Harder (Stark Ink Book 1)

by Dahlia West

  “Adam,” she breathed heavily. He couldn’t tell if it was a question.

  “Loudly, Calla,” he reminded her.

  He felt her walls tighten up as she bore down hard on him. Her fingernails dug into his chest once more and she called out his name one last time. She pitched forward and collapsed onto him. He wrapped his arms around her as he shoved himself up into her. Calla was too exhausted to do anything but allow him to fuck her thoroughly. Despite her inability to participate, he stretched her hole over and over, driving himself to an eruption of his own.

  As jets of cum spurted inside her, blocked by the condom separating them, Adam brushed back her wild hair and kissed the side of her head. She ground her pussy against him and sighed softly.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re getting it all.”

  He stayed inside her until the last of him ebbed. Reluctantly, he slid out of her, both of them spent now. He tossed the condom in the trash and pulled her against him again. The fading light of the evening seeped in through the blinds of his tiny apartment.

  “Did you get what you came for?” he asked.

  She gasped and pinched his nipple.

  “I’m kidding!” he insisted. “Ouch!”

  She pretended to glare at him from under her eyelashes. “Did you?”

  “No,” he told her in a suddenly serious tone. “Not even close.”

  Her head jerked up and she stared at him. Before she could reply, he gripped her arms and hauled her up over him. He pressed his mouth to hers fiercely. His tongue forced its way inside and he felt some satisfaction at being able to taste some tiny part of her today. If Calla had any question what he meant, he was sure her doubt melted away as he held her against him and explored parts of her that were still unknown to him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Adam swung his leg over his Harley but waited to turn over the engine. He watched Calla pull away from the building first. He hadn’t wanted her to go. In fact, he would have preferred keeping her in his bed for the rest of the night, possibly ordering Chinese and maybe even letting her eat it. But he was needed at home. As much as he wanted to forget about everything for as long as possible, he knew guilt would eat away at him if he tried it. He’d had enough time to himself for one day. He kick-started the bike and headed across the railroad tracks to the house. He was confident that Ava and Jonah could handle Pop, but he really should be there anyway.

  As he pulled up to the house, the living room lights were on and the place wasn’t on fire so he figured things were going pretty well. He jogged up to the front door and let himself in. Pop was on the couch, asleep. The light in the kitchen was on as well and Ava was at the table. Adam waited until he was within just a few steps of her before asking, “Dinner?” in a half-whisper.

  “Yeah,” she said and nodded toward the dishes in the sink.

  “Where’s Jonah?”

  Ava sighed. “In his room.”

  Adam didn’t need to ask why she wasn’t holed up in her own room. She’d commandeered the entire table and her homework was spread out, covering almost the entire surface.

  Adam pulled out a chair across from her and sat down. “Going to keep you pretty busy the whole week?”

  “Probably,” she said sullenly. “Even then I’ll never get it all done.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “No, I won’t,” she argued.

  “Ava, you have to. Otherwise you have to retake the class.”

  “Well, look at it!”

  Adam glanced over his shoulder. The TV was still on. Pop didn’t stir. “Keep your voice down,” he hissed at her.

  Ava made a face but didn’t reply.

  “What is it? How hard can it be?” He picked up a textbook and scanned the cover. “Chemistry, huh?”

  “Moles,” she groaned.

  Adam echoed her sentiment. “I recall those not being the cute, fuzzy kind.” As he skimmed a chapter, Ava’s phone rang. He was about to remind her that she was grounded till further notice, but she seemed to remember all on her own. She rejected the call and pushed the phone aside. “How did today go?” he asked, glancing back at Pop.

  “Good.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, heartened.

  “Yeah, it seemed like a good day. He went through some boxes in the garage, just organizing stuff.”

  Adam nodded. That wasn’t unusual, not for Pop. He was glad to hear it had been an eventful day.

  “Jonah mowed the lawn,” Ava told him.

  “He promised he would.”

