by Stacy Gail
He had a point, but in the grand scheme of things it barely left a mark. “Pets are looked after. Children are kept safe. I’m neither.”
“Jesus,” he said, looking to the ceiling. “That’s gratitude for you, especially after I’ve busted a hump looking after you for days. Oh, and I should add that I don’t see you as a fucking pet.”
Scout sat up. “Twist—”
“If I had a pet, you can bet your ass it would be better trained than you.”
“Out.” Shaking with a spike of towering fury and a fierce, piercing hurt she didn’t want to put a name to, Angel picked up the box of donuts, shoved it in Scout’s hands and marched to the door. “Both of you. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve said everything there is to say, except for one last word—goodbye.”
Chapter Nine
The sun painted the sky a silken orange as it sank in the west, but Twist was blind to it as he stepped onto the condo’s gated, quiet pool deck. Off in a corner, an older couple sat chatting in a hot tub, but the pool itself—a perfect, glistening blue rectangle—was calm and empty. One of the umbrella-covered tables held a clutter of towels, bags and a book that he assumed belonged to the marinating couple. Only one of the many chaise lounges lining the side of the pool was occupied.
Angel.
A sigh whispered out of him. Unfortunately it didn’t ease the tension that had his muscles drawn as taut as piano wire. As much as he didn’t want to think about it, he knew where that tension came from. His gaze brushed over her prone body left mostly bare thanks to the red bandana bikini top and denim-look low-cut bottoms she wore. But even as he enjoyed the view, her words attacked yet again, sucking the pleasure of that view right out of him.
You broke me, all right? You win.
The hell with this, he thought, moving around the edge of the pool to where there were a bunch of vending machines. Whether she was up for it or not, they needed to tackle this, because he wasn’t good at stewing over problems any more than he was at communicating.
At this point, though, if he didn’t get better at the latter, there was going to be a lot of the former in his not-so-distant future.
He just hoped she had enough patience to listen.
“I hope you didn’t lock yourself out.” His heart sank when she jumped like a stressed-out, skittish cat at the sound of his voice. Before she could open her mouth to tell him to fuck off or simply bolt and leave him in the dust, he sank onto her chaise at her hip and leaned one arm on its other side, effectively pinning her. It was dirty pool, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “I’ve still got your keys.”
“I left the back patio door open.” The big Jackie-O sunglasses she wore made her tiny button nose almost disappear, and she looked so damn cute he nearly smiled. But the unhappy line of her mouth shot that urge all to hell. “I’ll take my keys so you can get out of here and back to your life.”
In other words, fuck off and go away. “I know it’s probably not the best moment to mention this, but I gotta say… there are times when I’m extremely grateful you were raised to be a courteous, well-mannered woman, and not the kind who indulges in screaming shit fits.”
“Wow, an acknowledgment that I’m a full-grown woman and not a little girl. I may faint.” She held out her hand, continuing to emanate waves of unhappiness with such intensity it almost hurt. “Keys, please.”
Gently he placed the cold bottle of water he’d gotten from the vending machine in her hand instead. “Do me a favor and hydrate, okay? I don’t know how long you’ve been out here, and I don’t want you to backslide on your recovery.”
Her brow puckered behind the shield of her glasses before she pushed the bottle toward him in obvious rejection. “Busting more humps taking care of me? Thank you, but I don’t need it. Like I’ve told you many times already, I can take care of myself.”
“That was an asshole thing to say.” Ignoring the bottle, he watched surprise freeze her into statue-stillness. “You never once asked for anyone to look after you, much less me, so making you out to be some kind of ingrate was an embarrassingly whiny-bitch move on my part. I know you didn’t want me around. It was my choice to hang out here and take care of you, not yours.”
Though he couldn’t see past her glasses, he had a feeling those big, doll-like eyes of hers were goggling at him. “I told you I was grateful—”
“And I told you I didn’t want your gratitude, then or now. And contrary to that dumbass remark I made earlier, I still don’t. I just… You’re right. I am trying to control how things go here, because I need to make sure you’re okay.”
“Why?”
“Why?” For a moment that was so vivid it chilled his skin, he saw a ruined face, scarily unrecognizable, surrounded by curling black hair—the only thing he could identify. The smell of the blood mingled with antiseptic, and the hopeless despair that hit him when he heard not just his mother cry, but his father as well. Never had he felt so helpless. And never would he allow himself to be that helpless again. “Did you really just ask that?”
“Yes. From the time I came to in the ER, I haven’t been able to figure out why you even give a damn about whether or not I live or die. What do you hope to get out of looking after me?”
“What the fuck, you think I’m playing some kind of angle here?” When he heard the heat of his words, he struggled—hard—to rein it in. “Look, I’m not doing this for me, okay? I’m doing this, all of it, for you.”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t know that you’re okay—that you’re eating the right things and getting enough rest while you recover from something that could have fucking killed you—then I’m the one who’s not okay. So maybe you’re right. Maybe I am taking care of you because of what I’m getting out of it. And if what I’m getting out of it is peace of mind that you’re still breathing and happy, then all I can do is hope you won’t begrudge me that.” Then, as she continued to simply stare at him, he let out a slow breath. “Though I haven’t made you very happy, have I? I’ve pretty much missed the mark on that goal from start to finish.”
