"Honey, I could go full-on Shrek on a raw onion and you'd still let me kiss you."
"You're ridiculous," she objected and suddenly, there was none of the coolness in her tone anymore.
Our food came a few minutes later and we ate in companionable silence. I very slowly brought an onion ring up to my mouth and made a show of eating it, making a surprising little laugh drift from between her lips.
"I have to get back to work," she said as I dropped money on the table. "I've already been gone too long."
"Father Sanders seems to already have a grudge against you so fuck him."
She let out a humorless laugh. "It's not just me. He doesn't like any of the women around here."
"Yeah well, it's hard to be nice to women you want to, but can't, stick your dick inside."
"Oh for heaven's sake, Johnnie. He's a priest!" she objected, sounding only half as outraged as she wanted to.
"Did I miss it? Did they start castrating the clergy now?" I asked as I led her out the front door. "'Cause if not, he's still got a dick and the urge to use it, no matter how close he is to God."
She gave me a small shrug and I could tell she wanted to find a reason to fight me on my point, but she had none. Maybe it was because she knew she had no good reason to pretend to hate me anymore; or maybe it was because she didn't feel the urge to protect a man who obviously didn't like her. "Come on, I'll walk you back," I said, running a finger underneath the strap of her sundress before letting it drift down her bare arm. Her entire body tightened and, despite the hot-as-balls air outside, goosebumps rose on her skin.
"No, really. It's fine. I got it," she said, jerking away from my touch. "Thank you for lunch. And, um... thanks for putting those jerks into their place too. I hate that small-minded macho stuff."
"I could tell," I said with a small smile.
She moved to walk away but spun back around. "Did you really mean it?"
"Mean what, darlin'?"
"The stuff you said to them. Like... about the friend zone being nonsense and women meaning more than spread legs and an open mouth."
"Of-fucking-course I meant it," I said immediately, meaning it. "Baby, I like women. I don't just like the way they can suck my cock or ride me. I like the whole package. Not all men are assholes like that. Not even horndog, player, ladies' man, womanizing, Lothario, sluts like me."
Her face fell slightly. "About that," she started, not quite able to meet my eye. "I didn't mean to..."
"I was teasing you, honey. I like a woman who is confident enough to put me in my place now and then. Now get back to work. I'll see you around."
She nodded and turned, her movements almost awkward and I couldn't help but laugh as I watched her go.
"She's the prettiest girl in town but won't give any of us the time of day," a voice said from behind me. "And believe me, man, some of us have put some real work into getting her attention. You're back in town for a day and you got her out to lunch and so frazzled that she trips over her own damn feet walking away from you." His voice sounded amused and teasing and I turned to find a familiar face.
"No fucking way," I said, shaking my head, a smile spreading across my face. "You never got yourself the fuck out of this place, Dade?"
He looked different. Of course he did; I hadn't seen his face since we were fifteen. When I left, he was still all arms and legs, gangly and gaunt despite eating enough food to supply a small village. As a man, he was a good six-three of solid, unyielding muscle. His face had filled out, his sharp jaw covered with light blond stubble that matched the buzzcut on his head. His light blue eyes had slight crows feet beside them from, no doubt, squinting up at the sun all day.
"Nah, man. Dad got sick, couldn't work anymore. I took over things at the ranch. Got myself stuck here. Never fucking thought I'd see you again." His voice showed a hint of emotion that I felt tug at me inside.
Dade was the only person I had in this bumfuck town. He was the only one who looked at my surly-ass antics and thought he seems like a good friend. He wasn't wrong. We had a bond that most people never managed to hold onto. That was until I took off one night when I was fifteen and never said a word to anyone around town again, including my only friend in the world.
"God, I'm such a fuck," I said, shaking my head at him as his face spread into his usual carefree grin.
"Yeah, yeah you are that," he agreed with a shrug. "Didn't think I held that against you, did you? Knowing what the fuck you were dealing with with that old man of yours."
"Still a shit move. I should have gotten in touch. 'Least let you know I was alive."
