East, page 5
I couldn’t do anything but nod, set my keys with the pineapple keychain in his palm and said, “Thanks. Just the battery. Don’t let them upsell you on anything else.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He led me to a very big, very fancy pickup and opened the passenger door for me. I climbed in. “Seatbelt,” he said, shutting the door and jogging around the hood to climb in beside me.
Candace might have been right about his money status based on his truck. It was black with four doors, all decked out with a lift and running boards. The seats were heated leather, and the interior had every bell and whistle offered. I couldn’t imagine East fitting well in my little sedan, so maybe a guy of his size needed a big truck like this.
Either way, I could get used to it.
Classic rock came from the speakers and he pushed a button on the steering wheel that turned it off.
“Where to?”
“UPC Shipping by the airport.”
He nodded and got us on the road out of town. The ride was smooth and the seats comfortable.
“How many grad programs are you applying to?” he asked.
I turned my head from looking out the side window. He gave me a quick glance, then eyed the road again.
“How did you know about that?” I wondered.
“You told me your plan. Graduation, then the grad program.”
“Oh, um… Well. Only the one here. I can’t relocate. I’ve got my apartment, my job.”
“Continuing on in sociology?”
I nodded. “I’m going to get my Master’s in social work.”
He slowed then stopped at a red light. “You’ll make a good one,” he said softly.
When my eyes met his, I swallowed. Butterflies went crazy in my stomach. “Oh?” I whispered. “You can tell that by my stats homework?”
He smiled. “You said you were in the foster care system so you have experience with various government agencies first hand.”
“I do. I want to work with kids to ensure they’re placed in good homes with good people. That there’s a system in place to weed out the bad.”
I thought of Ron and his meek wife, Cindy, of how life would have been different if they hadn’t been allowed to be foster parents. Not just for me, but for the other kids who had come before me. I wasn’t the only girl Ron had wanted, I was sure of it. Except none came after me. I made sure of it.
Being dead did that.
“I know stats is just an elective for you, but you’re doing well in the class. You solved the latest problems.”
He was referencing the work I’d turned in the day before which had been ridiculously hard.
“Barely. And a B- is not doing well, but thanks for being positive. Math doesn’t come easily to me, that’s for sure. You graded them already?” I asked.
“Yours.”
Oh. I had no idea what to say to that. He’d pulled my assignment out of the pile of over fifty and looked at it? I’d spent over two hours on it, even connecting with the tutor during my work study time. It meant something, his special attention. Either he was a creeper, or he was curious. I wouldn’t be in his truck if I thought he was like Ron. I knew when I saw him at the bar there was something different about him. Not just because he was bigger than most men. Hotter. He was actually nice. Thoughtful, too.
Thankfully we were close to the industrial area and I couldn’t take the time to tear it all apart.
I pointed to where he should turn. He pulled up in front of the entrance, the company logo emblazoned on the building.
I undid my seatbelt and turned to face him.
His pale eyes met mine. Held. Dipped to my mouth.
He didn’t say anything, only watched me.
I swallowed, suddenly nervous. There was something about East Wainright. Something intriguing. Something more than a bar pickup. He was quiet. Controlled when he wanted to be. I’d seen him unleashed. Felt it. I liked him both ways.
Women ogled him, took in his attractiveness and nothing deeper. Maybe his wallet, if they knew his background. I was learning over these few weeks of watching him—and not touching—that he was more. And that made him dangerous.
“Thanks for the ride.”
He nodded, his dark hair sliding over his forehead.
“What do you do here?” he said, glancing past me and to the employee entrance. Others on the middle shift were heading inside. One person’s hat blew off from a gust and he chased after it. Snow was just starting to fall.
“I sort and box packages.”
He studied me, then frowned. It didn’t matter what he thought. It paid the bills.
I turned to open the door.
“Doll.”
I glanced back at him over my shoulder. “What’s your number?” he asked.
I frowned. “Why?”
He glanced out the windshield and looked up at the sky. “The weather’s going to turn. This is Montana, but if you get out early, I don’t want you waiting around in this.”
“They’re not going to close early. They can’t. Packages are on a schedule.”
He frowned, not thrilled with that, as he pulled out his cell. I told him my number and he typed it in. My cell chimed in my bag. He reached out, tucked my hair back. My heart thrummed at the small gesture. I craved his touch. It seemed all the times we’d been near each other and not been able to do anything only ratcheted up my need. It was like cruel foreplay.
“I’ll have your car fixed by the time you’re done. If I don’t hear from you, what time should I pick you up?” he asked.
“Oh. You don’t have to—”
He tugged my arm, pulling me toward him. His lips settled on mine. I gasped and he took advantage and his tongue plunged, found mine. I resisted, for a moment, then sunk into the kiss. It was hot and decadent, potent. My fingers tangled in his hair.
It lasted a second, maybe two. Maybe a minute. When he released me, I licked my lips, blinked.
“Fuck, what you do to me.”
“I thought you said we couldn’t touch.”
“I’m weak around you,” he admitted.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re the biggest and strongest man I know.”
