by Dahlia West
Ava pursed her lips. “Doesn’t matter. He’s done. There were plenty after him and there’ll be plenty more.”
It wasn’t the whole truth. She’d made out with plenty of guys, mostly after races, standing around the bonfires. She’d screwed one of them, taken him to the back seat of his muscle car and straddled him until he came. She’d walked away frustrated and pissed off and not really knowing why.
She tried to twist out of Emilio’s arms but he held her firmly. Her heart skipped a beat as he leaned down slowly. His lips touched hers, soft, not urgent this time. She opened her mouth, but he didn’t take the invitation. The kiss was slow, almost chaste, and nothing they’d said or done up until now had made her blush as deeply as she was right at this moment.
Emilio pulled back. His hands slid away from her face. His cocky grin was gone. Embarrassed, she almost wished it was there. She preferred their playful banter to this.
“Just in case any of them forgot to kiss you like this,” he said softly.
Ava turned away. This time he let her go. She stalked to the door, cheeks aflame.
“Ava,” he called after her, but she didn’t listen.
She tugged open the door and disappeared through it, wishing she could disappear altogether. She drove the Olds back to Sienna’s place and ducked out the side door once again. This time the sun was shining overhead as she trudged through the grass back to her own place.
She mounted the back steps, headed toward the kitchen door, when she froze, peering through the glass.
Her heart stopped.
She stood motionless, unable to either reach for the knob or back away. The silhouette of a familiar figure loomed in the living room.
“Sonofabitch,” Ava whispered quietly to herself. Her heart had re-started and was now trying to pound its way out of her chest. Blood roared in her ears.
She couldn’t think what to do. She could leave, she supposed. That was an option. She could dart around the side of the house, slip onto the Honda, and speed away before anyone knew she was even here. She could even knock over the green BMW racer that she knew, knew, was parked out front. She might even slash the tires before she made her exit.
But that still left the problem of the leather-clad rider standing in her fucking living room, talking to her fucking family.
“Fuck!” Ava ground out and grabbed for the brass door handle. She twisted it so hard it nearly snapped off in her hand. She stomped through the back door and into the kitchen. Her heavy boots thudded on the linoleum. She stopped herself from slamming the door behind her, though.
Calla smiled at her as she chopped vegetables at the kitchen counter. “Oh, hey, Ava!” She turned her head back toward the living room, “Ava’s home!” she called out. “Wash your hands,” she insisted, wiping her own on a dish towel. She leaned toward Ava and whispered conspiratorially, “I invited him to stay!” She grinned like she’d taken up the matchmaking mantle that Jonah had refused to take up.
Ava took a long time washing her hands at the sink. There were knives in the block just a few feet away. She could stab him. She really could.
“Thanks for inviting me,” a familiar male voice rang out from the adjoining room.
“Oh, it’s no problem!” Calla replied. “Enough food for everyone.”
Ava turned and looked at Adam, who was rising up off the couch at this point. He didn’t seem as perky as his fiancée. He shot Ava a questioning look as he moved forward.
Ava shrugged. It was all she could do. The house was now a veritable field of landmines, fraught with invisible tripwires. There were so many ways this could blow up in her face, and Ava knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the fact that he was here at all meant things were about to do exactly that.
Explode.
Devastate.
Possibly reduce her to ashes or maybe just vaporize her altogether.
He smiled at her. Ava wanted to pounce on him.
“Hey, there,” he said, sounding ridiculously cheerful under the circumstances. The sharpness in his eyes didn’t fool her, though.
Ava gritted her teeth and forced her own smile. “Clint.”
Calla stepped between them, carrying a huge bowl of tossed salad. “Lunch is ready!”
Chapter Nine
Ava couldn’t move, either toward the dining room table or to the front door to escape. She stared at Clint. Surely he wasn’t actually staying? How could he eat with them? What the hell? If this was some kind of sick, twisted game, he could forget it. She wasn’t going to play.