"That woulda been kind of ya. But shit happens, y'know? Bygones and all that. Moving on... how the fuck you get her to smile at you like that?"
"Always were jealous of all the tail I got," I said with a grin.
"I've never known anyone else that the entire town disliked so entirely but could somehow make all the panties drop."
"Wasn't my fault you were so fucking ugly, man."
"Fuck you," he said, shoving my shoulder in an old, familiar way. "I do just fine now. Except with Amelia. Every man who has tried has struck out. Even that rich dick who owns that building of hers."
I tried to keep my tone casual. "Rich dick?" My hometown had a couple rich families, the ones who lived in the huge, old houses on the outskirts of town. But they were all as old as dirt.
"Yeah. He moved here 'round two years ago. Got sight of her, started sniffing around. She'll go out with him every now and again. Though I 'spect it's more to get him off her case than it is about genuine interest. He takes her out to some fancy ass places out of town then drives her home. Word is, he's never even been in her apartment. Why the poor fucker keeps trying is beyond me."
"You've seen her," I said dismissively, not liking even saying it. True, she was gorgeous, but she was more than that. She was a whole package. It went without saying that I wasn't the only guy who saw there was more to offer there than just her looks. "So how's life? The ranch? Your mama?"
"Ranch is good. Pulling in more profits than ever before once I got the place out of the stone age and put up a website and shit. Mom is okay. Taking dad's death pretty hard still..."
"Fuck man," I half-groaned, feeling like the biggest dick in the world. "Sorry about your old man. I had no idea."
"Been five years," he said, waving a hand like it was water under the bridge. He paused for a minute, looking off across the street before his gaze went to my face again. "It really is good to see you, Johnnie. I always wondered where you ended up."
"A little bit all over the place. I travel for work. But I live up in Jersey. Got a nice little life set up."
"If anyone deserved a nice life, man, it's you after all you went through..."
I felt myself shrug. "Long time ago," I said, knowing I wasn't fooling either of us. There were some metaphorical wounds that never fully healed, not unlike the literal ones - like the deep soreness I still got in my left arm when it got rainy outside from the time I was ten and my dad grabbed it and pulled until it snapped.
"Look I gotta get back to work, but you and me, we need to have a couple beers before you head back out of here."
"You got it," I agreed and he shook my hand hard while clamping the other one on my upper arm, before turning and running off to his big, late model red pick-up truck.
I hated to admit, even to myself, that Dade had been a time-blurred memory for me for a long time. So much time had passed; so much shit had happened. But back in the day, he was the only comfort I had when my dad was on a bender and saw my young body as a punching bag and my grandmother would tell me when I showed up at her door, scared and hungry, that my place was at home with my father. His house was the only one that would accept me, let me in and give me a square meal, then send me back in the light of day when my father was either sleeping off a hangover or at work being a pain in someone else's ass. He was the only one who didn't look at me with pity when he saw the welts and bruises. He was th
e only one who tried to take the sad little outsider and make his life reasonably better.
But the night I left, I turned my back on everything Johnnie Walker Allen. From that day on, he ceased to exist. His memories were things I buried deep and told myself never to uncover. With those memories went Dade.
At first, because there was no time to worry about people back at home. I had only a handful of money and no way to get from one place to another. I was constantly scared and hungry. But those were things I was used to so I pressed on. Until I found myself asleep against the wall of a building one day only to be woken up by someone kicking my feet.
That person ended up being Breaker. And that day I started to be somebody again. I was Shooter. I was Breaker's best friend. I was his partner. I was a valuable asset. I wasn't an outcast or a place to hang anyone's pity anymore.
So my town, my memories, my old best friend... they fell away amongst everything else, everyone I replaced them with. That makes me sound like a selfish fuck, but Dade was right when he said if anyone deserved a new life, it was me. And I wasn't going to stand outside the diner all day feeling guilty about making that choice for myself. I did what I needed to do to survive, to move on, to get myself out of a shit situation. So I was going to stay on that course.
