by Maisey Yates
“I would punch that jackass one hundred times even if I knew I would lose the deal. And I’m happy not to work with him. Because I have ethics. We both know you don’t.”
“According to your reputation, you and I have some similar ethics. You are my son, after all. But your mother’s half is the one that will hold you back. Don’t forget. You’re out of your league. You’re only here because of me, because of the money I gave you. If you had one bit of shame, you would have taken the money and got out of town. But you don’t have any. So you stayed here and set up a ranch designed to compete with me. A ranch I bought for you.”
Rage flared up in Jack’s stomach, molten heat that spread through him, testing his control. “I entered rodeo events with your money. I made smart investments with your money. At this point, it’s difficult to tell what you paid for and what I paid for.”
“Don’t pretend you earned it. Without me you would be nothing.”
“Without you deciding you wanted to ensure that no other living soul ever found out that I was your son? That’s more accurate. Don’t act like you did me a favor.”
“Oh, I won’t. I’ll go back to not thinking of you at all soon enough. This little venture of yours is doomed to fail.”
“Are you going to sabotage it for me?”
He laughed, walking past Jack, bumping into him on purpose with his shoulder. “I believe you’ll do that for yourself, son. You already have.”
“Get out of my house. Don’t come back here.”
“Which part did you buy with my money?” his father asked, deep blue eyes making contact with his own.
They were Jack’s eyes. Staring back at him without even a glimmer of warmth.
His mother’s eyes were a light grayish blue, different from his own. This was where the color had come from.
The realization made him feel unclean somehow.
“I think I used part of your money to dig out the septic. You’re welcome to come back and stand in that, if you have half a mind. Otherwise, keep off.”
“You do remind me of your mother.” And Jack knew he wasn’t being complimented.
“And you remind me of a piece of shit I stepped in once.”
The old man shook his head, chuckled and walked out the door.
It wasn’t until the front door slammed shut that Jack realized he was shaking. Shaking with the effort of preventing himself from punching his father in the face. Shaking because for the first time he had been within punching distance of the old man.
Shaking with pure disgust, directed at himself, because in spite of the fact that his dad was nothing more than a prick with money, a part of him had hoped he’d been here to tell him he hadn’t ignored him after all.
But no. Instead he’d been here to remind him of something Jack had been doing his best to forget. That he was a bastard. A bastard who would never earn this town’s approval. Who would never permanently rise above the circumstances of his birth.
“Bullshit,” he said, into the emptiness of his living room.
His custom-built living room, which was part of his near-million-dollar home on a massive parcel of land. Because he had transcended his birth.
That kind of blood outs itself eventually.
Yeah, like when you grabbed hold of your best friends’ little sister and kissed her the way you kissed a woman you intended to take to bed.
Oh yeah, that was bleeding every bit of bad out for all to see. Staining his hands. Hands that had been all over Katie. No doubt he’d gotten it on her, too.
He was ready to put a fist through the wall of his custom home.
The phone in his pocket vibrated and he reached his hand inside and pulled it out, opting to deal with that rather than punching a hole in his house.
It was Kate. He took a deep breath and answered the call. “I thought I told you I needed distance.”
“I’m distant.”
“You’re on my phone.”
“It’s not like I’m physically pressed against your ear, Monaghan. I’m at home.”
“Calling me is not distance.”
“What happened to you? You sit on your spurs?”
“I got a visit from my dad,” he said, his voice hard. He had not intended to tell her that. He hadn’t intended to tell anyone that. Because he could never tell anyone that Nathan West was his father. So what was the point in bringing it up at all? There was no point. There was no point to any of this. To wanting his approval, to believing anything that he said. And yet he couldn’t erase the words the old man had spoken into the room.
Bastard. Bad blood. Bastard. Bad blood.
“I’m coming over,” she said, no hesitation at all.
“That would be doing a pretty piss-poor job of distance.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“It’s a great time to be alone with a bottle of alcohol.”
“Connor and Eli would be lousy at helping you deal with this.”
“I don’t need help dealing with anything.”
“Clearly not. You sound extremely well adjusted at the moment.”
“I don’t need to talk right now,” he said, his bad blood boiling over now. That was what was driving him. No question. “I could use your mouth for one thing right about now, and it isn’t talking.”
He hated himself more than ever. For proving his father’s point, for believing him. But he didn’t know what else to do. Didn’t know how else to be.
And hell, his dad was right. He was doing a good job building his business, and he’d punched that asshole Chad in the face and lost himself a lot of money. He couldn’t even blame it on the fact that he’d simply forgotten the connection between Chad and his father. Even if he had remembered that Chad was Damion Matthews’s son, he would have punched the ever-loving hell out of him because of the way he’d talked about Kate.
