Unthinkable: (Unstoppable - Book 2) (The Unstoppable Series)

by Danielle Hill

  My lips twitched. “Thought this wasn’t a date.”

  She placed the jug back down and narrowed her eyes on me. “Just answer the fucking question, Bradshaw.”

  I chuckled. “No, Snow Queen, I don’t take every girl I have sex with out on dates.”

  Her brows pulled together a little, head tipping to the side, but I caught the way her chest rose. “Why bother then? If you can get laid without going to all this effort.”

  There was something in her tone that clashed with the air of indifference she was trying to project. Something I really fucking liked the sound of. Lissa liked knowing she meant more than the others.

  I wasn’t here to play games; I wanted her. For more than sex. I wanted the parts of her she gave to no one else. I wanted to be the person she trusted to open herself up to. Whatever was happening between us, I wanted to acknowledge it, see where it led. And I was fully prepared to let her know that.

  Inching forward in my seat, I waited until I had her eyes before lowering my voice and murmuring, “I don’t want to fuck just anyone, Lissa. I want to fuck you. Only you. Repeatedly. And if I’m going to fuck you again, and again, and again…” I paused, watching her shoulders rise, and her pupils dilate, “I want to take you out, and I want to make an effort.”

  She swallowed hard, her throat convulsing, fingers tightening around the glass in her hand. Those steady blue eyes held mine, shifting, searching, before looking away. She wanted to believe it wasn’t all bullshit, but it wasn’t that easy with Lissa. It would take more than words. If she gave me the chance, I’d fucking show her.

  From the start, back when all I wanted was to get her hands around my dick again, I’d known it would be a challenge. I wasn’t about to back down now. Pretty sure I couldn’t if I wanted to, anyway.

  She lifted the glass to her mouth and took a sip, keeping her eyes averted as she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips to collect a bead of moisture. “So, you’ve been working construction?”

  I laughed softly at the subject change, dipping my head in concession. Seeing my snow queen flustered and trying not to show it might just be my new favorite thing. I’d go easy on her.

  “Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat. “It’s decent work. Pay’s okay, there’s a good group of guys there. I don’t hate it, but it’s not the dream.”

  My words drew her attention back. “What is the dream, Leon Bradshaw?” Her tone was almost wistful, intrigued, and I cocked my head as I stared at her.

  She’d have you believe she had zero fucks to give about anything, but this girl had fucks in abundance. She just tried to hide that fact.

  I shifted forward, sliding my arms across the table. “I don’t want to build houses. I want to design them.”

  I hadn’t realized I was seeking her approval until admiration flared in her eyes. “That’s a good dream,” she said quietly.

  Patting my chest, I gave a light cough. “I’m going to apply to an architecture program at the Friedman College of the Arts. I’ll work at the site for the next year to put some money away to help with tuition, but I don’t plan on being stuck here laying bricks all my life, Lissa.”

  Her chest swelled on a breath before she looked down. My gaze lingered on the glimmering candlelight dancing over the slope of her cheekbone, and a feeling of contentment seeped through my bones. Somewhere along the way, I’d started to picture a future with her in it, and I wanted her to know I had something to offer her. Give her some food for thought. I spent my days building walls up, but brick by brick, I was going to dismantle the one Lissa had constructed around her heart.

  I strummed my fingers over the tablecloth, debating how far to push. “What’s your dream, Alissa Bedford?”

  She shifted, then shrugged, the move almost nonchalant, but her eyes clouded over, emotion swirling through them. I watched her with pinched brows and a healthy dose of curiosity.

  With Lissa, you usually saw what she wanted you to see—the tip of the iceberg—but I was looking harder now, closer. She’d probably let me in farther than any other guy in her life, but it still felt like I’d barely skimmed the surface, and I wanted so much fucking more from her.

  Her head lowered as she lifted a fingertip and stroked it around the edge of the glass. “My plans have changed.” She swallowed hard. “My mom’s sick.”

  Those quiet words confirmed what I’d already surmised, but my chest tightened at the pain lingering in her voice. I reached further across the table and touched the tip of my finger to hers, holding it there without speaking.

