“What’s that?”
“I should have paid to get your heater fixed.”
The dash lit up with the headlights, illuminating his smile. “What I need’s a new goddamn truck. All the stuff that’s screaming to be replaced in this thing . . . Even doing what I can myself, it’d be cheaper to buy a new ride. Well, new to me. Something used, but decent. But not ’til my fines are paid off.”
Even if I could afford to front him the money—which I couldn’t—he never would have accepted it, so I didn’t bother voicing my desire to do so. Instead I asked, “What’d I miss in Darren?”
“Whole lot of the same old nothing. Plus a big drug bust over on Chestnut, the day before Christmas. Oxy racket, the news said, down near the south end of the old plant. Cousins’ll be getting some new recruits soon enough.”
“Yuck. Glad they’re off the streets, anyhow.”
He didn’t reply, and I realized what I’d said.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean that about criminals in general. About what you did. That the more men who get locked up, the better, or—”
“Didn’t think you did. Plus I’ve never once claimed I didn’t deserve the time I did.”
“Okay. Good, I guess. Drugs are different, anyhow. They hurt vulnerable people. Doesn’t sound like the guy you hurt was much of a victim.”
“Nope.” He said it curtly, but without angst.
“He was on drugs, you said?”
“Amphetamines. Not that he was some innocent, the way he got swept up in it.”
My stomach curdled a little as I remembered Eric owed me some answers. “So. What was that call on Christmas night about, the one that interrupted our fun? Family stuff?”
“Yeah,” he said through a sigh. “Yeah, family shit.”
“Who called?”
“My sister.”
“And is everything okay, or . . . ?”
A long pause, his eyes locked on the road, unblinking.
“Eric?”
“I dunno, Annie. I don’t know if everything’s gonna be okay or not.”
I felt chilly all at once, and tugged my hat down over my ears. “How come? What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing you need to get worried about.”
“If it’s something that’s upsetting you, then yeah, it is. Tell me.”
He shifted in his seat like a weary old man, and when he spoke, his voice was fifty pounds heavier. “He’s getting paroled. The guy who assaulted my sister.”
My body went cold. Colder than the air in the cab. Colder than the wind rushing by on the highway. “Oh. When?”
“Second week of January.”
“And . . . ?”
He met my eyes for a split second. “And I dunno. Don’t know if he’s planning on coming back to town—to Kernsville. Don’t know if he’s got anything to say to me or her. If he’s been well-behaved enough to get released, maybe he’s okay. But then who knows if his attitude might just change if he gets back on the crank. I got a whole lot of questions, and no answers.”
“Is your sister freaked out?”
“Oh yeah. But I’ll tell it to you like I did to her—there’s no guarantee this asshole wants anything to do with any of us anymore. Hardly any of the shitheads he used to hang with back home are still around, and he pissed just about everybody else off, one way or another. It’s bad news, but there’s not much good in worrying about the worst-case scenarios.”
“Are you going to do anything? Like, go home to Kernsville when he’s let out, just in case?”
“I imagine so. He’s out on a Tuesday. I’ll probably see what days I can trade around to try to go over there the next weekend.”
“Are you allowed to even be around him, after what you did to get convicted?”
A soft huff of a laugh. “Course not.”
My dread warmed over, heating to become anger. “You can’t go, then. You can’t violate your parole over this guy.”
“My sister asks me to, then yeah, I will, Annie.” Another glance. “I’m sorry.”
“If your sister asks you to, that’s pretty fucking selfish of her. Plus that must be a part of his parole—not going near your sister.”
Eric shook his head. “He got put away for drug offenses. My sister never reported her attack.”
“What?”
“Her business is her business. That’s how she thinks of it.”
“Jesus.”
A long, long pause. He blinked at the slice of highway illuminated by the headlights. His nostrils flared. “I can’t get into this with you. But my family’s safety is more important to me than my own skin. So’s yours, for that matter. You can argue with me all you want, but you’re not going to change my mind.”
I hissed a sigh, a kettle spewing steam. “If you ever did this for me—risked your neck or your future like this—I’d leave you. I’d never ask you to make that choice. And I’d be pissed to hell if you made it against my wishes.”
“And I’d rather live without you than let somebody hurt you. There’s fundamental differences in the way you and I see things, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. He’d called me that before, but this time there was the slightest patronizing edge to it. The sound of him digging in his heels. Dismissing my point of view. I didn’t know what to say, so I just twisted the end of my scarf in my lap, felt the sting of my knuckles going white.
After what felt like an hour, he asked softly, “You gonna leave me if I go home the week after next?”
The world went very quiet and still, my body following suit.
“Annie?”
The question hadn’t even gelled in my mind, but it was a good one. A terrifying one. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t make me choose between my sister and you. It’s not fair. There’s no right answer in that.”
“I don’t want you to choose me—I want you to choose you. And what’s best for you. Why don’t you . . . Why don’t you invite your sister to Darren, that week? And get somebody back in your hometown to tell you if the guy shows up or whatever?”
“She won’t come.”
