Текст книги "Under Locke"

Автор книги: Mariana Zapata

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

There was a frog in my throat. Maybe several because I croaked as he leaned into me. A violent urge to push against his chest was at the forefront of my brain but realistically, there was no way I could make it out of the club in one piece.

"Give me some sugar and I'll let you get out of here without a problem. I might even think about only charging your damn daddy for nine instead of ten more in interest," he breathed.

Oh friggin' hell. Nine thousand? In interest? On top of ten? Crap.

"What do you say?" Liam tucked his chin in, staring down at me.

I froze. "You want sugar?" I had a feeling he wasn't asking for the thing I liked to put in my coffee.

He nodded slowly.

My mouth had to be gaping wide. It had to. "I don't think so," I whispered, still not moving.

Play opossum, Ris! Play opossum!

Liam smiled grand. Okay, it was too late to play dead. The movement made him appear even more good-looking than before. "You do," he chuckled, coming even closer to my face. "Nine instead of ten, doll face."

I don't know why I inhaled, but I did and he smelled like a musky cologne. It was pretty nice but all it succeeded in doing was making me feel a bit dizzy. My emotions and fears were all over the place.

"He doesn't give a shit about us." I swallowed, keeping an eye on his ever descending lips.

Holy cow, his mouth was literally a few millimeters from mine. Don't do something stupid, Iris! Don't do it!

Liam chuckled again, sounding deeper. "Whatever you say," he whispered... right before he kissed me.

~ * ~ *

I wanted to kick my own ass.

Getting behind the wheel of my Focus with my lips still tingling from their visit with Liam's mouth, and what seemed like a ten pound weight settled nicely in my belly, I felt sick. Like I'd done something horribly wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

It also didn't help that I knew I'd been a complete idiot walking into that strip club. Such an idiot—

The wailing ring of my cell phone snapped me out of the mental ass-kicking I was giving myself. Pure, sickening dread lined my belly. Because I knew, I knew somehow that I wasn't going to want to answer the call. Don't tell me how I knew, I just did.

And when I picked my phone out of my purse—the one I'd left in the backseat of my car when I'd gone inside—the screen flashed the name of possibly the only man I dreaded speaking to occasionally.

Dex.

Shoot me now.

I sucked in a breath and let out the exhale as soon as I hit the button to answer. "Hello?" My voice might have been a little more squeaky than I would have liked.

"Where the fuck are you?"

Oh boy.

"Ahh..."

Dex didn't even wait a second to bark out, "Where the hell you at, Ritz?"

"I'm driving back to Pins," I croaked, hitting the mute button while I turned the ignition and put the car into reverse so he wouldn't hear anything that would give me away.

"By yourself?" he asked in a slow, careful voice that did nothing to ease my anxiety.

"Yeah." I wasn't going to lie to him about that.

The pause it took for him to respond made me steel my spine for whatever was going to spill out of his mouth. "Iris," he said in a low, low voice. "Meet me at Mayhem." His tone was way too controlled. Crap!

"I should get back to Pins, I've been gone awhile."

I could hear him breathing over the phone. "No. See me at Mayhem."

Before I got a chance to argue with him anymore, he hung up. Hung up on me. That dick. Shit! No!

The realization that they had no idea I'd driven all the way to San Antonio was right on the front of my thoughts. I was going to need to do some serious speeding to remotely save my ass because there was no way in hell I was going to tell him where I'd gone if he'd gotten that pissed off over me leaving to begin with.

Unfortunately, I sped. The speeding caused me to get to Mayhem a lot quicker than I liked, even though I knew that I still hadn't gotten back fast enough to really play off being nearby.

The lot for the bar was packed for it being a weeknight, then again, I probably shouldn't be surprised. I highly doubted most of the people inside cared whether they drank during the work week or not. I'd barely stepped into Mayhem after flashing my license at the bouncer, when I caught sight of the blonde I'd seen Dex with back at the body shop so long ago. She was sitting at the bar, right next to a Widow by the patches on his heavily weathered vest.

Well, I guess Son wasn't kidding about the girl getting around.

I didn't see Dex anywhere but that didn't exactly ease my nerves. I mean, he couldn't kill me with so many witnesses around.

"Have you seen Dex?" I asked the first bartender that walked by me.

The lady tipped her head up. "Upstairs, sugar."

Sheeeit.

It felt like I'd just been doomed to participate in a Death March. God. Sucking in another breath, I reminded myself that Dex wouldn't do anything to me. He wouldn't. Except maybe rip me a new butthole with his mouth. Well, with his words.

