Billy laughed bitterly. He wanted money. “He left me enough to get this place started. But I’m broke, Cain. You’re gonna have to hold your hand out somewhere else.”
“Jesus, girl. You’re this bitter after all this time?”
“Yes. So will you please answer my question and just tell me why the fuck you’re here? I told you never to contact me again.”
“You said I had to get clean. I’m clean now.”
“Really? Where’d you do rehab?”
“Didn’t have the money for rehab. A couple friends helped me out.”
So that certainly wasn’t going to take. “How long have you been clean?”
“’Bout six weeks now.”
“If you were really clean, you’d know to the day how long it’s been.”
“Thirty-nine days. Okay? Fuck, Bill. Stop breakin’ my balls. I’m your father. I deserve a little respect here.”
She produced another bitter laugh and walked to the back door. “No, you don’t. I don’t have money, and I don’t want a daddy, so if that’s why you’re here, we’re done.”
He leaned back against a worktop and crossed his arms. “I’m not leavin’, Billy. I don’t want a handout, and I’m not gonna try to be your dad again, if you don’t want it. But you’re my kid. My only one ...”
He paused, and Billy mentally filled in one of his favorite ‘jokes’: that I know about, hahaha. Ha.
“I love you, girl. I’m clean now, and I’m trying to put things right. Make amends, and all that.”
Billy had never known her father even to try to get clean. He loved that fucked-up lifestyle, thought it was part of the rock-god package. She didn’t believe him. But if he wasn’t asking for anything else, maybe she could dip her toe into the paternal waters again. Just the shallows.
“You really aren’t looking for anything else?”
He shook his head. “I just want my Wild Bill back. I’m real sorry I fucked it all up.”
“Okay. Well, we’ll see how it goes, I guess.”
He gave her the grin that had dropped cheap panties all over the Eastern Seaboard, once upon a time. It had no effect on Billy.
“Thank you, baby. Can I get that tour now?”
~oOo~
Over the next few days, Billy learned that Cain was ‘between bands,’ having been booted from the most recent one, as from all the others, for being a fucked-up asshole. He was ‘taking some time to get his legs steady’ before he started looking for another gig. Thus far, he had not asked Billy for help. But he was homeless, living in his Windstar, so she let him park it on the lot and use the kitchen and bathroom, so long as he stayed out of everybody’s way. That was as close as she’d allow him to get.
However, Cain Jones was charming, right up to the point you wanted to kill him, and by Friday morning, when Billy had a crew over to build a viewing deck for the 4th of July fireworks over the water that night, her whole staff adored him. He’d insinuated his way into the kitchen, and then the club, helping out here, offering a hand there, doing somebody a solid over that way. He had a dragon’s cache of stories, and he told them well, and her people were absolutely transfixed.
When the crew wouldn’t let him help put the deck up, for insurance reasons, he’d played gopher for them, running off to the hot wiener truck down the boardwalk to get them lunch, making sure their water coolers were full.
Billy had too much history with the man to be bamboozled by a few days of good behavior, but she hadn’t seen him use, and he was being nice to everybody. He hadn’t asked for more help than she’d offered. He wasn’t pushing her to warm up to him.
Only ingratiating himself with everyone around her. She remained deeply suspicious.
Tonight, the 4th, was the first night since he’d shown up she had live music in the club—a bluesy trio from New Jersey that covered everybody from Muddy Waters to Stevie Ray Vaughn, with a little Springsteen tossed in. They played on the stage inside, but Billy had had speakers installed on the deck, and people were loving it inside and out. The band would break for the fireworks, anyway.
Cain had glommed onto the band right away, helping them set up, talking shop, finding out their shared connections. Billy didn’t mind that, necessarily. As long as he didn’t try to leverage his relationship with her to get his foot in, she wished him—and them—good luck.
She’d just turned from watching Cain work his way onto the stage, to stand at the edge and lean on an amp, and had decided to let the band handle him if he was getting too clingy, when her problems with her father became secondary.