  She looked up through thick lashes, then cleared her throat. The vulnerability shining in her crystalline eyes triggered every protective instinct I possessed. I was more than aware that she had her own built-in defense mechanism—I was still trying to circumnavigate it—but right now, all I wanted was to reach across the table, pull her into my lap, and fucking hold her.

  “She has young onset Alzheimer’s,” she continued, her pointer finger stilling on the glass, her voice monotone, like she was trying to dissociate herself from her words. “She’s slowly losing her memories, her ability to function. I’m not going back to college. I need to stay here, to take care of her.”

  She shrugged and looked away. I shifted again and closed my hand around hers; it seemed so fucking fragile in my grip. My chest squeezed thinking of her sacrificing her life at nineteen to take care of her mom. It was too much of a burden for her to take on all alone. I assumed Bree was helping, but where was Lissa’s fucking dad? She never talked about him. I knew he was a lawyer, that he’d moved to the city after he and her mom divorced a few years back, but surely, he had some fucking responsibility to be there for his kids, even if he wasn’t with their mother.

  “What about your Aunt Bree? Your dad? Do you still see him?” I asked, and her head came up, face hard.

  “No. I’d rather not talk about him.”

  If I remembered right, he’d cheated on her mom. More than once. And I got it, where her distrust of men came from. I knew now why she ran, too. Why her first instinct would always be to run.

  My snow queen had never been cold. She was just scared.

  “How can I help?” I murmured, tangling my fingers with hers, determined to prove to her that not all men were like her father. That I wasn’t like her father. That I wouldn’t let her down.

  Her eyelids flickered, brows knitting. “You can’t. No one can. There’s no cure for Alzheimer’s.”

  “I know,” I said softly, gripping her fingers more tightly. “How can I help you?”

  She brought her gaze up slowly, a small crease forming between her eyes. “Leon,” she whispered, and my heart fucking burst.

  I could still count on one hand the number of times she’d said my name. It hit me with the full fucking force of a speeding freight train every time.

  Every. Single. Time.

  My fingers closed around hers. “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m right here.”

  Her eyes glossed over as she looked at me, and then a throat cleared beside the table. Lissa started, glancing up before extracting her fingers from my grip and getting to her feet.

  “I need the bathroom,” she muttered to no one in particular, sparing the waitress a fleeting glance before striding away.

  I leaned back with a sigh, reaching up to scrub a hand over the rough surface of my jaw, before turning my attention to the woman holding two dinner plates above my head. Indicating where she should place each dish, I rolled my neck to the side then bolted upright in my seat when something outside the window caught my attention.

  I was up and out of the restaurant before I stopped to process my actions. Shoving through the door, I stormed down the sidewalk and fisted the back of Alec Weston’s dark grey suit jacket before slamming him into the side of his car.

  “What the—?” my stepdad sputtered, hands landing on the surface of the car to steady himself.

  “The fuck’s going on?” I demanded, gripping a handful of his shirt, and h
auling him forward.

  His grey eyes widened when they landed on my face, a deep crease breaking out on his forehead. “Leon? What the hell are you doing?”

  “Who the fuck is that?” I spat, jerking my head toward the passenger window where he’d just stowed away a leggy blonde who sure as fucking shit wasn’t my mother.

  He wagged his head, blinking as he glanced back toward the car. “Christ, Leon. She’s a colleague. I’m giving her a ride home from the office.”

  My grip tightened. “You’re a long fucking way from the office, asshole.”

  The door creaked open, and the blonde peered out at us with wide eyes. “I forgot my keys. Alec was nice enough to bring me to my roommate’s boyfriend’s place to get her set instead of going all the way back across town.”

  “Your mom knows about this, Leon. I just spoke to her on the drive over here to tell her I’d be late.”

  My fingers loosened on the material bunched in my grip as I looked between the pair of them.

  Shit.

  “What’s going on?”

  My head dropped at the sound of Lissa’s voice, eyes squeezing shut. Fuck.

