hooligan where he sits, a dumfounded expression on his face, I point a finger at him. “Jep told me that you and Nate feel sorry for me. Well, you can shove that shit sideways up your ass. I don’t need your pity...or your excuses.”
My hand craves to reach out and slap the stupidity off his face. I push down the urge because, although what I’ve said will make spending tonight under his roof uncomfortable, I don’t have any alternative. Tomorrow, I can start looking for a small apartment to rent for me and Cooper. Tonight, however, I am stuck here with nowhere else to go except back home or to suck up to Zali to stay at Devon’s.
And neither of them are really an option.
Not wanting to hear any more excuses or stupid apologies, I storm off in the direction of the room I’m sharing with Cooper. I don’t make it far before I’m spun around and my back is pushed against the nearest wall. Hooligan grabs my hands when I try to hit him and pins them above my head.
“Jep lied to you. Nobody’s said shit to him about you. He wants in your pants so when Nate told him about what went down between us he tried to stir up trouble. Probably hoping that you’d turn to him.”
Warm breath blows over my face when he sighs once he’s finished his explanation. The expanding of his chest presses our bodies closer together, locking us in mutual combat. Two explosive tempers meeting their match for once. Hooligan’s using his large frame to pin me to the wall so I’ll stop long enough to listen to him, and I’m pushing back against him because I’ve had enough and I don’t want to listen.
Our chests heave in unison from our vehement to and fro, as he continues trying to claim control of the situation even as I refuse to cede it to him. We stare into each other’s eyes—pissed off bright green melding with irritated amber—until the tension coiled between us becomes too much and breaks, ricocheting when it lets go, snapping us back into the here and now and drowning us in our need for each other.
Don’t ask me who makes the first move, but our lips meet in the exact middle of the distance between us, before his superior strength presses my head back against the wall. With his hands pinning mine, the only parts on our bodies that touch are our lips and our upper bodies, yet it feels like every cell is calling out for its matching counterpart to come meet it. Pushing my hands against his until he lets them fall free, my hands reach around and grab his ass, thrusting his bulge against mine. I meet him...move for move, push for push, grind for grind...lifting my left leg so I can rub my pulsing pussy over the cock I can feel growing harder against me with each passing second.
“Fuck, Gabbi. We shouldn’t—” Hooligan groans his protest against my mouth.
Digging my fingers into his ass, I refuse to let him go. “Just shut up and go with it. Let it happen.”
My words must be enough because his fingers curl around my left breast, massaging it through the thin cotton before he rips my top down far enough to expose my nipple. Pulling away from my lips, he drops his head and lavishes the sensitive peak with strong laves of his tongue, pulling most of my other breast free, and repeating the same movements until it stands as erect as its predecessor.
Running my hands down his sides, I move them to the waistband of his shorts and then dip the right one inside. His cock is standing at attention, seeking my touch, the end wet with pre-cum. Grasping him, I work him up and down until he’s hissing and bucking in my palm. Taking that as a sign that he wants more, I use my unencumbered hand to tug his pants down over his ass.
Dropping to my knees, I move to take him in my mouth, falling short when he takes a giant step back from me. Hands on my shoulders, Hooligan holds me in place when I strain against his grip. Looking up at him, confused and shocked at the abrupt change in pace, my heart drops to the pit of my stomach when I see passion fighting with something else in his expression. The something else is winning, his desire dying before my eyes.
“No. Can’t do this. It’s wrong.”
“I’m not going to beg you.” My tone is iron-clad, matching the resolution that’s growing in my mind as his rejection begins to sting. This is the second time he’s done this. I’m not coming back for thirds. “If you walk away this time, I’m not offering you another chance.”
The fingers that are holding my shoulders loosen, and he steps away from me. I look at the floor, incapable of meeting his eyes even as I feel them burning into the top of my head. Foolishness settles over me like a cloak of shame and I rue the day I laid eyes on him.
Light footsteps pervade the hallway as he walks away from me. When a door closes behind him with a soft thud, I push myself to my feet and walk the rest of the way to my bedroom.
Throwing myself face first on the bed, I put my hands over my face as tears run down my face and pool on the sheet below me.
Damn you to hell, Hooligan Harvie.
I was doing all right until you came along.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hooligan
Watching Gabbi sparring with Jep in the ring through the mirrored window of my office, I’m torn between going home so I can stop the torture and running out there so I can break every one of his fingers for daring to touch her when I can’t.
Not can’t, you moron. You won’t touch her. It appears that my logic’s on Gabbi’s side, although my guilt and heart are firmly set on honoring Mari’s memory.
“You’ve done a real number on that girl.” Angelo makes his way into my office. Sitting his annoying self down at my desk, he lights up a cigarette and blows clouds of smoke in my direction. “Keep it up, though. I’ve never seen her so worked up. I think she could kill if given the chance.”