Her own personal Pagano Brother was coming in. Alone.
Tony Cioccolanti. She knew his last name now—Joe, one of her bouncers, knew a guy who knew a guy who knew him—and had a fuller picture of his reputation as well. He was the guy who’d cut the previous owner’s leg off.
And to think she’d had sexy dreams about him. No more of that. She was not into bad boys. Bad boys became men like Calvin “Cain, because sharing a name with the very first murderer is ‘cool’” Jones. And Tony Cioccolanti’s brand of bad made Cain look like a fluffy little puppy—or just a sad, paunchy wannabe. The guy was very bad news, as he’d demonstrated to her more than once.
Billy turned, meaning to fade into the crowd and let him find his own seat. Before she’d made it ten steps, a strong hand caught her elbow.
“I didn’t take you for a runner, baby,” Tony murmured at her ear.
With a fiery loathing for the goosebumps rising up on her neck and the little flutter in her belly—seriously, what the fuck?—Billy snatched her arm from his grip and turned to him. “I’m not running. I’m working. What are you doing here?”
He grinned. Lately, he’d been smiling at her a lot. He still looked murder at her half the time, but the other half, it was like he was trying to get her to like him.
He had a nice smile. When it reached his eyes, he was really good looking.
Jesus. Fucking. Fuck.
“Just checkin’ in.”
He’d answered the question she’d forgotten she’d asked. It brought her blessedly back to the matter at hand.
“I haven’t seen Nicole all week. I haven’t seen drugs change hands even recreationally. I haven’t seen anybody use”—and she’d had a keener eye on that than usual this week. “I held up my end.”
His eyes dipped down to ostentatiously study her ass, then returned to meet hers again. “It’s a nice end. Okay. Good girl. Then I’m just here as the protection you pay for. Makin’ sure nothing goes down on a night like this. Can get pretty wild here on the 4th.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why I have three giant bouncers working.”
“And me.” He stepped back. “I’ll take a Sam, baby.”
And he walked away.
Billy turned the other direction, body and mind, and focused on her club.
~oOo~
A few minutes before nine-thirty, the band ended their second set, and Billy got on stage to announce that the Quiet Cove fireworks display would start soon. Then she followed most of the crowd outside.
The Quiet Cove boardwalk didn’t follow the beachline exactly; it started at the beach, ran alongside for a few hundred yards, then curved in toward town. Here at the far end, where West Egg was located, there wasn’t much view of the water.
Billy liked it that way. From her second-floor windows, she had a decent view, and the distance between the beach and the club served as a boundary that reminded people they couldn’t wander into her nice establishment in bare feet and board shorts, like they did elsewhere on the boardwalk. They went home, dressed up, and came back.
For the purposes of fireworks-watching, the distance helped, too. Less of a crowd, but the same view of the sky.
That had been her reasoning when she’d decided to put a temporary deck out here for this weekend, and she’d been right. The little bar out here was doing heavy business, though they were serving only wine, bottled beer, and water.
Billy
stood at a corner of the deck, leaning against the railing, and felt, for the first time since opening weekend, when the big first crowd had her convinced they’d be in the black in no time, that West Egg would succeed. She was doing it right. People enjoyed the club—the music, the menu, everything. The reputation was building. Word of mouth was spreading. She would climb out of her hole and keep climbing.
She felt the presence of someone encroaching on her personal space—even in this crowd, the intent felt obviously different from someone simply wandering close—and knew without looking who’d come up on her.
And she was right. Tony was right there, leaning in.
“You look pleased with yourself,” he said, smirking.
Infused with a sense of coming success, the fresh confidence that she had steered her life onto a steady course, Billy decided right then to grapple with whatever weird fascination this guy pinged in her. Also, she wanted to hold on to this feeling of control and self-direction, and if she stood here with him too long, he was certain to grab her or something, show his physical dominance.
