The Dirty Dozen: Damsel Edition

by Kay Maree

  With a smile wider than the Grand Canyon, Scarlet shares, “The other day when I picked her up from school, she asked me when I was going to hurry the hell up and put a ring on it. So my guess is, my little hellion, is totally down for her daddy knocking me up.”

  Scarlet has played a huge part in Violet's life since a few weeks after she was born. Violet's mom wanted nothing to do with children and babies, least of all her own. Leticia took off, leaving her screaming infant daughter in the strong, loving arms of her father only days after delivery, and hasn't looked back since.

  As far as Locke is concerned, good riddance. Luckily for him, Locke has enough support around him in the form of his sister, Zara, his twin brothers, Rhodes, and Slade, his youngest brother, Paxton, his dad, Chase, step-mom, Ashleigh, and most importantly, Scarlet that Violet hasn't felt the fallout of what it means to not have her mom around. But that's not to say, Violet hasn't asked about her; she has. With increasing frequency lately, too.

  Dropping her head onto my shoulder, Scarlet heaves out a deep breath. “That kid kills me. She asked about Bitchticia again yesterday.” See, what did I tell you? “I was torn between telling her that her mom was an evil troll that didn't deserve the handsome prince and shooting myself in the foot to get out of talking about her. Fuck,” she hisses. “That wicked wench seriously fucks with my mojo, even from afar.”

  Leticia, or Bitchticia as Scarlet likes to call her lives in upstate New York with her current sugar daddy - a seventy-two-year-old media mogul - but honestly, anywhere this side of hell is too close for Scarlet's liking.

  “I take it you settled on...” I'm cut off by the sound of my cell clattering across the top of my nightstand.

  “You going to answer that?” Scarlet, not so subtly prompts, quirking her perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me.

  “Nope,” I shake my head.

  “Well, I've gotta bounce. Dray called me this morning and asked me to pick up a shift tonight.”

  Scarlet has been working at Tainted, a high-end – if there is such a thing – strip club, owned by our other best friend, Dray. It isn't her ideal job, far from it actually. However, to fund her borderline disturbing shoe fetish, and because work for a college graduate with an Ancient History major is slim, Scarlet decided to take up an illustrious career in stripping, instead.

  I shake my head at her as Scarlet jiggles her DD-cup boobs into a tank top made to house much smaller assets. “I thought, Dray only had you on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights these days?”

  “He did,” she smirks. “But apparently he got a last minute booking for a bachelor party. With Anastasia out with the flu, Courtney dealing with whatever the hell it is she deals with when she's calling out of work, and Britney still learning the ropes, that only leaves me, Bridget, and Ginny who know how to work a pole.”

  “Why Dray still keeps Courtney around is beyond me,” I sigh.

  “Um...because she flashes her gash for cash and the boys love it?” Scarlet smirks wickedly.

  “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Dray seriously needs to scout more talent because if the best he has to offer some nights is, Courtney, who offers backroom blowjobs for fifty bucks, his staff leave a lot to be desired.

  In saying that, Scarlet is probably the most naturally talented stripper this side of the Mason-Dixon. She's five-foot-nine has boobs for days, an ass J-Lo would be jealous of, and legs I would die for. Not to mention, she is stunningly beautiful, too. Her waist-length wavy blonde hair is almost white. Add to that, her cat-like gold eyes with bright green flecks interspersed throughout are so unique they are truly captivating.

  Scarlet's the whole package. Intelligent, funny, with a heart of gold, so honestly, I don't understand why Locke hasn't thrown her over his shoulder and dragged her off to his man-cave yet. I suppose it could have something to do with the epic amount of sass she's capable of wielding as a weapon and her filthy mouth, but who am I to judge? I can be just as bad, if not worse.

  “Any who, Princess Perky. I suggest you eat a Snickers to stave off the hangry bitch you're gearing up to be, and call that fine as hell husband of yours back. Truthfully, babe, his stalker tendencies are going to manifest into straight up kidnapping ones if you don't talk to him soon.”

  She's right, but that doesn't mean I'm finished making him suffer just yet.