But I was also going to have a couple beers with my old best friend before I skipped town again.
I went back to the apartment after spending some time completing my dad's arrangements and driving around the old roads, racking my brain trying to figure out exactly how my father knew about my job. No one knew about my job except for close friends and other people in the business. Even if he did some snooping, I had no idea how he came upon that information.
I had spent the night before tearing my dad's place apart, looking for something I couldn't name, something incriminating, something to contradict the story that Amelia told me- that he was sober, that he was good to her, that he turned his life around. I tore through the closets. I looked for loose floorboards. I overturned furniture. In the end, I found nothing. There were no liquor bottles stashed anywhere, no nothing except the gun I had picked up and tucked into my jeans, never feeling right without having one on me.
I slept on the couch even though I had stripped and changed the bed, too uncomfortable with the idea of sharing the space with the ghost of my father. The AC was up and working after some good, old-fashioned manly pounding and swearing. It kicked back on, sweeping out the heat and making my mood slightly less irritable.
"Hey Mills," I greeted the cat as she rubbed herself around my legs, purring in greeting. "The fuck am I gonna do with you when I need to go back home? You wanna get out of this backwoods town?" I asked, reaching down to pick her up. "I'll take you if you promise not to scratch up all my shit," I said, moving in to the bathroom and turning the water on cold. I dropped Millie and stripped out of my clothes and hopped under the cold spray which accomplished two tasks at once- washing away the sweat from the insane fucking heat everyone else seemed to have no problem with, and helping ease the worst case of fucking blue balls I had ever had.
It wasn't that I'd never been rejected before. I liked to claim I was irresistible and my track record certainly backed that shit up, but I'd come across women who saw me coming from a mile away and shot me the fuck down without pause. I had wanted women that I couldn't have. But no one had made me as hard as Amelia managed to by spitting fire at me, by pricking me with her thorns, by giving me her rare small smile, her quiet laugh, by just fucking... existing.
So I reached down my body, grabbing my cock and stroking hard, trying to ease some of the frustration that had my balls feeling like they had been in a vice grip all day.
Two days. It wasn't a long time. Well, I mean... it usually only took me a couple minutes, at worst... a couple hours. It wasn't the getting her into bed I saw as being a problem, it was the trying to pry myself back out of that bed and moving on. Which was totally new fucking territory for me. Sure, I'd had a few women here and there who needed a good repeat or two or five. But it was a superficial need, just bodies that connected well. That wasn't what I was feeling with Amelia. It felt like something more. It felt like I wanted to get in the bed with her and fuck until we were both nearly unconscious, then lie awake with her and talk about shit- our pasts, our presents, our futures.
I didn't just want to screw her.
I wanted to spend time with her.
I wanted to know more than the fine fibers of her bedsheets or the naked curve of her hip. I wanted to taste her, and not just the saltiness of her skin. I wanted to get an oral fix from the bittersweet flavor of her hopes and dreams. I wanted to get fucking drunk on her honesty. I wanted to touch the warm, wet rivers of her memories. I wanted to hear the bitter hum of her regrets. I wanted to know the scent of her happiness. Then I wanted to burrow deep under her walls and wrap her up so tight that she never felt the need to protect herself ever again.
All of that, well, it wasn't going to happen in two days. It wasn't going to happen in two weeks or two months or two years.
But, somehow, I still wanted it.
I wanted it the way I knew I wanted to take my next breath; the way I wanted to share a joke with Breaker again; the way I wanted to tease Alex; the way I wanted to make amends with Dade.
I wanted it with a certainty that went beyond something casual.
And, well, that was the scariest fucking thing I had ever realized in my life.
FIVE
Amelia
I felt listless after lunch. I got back to my office and sat at my desk, shuffling through the forms I needed to fill out to keep receiving state funding for the program. You know, the forms that kept me employed. But I couldn't concentrate. I looked at the pages long enough for the words to start to swim and become unreadable. On a frustrated huff, I collected the papers and threw them into my top drawer, resting my elbows on the surface of my desk and cradling the sides of my head in my hands.
