by Matson , TC
* * *
I’m floating on the ride back to my apartment with my arms around him and my head swimming. Tonight has been nothing short of amazing… and surprising. He makes me feel things I didn’t know existed but he’s dangerous. Not physically. He’s the type of man who can reach in, rip my heart out of my chest, and toss it to the side without a care. There’s an energy about him that warns he doesn’t do relationships. He’s going to shatter me. Leave and hurt me.
Even that doesn’t stop me from wanting him. It’s that bad boy vibe. The “you can’t settle me down” challenge that every woman swears is a turn-off but secretly wants to try, repercussions be damned. But he shows me slivers of a soft heart, and those glimpses of hope are detrimental.
I need a way to balance. If I want to have fun—be casual—I need to keep my heart out of it.
The elevator ride is nerve racking. I’m not a sex on the first date kind of girl, but I lose all my inhibitions with him, and I know there’s absolutely no way I could turn him down if he comes in.
I can feel the weight of his eyes on me as he follows behind to my apartment. Just before we get to my door, he sinks his fingers into my hair, twists me to face him, and crashes his mouth to mine again. It’s slow, but hard—a kiss that promises a damn good time and that he’s into me just as much as I’m into him.
He grabs my hip and forces me to take a step into him. The moment our bodies connect, a low groan rumbles from the back of his throat.
“Did I change your opinion of me?” His voice is a low sexy whisper.
“I had a really good time,” I admit, feeling shy.
“If I ask for another one, you’ll come?”
“Maybe,” I play coy although my answer is a solid yes.
His lips find mine again and this time it’s demanding and hard. The current stirs in my stomach. My clit throbs with want. Needing to feel more of him, I slip my hands under his leather jacket and circle to his back, digging my nails in to bring him closer.
Like he’s about to lose control, he rips his mouth away and rests his forehead against mine. “What is it about you that makes me so fucking fascinated?” His words ride out in a strained and sexy anguished pant.
My smile is automatic.
“Saturday. Let me take you to lunch before I have to go to work.”
There’s a creak behind the door before a soft brushing of fabric slides against the metal. “Go away, Lucia. I know you’re there.”
“Am not!” she calls from the other side.
Ash laughs, shaking his head as he straightens. His hands move away from my body and I instantly hate it. I want to pout. Demand he touches me more. But… I won’t.
I know she hasn’t moved so I rear back and donkey kick the door.
She yelps. “¡Qué demonios!” What the hell. “Fine. Fine.” She mutters something in Spanish and I can tell she’s walking away.
“I can’t do Saturdays. I spend time with Dotty. I guess you can say she’s like my adopted grandmother. For the past six years, she’s been my Saturday mornings. Her husband died ten years ago and her son seven. I help her around the house, take her grocery shopping, and just…exist with her. She’s a crazy bird, but God I love that woman.”
A slow smile spreads over his lips and he nods. “How about Sunday then?”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
He dips his head and presses a slow, deep kiss to my mouth. “I’ll call you.”
I watch until he turns the corner to the elevators and disappears. My lips still tingle. My body is amped up.
Within a few hours, he’s managed to change a lifetime of opinions and grudges.
Yep. I’m totally screwed.
Chapter Thirteen
Fay cashes out my customer while I clean and disinfect my workstation and stretch my legs and back. I’m tossing a fresh box of gloves on my desk when she leans over the railing, resting on her forearms.
“Judging by the ghost of a smile you’ve been rocking all day, I’d say your date went well with your girl the other day.”
“Yeah.”
“You get another one?”
I sit on my stool and nod.
“Hell yes.” She fist pumps the air and does a little dance. “I can’t wait to meet the girl who has managed to lock down the impossible.”
I bark a laugh. “I’m not locked down. I’m just having fun.”
It’s what I’ve been telling myself since the other night. Since feeling her hands on me and experiencing whatever fucking electricity shocked me when we kissed. Everything from that night has knocked my usual thinking for a loop. I’m not sure how I feel about it.
