STONE (Daring the Kane Brothers)

by Kelly Gendron

  “Your mom?” Hands clenched in tight fists, it’s a fight not to jump up and hold her, but I get Jaggs. She’s a fierce wildcat, and it takes a lot before she’ll let anyone pet her.

  She nods, and I respond appropriately with, “Fuck.”

  “Yeah, fuck.” She sniffles and blinks a few times like she’s kicking back the sting in her eyes. “Junkies were known to go to the park to meet with their dealers. She must’ve gotten her shit and couldn’t wait. She did it right there, not thinking about me and Jenny some twenty feet away, freezing and alone in the wagon. No, the bitch just left us there in the cold and dark while she put the shit in her arm.” She looks at me, anger filling her violent indigo eyes. “Do ya know what they called us?”

  I shake my head.

  “The Wilson Park Wagon Babies. It was all over the news, and over twenty years later, they still talk about it.” Her head lifts, and she wipes her hands across her cheeks and lifts her wet eyelids to look at me. “Is there anything else you want to know about my mother?”

  “Fuck, Jaggs.” I lean forward and pull her into my arms. “Fuck, babe. I’m sorry.” I bury my face in her shoulder. “I’m sorry.” She fights me for a few seconds. I refuse to let go, and eventually, she surrenders.

  She wraps her arms around me and kisses my neck, moving upward toward my mouth until I surrender. I kiss her, catching the wetness of her tears on my heated face. I withdraw to gently wipe them away.

  “Don’t stop.” She palms my face and presses my lips to hers, urgent and desperate as if the action is going to cancel everything else out.

  It’s not. Not for me. What I learned today explains some things and puts her more into perspective. Like me, Amanda Downey is broken, so she created Jaggs to help fix her.

  And I get it. I scare her. I’m everything her mom was and look what that love got her, heartbreak and disappointment, not to mention, a ward of the state with nowhere to call home. Losing Jenny must’ve killed her.

  Fuck! Why did I wait so long to tell her the truth? I could’ve been there for her sooner. I could’ve helped her heal. Instead, I allowed her to sit in a pool of anger and guilt for the past year. I let her build a world of hate and revenge around herself when I could’ve held her and showed her kindness and understanding. I could’ve showed her it was okay to grieve and to move on.

  I really do get it. Like Jaggs, since I returned from Iraq, I’ve become someone else to my family and my friends. For these past two weeks, though, I shut that asshole down, and I’ve given Jaggs the real me.

  She reaches into my boxers, pulls my cock free, and crawls on top of me. Apparently, she’s okay with the real me. She’s been proving it to me all week.

  “Fuck!” I toss my head back as she takes me deep inside her. “Shit! You feel amazing.” I crack my eyes open. She’s staring down at me with hunger and satisfaction, a deadly combination that only increases the amazingness already going on. The blanket falls from her, revealing her flawless tits. “Look at you.” I pluck her erect nipple between my finger and thumb. “So perfect.” I squeeze her hard nub. “So sexy.” I grab her other nipple with my other hand and twist. “So mine.” I nod. “Say it.” Her head shakes. I pinch harder and release. She gasps, and in response, I pinch her once more, not letting go. “Say it.”

  Her eyes close, and she lets out this cock-inspiring sensual cry, confirming that I’ve taken her from the memory that made her cry in another way.

  “Jaggs,” I growl her name from deep in my throat. “Tell me.”

  “No!” Her hips move as she grinds against me.

  “Yes.” I pluck on her pinkened little nubs. “Ride that cock like you own it, babe.” I grip her hips and guide her.

  “No!” She pushes my hands away, taking the reins back.

  “Oh-ho.” I snatch her nipples again. “You want this?” I pull and twist.

  “Yes.” She answers with thrusting hips. “Yes!”

  “More?” I pinch harder, more than I ever have with any other chick.

  “Yes!” She arches against my touch, picking up the tempo.