The same WMC member that had come into Pins when I'd first gotten the job—the one with the beer belly—stood at the bottom of the stairway that I'm sure was about to lead to hell. He cocked an eyebrow at me . "Sonny's sis?"

I nodded.

A smirk inched across his face. "All the way up," was the only thing he said.

I will not gag. I will not gag. I will not gag.

"Thanks," I muttered, making my way up the first, and then the second flight of stairs. Despite the loud music blaring from the main floor, I could hear the deep rumble of voices coming from the third floor.

The doorway led to a large room with two loveseats and a futon closest to the door facing no particular direction. Just behind the seating on the far side of the wall, three desks took up the remaining space.

And seated at the desk in the corner, surrounded by Luther and two other Widows, was Dex.

Dex who was staring at me like he was plotting my murder.

I did the only thing a logical person who feared for her safety—kind of—would do. I pretended like nothing happened by flashing the most fake grin in the natural world.

He stared at me, the tick in his jaw was noticeable even so far away.

Dex's gaze didn't waver for a second. "Get your ass over here, Ritz," he demanded in a cool voice.

Nothing was going to happen. Nothing.

My feet moved on their own with no regard to the fate they were leading us to. "Hi."

Did I get a "hi" back? Nope. Four faces stared back at me, completely unemotional.

I stopped just next to the member I recognized from the day Dex had shown up with Trip after Sonny's disappearance. He happened to be the only one who didn't look like I'd stomped all over his sand castle.

"Baby." Dex sat back in his chair, crossing those long, heavily tattooed arms over his chest.

I swallowed.

"Where you been?" He enunciated his words a little too carefully.

Well, there was no way in friggin' hell they were going to get the truth out of me, and in retrospect, what I blurted out my mouth really wasn't any better. At all. "I went to go buy some tampons." That wasn't so bad, but the rest...? "And then I had to run over to Sonny's house to change my pants since I bled all over them."

Kill me. Kill. Me.

Tampons. Bleeding on myself. Sonny's place.

Dex leaned forward over the desk, his elbows coming down hard on the surface. I could see the movement of his tongue sweeping over his teeth beneath his closed mouth. And then his jaw locked. "You went to Son's?" His lips peeled back to reveal a line of straight white teeth. "By yourself?"

I'd crapped all over that explanation, hadn't I? It wasn't like I could backtrack, dang it. "Yes," I tried to tell him as securely as I could.

He blinked, shifting his eyes to Luther's looming frame just to his side before returning to me. He blinked again, reaching up with one hand to run his thumb and index finger down the sides of his mouth. The pause was pregnant and heavy.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the member I didn't recognize shaking his head.

"You dumb little shit."

Uhh, what?

The muscles in Dex's biceps popped as he gritted his teeth, talking to me. Me! A dumb little shit?

"You know your pa owes the Reapers twenty?"

Why, yes, yes, I did but I couldn't tell him that and regardless, it didn't seem like he wanted an answer because he kept talking.

"What the fuck do you think they'll do to you, Ritz?" I think he may have gnashed his teeth. "They beat the shit out of Son back before they decided to up the debt. What the fuck do you think they'll do if they get you?" he asked in a louder voice than I'd ever heard him use. His features were too tight, too pissed off. "Huh? You can't be that fuckin' stupid, can you?"

Holy crap.

Something nasty knotted in my chest and all of a sudden, I couldn't bear to look at him.

"Iris!" he yelled at me. Yelled! "This isn't a fuckin' joke. You can't run around town doin' whatever the hell you want. Nobody has time to babysit you all day, do you understand me?"

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

It took me a second to realize that I was blinking a lot. Blinking while I looked up at the ceiling instead of my boss' face.

"Iris," he grunted, his tone still holding the slightly hysterical note that relayed the extent of his anger. "Do. You. Understand?"

I didn't have it in me to answer him with words, so I had to settle for a nod. A nod I directed at the ceiling, while I had to tell myself that I wouldn't cry in front of him—them.

I mean, I get that he had a point. And I completely understood that he was watching out for me. But seriously? Was this the way he was going to go about it?

Just like my mess of an explanation came out of my mouth, so did the small amount of pride I still managed to have after getting yelled at.

It also might have also been just a little childish but I was too hurt and humiliated to care. "I didn't think it mattered after I got left alone all night and day, Charlie." By Charlie I really meant Dick.

He opened his mouth just a fraction before closing it. His dark blue eyes narrowed. "Get back to the damn shop," he snapped.

This jerk was going to get punched in the nuts. If I wasn't stuck staying with him, he'd get punched in the nuts and I'd put dish detergent into his food. Dex had a point. Of that there wasn't a doubt, but making a point didn't mean you have to be a complete asswipe.