“Riiiiggghtt.” She rolls her eyes.
“That’s how it starts,” Tig puts his two cents in as he passes by my station. “I was just having fun when Del locked me down too.”
“It was a date. No need to get your panties in a twist,” I say.
Del pops up beside where Tig has stopped. “You’ve surpassed your three-date rule. And because you never, ever go beyond that, we’re excited.”
Three dates are all you need to really get to know someone. You learn a lot within that timeframe. First date is a “get to know you.” Second date is “get to know how your pussy feels around my dick.” And the third date is “can you handle casual”? Normally after the second date, after the sex, and on the third, I can tell if she’s going to turn into a crazed class-A clinger. You know, the women who think they can change me. They know relationships are off the table for me from the beginning. I can’t hold one. My heart and attention span don’t allow it. Besides, everything I touch I lose, therefore, if I call it quits early enough, hurt and pain never emerge.
“It’s not been three dates,” I reply.
“Sure it has,” Fay chirps. “Rooftop. Coffee and busker watching. Rushing out to meet her with her friend. And then Gino’s and street dancing.” She ticks off each one with her fingers. “Four that I know of.”
I know, which is terrifying since I’m not quite ready to walk away from her yet.
“You get any?” Del asks like she just asked for a tattoo.
I arch a brow at her brazenness. She knows I’m not the kiss and tell type of man.
“I’m going with no.” Tig chuckles, causing his unlit cigarette to bounce on his lips. Unless he’s tattooing, you won’t catch him without one. He quit smoking two years ago but can’t break the habit of hanging it out of his mouth. It’s a hell of a temptation to know you just need a lighter. Like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whiskey. All they’d have to do is twist the top.
“And you say you’re fascinated by her.” Fay flashes her Cheshire smile.
I should’ve never talked to her. “You’re the worst non-blood sister a guy can have.” I laugh.
Proudly, she flips her red hair off her shoulders. “Yeah, but you can’t help but love me. So when’s the next date?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What are your plans?”
“Figured I’d take her to Central for a—” Abruptly I stop, realizing my fatal mistake.
But it’s too late. Fay sucks in a breath. Eyes widening. “Please tell me you’re finishing that sentence with picnic.”
I don’t dare answer.
“Holy shit, Romeo,” Tig says. “You’re in fucking deep.”
Fay cheeses. “You’re in way deep. Locked down chasing something serious and you don’t even know it yet.”
Although there’s something about Kenlyn, I know I don’t want anything serious with her. It’s just the thrill of the chase I like. She’s a fresh breath of air not throwing herself at me. She’s bold with words, not with actions. When she’s embarrassed, her cheeks turn a rosy pink and it’s so damn cute. Most other women don’t get embarrassed even when they purposely flash their legs open.
Being in something serious with Kenlyn will only end up in heartbreak. I like her enough to know I couldn’t handle seeing pain in her eyes. It would break me. Worse than I already am.
Four hours and five walk-ins later, I’m left with a shit ton of time on my hands and space to think. It’s never good to leave me with my thoughts. If I don’t keep them in check, they’ll pull me into a dark place. Desperate not to go there, I grab my phone.
Me: We still on for tomorrow?
Kenlyn: Yes. What will we be doing?
Me: Don’t know. We’ll wing it.
* * *
By the time I lock up shop and go home to shower and hit the bed, it’s nearly four in the morning and my thoughts are trouble. The darkness that hovers in the corner has floated to front and center. It taunts me, a shallow voice prompting doubt. It also repeats Fay’s words:
…Chasing something serious and you don’t even know it yet.
Yeah, I enjoy Kenlyn. She’s easy on the eyes and has this innocence about her surrounded by a fire that glows. She’s also guarded, and for some reason, I want behind those damn walls she’s erected. And that…Well, that fucks with my head the most and a deluge of memories remind me I’m all too familiar with the emptiness they encompass.