That brow of hers looked like it wanted to pucker again, but beyond that he couldn’t read anything in her expression thanks to those damned glasses. “There’s just a lot of history between us, Twist. A lot.”
“I get that. But it doesn’t mean that’s all there can be. There can be other things.”
“Like what?”
“Like a present. And maybe some kind of future.” When all he saw was his own reflection in those glasses, his tenuous patience frayed. Fuck it, he thought, and snagged them off her face. He was in so much hot water now he might as well go ahead and drown himself in it.
“Hey—”
“I like looking into your eyes more than anything else I can think of,” he said, laying her glasses at his feet. “The one thing I don’t like is having them hidden from me, because I can’t read what’s going on inside you.”
“There’s nothing going on inside me,” she said, while the chaos of anger, stress and something that looked like misery churned away in those blue depths. His gut tightened at the sight, but he forced himself not to flinch away from it. All that upset was caused by him, so he had no right to look away.
“I’ll never forget the first time I saw you,” he said, keeping his voice soft so he wouldn’t add anything more to that volatile mix. When she blinked at the abrupt subject change, he half-smiled and had to force his hands to be still. Being this close and not reach for her was tough, but that misery in her eyes—misery he’d put there—told him he had no right to even think about touching her. “You were in the Employees’ break room with Maximo and Rocket, and I thought you might be one of those after-school kids that always seem to be hanging around tattoo joints, ready to offer up a living canvas for someone to practice on.”
“Every tat parlor in the world has at least one hanging around, no matter what time of day it is,” she said after a moment, though she sounded uncertain, as if sh
e couldn’t see what his point was. “Payne never allowed that at the House, though. From the time it opened its doors, the House has always been more of an exclusive modern art gallery than a tattoo studio where just anyone could crash.”
“I know that now. But back then when I was first hired on, the second I saw you, my gut instinct labeled you as schoolgirl jail bait.”
She shook her head, and there was simmering anger in the gesture. “I wasn’t jail bait.”
“You’re not hearing me, Angel. I said, I took one look at you and thought jail bait.”
“Yeah, I get it. You thought I was a schoolkid.”
“A schoolkid I was instantly desperate to fuck.” He couldn’t stop from laughing under his breath when her eyes went wide. “There we go. Now you’re getting it.”
“You…” Again she shook her head, this time in disbelief. “No way.”
“Yep. For real.”
“But… no.” She wriggled to sit up straighter, clearly doing her best to make sure she didn’t come into contact with him. “The way I remember it, you only looked at me long enough to label my artwork as cartoony.”
“I honestly don’t remember what I said, because I was too busy processing what I felt. From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you. No,” he interrupted himself, trying to be as accurate as possible so she would understand. “It was more than that. I craved you. Have you ever craved anyone before, Angel?”
Her eyes were wide and unblinking as they locked onto his, and in silence she shook her head.
“It’s like… it’s like getting hit with instant crazy,” he said, struggling to describe that moment so many years ago. “I wanted to touch you. I wanted to bury my face in your hair. I wanted to taste you and breathe you in so I could memorize your scent. I wanted to strip you naked and discover every single inch of you with my eyes, then my hands, then my mouth. I wanted to give you pleasure and watch you as that pleasure made you smile, then moan, then gasp, then cry out loud, then scream the fucking roof off.”
“Holy cats,” he heard her whisper.
He smiled, desire winding its sinuous way into his gut while she absently fanned herself. “I wanted to do all of that to you right there in the break room, whether Maximo and Rocket were around or not. That’s a bad thing. That kind of wanting that’s so batshit crazy you don’t care about anything else… it’s dangerous as hell.”
She was silent for a long time, looking as though she half-expected to find he was punking her. “Dangerous?”
“Geez, you’re something.” He tried not to laugh, but damn, that was hard to do when she was determined to be so fucking adorable. “Out of everything I just copped to, that’s the one word that sticks out for you?”
“What do you mean, dangerous?”
“I’m not the kind of guy who’s capable of doing anything by half-measures, which means…” He sighed heavily and shook his head, remembering the event that had sent him to prison for four years. He definitely hadn’t done anything by half-measures then, either. And it was that full-tilt drive inside of him that had landed him right where he now was—in the hopeless land of ex-cons who didn’t know when to leave a princess well enough alone. “Bottom line, it means I sometimes lose my shit. Rational thought gets buried by whatever I’m feeling and I get swept up in the moment. That’s why I say it’s dangerous, at least for me, because I can’t always trust myself to do or say the right thing. So, when it came to dealing with you, I had to find ways of keeping myself on tight lockdown.”
“Ways? What ways?”
“After our first meeting, it was obvious I needed to put up some mental barriers when it came to protecting you from me, to remind myself that you were way too delicate to be involved with someone… someone like me.
“Someone like you?”
