by Casey Hagen
All I had to do was remember the way he owned that chair last night, sitting like a man giving zero fucks, spoiling for a fight. Abrasiveness rolling off him like the rumble of a Harley roaring to life.
Flaming asshole, flaming asshole, flaming asshole.
“Ow!” I hopped away from the pain, my back arching, but with Priest wrapped around me, it meant practically climbing into him.
Chest to chest, hip to hip, the force making him wobble back enough he darted his hand out and curled it around my waist.
“Easy,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “Now move with me. I’m going to line you up. Good, right there.”
Everything he said, the rumble of his deep words, his grip on me—washed over me. Directions in a voice coated with sex, igniting dirty fantasies, making me want to suck the lingering scent of black coffee on his breath straight from his mouth.
I’d lost all ability to say anything. The deep breaths necessary to form words meant my breasts pressing harder into his chest. With the way my body betrayed my simmering rage at the fucker, my nipples would be carving our initials over his heart in three seconds flat if I let them.
With his feet turned slightly out so the tips of my toes rested against his instep, his hands dropped to my palms, his fingers curling around mine and bringing them to my chest.
“Cross and keep your fingertips on your shoulders.”
“Is this going to hurt?” You know, besides the painful throb of my clit screaming at me to grind against him. My mother had a thing for assholes, and it looked like I might have inherited that quirk of the DNA.
“Not at all.”
“You’re fucking lying to me, aren’t you?”
“Language,” he warned, the corner of his mouth tipping into a grin.
Don’t fall for it. Flaming asshole, flaming asshole, flaming asshole.
My new mantra on repeat, it echoed a reminder to my lusty areas to sit the fuck down already. I had a date with my vibrator tonight. I hope he had a safe word. He was so going to need it.
“You really think you have anything to say about my lang—”
“Take a deep breath,” he said, leaning into me, his forearm across the folded arms over my chest while his other arm wrapped around my upper back.
I closed my eyes, the image of us naked with his forearm over my throat while he fucked me mercilessly making me squeak in horny misery.
Take a deep breath, my ass.
Two vibrators tonight. Yeah, I said it. Use your imagination. The goal…to be walking funny when I started my shift in the morning. Not from the “rib” Mr. Fucking Manners was so convinced it was, but because I’d fucked myself ruthlessly with the best man-made dude parts my income at The Shipwreck could buy.
Before I could exhale, he snapped me back, probably not more than a few inches, but the click and searing pain tearing through me told me he either fixed it or he just broke me for good.
I couldn’t stop the grunt slipping from my lips. Fighting my urge to sink to the wood, I dropped my head forward, not even caring that it meant resting my forehead on his forearm. Would he notice if I just sunk my teeth into his flesh right now?
My eyes watered as his fingers probed my back again.
“Got it,” he said, finding the tender spot, only this time it didn’t make me jump when he pressed against it.
“Yeah, you think?”
“That’s going to be better. You’ll be sore for a while, but no more sharp pains.”
“This better not have ruined my orgasm plans.”
He choked out a laugh. Lowering his arm, he took a step back before cupping my elbows and guiding my hands off my shoulders. “Depends on your tolerance for pain and how ambitious you get. Your girlfriend doesn’t look particularly gentle.”
“My girlfriend?”
“Anarch-Eve,” he said as he unraveled his jacket.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“You kissed her the other night,” he said, the arched brow of his silently calling bullshit. “Twice.”
“Observant of you to notice, but she’s not my girlfriend. She was, but that was a long time ago.”
He cocked his head and pierced me with his stare. “Not so sure about that if you’re still kissing her.”
I balled my fists at my sides but stopped short of stomping while sheer frustration rocketed through me, leaving a hot flush over my skin. “You’re not sure if I’m single after I just told you I was? Wow, you really are a pompous asshole, aren’t you?” And why did I care so much? Really? Did I need this guy to know I was single? No. I don’t.
Horny lies. All horny lies.
He shrugged off my assessment of his assholery. “I only meant maybe your business isn’t finish—”
I held up my hand to shut him up, but I did good and resisted the urge to smack him silly. “She’s my family. God, for a second I thought I saw signs of an actual human being in there. I almost thanked you, but now I’m back to wanting to knee you in the balls.”
And angry fuck you, but yeah, that will be my little secret.
“Good, our relationship is restored.”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
“I’m not your enemy,” he said quietly.
“Maybe not, but you sure as hell aren’t my friend.”
“Noted.” His mouth pressed into a thin, hard line and the muscle in his cheek jumped. He had so many things he wanted to say judging from his expression, but with the restraint of a saint, he didn’t let anything more slip past his lips. Turning away, he jogged down the first few steps to the lower parking lot.
“Is it true what they say about you?”
His hand locked on the railing, he stopped mid-step and glanced back at me over his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. People decided what they believe a long time ago.”
I stepped to the edge of the stairs. “It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He glanced away, his eyes shuttered, erecting a solid wall between the two of us. “Looks like it’s about to get busy in there,” he said, jutting his chin in the direction of two cars that had just rolled into the parking lot. “See you around, Mayhem.”