  “Yeah, fuck!” It’s turning me on, taking control over her nipples as she’s taken over my cock. I sit up and suck her nipple into my mouth. Her legs wrap around me. I turn into a sitting position on the sofa, and hell, I stand with my cock still inside her, taking all control from her. My cock refuels, and I push her against the wall. “Hold on,” I say before pounding everything I got into her…

  The next morning, I roll over in bed and pull her warm naked body against mine. I nuzzle my face into her soft tickling hair, and her balmy scent fills me. Man, I love the way she smells, and I’ll tolerate the tickle on my face to get a whiff of her any day.

  I hear that small good morning moan before she pushes her bare ass against my “hello” and “good morning” stiff cock.

  “Piss hard-on?” She giggles.

  Yeah, I tried to tell her the first morning we slept together, not in the same bed, that what she saw tenting my boxers was because I had to pee. “Nope, that’s pure lust, babe.” I casually roll her nipple between my fingers until it hardens.

  “Really?” She rubs her bottom against me once more. “Hmm…” Her hand reaches back and takes my cock into her small palm.

  “Told you.” I laugh this time. “And, yes, I want nothing more than to flip you on your back and have my wicked way with you, but first…” I brush my lips across her ear. “We need to have a chat.”

  “What? Now?” She curls herself into a ball, taking not only her hand but her ass from me.

  “Hey.” I lean over her and draw the hair back from her face. “Look at me.”

  “No.” Her eyes pinch tighter together.

  “Jaggs, we’re leaving today.”

  “I know.”

  “We need to talk about it.”

  “I don’t think anything needs to be said,” she sasses with closed eyes.

  “I’m going to the UK on tour.”

  “Have a nice trip.”

  “For three months.”

  Her head tilts back, and eyes pop open. “Three months?”

  “Yeah.” I smile a little, happy over her show of concern. Maybe she’ll miss me. She stares at me for a few seconds. “I’ll be back on November 10th and I promise, I’ll come and see you no later than nine p.m. Okay?”

  “Don’t bother.” She turns away from me, shutting me out and curling into a ball.

  “Don’t be like that. These days with you have been great. Come on, Jaggs. I don’t want you going away mad. Hell, I don’t want you going away at all, but I can’t back out on the guys.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to.”

  “I know, but…” I touch her shoulder. “Hey, would you look at me? Can we talk about this?”

  I hear her inhale and exhale. She rolls onto her back. “There.” She grins up at me. “Happy?”

  “Very.” I nod. “You’ve given me so much happiness over the past few days.” I push the strands of hair from her forehead.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving for three months?”

  “At first, I was going to,” I say, gazing into her beautiful hooded eyes. “I actually thought it might get you to stay, knowing I’d be out of here in a couple of weeks. Then I worried you might hold back or worse, leave. So I decided to see what happened. Ya know, go with the flow. It all started back at Crash’s when I kissed you, and you let me. That’s when all this shit started. I always wanted to do it, but you hated me.”

  I watch a lump form and disappear in her throat. “I’m sorry about that,” she barely whispers.

  “You didn’t know any better.”

  “Yeah, I seem to do a lot of that with you. I mean, we slept together, we fucked, and for what? Don’t get me wrong, I welcome the distraction, but had you been up front with me from the beginning, I wouldn’t have needed it.”

  “I’m sorry.
”

  “Really, Stone? Really?” She jumps off the bed, grabs my tee shirt from the floor, and pulls it over her head. Hair sticking up everywhere, portraying the wild woman I know her to be. “What’s going on here?”

  I sit up at the edge of the bed, leaving the sheet around my waist, cock all shriveled up from the turn of events. “What do you want to be going on here?”

  “It doesn’t matter, you’re leaving.”

  “Everything matters.” I throw out a hand. “Especially you.”

  “Don’t say that!” Her eyes gloss over.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Just go to the UK.” Her eyes blink rapidly. “Go and be in your band, use drugs, and sleep with groupies. I don’t care.”

