“Ask your sister, she knows everything.”
“But thee’sth a girl?”
“Buddy, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that women are always right. Never question it. It’s as sure as gravity. Women are always,
I spent the next half hour playing with monster trucks in a six-year-old’s bedroom, weaving them in and out of the empty beer bottles I’d accumulated. It wasn’t at all how I’d seen this night going in my head.
Sammy was a lucky kid. I didn’t know much about the woman that Ana called “Dragon”, but I knew he was loved. Ana doted on him and big bad motherfucker Bob was reduced to a teddy bear when it came to his son. Sammy didn’t know it yet, but he’d grow up one lucky son of a bitch.
I was maybe even a little jealous. Not every kid has people willing to do anything to protect them. I just hope he grows up to respect and love his family the way a family like this should be loved.
Now, as I watch Ana and Holly spin Sammy around to some Beasts of Bourbon song that really should have been left back in the nineties, I can’t help but feel a little like I don’t belong. Ana may be a teeny, tiny little thing, but her heart’s as big as an Ox’s.
She’s been silently coaxing me over, trying to get me to dance, but I don’t dance on account of looking like a freaking chimpanzee with two left feet. Some dudes have rhythm with that sort of thing, but me? I save all my rhythm for the bedroom. Give me a blonde with soft curves and a nice rack and I can make her body dance with my hands alone. But on a dance floor? Not so much.
Ana grins like an idiot and makes several weird hand gestures to get me to come closer but I just smile and shake my head and store the memory away for a later date when I might need something pleasant to think about.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Bob asks from beside me. I wonder how long I’ve been gawking at his daughter like a total dick.
“Yeah, she is.”
“She looks just like her mum did at her age. Got the fire of the devil in her, too. Just like her mother.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see that.”
“But she’s soft underneath, breakable.”
Surprised by the reverence in his tone, I turn toward him. “I can see that about her, too.”
“Ana’s a good kid. She’s suffered through a lot of shit from the kids in this town after that Turner fuck finished with her. I would have broken both his legs already, but I’m on pretty thin ice with the Constable as it is, and I’ve got my businesses, my wife and Sammy to think about.”
“I’m kinda surprised you let that stop you.”
“You gotta know when to pick your battles, Son. Sometimes you gotta let your kids sort out their own shit.”
“Like choosing who they date?”
He guffaws, “You’re a good kid, Cade. I like having you around the shop. But not around my daughter.” Bob takes a long swig of beer. “’Course, it’s not up to me who Ana dates, and she rarely takes notice of anything her old man tells her these days. But know this: you take her down that road you’ve been on, drag her down, you hurt her in any way and I’m gonna finish you. I don’t care if I have to follow you to the back of beyond. You hurt my little girl and I’ll put you to ground quicker than you can fucking blink. Are we clear, Cade?”
“I’m not gonna hurt her, Sir. Ana’s about the best thing to happen to me in the last ten years.”
He swigs the remainder of his beer and leans in to set it down on the table behind me. “Just make sure you’re the best thing to happen to her, too. Ana doesn’t need you to be another decision she’ll regret.” He gives me a long hard look and strides away, over to his wife.
Fuck. He’s right. I’m not the best thing for Ana. I’m not even close. I’m just a kid who made some pretty fucked up decisions, who turned into a man who made even more fucked up decisions. The worst of which I did time for. It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent every waking minute since I got out working my arse off and trying to keep my tarnished record clean. It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent every second of my life since trying to be nothing like my father. I’m his flesh and blood and that alone makes me not good enough for her.
She deserves a man that went to uni to get a degree, someone who makes a killing and wears a monkey suit and comes home every night to their big fuck off house full of riches, not some dick who didn’t finish high school, works a job “the man” tells him to because his stupid-as-fuck decisions took away all his other options, and who can fit all his worldly possessions on the back of a motorbike, like me. Which then begs the question—what the fuck am I doing here?
I chug the remainder of my stubby and set it down alongside Bob’s.
“Home,” I reply without turning around, and then I laugh to myself, because the motel room where I sleep and store my overnight bag while I work is hardly a place to call home.
“Without saying goodbye?” It’s impossible to ignore the hurt in her voice. Fuck. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing I didn’t already know.”
“Which means?”
I stop walking, but stand with my back to her. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to walk away. I’m drunk and acting like a complete tool and I can’t seem to make myself stop. “Forget it, Ana. Just go back to the party.”
“No! I want to know what he said to you.”
I whirl around and pin her to the brick wall. She startles, but doesn’t try to escape when my arms pen her in on either side. Her chest is heaving, those gorgeous tits are just inches from my hands, from my mouth, and suddenly all I can think about is rolling my tongue around her nipple and teasing it with my teeth. My cock jerks inside my jeans and I’m instantly hard.
“What is this?” I demand.
“What’s what?” Obviously Ana has no idea what I’m talking about. I’m guessing she has no idea why I’m so fucking mad about it either, but I don’t care. I want an answer to this question so badly that I feel it like an anvil on my chest. I’ve never been this tied in knots over a girl before and I don’t fucking like it. Not one bit.
“This shit between us, what the fuck is going on here?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You’re drunk.”
“Answer me.” I snap.
A crease forms between her brows. Fuck she’s hot when she’s mad. “Give me your keys. I’m not letting you drive home like this.”
“I’m fine.”
“No. You’re drunk and being an arsehole,” she says, holding out her hand. “Give them to me, or I’ll go searching for them.”
“Knock yourself out,” I say leaning back to allow her to frisk me.
She’s got this determined look on her face as she plunges her hand inside my pocket. I’m not wearing boxers on account of skipping my laundry tonight and the heat from her fingers on my cock as she skims my thin pocket lining is so hot I want more. She gasps when she realises that her hand is on my dick with only a thin piece of cotton separating us. “See what you do to me, Ana?”
“Sorry!” she blurts out, all high and breathy, and yanks her hand away like the damn thing just bit her. The pink in her cheeks is so delicious it makes me want to kiss her. So I do. I push her back against the wall and lean into her, claiming her mouth with my own, my hard on pressing into the soft flesh of her stomach.
“Don’t be sorry, darlin’,” I whisper as I break away and trail kisses down her neck. “Just don’t stop touching it.”
I run my hand down the side of her hip and lift her leg until I’m pressed firmly against her and she has no other choice but to wrap her leg around my own. The space between our kisses is taken up with Ana’s breathy moans and my grunts as I thrust between her thighs.
My jeans are in the way and her dress is all crushed up between us. There’s too much material between my skin and hers, and yet neither of us seeks to move it out of the way. I just keep grinding into her as she moans my
