by C. L. Parker
He was all man and it nearly broke her heart to look at him.
“Ah, Kerrigan. I should’ve known. Your resemblance to Availia is uncanny. She showed me your graduation picture, but you look different. More…grown up perhaps.” The meaning behind his tone was evident by the way he looked her over in return.
Kerrigan’s heart thumped wildly in her chest at the way his eyes intimately raked over her body. She felt naked, like he was undressing her – insignificant piece of cotton by insignificant piece of cotton – to slowly reveal everything that lay beneath her clothing. His tongue made a deliberate sweep over his bottom lip. There was fire and hunger in his eyes. At the rate he was going, it would only be moments before that look either devoured or scorched her clothes from her body.
Even though she had just done it herself, Kerrigan was a bit miffed that he was taking so many liberties with her body. After all, he was a stranger. “Wait. Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”
“Dominic. Dominic Grayson.” He stuck his hand out to shake hers.
This is Dominic? But, he’s not wrinkly at all.
Gabe stepped up behind Kerrigan and looked Dominic over suggestively. “Oh, well hell-lo there, Mr. Make-My-Uterus-Drop.”
Kerrigan rolled her eyes at her best friend. “Gabe, how many times do we have to go over this? You do not have a uterus.”
“Prove it, bitch,” he snapped back at her, knowing she couldn’t. “Where are your manners? Introduce me to my future baby daddy, girl.”
“Excuse me?” Dominic’s eyebrows lifted almost to his hairline.
“Don’t pay any attention to him. You’ll get used to it,” Kerrigan said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Apparently this is Dominic Grayson,” she told Gabe.
Gabe gasped and put his hand to his chest limply. “Well, I’ll be. Grams was dipping in the Fountain of Youth.”
Kerrigan gasped at his insinuation. “Gabriel Michael Baxter! You watch your mouth when you’re talking about my Grammy, mister twisted sister!”
Dominic furrowed his brow in confusion. “What’s he talking about?”
As he lifted the glass of water to his lips, Kerrigan cleared her throat, uncomfortable by the admission she was about to make. “Grammy left a letter for me. She mentioned that you were staying here. He…well, we, sort of thought that maybe you might be her boyfriend or something.”
Dominic spat out the drink of water he had just taken, spraying it all over the front of Kerrigan’s shirt. Gabe burst into a fit of giggles, while Kerrigan looked down at herself, stunned and horrified.
“Oh, shit! I’m sorry!” Dominic sat his glass on the counter and grabbed a towel. He started wiping her down in an attempt to dry her off, but of course that meant he was dragging it across her exposed cleavage – which only served to embarrass both of them.
“Just…stop.” Kerrigan grabbed the towel from his hand to stifle the uncomfortable situation.
“Girl, is you crazy?” Gabe asked in a shrill voice. “You better let that man feel you up!”
“I wasn’t feeling her up!” Dominic said defensively. When Gabe gave him a look that said he knew better, Dominic sighed in exasperation. “Look, I’m just going to go in the other room and try to forget any of this ever happened.”
He started for the door, but Kerrigan was still blocking it. As he attempted to squeeze past her, they ended up doing an awkward dance that could either be considered the worst imitation of some hokey line dance, or an unconventional mating ritual. He was so close she could feel his breath wash over her skin. She was shocked when it wasn’t warm like she would have expected. It was cold, like he had just sucked on an ice cube. Their bodies rubbed against each other in the process, giving Kerrigan a pretty good feel of his assets against her abdomen. It was a dead giveaway when she sucked in a breath and held it. Dominic stopped moving and looked down at her with a smug grin.
Seeing his eyes close up, Kerrigan felt a twinge of familiarity, like she had seen them before. Of course it was very possible that if he was a friend of her grandmother’s they had probably met at some time or another. Maybe when they were younger and that was why she didn’t remember him. But those eyes. She knew those eyes.
