by A. Zavarelli
I valued my freedom, but letting someone else take the wheel for a spell held some appeal. My life had been careening wildly out of control for as long as I could remember, and I was just fucking exhausted. Even though Ace was a cranky bastard, he managed to calm me whenever he was near. He took care of me in a way that nobody ever had, and in the grand scheme of things, that meant something. I just hadn’t quite figured out what that something was.
“You want a smoke?” He stood in the doorway of my room, his eyes moving over my still unpacked suitcases. As his self-imposed bedtime approached, my anxiety crept over me, squeezing the life out of rational thought.
When I didn’t answer, he nodded to a plastic bag on the bed. “I got you something today. Why don’t you have a look?”
He disappeared down the hall while I opened it up and inspected it. I wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that he’d read me so well or figured out my issue. But when I picked up the nightlight, relief filled my lungs. It was a fear I’d never been able to shake, and I hated that I couldn’t. It was a weakness. A constant reminder that even though I was all grown up, my past would always cling to me.
The memories of Ricky locking me in dark closets for days on end while he went on his benders weren’t so distant as soon as the sun went down every day. Sitting in my own urine as I listened to him terrorize other girls was about as horrific as it got. Or at least I thought it was. Until Gypsy did a stint in juvie, and he came for me instead.
I installed the nightlight and sat on the bed before Ace reappeared with two joints in his hand. He offered me one and then lit it, and I tried not to let onto the disappointment I felt. I liked the ritual of passing it from his lips to mine as I soaked in the salt of his skin and the earthiness of the herb. I’d never done something so intimate with anyone, but it felt unimaginable not to now that we had.
“I’ll give you ten minutes.” His eyes moved over my face. “And I’ll leave the door open tonight, but don’t fuck that up by pulling any more shit. Got it?”
I was too proud to admit his offer made me feel better, so I just nodded. But when he headed for the door, I wasn’t ready to let him go. I wanted him to feel as defenseless as I currently was. I wanted to level the playing field.
“Huck?” I called out.
He turned, a red flush creeping up his neck. If I didn’t know any better, I would say he was embarrassed. “Everyone calls me Ace.”
“I’m not everyone.” I couldn’t hide the annoyance in my tone. “And I want to call you Huck.”
His eyes flashed with heat, and I felt it deep between my thighs. I didn’t know why I couldn’t stop myself from fucking it up.
“When can I try Mary-Kate’s Last Dance?”
In the span of a second, his nostrils flared, and his eyes pooled with a darkness I didn’t even know he possessed.
“Don’t ever ask me that,” he growled as he reached for the knob. “Don’t ever say that name again.”
The wood reverberated off the frame as he slammed it, and I flinched inwardly, wondering what I’d triggered. It wasn’t an accident. I’d done it intentionally, always poking at someone else’s wounds so I could pretend mine didn’t exist.
But this time… this time, I wished I hadn’t.
Huck was quiet throughout breakfast, and so far, he’d managed to avoid all eye contact. That didn’t stop him from grunting orders all morning, though. Get up, Birdie. Take a shower, Birdie. Eat your breakfast, Birdie. When I finished my yogurt and granola, he had another one.
“Go get dressed, Birdie.”
I peered at him over the rim of my coffee mug. “I am dressed.”
Finally, his eyes moved over me. Slow and calculating, he couldn’t hide the irritation brewing there. “I meant jeans and a T-shirt. That shit you’re wearing now isn’t going to fly.”
I glanced down at the white summer dress I’d pulled out of my suitcase this morning. It was one of my favorites, but clearly, the art of appreciation was lost on him. Most normal red-blooded men seemed to like the way it fit my body. But Huck wasn’t a typical man, and now it seemed like a sloppily executed move on my part.
“I like this dress.” I clipped out through gritted teeth, prepared to defend my choice.
“You can like it all you want, but you’re not wearing that to work.”
“Work?” I blinked at him, certain I’d misheard him.
“Yeah, work. What normal folk do to earn a living. I have a business to run, and you’re coming with me until I can figure out something else to occupy your time.”
