Curling an arm under one of Gabbi’s shoulders, I let my passion run free, driving myself into her with greater intent. She’s no match for my superior power and size as I take control of her. Our love making turns into a battle; my cock impaling her, moving her up the bed with each stroke, a passionate brawl that leaves us breathless, sweat dripping from our panting bodies, my groaning mingling with Gabbi’s cries of pleasure.
Her pussy clamps down on my dick, signaling her impending orgasm, so I mash my thumb against her clit and increase my thrusts until she’s screaming and flooding my cock with her release. I follow, my orgasm filling her, ripping every ounce of air from my lungs and rendering me blind for a second with its intensity.
Fucking, forgot how good this feels. The connection with your matching half. The endorphin rush. The toe-curling climax that imbues every atom of your body with pure ecstasy.
Slumping to the side, I bring Gabbi with me, my softening cock still inside her. She’s gasping for air, slight shudders overtaking her frame at regular intervals. Her languid posture and the obvious aftereffects make me feel like king of the fucking world.
“Worth the wait?”
“Mmm hmm,” she mumbles.
Burying my face in her hair, I inhale her scent, before chuckling when she groans her way through another aftershock. Pulling her closer, I hold her as tight as I can to me. If I could melt us into one person, it still wouldn’t feel close enough to me.
The clock on her bedside cupboard reads one minute past midnight. She’s eighteen, a legal adult at last.
“Happy birthday.”
“Thank you. If being eighteen continues like it started, I’m in for the best bloody year ever. My legs are still shaking.”
Yep. I’m definitely, King of the World tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Gabbi
Hand-in-hand with Hooligan, I walk into my childhood home. So much has changed since the last time I set foot in here that I feel as if I’m entering a foreign land. Not that I’m the same person, either. After three years of hell, I suppose it’s naive of me to expect anything to feel the same just because Dad has decided he’s coming home.
“Gabbi,” Zali sneers when we walk into the kitchen. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her lips swollen, loathing in her glare. Running her eyes over Hooligan, her lip curls in disgust and she rolls her eyes when she sees that we are holding hands. “Here to ruin my life some more? Dad kicked Devon out when he came to see me this morning. And, now he’s broken up with me.”
“That’s enough, Zali.” Dad walks into the room with Cooper following him. When he sees me, a huge grin covers his face and he runs full pelt in my direction, throwing his arms around my legs and burying his head in my stomach.
“Is it time to go home, Gabbi?” he asks, tiny hands clutching at my T-shirt. “I don’t like this house.”
Guilt surges within me, overcoming me like that wave at the beach that hits when you’re least expecting it, taking out your knees, and sending you tumbling underwater. While I was making love with Hooligan last night, enjoying myself and feeling care-free for the first time in a long time, Cooper was here without me, missing me; lost and lonely.
Hooligan’s hand presses between my shoulders blades; the weight offering support and stopping me from giving into the desire to blame myself for my obviously unhappy little brother. “We need to speak to Dad first, then we’ll see.”
A shake of head is his only answer.
“It’ll be all right. You’ll see, bucko.”
Putting my hands under his arms after I reassure him, I lift him, settling him on my hip. Hooligan reaches over and taps him lightly under the chin. Cooper smiles at him, some of the worry in his eyes dying.
Dad clears his throat, a weird glint in his eye as he looks between me, Cooper, and Hooligan. It dawns on me what has him unsettled. The three of us look like a family. The adoring parents and their son, which has been the case for the past week. My man has been there for us in ways that nobody else has for a long time. Even when I was avoiding him, he took care of us with his sensible gifts and constant reminders that he was waiting for me.
“Why doesn’t everyone take a seat? We have a lot to discuss,” my father breaks the silence that’s deafening the room.
Once we’re all settled at the dining table; Cooper on my lap with Hooligan next to us with his arm stretched across the back of my seat, Dad facing me, and Zali slumped at the head of the table with her long legs balanced on the edge, making a show of inspecting her nails, Dad begins speaking. “Zali has moved home. Her stay with Devon has come to an end and I’ll be meeting with her boss to discuss whether she continues her traineeship at the gym. She’s informed me that it’s not her ultimate ambition, but rather something she felt pushed into doing—”
“That’s not how it was, I—”
“The reason doesn’t matter now, Gabbi. The fact of the matter is that your sister doesn’t need a job. She should be concentrating on school.”
Shooting Zali a look of malice, my temper heats up at Dad’s thinly veiled reproof. “If you’d actually been around, then you’d have known Mom was spending every dollar on her activities. We needed to eat and we needed to keep a roof over our heads, so I did what I could. Zali came to me, offering to work to help me with the burden. It wasn’t until she had the job, that she informed me that you’d said she could move in with Devon.”
“I did no such thing,” Dad splutters. The tops of his ears turn red, a sure sign from childhood that his temper isn’t far behind mine. My sister puts her legs down and sits up straight, unease radiating from her at being caught in her lie. “The first I heard about my children not living at home any longer was from a call from Cooper’s school teacher demanding to know why neither of his parents had attended his parent-teacher interview. When Mrs. Scott told me that Cooper had said he was living in an apartment with his big sister and that her boyfriend would kill anyone who hurt them, I was alarmed and came here straightaway. I found your mother entertaining and once I’d dealt with that mess, I set about finding where you were all hiding.”