“You hold the power,” he said, repeating words he’d said before.
“That might be true, but I’m the one whose panties got taken,” I grumbled, then squirmed on the seat.
He growled. “Don’t remind me.”
“We shouldn’t be kissing.” I said the words even though I didn’t agree with them. His lips were soft and warm and perfect.
“We should,” he countered. “We definitely should. We’re nowhere near campus and… fuck, doll. You’re impossible to resist.”
So was he. We were breathing hard and I was sure he could hear my heart pounding.
“What time are you done?”
“Seven.”
He kissed me once more, then practically pushed me out of the truck. As I walked into the warehouse, it felt like he wasn’t waiting until December any longer. The fact that I didn’t seem to care made me panic.
6
EAST
* * *
“What?” I snapped, when I grabbed my cell and answered my brother’s call. I was horny and frustrated and didn’t want to talk to him right now. I wanted to toss Ella over my shoulder and drag her back to my truck, take her home with me and sink balls deep into her. For the entire weekend.
“What the fuck’s your problem?” West asked.
I used my blinker and waited at a stop sign for a car to pass. With the strong winds, snow was blowing sideways. It skimmed off the roads, for now.
I was shifting on the seat, trying to get comfortable, which was impossible since my dick was so hard it had a zipper print in it. I had Ella’s taste on my tongue. She’d melted into me, been right there with me in that kiss. In wanting more. Fuck!
“I want Ella.” There. I admitted it. Words weren’t needed when all I had to do was look at my lap. I hadn’t used my hand so much for relief since I was fifteen when I was blowing my load any chance I got.
“Cinderella?”
I gritted my teeth. “Will you stop calling her that stupid-ass name?”
“Fine, you want her. Have her.”
“I can’t.” I ran a hand over my face, regripped the steering wheel.
“Because she’s in your class,” he said. I wasn’t sure if it was to get confirmation on the reason or reminding me why my balls were fucking blue.
“That, yes. But also because… shit, you have to see her and you’d understand. She’s fucking gorgeous.”
“You fuck her again? That the problem? Because I can’t think why it would be. She’s just a quickie, right?”
I growled. “Don’t disrespect her like that,” I snarled.
Except in my mind, I had about fifty ways I wanted to disrespect the hell out of her.
“I want her. Seriously want her. Long haul.”
“Okay. You and North have it bad.”
North was in love with Jed Barnett. They were a permanent thing. Only a few months ago he’d come to Macon’s wake and it had been love at first sight. And a total clusterfuck since he’d been undercover FBI at the time investigating her. It was a good fucking thing, too since it turned out her assistant, Julian, had wanted her dead since he’d been Macon’s lover.
Now Jed was ex-FBI and heading up security at Wainright Holdings, the family company which North was CEO. After all the shit she shared with us over whiskey and skeet shooting, she needed a guy like Jed to run herd, because she worked herself too fucking hard. She also needed the love and support he gave her, which was unconditional and intense.
I pulled onto the highway. “Know where I’m going right now? A big box store to buy a car battery. Then I’m going to put it in her POS car, then pick her up at work.”
“Yeah, you have it bad. I’d say you’re pussy whipped.”
“Will you be serious for one fucking minute?” I shouted.
“I am serious. You want her for the long haul, have Jed look into her. Ensure she’s legit and not after the money.”
With his law enforcement connections and the Wainright family’s cash, Jed could get anything we wanted on anyone. West was right. I had to know everything about Ella Taynor and why I was quickly becoming obsessed. Why I was trying really fucking hard to wait out the rest of the semester to get my hands on her again. Because I needed solid reasons why I shouldn’t even think about her, let alone buy her a new car battery and volunteer for carpool.
“I should. She picked me up at a bar, so it’s possible I was targeted.”
She was a virgin though. She couldn’t fake that. It wasn’t like she’d done the same thing before.
“I think my dick is what’s doing the thinking these days,” I continued. “Except I don’t do long haul so why does it matter? Why am I even saying shit like that?”
“You can do a serious relationship. A forever one. You’re not broken. Maybe you just haven’t found the right woman before now. And it’s possible to find one who isn’t a gold-digger.”
“You’re not helping,” I countered. “I need an excuse to dislike her, because I’m sure as shit not finding one.”
The temptation was there to use my connections to get background info on Ella, except it felt wrong. While I didn’t want anything real, I also wanted to get to know her on my own. The real way. No information packet telling me who her first grade teacher was and how long she had braces.
“Which is fucking scary because she shouldn’t be interested in me,” I continued. “People think the Wainrights are a catch, when we’re far from it. If people knew the truth… about Macon, about us? She should be running the other way instead of handing me her fucking panties.”
“Actually, that’s why I called,” he replied.
I rubbed my eye with my free hand. “About her panties?”
“Jesus, no.”
“I’m guessing it’s not good. Just tell me.”
“DNA is back. We’re not Macon’s.”
A chill ran through me and a weird smile settled on my lips. Relief. It was a heady feeling, knowing the fucker didn’t make us.
“That’s not good news?”
“South is,” he added.