She’ll learn your truth. You weren’t wanted, never loved by those who brought you into the world. The universe teased you but didn’t care enough to give you a solid perfect chance. Why would she want you when no one else does?
I shake my head at the voice. I’ve never wanted to get close to anyone, scared they’ll learn my truth, find out my secrets, and see me through the pity-colored glasses I loathe. I wasn’t wanted. Not by the people who were supposed to love me anyway. They didn’t care where I ended up—dead, in the system, on the streets, raised by wolves—as long as it wasn’t with them. They wanted nothing to do with me when they left me, a newborn on the steps of a local church in the middle of the night to fend for myself in the winter. They discarded me like a burden.
This is where the universe first showed signs of mercy. The preacher just happened to show up at the church before the cold could reach me through the dingy blanket. Not long after that night, I was adopted. My adoptive parents promised me a second chance in life and made good on it. Dad put me in sports and never missed a practice or a game. Work may have been a priority, but his family meant more. My mother, she was my angel. Loved with all her heart, cared with every fiber of her soul. I may not have been born from her womb, but that didn’t matter. I was her son.
When I was seven, they blessed me with Jenny. She was three years older than me, taken from abusive addicts. Maybe that’s why she and I clicked. Rumors were I was a hooker’s baby and she was strung out. We were given the best life, a promise to be protected and loved. A promise my parents forever kept.
Until the universe dropped the act and showed how cruel it could be by throwing me back out to face the world alone.
This time I was older, almost twenty, when they were ripped away from me, taking my sister, their stability, their love, and my sanity. I was devastated. Angry. Lost. It threw me for an ugly loop. Survivor’s guilt ate at me. It reached from the dark depths of hell and pulled me under. I blamed myself for my family’s death. If I had been able to make it to Mom’s birthday dinner, if I didn’t have to work, if I had just called in, I’d still have them with me. I should’ve made Mom dinner and stayed home. Then this twisted, vile sense of humor the universe has wouldn’t have destroyed me.
After lowering my entire family into the ground, I unraveled at the foot of their graves. I sought out solace at the bottom of every bottle. Drinking meant erasing. Erasing meant no pain. No pain meant I stayed drunk. I dropped out of college and threw away years of my double major. I quit my job—fuck them. Had they let me off that night, I wouldn’t be in that position.
They left behind a lot of money and a house. All shit I didn’t deserve. I couldn’t stand being in the house they had made a home for me, but I couldn’t—can’t—sell it. I wallowed in my guilt so deeply that I hung myself out to dry financially. The day I had to dip into the fortune they left me, reality didn’t just smack me across my face. No. It steamrolled me.
Dad would be pissed if he knew I was destroying the life he worked hard to give me. I could hear his scold and see his disappointment in the brown eyes I missed so horribly. I could see my best friend, my sister, my overly protective annoying bratty sister who I loved so much, shaking her head at me. And somehow, I could hear my mother’s heart breaking.
That was my wake-up call.
I haven’t gotten drunk since. Not even on my twenty-first birthday.
I’m the ass end of some sickening joke of the universe. Which worries me about how I feel about Kenlyn. I have to figure out how to keep her and not lose her. Not let her in all the way and keep her just on the outside so she won’t be taken away. I know if I don’t give her my heart, I can’t break again when she’s ripped away too.
Chapter Fourteen
Vicious thoughts kept me up until the sun warmed everything it touched, reminding me of new days and safety. That’s when my eyes closed and I fell asleep. Four hours later, I’m wide ass awake and on my way to Kenlyn’s.
Of course, my dick jerks at the sight of her when she pulls open the door. She’s braided the hair on the top of her head where it ends in a small perky ponytail and the rest falls over her shoulders. Her amber eyes glow with excitement, but there’s a hint of hesitation and I don’t like. I’ll erase it soon.