I got so mad then, I could just about scream through my teeth. I was really beginning to hate his sister. Like, hate her. “Then she’s being selfish.”
“Probably.”
“I want to talk to her,” I said, though in truth the idea scared me shitless. I wanted to punch her, too, but in reality there was no way I was probably ever doing either.
“Not happening,” he concurred. “Anyhow, she won’t listen to whatever you have to say. My sister doesn’t listen to anybody. Not even me.”
“She can’t really care about you, if she’s willing to put your fucking freedom at risk over this.”
“Nobody cares about me as much as my sister does,” he said, tone stiff.
“I beg to differ.” I wanted to think I cared more about him, but I couldn’t make this into some unwinnable, petty contest. Instead I said, “That’s not what family does to each other.”
“Keeping each other safe is what my family does. I failed at that six years ago. No way I’m taking that chance again.”
“She’s not returning the favor, Eric. If you get arrested for a parole violation, or worse . . . What good are you to her then?”
“Annie, we’re getting this blown way out of proportion. I’m just going over there to see my family. The fact that I’m not risking my job—ditching shifts to run over there the second he’s released—should be proof I’ve gotten some better boundaries since before I got locked up.”
I sighed, fuming.
“Chances are good this guy won’t want anything to do with us. He’s a coward. He’s not after another beat-down from me, and my sister didn’t press charges, so he’s got nothing to take revenge on her for. Somebody else got him locked away. It’s all j
ust a precaution, okay? I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to be doing anything rough unless I absolutely have to.”
“Fuck . . .”
“Listen, sweetheart. I love you. But you don’t know me as well as you want to think you do.”
My mouth dropped open and I stared at him, feeling slapped. He caught it.
“Sorry. I don’t mean that you don’t know me at all, but this stuff . . . You don’t understand me, I can tell. Or what all this means to me.”
“No. I don’t.” Because it’s insane.
“I wish you’d just trust me. And the decisions I make.”
“I wish you understood how ridiculous this is, that you’re even considering going home.”
He didn’t reply, a tendon along his jaw tensing in the glow of the dash.
I turned away, attention on the distant lights. Christ, this was going to be a long-ass drive.
* * *
When we finally made it to the outskirts of Darren, I had no clue to what to expect from our good-night. Would I just say thank you for the ride, and that would be that? Were we still . . . good?
It was killing me, not knowing. Killing me how quickly we’d gone from warm embrace to cold shoulder. After everything we’d weathered since he’d gotten out, and how close we’d gotten this past week and a half, I’d thought we were rock solid, but now . . . Now I couldn’t feel anything from Eric. Like our frequency had gone dead, a wire snipped by my near ultimatum. It hurt as much as a fist around my heart.
“What’s going to happen when we get to my place?” I asked, the first words to fall between us in an hour or more.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you just going to drop me off or . . . ?”
“What do you want me to do?”
Christ, always with the what-did-I-want. “What do you want?” I countered. Much as I’d once needed his deference, right now I was sick to goddamn death of it.
“I want what you want,” he said, sounding tired but stubborn, and inside I screamed.
We reached my block and he parked up in front of the bar. He switched off the engine and met my eyes in the streetlight and neon. “I don’t want to go without us knowing where we stand with all this. Whether that means we sit in here, freezing our asses off all night, or if you invite me up.”
“Come up.”
He seemed surprised by my decisiveness. “Okay, then.”
We slammed our doors. He carried my bag and I got us into the foyer, no words exchanged until we were inside the apartment.
“Something to drink?” I asked.
“Nah. Thanks.” His gaze was moving around the living room—nervous, I thought. Fearful. Like maybe he wondered if this was the last time he’d be invited here.
“I hate this,” I admitted. “Are we having a fight?”
“Nobody’s shouted yet.”
I took off my coat, slung it over the back of the couch then sank onto a cushion with a frustrated sigh. I let my head fall into my hands. Let this man see how I felt. How he made me feel.
He said, “I dunno what to tell you.” I sensed his shadow as he sat on the coffee table. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t planning to go back that weekend. And I won’t lie to you, not ever again. Not after I almost lost you, being too chickenshit to tell you I was getting out.”
“It’s not about lying or not lying.” I raised my head to meet his eyes. “It’s about . . . priorities, I guess.”
“I love you,” he said quietly. “I hope you believe that. But I love my family, too, and I’m going to be there when they need me. When they ask me. You can’t make me choose. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t make me choose. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you what you want to hear from me right now.”
I shook my head, frustrated to the bone. “No, I guess not.”
“You gonna break up with me?”
I rubbed the spot over my heart. “Jesus, Eric.”
His voice got real quiet. “I hope you won’t. I won’t lie to try to keep you with me, and I won’t set my family aside for it, either. But I don’t want to lose you, believe me.” He reached down and took one of my hands in both of his, squeezing my fingers with his big ones. “It’d rip me apart.”
“I feel like I don’t get a say.”
He smiled sadly. “It’s not your problem, or your family. So no, you don’t.”
“But you’re my . . . Are you my boyfriend?”
