Going Wild (The Wild Ones Book 2)

by C. M. Owens

  “She only paints like that when she’s hurting. Blues don’t get used unless she’s miserable. I knew it was a boy. Bill said you came here from LA to chase a girl, then you kissed my girl. The way I see it, that boy must have been you.”

  Thank fuck she didn’t tell him about Felicia.

  “Yesterday, my girl was herself for the first time in a long time. Today, she comes traipsing in here without a speck of blue paint on her. You make sure she stays that way. I see one new painting with blue, and I’ll tear your limbs off one-by-one and feed them to the fucking bears, before I turn the rest of these goons loose on you.”

  He gestures to the four cousins who are cracking their knuckles like a bad cliché, and rabidly eyeing me like they don’t want to be held back. Did the one on the left just growl at me?

  “You tell her I threatened you, and I’ll break all the bones you need,” George Malone adds.

  I nod in understanding, because I’m not really sure what else to say to that.

  “I’ll know if you tell her. She gets all smug when we threaten people. I like to wind her up and make her feisty, because my girl is happier when she’s feisty,” he adds with an oddly chipper tone.

  I nod again. I’ll agree to anything. Five-to-one odds are never good. Five-armed-to-one-unarmed odds are even worse.

  “And one more thing,” he says, eyeing the others in a silent-conversation kind of way.

  They get up and walk out without having to be told. As soon as they walk out, shutting the door behind them, George Malone levels me with a cool, terrifying look. “One word to Kylie about who you saw me with, and I’ll hang you up by your ankles and let the boys use you like a dart board until they get bored. You understand?”

  “Never once considered saying a word,” I tell him honestly.

  He opens his mouth to speak again, possibly to threaten more body parts on me, when Kylie suddenly emerges with a bag over her shoulder, still wearing my clothes.

  Her father suddenly starts laughing, shaking his head, his eyes on me.

  “You don’t say,” he says, confusing the fuck out of me. “This one is a funny guy, Kylie. Keep him around.”

  I force a smile, trying to go along with his crazy charade, and Kylie rolls her eyes while scowling at him.

  “You’re a terrible excuse for an overprotective father,” she grumbles.

  He just grins and winks at her. “My girl can take care of herself,” he says.

  She turns toward me. Like a suicidal fool, when she smiles, I forget my life is at stake and smile back at her.

  “You ready to turn into some troublesome woodland creatures?” she muses.

  Now I’m just confused. Really.

  “The first hit on the trooper is ours,” Kylie calls over her shoulder, heading out the door.

  “You kids have fun. Don’t get caught,” George says in a light tone, grinning at us.

  Kylie walks out, and I turn around in time to see George’s fake smile vanish like it was an illusion all along. His eyes narrow and he mimes a throat-slicing gesture on his neck before pointing at me.

  Right. Got it.

  I just nod like a bobble-head doll—because how the fuck else do you respond to that?—and walk out, following Kylie, who hops in on the passenger side of my Jeep.

  Then we go to be woodland nuisances.

  Because every time I think I’ve reached the maximum capacity of weird, this town just gets weirder.

  This is my Thursday.

  Chapter 16

  Wild Ones Tip #214

  Don’t ask questions. Just go with it.

  Helmet may or may not be necessary.

  KYLIE

  “Hold this,” I tell Liam, handing him my bag before heading to the trooper car and popping the hood.

  “What’re you doing?” He eyes my tool that is a handmade contraption with squirrel teeth.

  The trooper is talking to some people near the docks at the bar. The bar that is boarded up like it’s been closed for several years, when only yesterday it was busy.

  “Keep a lookout,” I tell him, gesturing to the side of the building that hides me from sight, but also causes me to lose sight of the trooper as I get to work on his car.

  He goes to peer around the corner before looking back at me. “Seriously!” he whisper-yells. “What are you doing?”

  “Have you ever watched Super Troopers?” I ask absently, running the tool over a battery cable. When it pops, I move onto another.

