by Frost, Sosie
Stared at me.
Breathed in every part of me to savor my surprise.
He whispered a dark demand. “Why’s a girl like you trying so hard to help a guy like me?”
I didn’t want to answer the question. I reached for the knob, but he took my hand first. I went still. Only thing I could do. A man like him longed for a reaction—fight, surrender, anger, resistance. All he knew was how to provoke. He’d never learned how to trust.
My eyes rose, studying the hardness of his jaw and the rough, thick stubble lining his chin. His hair fell over his eyes, the only soft part of him.
“Why do you always try to intimidate me?” I asked.
“Is it working?”
“No.”
“I’d never lie to you, Honey. Why are you lying to me?”
Because he’d never believe the truth even if whispered it in his ear after a night of delirious passion.
“What do you really want to know from me?” I whispered. “Just ask it, Tidus.”
“Are you scared?”
Only of how my body trembled at his touch. “Why would I be honest with you when you aren’t honest with yourself?”
“Are you afraid that you might actually want me?”
Was it a lie if I didn’t answer? “Doesn’t matter now, does it? Apparently, I’m a pain in the ass, and you’re too lazy to seduce me. You don’t even want me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Never said I didn’t want you. Said you weren’t worth it.”
“Is any woman worth it to you?”
“Not if they’d want to fuck a worthless man.”
“You think so little of yourself?”
He nodded. “I know who I am.”
“What if I didn’t believe you?”
“Then you would be the perfect woman…and the wrong one for me.”
He pressed against me, and I hated how my core twisted and pulsed. The heat swirled inside me. Tangles of desire bound me in place, lashing every sensitive and vulnerable secret.
All the more reason to run.
He’d melted away my resistances with a single touch, and it was only by pure defiance that I remained standing.
I parted my lips to speak, but he didn’t want to hear it.
Hell, I didn’t want to say it.
His kiss silenced me with the slice of pure desire. I crashed hard against the door, gripping at his arms, his shoulders, running my hands through the softness of his hair.
His tongue invaded me, thrusting through the modest part of my lips to thrust, hard and fast, stealing my breath, sanity, and every shred of resistance. He twisted my whimper, savoring the low, throaty groan of his name.
I shouldn’t have encouraged him. Shouldn’t have pressed myself harder into his embrace.
Shouldn’t have given him the permission to grab me by the hips and haul me up, back against the door, legs wrapped around his waist.
He was hard.
The thought drove me wild.
Tidus ripped away from my lips, his words harsh. “You could just call Daddy. He could get you the money. You could leave now.”
Why was he so desperate to be rid of me? My head fell back as he suckled at my neck.
“I told you…I’m doing this on my own.”
“Bullshit,” he whispered. “If the competition was really that important, you’d have called Daddy and got the money by now. You’d be halfway across the state, preparing for the contest. No, Honey…you’re staying in Butterpond for another reason…”
His teeth nipped at my neck. I shuddered, dissolving into goosebumps. “Can’t figure me out, can you, Tidus Payne?”
He growled. “Say it. You’ve got a crush on the bad boy mechanic.”
“You gonna talk or are you gonna kiss me?”
“I want you to admit it.” He squeezed my hips and held me closer. “It’ll be our little secret, Honeybee. Tell me how badly you want to fuck me.”
“Why would I fuck a worthless man?”
“Because it must be a chore acting so fucking perfect all the time.”
He grinned, kissing me again. The heat swirled, knotting me with confusion, frustration, and absolute rage.
It was a mistake to let him trap me in his arms.
Once Tidus caught me, I’d never want to get free.
I broke the kiss. “I have work to do.”
“Why work when we could have fun?”
“Because I happen to like work…” My breath panted, quick and furious. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Responsibility. Ambition. Motivation.”
“Not sure if you want to fuck me or insult me.”
At least we agreed on that. I shook my head.
“One kiss won’t make me surrender to a bad boy with an attitude,” I said.
“Big words for a girl with her legs wrapped around my crotch.”
I wiggled, dropping my feet back to the ground. But he didn’t let me pass. His hand gently traced my cheek, drifting low to rub his thumb against my puffy, well-kissed lip. I batted him away, but the damage was done.
The heat tore through me. Every instinct begged for this man. My thoughts twisted with desire, and a betraying wetness slickened the part of me that wanted him the most.
His words roughened. “You know you have the perfect lips for sucking cock?”
He meant to shock me.
It worked.
“Guess we’ll never know,” I whispered.
“Not willing to take the chance?”
“Why should I make it easy for you?” I stared at him, studying everything from the devious green of his eyes to the tats on his arms and the holes in his jeans. “If I give into you, I know exactly what will happen.”
“And what’s that?”
“You don’t care about anything, Tidus,” I said. “Not yourself. Certainly not about the girl in your bed. Sex with you would mean nothing because you want everything in your life to be meaningless. Maybe you’re afraid of screwing up, or maybe you’ve screwed up so much because you have nothing left to fear. But I will not be another notch on the bedpost you use for your own self-destruction.”
