Chapter Twenty-Three
Daddy’s Home
Menace
I don’t recall how I got to the golf course, I just knew I’d never been colder in all my life. It was fucking April, but damned if it didn’t feel like the dead of winter on the river front.
“Shhhh-it,” I cursed, my teeth chattering so violently the word ended up stretched and skewed to unrecognizable proportions.
I was cross legged on a mound that let me see the many holes and the freeway beyond. That was probably why I stopped where I did. Even now, as I was thawing from the events of the night, I was confident I’d have time to escape, even if there were cameras capturing my presence.
No one would review them if I didn’t disturb anything. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there, but if they had motion detectors and alarms, I’d hear or see trouble before it found me. Well, I might, if I could take my eyes off my fucking wrists.
They were bruised along the outer edges and scuffed from where the cuffs had dug into my skin. It had only taken a few minutes. Three maybe? I it was hard to say, because that was when time fucked up for me.
I knew when she slowed the car it wasn’t good. Larissa had promised to free me, but I couldn’t trust that. The bitch was just involved in a plot to kill me. If I got out of that car, I had no way of predicting whether she would shoot me and say I was attempting an escape or keep to her word.
All I had was an opportunity, at the expense of a woman who had already proven she was willing to look the other way while I was being murdered.
I kept telling myself that, but it didn’t stop my hands from shaking, or the tears from leaking down my face.
What was wrong with me? I wasn’t a pussy. Keefe wasn’t the first person I’d ever dropped. I sighed and tried to focus on the glow of the streetlight and the headlights and the traffic.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” The question came out on a sob as Larissa’s ghost hung from my wrists, the memory of her lifeless weight in them cuffs crippling me all over again.
“Damn you.” I curled up, gripping my hair and tugging at it as I hid in the valley of my arms. “Why?... You– Stupid… stupid girl… Why did you make me do that?”
I raged at the memory of her wringing her complacent hands and watching me be propelled toward the shower room.
“Fuck!” I screamed.
I’d killed men. Some of them horrifically, but goddamn it, up until Keefe, they’d always given me a reason! I’d never hurt a woman before.
Never!
It made me sick. My thoughts raced and the tears blurred my vision. When I became aware of my surroundings again, the lights on the freeway didn’t seem so bright. I looked at the streetlight, and though it was still glowing, I thought perhaps it was gradually dimming for the morning.
“It’s gonna be daylight soon…” I looked for the moon.
It was still there, amongst the hint of stars, but nowhere near the midpoint it had been earlier. Octavia was at the cabin. I needed to get to the cabin, but there was no way I’d make it out there like this.
Even more, there wasn’t a chance in this life or the next I was going anywhere without my girl. Even if she didn’t know she was mine, or didn’t comprehend that, as it were.
Fucking Griz.
I growled and shoved him from my mind as I marched through the shadows and cut through the lawns. I didn’t realize I’d committed to the journey, until I was standing on her porch.
I raised my hand to knock but froze. She had neighbors. Would the sound wake someone? Inspire a dog to bark? Draw attention? Would she let me in?
I couldn’t risk being turned away or spotted, and every breath made my conviction stronger.
I was going to see and know her! She was mine.
The door opened silently, effortlessly, almost like it was my house. The windows permitted just enough moonlight to illuminate my path as I traveled to a kitchen and then down a hall. I placed the outside of my pinkie against the door and lent weight to it.
My heart hammered in my chest, and my pulse rang loudly in my ears.
What if Griz was lying there with her? I’d fuckin’ strangle him, too.
The door squeaked, but the woman on the bed didn’t stir. The tension slowly left my body as I accepted it was only her in the house. The room was tidy, but not overly girly. I didn’t see any makeup desk or any of that stuff. Then again, when she turned and poked that ripe, little ass of hers out, there could have been an elephant in the room, and I wouldn’t have noticed.
I gravitated toward the sight of that roundness and the black shorts that clung to it and gently shifted into bed with her. She murmured and flopped toward me so hard and fast I was sure she was awake. I froze, but she settled, curling into my chest.
She nuzzled and I hesitantly blanketed her with my arms.
Fuck, she was beautiful, and she smelled so damned good. She stirred and slowly wound onto her back again. I don’t know what the fuck possessed me, but I moved with her. My body hovered over hers, her breath teasing my lips with each exhalation.
My dick had never been harder in all my life, nor had I ever been as mesmerized. Several hours ago, I was convinced I’d die, and this was all I wanted. Sammy Nash was my only real regret.
It was surreal.
My lips tingled from contact, and I sucked in a breath, terrified it’d wake her. Then she tipped her head, pressed her lips to mine and began to subtly kiss at me.
