Lovely Wicked

by Kari Gregg

  www.nobleromance.com

  Lovely Wicked

  ISBN 978-1-60592-161-7

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Lovely Wicked Copyright 2010 Kari Gregg

  Cover Art by Fiona Jayde

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any existing means without written permission from the publisher. Contact Noble Romance Publishing, LLC at PO Box 467423, Atlanta, GA 31146.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

  Book Blurb

  Mitch McAllister and Liv Winslow grew up in the same squalid trailer park, turning to each other for comfort as scared kids. When they meet there again while visiting their dysfunctional families as adults, Mitch and Liv escape the ghosts of their past in sexual excess. They ultimately include Mitch's neighbor Sam Lawson in their giddy, extravagant play. It was only supposed to be sex: hot, dirty, spine-melting sex. None of them wanted to fall in love. If life has taught Liv, Mitch and Sam anything, though, it's that we don't always get what we want. But if we're very lucky, sometimes we get exactly what we need.

  Chapter One

  Mitch nosed his truck into the stingy parking place the mobile home park allotted his father's rust-streaked trailer. He killed the headlights. Gave his stomach a second to unclench.

  Hovel sweet hovel.

  His mouth curled into a bitter smile.

  Checking on Gary every Friday for the past two years hadn't changed his instinctive flinch each time he saw the place. He didn't hate the weakness, though, not anymore. The sharp twist of dread in his gut meant he still felt something. It hadn't defeated him.

  But he didn't look forward to what he'd find inside the trailer. His lips compressed into a hard line.

  He climbed out of the truck.

  When he spotted a familiar Amazonian silhouette out of the corner of his eye, near the trailer park's last surviving floodlight, he waved. "Hey, Liv." He turned back for the tall, brown paper bag that had lain, accusingly, on the passenger seat since he'd left the liquor store on Elm.

  "Hi, Mitch."

  He pivoted to face her—and froze, arm outstretched for Gary's whiskey. In the arc of flickering light, her face shone sickly pale, features drawn and tight. Stress lines bracketed her mouth. Her dark eyes glittered with the same shame and despair that knotted his stomach. She ripped her glance away and fidgeted with the hem of her gray tank top. The tank had shrunk after too many washings and rode above her belly button.

  Pink pajama pants five inches too short.

  And no shoes.

  In November.

  Shit.

  As soon as he jerked his keys from the ignition and his truck engine died, shouted curses as blue as the frigid air reverberated four trailers down. Jaw clenched, Mitch crossed the muddy excuse of a road, thankful the ground was still too warm to freeze. He shrugged out of his leather jacket, draped it over her shoulders.

  She burrowed into it for warmth. "Thanks."

  "You okay?"

  Dark eyes huge, haunted, she nodded. "The cops are on their way." He blew out a tired breath.

  Weren't they always?

  Since Olivia Winslow stood only a couple inches under his six foot two and he had zero desire to spend the rest of his weekend with a heating pad on his lower spine, he turned his back to her, bent at the knees. "Hop on." When she didn't, he tapped the top of one shoulder. "Don't be shy, honey. You're barefoot and there's a shitload of broken glass."

  Her arms slid around his neck.

  He braced himself.

  She jumped. Her thighs clamped around his hips. He grunted, but didn't stagger under the weight. Liv was no skinny twig of a woman, but she wasn't fat, either. Just . . . tall. "Hold tight."

  He stopped at the truck for Gary's whiskey, slammed the door, and triggered the locks on his way to the trailer. She slithered off his back when he climbed the rickety steps. Mitch crouched so she wouldn't fall. "Careful." As soon as her bare toes kissed the gray weathered wood, he lifted his arm to beat on the front door. "Open up, Gary," he said, his breath pluming in the frosty air. She pasted behind him like glue, shivering despite his coat. How long had she been hiding outside, freezing?

  The TV inside blared.

  Mitch pounded on the door. "Dad!"

  "It ain't locked, goddamnit!"