He was obviously here to bring the hammer down on her and he might as well fucking do it and get it over with. She’d been dodging him for months now, quite successfully. But she guessed she’d been as big an idiot as Clint if she thought she could avoid him forever. She didn’t think he’d go so far as to involve her damn family, though. Clearly, she’d underestimated his desire for revenge.
Before she could decide how to handle it, though, a large figure appeared in the hallway, taking up the entire space. Ava stifled a groan as she turned. Her father stood hulking in the entryway, eyeing them all suspiciously.
Ava held her breath and waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. That did not bode well. No. No, no, no, no. This was not the time for him to have an episode. Not with Clint here, standing right in the goddamn living room.
This. Could. Not. Happen.
The old man looked from Adam, to Ava, to Calla, but stopped at Clint. He frowned at the teenager. “I don’t know you.”
Ava froze and swallowed hard. She wanted to grab Clint by the shirt and drag his ass out of the house. He shouldn’t be here. He couldn’t be here. Clint had humiliated her, and she supposed she deserved it for being so stupid, but she’d be damned if he’d weasel his way into her house now, after all this time, and see how far her Pop had deteriorated in the year since Mom had been gone.
Her thoughts raced as she pictured Pop calling her ‘Miriam’ and Clint’s surprised laughter. She would punch him in the face and stomp on his ass before she’d let him mock her father. She started to turn toward Clint, to grab him and throw him out. She didn’t care if he flapped his gums and spilled all her secrets on his way out the door. She’d take any punishment, live through any embarrassment, to spare the old man.
Ava grabbed Clint’s wrist as Pop said, “Is he your friend? Or Jonah’s?”
She paused. Relief flooded through her. He knew her. And remembered Jonah. Thank God for that. She frowned, staring daggers at Clint. He grinned.
“I’m Ava’s friend,” he drawled, emphasizing the last word just a little too much.
It made her skin crawl.
Pop grunted, not sure what to make of the dumbass his daughter had brought home. And no doubt that was exactly what the old man thought. Ava knew that look. She tried to avoid being on the receiving end of it as best she could.
Clint shook off Ava’s grip. The grin stayed in place.
Pop was not impressed.
Ava pushed her fork around her plate and tried to contemplate the nature of her own demise. Would Pop take the bike away? She was technically 18 but ‘His house, his rules.’ And she was fairly certain that at any age, breaking the law was unacceptable in the Stark family. Illegal street racing certainly qualified. So did Grand Theft. Her hand tightened on the utensil. If they added in Assault with a Dinner Fork, it would be a trifecta, but Pop would probably let that one slide— mitigating factors and all.
Calla chatted amiably with Clint, always happy to see an ex-student.
Across the table, Adam didn’t look so pleased. She’d never told him the name of the guy who’d screwed her then screwed her, but the man wasn’t stupid. The way he was glaring at Clint from across the table told her that Adam knew damn well who he was. What he couldn’t figure out, was why he was here. Neither could Ava.
If Clint wanted to rat her out, why didn’t he just do it? Why drag it out like this? He seemed perfectly oblivious to Adam’s animosity, shoveling in pasta by t
he forkful and barely closing his mouth to chew.
As she looked at him, Ava wondered what she ever saw in him in the first place. But she supposed she knew the answer. He had a hot bike. Not the BMW that he drove now, but a nice Honda Repsol with an Inline-4. He’d been saving up for a nicer machine, though.
He was fairly smart, as far as boys went. He’d gotten top honors in school, though she supposed that was mostly from the influence of his parents than any ambition on Clint’s part. It had been easy, too easy, to overlook the guffawing laugh and the crude humor that so often accompanied it. Ava had never loved him, but she’d liked him. The sting to her pride when he’d dumped her on her ass had been bad enough.
“Actually...” Clint drawled and glanced at Ava.
He was loving this.
She tensed, waiting.
“I thought I’d ask Ava to go for a ride with me. I haven’t been able to catch up with her for a while.”