“I am if you want me to be. But no, you still don’t get a say. The last thing I want is for you to get tangled up in all this bull.”
I dropped my head again, groaned, and let him hear exactly how bad I wanted to strangle him at that moment.
“Sorry,” he said softly.
“I’m really, really annoyed with you.”
“I know. I’m pretty annoyed with you.”
This wasn’t getting sorted out tonight, that much was clear. I was thinking in circles, trudging around and around this stubborn rock of a man, getting no place. “Can we just hit Pause on this for now? Until after New Year’s?”
“Sure. Just don’t get your hopes up that I’ll change my mind by then.”
I stared at him, long and hard. “You’d hurt my ex, if I asked you to.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I would.”
“Why won’t you just not hurt this other asshole, if I asked you? What’s the difference, if both things matter so much to me?”
“Because this asshole didn’t hurt you. He hurt Kristina.”
“If she told you not to come, would you do what she said?”
He nodded.
“So I’m wasting my energy arguing with the wrong person.”
“I guess,” he conceded. “But stubbornness runs in my family like brown eyes and bad backs, if you’re thinking about talking to her. In any case, enough for tonight. Okay?”
I exhaled, long and weary. “Okay. But I’m still annoyed with you.”
“Cousins kinda gave me a high threshold for simmering conflicts,” he said with a little smirk. “I can handle that.”
I eyed his boots and coat.
“You want me to go?” he asked.
“No. I don’t.” I wanted him here. If I was stuck feeling all this anger and uncertainty and . . . and helplessness, I at least wanted the comfort of his body with me. And maybe not only comfort. Maybe the release. A chance to take all this aggression I felt toward him and do something with it. Something if not productive, then at least entertaining.
“Take your boots off,” I said. When he set them aside, his socked feet flexing, I said, “Take off your coat.” It hit the cushion beside me. “Take off your sweater . . . Your socks . . . Take off your shirt.”
He was standing now, stripping away his undershirt with a slow, smooth pull, staring down at me. I got to my feet. As I stroked his arms, his chest, his throat, he merely watched, hands at his sides. I let my palms roam low, all the way down his belly, and twined my fingers around his thick belt.
“Thought you were pissed at me,” he murmured, and his voice gave him away. Light words not matching the weighty pitch of his excitement.
“I am.” Fingers still wrapped around his belt, I took a step back. Another. Led him all the way to my bedroom then turned him around. He matched my paces until I had him backed against the bed. I let him go, gave him a soft push. He dropped onto the mattress with a bounce, a smile hiding behind his lips in the ambient light.
I stripped. Not down to the beautiful matching floral bra and panties I’d bought for this, our supposed romantic reunion. I stripped instead down to my crappy travel underwear—a tired old beige bra and navy boy shorts one level nicer than ones I might wear during my period.
Tonight wasn’t about seduction, or exploration, or indulgence. Tonight, I wasn’t after a man who’d uncover all my desires and shape h
imself to meet them.
Tonight I was after something I’d never have guessed I’d want: a man’s aggression, aimed right at me.
And I wanted it so bad it hurt.
Chapter Seventeen
What do you need?
I saw the question in his dark eyes, in that dim room, but for once he didn’t give it voice.
Perhaps he could sense it was the last thing I wanted right now—to be catered to. To be granted whatever I wished of his body, while I was still pissed that my wishes regarding his actions were falling on such willfully deaf ears.
I ditched my bra and panties, and straddled him there at the edge of the mattress. Heat bloomed at the sensation of his clothed thighs against my bare ones, but this fire was more than mere lust.
Those big hands kept me in place, firm at my waist, while our kiss was anything but steady. His hair was between my fingers, our mouths clashing, tongues fighting. Against my naked sex, he was hard, erection pressing into me along with his fly and belt buckle. I felt aggression in him, but no anger. In my own body I felt the anger. The frustration. Resentment. And it felt goddamn good, rubbing right up against his cock.
I wanted him now, now. But more than that, I wanted him to take control for once. We kissed for ages, well past the point when I felt the wetness between my skin and his fly, well past the point when I might normally have invited him to take things further. We kissed until my lips were tender and my core was aching, until he had to be in pain, taunted by long minutes of stifled friction.
Then finally, just as I was ready to claw him from the wanting, he made a move.
His hands gripped my butt, and he heaved me bodily to the side, onto the covers. Grabbed one of my ankles and hauled my legs wide so he could kneel between them. He worked at his buckle, forearms flexing, and it was the hottest thing I’d ever seen—him sliding that thick length of leather out and tossing it to the floor. A button was freed, a zipper lowered. He shoved his jeans down just enough to frame his straining cock in black cotton, and then that big body was descending on mine.
I’d missed his voice all that time we’d kissed, and he gave it to me now. Not in words—not in the usual requests to hear my desires—but in moans. Rough ones, grunting sounds that steamed against my throat in time with his flexing hips. He taunted me with his cock, every inch as hard as I’d ever felt it, his shorts growing wet from me. I felt his zipper, too, just a hint, and the thick denim of his fly teased my labia.
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