My lips parted, a protest loaded and ready to fire from my tongue, but then something occurred to me. His shop was in Las Vegas. This was the opportunity I’d been looking for. I could escape. Go somewhere. Do something.
I didn’t know what those things were. In a matter of days, I’d been cut off from my entire world. No phone. No Gypsy. No Trouble. I was an island now. But there was still the matter of Joe to deal with. I had to get my hands on that video. It was the only way I could ever truly be free, and I couldn’t do that if I was sitting here, allowing myself to get wrapped up in Huck.
I made a show of irritation as I slipped down the hall and into my room, but I didn’t know if he bought it. Rummaging through my suitcases, I realized his request for jeans and a T-shirt wasn’t going to be so easy to fulfill. I had a couple of pairs of jeans, but they weren’t exactly the working type. Regardless, they’d have to do.
I tossed my dress aside and slid into them as I considered the possibilities for my escape. I’d have to leave everything behind, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Grabbing the only thing that mattered—my mother’s hag stone—I snuck it into my pocket and threw on a white tank top.
Before I could think of anything else I might need, Huck appeared in the doorway, his eyes moving over me with lazy scrutiny. I couldn’t read his expression, and that irritated me.
“This is all I have,” I muttered. “Take it or leave it.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “Get your ass in the truck.”
THE SHOP WAS BUZZING WITH activity when we arrived twenty minutes later than what was typical for me. I owned the joint, but it didn’t mean I skipped out whenever I felt like it. I showed up and punched my timecard every day like the rest of the guys. If being in prison had taught me anything, it was consistency.
The first couple of years after I got out, I couldn’t bend or break the structure that had been ingrained into me. For thirteen years, I’d lived and breathed by their rules. It never occurred to me there was any other way until Lucian made a point to tell me it was okay if I didn’t get up every morning at five. The smallest decisions were the hardest ones. What to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. How to spend my downtime. Being free wasn’t as easy as I’d anticipated when I was still caged inside. One day, I ran into a guy I knew from prison, and even though I’d never spoken to him, he seemed to recognize the war in my eyes. He told me about his club, the Beards of War, and invited me to check it out sometime. They were men like me. The misfits, the condemned. They took me in, and I found my place in this world.
Lucian helped me figure out what the fuck I wanted to do with my life, and now, here I was, five years later, free as a bird with a little Birdie in tow. As I paraded her through the shop, all the tools paused, and every set of eyes turned to examine her.
I knew bringing her here wasn’t my best idea, but I didn’t know it would make me want to murder every one of my employees. Birdie took their gawking in stride, ignoring it completely. She wasn’t a stranger to the wandering eyes, or the entitlement men felt when they looked at her. Everyone wanted something. And for the first time since I’d known her, it really hit me how fucked up that was.
“Here.” I led her into the office and grabbed a spare work shirt off the rack. “Put this on.”
She eyeballed the blue material with apprehension. “Do I have to?”
“Yes,” I gritted out. “I’m putting you to work today. Wouldn’t wan
t to ruin that pretty white shirt of yours.”
She rolled her eyes, the way she usually did when something didn’t go her way. Truthfully, the shirt was mostly for safety reasons. I didn’t want her getting burned or scratched or anything else, considering she’d had enough of that to last her a lifetime already. But I also didn’t need the guys in the shop trying to look down her top every time she bent over.
“I bet you just love this, don’t you?” She groaned as she slipped the shirt on over her tank top.
“Bossing you around?” I smirked.
Her eyes flared. The conversation should have stopped there, but she started it.
“Trust me, you’d know when I was bossing you around,” I added.
Pink crept into her cheeks, and my cock began to swell again. I didn’t think it was possible, considering I’d practically rubbed it raw in the shower this morning, but there it was, that hunger I couldn’t satiate. Like any man, I thought about sex, but I always considered myself too fucked up to share something like that with someone. During most of the years when I would have learned how to navigate relationships and the like, I’d spent in prison with a bunch of other savages. Emotions and women were too complicated a subject for me to ever figure out, so it was just easier to watch porn and pretend I was content with my hand. When that didn’t work, Kylie was always happy to provide some pain. And the pain made everything better, at least for a little while.