Drumming my fingers against the cold glass of the window, I try to tune him out. Another noxious emission billows my way, making me cough and stinking up my office. Turning to have a go at him, I catch him staring at the photo frame that sits next to my phone with sorrow-filled eyes.
“She was so beautiful. So full of life,” he mumbles. Taking a long drag, he grabs one of my smaller trophies and puts out his smoke in it. My nostrils flare and I take a step closer to him, halting when he speaks again. “Maria would be really fucking pissed off at you for what you’ve done since she’s been gone.”
“Fuck you, Angelo.” I grind the words out, ignoring the way they jab at my heart and my own sinking feeling that he
’s probably right. “At least, I didn’t move on like she never existed.”
He pounds his fist into my desk. “None of us have moved on. We all mourn her still. If you hadn’t cut yourself off from us all, in your desperation to prove that you loved her the most, you’d fucking know that. Every birthday. Every Christmas. Every special event, she is at the forefront of our minds. They both are. We miss Gabe just as much. He was my nephew, my family too. You don’t have dominion over the grief left behind from their passing.”
There’s that word again. Passing. How can they say it so easily? Say it with such a maddening lack of passion. As if the fight she put up trying to save our son and then herself was nothing.
“You miss them at Christmas and on their birthdays. I miss them every single fucking day. There’s a hole in my chest that can never be filled. When that scumbag murdered my family, he should have found me and put a bullet in me too because he would’ve been doing me a fucking favor. I don’t want to live without my wife or my son. I can’t move on and only talk about their passing at Christmas and birthday’s as if they simply went to sleep and never woke up. I’m not weak, like you!”
I don’t hear him move toward me. I’m lost in my grief—swallowed whole, and hating him for making me put sound to the words that have echoed around my head for the past three years. I don’t feel him punch me in the nose and I make no effort to defend myself.
Numbness has set in, my mind trying its hardest to save me from the breakdown that’s been threatening me since I lost my little family. I feel nothing. Nothing when he slams me into the wall and then into the window. Nothing when the window shatters under our combined weight and I sure as hell don’t feel the glass that cuts into my back and my arms like a thousand papercuts as we tumble through the safety glass and land on the other side.
Angelo hits me again. Once. Twice. Before his weight is pulled from my body and the bright lights in the gym blaze down in my eyes, blinding me. I mightn’t feel anything but I can certainly hear. I hear Nate berating Angelo. I hear someone yelling to call an ambulance. I hear Gabbi as she leans over me and asks me if I’m all right, concern and worry clouding her pretty face.
I hear Gabe giggling as Mari fastens him into the backseat of our car that fateful day and I hear my beautiful wife telling me that she loves me for the final time in our thirteen years of bliss-filled love.
Her lilting voice, tinged with her slight Italian accent that makes me laugh because she’s never left Australia so she should sound as Australian as I do, is full of joy as she assures me that she’ll be home before I finish up at the gym and then promises to love me forever...
“Even when you’re old, fat, and bald.” I repeat the words that she said every time she went somewhere without me.
The vanilla perfume that she always wore assaults my senses, making me smile, before it lulls me into the deep sleep promised by the agony that’s relentlessly pounding in the back of my head.
***
“We’re happy to have you back with us, Mr. Harvie.” The nurse fusses over me, straightening my blankets and smiling at me. “Can I get you anything?”
Shaking my head, I grimace when pain ricochets through my skull.
“Careful now. You have a bad concussion.
After a few more minutes of fussing, she gives me space and I breathe a sigh of relief. I can’t remember exactly what happened but I do know that I let Angelo get under my skin and goad me into making a fool of myself.
“Why do you have to be so bull-headed? All I wanted to do was speak to you.”
“Fuck off, Angelo. I’ve had enough of you today.” Turning my head in the direction the asshole’s voice is coming from, I send a glare that’s heated by the power of three years of hatred in his direction. “You and me; we’re done. Step foot in my gym again and I’ll kill you.”
A spluttering laugh breaks free from him, quickly developing into a hacking smoker’s cough. Holding up a hand, palm facing me, he takes his time getting control of himself.
“Obviously, sending your obstinate ass backward through a window didn’t knock any sense into you.” Pursing his lips, Angelo grabs his chin and strokes his beard. “Hayden, I’m not going anywhere. You called me, remember? Because you need me.”
“I—” My words come to a spluttering stop when he talks over me.
“I’ve seen the way your eyes follow Gabbi and I’ve noticed that she’s very aware of where you are at all times. The way you ran out of the gym the other night when you thought she needed help just proved what I already suspected. You’re ready to move on. That girl’s made your black heart beat again and you don’t know how to deal with it. You brought me back into your life so I’d be a constant reminder of Maria...so you’d have a reason not to give into the temptation.”