  Mitch shoved the door open and dragged Liv over the threshold behind him. The wasted shell of his father glared at him from the hospital bed in the dank, narrow living room. Most of his hair was gone and what little remained had pasted to his scalp in stringy, unwashed clumps. Lines grooved his face, some from the pain that required the morphine pump, but mostly from hard living. Gary McAllister had been a hulking, brute of a man once, until cancer had eaten him away. All that was left was this skeletal, dried-out husk and the hatred that beaded his eyes. "If you didn't bring it, you can just turn your ass around, boy."

  "I brought it." Mitch stepped farther inside, the smell of sickness and stale sweat churning his stomach. Once the door was shut, he tossed the bottle of Jack Daniels onto Gary's bed.

  He scrambled for it.

  His father could still move pretty fast when liquor was involved.

  "C'mon." Mitch groped behind him for Liv's hand. "We'll see the squad car lights from my window."

  Already unscrewing the lid, Gary cackled. "Finally gonna get yourself a piece of that, son?"

  Mitch's jacket gaped when Liv skirted by the hospital bed and the bastard's eyes focused on her breasts, nipples beaded from the cold to point prominently through the thin material of her tank. "Great tits."

  Mitch gritted his teeth, but he didn't stop. Stopping would make it worse, so he pulled Liv down the hallway, dodging dirty clothes and trash piled against the walls like snowdrifts.

  A voice slurred from the back bedroom. "That you, Mitch?" He stiffened.

  Two feet.

  Two more feet and they would've been home free.

  "Yeah," he said.

  "We got notice." His stepmother stumbled from the darkened doorway ahead, bleached hair frazzled around her head like a malevolent halo. The frayed strap of her sheer black nightie slid down her shoulder. She didn't bother to right it. "'lectric company's going to cut us off Monday."

  Mitch reached for the doorknob to the room he'd slept in as a child. Not that he'd ever really been one. "I'll take care of it."

  "You bring his JD?" she asked, a hopeful glint hardening her glazed eyes. God, he was sick of this crap.

  Why couldn't the son of a bitch die? Just die.

  "Did you?"

  He stared at the phony wood finish of his old bedroom door. "Yeah." When she lurched forward, Mitch twisted the knob. He stalked inside before Rita reached them and yanked Liv in with him.

  He slammed the door shut.

  Leaned back against it.

  Liv's hand lifted to hit the light switch.

  He snagged her wrist. "Don't."

  He couldn't stand it.

  He couldn't stand to look at the bowed paneling. He didn't want to see the lumpy twin mattress that had once comprised his bed. Or the stained sheets. But mostly, he didn't want to know if his stepmother had left any half-smoked cigarettes mashed into the carpet again. He didn't want to know that she snuck in here, slept in his old bed when he was gone.

  Christ, why did he keep doing this to himself?

  Liv tucked her head under his chin. Her free hand drifted to his shoulder and when he released the other, she curled it around his waist. "Are you okay?" He grimaced.

  Hell no.

  He was not okay.

  He snaked his arms around her, though. She'd tied her dark hair i
n a ponytail at the nape, which he didn't like. He wanted it loose, hanging free past her shoulders and almost to the base of her spine. Brushing against his arms and chest, like when they'd been kids. But it smelled of some fruity-flavored shampoo now. That, he liked.

  "Why do we do it?" he asked her. "Why do we keep coming back?"

  "I don't know." She hugged him. "I think . . . I keep hoping that if I save my sister, I just might save myself." Her hair caught in his stubble, like silk against his skin, when she looked up at him. "You came back to bury your father. Bury what he did to you." Mitch grunted. "We're both fucking neurotic."

  "Thanks for the newsflash, Captain Obvious." Blue lights flared through the missing teeth of his window blinds. The smile Liv tipped up at him quivered only a little. "They're here."

  She started to pull away, but he drew her back. "Let the police get him in cuffs first."

  "Cheryl, too."

  He held her.

  Because it felt good.

  "You want to tell me how you ended up wearing her clothes?"

  "Not particularly."

  Mitch wished to God, he could make it all go away. The weary hurt inside her, the fury building in him.

  They'd made it out.