  “Yeah,” he says, confused as he looks toward me.

  “Forget everything you learned about troopers from that movie, because they’re actually—usually—pretty smart. Which means you can’t just cut the wires on a car. They’ll know a person did it. But, you make them think an animal did it, and they get really annoyed.”

  I flash him a grin as I quietly shut the hood.

  “Step one, pests gone wild on battery cords.”

  He looks back around the corner, then hisses out a breath before darting toward me. I giggle while racing beside him through the short patch of woods to where his Jeep is parked.

  “So that’s it?” he asks.

  I shake my head as we both get in.

  “Nope. Step two is make them think they’ve got a disease. That’ll come once the others arrive.”

  “What kind of disease?” he muses.

  I shrug as he cranks his Jeep and starts driving us away.

  “Not shooting for anything in particular,” I tell him.

  He just smiles contently as he continues to drive us toward his house, and I stare at him, wondering how in the world he’s taking everything so easily. I’m still trying to wrap my head around him being here.

  I finally cut my gaze away when his grin grows, possibly noticing my less-than-subtle staring fit.

  He turns onto his road, and I pick at my nails just to have something to do.

  “I don’t have my painting supplies,” I finally say on an exhale, my nerves etching up the closer we get to his house. “I can’t be somewhere without my—”

  “I have all the painting materials you could need. Also have a pottery wheel and plenty of supplies. Also have random shit everywhere in the garage-turned-shop that you could use for sculpture assembly. I’ve been collecting anything unique since you left, just in case you ever rolled back into my life and needed shit to do a sculpture with.”

  The staring resumes as I study his grinning profile.

  “Why?” is the only word that comes out of my mouth.

  As he parks behind his cabin, he turns his eyes on me. “I told you already that I wanted you with me as often as possible. So I tried to get everything you could possibly want or need. I remember every detail of those three weeks like it was yesterday. Every small fragment of information you shared was filed away and saved for later use.”

  He suddenly turns and gets out of the Jeep, but I sit here an extra few seconds, breathing in and out, trying not to slide head first down that slippery slope.

  He’s waiting patiently by the open back door when I finally get out and make my way to him.

  It’s barely been a whole day since I found out he’s living in my town. I wasn’t supposed to have to figure out if I’m stubborn or stupid so soon.

  “What about your family? Don’t they still live in LA?” I ask conversationally, trying to remind my heart that he has zero ties here and plenty of ties elsewhere as I walk inside his house.

  That is full of my artwork.

  In fact, only my artwork is hanging on the walls, which is weird, considering his extensive art collection he once had. I really wanted to say something earlier, but I was too caught off guard by it all to speak without being stupid.

  Loki is proudly sitting in the main room as well, demanding attention from anyone who enters.

  The door shuts, and I look over my shoulder to see him leaning against it, his eye serious as he stares at me.

  “When I came up with that bit of technology I told you about, I sudd
enly had more money than I could ever spend. And it just kept coming in. Then I came up with more technology that changed the way phones are today. That meant even more money.”

  The open-floor plan has the living room and kitchen open to each other, and I sit down at the bar on the living room side, watching him as he moves to the fridge on the kitchen side.

  “You already told me you were rich. I was asking about—”

  “You were asking about my family because you think I’ll get homesick and return to them, and you don’t give a damn about my money. I know,” he says quietly with his back still turned. “Hence the reason I’m in Tomahawk.”

  He blows out a long breath as he pulls out two bottles of water, and he shuts the fridge door before moving to the other side of the bar across from me.

  I take one of the bottles, opening it and taking a sip, as he continues.

  “At first I was excited, and I wanted to give my family nice things. We’d never been close, but I thought this would bond us all. Stupid to look back and see how naïve I was.”

  He laughs humorlessly as I grow confused.

