I think of Dad, too, working part-time at a garage, even though he’s got enough money to retire if he wants. But he likes to keep busy these days, working and going to AA and his gambling meetings. He was one-year clean last week. We had a barbeque.
It’s Sunday and our street is alive with activity. The Sands are cleaning their car and the Jameses are playing with their infant son. Two boys are playing soccer in their yard. Down the street, somebody revs their motorcycle.
I’m going to be a realtor, I’m going to work my ass off and then I’m going to be the kind of realtor these people deserve. Not the lying kind, not the kind to hide damp with pictures and lie to their clients. I’m going to build up my business slowly, honestly, so that in ten years’ time I can look back on what I’ve done and be proud. I’m not going to slip into my old habits of just surviving. I’m done with that.
“Is that what you call work?” Henry says, wrapping his arms around me from behind.
I sink into his enveloping embrace, an embrace which makes me feel invincible. “I was just thinking about paint and tiles and carpets and things like that.”
“Liar.” I giggle when he kisses me under the ear. “You’re just a liar, Daisy. I always knew you were.”
“Oh, what gave it away?” I tilt my head so he can kiss up and down my neck.
“When you said you loved me. A woman like you, loving a man like me?”
I turn to him seriously. “Don’t say that. I’m the lucky one, not you.”
He laughs. “Maybe we both are,” he says.
And we kiss.
***
Henry
I stand in the study, staring at my GED. Maybe most people wouldn’t as proud of a GED certificate as I am, but I’m way prouder of this than anything else, barring Lola and Daisy. I’m prouder of this than I am of my twenties, of Violence Mode, of Hound. I’m prouder standing in a mall in my security uniform than I am cracking through a door and causing pain. I’m prouder protecting than I am hurting.
“You’re going to call me stupid for staring at this thing again,” I say, when I hear Daisy enter behind me.
“I’d never do that.” She dances across the room and kisses my bare back. I’m shirtless and she’s dressed in raggedy old clothes. “But it is painting time, lazy.”
Dean’s got Lola for the day, so Daisy and I are going to paint her room. As we leave the study, I think of Dean with a sense of respect which proves the respect I felt for Mac was wish fulfilment, nothing else. Dean has really turned himself around. He’s off the booze and he’s holding down a job and I don’t worry one bit leaving Lola with him.
The painting doesn’t go too well. We’re about halfway through when Daisy gets bored and flings some red paint at me. She says it’s an accident, but by that time I’ve painted a red line down her shirt, and before either of us can tell the other to get back to work, we’re on the floor, thrusting, grunting, moaning, her hands running through my hair and her forest-green eyes flitting open and closed as orgasm after orgasm releases over my cock. When I bury inside of her and come, hard, I lean down and press my lips against hers. We kiss as both of us release.
For a long time, we lie on the floor, panting, staring up at the ceiling. Daisy nestles into the crook of my arm. Sunlight fades as we lie there, but neither of us think about getting up.
“I never thought I’d be here,” Daisy says. “I’m so happy. But I’m scared, too.”
“Scared?” I look down at her. She’s staring up at me with a look that reminds me of how lucky I am every time I see it.
“Scared that I’ll start taking it for granted. Scared that it will become normal.”
“It will become normal, but that’s nothing to be scared about.” I kiss her on the forehead. “I’d rather have this normal than the one before.”
“Yeah.” She nods. “Yeah, that’s true. Alright. Maybe we ought to get back to work. Unless…” She grins wickedly. “Unless, do you want to go get a beer and unwind at the strip club?”
I’m on my feet in a second, paintbrush in hand.
“Hell, no,” I say, painting like a madman. “I can’t think of anything worse.”
THE END
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BAD BOY’S SURPRISE BABY: The Choppers MC By Kathryn Thomas
I WANTED ADVENTURE. HE WANTED A BABY.
WE BOTH GOT WHAT WE WANTED.
Devin owned me from the second he walked into my shop.
He was like something out of a romance novel.
And I wanted to see where our story went.
I just never guessed it would end with his baby in my belly.
It was obvious from the second our eyes met:
Devin wouldn’t take no for an answer.
He saw something in me that he wanted…
And I was powerless to deny him.
But that was before I knew the kinds of people who were after Devin’s blood.
Bad men.
Evil men.
Men who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt me, too.
I never signed up for all this.
But when Devin puts his seed inside me…
I’m stuck going along for the ride.
Chapter One Camille
The store was quiet. In fact, it had been quiet for the past two hours. Camille had been watching the clock tick, following every movement of the minute hand with her steely blue eyes. It was only several minutes later after she had been standing behind the desk, staring at the clock on the wall, that she realized she had been drumming her fingertips on the glass-top counter.
