Road Rage Daddy

Chapter 1

Harley

Oh god, I’m going to die! I scream my apology as the driver of the eighteen-wheeler, whose lane I drifted into when my car lost power steering on a curve, swerves to avoid crushing my car like an empty soda can. Their horn is so loud that I nearly jump out of my skin, BERENSON TRUCKING painted in big letters on the side blurring into a red streak as they speed past.

“Fuuuuuuuck!” I scream as I wrench the wheel as hard as I can to steer the car into the right lane to take the exit so I can get off this death trap, aka Interstate 10. It’s like a twenty-lane drag race within Houston city limits, finally narrowing an hour outside, but no less dangerous. I hyperventilated and sweated the whole way through. Literally sweated my ass off since my A/C gave out hours ago, and I’ve had to drive with the windows down, which, by the way, does jack shit with it being hot enough to cook an egg on the dashboard in five minutes flat.

I grab the wheel and pull as hard as I can again, trying to regain control so I don’t go careening off the embankment, cutting off a black super-duty pickup truck, which also has to slam on its brakes and swerve. I was beyond delusional to think I could learn how to drive a manual easy-peasy when I bought it with the last of my cash a week ago from a friend of a friend after my old automatic finally died and had to be replaced. This car may as well be a Boeing 737, for all I know, as the engine screams as loud as me when I try to downshift. I’m learning the hard way that you get what you pay for .

The engine sputters, the car jerking forward before it stalls for good as the exit ramp descends the hill. The super-duty is on my tail, and for one terrifying moment, I think they’re going to rear-end me, forcing me off the road, which, you know what? Might not be so bad. At least I’d be put out of my misery and wouldn’t have to go back to school at the end of summer. Having failed my mission of finding a well-off husband before running out of funds and scholarships, I won’t be able to afford to start my junior year of college anyway.

The only reason I’m headed back home for the first time in two years is to beg my older brother, Luther, and his wife, Marsha, for some kind of help—either with tuition, if they can spare it, or by living with them since I can’t go back to the dorms if I’m not enrolled in school. Both scenarios make me want to crawl into a hole and die since Marsha hates me for whatever reason. Even if she didn’t, my brother has always been indifferent to me, so I have little hope. The only plus side is I’ll be able to spend more time with my niece and nephews—the bright, shining stars of our family. The cuddles will be worth the heartache.

The ramp’s decline is the only thing that keeps me moving forward. There’s nothing else around save for a small parking lot with an abandoned barn-turned-ice house thirty feet from the exit. No gas stations or fast food joints. Just nothing but miles of trees and weeds and dust. So much dust in this godforsaken swamp-butt-inducing weather I thought I had left for good after graduating high school.

My arms shake with the strain and eventually give out, so instead of being able to wrench the wheel sideways again to safely steer the car on the feeder road that runs parallel to I-10, I run headlong over the curb and stretch of dirt that separates the ice house’s parking lot from the road. This car was not built for off-roading, and the front and back ends bounce and bottom out over the pits in the ground until I reach the busted concrete of the lot. I slam on the brakes, causing the car to skid and kick up a plume of dust behind me, finally coming to a lurching stop mere feet from crashing into a dead tree to the side of the building.

I made it. I’m alive. I’m —

The super-duty swings around and comes to a screeching halt next to my car, its nose pointed back toward the road. I scream and slap my hands to my face like I’m in some kind of low-budget horror film. You know the one. The kind where the ditzy girl always dies first because she’s too dumb to do anything else but freeze and scream hysterically. I slide my hands up to fist my wind-tangled light brown hair that’s threatening to choke me. It doesn’t even cross my mind to shift to neutral and try to restart the car since I can’t drive for shit anyway.

The truck’s driver’s side door is thrown open, and though I don’t stop screaming, I find the loose handle next to me and try to roll the window up. But again, my arms are nothing but limp noodles, and I’m not fast enough. From out of the dust cloud appears a thick, deeply tanned arm that reaches in through my window, pops the stupid manual lock up, and whips my car door open.

“You got a goddamn death wish, missy?” The pissed-off hulking cowboy yells right in my face with his features screwed up like he’s point-two seconds away from murdering me with his utterly massive bare hands. He reaches in, yanks the keys out of my ignition, then unbuckles my seat belt.

I haven’t stopped screaming, and I don’t think to do so until he yells, “Shut your mouth! You’re going to blow out my eardrums the same way you damn near blew out my truck.”

My jaw automatically snaps closed, and I whimper, shaking in my dollar-store thin sneakers as I assess the towering man. He’s wearing a pressed black button-down tucked into what has to be the starchiest of starched dark blue jeans that end in big, heavy black cowboy boots.