  “Oh, babe.” I shake my head, hushing her. “No.” I jump up and palm her face, gently rubbing her cheeks with my thumbs until she settles beneath my touch. “It’s not like that. I’m not going to…” I trail off, seeing the pain and hurt replace the gloss in her eyes. She can’t see it. She can’t see me. Trust is too hard for her. Her mother, the junkie, damaged this moment for me. “Fuck!” I press my forehead against hers. “Fuck!” I hiss the word a few more times, not improving my antagonistic behavior.

  I walk over to the dresser, pull out a clean pair of boxers, and put them on. With my back to her, unable to face the hurt I’ve instilled in her eyes, I put my hands on the dresser and take a deep breath. “Okay, Jaggs. Go back to Cali, go back to your apartment, and work at Crash’s shop. I won’t tell my family anything, not about any of this or the truth about why you came to Cali. I won’t hurt you, Jaggs. I promise.” I wait a few seconds. When she doesn’t respond, I know it’s over. She doesn’t want me, the addict, the asshole who lied to her for a year. “I’m gonna take a shower, so it’s probably a good time for you to leave.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I kicked myself in the ass all the way home the day Stone dismissed me and what we shared back in Fresno. That was two months ago, and like every other regrettable thing in my life, I got over it. It helped knowing he wouldn’t be around for the next three months. It doesn’t help, though, hearing about him at work.

  “Yeah.” Steele, Stone’s older brother who looks a lot like him, crosses his arms over his tailored suit coat and grins down at Crash, who’s lying on a cart beside a Benz. His light hair darkened by motor dust. “Said he’ll be back in a few weeks. I told him it better be before Ma’s birthday.”

  “That’s over a month away.” Crash stands, wiping his hands with the rag he always seems to have tucked in the back pocket of his overalls.

  “You never know with him. He’s been lost for months before.” Steele runs a hand through his lustrous black hair. He’s a stuntman for one of the top leading actors in Hollywood. At least, last I heard. I don’t keep tabs on the Kane brothers. Well, besides Crash my friend and Stone my mistaken enemy.

  Damn, my gut is still trying to overcome that flip.

  Last time, it was Nix inquiring about Stone’s return. Every time I hear Stone’s name, my heart takes a quick hard thump in my chest. It’s annoying! Nix was inquiring where Stone planned to crash when he came home. With a new girlfriend around, I’m sure Nix doesn’t want him staying at his place. Odd though, Stone never stays with Nix on account he’s got a kid. I guess, Stone’s not good with kids, or he doesn’t like them. I’m not sure which it is.

  “Yeah.” Crash nods, resting his hand on the hood of the Benz. “How’d he sound? Think he’s using?”

  “Fuck if I know. I talked to him last month, and he sounded good, almost happy, like he got laid.” Stone laughs, unaware of my eavesdropping. “But last night, he didn’t sound the same.”

  “How so?” Crash asks as if he knows I want the answers. I close my eyes to hear the conversation better. It’s probably psychological, but I swear it helps.

  “I don’t know,” I hear Stone respond more clearly. “Frustrated but like he’s still tryin’ to keep it together. Remember that time he wanted a drum set and Dad told him if he stopped asking, maybe he’d get one.”

  “Yeah, and he got him a guitar instead.” Crash laughs. “Dad’s a smart guy. A guitar makes much less noise.”

  “Yeah, remember how Stone didn’t ask for it, but you could tell he wanted it really bad. Every time AC/DC came on the radio, he’d go into this crazy air drum solo, and if you asked him how badly he wanted a drum set, he’d try to fight you. The little fucker was determined. It’s like that, he’s waiting for something he really wants. He’s mad and irritated about it, but he’s keepin’ it together.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting to come home?” Crash’s shoulder lifts.

  “Oh, yeah, right.” Steele glances at me, and I quickly shift back behind the safety of the lifted car hood away from his watchful eyes. “’Cause when he’s here, he always seems like he wants to be.”