“That your bike outside?” Pop asked.
Clint beamed. “Yes, sir.”
Pop snorted derisively. “A fool and his money...”
Ava couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. Another Pop-ism. And how appropriate, if he only knew.
Clint scowled at her, though. The comment must have hit a little too close to home. He opened his mouth again. This time, she almost didn’t give a shit.
“Let’s go,” he ordered. He pushed his chair back from the table.
Ava saw Adam tense a little and she wondered if the older man would actually let them leave.
Clint grinned at Calla, though, and she smiled back. “Thanks for lunch!” he told her, ever the schmoozer.
Calla looked pleased.
Ava sprang up from her chair. If Clint was going to leave without throwing her under the bus, she was only too happy to let him. “I’ll be back later,” she announced, and darted around the table.
Adam grabbed her wrist. He looked up at her questioningly. He didn’t say anything, though. It was likely he didn’t want to upset Calla with the truth. Or maybe he didn’t want to have to admit to his fiancée what a shitty judge of character his little sister was.
Ava frowned. Adam wouldn’t have been fooled by Clint. Not for one second. Neither would Dalton, or even Jonah. Only Ava would be so dumb.
“It’s fine,” she told him. “Be back later.”
She didn’t know, precisely, what Clint wanted. But he was here now, in full sight of her family, and she was leaving with him. What the hell could he even do? Everyone would know exactly who to blame if anything happened to her.
She followed Clint to the door and practically shoved him outside. She closed the door behind them firmly before going off on him. “What the fuck are you doing here?!” she hissed. “What do you want?” She glanced back at the front door worriedly.
Clint snorted. “Relax, I’m not going to tell them. They’ll take your bike away. I mean... my bike.”
Ava jutted up her chin defiantly. “What do you want, Clint?”
He grabbed her arm just above the elbow and gave a hard jerk. Ava stumbled forward. He pushed her to her Honda then moved toward his own. “You’re coming with me,” he ordered, jabbing his finger at her ride. “And if you don’t, if you duck out, I’ll come right back here and tell your family everything. Everything. Get on your own bike.” He sneered at her as he reached for his own helmet. “No piece of trash gets to ride on my bitch seat.”
Fury boiled up in Ava’s belly, but she bit her tongue and glanced back at the house. She’d like to hit Clint with her helmet, knock his ass down, and stomp on it. But she was more pissed at herself than anything else, because at one time she’d actually wanted to be on Clint’s bike, on his bitch seat.
For a short time, she was his bitch. Clint had always said it jokingly. Ava thought it was just crude, high-school boy humor, just a joke. It didn’t take long for Ava to discover that she was the joke. She’d given up her virginity to Clint and he’d taken her for a ride. One hell of a ride... with a crash at the end.
Ava had come to school the day after their first time together to see some other girl, some prissy-ass, bleach-blond cheerleader pawing all over Clint at his locker. Embarrassingly enough, Ava had been devastated. Ava was a real blond, a real girl, but Clint had gotten everything he wanted from her and then tossed her aside in the blink of an eye. Just like her birth mother. Ava couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that people were always going to reject her, see whatever it was inside of her that was bad, undesirable, unworthy, and chuck her away.
The Starks never had. Ava’s adopted family never gave any indication that they didn’t love her as one of their own, but the fear was always there, just under the surface. And every time she did something monumentally stupid, like spread for Clint—who’d clearly only given just the one fuck, she proved to herself and everyone else that she wasn’t really worthy of the name.
“Where are we going?” she asked, approaching her bike cautiously. She needed to get him away from the house, but she really didn’t want to go anywhere with this asshole.
Clint slammed his helmet down onto his head and flipped up the visor. He jabbed a finger at her bike. “Now,” he ordered.
She threw her leg over and snatched at her own helmet, glaring at him as she reluctantly slid it on. She started her bike and let the engine idle. The sound of the bikes drowned out their voices.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“We’re going for a ride,” he replied, lifting his kickstand with his foot.
