Chapter Five

Cullen

Bullshit.

Bull fucking shit.

I sat there on my stool at The Wall, listening to the other Cobras drone on about their lives, trying to get into it. By then I’d had a six-pack and a few shots of Jack, but I was still a long way from being numbed to what had happened to me the night before.

She left me because she was pregnant and thought I was a fuck-up who’d fuck up her kid.

And yeah, she was probably right.

I was a fuck-up, family-wise, at least. Best left alone in the family department. Unlike my father, I knew it. I didn’t profess to be a good dad and then go force my six-year old son to take a hit from my bong. I didn’t promise to take my eight-year old kid to the beach and then get too sloppy drunk to do it. I didn’t bring my eleven-year old kid to a poolside orgy so he could get his first blowjob.

No. That was my father.

As much as I cursed the DNA I’d gotten from him, I still had it inside me. I didn’t trust myself, and no one else should’ve trusted me, either.

Drake sat next to me at the bar, hitting on a blonde with triple D tits, feeding her shots, and including me in the rounds he bought. So I kept knocking them back, one after the other, not saying much of anything.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Drake said. “You’re being quiet. Is this a Fury thing?”

I shook my head, checked my phone. It was after eleven, so a good chance that my guests would be asleep. After she got done reaming me out about the kid not having anything to eat, I showed her this app where she could order anything she wanted and have it delivered. She’d placed the first order to the tune of $300.

I had no fucking clue how something that small could be that expensive.

I pushed off the bar and clapped Drake on the back. “You know, I’m gonna go home.”

He gave me a bleary, heavy-lidded drunken gaze. Drake, our lightweight. “What? It’s too early dude. You need to stay.”

I shook my head, grabbed my helmet, and as I did, was cornered by a red-haired wet dream in a leather mini-skirt. “You’re not leaving, are you Cullen?” she asked in a sultry voice that tugged at my cock.

She knew me, but I had no fucking idea if I’d ever seen her before. “Not unless I get to leave with you.”

It didn’t take long before she was on the back of my bike, and we were speeding toward my house. It wasn’t my style to bring girls home from the bar; I usually went to their house. When they knew where I lived, they tended to show up at the wrong time.

But I didn’t care about that, now.

The house was dark when I got there. I pulled the motorcycle into the garage. The girl was all over me the second I stepped off the bike. The shots were starting to get to me. She wrapped her arms around me as I reached for the door to the house. “Hey, baby,” I said, trying to disarm the alarm. “Give me a second.”

I threw open the door to the house and she kissed me, wrapping her arms and legs around me. I walked her toward the living room, slowly unhooking her bra, until I remembered the furniture was all under tarps. Switching directions, I took her to the kitchen, where I sat her on top of the center island.

That’s when I heard something.

A baby cried, so loud it sounded like it was coming from the same room.

I stopped. Removed my face from the girl’s tits. Looked around.

“Don’t mind me!” a voice sing-songed, as I saw her tear by me, a strawberry-blonde streak, on the way to the staircase.

Fuck my life.

“Hey!” I shouted after her.

“Who was that?” the girl asked, her eyes searching in the dark. “Was that a kid?”

I shook my head. “No one,” I said, leaning in for a kiss. “Now where were we?”

She pulled away. “You’re living with a girl? And a baby? Janice said you lived alone up here.”

“Janice? Who the fuck is Janice? And that’s no one. She’s just staying for—”

Her squawk of a voice split my eardrums. “Oh, my God, Cullen. Is that your kid?”

She looked like she was going to laugh at me. I started to shake my head, as once again, my dick shriveled in my pants. Way to fucking ruin the mood.

I pushed away from her and vised my head in my hands. “Just get the fuck out?” I said, my voice just a breath.

Her eyes narrowed.

I reached for my phone. “I’ll get you an Uber.”

She reached for her purse. “No thanks, I’ll walk,” she said, a bitchy smirk on her face. “Can’t wait to tell everyone that Cullen is a daddy. You’ll make a great father, Cullen. Poor kid is gonna be so fucked up.”

She didn’t have to tell me that. I shrugged and plunged my hands into my jeans. “Just leave.”

She opened the door and ran outside, laughing. “You’re such a loser, Cullen.”

I went to the center island and splayed my hands on it, staring at nothing for a long while. Then I walked to the foyer and started to climb the stairs up to my bedroom.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I sensed her presence at the end of the hallway, in the darkness.

I turned and saw her standing there, in a nightshirt, legs bare, her hair mussed and on her shoulders.

There was only one reason I’d brought that woman home to my house tonight.

Because I couldn’t get Grace out of my head.

As long as she was here, I was too fucked up to do anything but think about her. Her pretty lips. Her perfect tits. The way she talked back to me with her smart mouth. The way she smelled. All of it, just down the fucking hall.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Ella woke up and was thirsty so I’d just gone down to—”

“Stop,” I barked, reaching for the door handle. “I don’t fucking care. I think I’m done with bitches for the night.”

