Prologue #2
Our eyes lock again, and the urge to pull her into my fucking arms takes over, but before I can, she takes a step back and whispers, “Sorry…” just as an arm wraps around her waist that has me clenching my jaw and lock eyes with the jackass’s light blue ones that look at me with caution as he fucking should but also anger.
“Let's go, Summer,” the fucker snaps, not looking at her, and the beauty, Summer, looks down as she allows him to guide her towards the door, and I fist my hands.
“Brother?” Dirty questions as he steps next to me, and I try to control my breathing.
She has a boyfriend, one who fucking brought her to a strip club, but still has a boyfriend.
I bite down on my bottom lip, my body trembling a little.
“Anchor?” Dirty tries again, and I shake my head and growl, “I’m out,” as I spin around and storm out of the club.
She may have a fucking boyfriend, but I don’t give a shit. That connection, that two fucking minute connection, was enough for me to know – she’s fucking mine!
Summer – Twenty-One
I shake my head as I watch two grown ass men brawl over two dancers. While the two dancers that actually started a fight over said men pull each other’s hair, screeching at the top of their lungs like banshees, while a crowd cheers them on like it’s part of their show.
I mean, the women are half naked and covered in sweat, so…
I’m not really sure what they are all fighting about. If I’m honest, I wasn’t really paying attention, too busy deciding whether to just leave without saying a word or stay and wait like an idiot.
God, I feel like a doormat, and it’s things like this that put me off settling down with anyone.
I’ve been here for an hour, a whole fricking hour wasted instead of being at home working on my school work all because my so called boyfriend who my egg donor basically forced me to date sat and enjoyed women grinding down on his dick not giving a crap that I was here.
I mean, come on, he called me to pick him up like a prick, claiming it’s what ‘good girlfriends’ do but as soon as he saw me he told me to fricking wait at the bar because apparently he wasn’t ready to leave, too happy with the breasts swinging in his face.
What a catch, huh?
I shake my head. I don’t even feel jealous which says a lot, only annoyed that my time is being wasted and right now time is precious, especially for me.
I’m currently in year three of four doing my bachelor’s before I go on to do my master’s in social work. This year it is kicking my ass. I need all the extra study time I can get, which means not being here, of all places.
I sigh as I gently spin my bottle of water and watch the mayhem in the room. The guy behind the counter, who was looking at me a few times, probably thinking the worst of me, is scrambling to get past the roaring crowd to a hallway where I’m guessing his boss is.
My eyes go to Gabriel, who is, yep, still getting a lap dance, and I groan, dropping my head slightly. I don’t even know why my egg donor forced me to date Gabriel to begin with. She barely knows me as it is, and suddenly this so-called twenty-two-year-old was right up my street when I didn’t date.
Yeah, so much up my street that I’m currently sitting at the bar in a strip club while a fight carries on, and my boyfriend is enjoying the girl doing some weird upside-down thing on a pole while another grinds on his dick.
I gently nibble my bottom lip as I eye the exit.
Growing up, it was just my dad and me, no one else. I didn’t even know I had a mama out there. I never asked about her until suddenly, when I was fourteen, she showed up at my school and claimed the police had called her to take legal custody of me.
I didn’t believe her, told her I wanted nothing to do with her until Chief Mayers walked out of the principal's office with a sorrowful look on his face.
My dad had a heart attack and died at the scene at work.
My hero, my best friend who left me everything —putting the house, his money, his cars, all of it in my name and keeping it with the lawyer until I wanted to access it — was gone and I was stuck with a woman who didn’t want me, and the only reason she agreed was that she knew Dad had saved a lot of money.
He didn’t date, refused to marry, and managed to have a successful career.
He owned the house I live in, a house she wanted access to, but the lawyer claimed it wasn’t to be lived in until I turned eighteen, like Dad knew I would end up being in her care if he died with his parents now gone, which pissed Amber off.
A two-bed apartment was rented out using funds dad had set aside for us, including enough money to see us through that the lawyer took control over and Amber had to have proof and receipts of everything she bought, right down to the groceries until I turned eighteen and had access to my inheritance that my dad’s lawyer keeps locked up tight, even now.
Dad had thought of everything as a just-in-case scenario to the point that the funds for Amber dried up on my eighteenth birthday, and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t access any of it.
She has tried to move into the house a few times since I left the apartment, which she is now forced to pay for, but the will states it’s forbidden, and each time she tries to contest it, Judge Jones overrules her.
Only I can live there, and whatever family I may have, even if I were to die, none of it goes to Amber, much to her dismay.
Maybe that is why she’s pushing Gabriel on me?
We’ve been dating for three months, and honestly, there isn’t a spark. Even now, I’m watching him get off by a lap dance, and I feel nothing but irritation that I’m here.
Two women in front of me, not employees of the strip club, begin to argue, and I roll my eyes when they start hitting each other. I sigh, and I look towards where Gabriel is sitting, laughing and enjoying the show while I waste my fricking time and irritation consumes me.
Okay, enough is enough.
I stand, throwing ten bucks on the bar because, to be fair, I did loiter, though it wasn’t really my fault, and I quickly dodge the cat fight and head over to Gabriel.
His blue eyes meet mine, and irritation shines back at me, which just makes me snort.
Clearly, he doesn’t actually like me, so maybe he should walk away from the relationship because after tonight, I know I will be.
I don’t even know why he's with me to begin with.
“Okay, it’s been an hour, I have work to finish, you can either come now or get your buddy there to drop you off, I have school tomorrow,” I state firmly while the woman on his lap moans and swivels her hips faster on his crotch, and his jaw ticks as his friends laugh at his predicament.
“We’ll go when I say I’m ready to fucking go,” he growls like a jackass.