  Ava apparently didn’t feel as hopeful about their current situation as Adam did. She bit her lip and looked at him from across the table. “How… how long will it be like this?”

  Another girl Ava’s age might have seemed resentful of having to shoulder such a heavy load, but Ava didn’t look angry about it. She looked fearful, as though whatever Adam said it couldn’t possibly be long enough in her opinion.

  He frowned. Ava had been through enough. Abandoned by her birth parents, lost a third. She needed a happy ending that Adam just couldn’t give her.

  “I don’t know,” he said because honesty seemed more important. As much as he wanted to protect Ava and shield her from everything bad in the world, it was time to stop treating her with kid gloves. She’d seen enough at this point. “They don’t know,” he told her.

  “Doctors,” Ava sneered.

  “I know.”

  Mom’s doctors had only told them she had six months or less to live when they’d gone for the official prognosis. In truth she’d lived less than two weeks. Adam would have thought that science would be a little more… scientific about these things.

  “I can try to help you,” he offered after she rejected the call. He nodded at the textbook he was holding.

  “Thanks,” she said, seeming grateful for the offer.

  Adam didn’t know how helpful he’d actually be. Maybe Jonah would be a better tutor. He was about to suggest it when Ava’s phone buzzed a second time. She punched the screen with her thumb and turned it off.

  “Maybe you should just answer it,” Adam said. “You can talk to her for five minutes.”

  Ava frowned. “It’s not Sienna.”

  “Well, who is it, then?”

  He regretted asking the question the second it left his mouth. The glare Ava gave him was chilling.

  “Oh,” he mumbled.

  She refocused on the work in front of her and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. If Sienna wasn’t around, did that mean Ava needed someone to talk to? Or was it better to just ignore it? Or should he just casually hint that he was there to talk if she wanted? What if she got even more pissed? Or worse, what if she took him up on it? He wasn’t exactly well-versed in the teenage dating scene anymore.

  “So, it’s all good, though?” he fumbled lamely. “Right? I mean…” Jesus. What did he mean? All good? Yes, that was exactly why Ava was purposely ignoring her boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend. Or a guy who wanted to be her boyfriend.

  His head was beginning to hurt.

  “Guys are just… guys, you know? I mean some of them are okay. Some of them suck. They all pretty much want the same thing.” He stopped himself.

  Ava looked up from her homework. “Are you giving me The Talk?”

  “What? No,” Adam spluttered. “No… why? Do… do you need it?”

  This was definitely outside Adam’s wheelhouse. So far outside that the boat was scraping along the bottom now, about to founder at any moment. Please God, say no, he thought fervently. Please God…Say No!

  Ava laughed and shook her head. “No,” she told him. “I don’t.”

  “Oh, thank God,” he muttered.

  “I already figured it all out,” she added. “Last year.”

  Adam stopped fiddling with the pen and looked at her. His brash little sister was staring at him, challenging him defiantly in the way that only Ava could. “Oh, God,” Adam groaned.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ava
assured him. “I got it all figured out. Guys want hot sex from a hot chick. Until the next hot chick comes along.” Despite her attempt to seem nonchalant, there was a hardness around her mouth and eyes that Adam hated seeing.

  “Ava,” he said cautiously. “That’s…” He struggled with what to say or ask. This was not something he was prepared to talk about. In his mind, Ava was ten years old, sprinting toward the dock at the lake, unafraid. She was seventeen now, and still unafraid as far as he could tell, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be hurt, or hadn’t been hurt. He was more comfortable in the role of Big Brother. If Ava gave him a name, he’d fuck the kid up for sure. He frowned, though, because he was thirty-five now and tire irons were no longer an option. Since he could do nothing about it, whatever it was, it was tempting to pretend it hadn’t happened at all, but that wasn’t what Ava needed. Adam shoved aside his extreme discomfort and cleared his throat. “What happened?”

  Ava shrugged. “Nothing. He got what he wanted.”