She could walk away, but he’d follow.
So Billy did something else.
She turned to him, shoved at his chest, pushing him against the deck railing. The move surprised him, and a bolt of electric pleasure surged through her at the thought that she’d finally knocked him off his hill.
That surge gave her the courage to follow through on this insane urge to make him taste his own medicine. He was stronger than she, obviously. But he was caught off guard. And in her five-inch Jimmy Choo sandals, she was only an inch or two shorter than he.
Billy grabbed his head and kissed him.
She meant it to be fierce and a little violent. To dig her nails into his head, pull his hair, mash her mouth on his, show him she wasn’t afraid of him and that he wasn’t invulnerable. And for a few seconds, several seconds, the kiss was exactly that. Painful and ugly, but entirely in her control. Billy’s heart was a drumbeat in her ears, she could feel her arms shaking, but she was in control.
Then the first burst of fireworks exploded above them, and Tony shoved her off.
His hands clamped over her shoulders in a bruising clench, he stared at her, his brow drawn in, the colored lights in the sky flickering in his furious, shocked eyes.
Shit. He was going to hurt her now. Punch her, or something. Billy wanted to back away, get away from this very bad mistake, but she couldn’t move—and it had nothing to do with his grip on her. Her body wouldn’t move.
She stared back, her heart pounding, and waited for him to make her pay.
His hands came off her shoulders—she could run now, he was going to hit her, she should run right now—but she didn’t move. He cupped his hands around her head, with none of the violence she’d used, and kissed her.
Demanding, but not violent. His lips were soft on hers, his tongue tasting, pushing, wanting in.
Billy let him in.
~ 9 ~
She opened her mouth and let him in.
Fireworks went off above them like it was the couple’s first kiss in some stupid chick flick. Tony was aware enough of that, and the crowd around them, to feel ridiculous, but not enough to push her away again.
The way she’d kissed him—he knew exactly what it was. Everything between them since he’d asked her about Nicole Howard had been about power—him asserting it, her trying to resist it, pushing back on him—an elaborate dance like one of the ballets Donnie’s new wife danced.
The way she’d kissed him, like a punch with her mouth—she’d been trying to claim the power between them.
That was hot as hell.
Tony fucked whenever he wanted; he was fit and decent looking, and he had some power and made respectable bank. He got rejected occasionally, but overall, chicks wanted what he had to offer. He’d had a few girlfriends, too, but he got bored with them pretty quickly. They were all such fucking pushovers. Call him a bully or a shark, take your pick, he didn’t care—Tony wanted things his way, and he pushed to get what he wanted. But he didn’t mind having to fight for the win. In fact, he liked it. He wanted fireworks.
Like the ones going off now, while he explored Billy Jones’ pretty mouth. Loud and bright and colorful. Beautiful explosions, above them and between them.
His longest relationship had been with Anita Morales, a hot little Puerto Rican who’d loved to fight like he did. She was all the stereotypes and clichés about Latinas—and Italian women, for that matter—rolled up into one chaotic package: loud and wild, sexy and pugnacious. For a few weeks, he’d though he could fall in love with her, maybe.
But she liked to get physical when they fought, punching and kicking and scratching, and Tony couldn’t turn that part of himself on with a woman, or things could go very badly, very quickly. He was a shark, a bully, yeah, sure—but he would never become his father. But he couldn’t get hit and kicked and scratched and not fight back, either.
He and Anita didn’t work. As had become vividly clear a few months in, when she’d come at him for talking to a girl at a party—just talking—and they’d had one of their things. They’d yelled, and she’d cleared a table and kicked over a lamp, like usual. He’d enjoyed fighting with her like that. Always before, when she’d gone to hit or bite or scratch, he’d grabbed her, and they’d ended up fucking each other sweaty. But that night, she’d thrown a heavy mug at him and hit him in the face. He’d thrown her across the room before he’d gotten the bit in his temper—and then he’d broken his hand and wrist punching the wall. That fist had wanted very badly to be putting her nose through the back of her skull.