She couldn’t believe how bored she was. Bored was one of her emotions; the other was anxiety. Camille had taken a huge leap of faith by opening up a comic bookstore. She was only twenty-five, which meant that her other friends were out there in the real world, climbing corporate ladders, and making more money than they could spend. Basically, they were living a normal adult life; a life that she had been brought up to lead.
She had the education for it, with a Business degree, and even had the work experience too. After college, Camille had slogged away at a financial firm for a year, until one fine day she realized that this was not the life she wanted. And quit her job. At the time, she had been twenty-three and thankfully had some money in the bank, which she hadn’t spent on “nights out” and an unprecedented amount of alcohol, like so many other of her colleagues had.
So she had found herself with enough money to chase her crazy dream of opening a comic book store.
Now, here she was, apparently living the dream. The only problem was that not everybody shared her dream. Camille’s clientele was small and scattered, and her store was more often empty than busy. For the longest time, she kept her hopes up. It would work out. Business would pick up. But eventually, after two years of waiting behind her desk, praying to make a sale… Camille realized that it was too much to ask for. She had accepted the fact that she wouldn’t make more than ten sales a day, on a good day.
Camille sighed as she stopped drumming her fingers. She tore her face away from the wall clock and decided to re-analyze her life, as she had done on thousands of other occasions.
The question was: am I happy? Camille caught the reflection of herself in the store window across from her. Her tight blonde curls lay in a high halo around her face, and even in the dim reflection of herself, she could make out the tired look in her blue eyes. She didn’t bother with makeup anymore, so her lips were a natural pale pink, and her face looked dry and a little washed out. She was happy in her simple denim cut-offs and the sweatshirt she was wearing, but she then noticed a dried pasta sauce stain on her shirt. She eventually shrugged it off; it’s not like she had any customers to make an impression on.
Camille sighed again. This self-contemplation was getting her
nowhere. She needed to occupy her brain with something else. She rummaged around on the desk until she found a blank scrap of paper, and she started doodling.
She was sketching subconsciously, mindlessly… and as always, she doodled Cammy.
Cammy was the heroine of her own comics. A plain-Jane small town country girl by day, who fought corruption and male chauvinism by night. Well, not quite in those simple terms, but Camille wanted Cammy to be the symbol of female empowerment, not like the usual comic book stereotype. Cammy didn’t have any super powers, and she didn’t fight the usual kind of comic book villain either. The villains in Camille’s comics were misogynists, men who abused their wives and girlfriends and mistreated women in general.
It was no surprise, therefore, that Country Crowns had sold only twenty copies in the past eight months since she started publishing them. The comics didn’t exactly fit into any tapped market of readers.
But in any case, Camille was happy in knowing that there were at least twenty people out there in the world who had read her work, probably even appreciated her artwork, and whose lives she may have touched through her characters.
Camille smiled as she drew, thinking about the thrill of someone actually picking out one of her comics and purchasing it. Actually paying money to read something she had written, and see something she had drawn. Hopefully, it would happen again.
She finished sketching a figure of Cammy on the sheet of paper. Cammy looked nothing like Camille, and purposely so. Cammy was tall, wore her shiny red hair in a loose fishtail plait, had thick, glossy red lips, and wore a black velvet jumpsuit and a mask at night when she fought evil. By day, Cammy helped her father on their family’s farm and donned plaid shirts with rolled up sleeves, and loose jeans with the kneecaps cut off. By day, Cammy was just another ordinary country girl… just like Camille used to be, and too long ago.
She stared at her drawing of Cammy, smiled again, and then in a sudden fit, balled it up and threw it in the bin. Who was she kidding? Publishing her own comic books was a hilarious fantasy; something she needed to stop if she wanted to save the very little money she had made from the store.
Camille walked around the desk and over to the stand where the more popular comic books were housed. She found the latest issue of Punisher and pursed her lips. She ran her finger over the sketched abs, the ripping torso of The Punisher. She grinned at the thought that somewhere out there, in some parallel universe, someone like him might actually exist. A man who was a daredevil, brave, rugged, and willing to avenge his family’s death through any means necessary.
Camille shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. As if. She was kidding herself again.
***
The bell above the store door tinkled just as Camille turned the third page of Punisher . When she looked up, she saw a guy walk in, and she immediately felt her cheeks blush. It couldn’t be real, it couldn’t actually be happening! Just when she was daydreaming about a comic book hero, a guy straight out of her fantasies had walked in.