Plus, hadn't Sonny told me that Dex needed someone to tell him when he was being a dick? Sure, I'd done worse but that wasn't the point. He didn't know that, and he never would if this was any indication of how he handled stuff.

So fuck him. I sucked in a deep breath to ward off the tears that were right there and forced a smile on my face. It was ugly and unnatural but at that point, I didn't care. The guy was a man of his word. He'd put up with me until Sonny got back.

I think.

Smiling that creepy smile, I curtsied, staring straight into those dark eyes. "Whatever you want, your majesty."

Luther snickered just barely.

But Dex? Dex just stared right back.

"You gonna let her talk to you like that, man?" the Widow I didn't recognize asked.

Those blue eyes swung directly from me to the man. Dex looked at the man even more aggressively than he had me. "I don't remember askin' for your opinion, shit for brains, so shut the fuck up."

If I wasn't so mad and hurt, I'd probably get a kick out of his words, but I was.

The man made a noise in his throat. "D—"

I coughed and took a step back. "I'm going back to the shop," I told them in a quiet voice, watching Dex as he kept his gaze steady on his MC brother.

"Text me when you're headin' home later," he grunted, still not tearing his attention away from the man.

I looked over at Luther to see him watching the two younger men.

Whatever.

I didn't bother saying anything else before turning around and heading toward the door. I jogged down the stairs as fast as I could because all of a sudden, I felt like crying all over again.

Chapter Twenty

The look on Slim's face when I pushed through the door of Pins said way too much.

If he were prone to biting his fingernails, I think he would have been in the process of doing it. Instead, he smiled apologetically, lines creasing his forehead. "You okay?"

I tilted my head down and looked at him with wide eyes, rounding the reception desk to drop my purse on the floor. By some miracle, I'd managed not to cry.

No sooner had I gotten into the car had I realized that I couldn't exactly burst into tears at how upset and embarrassed I was. It made sense that Dex would be mad. I understood that. I really did. The problem was that he'd ripped me a new one, and the fact that it'd been done in public just made it worse—a heck of a lot worse. It was clear I was an inconvenience, but was it necessary to put things like I was a stupid child?

My chest hurt and I'd started hiccupping like crazy while I drove the two blocks down to Pins.

But screw it, I wasn't going to do it. I wasn't going to cry for no reason.

All right, there was a reason but that was beside the point. Deep down, I knew what I'd done was beyond foolish. If anyone had found out, I could only imagine what kind of shit storm The Dick would have raised. Hell, Sonny would have probably found out and I truly doubted he had any issues with actually knocking some sense into me.

So I'd be taking that little tidbit to the grave with me from the looks of it.

"I'm fine," I told him but the reality was that my voice seemed higher than normal. Obviously, I wasn't completely fine.

The last thing I wanted was to see any of the Widows anytime soon, especially Dex. Which didn't exactly work since I was staying with the guy. Damn it.

Slim gave me a disbelieving look that just barely overshadowed his apologetic one. "Was he pissed?"

I snorted, making my redheaded friend wince.

"Yeah. Sorry, Iris. You know we don't care if you leave for a while but Dex called right after you left. Then he called again every ten minutes after that, checking to see if you'd made it back." He bared his teeth. "Sorry."

Like I could get mad at Slim for being honest. I shrugged and fished through my purse for a stick of gum, tossing a piece at him. "It's okay. I shouldn't have been gone that long." That was kind of the truth.

"We were all a little worried." He flashed me a bright smile. "It just means we like you."

If calling someone a dumb shit was a way of showing them affection, then I definitely didn't want to have any friends.

~ * ~ *

For the next few hours, I tried my absolute best to not think about what had gone down on the top floor of Mayhem. I was a little sad, a little mad, and a lot frustrated. Frustrated because I wished this crap with the sperm donor wouldn't have happened because then Sonny would be in Austin, and I'd be at his house, and things would just be fine.

It made me feel selfish but oh well.

We closed up the shop a little after midnight, and I sent Dex a text as soon as I'd gotten into the car. With any luck, I'd get back to his place before him and could feign being asleep to avoid any other crap. Now, if he was home already, I was screwed and wanted a minute to mentally prepare myself for him.

So I thought it'd be a good idea to drive by Mayhem and make sure he was still there, otherwise...

Yeah.

I slowed down to drive by the parking lot, but I recognized him even before I was close. After seeing him outside of Pins so many times, leaning against the wall with his cigarette between his lips and fingers, his stance was identifiable. It was all Dex. Relaxed and strong, reeking of all the shits he didn't give.

