Parker
It was almost too easy. Hell, if I have to spend the night breaking my back on a sofa, I might as well have fun. And it was fun to see her practically melt in front of me. She needed time to cool off and think about the way she treated me.
My phone rang before I could sit back down with Isabella. Ryder. I had almost forgotten to call him. Where was my head?
“Where the hell did you go?” he asked. “I thought you were just gonna go to the diner. That was hours ago.”
“Sorry.” I went into a tiny little room with a set of bunk beds. Isabella’s room. “Things got a little outta control here.”
“Where’s ‘here’?”
I rolled my eyes, knowing the shit storm he would rain on me. “I’m at her apartment. The girl’s.”
“What? Why? She okay?”
I gave him the rundown. “She’s living like a prisoner here. But I think she’s right. This guy sounds like a seriously sick fuck. She’s scared to death to let the kid out of her sight, or else he might take her. And if she goes to work, he might follow her there.”
“Shit. How the hell do you get yourself into problems like this?”
“I’m gifted.”
“Yeah, at making your life a mess.” He didn’t sound happy—he wasn’t even jokingly giving me shit. He really meant it.
“What’s wrong? Who pissed in your cereal today?”
“I’ve been sitting here, doing a little research into this guy. This Connor asshole.”
“Yeah?” I looked to the doorway, making sure Isabella didn’t wander in. If I closed the door in a little girl’s bedroom, it would just look like I was doing something sick. “What did you find out?”
“He’s like the town’s darling, the little shit. I’m sitting here looking at a picture of him, and I wanna beat the hell out of him. He looks like the typical wife beater.”
“Funny,” I said. “People would say the same thing about you and me and everybody we know.”
“That’s different. I don’t need to hit a woman, and neither do any of us. He needs to hit a woman because he’s afraid of them.” I thought he was pretty much dead-on.
“You should hear some of the stuff she told me about him. I wish I could find him right now and kill him.”
“Yeah, well, hold on. Like I said, he’s the big-shot you told me he was. Committees, councils, boards, you name it. He’s like a whore, just spreading it around.”
“Cute,” I said, smirking. “So you’re saying I can’t touch him?”
“I didn’t say that exactly,” he said.
“So what, then? What exactly?”
“Nobody’s as clean as he pretends he is. I mean, he’s abusive, yeah. But do you think he only acts like that with women?”
“I don’t get it.”
Ryder growled. “He’s gotta have a secret out there. Something he did wrong that didn’t have to do with his marriage. He’s a finance guy. You really think he’s not hiding something? Some sort of money thing?”
My eyes went wide. If I couldn’t get him one way, I would get him another way. “I’m gonna make a few phone calls,” I said. “Meantime, I’m staying here.”
“With her?” I could almost hear the laughter he barely tried to hold back. I could imagine him sitting there at his desk, feet up, still wearing those aviators. Maybe with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.
“Yeah, with her. And her kid. We’re not talking orgy here,” I said. “I’ve gotta be a good boy.”
“And if I know you, you’ll be a good boy right up until the minute the kid goes to bed.” He laughed, then hung up.
I was still shaking my head as I dialed Mason’s number. He was one of the younger guys in the club, better with computers than an old man like Ryder. He thought he was savvy just because he knew how to use Google.
“What’s up?” It sounded like the party for Benny still went strong. For a second, I wished I were there. Nothing like a party to welcome a new member. There were always at least a dozen girls, maybe more. The girls who wanted more than anything for one of the guys to make them an old lady. They were always good for some fun at the end of the night. I could be sitting there, drinking, laughing with my friends, getting my dick sucked if I wanted to. Instead, I was standing in a little girl’s bedroom, wondering whether she slept on the top or bottom bunk.
“Sorry, man. You’re in the middle of it. I’ll call you up tomorrow.”
“No, it’s cool. Where are you? I thought you were coming back. Lisa and Hannah are here, waiting for you.”
I stirred in my pants. Two of my favorite on again, off again hookups in one room and I was at Ellie’s. I deserved it for making a decision without thinking it through first.
“Yeah, well, I can’t make it. You’ll have to take care of ’em for me. I know you’re heartbroken.” They wouldn’t mind. Mason looked like a GQ model with his blonde hair and deep blue eyes. He was the pretty boy of the club for sure, though I didn’t do too bad myself. Far from it.
“Yeah, you’re breaking my ass.” He laughed. “So what do you need? Everything cool?”
“I’m gonna need your help in the next few days,” I said. “I need you to do a little digging on somebody for me. I can tell you more about it tomorrow—you know, after you recover.”
“Yeah, well, you might not wanna call ’til the afternoon. Hannah’s eyeing me up right now.”