  They'd crawled, clawed, and fought their way out of this stinking cesspool—

  made lives for themselves. She was a paralegal for some scum-sucking lawyer. It didn't pay dick—he'd seen her car—but it wasn't the impoverished rot of this hellhole, either. Mitch had worked his way up from day laborer to full partnership in a small but thriving construction company on the other side of town. Even getting his clock cleaned in three divorces hadn't dented his professional success.

  They'd earned their freedom.

  Both of them.

  They'd fought for the right to turn their backs on poverty, suffering, and abuse. Instead, they'd circled right back to where they'd started—in this godforsaken trailer, arms looped around each other as crude animal noises filtered through the paper-thin walls.

  She wrinkled her nose. "Are they doing what I think they're doing?"

  "He's so tanked on meds he hasn't been able to get it up in a year. He just likes humiliating Rita."

  And Mitch.

  The world would stop turning if Gary McAllister passed up an opportunity to humiliate his son.

  Snorting ripe disgust, he marched her to the window, lifted the blinds. "We're getting the fuck out of here." He opened the window, punched the sagging screen out, and hopped down.

  His boots sank an inch into thick mud.

  He lifted his arms. "C'mon, baby. Just like old times." She peered at him from the darkened room, bit her lip. "I can't run away, Mitch. Not this time. I need to make a statement to the police."

  "You need to get your ass out that window." He shook his head when she didn't move. "We've got ten, maybe fifteen minutes before Rita comes back to my room and tries to crawl into my pants. I mean it, Liv. Time to go." She shimmied out.

  He caught her.

  Not the piggyback ride he gave her to the front steps.

  He carried her in his arms like Rhett frigging Butler.

  Except, instead of dumping her in a nice big bed, he slipped her onto the front seat of his Chevy 4x4.

  "Seatbelt," he said when he rounded the hood and climbed in, but she'd already buckled up.

  That was the thing about him and Liv. They put on their seatbelts. Every time. Nobody had to remind them.

  The Gary McAllisters and Bert Winslows of the world were only interested in belts they could swing from clenched fists, the kind that had left welts Liv had hidden so she wouldn't have to explain them at school.

  Mitch's scars ran deeper.

  And hadn't this turned into another lovely trip down Memory Lane?

  Mitch couldn't take any more.

  He pushed his key into the ignition and rammed the truck into reverse to back out.

  "My car—"

  "Leave it." He shoved the gearshift into first, eased by the police cruiser pulled next to her family's trailer. "To hell with it. All of it. Just for a while." He turned right on the main road and they left the nightmare in the trailers behind them.

  Mitch wished it were that easy.

  "I live on Euclid. On the corner of Grand Avenue," she said when they reached streetlights and downtown traffic.

  There were worse neighborhoods.

  They'd just bolted from the worst part of town.

  But he wasn't taking her home. He made a left at the next intersection instead of taking the right toward Euclid.

  "I said—"

  "I know what you said." He drove east, to the highway and newer housing developments there. "If you really want to go to your place, I'll turn around." His fingers tightened on the wheel until his knuckles shone white. "I . . . I don't want to be alone."

  She didn't reply right away, just stared out the windshield what felt like epochs.

  "Okay."

  Chapter Two

  His last wife had forced the sale of his house to get a piece of the profit in the divorce settlement. Mitch was still pissed about it. When he unlocked his front door, boxes and furniture that would never in a million years fit inside a one-bedroom apartment towered shoulder-high in both his living and dining rooms. He'd even stacked cartons of crap in his kitchen. Why unpack? He'd just have to pack it all up again when he bought another house to remodel.

  He just wasn't done being pissed yet.

  Mitch led the way to his kitchen and tossed his keys on the only clear surface on the counter: space for his coffee pot. He ripped the refrigerator door wide, leaned in.

  "Drink?" he asked over his shoulder as he grabbed a Coors.

  "Sure." She frowned at the maze of boxes and jam-packed furniture. "You just move in?"

  "Six months ago." He snapped the lid off the bottle and handed it to her. Her brow furrowed.