“Fuck off.”
“You’re beginning to sound like a broken fucking record. My sister would be disappointed at the way you’ve run all of us out of your life and she’d be furious at the way you’re treating that poor girl. Her heart was big enough that she’d want you to move on and be happy again. You’re not forgetting about her or disrespecting her memory by loving someone else.”
My head’s been pounding with pain since I woke up, now it’s joined by a matching hammering in my chest. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shake my head.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I never said a word about love.”
“You don’t say a word about anything, that’s my point. You’ve cut off everyone but Nate—and that’s only because he’s too young to challenge you—in some pathetic attempt to avoid mourning Maria and Gabe. Your house is frozen in fucking time. I couldn’t believe it when I was there earlier. Every single thing is in the same spot it was last time I step foot inside. Except for Gabe’s bedroom, which Nate tells me was where you slept until last night when you let Gabbi and her brother sleep there.”
“I’m not telling you again. Fuck off.”
Pushing to his feet, he walks to the side of my bed and flicks my nose. “You’re cutting that off to spite your face. Gabbi is your chance to get the fuck on with your life; to let my sister rest in peace finally. Get your shit together before it’s too late.”
Swatting his hand away, I stare into his eyes. Does he seriously think it’s that easy? That I can just forget about my first love. Pretend she never existed and move on to another woman simply because my dick likes her? That might be something he can do, but not me.
“Just fu—”
“Fuck off? Hayden, I’m not going anywhere, I’ve told you that. You’re stuck with me until you get your act together. I owe it to Maria to make sure your emotionally-stunted ass grows the fuck up and starts living a life that reaches the potential she saw in you.”
Rolling onto my side, ignoring the stinging in my back and my arms that starts when I move, I refuse to enter into anymore conversation with the stubborn fool.
“Just remember while you’re in here pouting like a little princess, I’ll be at your gym with my hands all over Gabbi. Showing her how to stretch those lithe legs and massaging her sore muscles. Might even get some wrestling training done too...she’s very flexible. Bends like a pretzel underneath me...”
Angelo trails off when I give him the reaction he’s seeking, growling like a feral dog that’s marking its territory, and then punching the pillow under my head in a fit of pique.
“Fuck off, Angelo. I’m about to put my fist through your face.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m out of here. Gotta pretty girl to play with.”
Laughing like a lunatic, he throws his final barb my way before he pulls the hospital room door shut behind himself.
The silence he leaves in his wake is deafening, my faster-than-usual breathing the only sound to be heard, clearly demonstrating my irritation with my ex brother-in-law. Visions of Angelo bending Gabbi in half as she stands, helping her stretch her toned legs, while he runs his hands up the back of her legs to massage her hamstrings assail me
. Grinding my teeth, the muscle in my jaw clenching so hard that pain shoots toward my ear, I roll back the other way in the bed and grab the nurses call button.
I need to get out of here right fucking now.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Gabbi
Throwing my phone into my bag, I zip it closed with a sharp, agitated motion, and then slide from my seat. Slamming my door shut, I point the key fob at my car and lock it. Clenching my keys in my hand, I drop them on the ground when a sharp edge bites into my palm. Cursing, I stoop and run a hand under my car searching for them.
Today has been an exercise in frustration. I was forced to spend another night at Hooligan’s because I can’t find an apartment to rent due to my age and Cooper refuses to entertain the idea of a hotel when I mention it. He’s decided that Hooligan is some sort of hero and wants to stay with him forever. Thankfully, he was still in the hospital last night so we had his house to ourselves—which only made me feel slightly less uncomfortable, despite Nate and Angelo’s emphatic declarations that Hooligan said it was okay. I’m not sure if I believe them because they talked me out of going to the hospital to double-check with him myself, saying he was in too much pain to see anyone. Out of alternatives, I stayed in spite of my reservations.
The call I just ended was with yet another real estate agency that refused to accept my application because I’m underage. I have three fucking weeks until I’m eighteen, what difference reaching that magical number is going to make, I haven’t a clue, and I told the dumb bitch on the other end of the phone exactly that before she hung up on me.
A tanned, muscled forearm comes into view, sweeping under my car, and then returning with my keys.
“Here you go.”
Hooligan and I straighten at the same time, too close to each other until I take a step back from him. He holds my keys out for me. I take them off him and shove them into my bag with haphazard movements, as I run a disbelieving gaze over him. He should still be in the hospital, yet here he is. Standing in front of me with a couple of bruises on his face and some scratches on his arms. His lack of injuries is unbelievable considering I watched him tumble backward through shattering glass with a huge man on top of him, beating the crap out of him while he made no effort to defend himself. Maybe Cooper’s right and he is invincible, like a superhero?
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