  “Anyway, I paid their bills. I gave them vehicles. I handed them credit cards. Eventually, it just became expected that I would finance their lives, but I never got anything in return. No family Christmases. No Thanksgiving dinners. Nothing. I’m almost thirty, so family seems to be more and more important the older I get, yet I couldn’t even have a Christmas dinner with mine. Then when I got hurt, I finally asked them for something. After years of paying for everything and giving them all they asked for, I asked them for something. You saw how that worked out. You were the only one there.”

  Absently, I start peeling the label off the water bottle, unable to continue staring into his intense eyes, because I’m seconds away from believing he’s never leaving Tomahawk and launching myself at him like a crazy girl.

  “I cut them off just before I moved out here. I’m sure they’re trying to call me or visit me now, but they don’t have my new number or know where I live anymore.”

  My eyes shift up to see a sad smile on his lips.

  “They’re adults. They can fend for themselves,” I assure him.

  His grin grows. “I know. I’m not worried about them. They can start selling all the pointless things they’ve collected—with my money—over the years to sustain them for a while.”

  “I doubt they’d believe you moved to Tomahawk,” I finally say just to cut the tension.

  He laughs lightly, looking down, seeming almost boyish.

  “When they realize how very serious this all is, they’ll try harder to track me down. I took precautions to cover up where I moved to, though. So that answers your question about my family. I want something real, Shirley. And you’re the only thing I’ve wanted for myself in too long to remember.”

  Rabbit hole, here I come.

  “I don’t do open relationships,” I decide to say. Might as well list all the things I won’t do. Far shorter list than the list of things I will do.

  His grin grows. “I’m not in Tomahawk to be with anyone else. How many times do you need to hear that?”

  “I’ll let you know when I come up with a ballpark figure,” I say with a straight face, causing his grin to continue to spread wider.

  Someone knocks on his door, and I stand, mud flaking off me and tracking behind me as I walk, resuming the list. We both need showers.

  “I’m a terrible cook,” I tell him as I open the door.

  Josie Simon is there, and her eyes widen in her head as she holds a casserole dish in her hands. I love her momma’s chili casserole, so I grab the dish just before she squeaks a shrill sound and takes off running in the other direction.

  Looking through the clear lid, a smile spreads over my lips. Definitely the chili casserole.

  Shutting, the door, I look to see Liam’s smile now taking up his entire face. “I’m an excellent cook,” he assures me, not commenting on Josie’s squeaky departure, as the sound of a car flying out of the driveway sets up some background noise.

  He also pulls out a fire extinguisher and puts it on the counter, his lips twitching when I glare at it for a minute.

  “I can’t be in the Vincent corner of crazy too many days in a row,” I go on, putting the dish on the bar. “Unless no one finds out.”

  He leans forward as I lift the lid, and he hands me a fork that I happily accept.

  Just as I put a forkful in my mouth, he says, “I recently bought some land on the Malone corner of crazy.”

  I swallow painfully as he regards me with a smirk.

  “My new cabin is being built as we speak. It’ll be about the same size, but it’ll be more personalized as far as tastes go,” he goes on.

  I put down the fork, no longer hungry.

  “You bought land on my side of the lake? And you’re building a cabin?”

  He nods slowly. “Looks a lot like that one,” he says, gesturing with his head toward the picture on the wall that I painted of the cabin I’ve always dreamed of building. “Only bigger with extra room for painting. Or doing sculptures. I have a wood shop being put up. Things like that.”

  He’s building a cabin. A cabin that I painted. On my corner of reckless.

  Because Liam is here for me.

  He might just be crazy enough to be serious about all this.

  It’s like I keep hearing all the right words, and none of my arguments are saving me from making a huge mistake. I’ve never found a guy—outside of home—who was as crazy as I am.

  And just like that, I’m an idiot.

  Apparently stupid is the winner, and stubborn is decidedly the runner up.