But this was something different. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like with Birdie. Just once, I wanted to know how she felt from the inside. Except I knew once wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t think a thousand times would be enough, and that was the issue.
“So, what now?” She cleared her throat, and I wondered if she was thinking about it too. Then I shook my head. I needed to crash that train of thought before I plowed straight into her.
I handed her a pair of safety glasses and some gloves. “Now we get to work.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Birdie asked, leaning over to examine the guts of the truck. There was an emotional element to her voice. A mixture of curiosity and concern. She’d managed to surprise me today, and people didn’t often surprise me.
I’d given her an ass load of busywork—stupid shit at first like sweeping the floor and tidying up the workbench—but she wasn’t satisfied with that. She wanted to know what I was doing, and I finally put her to work. Birdie wasn’t happy unless you threw a challenge her way. Her mind worked fast, and she liked puzzles.
So far, I’d let her help with some PM work and two inspections, but now I had to tackle a mechanical issue. Normally, I didn’t like anyone else in my space while I was working. My guys had an understanding that unless I asked for their help, they stayed in their lane, and I stayed in mine. But Birdie was intuitive about my needs. She didn’t touch something unless I told her to, and she asked questions with an eagerness that pleased me. Her hands were smaller than mine, which was a benefit I’d already exploited several times over, and she was a fast learner. Oil and grease smudged her cheeks, and her pretty blond hair was a mess too, but she’d never looked more tempting than she did right then.
Christ.
“I’m not sure what the problem is yet,” I mumbled, trying to focus on the task at hand. “It’s a process of tests and elimination now. We’re going to have to throw her up on the lift.”
“Will you show me what to do?” she asked.
I considered refusing her because it was a big job, but then I wondered how many times Birdie had ever been excited about something like this in her life. She’d told me herself she didn’t really know what she wanted to do. She needed a purpose, and if this was something she liked, I owed it to her to let curiosity lead her. As long as she was safe.
Always safe.
“After lunch.” I blinked away the dark thoughts lingering just beneath the surface. “Let’s eat.”
She checked the clock on the wall, noting that it was noon exactly. I guessed it wouldn’t take her long to pick up on my inflexibility when it came to my schedule. In the office, I unpacked what I’d made us for the day. Turkey sandwiches with vegetables and an apple on the side. Birdie’s nose scrunched up when I handed them to her.
“Ugggg,” she groaned. “More vegetables. Wheat everything. Do you always eat this healthy?”
I pointed at the sink, gesturing for her to wash up beside me. “You only get one body. Might as well take care of it.”
Her elbow bumped against mine as we washed up together, but I felt her eyes on my face, and I knew that wasn’t the end of the conversation. “Yeah, but you smoke. Seems kind of contradictory, doesn’t it?”
“Everyone has their vices.” I shrugged. “What’s worse, weed or sugar?”
Birdie considered it as she toweled off her hands. “But isn’t that a problem with your job? I mean, don’t the two clash?”
“It’s only a problem if I fuck up,” I told her. “And I never fuck up. I don’t smoke at work either.”
She looked up at me, eyes bright and blue. I couldn’t look away, and it was pure instinct that drove me to wipe a grease smudge off her cheek with my thumb. She was shorter than me, but it felt like a good fit. It felt like I wanted to tug her against me and do shit I wasn’t supposed to think about.
“You’ve turned out to be quite the little grease monkey,” I murmured, my face tilting toward hers. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I just knew that if I didn’t taste her lips again, I was going to hate myself for it.
Birdie’s eyes fluttered shut, and her chin tilted up toward me, offering the access I wished she’d just deny. My fingers trailed over her jaw and down her throat, feeling the drumbeat of her pulse beneath the soft skin.