He went quiet. A pained, reverent silence fell between us.
And I feared what I had done.
He backed away, surrendering with his hands raised. His expression twisted.
Not pain.
Not anger.
But…loneliness?
The guilt hit me quick, but Tidus was faster. He kicked me out into the garage.
This wasn’t a fight that I’d wanted to win.
“Fair enough, Honey.” His words bit hard, echoing with regret in the pit of my stomach as he slammed the door in my face. “I’ve already fucked up my own life…last thing I want to do is ruin yours.”
6
Tidus
Honey had a bad habit of working every goddamned second of every day.
When she wasn’t cooking, she was cleaning.
When she wasn’t cleaning, she was prepping.
When she wasn’t prepping, she was ignoring me.
And when she ignored me…all I wanted was to hear her voice. Grab her by the hips. Taste her once more.
Did she even realize how little work I could do with her so close? Christ, even when I had shit to do, she was just…there. Being fucking beautiful. Strutting around like little Suzy Homemaker in a babydoll t-shirt, jeans, and that sunshine yellow bandana capturing her wild, ebony curls.
Honey popped in and out of her truck, working on some new sauce or roasting another meat. Tried not to pay attention, but she hummed to herself while she worked. Fucking infuriating.
How could she be that damned happy all the time?
Something had to be done.
Especially since Honey was so fucking cute when she got pissed.
I pushed out from under her truck, wiped the grease off my hands, and watched as she sampled her newest creation.
I grinned. “One of Daddy’s
recipes?”
The presumption bothered her, but Honey pretended it didn’t. “No. It’s my own…not that you’d care.”
“Smells good. What’s in it?”
“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”
I liked a challenge. “Do I get to choose the method of execution?”
Honey picked up the squirt bottle filled with her sauce and shook the fire-red container. “I have it right here.”
“You’d make me drink it?”
She gave the bottle a little squeeze, and a teeny dollop of sauce escaped. “Wrong end, bad boy.”
“You’re into the rough stuff, aren’t you?”
Honey laughed. “You have no idea. This is my super-secret hot sauce.”
Interesting. “You make a hot sauce?”
“No, I make the hot sauce.”
And, apparently, she took an unconscionable amount of pride in it. “That good?”
“The best.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
Her laugh was a perfect blend of amusement and femininity. “Oh, bad boy. This sauce isn’t for someone like you.”
“That so?”
“When I say hot, I mean hot.”
And now I had to try it. “Hotter than me?”
She rolled her eyes. “If only such a thing were possible.”
Honey set the hot sauce on the window of her truck and ducked inside to wash her hands. Twice.
“Let me try it,” I said.
“Absolutely not.”
“It’s just hot sauce.”
Honey arched an eyebrow and wagged a sassy finger towards me. “And that’s why you can’t have any. You don’t respect it.”
“I don’t respect anything, but I do like spicy foods.” Liked it better with a frosted bottle of beer, but I’d survive without a drink. “Give me a sample. What are you afraid of?”
“The liability.”
“You’re cute, you know that?”
Honey didn’t crack a smile. “My sauce isn’t just hot. It’s weaponized. You might think you’re tough, Tidus Payne, but this is not the arena to challenge me.”
But I specialized in subverting expectations and self-destruction.
I pushed past her, crowding inside the cramped truck. She groaned as I left streaks of grease against her pristine counters and chased me away from the oven.
My patience ran out. “Just put a dab on that fucking pork and let me try it.”
Honey finally surrendered, pushing me out of the truck to prepare the world’s smallest sampling of pulled pork. A drop of sauce misted the meat, but she hid the container as I lunged for it.
“It’s like you can’t help but get yourself into trouble,” she said.
“Don’t worry…” I frowned at the teeny portion of pork. “I’ll starve before I get into trouble.”
“Do you want me to call the ambulance now…or should I give you a ride to the hospital?”
Jesus Christ.
I shoveled the portion into my mouth, snickering as she rooted through her mini-fridge to deliver me a child’s size pint of milk. Didn’t need it. The day a piece of fucking barbeque forced me to chug milk was the day I voluntarily castrated myself.
Except…
The pork lodged in my throat as my esophagus instantly swelled. My tongue puffed with it.
I sputtered, but the heat had already seared my lips. Ripping them from my face might have saved that pain, but unless I could claw out my throat…
I was fucked.
Did the woman bottle napalm? The single bite set my mouth on fire, banished me to the lowest levels of Hell, and then sling-shotted magma up my nose just for the fun of it.
I’d taken kicks to the balls that tasted better than this violation of the Geneva Convention.
Pretty sure I’d cried less too.
If the woman wanted to kill me, there were easier ways. Slicing my throat. Cutting my brakes. Riding my face until I suffocated.
Instead, I had to choose between burning alive or drowning in a kiddie serving of milk. I ripped open the package and poured the entirety over my face. The splash coated my lips and tongue, but it did nothing to help me breathe.
Fuck. The woman wasn’t a cook. She was a serial killer.