And those eyes knew her. She could feel it in every fiber of her being. He lifted his hand and propped it against the doorframe. That was when Kerrigan saw it – the jade bracelet from her dream. Her thoughts transcended time, and she was suddenly with her grandmother again, making that very same bracelet. She knew it was the same because there was one lonely, blue moonstone in the center, the one that had rolled across the floor to her feet.
Kerrigan swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “I made that bracelet. Where did you get it?”
Dominic’s pale green eyes drifted to the jewelry wrapped around his left wrist, and his brow furrowed. He fingered the beads, regarding the trinket with an expression of longing. “It was a gift from a friend.”
“Kerri, there you are!” Jackson belted out, stomping like an oaf down the hallway. When he saw Dominic standing there, he turned his attention to him instead. “Who the hell are you?”
Kerrigan rolled her eyes at his rudeness. “This is Dominic Grayson. He’s one of Grammy’s friends,” she told him. “Dominic, this is Jackson Knoff.”
“Pronounced, jack-n-off,” Gabe enunciated, earning a death glare from Jackson.
Kerrigan snorted, the sound causing Jackson to turn his attention on her. Clearing her throat and turning her head, she did her best to hide her smile.
“I’m just going to…” Dominic pointed to the dining room across the hall. He slid past her and excused himself from the uncomfortable situation.
“Oh, is that a screened-in porch?” Gabe feigned interest, and then he was gone as well, leaving his best friend alone with her sort-of-fiancé/self-indulgent-jackass.
Kerrigan walked into the kitchen, surveying the old white cabinets and double basin sink made of porcelain over cast iron. The square table that sat in the center of the eat-in kitchen had a red Formica tabletop and four matching chairs. The red vinyl covering the chairs was split in the center from wear with sections showing some of the foam batting beneath. The metal edge of the table was meticulously clean, a tribute to all of Grammy’s hard work at keeping her modest home as tidy as possible. The walls were painted a pale yellow to match the sheer curtain panels with little yellow and red flowers that hung from the one window set into the far left wall.
She could see her grandmother in every square inch of the place and could practically smell the bacon she used to cook for her every morning for breakfast.
“The appliances are a little old and will need to be updated,” Kerrigan murmured, more to herself, as she looked at the stove.
“Nah, you won’t have to worry about that, babe. I just got off the phone with the contractors. They agreed to start first thing next week.”
She arched a brow and turned to look at him. “Contractors? What contractors? What are you talking about?”
“The contractors, Kerri,” he said as if the answer should be obvious. “They’re going to get all the paperwork done and can start bulldozing next week.”
“Bulldozing what?”
“The house, of course.”
Fire and brimstone surged through her blood. “Nobody’s tearing my house down, Jackson!”
He almost looked shocked by her words. “You don’t really expect me to live here, do you?”
She had had about all she could take of him. She had planned to wait until they could be alone to talk to him, but it didn’t appear anyone was around at the time. If they were in earshot, so be it. He said the wrong thing at the worst time, which was just perfect for her. Their little talk had been a long time coming, and she had absolutely no plan whatsoever of holding back any longer. She hoped and prayed to God that her father would hear every single word she had to say to Jackson so that he might finally learn what a fraud he truly was.
“No, Jackie,” she
slurred his name venomously, knowing he hated it when people called him that. “I do not expect you to live here! I never had any intention of you living here with me! I never had any intention of marrying you, having your children, sharing my inheritance with you…none of that! How stupid do you have to be to honestly believe I would marry you when we’ve never even said we love each other!?”
Her rant drew the attention of Gabe, and he walked into the hallway. He positioned himself in the doorway like a sentry, probably waiting for his chance to attack.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Kerri,” Jackson said, trying to laugh it off like she was just crazy. “Look, it’s been a long day. And you’re all emotional because of the loss of your grandmother, a long flight, being inundated by paperwork at the attorney’s office, the funeral, and then coming back here. And there might even be a little PMS thrown in there too. Isn’t it time for your period?”
“Oh, no he didn’t,” Gabe said with a roll of his neck on his shoulders.