This guy was ripped. She could see that, even through the tight jeans and black leather biker jacket he was wearing. He had magnificent black hair that was brushed away from his face like an old photograph of Marlon Brando. His eyes were small, the color of chocolate, and he was clean-shaven with straight angular jaws.
He hadn’t quite caught sight of her when he walked in. In fact, he hadn’t seen her at all because the first thing he did was close the door and twist the key in the lock. Then, without turning to look at her, he turned the sign on the door so that it read, ‘Closed.’
Camille cleared her throat, while the comic book lay open in her hands.
He whipped around as if he was surprised to find anybody in the store at all.
“Thanks,” he said immediately, and his lips broke out into a wide smile.
Camille noticed the shape of his face, it was long and angular, and there were deep long dimples on both his cheeks as he smiled. She felt the back of her neck burning up, but she raised her chin, not quite sure what was going on.
“I’ll open the door in about five minutes, yeah?” he stated rather than asked and splayed open his palm to indicate the number five.
A strong whiff of his scent had filled the small space of the store, and now Camille felt overwhelmed by it. How could a man look so great and smell so good at the same time? Was she dreaming him up?
He smelt like polished oak furniture, with a hint of brandy and some old masculine aftershave. He took a few steps in her direction and Camille was struck by the scent of him again.
“Excuse me?” she managed to ask, as he smoothly walked past her and obstructed himself from her view with the help of one of the shelves.
“Like I said, you can open the store up in a few minutes,” he repeated, but it didn’t clarify her confusion.
A sudden rage combined with panic overtook Camille, and she crossed her brows as she watched him browsing the shelves for comic books. Who did he think he was? What made him think that he could simply waltz into her store, lock the door and shut shop whenever he felt like it, with no explanation? No matter how drop dead gorgeous he was, she wasn’t going to allow it.
Without exchanging another word with him, Camille walked over to the door and twisted the key in the lock, ready to open it again. But before she did, she bit down on her lip and turned back to the guy.
He was looking at her too; appearing to study her. Despite the fact that she was defying him, his gaze was calm. He was lazily looking her up and down, examining her hair, her breasts, her bare legs… Camille could feel her cheeks burning red again.
Slowly, as she watched him, he dragged his gaze away from her and pulled a book off the shelf. Camille had caught a look at the cover before he opened it. It was the first issue of Country Crowns, and Camille’s heart started beating fast. He had picked her comic book, even if it was by chance; he had her artwork, her story… in his hands!
Her hand froze on the key in the lock as she watched him turn the first page of the comic. His eyes were scanning the pages quickly, and he appeared to be engrossed in the story.
Before she could say anything, she watched him drop to his knees and then sit down cross-legged on the floor. The whole thing flabbergasted her. What was going on? He was sitting on the floor, in the middle of thousands of comic books, hidden by aisles, and quietly reading one of her books. He had still not given her any explanation as to why he had locked the door or turned the sign.
Camille hadn’t realized that her mouth was hung slightly open. It didn’t matter though; he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was more interested in the book. Her book!
Camille shook her head to try and clear her mind and start thinking straight again. It wasn’t a good idea to be so carried away by the presence of a handsome man in her store. She turned on her heels and yanked the door back open, just for show, just to give him an indication that the shop was open again.
Then she turned the sign so that other people (if there were going to be any) wouldn’t be dissuaded from coming into the shop by a ‘Closed’ sign. Then slowly, taking a deep breath in, she turned back around again. It was time to think straight, to gather her wits about her. It was time to behave like the responsible adult store owner that she was, instead of a giggling blushing teenager.
It was true that not many, in fact, not any, customers who looked like this guy ever walked into her shop. But he should be treated like every other customer, even though he had somehow picked one of her books out of all the other choices.
But when Camille turned to look at him again, she wasn’t prepared for what she found. He was still sitting on the floor but had reached up with his long muscular arms for the rack of novelty masks on the shelf above him. In that split-second, when she had turned to open the door and turn the sign back around, this Greek-God of a man had picked out a unicorn party mask and was now fitting it over his face.
Camille’s brows crossed and she felt her lips stretch to a straight li
ne. This was too unreal, what was going on?
“Excuse me, but what are you doing?” she asked, taking a few steps towards him.
“Just checking out your merchandise,” she heard him say, but his voice was muffled slightly by the unicorn mask. Camille tried to stifle a laugh. It was hilarious to watch this grown, seriously athletic looking biker dude in a pink glittery unicorn mask. But Camille took it in her stride and walked over to him.
WIFE FOR A PRICE: A Hitman Fake Marriage Romance Page 16