  “You do remember how this all began, right?” I prod, sitting up hugging my pillow to my chest.

  “Yep,” she chirps.

  “So then you should understand why I'm entitled to draw out Lucifer’s punishment for, at least, another week, and my dad’s probably two.”

  “See, that's where you lose me,” she says, swiping on a thin coat of mascara. “I totally understand why you're pissed; I would be too. Letting your dad know you two are married was a dick move, but it isn't the end of the world.”

  The hell it isn't. Obviously, Scarlet needs to be reintroduced to my father because she's apparently forgotten what an over-protective ass he can be when he goes full-alpha, flicking the you'll-touch-my-baby-girl-over-my-dead-body switch.

  “And as for your dad; he loves you, Tate. He’s worried about you, and your questionable mental status.”

  “Oh, go suck a bag of dicks. There’s nothing wrong with my mental state, and you know it,” I snap while trying to hide a grin.

  “Uh-huh. Then if that’s the case, then I suppose you won’t run screaming like a crazy person when I tell you your hubby is standing in the doorway, and he does not look happy,” she smirks, flouncing out of the room past a scowling Lucifer.”

  “Oh, shit,” I murmur under my breath when I see how apt Scarlet’s description of his mood is.

  “Oh, shit is right, sweetheart,” he rumbles menacingly. “Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. It’s up to you.”

  Slinking further back onto the mattress, I gulp and ask, “Is there a third option? Like, say, you go home and wait until I decide to call you?”

  The hopeful tone in my voice turns into a yelp when Lucifer walks into my bedroom and shakes his head. “You’re all out of options, baby. You either come with me now willingly, or I pick you up and carry you out of here. You’ve got five seconds to make your choice.”

  I’ll give you one guess which one I picked.

  Chapter Six

  Lucifer

  “Don't even think about it,” I growled, pulling Tatum through the front door behind me.

  Whether she likes it or not, we're going to sit down and talk this shit out. A week without my wife is too long. A week without being able to touch her, to kiss her, to be inside her beautiful body was fucking torture. So, I'm done. Done waiting for her to get her head together. Done waiting for her to return my calls. Done fucking waiting, period.

  Tatum attempts to tug her wrist from my grip. It's cute really; her thinking she can get away from me. “Listen, you overgrown man-child. It's obvious that you're in the middle of some psychotic episode, but I hardly think dragging me off to your lair is going to help any.”

  Spinning around to face her, I give Tatum my best icy glare, to which she merely cocks her eyebrow at me and plasters on a cute smirk. “Can you just shut the hell up for one goddamn second.”

  My wife tips her head to the side as if she's actually considering it, before saying, “Um, I could, but where would be the fun in that?”

  Jesus fucking Christ, I know why her dad drinks now. Dealing with the O'Neil women is no joke. Granted, Tatum is now a Givens after she married me, but she still shares DNA with three of the most annoying women I know, so there's that.

  Striding into the house, I look around and try to see my house through her eyes.

  I bought this place a few months after my first wife, Savannah died, not able to stay in the home we shared for a minute longer than absolutely necessary. Until today, I hadn't given much thought to if Tatum liked my place, if it was somewhere she could see herself living. I suppose I should have, though, which
is why I'm giving it a more critical once-over now.

  This house was an empty shell when I bought it. Something I appreciated greatly. I wanted a place I could make my own, design how I wanted, and I did. It took a fuck ton longer than expected, but in the end, the results spoke for themselves. The place was fucking perfect if I don't say so myself.

  Downstairs consisted of a large living and dining room, separated by a low line entertainment unit I'd repurposed as a makeshift bar. My eighty-inch TV is mounted on the far wall above the wood burning fireplace, the rest of the furniture arranged around an enormous central coffee table. Two recliners, a sectional, and a couple of side tables is about the extent of it, along with a solid mahogany dining table with twelve chairs off to the right. A large hall connects the front door to the eat-in kitchen. While most of the living space is on the left side of the house, a small bathroom is located under the stairs to the right, along with my home office and my man-cave as the boys like to call it.