  I was trying to show her I wasn’t the same punk ass guy she’d always loathed, the idiot who acted without thinking, smoked weed like cigars and had no fucking goals in life. I wanted to be more than that. For me. For her. Because whether she admitted it or not, she wanted me, and she needed me. Her world was fucking falling apart at her feet, and I wanted to hold it all together for her. I needed to show her she could rely on me.

  Releasing my grip, I hit Alec with one last hard look, then spun on my heel and strode toward the restaurant.

  “Hey,” Lissa murmured, taking a light hold of my arm.

  “Leon!” Alec’s voice boomed.

  Frustrated, I rubbed my hands over my face, before lifting them both up and holding them out either side of my head by way of an apology. If I wanted to demonstrate I was a fucking grown up, I had to own my actions and take responsibility. “I’m fucking sorry, okay, Alec. I overreacted.”

  He gripped his hips, a deep frown etched onto his face, then he rounded the car with a huff and disappeared inside.

  Softening my features, I glanced down into Lissa’s concerned face. “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head and slid her hand down my arm until the fingers of her right hand linked loosely with mine. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I gazed at her a beat longer, awed anew by the staggering fucking beauty of her gorgeous face. My throat dried up—a barren fucking wasteland. “I fucked up our date.”

  She blinked up at me, clear, blue eyes almost glittering in the moonlight. “It wasn’t a date.”

  Our lips curved at the same time, and I squeezed her fingers with mine. “Whatever you say, Snow Queen.”

  “I already paid,” she said, pulling away and patting my chest as she headed for the truck. “Let’s go.”

  “You didn’t fucking eat! That’s bad even for a non-date.”

  A grin formed over her mouth. “You can buy takeout.”

  I followed her with a smile on my face. Because that sounded a lot like an invitation back to her place.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  LEON

  I pulled my wallet and phone from my pockets before climbing into the truck and tossing the latter down in the center console. I extracted a few bills from the wallet and held them out to Lissa.

  “Keep it. I owe you for the cupcakes,” she said, sweeping my hand away.

  I shook my head, tossing them in her lap as I started the car. “Fuck no. I asked you out. I’m not letting you pay for food you didn’t even eat. And the cakes were a gift.”

  My phone vibrated noisily in the center console as I pushed my foot down on the gas, and I sighed when my eyes landed on the screen. I hesitated briefly before swiping the tip of my finger across it.

  “What’s up?”

  “What’s up? Don't what’s up me, Leon! I just spoke to Alec.” I kept my eyes forward as the shrill sound of my mom’s voice filled the truck. “You threw him against his car?”

  I could feel Lissa’s eyes on me as I raked a hand through my hair and scratched at my scalp. “Yeah, about that—”

  “Are you high again?” my mom demanded in a voice filled with censure.

  My gaze fell to the phone. “No, I'm not fucking high,” I bit. “I saw him with a fucking woman. I thought he was cheating on you. Sorry for defending you—”

  “How could you think that?” A drawn-out sigh followed her question, and I could picture her standing in the kitchen, shaking her head in disapproval. I’d seen it in person enough times. “He probably thinks I raised a delinquent. For once, couldn’t you have acted like an adult? You’re nineteen now. It’s time you stopped thinking your actions don’t have consequences, Leon. This on top of dropping out of that college course… what must Alec think of me?”

  I swallowed roughly, fingers flexing around the steering wheel. “I reflect that badly on you, huh?”

  “That's not what I'm saying, Leon. It's just… did you have to attack him? You could have just asked him. I don’t understand why you’d jump to that conclusion in the first place. He’s a good man. The best I know.”

  With my eyes laser focused on the road ahead, my mom’s unspoken words hung heavy in the air around me, a weighted chain around my neck. I cleared my throat, the sound gruff. “And I'm not, right?”

  Another sigh. “You just have some growing up to do.”

  I inhaled, hating the fact that Lissa overheard every fucking word of this shit. My mother—a woman supposedly predisposed to champion me—was probably my toughest critic. Nothing I did seemed to be good enough for her.