The terror hasn’t receded yet, but that doesn’t stop my brain from appreciating how sexy he is with his wide mouth atop a clean-shaven strong jaw, mahogany brown eyes, and the dark flop of hair he reveals when he takes his cowboy hat off. He’s rugged, pissed off, perfection.

“Holy shit, you’re the hottest man I’ve ever seen in real life,” I blurt with a scratchy throat. “You could be a model.”

Dumb. So fucking dumb.

I’m going to die.

He blinks while his jaw drops open momentarily. “Harley?”

That deep, gritty voice…that little scar on the edge of his chin where his puppy had accidentally nipped him too hard while play fighting when he was a kid…“Emit?”

I haven’t seen my brother’s former best friend in seven years. Though I shouldn’t have, since he and my brother are ten years older than me, I had a major crush on him. Back when he was kind of on the skinny side, nowhere near as stacked as he is now. Back when he treated me more like a sister than my own brother did. Back before Marsha, his ex-girlfriend, left him for Luther, and the only person who was ever kind to me was ripped out of my life.

But now, with his muscles straining his sleeves, I almost can’t believe he’s the same person. “Wow, Emit. When did you start working out?” I even reach out and squeeze his hard bicep, my eyes fluttering. “I bet Marsha’s pissed. Have you seen Luther recently? He let himself go. Like food crumbs in his beard and on his beer belly. I bet that bitch would leave him in a heartbeat if she got a look at the way your jeans hug your big, sexy thighs.”

See, I have this really awful flaw in which I say whatever comes to mind. There’s not one single iota of a filter between my brain and my mouth, and it’s always getting me into trouble. Like now, when Emit’s eyes turn molten, and he clenches his jaw.

Emit hauls me up with his hands fisted in the front of my white T-shirt and pushes my back against the car. “What is wrong with you, Harley? Why would you call a man who’s screaming right in your face ‘sexy’? Who does that?” He shakes me a little like a rag doll, and his manhandling is sexy in an I-don’t-value-my-life kind of way. Another flaw.

I slap his arms. “I’m sorry! It’s just slipped out! But I mean, have you seen yourself? Walking, talking sex on boots.”

Emit’s expression swings from frustration to disbelief, and he shakes me again, my knees knocking together. Apparently, his looks aren’t the only thing that’s changed. The Emit of old would never have grabbed and shaken me around like this.

I rake my nails down his arms since the slapping isn’t working. “Ow! Let go—you’re hurting me!”

Something in him snaps, and he yanks me away from the car into a hug tight enough to crack my ribs, my tiptoes barely touching the ground.

I scream into his chest, fighting to breathe. “Please don’t kill me!”

He tightens his arms, growling into my ear, “If one of us is going to die, it won’t be because of me. Driving like a lunatic is going to get you killed, and you’re gonna take out half the people on the road with you.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat over and over, getting quieter each time as the adrenaline from my near-death experience leads to full-body tremors. I think I’m in shock. I nearly crumple to the ground when Emit finally sets me back on my feet.

The cowboy catches me around the waist before dropping me sideways on my driver’s seat. He pinches the stiff material of his jeans so he can crouch, snaps his fingers, then holds his palm up. “Give me your phone.”

I lean away from this new, mean Emit, lifting my legs to swing them into the car. “Why do you want my phone?”

He catches my calves and holds my feet to the ground. “I’m calling your parents. Where is it?”

I know I look young. I am young, but not young enough to still live with my parents, which I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. When Luther moved out, he abandoned me to our shitty parents, who partied hard with their creepy “friends” who would stare at me with evil in their eyes. They’ve been in and out of jail on various misdemeanors since I graduated high school, and I have no idea where they are now.

“You can’t call my parents!”

“I sure as shit can. Gonna tell your daddy to come get ahold of his daughter and spank your ass for being so irresponsible.” The fact that he thinks either of my parents would care about my safety is laughable. If Emit is so concerned about me, he would never want to get them involved. “Now, give me your damn phone.”

I hiss through clenched teeth, “I don’t have a phone, Emit! Now, back off!”

He shakes his head. “Bullshit,” he says. “Everyone has a phone nowadays.”

I push his shoulders, fighting to pull my legs out of his tight grasp. “Well, I don’t! I sold it for gas money.”

Emit doesn’t believe me, and his eyes dart over my shoulder. Following his gaze, I find my small purse upended on the passenger side seat, my wallet, lip gloss, and other bits spilled out among the detritus on the floorboard. He pushes me on my back as he leans over me to search for my phone, coming up empty but snagging my sparkly silver wallet.