5
Lana’s two-bedroom cottage sat tucked on the corner of Main Street and Alden Avenue alongside Bay Park, close to the Galloway Bay library, and on the direct route for Coastal Transport Services.
I made sure of all three before I bought it.
Her parents wanted her to live with them. Hell, if I were a parent, I’d probably feel the same. If it had been Lilith even, I’d raise all sorts of hell to get my way when it came to her wellbeing. But they overplayed their hand and railed against Lana’s every effort to move out, going so far as to take her to court.
Undeterred, Lana set her own course, she always had, even when she was a dumb kid. How the hell they didn’t realize after raising her that she’d never let them get away with controlling her in the long term, I’d never know. There was no way someone as tenacious and determined as Lana would ever be happy living with her parents. She knew her mind, even if she was impulsive as hell.
It was the same fiercely independent spark in her that made her such a force on the track.
For a while anyway.
The same kind of spark I saw in Mayhem when she didn’t have to go head to head with Tilly in a jam, under the influence of whatever demons held her in their grip.
What the fuck am I doing?
Not here parked in Lana’s driveway. I always come here when I’m in town. But getting involved with Mayhem? Totally new territory for me.
Or trying to get involved.
Okay, that didn’t sound right. There was no getting or trying to get involved. Two months and I’d be out of here.
Caring maybe?
Nope, that was worse. Way worse.
Shit.
Flexing my hands on the wheel, I snapped the back of my head against the headrest and closed my eyes.
> Big mistake.
She was there. In the darkness behind my closed eyelids. In the constant replay of the other morning at The Shipwreck.
Fucking with my head.
Fucking with my promises.
This was what? The hundredth, two hundredth replay by now?
Vivid, as though she stood before me again, the wisps of red hair slipped from her bandana and fluttered over her cheeks. The glimpses of pain etched in her eyes I caught when she thought no one was paying attention. The steely determination in their cool blue depths as she shot daggers at me.
For the first time in years, I didn’t feel like I was going through the motions. Wake up, shower, put on my uniform, punch the clock, go home, eat a flavorless dinner, watch a game, fall into bed, rinse and repeat.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that dabbling in the land of the living lit a craving in me for my family, my home.
And for some reason, for the mouthy derby girl who wore her mysteriously-wounded heart on her sleeve.
That stubborn lift of her chin, the almost permanent narrowing of her suspicious eyes, and that pierced eyebrow raised in defiance of every word out of my mouth pushed at something deep in me I wanted to ignite and let burn out of control. With only a handful of minutes, a whole bunch of attitude, and the intimate confessions in the form of orgasm plans she let slip from her lips while she leaned on my arm, she’d tapped into a part of me that had been dormant for a lot longer than ten years.
She made me feel out of control in a way I hadn’t felt since I was a teenager. An angry kid who’d reeled in the haze of ruin when he lost his mom. Who under the influence of the absolute devastation left behind, made the worst mistake of his life fracturing his already wounded family to the point of crippling heartbreak.
It was only the beginning of catastrophic mistakes I would make, could make, when I let people in. Mayhem thought the gossip around Galloway Bay about me was bad?
If only she knew the truth.
Twin brothers. One alive. One dead.
One very much to blame, who didn’t deserve forgiveness. One who fooled himself into thinking he could move on only to have karma crash around him until he retreated into his misery again.
If I let her get too close, if I let her tap into the long-buried part of me, it wouldn’t eek out in a trickle. Oh no. I’d been holding that shit back for so long, it rivaled the force of any turbulent, storm-ravaged sea crashing relentlessly against a rocky coast.
Cracking open that well of pain, anger, and resentment would flood everything and everyone in its path.
Resurrecting the past wouldn’t change it. It would only bring agony, but fuck if I could separate the two and make sense of any of it. Even when I knew every encounter with her, with derby, with my mistakes would eventually destroy everyone left in the world I cared about, here I was, itching to challenge her.
I wanted her in my face, full of attitude and insults. Every time I came at her, I wanted her to come back harder. I wanted to push every button she had until I figured out her reactions, her every impulse, and then, only then, I’d bend her to my will. I wanted to teach her how to hammer every one of her weaknesses, pummeling them over and over until all that remained was steely strength.
I wanted to coach.
Needed to coach.
And I couldn’t.
Perhaps the most dangerous of all, I wanted to answer her question the other morning, and any that came after. That’s how I knew I was in real trouble. So much so I put off coming into town for two days just so I wouldn’t run into her or anything derby.
Old me stirred deep inside and for the first time in ten years, I wondered if I’d be able to hold him back. To keep him from falling into this sport, this town, this legacy once again.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I’d have to be dead inside to miss the way her body reacted to mine.
News flash, I’m not dead inside.
If anything, I’m a lot less dead inside than I was hoping I would be.
Or need to be, to make it through another fifty-eight days in Galloway Bay.
Thwap. Thwap. Thwap. “Yo!”
I jerked and glanced toward the familiar voice outside my window.