  Adam scowled. “I’m sorry, Ava.”

  “Whatever. Doesn’t matter. He wanted to get laid, I wanted to go for a ride on his bike. We both got what we wanted.”

  “Ava!” Adam barked.

  “What?”

  He shook his head at her, still shocked. “You don’t… you don’t go out with a guy because of his bike! And you sure as hell don’t give it up for a bike!”

  She blinked at him from across the table. “Whatever,” she repeated. “Chicks go out with you for your bike. And don’t tell me they don’t give it up.”

  Adam gaped at her.

  “And when you’re done with them,” Ava continued, “you dump them on the curb.”

  He leaned back in his chair and stared at her. “I…” he spluttered. “I do not…I—”

  “Don’t lie.”

  Adam’s grip tightened on the pen he was holding. His knuckles turned white. Was that what Ava saw? Was that what she thought of him? That he went through women like…? He blew out a harsh breath and rubbed his face with his free hand. Well, he did, didn’t he? He’d had a lot of women, and yeah some of them had been there for his bike, some of them on his bike, and no, none of them ever stuck around. But he didn’t use them, not intentionally. He never set out to hurt anyone and truthfully, he rarely did. All of the women were aware that he wasn’t looking to settle down, that he was focused on opening the shop and had no time for a serious relationship. But what did Ava see? A guy who used women and tossed them aside when the next one came along and that wasn’t the case at all.

  “Ava,” he said, his tone deadly serious. “It’s not like that.”

  Ava leaned forward, put her textbook on the table, and squinted at him.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, scanning himself for anything wrong or out of place.

  “Looking for your wedding ring,” she said sarcastically. She leaned back in her chair and smirked at him. “Nope. Don’t see one.”

  “Ava, damn it. That’s not… Christ… marriage isn’t everything.” Then he wondered if that was the right thing to say. Maybe Ava should wait until she was married. Then he had to bite down on his lower lip to keep from laughing. Good luck trying to get himself and Dalton to wait. Mom had never even tried. She’d just shaken her head and given them stern looks whenever they went out.

  “Ava you should be with someone because you want to be with them, not because of what they have.”

  “Says the guy with a new woman every week.”

  “It’s not every week!” he argued and that was absolutely true. He immersed himself in the shop for weeks, sometimes months at a time. Occasionally, when he resurfaced, he saw someone interesting, like Daisy, and readjusted his focus for a while. More like split his focus, since he never really took one eye off the shop. He thought about Calla and for the first time wondered how she saw their relationship. Did she think it was a fling? A one-night stand that meant nothing? Did she think he was too distracted to have time for her? Nothing could be further from the truth. He had a lot going on in his life at the moment, that couldn’t be denied, but he had no intention of giving her up any time soon. He looked across the table at Ava and wondered what asshole hadn’t cared enough about her to hang onto her, and why she thought so little of herself that she didn’t mind.

  “Ava, you’re worth more than that.”

  She made a face.

  “I don’t want to hear it, Ava,” he insisted. “You are and you’d better start acting like it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, dismissing him.

  “It does matter! Because you matter!” He slapped the table and she jumped in her chair. He grimaced, realizing he could have woken Pop.

  “Whatever,” she repeated. “So says—”

  “It’s not like that!” he hissed. “Not anymore.”

  She eyed him skeptically. “Since when?”

  He hesitated. It wasn’t his place to tell Ava about Calla. Calla still had a job to do and he had no right to make it harder on her without talking to her about it. “Since I met someone,” he said vaguely.

  Ava leaned back in her chair. “Really?”

  “Really,” he confirmed.

  “You haven’t brought anyone around,” Ava pointed out.

  “It… it just hasn’t worked out that way so far. When things calm down, I will,” he promised. “No more assholes, Ava,” he demanded. “I don’t care what kind of bikes they have. You want a bike, I’ll buy you a bike.”

  Ava perked up at that. “Seriously?”