He’d broken up with her in the ER, waiting to get a cast up to his elbow, and stitches in his chin from the mug she’d thrown. Anita, unharmed, had sobbed and shouted in two languages and called him a coward, she’d thrown a water bottle at his still-bleeding face, but he’d been unmoved. They didn’t work.
He wanted fireworks, not neutron bombs.
Security had thrown her out, and then some hospital nerd had come to him in the ER to talk to him about domestic abuse and ask if he needed help, assured him that men were victims of domestic abuse, too. That had been the goddamn kicker right there. They’d thought he was a fucking victim. Chum.
He was not.
That was the last time he’d bothered to have a girlfriend.
But here he was, neck deep in Billy Jones’ mouth, and he could tell he wasn’t going to be satisfied with an easy, one-off fuck with her.
She’d fought him, too; he still had a scabbed wound where she’d stabbed him not much more than a week ago. But that was different from Anita. That had been self-defense. No show about it, no drama. She’d just slid the blade in to force him off her.
And then she’d fixed him up.
Since he’d pushed her back, she hadn’t touched him. His hands held her head, his mouth covered hers, his tongue and hers writhed together, but there was space between them otherwise. And then, her hands came to rest on his chest, under his jacket, and she sighed. It was silent under all the noise of the 4th of July celebration, but Tony felt the brush of her breath over his cheek.
To have her give in, after this long dance? Holy shit. Tony was well tempted to put her up on this railing and fuck her right here.
The crowd jostled up against them, and Billy was pushed into him. Tony changed his hold, wrapped his arms around her, turned and put her against the railing, but the urge was to protect her from the crowd, not the thought he’d had the moment before, to put her on the railing and fuck her.
Tipping her head back, she broke the kiss and stared up at him.
He didn’t know what to say or do, so he stared back.
She really was hot. She wore a sparkly red sleeveless top that showed the definition in her slim arms, and wide-legged black pants that hugged trim hips. Her makeup sparkled, and her lashes were thick and long around those light, keen eyes. Dark lipstick, like before. He was probably smeared with the shit now, but couldn’
t have cared less.
He preferred brunettes, and she was blonde, he preferred long hair, and hers was short, but she still rang all his bells.
Since he couldn’t think of anything to say, he leaned in again and kissed her.
This time, her hands slid up his chest, and her arms looped around his neck. She was all in, kissing him back, matching his every move, while the world thundered and flashed around them. When he leaned in, let her feel what she was doing to him, she surged right back, ground on him. No fear.
Yeah, he definitely would not be satisfied with just a single fuck.
But that was a problem, right? He couldn’t get tangled up with Billy Jones. She was on his list. She could become a mark any time. Hell, the dealer waitress could still be a problem he had to fix through Billy in some way.
He could fuck her right now. She wanted it; she’d taken all that energy from fighting him and channeled it into making out with him like a couple of horndog teenagers. He probably could put her up on this railing and do her right now, and she’d be all for it.
But it wouldn’t stop at that. She’d been traipsing through his brain for a week. He’d brought her up in the fucking confessional. He kept looking for excuses to show up here, where she lived and worked.
He was narrowing in on stalker territory, no point in denying it. He liked this woman. She challenged him. She interested him. He didn’t want to fuck and chuck her.
Goddamn. Tony pulled back. He needed to get his head straight about this chick, figure out what he could and could not have.
“I have to go.”
Billy didn’t protest, or seem at all flustered, or angry, or disappointed. But she didn’t drop her arms, either. She simply stared at him. Then she brought one hand to his face, dragging her fingertips through his hair, over his cheek, and brushed her thumb over his lips. Wiping her lipstick away.
Then she let him go.
As he walked away, the fireworks finale went off in the sky.
~oOo~
“Tone, you with us?” Angie snapped his fingers.
Accidental Evils Page 10