“Fuck it.” My lips crashed down onto hers, and I wrapped an arm around her waist, dragging her against me. She made a soft noise as my dick poked against her belly, and I wanted to play that sound on repeat all day long.
“What are you doing to me?” I growled as her fingers curled into my shirt.
“What are you doing?” she accused, pausing long enough to take a breath before we were at each other’s faces again.
Her lips parted for me, and that was her first mistake. But then she parted her legs as I hoisted her up into my arms, scooting her ass onto the counter as half of my shit clattered to the floor around us. My palm came up to cup the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. She smelled so fucking good. She tasted so fucking sweet.
My head spun as I tried to get a fucking grip. I needed to pull away, and I needed to stop this, but Birdie wasn’t stopping. She was firing on all cylinders, her fingers digging into my biceps as she tried to pull me closer. I had a mental list of a million reasons this could never happen, but right now, I couldn’t think of one.
“Huck,” she murmured against my lips.
Goddamn her for calling me that. Goddamn her for getting inside my head this way. She was a sorceress. A witch. Some mythical creature sent to destroy me. The levelheadedness I was known for was nonexistent right now.
“You shouldn’t want this, Birdie,” I growled. “Tell me to fucking stop.”
“I can’t.” She pawed at me, anywhere her hands could reach, and it was too goddamned much.
I grabbed her by the hips, hauling her body forward as I pivoted toward her. My entire body shuddered as I dragged the heat of my dick against the seam between her thighs. She tipped her head back, forcing me to chase the sweetness of her lips.
“More,” she begged. “Please, Huck. I want to know what this feels like.”
Her whispered confession froze me, and when my eyes locked onto hers, I realized how fucked up I was for doing this to her. She’d never been treated right. She’d never known love. Her whole life was a desolate landscape of one user after another. At least, that was how I imagined it. But I was selfish, and I needed those details. I needed to know exactly what she meant.
“Tell me,” I commanded, unrelenting in my grip on her bod
y.
She blew out a breath as her eyes found mine. “I want you to be my first. The first man who I choose.”
She could have said anything else, and I would have come to my senses. Anything but that. I didn’t tell her what I knew to be absolute. If I was her first, then I’d be her last. She had summoned the demon in me who refused to share his toys.
Obsession.
I could feel it breeding. Overtaking everything. I hadn’t been able to admit it, but she intoxicated me. What I wanted from her was more than she could ever give. It was everything. Her breath, her words, her fucking mind. Those eyes that plagued my every waking hour and haunted me in my dreams. I was bending, and if I didn’t stop now, she would break me.
Every cell in my brain screamed at me to do the right thing. But her spell was more than I could resist. I couldn’t stop kissing her. Tasting her. Pawing at her.
I flicked open the button of her jeans, and the storm raged on in her eyes when she looked up at me. A challenge. A plea. I only wanted to touch her once. I needed to feel how wet she was for me. And when my palm slipped down over the soaked cotton of her panties, I wasn’t disappointed.
“Christ, Birdie.” My voice was barely audible when my forehead fell against hers. “Just tell me to stop.”
“No.” She tilted her hips up to meet my palm.
My eyes fell shut, and I shuddered when I dragged a finger against the cotton-covered seam of her pussy. An inch south, and I could have been inside her. I could have felt her want soaking me as I slipped past the point of no return. But I needed to hold onto what little self-control I had left.
I stroked her through the material, watching her eyes melt into darkness. Her chest rose and fell as I unbuttoned the work shirt, two hard nipples scraping against the white material of her tank top.
She wasn’t wearing a fucking bra.
I didn’t know how I could have missed it earlier, but now, it was painfully obvious. Birdie made a noise that got caught in her throat as I dug my fingers into the cotton, circling her clit with a friction she desperately needed. My throat worked as I dipped forward, intending only to rub my face against her tits. I did it a few times before it wasn’t enough anymore. My lips paused over the sharp peak where her nipple poked against the fabric. Her fingers curled into my hair, and she cried out as my tongue soaked through the material, dampening it until I could see the pretty pink bud.