“Hey! What are you doing? Give that back,” I yell when he snaps it open and searches for my driver’s license.

He shoves my license back inside my wallet, and instead of handing it to me, he pushes it into his back pocket. “Salt Lake City address.” He narrows his eyes. “So that’s where you ran off to. Why Utah?”

“I was looking for a Mrs. Degree,” I blurt, my mouth running away again before my brain can tell it to stop, supremely embarrassed to have spilled my secret.

“What the hell is a ‘Mrs. Degree’?”

“I want a husband. A family,” I yell, tears gathering in my eyes with humiliation. “I mean, none of your business!”

Emit rears back slightly. “A husband? You’re only twenty years old. Why in the hell—” He sighs and impatiently gestures with his hand. “Never mind. Phone. Now.”

I fist my hands in my hair when what I want to do is strangle his neck. “I told you, I don’t have one, asshole!”

He curls his upper lip with a low growl, then backs out of the car. He yanks me up like a toddler by my arms and maneuvers me belly-side down into the backseat on top of my garbage bags of clothes, which I’m using in lieu of luggage since I can’t afford any. I shudder when Emit drapes himself over me while he searches the back of my car, his hips unintentionally thrusting against my ass.

Coming up empty again and even more pissed off, Emit drags me out and across the dirt, then spins me around to press my front against the frame of his truck. With one hand between my shoulder blades, he kicks my feet apart and starts patting me down like a criminal. I’d forgotten he and Luther had gone through the Police Academy together, though I don’t know if Emit dropped out like Luther did.

“Where is it?” he snaps, patting the front and back pockets of my jeans, then running one hand down my right side, checking both ankles, then up my other side.

I squeal and try to fight him off when he slides a hand under my shirt and shoves the right side of my bra up to grope my bare breast. I shiver despite the heat. “Oh my god, what are you doing?!” Who knew the first man to touch me so intimately would be freaking Emit giving me an illegal strip search on the side of the road after I nearly killed the both of us?

“Sometimes women hide things in their bras,” he grunts, switching to the other breast, his palm rough and hot.

“There’s no way this is how you’re supposed to search people! I demand you let me go, or I’m going to call your boss and report you!”

“Oh, you’re going to report me?” He laughs, squeezing my breast, his voice hard and unrecognizable from the one he used with me when I was a kid. “So you do have a phone. Tell me where it is.”

I snarl to cut off a moan when he pinches my nipple, a sharp bite of unexpected pleasure. He’s nothing but a series of grunts and grumbles about how girls who lie need a firm hand to keep them on the right track as he flattens his chest to my back. My heart beats wildly, as scared now as when I nearly crashed on the interstate when he drops his hands to the waistband of my jeans and pops open my button, then rips down my zipper.

“Oh god, oh god, stop! Don’t do this!” I brace my hands on the truck and try to push away from it with all my strength, but he has me pinned.

“Calm down! If you’d been a good girl and told me where it was, I wouldn’t have to search you! And since it’s not in your bra, I have to check…” Emit trails off, and I cry out, dropping my forehead against the hot metal of his truck when his right hand delves into my panties. He’s breathing heavily against me, his arm rigid with his hand frozen in place, cupping me like a possessive lover.

Meanwhile, I’m shaking and lightheaded after surviving on nothing but energy drinks to keep me going for far too long, and I’ve got nothing left in the tank to cope with what’s happening—hitting my life’s rock bottom when I didn’t know it could go any lower.

Something in Emit’s manner changes when he sets his left hand on my hip, digging his fingertips in to hold me in place even though I haven’t moved a muscle. His voice is bizarrely soft when he says the most unbelievably ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard: “Sometimes women hide things in other places they shouldn’t.” He strokes his middle finger between my pussy lips, parting them. “Deep inside where they think no one will find them.” I bite my lip, screwing my eyes shut when he moves his hand lower until he can slip the tip of his middle finger inside me. “Where their bodies were designed to stretch to fit…all kinds of things.”

I tremble as his finger explores me, my core clenching around his forced intrusion.

Emit presses his pelvis against my lower back, propping his chin on my shoulder so that he’s speaking low in my ear when he says, “Is this where you’re hiding it, Harley?” He pushes his finger as deep as it will go with my clothes limiting his access. “Did you lube up and stretch yourself so you could hide your phone in here? Or are you hiding something else?”

I finally find my voice. “This is fucking crazy! I’m not hiding anything, much less a cell phone in my vagina !”

He drops his forehead to the metal beside mine and whispers, “I don’t believe you.”

I turn my head, my cheek flat to the frame, and yell, “It doesn’t matter how hot you are—you’re fucking psychotic! Now I know why Marsha left you!”