“Aaarrrgh!” Kerrigan screamed at Jackson’s audacity. “It’s over, Jackson! Get the hell out of my house! I can’t even stand to look at you anymore! And for God’s sake, eat a Tic Tac!”
Kerrigan marched past him and into the hallway, but he turned and hurried to catch up to her. Once he reached her, he grabbed her arm roughly and forced her to turn around to face him.
His face was twisted with hate as he snarled at her. “I’m not going anywhere, you little bitch! I’ve worked too hard to get here. Kissing your daddy’s ass, putting up with all your self-righteous bullshit, your faggot friend, and to top it all off…you suck in the sack! Which is ironic because you don’t actually suck, but you get the point. You’re a dead lay. And after all that, there’s no way in hell I’m going to let you just piss on me and kick me to the curb without a dime!”
“Take your money grubbing hands off of me!” She jerked her arm in an attempt to free herself, but it was a wasted effort. His grip was too tight, and he showed no sign of relenting.
“You heard the lady,” a deep voice growled from behind her. “Get your hands off her!”
Jackson’s eyes went wide when he heard the order and released his hold on her arm. Dominic ushered Kerrigan behind his back and stood in a protective stance between her and Jackson.
“Just who the hell do you think you are? That’s my fiancée, asshole!”
“I don’t care what she is to you. She’s a lady first and foremost, and she happened to be very vital to the woman I admired most in the world. I swore I would protect her with my life, and I intend to do just that. So if you want to put your hands on her again, you’re going to have to go through me. And I assure you, you don’t…want to fuck…with me.”
Kerrigan was both astonished and relieved by his threatening, yet protective words. He was fierce, and it was obvious he meant every word he said, but she wasn’t scared of him. The man was a stranger and could’ve gone all Hannibal Lector on everyone in the house, but she felt comforted by his presence. It made no sense at all, but she was.
“What’s going on in here?” Hudson asked as he and Priscilla joined the chaos. “And who is this?” he asked, motioning toward Dominic.
“Dad, this is Dominic. He was a friend of Grammy’s. Dominic was just explaining to Jackson why he should keep his hands off me.” Kerrigan smirked and eyeballed Jackson while she rubbed at her reddened wrist. She knew her father would never allow Jackson to treat her that way.
He lifted Kerrigan’s wrist to examine it. The little vein in his forehead popped out in anger. “You put your hands on my daughter!?”
“He wants to bring in a bulldozer and knock Grammy’s house to the ground,” Kerrigan continued. She didn’t even care that she sounded like a tattling child. “Oh, and he never asked me to marry him either. His goal this entire time was to wine and dine you until you were completely oblivious to his real intentions.
He knew Grammy was leaving me a sizable inheritance, because you spilled those little details to him when you went to get that safety deposit box. You wouldn’t have known about his scamming ways because he’s played the part oh so well, but he was looking to cash in. He doesn’t love me, and I could never love him. I just couldn’t fathom spending the rest of my life in a loveless marriage, so I just basically told him to kiss my ass and get out of my house.”
Kerrigan kept her eyes on Jackson, watching as he went pale and floundered for words to save his sorry butt.
“Jackson didn’t seem to like that too much, and apparently thought he could strong-arm me into staying with him until he reaps his reward for kissing your ass for the past three years. His words, not mine,” she clarified.
The expression on Hudson’s face morphed into disgust. She watched it turn three shades of red, none of which looked very healthy. Kerrigan would know that look anywhere. He was about to explode, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
“Out!” He screamed at Jackson, pointing toward the front door. “You find your own damn way back to Chicago! And you can bet your sweet ass that I’ll be making a call to the bank’s president first thing in the morning to make sure he’s aware of how you manipulated one of their major clients!”
“You tell him, Daddy C!” Gabe cheered him on. “Bastard’s lucky Kerr Bear wouldn’t let me cut his pecker off and feed it to him.”