He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, fidgeting with edge of the lace table cloth.
“I let you all down, but I’m here to fix it now. I want you home with all of us. The four of us can put the pieces back together, as a family. Cooper needs a home with a backyard and his parent, not an apartment with his sister and her boyfriend.”
Hooligan smothers a laugh at the emphasis my father outs on the word “boyfriend”. It is kinda funny for a man his age to be referred to by such a juvenile title.
“Cooper doesn’t want to be here. He wants me.” I discussed this with Hooligan this morning and he’s on board with my wishes. “And he adores Hooligan. We keep him safe. We love him. And we’ve never let him down. I want him to stay with me.”
My little brother squirms in my lap, causing me to realize that I’m holding him too tight. My anxiety, and my desperate need to keep him, consume me. If I don’t win this fight, it’s going to gut me. Cooper is more than my little brother; he’s my world. He crawls from my lap onto Hooligan’s, adding validation to my words when he wraps his arms around his neck. “He doesn’t know you. You’ve been gone since he was five. That’s a long time for a kid.”
Hell, I was almost fourteen when Dad left and it killed me. I can’t begin to imagine the damage it’s done to Cooper.
“He’s my son.”
“He wasn’t even on your fucking radar until yesterday. You had your new family and you didn’t give a shit about us. It’s not fair to come back here because you and Maribelle have split and try to pick up where you left off.”
With a red face that displays his growing annoyance with me, Dad smacks his fist into the table and stands. The scraping of the legs of his chair when they slide along the tiles is excruciating. Cooper whines, jamming his hands over his ears, and burying his head in Hooligan’s neck. “I thought your mother was looking after you.”
“Yeah, well now you have to live with the consequences of what your thought did.”
At my father’s goldfish impersonation—eyes wide, mouth opening and closing without words emerging—I seize the chance to shield my brother from our latest family drama.
“Take Cooper outside, please,” I ask Hooligan. I try my hardest to keep my rage out of my voice, failing miserably because I’m shaking. My man stands with my brother in his arms and holds out a hand to me.
“You should come, too. Nothing’s gonna get accomplished with an argument.”
I shake my head. “I need to set some things straight before we leave and Cooper doesn’t need to hear it.”
Staring my father down with serious green eyes that seem to illuminate as he drives his point home, Hooligan issues a warning. A terse, deadly grim caution laced with a lethal innuendo that a deaf person could hear. “I told you what would happen if she gets hurt. It wasn’t a joke.”
“This is what I’m talking about. He’s threatening to kill me and you’re okay with living with him and having him around Cooper?
Rolling my eyes at his theatrics, I face Dad with my hands on my hips. Hooligan doesn’t budge, ignoring my request to remove Cooper from the room. “I’m sure he wouldn’t kill you. Hurt you a little, but murder? Hmmm, I doubt it.”
“This isn’t funny, Gabriella. I don’t recognize you anymore.” He points an accusing finger in my direction. And, I know what’s about to come. The real crux of his problem. My appearance. “You’re covered in tattoos, half your head’s shaven, and your clothing. My God. It’s depressing to see the depths you’ve sunk to.”
“That’s it. I’ve heard enough. Gabbi, get in the car. We’re leaving before I put my fist through this fuckwit’s face.” Hooligan looks ready to explode. Hoisting Cooper further up his body, he grabs the top of my arm and drags me toward the front door.
“I’m calling the police if you take my son. And, I’ll be informing them that you’re sleeping with my underage daughter,” Dad yells after us.
I barrel into Hooligan’s back when he comes to an abrupt stop. Turning back in the direction we’ve just come, he passes Cooper to me and storms back into the dining room. My father recoils at whatever expression is covering Hooligan’s face—I’d hazard a guess that he appears murderous, at the very least. Zali scrambles from her seat and runs for the kitchen, leaving the two men facing off.
Every time Hooligan advances, Dad takes a step backward until his back hits the wall, and he runs out of space to run. Grasping the front of my father’s shirt, my man shoves him against the wall and I decide it’s time to intervene.
“Hooligan. Don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want you to get in any trouble.”
“Don’t stress, Gabbi. I’m just reminding him that it’s your birthday. This is the second time that small fact has slipped his mind.” A giggle erupts in my chest, bubbling out of my throat and making both men stare at me.
“You’re a crazy man. Who cares if he remembers it’s my birthday. He’s missed the last three, what’s another one?”
“I care. You deserve to have it acknowledged.”
“You’ve already done that. That’s enough for me.” Making my way back to him, I coax him into letting go of my dad. Cooper doesn’t pay any attention to him as he takes a shaky seat at the table, dropping his head into his hands. He’s too interested in the funny faces Hooligan’s pulling at him.
“I’m sorry, Gabbi. I’ve fucked everything up. Cooper can go with you, but I want to spend time with him. I’ll find a way to make this up to all three of you.”
The anxiety that’s been churning in my stomach dies down at Dad’s acquiescence. My little brother has had too much upheaval in his short life for me to abandon him now, just because it would be the easy option.