  The double sliding doors that cut my man-cave off from the hall were designed and handcrafted by a buddy of mine - a master carpenter by trade. He spent three weeks carving those heavy as hell bastards, and it was worth every penny. The room isn't small, probably the size of a two-car garage, housing a full-sized pool table, full bar that takes up half one wall, four theater chairs, an Xbox, and a hundred and fifty-inch projection screen. And while this room is the shit, I should have given more thought to who I told about its existence. Especially since after finding out about it the boys have started organizing poker and football nights here.

  My kitchen, while not to my liking was the last thing on my list of renovations. It was a sore point for me since I didn't have the first fucking clue how to remodel it. That's where Ebonee came in. A friend of Tatum and Scarlet's, Ebonee went to school to train as an interior designer. She warned me at the time that her forte was redecorating, not remodeling, but I was desperate, so I took a chance on her regardless.

  So you can imagine my shock and disgust when I ended up with a kitchen out of Home Beautiful when all I'd wanted was something functional. I mean, shit. The thing may be a woman's wet dream, but at the time, I was a single man living alone, and now I had to worry about spontaneous vaginal growth.

  Eggshell walls - that's what Ebonee calls the color - are offset by light charcoal baseboards. The stainless steel appliances rock, which is the only positive in the whole room as far as I'm concerned. Lace, fucking lace curtains block the neighbors on my left side from seeing in, but that's

  about all those things are good for. Pots and pans hang on a timber rack - another of my buddy's creations – suspended

  from the ceiling above a doubled-sized wooden butcher block in the center of my U-shaped kitchen.

  The counters are Italian marble, which would have been cool if it weren't for the fact they're some weird shade of mushroom pink. Again, Ebonee calls them gray, but I'm telling you, they're fucking pink. Thankfully, Ebonee didn't cover up my hardwood floors, but she did resurface them to give them what she calls a distressed look, which I all but lost my mind over. Seriously, these floors are over a hundred years old, and she got to them with a goddamned belt sander. Surely, you can see why I'd be pissed about that.

  Gesturing to one of the stools at the breakfast bar, I tell Tatum to sit. Once we've both got a beer in front of us, I ask, “Now you're here, you want to tell me the reason you've been avoiding me for over a week?”

  Without a hint of hesitation, Tatum snaps back, “How many do you want?”

  “Five,” I return with a wink that I know will only piss her off.

  “Fine,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her ample chest. Fuck, what I wouldn't give to have those gorgeous tits in my hands and mouth again. But with a click of her fingers, the spell is broken. “Eyes up here, big guy.”

  “What?” I shrug. “You can't blame me for admiring the merchandise.”

  With a shake of her head, Tatum groans. “And this is why communicating with you is like talking to a freshman high schooler.”

  “Maybe, but don't lie and tell me you don't love it,” I smirk.

  “Actually, I don't,” she sneers. “For once, just once, I would like to have a conversation with you that doesn't end in one or both of us naked.”

  Reaching for her hand, Tatum snatches it away before I can touch her. “Tatum,” I warn.

  “No, Marcus,” she says, calling me by my given name – a name she only uses when she's really, really fucking pissed off. “This is part of the problem. You're hot, and you know it. And while that's not an issue on its own, it is when you try and use your looks to distract me. Ninety percent of our relationship has been spent together in one of our beds, not talking shit out like we should have been.”

  Trying to break through some of the tension, I hedge, “I distinctly remember that one time when we...”

  “Shut it,” Tatum cuts me off. “Can you please just try and focus here for a minute?”

  “Sure,” I relent, albeit begrudgingly.

  Honestly, I'd prefer recalling every intimate detail of the time I fucked her up against the wall outside the fire house, but I'll give her this if that's what she really wants. And by the looks of the rigid set of her shoulders and the glacial look on her face, this is what Tatum really wants.