Just like the river rat he was, Jackson scurried past Kerrigan and Dominic and ran out the door. She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of satisfaction knowing that he would have to walk to find a hotel to stay in for the night because her father had the rental car.
Priscilla wrapped her arms around her daughter’s shoulders. “Are you okay, baby? I’m so sorry you had to endure that. Thank God this nice young man was here. Right, Hud?”
“Oh, yeah…um, thank you…” Hudson mumbled. His embarrassment over not being able to recognize the commie that had infiltrated his camp was evident all over his face, but Kerrigan wouldn’t make a big deal about it or make him feel even worse. His self-torment would be torturous enough without her adding to it. “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”
“It’s Dominic, sir. And, it was no problem. Like I said, I made a promise to Availia, one I fully intend to keep. God knows I owe her more than that.”
“How exactly did you know my mother?”
“Let’s just say we were really good friends. She let me stay here when there was nowhere else I could go.” Dominic almost looked embarrassed by that fact. “The woman was a saint.”
“Hud,” Priscilla interrupted. “Why don’t you go start unloading Kerrigan and Gabe’s things so they can get settled in?”
“Okay, Prissy,” he answered, using the pet name he gave her.
Gabe followed him out the door. “Um, how many times do I have to tell you? I’m the prissy one in this family,” he said, the sound of his voice fading as they disappeared from sight.
Hudson had been really tolerant of Gabe’s behavior since he and his daughter had become such good friends. He knew he didn’t mean any harm, and most importantly, Gabe had always been there for Kerrigan through thick and thin. Hudson probably would’ve thought of him as a son if Gabe had ever acted the part, but as it were, Gabe would be more like a daughter than anything else.
“I’m just going to go get fresh linens for your bed.” Priscilla looked from Kerrigan to Dominic before she turned to leave them alone.
“Are you okay?” Dominic asked.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” She turned and walked back to the kitchen, her traitorous hands shaking as she opened the refrigerator to look for something to drink.
She was tired of everyone treating her like a child. Her father had done it her entire life, and she was finally going to be able to have some independence. There was no way she was going to let this guy, a complete stranger, start hovering over her as well. Regardless of the promise he had made to her grandmother.
“I didn’t need you to do that, you know. I can take care of mysel
f.”
She reached inside and grabbed a bottle of beer. They must have been Dominic’s because she couldn’t recall Grammy ever drinking alcohol. Not that Kerrigan cared who they belonged to. They were in her house after all. She closed the door back and twisted the top off before tilting it to her lips and taking a long swig.
“Yeah, it sure looked like it. You may have thought you were being intimidating, but it was more like watching a gatita stare down a mountain lion,” Dominic chuckled.
“Gatita?”
“It’s Spanish for kitten.” His eyes lingered on her lips as she licked the beer from them. “I hope my beer tastes good because you sure as hell look good tasting my beer.”
Kerrigan’s head snapped up to glare at him. Her eyes narrowed into slits as she debated whether or not she was going to slap him. “You don’t know me well enough to be making comments like that, Mr. Grayson. You’d do well to remember that before you wake up to find yourself disfigured,” she warned with a nod toward his midsection.
“Ouch.” Dominic winced and covered himself with his hands. “I may have you pegged wrong after all.”
“A little help here!” Gabe shouted through the screen door.
Dominic and Kerrigan left the kitchen and went to the front of the house where Gabe was struggling to hold one small box in both of his hands. Hudson, however, was so loaded down with things they could barely see the top of his balding head. Kerrigan rolled her eyes because Gabe obviously could have opened the door on his own.
She sat her beer down on the table to reach for the door and caught a glimpse of Dominic out of her peripheral vision snatching the bottle back up. She turned toward him just in time to watch him put the bottle to his lips and take a drink before tilting it in her direction as if to thank her. Then he winked before sauntering toward the staircase with long strides until he disappeared again.
Kerrigan opened the door and took the feather-light box from Gabe’s baby bottom hands. “He’s going to be a major pain in the rear,” she murmured.