  He scowled. He’d spoken too rashly. He couldn’t afford his own bike, let alone one for Ava. “Well…”

  Her shoulders sagged and her skeptical glare returned. Adam sighed. “Ava, I’m stretched pretty thin right now,” he admitted.

  Surprisingly, her face softened. “How thin?” she asked.

  Adam tapped the table with his fingers. He didn’t want to add to her burden. It was bad enough she had to worry about Pop. So far he’d managed to keep Dalton’s drinking a secret. Ava had as much as she could handle right now. “A little thin,” he hedged. “I can’t make any big purchases right now.” That was close enough to the truth to let her know his hands were tied, but not enough to upset her. “But this isn’t about a bike, Ava. It’s about you making better choices for yourself. What happens if you get knocked up? Or worse?”

  Ava frowned again.

  “And do you really want everyone to know you screwed some asshole? For any reason? Just… be a little smarter, a little safer,” he told her. It seemed like crappy, vague advice but he wasn’t good at this kind of thing. “Find someone who makes you feel special.”

  “How do you make your girlfriend feel special?” she asked. Adam couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or serious.

  He grimaced. “I… probably haven’t.”

  Ava snorted.

  “But I want to. I will,” he vowed. “I will.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Adam made sure Pop was asleep in bed before he left the house for the night. He’d threaded though the city streets intending to go home, but instead found himself heading across town in the opposite direction. He couldn’t say he was surprised that Ava thought of him as some kind of player. He had to admit he’d been living that way, in practice if not intentionally. What did surprise him was that his little sister had bothered to notice at all. Adam would be the first to admit he was far from a role model in the romance department. Dalton was a better choice, or had been until recently. Zoey had been a good influence on him and despite the difference in Dalton and Zoey’s backgrounds, Adam would have pegged them for the long haul. But Dalton’s relationship had fizzled out, or imploded more like, while Adam wasn’t even looking. He wondered if Ava knew they’d split up.

  Mom and Pop’s marriage had been good, but it seemed the couples in Ava’s immediate vicinity were 1 for 3. Not great odds. No wonder Ava didn’t hold out much hope for finding love. She shouldn’t even be worried about it, though. She was
just a kid, for God’s sake. Love should be the last thing on her mind. But it seemed that if she went down that path, sex took its place and she was for damn sure too young for that.

  Adam scowled as he drove. Parenting was crap. Adam hadn’t been at it a whole month and he’d already screwed up half of it. The other half he just flat-out didn’t understand. He didn’t know how Mom and Pop managed to survive raising himself and Dalton let alone sign themselves up for round two with Ava and Jonah. The bike was the only kid Adam had, as far as he was concerned. Every part had a purpose and if they began to falter then a little bit of elbow grease and know-how would put it back to rights. Calla seemed to understand kids, what they thought and why they pulled the shit they did. She seemed to fill in the gaps that Adam hadn’t known he had until recently.

  He turned onto her quiet, well-kept street. It wasn’t a fancy neighborhood, not on a guidance counselor’s salary, but it was nice. Her little house was painted spring green and her Mustang sat cheekily in the driveway. He smiled to himself as he parked his bike behind it. As he walked to the door, he couldn’t help but recall that just a few hours ago, Calla had ridden him to the point of exhaustion. It was all too tempting to do it—her—all over again.

  He strode up to the door and knocked.

  Calla opened it and seemed surprised, but pleased to see him just the same.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  Instead of answering her, Adam stepped forward. He cupped her face in his hands and leaned down. His mouth slanted over hers. Calla made a slight noise of surprise but sighed as he drew her closer. It was just a simple kiss, no tongue—despite the fact that he desperately wanted to taste her again. He had an early morning tomorrow and there was no sense in wearing both of them out. Because God knew if he came inside he’d spend all night licking every creamy white inch of her before he came inside. Finally, reluctantly, he pulled back and stepped away.

  Calla balanced herself against the doorframe as she fought to catch her breath “What was that for?”