  Narrowing her eyes on me, Tatum questions, “You wanted five reasons, right?” When I nod, she goes on to list them with ease. “One; you're overbearing, rude, and way too possessive. Two; you don't listen to me. Ever. Three; your idea of spending time together is doing it naked and sweaty. Four; I have enough shit to deal with helping to raise my siblings that I don't need another kid to look after. And five, and this is the big one; you had no right to tell my dad about us. I don’t care about the ultimatum you gave me, or if you thought I was taking too long; it was my place to tell him, not yours.”

  When she's finished, her shoulders slump and her head lowers to study the beer bottle she's nervously rolling between her palms. I want nothing more at this moment than to take her into my arms and hold her. To run my hands down her back and bury my head in her hair, telling her everything will be fine, that we'll work this out. But I can sense that isn't what she wants.

  The uncomfortable silence that settles between us is like a lead weight on my shoulders. This amazing woman, my life, the love of my life is unhappy, and I'm the one that made her that way. All I've ever wanted for Tatum is to be happy, and in the beginning, I thought I could be the one to ensure that. But now, I'm second guessing myself.

  “Tatum,” I mutter, urging her to look at me. “I'm sorry, okay? Your dad goaded me about your date with the fuckwit, and I snapped. I told you, I couldn't stand the thought of you hanging out with a man who wants to fuck you. Especially, when you belong to me.”

  “But I don't,” she whispers. “I don't belong to you, though. Not really. And I get that it’s partially my fault because I haven’t let you tell anyone about us, but that doesn’t change the facts,” Raising her eyes, wet with unshed tears to mine, Tatum murmurs, “I see the women who approach you at Jack's. I watch as they touch you and slip their numbers in your pocket. And while you might not call them, you don't discourage them either.”

  Yeah, that has happened. And she's right. I don't do enough to discourage the bitches who only want to spend a night in my bed, but it isn't for the reason she thinks, though.

  “Baby, I don't want those women. I've never called them; I don't even keep their numbers.”

  “That's not the point, though, Marcus. You act like a Neanderthal when it comes to my male friends, who I will point out are only friends. You hate Josh, and he's my partner. We work together, Marcus, and having you glare at him every time you see him doesn't help anything. Do you know how many times I’ve had to make excuses for your behavior? How many times I've had to apologize for the shit you've said when your inner caveman makes an appearance? Too many. So many that it's become a running joke at the station.”


  Shit, I didn't realize that. But that's not to say I'd have done anything differently. I've caught that slimy bastard she works with staring at Tatum's ass far too closely for my liking, one too many times. So yeah, I did say something to the prick, and yeah, I do glare daggers at him every time I see him. But obviously, he never told Tatum why. Not that I thought he would.

  “I'm sorry, baby. You want me to talk to them, get them to lay off?”

  “No,” she shouts. “That's the last thing I want you to do.”

  Not wanting to get caught up in the past, dwelling on things I can't fix, I ask, “Then how do we fix this, babe? Because I'm telling you now, I'm not letting you go. I love you, Tatum. I fucked up talking to your dad when I shouldn't have, but we can work this out.”

  Shaking her head slowly, Tatum sighs. “That's just the thing; I don't know if we can. We are so different, Marcus. I want a family one day. I want kids, a dog, and a husband who wants to share all those things with me. You've made it perfectly clear you don't want children, ever, I believe you said when I brought it up.”

  She's right, I did. But things change, people change, and if that's what Tatum wants, I'll give it to her. I'll give her anything if it makes her happy. “Babe, that was then, this is now. If you want to talk about kids again, I'm open to it.”

  “But you aren't. You'd be doing it for me, not because you want kids. I don't want to raise children with a man who isn't all-in, Marcus. I can't do that to them, or to me.”

  When Tatum first brought up the topic of babies a few months back, I'll admit, I freaked the fuck out and shut the conversation down as quickly as possible. It's not that I don't like kids, I do. It's just that I've crested forty, half-way to fifty, and I don't want any children we may have growing up without a father.

  The life I led didn't lend itself to settling down with a wife and a few rug rats. Sure, Savannah and I had a home together, we both had jobs, and managed to stay married regardless of how we started out, but we both agreed kids would never be in the cards for us. I was good with that. But Savannah isn't Tatum. There's no comparison between the two.