  “Hell, who knows what the guy thinks. I can’t ever make sense of him,” Crash mutters what I’m thinking.

  Yes! Nobody knows what Stone Kane is thinking, like why he kissed me at Crash’s the day he got dumped in front of the shop like a pile of trash? Why he really made me go to Fresno? Why he lied to me for an entire year? Why he had sex with me? Why he held me at night and cuddled with me on the couch as though we were in a meaningful relationship? Why he acted like he cared?

  The one question, though, that’s been driving me beyond bonkers is why he let me leave? What was it all for? It’s those kinds of questions that keep me up at night, and it’s been two months! Enough already!

  I must get over it!

  I must get over him!

  “Jaggs.” Crash holds up a lug wrench. “Where’s the other one?”

  I pop my head around the hood and point to the left.

  He stares at me for a second just as he has since I returned from Fresno. It’s like he knows something is off and can’t put his finger on it. Nor will he come right out and ask. He knows better, and that’s why we get along so well. I don’t pry in his business, and he doesn’t bother with mine. “Thanks.” He finally nods and heads in the direction I indicated, turning his attention back to Stone. “So what are you up to this weekend? Oh, shit! Jaggs,” Crash yells, startling me for the second time.

  I know they can’t hear me thinking about their brother, but I still feel guilty. I pop my head up from the hood of a car. “Yeah?”

  “I forgot to tell you, Jacob needs this Saturday off, can you work? I’ll give you next weekend, I’ll even throw in Friday for the short notice.”

  “Sure.” I shrug. It’s not like I have any plans. Sometimes I go out with Harley, Token’s girlfriend, but she’s been working on some big to-do theater production. She’s a makeup artist, a good one too. Out of all the Kane brothers’ girlfriends and wife, Crash being married and all for the past three years and not even knowing it, I like Harley the best. Maggie, Crash’s wife, is cool, but Harley and I have more history. She bought me ice skates for my birthday. Last time I got a birthday gift, Jenny gave it to me.

  Damn, I miss that girl. From the day of the bombing to finding out the truth about Stone, there have been all kinds of feels going on. I can’t stop thinking about that day, how all those people died, including Stone’s friend. How selfish it was of me to think the tragic event only affected me. So focused on my revenge, I forgot about the others. Now, as Stone says, that I have my hate goggles off, my mind is starting to work, and it’s asking different questions. Like why someone would bomb the Harriett Hotel conference room. Were they looking to kill someone specific? Was there an intended target? Was Jenny in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  It’s been a while since I’ve shed any tears over the situation. I had to turn them off so I could come to Cali and crush Stone Kane. I’m back to having problems sleeping at night. I keep thinking about my mom, that night in the park, about Jenny, our life together, and the day of the bombing.

  After Mom OD’d a
nd our aunt ditched us, for the first few years, they kept Jenny and I together because we were young and cute. As we got older and more troublesome, we got separated. When I turned eighteen, I’d gotten most of my wildness out of me, and I went to college while working full-time. By the time Jenny turned eighteen, I had a safe place for her to finally call home.

  I graduated and got a job working as a bank manager. I made good money, and within the first year, I bought us a house, and Jenny went to college. We lived there together until that fateful day.

  When I learned about Stone, that’s when I devised a plan for my revenge. I sold the house and packed everything up, including my briefcase and heels. I put it all, along with every memory I had, into storage. I cut and dyed my hair, bought a used car and set out for Cali.

  I came for Stone and oh boy, did I get him. The few days in Fresno wiped away everything I thought I knew about him. I can’t stop thinking about every kiss, touch, and conversation that we shared. He really knows how to wrap his arms around a woman and make her feel special. I should’ve known better after our first encounter, the way he gathered me into his drug-fueled body and held me. I should’ve recognized then that he was dangerous to me. That he’d find a way through my damaged scars and manage to bring my perished heart back to life.