“Bullshit.” Why? For what?
As if he heard her, he gripped the handlebars of his BMW racer and turned the front wheel so that it pointed at the street in front of them. He turned his head back to look at her. The look in his eyes seemed dangerous, even for Clint.
For the first time, Ava was starting to get a little nervous.
“You’re coming with me,” he informed her. “And you’re going to earn back all the money you stole from me. With interest.”
Chapter Ten
Ava took one last look back at the house and then followed Clint down the driveway and into the street. A foolish part of her had somehow been convinced that he would let this go, that when he discovered his money had gone missing, he would realize that he’d been a complete dick. She had no desire to get him back when she’d swiped the cash. She had just wanted to teach him a lesson.
It had been an impulsive mistake that, it seemed, had finally come back to bite her in the ass. She had no idea how Clint planned to have her earn the money back. She hoped he wouldn’t take her bike away. She supposed he could and there would be nothing she could do about it.
If she made a stink, she’d end up in the clink.
Of course, she’d have to explain to her family where the bike had gone. Keeping the truth from them was one thing, but outright lying wasn’t something she wanted to do. She tried, and failed, to come up with a compromise. Her stomach was already twisting in knots.
After exiting her neighborhood, they headed downtown and cut across Omaha Street. Traffic was thick for midday. Ava didn’t know whether to be grateful or irritated. On the one hand, the other cars surrounding them were slowing her progress toward whatever punishment Clint had cooked up and that could only be a good thing. She had no idea where he was taking her, but she kind of hoped that it was far, far away. She might be able to come up with an alternative, something Clint would agree to, and keep her bike.
They weaved in and out of traffic and she considered her options. She wouldn’t fuck him again. There was just no way. Even as she thought about it, Emilio sprang into her mind and she shook her head. Even if Clint agreed, the idea was repulsive, especially by comparison. Suddenly, she recognized her surroundings. As they approached the next intersection, her heart sped up. Shit. Clint was taking them past Burnout on their way across town. She didn’t think it was intentional. This was a heavily travelled street that stretched from one end of the city to the other.
Clint
might spot the Interceptor, though, and Ava wanted to keep Emilio to herself. He hadn’t mentioned knowing Clint and Ava wanted to keep it that way.
Emilio was hers in a way she wasn’t ready to look at too closely just yet, but she’d be damned if she’d let Clint taint anything else in her life.
She gunned her Honda and pulled out ahead of him, zipping around a too-slow Datsun and weaving back into the proper lane.
Clint kept up, revving his engine a little too hard. Likely, he thought she might be trying to ditch him. It was tempting, honestly. BMW or not, Ava knew the streets of Rapid City almost as well as she knew the canyons. She felt confident she could lose him in the midday traffic. But he might make good on his threat and show up at her house again. Then what?
Pop and Adam would know she was a liar and thief. And though she felt justified about both, she wasn’t as convinced they’d see things her way.
Ava could probably handle an orange jumpsuit for a few months. But she knew she couldn’t deal with the looks on their faces once they knew the truth. Everyone had forgiven Dalton for drinking, but alcoholism was a disease. Thievery was just... scummy.
The Starks might be low class but they sure as hell weren’t no class. Another Pop-ism. One she hadn’t lived up to.
They sailed past the garage, hopefully fast enough not to be recognized. Ava’s helmet was plain black and so was her bike. She had the sinking feeling that Emilio would know her if he saw her, though. She gripped the handlebars and fought the urge to look back.
She led Clint on a small chase, just two blocks and out of sight of the garage. When she finally slowed down to let him pass, his angry gestures let her know he was pissed. His head bobbed in his helmet and she knew he was shouting at her. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could guess.
She shrugged as though she’d just been messing with him and lifted her hand to the road in front of them, telling him to re-take the lead. He did so in a huff, jerking his front tire and cutting her off. She had to brake hard to avoid hitting him.