And right next to him was the same redhead that had come into the shop earlier.

They were talking but his attention was focused on the biker I recognized from Sonny's place, the one I'd stood next to just a few hours before.

Jealousy and I don't know what else it was—it was bitter and stung my throat—rose up into my mouth. Because...

What did I expect? That Dex was some kind of celibate saint? He was attractive. Incredibly attractive. And he was really nice when he wanted to be. He was even nice in his own way when he didn't want to be. And he'd told me things about himself that I was confident he didn't share often. And he took care of me in his rough, Dick way. I liked Dex.

Holy shit.

I liked Dex.

I don't know why it hadn't hit me before. Maybe because he was my boss and he still got on my nerves pretty often.

But mainly because I realized deep down inside of me that there was no point in accepting or recognizing any feelings I could have for a man like him. A man who did his duty to his friend's sister.

God, I was such an idiot.

Such a friggin' idiot.

I hit the gas to accelerate at the same time I reached out to grab my phone, hitting the second person under my favorites to call.

It rang for a while, almost too long but right at the last moment, he answered.

"Ris?" Sonny answered in a raspy voice.

A shuddering breath made its way out of my lungs. "Hey, Sonny."

There was a bunch of noise in the background. The sound of a door opening and closing. "Hey kid, I was just thinking about you," he said. "You doing okay?"

Ugh. The one day out of so many when I wasn't fine, and he'd ask. "Eh," I answered him honestly. I mean, I'd already lied enough today. No need to tarnish my record anymore, especially not with my brother. "You?"

He sighed. Long and deep. "I've been better, too."

Something about his tone nipped at me. "What's wrong?" I asked him carefully.

"Ahh, kid," he hedged.

Like that would stop me. "Where are you?"

"Almost to Denver. I don't know what the name of this shitty little town is but we're in Colorado."

Colorado? "Is that where you think the sperm donor is?"

The three second long hesitation should have been my warning sign. "Maybe. My friends in Arizona said they know he'd passed through a couple weeks ago, so I'm hoping he went up north since he used to live there."

"Oh." It frustrated me how little I knew about my dad, though it shouldn't. "Did he live there recently?"

Another pause. More hesitation. "Uh, not really. I just don't think he'd be dumb enough to go back to Cali if he knows there's people looking for him."

So, Curt Taylor had lived in Denver for a while before ending up in California somewhere? What was it about this guy that made him unable to settle down?

And then it hit me, caustically, like a massive stone stuck in my kidneys, tearing a fresh line of pain through my insides.

What was the one thing this man always ran from, Iris? My brain screamed.

"Son," was all I could manage to get out of my mouth while I maneuvered across the freeway.

"Ris." He was being too different. Too guarded.

Neither one of us said anything for too long. Only the steady in and out of our breaths crossed the cellular connection. I was scared to ask, scared to desire the confirmation of the fear that had rooted itself into my stomach, and Sonny? Sonny was probably nervous about answering any more questions I had.

He knew. He knew that I had an idea.

As much as I genuinely didn't want to know, the question just kind of came out in a gasp. "Is there—?"

My brother, my beloved half-brother, sighed. "I'm sorry, Ris. I didn't know how to tell you."

Of course he wouldn't. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

"Lu told me about it fucking forever ago. Your mom had been really sick back then, and you were just a kid—"

It felt like the blood instantly drained from my body. Back when my mom had been sick?

I must have made some sort of sound because Sonny let out a long line of colorful curse words that I would have appreciated if I hadn't just found out that my father had more kids while he was still married to my dying mother.

That time I did hear the ugly choking sound that exploded out of my mouth.

"I'm sorry, Ris. I know I should've told you but I couldn't," he murmured, his voice straining. "I love you, kid. I love you so fucking much and you've been through enough shit already, I just couldn't do that to you."

For being the kind of person that cried whenever I felt anything slightly more than normal, later on, I could wonder why I didn't burst into tears at Sonny's words. At his explanation. His truth and lies. At my father's indiscretions and mistakes.

But in that moment, all I could focus on was the burning that scorched my guts and throat. It was betrayal and jealousy and anger in its purest form.

"Talk to me," Sonny pleaded over the line, pulling me back from the insane thoughts going through my head.

I shouldn't be mad. I shouldn't feel anything.

But the problem was, that I did.

"Iris," he called out.

"Shit," I muttered into the phone, somehow managing to keep on the barely familiar drive toward Dex's place. "I just—I just can't wrap my head around it. How old...?"

He groaned, telling me that this definitely wasn't a conversation that was easy on him either. "I don't know for sure. I’m guessing like ten, eleven."

