Presumptuous. Ill mannered. Fuck, if her condescension doesn’t turn me on more. If that’s possible. I’ve always loved a challenge.
Give me something someone says is impossible, and I’ll show you something that’s not.
I run my hand down my beard. She’s tough, I get it, but under that tough shield there’s a sadness in her eyes and I want to know what it’s about, but even more, I want to be the one to make it go away. Looking at her, sitting there kicking the ground, I want to rip open my chest and let her see what’s in my heart. Something I didn’t know was possible until I saw her driving through town two years ago.
She’s why I decided this would be home. I’d been friendly with the Valor bunch before I got sent up to Lennon, but never got patched in until after I came back. They’re my family now, along with my parents who are both still kicking it old-school, living like nomads in their Airstream as they visit every naturist camp in every town and city where the temperature is over seventy-five.
There’s an uncertainty in her eyes as she looks at me and I know I’m not Prince Charming. My jaw is crooked, I’m thick, tatted, I wear this black knit cap even when it’s a hundred degrees, and when I do string my words together in fair order, my voice is a rough baritone, broken and thick, the result of a lead pipe to my throat I took when I was twenty.
I want to reassure her, to tell her I’ve been watching her. That I’ve protected her every time I saw a potential threat or even a perceived threat. But that would only scare her more, I’m sure. I’m not from her world, just like she said, but somehow all my patience has turned into urgent fury and now is the time to spin what shouldn’t be into what will be, starting right now.
I see the headlights pull off the side of the road as the sun gives way into the horizon. The pink and orange of its last fight of the day flicker off Annie’s ripe cheeks and I’m drawn to the defiance in her eyes.
“Hey, hey.” Rodney hops out of the driver’s side of the tow truck and walks back towards us. “Someone called for a knight in shining armor?” He chuckles but it’s not funny.
I jerk my head toward the passenger door, then at Annie. “Get your stuff. He’ll hook you up, take your car back to the shop.”
“I’m not leaving with you. I’m staying with my car.”
“Hook it up,” I grunt toward Rodney as I walk to the side of her car and open the door, grabbing her purse, a backpack, an insulated lunch bag and her cell phone which is sitting on the passenger seat, tucking the phone into the inside pocket of my vest.
“Look, Charles.” She snarls my name like it offends her, but I don’t care. Hearing her say it for the first time makes me think of how she would say it when I was on top of her. “Unless you have a gun or a court order, I’m not going with you. This is getting boring, repeating myself.”
Rodney steps in helping a brother out. “Sorry, ma’am, can’t let you ride with me. He’s the boss. If he says no customers in the truck, that’s no customers in the truck.”
I give Rodney an approving sniff, then look at Annie, raising my eyebrows as I stuff everything but her backpack into my saddle bags.
Rodney gives her a quick glance up and down, and he’s probably my best friend in the world, and fuck it I know she’s a work of art, but his eyes on her make me want to break his jaw. I swing the backpack onto my shoulders and walk up to Rodney, my chest bumping his.
“Watch what you’re looking at,” I growl as Annie comes up beside me, tugging on the strap of the backpack, and the simple touch distracts me and makes the ache in my balls pulse.
“I’ll carry this.” She takes the pack and slips her arms through the straps. “This is stupid. Let’s just go. I don’t care who takes me home.” Her voice sounds defeated but the way my blood turned hot at the brush of her fingers makes the lust I’ve felt for two years burn through me in a relentless blaze.
She’s not happy about the situation, but I don’t care. She’s on the back of my bike as Rodney hooks up her Mustang and I rev the engine as her arms wrap around my waist.
The softness of her tits against my back reminds me of how long it’s been since I’ve been with a woman. I was in prison four years, I’ve been here two, and it was probably a year or more before I went inside that I had even a fleeting interest in the opposite sex.
Love’s never been on my radar. Too many miles, too many clubs, too many fights over pussy. But, Annie’s different. I’d wage war on my own for her. I know that already, and I know when I do get between her legs, I’m damn sure I’m not going to be gentle.
I see the humor and question in Rodney’s eyes as I pull past him and I hate myself for snapping at him, wanting to hurt my