“Someone who’s not a prince.” Or, if he wanted to put a finer point on it, someone with a rap sheet. “I’d constantly remind myself that you were just a pure and untouched kid compared to me—it’s not the years, it’s the mileage, is what I always told myself. And it’s true, Angel. I’ve got a helluva lot of miles on me, miles I earned going down roads I hope to God you never travel. Sometimes I look at you and I feel fucking ancient, but that has nothing to do with you. That has everything to do with how fucked up I am.”
For a moment she opened her mouth, then abruptly clamped her lips together. He didn’t know which was worse, bracing for questions he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer, or knowing she didn’t trust him enough to put a voice to whatever was on her mind.
No, he knew what was worse.
If he didn’t have her trust, he had nothing.
“So,” she said after a moment, “all your references to my being childish have actually been your ham-handed attempts to save me… from yourself?”
He winced. “Ham-handed. Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit that I suck at getting the right words out when I’m feeling pressured. And the attraction I felt whenever I was around you put me under some of the worst pressure I’ve ever known. But it was never my intention to make you feel disrespected, little girl. And before you say it,” he added with a ghost of a smile when she opened her mouth, “calling you little girl started out as a reminder to myself that you were to be given a respectful distance. But it’s now such a habit that I can’t see me ever breaking it, so you need to find a way to be okay with it. And let’s face it, you are on the little side, and I love how all girl you are.”
Again she didn’t say anything for a long stretch, so long he started to worry. Then she tilted her head. “I understand you wanted to keep your distance when you first met me. But why did you keep your barriers in place when you learned I wasn’t underage?”
“I was a new hire, and you were a huge part of the House.”
“So?”
Had he thought explaining things earlier was tough? No, this was the hard part, but she deserved to know it all. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this but… I had just been released from prison when I came to House Of Payne.” The admission dragged out of him, because it was just about the last thing he wanted to talk about. He would never be ashamed of what he’d done, and if he had to do it all over again, he would. But it was crazy to believe a delicate Lincoln Park private school product like Angel would willingly be with a felon convicted of a violent crime without her being scared shitless of him at some point. He could take a lot of things, but having her fear him wasn’t one of them. “Landing a job at House Of Payne was like… I don’t know. Better than Christmas. Better than being released back into the world. Better than having sex for the first time. I don’t have the words to explain how much it meant to me. It was the ultimate dream come true. Ex-cons fresh out of prison don’t land jobs at places like the House. Even now there are times when I still can’t believe it.”
“You’re a magnificent artist. I can’t imagine you not getting a job anywhere you wanted.” She kept her gaze steady on him, a preoccupied frown between her pale brows. Thankfully she wasn’t watching him like he was a rabid dog, but she did look confused. “That doesn’t explain why you treated me like… like jail bait, even when you knew I wasn’t.”
“In a way, it does. At that time, I was nowhere near what you’d call civilized. I went from a barred and locked hell where every day could’ve been my last, to that quiet little break room at the House. I took one look at you and wanted to pounce on you like some goddamn animal, and I didn’t even know your name. It shocked the hell out of me, that response. That’s not the man my parents raised me to be.”
Again her eyes almost doubled in size. “You were really that hot for me?”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or groan out loud. “Yeah, Angel. Really.”
“I had no idea. I never got even a hint of what you were feeling.”
“Good.” He nodded with a grim smile. “Because it would’ve scared the shit out of you if you had. A princess like you deserves better than a horny ex-con like me slobbering all over her.”
“Angel,” he said gently, while inside his whole world turned a little darker, “an ex-con is what I am. And you do deserve better than that.”
“Your decision, not mine.”
“It’s not a decision, it’s a fact.”
She sighed shortly and looked away, muttering something that sounded like “control freak” under her breath before returning her attention to him. “So… you’re saying you called me little girl and have been an obnoxious, belittling asshole all this time because you had the hots for me, but thought I deserved better?”
“Belittling?” The others he’d straight-up cop to, but not that. “How have I been belittling?”
“Remember all the times you’ve called me an idiot?”
He narrowed his eyes as he mulled it over. “Yeah, you’re right. I never should have called you an idiot when I thought you were going to go into peoples’ houses and tattoo them in private. I overreacted and lost my shit—again.”
She nodded. “You really did.”
“And I’m sorry about that.”
“Good. Apology accepted.”
“But when I see you starving yourself rather than eating healthy food left in place of convenience store crap, I’m going to call it like I see it.”
“And that’s another thing—”
“Yeah, I threw that garbage you called food away because I like looking out for you. So what?”
For only a moment she seemed stunned before she gave her head a shake. “So what? It’s none of your business what I eat.”
“I’m not going to stand around playing pocket pool while you eat fucking garbage, Angel.”
“I don’t need anyone to look out for me.”
“True, but that doesn’t matter. I do what I do because it’s what I need to do. And now that I no longer have to worry about rocking the boat when it comes to my position at the House—and you’re no longer an untouchable teen who’s so young it scares the crap outta me—I’m going to keep on doing what I need to do.”