I didn't want to like him, not even after finding out he had good reason to be angry and spiteful toward his father. I didn't want to let him in. And, I realized with a clarity that made the lunch in my stomach churn, I apparently had no choice in the matter. He found a crack and he slithered in. I knew the exact moment it happened too; when he told me about his baby teeth. I couldn't help but think of a young Johnnie, those big green eyes on a little boy face, blood pouring out of his mouth, Ben storming away from his son's injuries to go bury the memory at the bottom of a bottle.
What did that say about me, that I liked someone because of their trauma?
A part of me whispered that it said I had some trauma of my own, but I ignored that voice.
The attraction, well, that was a problem. He was hot. And on top of hot, he was the best sweet talker I had ever come across. There was only so much resistance a woman could convince herself she needed to demonstrate. I wanted him. I wanted him like I had never wanted a man before. But that didn't mean I planned on giving in. Okay. If he had kissed me in the diner, well, I would have given in. But I was all hyped up on his putting those jerks in their place and his ability to see right through me. Now, with a little space between that, I was seeing more clearly.
Because, well, he was a gosh darn killer. He killed people for a living!
So even if I really wanted him, he was the least appropriate option.
I did not need to get involved in his kind of darkness. My life was finally darkness free. I wasn't going to willingly fall back into that. And, well, he was gone in a couple days. I wasn't the kind of woman who had a one-nighter, or two-nighter. That wasn't how I was wired. I didn't do casual. Then again, I didn't do complicated either. Actually, I didn't do anything with men.
"Augh," I growled, picking up my globe-shaped stress ball and flinging it against the wall.
Then I did something I never did; I grabbed my purse and I left work early. See, I liked work. I liked knowing I had a purpose. I liked focusing on anything other than my empty apart
ment I spent way too much time cleaning with an OCD-like drive because I literally had nothing else to do with my time. As mundane and dull as all the paperwork could be at times, it was something to do. We held four meetings every week, chafing against my belief that there needed to be one each night so people could properly complete their recovery process. How were the people in town supposed to do their ninety meetings in ninety days if we didn't offer that service? But, unfortunately, that was not up to me. That was up to Father Sanders. And Father Sanders believed two meetings a week for alcoholics and two meetings a week for narcotics was more than enough.
That night was the first alcoholics meeting since Ben died. It was going to be a rough one, for me and for the people in the group. If there was ever a day to take off early and get myself together, that was the one. I tried to push the unreasonable stab of guilt away as I climbed into my car and headed back to my apartment.
I paused for the barest of moments outside of Ben's (Johnnie's) door. Okay. I paused for at least a minute before I snapped myself out of it and let myself into my own place. I paced around restlessly, kitchen to living room to sliding doors to the balcony. On the other side of the wall, there were no sounds from Johnnie. If I hadn't seen his car outside when I pulled up, I would have assumed he wasn't around, given how loud he seemed to be whenever he did anything. Not entirely sure what possessed me to do so, maybe as an apology for being so nasty to him, or maybe just for an excuse to maybe have a run-in with him again in the near future, I moved to the kitchen and got out my nicest pitcher and poured most of the contents of my sweet tea into it. I grabbed some of the banana bread I had baked the day before and piled it on a plate, wrapped it in plastic, and headed into the hall.
I was half-bent toward the ground where I planned on leaving the plate and pitcher when the door flew open, making me yelp and almost lose my balance. My head jerked up as I straightened to see Johnnie standing there in his creepers and black jeans, but wholly devoid of a shirt. I repeat: he didn't have a shirt on. And whatever fantasies I had conjured up in my head about what he looked like underneath his clothes, well, they fell so short it was laughable. His tattoos didn't just snake up his arms and across his chest. No, his tattoos covered every bare inch of skin from his throat to the waistband of his jeans. There were vivid, colorful images I knew instantly I could spend hours studying, trying to memorize every line, running my fingers over the strong muscles underneath.
Savages Series Boxed Set Page 28