I could tell she was asleep, but when she did it again, I couldn’t resist, I kissed her back.
Her lips were so soft, I couldn’t help but immediately deepen the kiss, crushing my lips to hers. She opened her mouth, and my delusional ass thought it was an invitation for more, until she sucked the air out of my lungs and spat it back out on a scream that that sent my soul into convulsions.
Instinct never failed me as badly as it did, when I shot a hand over her mouth to silence her. That girl started eating my ribs. Jab after savage jab landed, driving the wind and sense from me when that crack sounded. I moved my hand, and she landed one to my jaw.
I hid in the crook of her neck, and grappled for her arms, all the while pleading with her like some rookie rodeo clown, “Whoa–whoa girl!”
There wasn’t no ‘whoa’ to it, when I did manage to restrain her arms, that girl snapped her head like a fuckin’ Pitbull and latched onto my jaw and earlobe.
I jerked my face away with a scream and shoved her arms into the mattress in an effort to rattle sense into her. It didn’t work with the cushiony surface, but it did take me out of her biting range.
“Goddamn it!” I roared, before gasping, “Did you just fuckin’ Tyson me?”
“Bitch, I’m gonna De La Hoya you, and then you’re gonna feel Ali!” she roared, not slowing her fight a bit. Fuck she was strong for her size, and the stamina!
I was already battered and growing weaker by the minute. I could end it quickly. I could knock her out with one to the dome, it was a chick for Christ’s sake, but I didn’t want to strike or hurt her.
My mind spun and I cried out as her arm wrangled free and she landed another rib shot. I scrambled off of her, slapping the phone off her nightstand to buy myself time.
“Sammy Jo, stop.” I heaved. “It’s me. It’s Menace.”
I breathed easily in the silence, thinking her calm on her side of the dark room, even if I couldn’t see her. Then I heard the round chamber, and that one little sound sucked all the air out of the room.
“Whoa! Whoa!” I gasped and spoke faster than I ever had in my life, “Sammy, please. Put that shit down, come on now– Come on, girl…”
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” she growled, drawing my attention to the corner.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go, swear to God.”
“You weren’t supposed to go anywhere.” She emphasized the second to last word before reminding me, “You’re fighting a murder charge.”
“The mob tried to kill me; the guards let them. I had to–”
“What?” she whispered.
“The Irish mob has a price on my head. The guy I cut– It was the wrong target. He was an Irish guy. A mobster. Now they want me dead. Ziggy and the club are probably a breath away from that sentiment themselves, since the Irish will blow back on them. And now, the only thing I’ve been able to think about for weeks is currently holding me at gunpoint, so I guess the list of fatal possibilities is growing by the hour.”
“Nobody is holding you anywhere,” she growled, stepping into the light finally.
I was left speechless for a moment. She was beautiful ass-up and oblivious, but staring at me with those deadly eyes, with that pistol in her hand–
Goddamn.
I couldn’t help myself. She could shoot if she wanted. I slowly gravitated toward her, my heart beating quicker with every step.
“I can’t go back,” I whispered, still struck by the sight of her. “I ain’t come all this way not to taste you. Not to–”
“You already had your mouth on me.” She sounded pissed, and it made my cock twitch.
It remained in a salute that made my prison uniform uncomfortable.
I stared into her eyes, content for that to be my last vision on this Earth and slapped her wrist. I latched on and pinned her arms against the wall, letting the gun land loudly on the floor beside us.
“Darlin’, I didn’t risk spending the rest of my life in a federal cage to stop with just your lips.”
Her eyes widened at my words, momentarily losing that rage, but they were no less gorgeous.
“You can’t.” She sounded horrified, her voice so small.
Her eyes grew damp, and she jerked her gaze away, fixing it on the window, “You don’t have time for this. They’re going to return with their fuckin’ warrant. I chased them out once, but Dad said they’d come back.”
“Fuck their warrant and forget Ziggy.”
Her attention whipped back at me like she was still deliberating on whether she’d take offense to that statement.
“I’m the only authority and daddy you’re going to recognize after tonight.”
She scoffed, “What the fuck do you want, Menace?”
I stared at her, the vision of her draped over Griz’s bike suddenly rushing to the front of my mind.
“I mean it. The marshals are going to–”
“Where’s Griz?”
Her brows flinched, and her gaze trailed my face like she was looking for clues. “What the fuck is a griz?”
“Charlie Grizwald,” I dryly huffed.
When she showed no further sign of recognition than she had the first time I asked, I narrowed my gaze, “The bastard whose lime-green bike you were all over? You trying to tell me you was ass up on some brother’s bike and you don’t even know what the fuck his name was?”