“Hi.” I sweep my gaze over her light gray blouse, along her tight jeans with holes in the knees, to her black low-top kicks. It doesn’t matter what she wears. She always steals my breath.
“Hey.” The nervousness in her eyes makes it to her voice.
I want to reach out and tug her mouth to mine, swallow her worries and replace them with a smile. But instead, I restrain myself and shove my hands into my pockets.
“Are you hungry?” I ask since I didn’t say anything about eating. I press the elevator call button.
Her nose scrunches up slightly and she shakes her head. “Not really. But if you are, I can find something to nibble on.”
I don’t like that she’s nervous. I don’t like the hesitation in her tone, the uneasiness in her voice. So when the doors close and it’s just us, my self-control cracks. I slide my hand to her neck and drop my mouth to hers. She tastes of mint toothpaste mixed with the sweetness of just her. Just like every time I’ve kissed her, the ground under my feet shakes and I’m inundated with something I can’t quite put my finger on.
As the elevator slows, I lean back with a grin. “I’ve craved that since Wednesday.”
Her eyes shine with the assurance I just gave her and her smile beams. Like I said, I’ll erase the worry.
I’m watching her ass sway as she exits her building and then stops. “That has to be you.” She snorts, pointing to my truck.
“That’s me.”
She shoots me a skeptical look. “The tattoo business must be booming?”
I don’t dare tell her the truth. “Yeah. Keeps me busy.” I help her into my truck before climbing into the driver’s side.
“It matches your bike, the black and red,” she states.
For me, black and red complement each other. In the mystery of darkness rises a fiery anger and passion along with strength. Plus put them on lingerie, and it’s instant hard-on.
“They look good together,” is all I give her.
“A nice bike and this nice truck. How do you afford it in this city?” The suspicion in her voice tells me what she’s thinking.
Truthfully, if I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have to work another day in my life ever again. Thanks to my parents. But I refuse to spend their hard-earned money without working for it myself. My bike, truck, and apartment are the only big purchases I’ve made with their money. The rest is all me.
“I’m not into drugs, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” I peer at her wide eyes, surprised I called her out. “I’m in high demand and good with money.” That’s the damn tr
uth.
She drops it, accepting my answer, and watches the buildings pass by from the window. No awkwardness settles around us. No need to force small talk when her being in the passenger seat with no conversation is actually quite comfortable.
White sheets, back to back and clipped by clothes pins, hang in the middle of the room lit by several humming florescent fixtures. Kenlyn takes in her surroundings, the graffiti painted on the walls, the shelves of every color of spray paint known to man, and the paint-splattered concrete floor. It smells like smoke and a paint store.
“Ash? That you?” Mike’s deep gruffy voice calls from somewhere in the back just before he pops his head out from behind a door.
At the sight of him, Kenlyn takes a small step closer toward me. I’m sure in her eyes, he looks dangerous—bald, built like a brick shit house, tattoos from the top of his head down, and a scowl. Thing is, Mike was a real shitty person ten years ago and probably a perfect description of Kenlyn’s stereotypical judgment that’s crossing her thoughts. But after losing his seven-year-old son to a gang-related drive-by, losing his wife to an overdose, and almost dying from one himself, he sobered up and now helps the community.
His dark eyes hit me and one corner of his mouth twists up. “Set it up for you.”
“‘Preciate it. I’ll come back tomorrow and grab them when they’re dry.”
“I’ll lock the door behind me. Make sure the place is locked up when you leave.” His gaze shifts to Kenlyn. He tips his chin without a word and disappears, followed by a heavy metal door slamming shut.
“Was that your biker boss?” Kenlyn’s voice is a whisper and full of humor.
“Owner of the shop.”
“Must be a client of yours.” It’s a statement rather than a question. She’s not wrong.
I cock a brow and smirk. “What gave it away?”
She glances back around the room, hands clasped in front of her where she wrings her thumbs. “What are we doing here?”