And it would be the easiest way out of this. Giving Cooper back to Dad would make my life a lot less stressful. I could train and fight, work as many hours as I need, and concentrate on my art again. I could pretend that my conscience is clear because he’s with his parent, but it wouldn’t be. Every second would be consumed with worry about how he’s adjusting, if they’re putting his needs first, and whether he’s feeling secure.
It’s a sorry state of affairs, however, I don’t trust either of my parents with the proper care of Cooper. They’ve proven themselves unreliable too many times. They’re selfish, self-centered, and completely void of the necessary self-reflection that it takes to be a good parent.
“That’s all I’m asking. We can slowly re-introduce you to him, but he stays with me until he chooses otherwise.”
Even as the words are said, I admit to myself that my most fervent wish is for that to never come. Cooper is mine. Now and forever.
Hooligan stands next to me, throwing an arm over my shoulder and pulling me into his side. He senses my desire to keep my brother forever, although I’ve never voiced it to him, and his tender touch tells me that he’s more than committed to helping me get my wish.
“And, me,” Hooligan speaks up. “He stays with both of us because I’ll be at her side the whole time. No longer will Gabbi be shouldering the responsibility on her own.”
Dad nods, lifting his head from his hands and meeting my gaze. I take my opportunity to lay out the remainder of my plan for the future.
“I want the fighting to stop. We work together with this, but you don’t get to bulldoze us or bring the police into it. Cooper comes first for once. Hooligan isn’t going anywhere, so you either get over your objections or you keep them to yourself. And when Mom gets out of rehab, she’s your responsibility to keep under control. I’m done with her.”
Zali pipes up from her spot at the kitchen counter. “I’m with Gabbi. She stays away or I’m leaving too.”
Our father looks defeated, and I’d be lying if I said the part of me that was “Daddy’s Girl” before he left us didn’t feel bad for him. The part that’s spent three years in hell; that part is glad that he’s getting a taste of what he did to us. It’s a small taste, barely enough to satisfy my craving for retribution, but it’s enough. He’s facing an uphill battle to regain his children’s love and trust, and he’ll be lucky if he manages to salvage half of what he had.
That’s punishment enough for me at this time. I can’t let his re-emergence bring back to life the angry girl that Hooligan’s presence soothes. Letting my rage at his betrayal devour me is only going to poison my own life and happiness.
“Come on. Let’s go home.” Hooligan nudges me with his arm when it becomes apparent that Dad has nothing else to say.
Smiling up at the huge man walking next to me out of the house that was once my sanctuary, I take the time to really look at him.
The first time I laid eyes on him, I recognized his disillusionment with the world because it mirrored my own. He was a snarling, savage beast, filled with the need to wreak destruction with his fists and annihilate with his nasty tongue. The pain that ate at him was clear to see. He was hate-filled, shut away inside himself, and determined to make everyone around him pay for his loss. I should’ve run away as fast as I could, not let the universe sweet-talk me into pursuing him. Every time I lied to myself that it was purely physical, every time I told myself that he was an asshole, he stripped away another layer of my protective armor and dug deeper into me than anyone else had bothered to for years.
What was left of his humanity called to mine; the pair of us filled with a desperate need for someone who would understand us. I almost missed its call; lost as I was in my determination to keep anyone from getting close to me ever again. The hatred and betrayal that was consuming me blinded me to his potential to save me. It almost kept me from seeing my ability to bring him back to life.
We might not end up with our happily-ever-after. Hell, the fairy tale might elude both of us, however, I’ll never regret Hooligan’s decision to brawl for me. Like he said, the ending doesn’t matter as much as the story, and I know that our beginning heralds the start of an epic story.
Hooligan pulled my hands from my ears and the wool from my eyes, forcing me to let in the light and listen to the people around me who were screaming that I was losing myself to my hatred. And, I returned the favor, giving him a reason to live again.
My soul sings when he turns to me as we emerge from the house and matches my regard with his own. His promise that he’s going to spend the rest of his life proving to me that happily-ever-afters are possible for even the most fucked-up of us rings in my head. His green eyes glimmer with an emotion that’s stronger than love, more useful than pride, and a hell-of-lot-more exciting than lust.
Hope. His face is filled with it. That potent feeling that keeps the world revolving, and makes people believe they can achieve the impossible. It radiates from him, reaching out to me, and filling every fiber of my body. It makes me believe that he will honor his promise and prove that the fairy tale is sweeter for the ones who’ve survived the worst the universe can throw at them.
EPILOGUE
Gabbi
Three Months Later
My heart’s in my throat, choking me, restricting my air flow. There’s a huge rock in my stomach weighing me down. My eyesight is dimming, fading by the second.
I can’t do this.
I’m not strong enough.
I’m not fast enough.
Everyone’s going to laugh at me.
Hooligan’s going to be disappointed in me.
“Fuck me dead, Nate.” My man’s cranky voice fills the dressing room I’ve been assigned for the night. “I told you to keep her calm and centered. She’s having a fucking panic attack and you’re over here macking on ya missus.”
Brawl Page 20