“I really am, Cullen,” she said, sounding sincere. “I’m trying to stay out of your way. I didn’t know that you’d be home this early.”

I scowled at her. “You didn’t know that I’d be home in my own house?”

“No. I thought you’d be out later, and Ella was—”

“Grace. I. Don’t. Care,” I bit out, pushing away from the door and stalking toward her. “You came back here because you needed money and a roof over your head. Don’t expect anything else, because it’s not happening.”

“Have I asked for anything else?” she said, crossing her arms over her middle. For the first time I realized she was wearing just a nothing piece of t-shirt, all ripped and destroyed. Might’ve been one of mine. Her nipples were poking through the fabric. Hard.

Something in me must’ve snapped. I kept a close watch on my emotions, but only one woman could send them on a rollercoaster. And here she was.

I balled my fists and came up real close to her. “Not with your mouth,” I said, dragging my eyes from hers, down to her hard nipples. I cupped one of her tits roughly through her shirt, to her surprise, but she didn’t flinch away. I flicked the pad of my thumb over the nipple, making it harder yet. “With these.”

She looked up at me, her breathing a deep rasp. “It’d be so easy for you, you know,” she murmured.

I drank in those liquid crystal eyes, framed in thick, feathery lashes. “What?”

“To be the man your father never was.”

I caged her between my forearms and said, “Not tonight. Don’t fucking tell me what to do in my own goddamn house.”

Then I bowed my head down and captured her mouth with mine. I kissed her savagely, brutally, angrily. Teeth and tongue. Biting and growling. I ground her against the wall as I clenched her tit in my hand. She let out a moan as I remembered just how good we were together. Just how fucking responsive she was. Our bodies fell in complete sync like cogs in a well-oiled machine.

The memory was my undoing, along with her, wrapping her hands around my neck, letting out a desperate sigh. She kissed deeper. Harder. All in.

When I pulled back, meeting her gaze, I realized she was shivering. “When was the last time you came?”

She gave me a stunned look, as if I was speaking another language. “I don’t…”

“Wrong. It’s now.”

I flattened my body against hers, pinning her to the wall, feeling the soft curves of her. I ran my mouth relentlessly to her cheek, to her ear, down to her neck, and to her neckline. I groaned as I tasted her. I’d never tasted anything as good.

Breathless, she arched against me, clawing at my back. She let out a wanton little whimper, asking me to stop and begging me to keep going in the same breath as I reached under her t-shirt, wrenched a knee between her legs and spread her thighs.

She gasped as my fingers forced their way between her legs.

“That’s it,” I whispered on a hiss, rocking steadily against her. Watching her face because I wanted to see her come undone. I deserved that little bit of satisfaction, after what she’d done to me. I wanted to rip her apart the way she’d devoured me.

Her hands twisted in my hair, she breathed out little words, half formed. Pleading for more. My fingers climbed higher and higher.

My thumb eased against her panties. I rubbed the pad of my thumb back and forth over the silken fabric as I cupped her chin in the palm of my hand, hardly able to believe she was here, in front of me, after all this time. Grace. Fucking Grace.

I didn’t want to fucking think. I just wanted to feel her under my hands, my mouth again.

I buried my face in her cleavage, rubbing my stubble against petal-soft skin as I worked the shirt up and kissed her perfect tits. I edged my finger under her panties and rubbed her clit. Then, no holds barred, I drove my fingers inside her. Pumping her hard, in and out, back and forth.

Her head dropped to my shoulder. Her mouth opened. Her breath came faster, in gasps.

She cried out as our shadows rocked back and forth on the wall, and her pussy clenched around my hand. Easy. She was so fucking easy to please. I stayed with her, milking her orgasm as she panted against me. It brought me right back to my sister’s shit basement, where we’d fuck all night long, insatiably, bringing each other to orgasm after orgasm like animals in heat.

When I removed my hand and she straightened, she looked up at me, a stunned expression on her face, as I licked my fingers clean, tasting her. She was as good as I remembered, making me remember just what it was like to be an addict.

I’d inherited my addictive personality from my dad. He was addicted to it all: drugs, sex, alcohol, gambling. I’d flirted with all of those things, but then I’d stumbled upon the one habit that was more impossible to break than all of them combined.

This woman.

Grace.

And now, just like an addict, I was right back in the throes.

“Fuck,” I muttered. I pushed off the wall, feeling that surge of adrenaline that comes before losing all control.

She blinked and said my name, hesitantly, as I lowered her shirt into place.

I turned and stormed into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me.

And for the second night in a row, I jacked off in the shower, thinking of her, and only her, as I came against the tile wall.