I almost drove off the highway, but when I hit the rumble strip, I corrected. “What?”
“You, me, and North share the same father, who isn’t Macon. South’s his kid.”
I took the exit and pulled into the huge parking lot for the megastore. I found a spot and killed the engine. Sat in silence and stared out the window at the blowing snow.
“Is he okay?” Obviously West and I had the same father since we were twins. That was a given we didn’t need DNA testing to validate. But all four of us assumed we’d collectively be Macon’s or not. All or nothing.
We were wrong. Somehow South, and only South, was Macon’s kid. We all had anger issues. Mountains of problems years of therapy couldn’t fix. North had Jed to vent to and I was thankful for that. She’d been the closest to Macon, stuck in that fucking house with him. Working with him day in and day out. We’d thought to leave all that shit behind when we put him in the ground.
South couldn’t. Not now.
“I’ll see him tonight,” West said. “Guys’ night. We’re meeting Matty and Duggar.”
I tried to process all this. “He hated us because we weren’t his.” I meant Macon.
“Probably.”
“But South was his. Fuck, you remember how Macon used to ride his ass because he wanted to be an artist.”
“Yeah.”
“He wasn’t any kinder to his own kid than us.”
When Macon had learned I wanted to teach, specifically math, he’d gone ape shit. It didn’t matter that I was exceptional with numbers. Got a perfect math score on my SATs. Could do crazy problems without a calculator.
I’d put his cruel words on a fucking mental shelf and got my PhD anyway. Just as South went to art school and became an incredible sculptor.
“Maybe he didn’t know,” he suggested, although there was no way any of us could get the answer. Mom had been dead for over twenty years. Macon hadn’t told us when he was alive and took it to the grave. “Maybe Macon thought all of us were proof Mom stepped out on him.”
The familiar anger rose up like a tsunami. The need to pummel someone with my fists was powerful. “This is fucking bullshit. All of it. I’m just like him.”
“You are nothing like Macon,” he countered.
“I fight to burn off this anger. Let me tell you, I feel it right now.” For South. For all four of us living through Macon’s hell growing up. And for what? He’d been gay. He hadn’t been interested in women, in Mom, yet he’d married her. Carried on with men. “If he had an issue with Mom having an affair, then he’s one to fucking talk.”
“I hear you. I’m right there with you.”
“Except you don’t want to beat the shit out of someone.”
“I do. Oh, I fucking do,” he replied.
“But you won’t. And I will. Tonight.” I watched people coming and going from the store. Women with small children tucked into the shopping carts. An elderly couple with their arms interlocked, shuffling slowly toward the entrance.
“It’s fight night. I’m calling Callie to tell her I’m in,” I said, referring to the wife of the event organizer. He was the face of their business, but the forty-something woman ran the show. She might not fight in the ring, but she could bust some balls if needed. “I’m going. I… I need to burn off some steam about Ella, but now with South, fuck.”
“Why are you so dead set against seeing where things go with your Disney princess?”
I thought of Ella walking into work. “She’s far from a princess. She works two jobs to make ends meet. She’s got roommates who don’t give a shit about her.”
While it was because of them that I’d met Ella in the first place, I wasn’t sure if I could ever like them for putting her in danger by approaching a stranger at a bar. To have sex. She could have been raped.
I gripped the steering wheel, tried to strangle it.
“I think they’re called evil stepsisters in the fairy tale.”
I rolled my eyes, not that he could see. That stupid fucking story, except for the fact that West was actually right.
“She doesn’t do relationships either,” I said. “She made that very clear. Except—”
I pulled her panties from my pocket, the ones I’d been carrying since the day she gave them to me in the copy room. The simple black cotton was farthest thing from lingerie, yet I wanted to grip my dick and pump cum all over it.
She wouldn’t have given me her underwear if she wasn’t interested. She’d been nervous about it, not because of the play between us, but because she’d done it on campus where we could have been caught. She’d said yes to sex, but in December. After she was no longer my student.
She was petrified I’d get her kicked out of school. That I’d derail her plans. She was one focused woman and nothing, not even me and my dick, were going to sway her. It made me respect her even more. She sure as shit had more control than me.
“Our family is fucked up. I take out my anger in a ring using my fists.”
“In a ring. With rules. You think you’d hit her?”
The idea of hitting a woman made me sick. “Hell, no.”
“Then you’re not like Macon.”
“Look, I gotta go. Thanks for telling me about the DNA tests. Keep an eye on South.”
“Will do.”
I set the cell in the center console as I stared out the window which was now fogging from the cold. Ella made me feel. Aroused. Possessive. Protective. She deserved better than me and my fucked up past. I wouldn’t hurt her, but I was big. Aggressive. I could hurt her. I might not have Macon’s blood in my veins, but I’d been conditioned by him. Raised to cower, to fear. But when I grew bigger than him, I learned my size was what protected me.
So I focused on that. Began to fight. To win. To survive.
That wasn’t what Ella needed. A survivor. She needed coddling. Protection. Hugs and puppies. Unicorns and fucking rainbows.