“Stalking doesn’t suit you, Coach. It’s pretty gross, actually. Can’t they take your badge for that?” Lana laughed as she rolled back a few inches, giving me room to open my door.
“Still a smart-ass. Aren’t you getting too old for that?” The tightness in my chest eased with the playful back and forth. Until my gaze fell to Lana’s atrophied, lifeless legs.
Once-thick thighs, heavy with powerful muscles, now laid narrow and almost flat. The jeans that fit snug to her hips laid baggy over legs that would never work again.
“I’m taking notes from Patti’s playbook so…never. Besides, you love it and you know it. All the ladies around you saying whatever pops into their heads while you get to be all superior and above that shit.” She rolled back until her wheels lined up to the ramp leading into the cottage and waited for me to follow along.
I forced the lump of guilt back with a hard swallow. “That shit? You mean emotional outbursts?”
Her lips quirked with amusement, her rosy cheeks mocking me as her mouth slid into a full grin. “I mean being human.”
“Hey, I’m human.” The acid churning in my gut was a sure sign.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re repressed.”
“So you’re a therapist now?”
Lifting her chin and her eyes wide, she pierced me with a determined look I recognized. “Almost.”
I cocked my head and waited for her to burst out laughing, but nope. “Wait, seriously?”
“Seriously. Come on, Coach. I’ve got fresh coffee, and you and I have some catching up to do.”
I followed her up the ramp, making sure the wood had been completely cleared of snow like I’d hired Powell Landscaping to do over the winter. I paid them well to make sure Lana could move freely around the property and all along the pathways around and through Bay Park, all the way to the library, and the bus stop. Sure, the town cleaned up the roads and sidewalks, but they did under the assumption that people would be navigating them by car or on foot.
Lana wouldn’t be doing either.
Never again.
And maneuvering with an electric wheelchair through the unpredictable coastal snow and ice was precarious at best.
Normally Lilith drove through and scoped this out for me, but a bit of the crushing guilt filling my chest relaxed seeing it with my own eyes.
Lana rolled through the door with ease, no slowing down to make sure she didn’t scuff the edges.
“You got a new chair. Slides right through. Nice.”
Lana snorted and stopped short, tossed me a look over her shoulder, and rolled her eyes again like she used to all time from her position on the track a decade ago. “Please, like you didn’t know I got a new chair.”
“How would I know?”
“Because you bought it, Moneybags.”
“Wasn’t me.” I followed her into the customized kitchen with low granite countertops and modified appliances, everything designed with her independent living in mind. The builders had made every single surface reachable and usable for her, and judging by the onions, fresh garlic, and root veggies in wire racks along the wall, she didn’t leave it just for show.
She was making the best of her life now which should make me happy, if only it didn’t come with a swift punch of how unfair it was that she even had to.
She rolled to the fridge and pulled out heavy cream while I jammed my hands in my pockets and fought the urge to jump in and help. A totally unfamiliar sensation for me, because if this was derby and I were coaching, I wouldn’t be trying to take over anything. I’d be putting each player through their paces, making them do it on their own, over and over, pain and frustration layered over more pain and frustration until they figured it out.
They called me Coach Hard-Ass behind my back and the
y were right. I wasn’t their friend. I didn’t want to hear about their bruises, exhaustion, or aches and pains. If it didn’t affect their ability to play, who cared? Anyone who took the track with skates on their feet had them.
As for the social shit and comradery? Shitty friends and turbulent love lives…they’d better fucking not go there.
She handed me a steaming cup just the way I like it. A splash of cream, no sugar. “You’re full of shit.”
“How the hell did you know it was me?” Not that it qualified me for the moneybags status she tossed my way. If anything, it left my savings a whole lot lighter, to a point I wasn’t exactly comfortable. But then, I didn’t deserve to be.
“You told me when you brought it up. You’re a bad actor, Coach. You’re not one for small talk. Grunts, judgment, and a wide-berth requirement are more your style. Just the fact that you mentioned it told me you felt awkward about it. So you figured if you bring it up, you can deflect the attention and credit. Not exactly complex.”
“So what I’m getting is that I’m an unapproachable, predictable prick headed for permanent hermit status. I don’t think I like this new degree you’re earning.”
“I’m sure you don’t. Now come here.” She crooked her finger at me, one of the very few people in this world who could without earning permanent disdain.
I leaned down, the fact that she had to ask me to a painful reminder of the damage I could do.
Pinching my sweatshirt, she tugged me in close, and pressed a kiss on my cheek. “Thank you, you crusty asshole. I love it.”
“You’re welcome.”
With a firm shove of her fingertips on my forehead, she pushed me away. “Now stop buying me shit.”
“Never.”
“I googled the price and almost pooped.”
Sinking into the couch next to her, I rested my elbows on my knees and breathed in the coffee before taking my first sip. “Patti has everyone talking about shit in this town.”
“Patti is the best damn influence on us all. Leave her alone. Too bad I can’t get my parents in Banked Track to soak up some of her wisdom.”
“They have a right to how they feel.”