Because that was who he was.
The silence on the other end of the phone spoke volumes about the fact that he’d finally gone over the line. Good. Maybe she would stop messing with him now. Maybe she would understand just who it was she was dealing with.
As long as she’d been a little sister to him, she’d been safe. But she was determined to play with fire, and he needed her to understand the fire burned.
“I’m coming over, Jack,” she said finally, her tone even.
“I’m telling you right now, Katie,” he said, his voice rough as he searched for just the right words to make sure she would stay away, “if you come over tonight, you’re not leaving my house a virgin.”
Silence settled heavy between them, no sound but her breathing coming over the other end of the phone. And then the line went dead.
He’d finally done it. He’d succeeded in scaring her away. Well, it was about damn time.
He looked up and saw Nancy standing in the doorway, looking pale.
“You have a comment?” he asked.
Now he was being an ass to Nancy. Fantastic.
She shook her head slowly. “No. Your dinner will be out of the oven in half an hour. I’m going home.”
“Whatever you heard...none of it’s repeatable.”
“I figured as much. I’m sort of insulted you felt you had to tell me that.”
“I have some trust issues,” he said, his tone hard.
Nancy arched her brows and took her purse off the hook by the door. “I can see why.” Then she paused for a moment, her hand on the doorknob. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like drink myself under the table?”
“As long as you do that at home, it’s probably your safest bet. Get drunk, pass out, don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
And with that, Nancy left, taking her judgment with her.
He imagined she had heard him tal
king to Kate, and while she wouldn’t know who it was, it didn’t really matter, seeing as everything he’d said was offensive no matter the context.
Fortunately, he wouldn’t be given the chance to do anything he regretted, because Kate had hung up on him. Because Kate clearly wasn’t coming to comfort him, since he’d likely succeeded in putting her off him for life.
It was for the best. Definitely for the best.
He went into the kitchen and opened up the oven door. There were enchiladas. That wasn’t terrible. It was the one part of his day that wasn’t terrible.
He put his hands flat on the kitchen counter and lowered his head, replaying the conversation he’d just had with Kate.
He had no right to talk to her that way. But he had even less of a right to touch her, and with him in the state he was in, if she came over now, begging for him to kiss her...
Yeah, it was better to warn her off.
Because that’s how low you are. You would screw Kate if she asked for a kiss because you can’t control your damned dick.
Yeah, that was where his dad had things wrong. It wasn’t his mother’s genes he worried about. It was the West genes. The ones that made you walk around like you were an invincible, bulletproof paragon capable of doing whatever the hell you wanted without having to pay for the consequences.
He raised his head when he heard a sharp pounding on the front door. He wondered if Nancy had forgotten something.
“Come in,” he called.
He heard footsteps on the hardwood floor, and they stopped right around the kitchen doorway. “I don’t... I don’t have sexy underwear or anything.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Kate was standing there looking like she was out of breath. The color high in her cheeks, and her braid in disarray, stray tendrils escaping, hanging loose around her face. She was wearing a T-shirt that was shaped like a rectangle, not doing anything to accentuate her figure, and a pair of jeans that had most certainly seen better days.
And she was the most terrifying, unwelcome, enticing sight he could have imagined.
“I got here as quickly as I could,” she said, her dark eyes trained on him.
“You weren’t supposed to come.” It was all he could think to say. Well, he could swear again. But other than that, he had nothing else to say.
“I was never very good at doing what I was supposed to.”
“Katie.” He just said her name, because he was out of words. His mind wasn’t forming sentences anymore; he was just feeling. Angry, desperate, turned on beyond what he felt capable of handling.
She took a step into the kitchen, a step toward him. “I have to keep telling you not to call me that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a bastard. In every sense of the word.”
“You can be. But you aren’t always.”
He blinked hard, trying to superimpose the image of Kate as a girl over the image of the woman walking toward him. It seemed like not that long ago that when he thought of her, he still thought of that skinny long-limbed girl with freckles and scrapes on her elbows. But not now.
And as hard as he tried, he couldn’t recapture that vision now.
The past wasn’t in the room with them, and he wished like hell it was.
Her dark eyes met his, concern evident in the crease between her brows. She reached out, pressed her hand on his face, her smooth skin scraping across the stubble on his jaw. “Are you okay?”
For just a moment he thought of the past. Thought of driving up to the front of the Garretts’ house, seeing Kate sitting on the porch, a blank look on her face.
Kate rarely cried. She was too tough for that. Too tough for her own good.
Eli and Connor had been nowhere to be seen and he’d heard a crash coming from inside the house that told him they were probably dealing with one of their father’s drunken benders.
So he’d sat down beside her, put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
And now she was asking him.
It made his chest feel tight, made it hard for him to breathe.