I tore off my shirt, wiped away the milk, and accepted the bottle of water she’d so mercifully opened for me. I chugged it, but the liquid coated the entirety of my throat with the hellish fire. I whipped the empty bottle at the ground.
“Fuck me!”
Honey lazily watched me sizzle into a pile of ashes with an amused smirk. She leaned against the serving window of her truck, tapping her nails on the metal.
“You know what your problem is, Tidus?” she asked.
Yeah. Imminent death by whatever tactical nuke she’d loaded into her squirt bottle.
“Christ…” My prayer mumbled from flaming lips. “Mother fucker…”
“You have an image problem,” Honey sighed. “You’ve built a persona for yourself—tough guy, bad boy, alcoholic, druggie recluse…” She listed my faults on her fingers. “But you’ve either convinced yourself that you’re not worth the help…or you’re too afraid to take the help that’s offered.”
I’d never been afraid of a goddamned thing in my life, though, at the moment, I worried about esophageal cancer. Speaking was beyond the charred ruins of my throat, but she could read my expression…and the two fingers I pointed in her direction.
“And there’s the real issue,” she said. “Whenever someone calls you out on these things, you don’t fight. You don’t defend yourself. You don’t try to change their mind. They call you a piece of shit, and you wear it like a badge of honor. But you know what I think?”
I had no idea, but she didn’t have much time to tell me before I took her hot sauce back to Hell with me.
Sweat poured into my eyes, down my back, into every crevice that would regret this decision later. I swallowed, grunted, and guzzled more water. For all I knew, the hot sauce had eroded the roof of my mouth and my brains leaked down my throat.
Would have been preferable to the conversation.
“I think demeaning yourself is your way of avoiding conflict,” she said.
I’d never avoided conflict a day in my life. And I sure as hell wasn’t avoiding this fight.
As soon as I could breathe without incinerating a lung, we’d have one hell of a conflict.
“It’s kinda ingenious really,” Honey said. “But you already know that. You’re smarter than you let on. You think if you admit your own faults and acknowledge them to other people, that absolves you of trying to fix yourself. To get clean. To have a better life.”
She didn’t know a goddamned thing about me.
Couldn’t have been more wrong.
And yet she tried her damnedest to understand who the fuck I was when I didn’t even know the answer.
I cleared the pain from my throat but my voice turned to gravel. “You got me figured out?”
Honey nodded. “Yep.”
“And you think I’m some drug addicted, alcoholic, no good son of a bitch just waiting for a chance to ruin my life and wallow in the consequences?”
“I think you could be a good man if you tried.”
A cop-out if ever I’d heard one. “But you’re still here. Talking to me. Poisoning me. Encouraging me to better myself.”
Honey straightened, picking her words carefully as she nibbled her bottom lip. “Business is slow today. I need some entertainment, don’t I?”
“And I entertain you?”
“I’ve never met anyone like you.”
And she never would again. Honey was the ideal Daddy’s little girl, a wayward princess who’d stumbled into the wrong garage.
She was sunshine and rainbows, I was grease and dirt. She smiled and enchanted the world. I pissed on every opportunity and laughed at my own misfortune.
She was lovely, kind, and innocent.
And I was everything that would ruin he
r.
And yet, I knew why she hung around. Why she looked at me the way she did. Why she secretly hated herself for our kiss and hated even more that she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“You want me,” I said.
Honey arched an eyebrow. “Never said that.”
“Don’t have to.”
“Wishful thinking.”
“I haven’t lied to you yet, Honey.” The hot sauce’s burn dissipated, but a new flame erupted to life. This one was bound to scorch her…if she was foolish enough to let me get close. “Don’t lie to me.”
Honey laughed. “I only date men who can handle my hot sauce.”
“Not talking about a date.”
“What sort of girl do you think I am?”
The right one in the wrong place with the perfect excuse to be bad.
Why the hell did she deny it?
“You’re really gonna stand there and pretend you aren’t even curious?” I asked. “That you wouldn’t want one night with me—no rules, no strings.”
Honey smile was molten sugar—sweet and painful. “With a man like you—there’s no such thing as one night.”
At least she had some sense about her. I’d hate to take advantage of someone naïve.
I hardened. Maybe it should have shamed me, but I’d learned long ago that shame was just another excuse. A man owned his behavior—good or bad, right or wrong. Least he could do was have a little fun while damning himself.
I tossed my shirt to the ground and beckoned her closer with a curled finger. It was a trap. No good girl could resist a man naked to his waist, muscles bulging, tats staining his arms, shoulders, and back with ink. Even Honey didn’t have the strength to fight her own desires.
A pity, really. That innocent little troublemaker should have stayed locked in her truck, far away from my gaze, hunger, and raging lust.
But Honey seemed desperate to prove that she could be tough.
I admired her courage.
She brought me a third bottle of water, as if that’d save her. I took it only to grab her hand. She anticipated it, but she didn’t pull away from my grasp, even as I tugged her close to my chest.
Another mistake. Curiosity was a trap.
My words laced with a pulse-pounding heat. “You know I’m not a good guy.”
She doubted me. “I don’t think you want to be a good guy.”