“Oh shit. You’re gonna need a lotta time to recover.” I laughed. “Enjoy, man. Oh, and be careful. She likes to stick a finger up a guy’s ass when she’s sucking him off. I don’t know where she got that idea from. It was a surprise the first time she tried it with me. I almost kneed her in the face, I was so shocked.”
“How do you know I don’t like that?”
I was laughing when I hung up. Mason was a whiz with computers. He knew how to find things when nobody else would know how to start. I wanted to go after Ryder’s idea. He was right—Connor was probably just as much of an asshole in business as he was in the rest of his life. Men like him didn’t pick and choose where to be a dick. They were just dicks in general.
Careful, Connor. You think you can get away with ruining people’s lives. Not for long.
# # #
I wondered what Ellie would think if I had a new couch rush delivered to her house the next day.
First of all, my feet hung over the end. They didn’t build it for tall men like me. I thought all couches should be built for men of all sizes to fit on, for when their women made them sleep in the living room. It only made sense. I wondered if I could cash in on that idea if I ever decided to stop riding and go legit.
Then there were the lumps. And the sagging. I considered saying fuck the sofa and trying the floor instead. I was practically on the floor already. It didn’t matter.
I sighed, wishing I could fall asleep instead of having stupid thoughts. And I could have been sleeping it off with two gorgeous, curvy, sexy women. Instead, I suffered endless hours on a piece of shit sofa in a piece of shit apartment that reminded me way more of my childhood home than I liked to admit.
And there was Ellie, only a room away. I wondered what she wore to bed. I wondered if she was asleep. I wondered if her bed was any more comfortable than her sofa. Maybe that was why she looked so tired all the time.
I wanted to be in there with her. Not just because anything would have been better than the piece of shit I was trying to sleep on, either. I was tired of playing games with her. When I saw what I wanted, I took it. I wanted her. What was stopping me? Maybe I didn’t want to take advantage of somebody who was already so hurt. It would’ve felt like stealing from her.
I heard a noise and jumped up like somebody set fire to me. Was it Connor? Did he finally show up? I couldn’t wait to make him pay. I almost hoped it was him.
It wasn’t.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think I would wake you up,” Ellie whispered. All I could see in the shadows were the outlines of her curvy little body. She wore a tight top and stretch pants. I saw so much, but not nearly enough. I wanted to touch her, feel those curves.
I shook myself a little. “You didn’t wake me. I wasn’t sleeping.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It has to be so uncomfortable there.”
“Yeah, well, it was my idea.”
“I have extra quilts and things, if you’d rather make up a bed on the floor.”
“Eh, maybe I’ll send one of my guys out for an air mattress or something. No big deal.” I followed her into the kitchen. She flipped the light switch, which let me see even more of her. I wished she hadn’t, almost, because actually seeing how much of her shoulders, arms and chest were bare was too much. The tank was a little too short, too, so a strip of her stomach was visible, too. I balled my fists in my pockets and willed myself to stay soft so she wouldn’t know what I was thinking. I looked at Isabella’s drawings on the fridge instead of staring at her.
“How many nights do you think it will be?” she asked. I heard rather than saw her fill a glass of water at the sink.
“I don’t know. As many as it takes.” How many nights would I be able to control myself? I hadn’t counted on her being so fucking hot. Most women didn’t look sexy when they went to bed unless they meant to. I didn’t think she was the kind of girl who would mean to. She wanted me far away from her. She wasn’t the type to seduce me.
“You’re pretty stubborn, huh?” I heard the smile in her voice, and turned around. She leaned against the counter, arms folded. I groaned inside, wondering if she would think it was weird if I asked her to uncross her arms. All she did was push her tits up and out, like she presented them to me. What man in his right mind wouldn’t want to grope them, test their weight, squeeze them? My willpower faded fast.
“Yeah. Stubborn and fucking insane,” I muttered.
“What’s that mean?”
I couldn’t help myself. She was so gorgeous and standing right there. Every instinct screamed at me to take her. She had to be mine.
I went to her without saying a word, taking her waist in my hands. She flinched, just a little. But she didn’t ask me to get my hands off her.
We stood there like that for what felt like forever. Her fast, sharp breathing made her chest go up and down in time. Her lips, those sweet, firm lips I still tasted after our kiss, parted so she could breathe easier. Her breath was hot, a little ragged. She wanted me the way I wanted her. Had she come out just to wake me up? It didn’t matter. We were there in the moment. The moment was everything.
I leaned in, pressing my body to hers. She shivered, and that shiver sent my cock roaring to life. She was so small, fragile, like she would break under my hands.
I searched her eyes. Did she want it? Did she really? Was I a late rebound, or just somebody to keep her safe? Was she using me? I realized I didn’t care. If she used me, she used me. I would be using her, too, in my way. I would take her the way I had wanted to from the moment I saw her at the diner. I would make her scream my name.
She nodded, then whispered, “Take me to bed, Parker.”