Seriously, he begged me to pick him up, only to sit and wait while he got lap dance after lap dance, not caring that I was here.
The guy is on crack, he has to be.
“Okay,” I shrug and comment, “enjoy your little dance,” and I turn and head towards the front door, refusing to be treated this way.
I mean, I have standards even if I don’t want to settle down and get married, especially if this is what I’m actually dealing with.
Dad had the right temperament.
I dodge the two women who are not employees fighting, over what, I don’t have a clue, gasping when an elbow nearly makes contact with my face.
I quickly duck and rush past them, my eyes stupidly watching them so I don’t get a kick to the head or something stupid before I bump into a hard body and my eyes widen in shock as my body stumbles backwards.
My feet fall from underneath me and like a train wreck, knowing I can’t stop it, I begin to fall backwards and I squeeze my eyes tightly but before my butt can hit the most likely sweaty, glittery, wet floor, two strong hands grip my arms sending a sensation of fireworks up my arms shocking me.
I gasp as I open my eyes and lock with the most beautiful hazel eyes I have ever seen, and my heart rate picks up.
Blonde shaggy hair, a chiseled jaw coated by a beard, I can’t look away from the guy before me, who is making me feel things I have never felt before in my life, my body gravitating towards him, my body humming, my pulse racing until I notice the leather, and I suck in a breath as disappointment flows through me.
Damn…
Trust me to find a connection with a freaking Rebel’s brother who doesn’t settle down with just anyone.
In town, they are loved, adored even, and rumor has it, they screw around until they find their one, which is something I don’t even believe in after being brought up by a single father who didn’t date or trust anyone around me.
As I’m being pulled towards the stranger with muscles for days covered in tattoos, we lock eyes again, and the sparks radiate through me as he furrows his brows making my breath hitch at how serious he looks in a sexy kind of way, and I quickly take a step back and whisper, “Sorry,” just as an arm wraps around my stomach, making me tense.
So much for him still getting a lap dance.
“Let's go, Summer,” the soon-to-be ex-boyfriend snaps, and I look down, allowing Gabriel to guide me out of the club, giving me the chance to get away from the sudden connection I feel knowing he is way out of my league, well, everyone’s league really.
My heart still races as we walk out of the club before Gabriel shoves me hard, causing me to trip, and I spin to look at him with anger as he points at me and snaps, “What the fuck was that, huh? Allowing that biker scum to touch you?!”
I raise a brow at the hypocrite and sneer, “That biker saved me from falling on my ass, and last time I checked, you were the one allowing women to grind on you while I sat at the fricking bar, you stupid ass hypocrite!”
Gabriel smirks, “Aww, what’s wrong, Summer? You jealous? Maybe if you weren’t such a prude and gave it up, I wouldn’t look elsewhere.”
I narrow my eyes at him before I tilt my head and state, “You know what, Gabriel? Go back inside and enjoy yourself.” he furrows his brows until I inform him, “We’re over.
Clearly, Amber set us up hoping to get my inheritance, and guess what, she isn’t touching a dime, even if I were to disappear, the lawyer has instructions, so why don’t you go and tell dear old mama dearest that little bit of information, then go back inside and leave me the hell alone. ”
Dad knew what he was doing when I was growing up, understood the danger of placing me with my mother, knowing what she would want, especially with him being a sought-after CEO in the financial world, and I learned from him.
If I disappear without a trace, then my car, my house, my inheritance are to be locked up for five years, and if I’m not found, then everything is to be sold off, which should come up to a whopping two million, and donated to different children’s homes across the state.
Gabriel's blue eyes burn with rage before suddenly, my head snaps to the side, and a stinging sensation burns my cheek, and I blink.
Damn, the ass just back handed me.
He grips my jaw before I can get my bearings, forcing me to look his way, and he sneers, “We ain’t fucking done, we’ll be done when I say we’re done!”
My nostrils flare and I spit in his face, shocking him as I shove him and I threaten, “You ever lay a hand on me again, never mind going to the cops, I’ll chop your wrinkly balls from your body! Stay the hell away from me!”
I spin on my heels, go to my dad's car —a luxury black BMW — and climb in. I notice Gabriel watching with anger, and I flip him off before speeding off down the road and heading home, not realizing just how dangerous the man my egg donor brought into my life was.
Twenty minutes later, after several missed calls —both from Gabriel and Amber —I pull into the drive towards the four-bedroom, five-bathroom Victorian home with a picket fence and wraparound porch, then pull my car up to the garage door, and I sigh as I look over the property I grew up in, a property that I used to love.
The flowers under the windows are in bloom, the porch light shining above the light blue door, a swing seat my dad used to read me on as he gently rocked us on the porch to the right of the door and I swallow hard.
I need to sell the place.
I love the house, but it isn’t the same without my dad, it’s empty, cold even, no happiness or life around.
Sighing, I climb out of my car but freeze hearing the sound of pipes before I slowly look to my right, only to see the bike pulling up down my driveway, and my heart pounds, my hands sweating, but not with fear, no with nervousness, as the guy who stopped me from falling pulls up beside me.
We lock eyes —the connection I thought I felt, clear as day — and my stomach tightens as my body demands I move closer to him, to feel his warmth but I ensure I stay rooted to my spot.
“Hey Sunshine,” he says with a deep raspy voice like he’s been smoking his whole life, and I swallow hard trying to ignore the nickname, a nickname my dad used to call me.
In his eyes I was his summer sunshine, always brightening up his day.
“What can I do for you?” I ask quietly as I grip my keys in my hand.
The man smirks, a dimple popping up that just adds to his appeal, and he shocks me as he orders, “You can dump that slimy boyfriend of yours so I can make you mine.”
I blink once, twice, three times as my mouth parts, words unable to escape while he looks at me completely serious.
Damn, I didn’t expect that.