  “Right,” I muttered, exhaling to ease the tightness in my chest. “Next time I think your husband might be fucking someone else, I’ll just leave him to it.”

  I reached down and ended the call before she could respond, shutting the phone off for good measure.

  “Probably wasn’t the most mature reaction, huh?” A harsh laugh scraped up my throat, the sound lacking any humor.

  “Why haven’t you told her about college?” Lissa asked quietly.

  My shoulders lifted. “Not sure.” Maybe because it was a budding dream, and I didn’t want my mother shitting all over it with her negativity.

  Lissa shifted, turning to look out the window.

  I pulled up outside of Lissa’s house and tucked my chin, flattening a palm over my thigh. “This is why you don’t plan things, huh?”

  Lissa responded with silence, my attempt at a joke falling flat, but I felt her eyes on me. After what seemed like hours, she murmured, “Come inside.”

  My head lifted, and I twisted to look at her. We stared without speaking, gazes clinging across the short distance separating us. When she moved, pushing the door open and climbing out, I followed. My steps echoed hers up the short driveway as I trailed behind her, pausing when she stopped to unlock the door.

  Lissa moved inside with her head dipped, then stepped back to let me through. Her fingers clutched the edge of the thick wood until her knuckles blanched before she closed the door softly and turned the lock. Then, with her back facing me, she touched her forehead down onto the wood.

  I watched, waited, chest expanding, heart pounding, as her narrow shoulders rose then fell, and then she turned.

  Her heavy gaze lifted slowly, crawling up my chest and settling on my face. I felt it like a fucking caress. By the time her hooded, blue eyes reached mine, neither one of us was breathing normally, and we both moved, crashing together.

  She rose up as I swooped down, crushing my lips against hers. Her back arched and her breasts smashed into my chest, dragging a growl from me. Her soft lips slid over mine, our warm tongues tangling as her small hands gripped onto my shirt. I squeezed my lids and clenched my jaw against the dizzying barrage of desire that slammed me from every angle.

  I was on the verge of blowing my load before I got my dick out of my pants.
If I didn’t get inside her, I might fucking die. It was that serious. When she pulled my lower lip between her teeth and dropped a hand to cup me through my pants, I almost passed out on the spot. I detached my mouth from hers and took a few seconds to breathe, and then I grabbed her at the waist and hauled her up against me.

  The soft whimper that flowed past her lips when our bodies aligned travelled straight to my cock, and I jerked forward instinctively, desperate to be inside her. The move sent us stumbling backwards into the door. My hands went to her head to cushion the impact as I trapped her between my bulk and the hard wood, and her fingers glided up over my chest and around my shoulders, before threading into the hair at my nape. A soft sigh parted her lips and her head fell back as her eyes closed.

  Breathing raggedly, I bent to look down at her, and my chest inflated. My eyes wandered slowly over her face, taking in every detail; the thick lashes resting on the soft crest of her flushed cheeks, the little pants coming from her parted lips.

  A crippling wall of emotion crashed down on top of me, and I floundered under the weight, slamming my palms against the door to keep myself upright.

  Lissa’s eyes fluttered open as my body sagged forward, and she blinked up at me, one hand slipping round to cup my jaw.

  She trapped me in her hooded, blue stare, just held us there, suspended, before she took a deep breath in and whispered, “She's wrong about you, Leon.” Her brows pinched together lightly as she breathed. “And so was I.”

  My heart stumbled as I stared at her and fought to keep from bursting into fucking flames.

  Emotion swept through me like a rapidly rising tide, thrashing waves of feeling that threatened to bury me in their depths. I fucking welcomed them. I wanted to drown in her, to be surrounded by everything she was. In my arms, with her pupils blown wide and her soft, blue eyes filled with longing, Lissa was everything I fucking wanted and needed.

  And she’d just reached inside my chest and wrapped her hands around my beating fucking heart. It no longer felt like mine. I sucked in a harsh breath, energy racing through me, and then I reached down and grabbed her face with both hands, tugging her head up and bringing my mouth down on hers.