“I’ve never met him before.” Just like the admission he’d made on the phone, this one just spilled out.
“Why today?”
He forced out a laugh. “It wasn’t for a reunion.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
She put her other hand on his face, holding him steady, her eyes never leaving his. “He’s an asshole.” Her voice was fierce, shaking.
“I didn’t even tell you anything about him.”
“I don’t need to know anything about him. If he knew where you were and he never met you until today, then he’s useless. The worst piece of garbage in the world. Almost as bad as a mom who walks away from her two-year-old daughter and her two boys. She knew where we were and she never came back. It was her address for sixteen freaking years. She knew how to get back to it. She just never did. She’s bad. Not us. He’s bad. Not you.”
“Do you believe that?” About himself, about herself.
“Sometimes,” she said, the shaking in her voice becoming even more pronounced. “And sometimes I’m sure it was my fault even though I can’t remember her face. I’m sure I must’ve done something.”
“He never even met me. I guess he just knew that I wasn’t worth it,” Jack said.
“You are, though, you know.”
He reached up and grabbed her wrist, tugging her hand down from his face to his chest. “Do you think so, Katie?” His heart was raging, the promise he’d issued to her over the phone looming large over them.
“Yes.”
“You don’t even like me. Everything I do makes you mad.”
“I do like you. Maybe that’s why everything you do makes me mad.”
He knew exactly what she meant. Because the more he started to like her, the more tense he felt. His body’s attempt at convincing itself he didn’t want to be anywhere near her, when in fact he wanted to be as close to her as humanly possible.
For what purpose? To have those questions about her body answered?
It didn’t get much more selfish than that.
But maybe that’s just who you are.
Yeah, selfish was the only thing it could be. Because he couldn’t give her anything else. The realization of how wrong it was to touch Kate made him feel slightly sick about his entire adult sex life. Because if it felt wrong to use Kate for sex, with nothing else on offer, it had been quite possibly wrong to use other women that way, too. Though they had most definitely been into it.
Still, he had made his excuses based on a sorting system in his brain that said some women were okay to have a good time with, while women like her were off-limits. He’d never thought it explicitly, not until that conversation with Kate about flirting. But once he outlined it then, he’d realized what a dick he was. And this was all underscoring it.
But no matter which way he twisted the reasoning, there was no justification for following through with the attraction that had popped up between Kate and him.
None at all.
But still, he had his hand wrapped around her wrist. Still, he was holding her palm to his chest.
“I never told you I was a virgin,” she said, her voice thin, almost a whisper.
“But you are.”
She looked down, swallowing hard. His heart rate increased as he waited for her to respond. That was one of those things that shouldn’t matter, either. Even if she had slept with someone before, she was still off-limits to him.
But if she hadn’t...
It would make their encounter more significant. Hell, he remembered his first time and there had been a lot of times after. Still remembered the woman. Two years older than him, more experienced. It had been fast and disappointing. For her. He had en
joyed the hell out of it.
But he had learned quickly that if he didn’t figure out what he was doing, women wouldn’t come after him for a repeat performance. So he’d gotten good. And he’d gotten good fast.
But in a long line of sexual experiences that had been hotter, better, that first one still stood out.
Being that first one for Kate would mean something. And he wasn’t good with meaningful sex. Meaningless was the name of his game.
“Yes,” she said. “I am.”
He swore, but he didn’t move away, keeping his hold on her. “Why do you want this?”
“Because I know you. I trust you. I know you’ll make it good.” Her words were a balm he didn’t deserve on his scarred, mangled-up soul. No one trusted him. Kate seemed to trust him. “But you have to want it, too. I don’t want my first time to happen because I talked you into it.”
“You don’t need to talk me into it,” he said, his voice almost unrecognizable to his own ears. “I’ve spent the past week trying to talk myself out of it. Because I can’t offer you anything. Nothing more than sex.” He raised his hand, trace the outline of her upper lip with the edge of his thumb. “Make no mistake, badger-cat, it’ll be good sex. I’ll go slow. Taste every inch of you, not just because it’ll make you mindless, not just because it will make you beg, but because I want to. Because I crave you. It will be more than good—it will be amazing. But it will still stop at sex. Nothing else.”
“A good first time isn’t nothing.” Her cheeks were bright red, her words a thready whisper.
More evidence that he should back off now. She was too sweet. Too innocent.
“It’s less than you deserve.”
“What did you want from your first time?”
“To get off. Simple as that.”
She closed her eyes, the blush remaining on her cheeks, a smile curving her lips. “I want that. I really want that.” Her lashes fluttered, her lids opening again. “I realized today that I’ve been standing still for a long time. Everyone is moving forward and I’m just the same. I’m tired of being the same.”