  I’m climbing over the bar in the next second, and he grabs me at the waist, jerking me to him as his lips crash against mine. His hands move to my hips, moving me to sit on the edge so he can stand between my legs and devour me more thoroughly.

  One of his hands slides into my hair, gripping a handful—something only he’s allowed to do. Not sure why I don’t mind him touching my hair.

  I moan into his mouth as he lifts me off the bar, and my legs strap around his waist as he carries me through the house.

  “You’re too good at saying the right things,” I murmur against his lips, expecting him to smile.

  He drops me to a bed suddenly, coming down on top of me as the kiss breaks, and he stares directly into my eyes, nothing but seriousness on his face.

  “Because I said a lot of the wrong things last time, and suddenly you were gone. You’re not too damn easy to get over.”

  I end up being the one who grins as I pat his cheek. “I’ll show you some of my crazy later on. Not today, though.”

  He looks so adorably confused, since that seems random. Just wait until he sees the artwork that shows the crazy I’m talking about; it won’t sound so random then.

  Instead of questioning me, since that never gets him anywhere, he kisses me again, slowly this time, tasting every bit of me to see if I’m real or just a mirage. I kiss him the same way, wondering if I’ve jumped into a delusional fantasy of mine where Liam comes to Tomahawk to be with me.

  Finally, I shove him off me, and he blinks like he’s trying to break out of a daze. Quickly, I pull his shirt off me, revealing the fact I never had a bra to put on.

  His eyes immediately go to my chest, and I grin as I start shoving his boxers down my legs too.

  “We can’t have sex with clothes on,” I point out.

  He’s off the bed and tugging his shirt off in the next minute. I tell myself I’m only doing this because Liam just wants something he never had. Sex with me. Yep, it sounds ridiculous to me too, because what guy moves to Tomahawk, of all places, just to have sex with some girl he hung out with for three weeks.

  We’re both crazy.

  But I can’t fall too soon, or my heart will be his to crush in less than an hour.

  As soon as he’s naked, I sort of gawk at him. He looks way better than I remember, and I didn’t think that
was possible. Pretty sure my memory was robbing me of how perfect his body is because it didn’t want me running back to LA to see if he was healthy enough to satisfy my curiosity.

  I crawl forward on the bed, and he watches me until I’m close enough for him to touch. The second I am, he has a hand in my hair again, and he’s coming down on top of me as he pushes me back.

  Our lips touch with more hunger this time, both of us wanting this a little more than what is probably healthy.

  His hard body slides over mine, grinding against me, and my legs open wider in invitation, ready for both of us to get put out of our misery.

  I’m not sure how long we lie like that, naked and just kissing, hands exploring each other like we’ve forgotten how right this all feels, not even minding all the dried mud. But when Liam breaks the kiss, his eyes search mine before his lips tug in a sideways grin.

  “You have no idea how good it feels to finally have you back,” he murmurs, causing my heart to stumble.

  I’m almost too distracted and lost in this haze of ours when he starts pushing inside me, his lips back on mine and kissing me stupid.

  “Condom,” I finally manage to say, reality slapping back at me.

  His head comes back, his body still partially intruding mine, and he cocks his head.

  “You’re off birth control?”

  I slowly shake my head.

  “But that doesn’t mean this should happen without a condom.”

  Yeah, no. That’s a boundary. We cross that boundary, then that means we’re doing this for real. And if it’s real, then I’m going to be lost so damn fast…

  Not that I tell him that.

  He tries not to look disappointed, but clears his throat and pushes off me. He forces a smile, and says, “You’re right. That was stupid of me.”

  I admit, I stare after him like a starved-for-sex woman as his gloriously naked body moves to the connected bathroom, and my gaze rakes over him all over again when he reemerges.

  I don’t notice the condom box in his hand at first, because he’s sort of still, you know, really freaking hard. My eyes are otherwise occupied.

  When I do look up, he’s smirking as he tears the condom wrapper open with his teeth. I’d be smirking too if I looked like that naked.