  "A beer won't make you beat your wife and kids, Liv." Her mouth tightened. "I know that." She accepted the Coors, sipped daintily. She shrugged. "I'm surprised is all."

  "Gary's an asshole, drunk or sober. Liquor didn't make him that way. He comes by it natural." He snagged a Coors for himself, cracked it open. He leaned against the sink and took a pull off the bottle. The beer slid down his dry throat, frosty and smooth. He watched her watch him drink.

  "Check the fridge, if you want," he said, tossing his lid—and hers—into the sink behind him. "I bought a six-pack, not a case. I'm careful, Liv." She quirked an eyebrow at him, brought the beer to her lips and swallowed.

  "You don't have to prove anything to me."

  "Yeah, I do." She was the child of an alcoholic. A mean one. He ran his finger along the rim of the bottle. "I never drink to excess and I don't use booze as a crutch. I've had that six-pack for weeks. I'd offer something else, but I meant to hit the store after Gary's."

  "This isn't a test, Mitch. If you say you're okay with it, fine. I wouldn't have accepted the drink if I was going to get bent out of shape over it." But he knew she would've taken the beer from him, even if the idea of drinking terrified her. Lie to smooth things over. Keep the peace. That mantra had been so ingrained into her as a kid, she'd fallen back into it with ridiculous ease as an adult. But her eyes hadn't sparked with fear when she'd been watching him. Just nerves.

  His lips curved.

  She was uncomfortable.

  Not so much with his beer, but he'd still rattled her. Liv fidgeted with her bottle, shifted foot to foot, darted glances everywhere except at him. Her teeth worried her bottom lip, no different from the countless other times he'd watched her bite it growing up. Unsettling to discover that the nervous gesture turned him on this late in the game, but it did.

  Disconcerting to realize he was as edgy as she was.

  Had to be the tank top.

  She'd wrapped his leather jacket around her, but he could still picture her tits outlined by the thin fabric of her tank, the tight nubs of her nipples begging for attention.

  Little Livv
y Winslow had grown up.

  He'd seen her around the trailer park over the past couple years, waved to her from time to time. They'd shared casual greetings. Exchanged a few sad, knowing looks. She'd been ten and scrawny when Mitch had run away for good. He'd remembered her like that, flash-frozen in his mind, hiding from her dad in his bedroom, all skinny and scared.

  Fifteen years later, he'd been stunned by the woman's body that the girl he'd known had grown into. He'd recognized her right off. Didn't matter how much time had passed or how much either one of them had changed. Mitch would know Liv anywhere. It was the way she moved. The loose sway of her walk. How she angled her chin. The quick flutter of her hands when she talked. He'd recognize her, whether they'd spent ten years apart or two hundred. Mitch would stake his life on it. But he'd still been shocked to the marrow to see her full grown. He shouldn't have been.

  Rosemary Winslow had been a stripper-sometimes-prostitute before Bert had married her, and both of her daughters had inherited their mother's lush body. Generously rounded breasts, nipped-in waist, the delectable ass. Add Liv's long mane of witchy black hair and the sexy pout of her full, kiss-me-all-night lips and Mitch's entire body had clenched into a fist the first time he'd spotted her when he'd returned to the trailer park to see Gary two years ago.

  After greasing the wheels with a fifth of Vodka, Rita had told him that Liv hadn't followed her mother's footsteps into hooking. Or stripping. She had a "cushy" office job and an apartment in town. A string of occasional boyfriends, all of whom Rita described as deadbeats and losers, but hey, with three divorces under his belt, who was Mitch to throw stones?

  Liv had a normal sort of life, no different from his. Far removed from the trailer park.

  Thank God.

  The both of them going respectable didn't change the fact the woman was built like a brick shithouse, though. Even his father's crude remarks hadn't killed his semiarousal at having those curves pressed against his spine. But enough was enough.

  This was Liv, not a piece of tail he could buy with crisp twenties. Time to yank his whoremones under control, and Mitch had to believe she'd be a whole lot more comfortable if she had more clothes on.

  He placed his unfinished Coors in the sink behind him. "I'll find you something to wear."