That son of a friggin' whore.

Lava-like anger flared through my chest again. When I was fourteen, I'd been in the middle of radiation. My Mom had been getting weekly chemotherapy treatments that ravaged her. And what had that asshole been doing? Making babies? Babies that he apparently didn't take care of.

Another ugly choking noise sprang out of my throat no matter how hard I tried to repress it.

I mean, how the fuck could he have done that? Sure my parents were separated, but seriously?

"What’s wrong with him?" I gasped into the receiver.

"I don't know," Sonny replied, sounding way too glum. "He's fucked up in the head, kid."

He was fucked up in the head and he was a huge asshole. A monstrous asshole.

"I can't believe it." Because I could remember his face when he'd come down right before my mom died two years later. His face when he came into the hospital room to see her, was etched into my memory. There was no way he could have faked his devastation, but maybe that had been my problem.

I hadn't really thought about it. He'd been devastated for my mom. But I'd been in remission at the time of his visit and not once had he ever even made a peep about my arm. About my own situation. I'd caught him looking at the scarring from time to time, this man I wasn't sure what to think of, but he never said a word.

That reminder just refueled my resentment.

"Are you with Dex?"

I sucked in a deep, ragged breath. "No."

"Where are you?" he asked in a gentle voice.

"Driving to his house."

There was another infamous pause. "By yourself?"

Damn it. I could have lied to him or at least not mentioned the earlier incident but I didn't have it in me. If he'd finally confessed to the existence of our other half-sibling then I could at least tell him something. "He's pissed off at me." My voice was still too ragged. "I left Pins and stopped by your house without him. He got really mad."

The only response I got was a long, low groan. He was trying not to blow his lid. Sonny knew I didn't need or want to hear him bitching at me. "Goddamnit, Ris," he sighed. "Don't do that again."

"I won't." God, I sounded so meek.

Another long pause filled the line. A million thoughts being processed by two different brains, I could only imagine. "Look, I'll let you know how everything goes. I want to find him as soon as possible, and Trip's helping. Once I get back, we'll figure shit out."

I didn't know what shit there was to figure out but a small voice told me that he was probably referring to the child in Colorado that, at least at the moment, neither one of us were fans of. I'm sure that once I wasn't so mad anymore, I'd come to my senses. From what Sonny had said, our dad hadn't stuck around there for long either. That man was a creature of habit.

Damn it. I could feel myself getting pissed off all over again. Even more so than before.

"Okay, Sonny." I wanted to bang my head against the steering wheel, but there was still another five minutes of driving left ahead of me.

"Are we gonna be okay?" he had the nerve to ask.

My heart swelled, only momentarily eclipsing the fury I felt toward our asshole sperm donor. My vow to not call him an asshole had apparently disappeared at some point.

Will might not answer my emails or bother to pick up a phone and call me, but Sonny had always looked out for me. It had always been an even give and take between us. We weren't forced together by obligation, but instead he'd gone out of his way to be in my life and I'd gladly accepted it.

And I hoped—I knew—I always would.

"I love you, dude. We'll always be fine."

The long sigh he answered with was relief for both of us. He promised to call me again soon and let me know what he found out, and I promised not to do anything stupid again. If he only knew.

I pushed all thoughts of my dad out of my head over the last minute of my trip to Dex's. I didn't think of him as I parked the car and made it in. I didn't think of anything as I grabbed clothes out of my duffel and headed into the shower.

But about a minute after I'd stepped into the stall, I thought of him.

And I screamed.

Not like a horror-movie scream, but the same kind of scream I'd expelled when I knew without a doubt that there was no hope for my mom. It physically hurt me.

The tears that followed afterward were just as painful.

Sonny had told me once that I'd felt everything more with our dad because I was the one who'd had him the longest. More than Sonny by far. Will was only five when he'd left us, and I doubted he remembered much about the bearded man that used to tuck him into bed. The man he'd cried over for months. I'd been the one with the most memories. The kid who had cried over him for longer than a few months.

Those memories, right then, I damned. Because I was too old to feel so territorial, so betrayed. I had no right. I had no reason.

I couldn't help it though.

The fact that he'd had another kid while we'd gone through so much made me feel insignificant. Whatever issues I think I'd secretly harbored with abandonment flared up.

I thought of Will. Of my poor mom, and I wondered if she'd known about Colorado. The idea that she might have found out killed me a little inside.

Before I knew it, the tears had turned into sobs, then the sobs had turned into whimpers, and the anger and sadness was replaced with cold indifference.

By some miracle I managed to turn off the water—I hadn't bothered with soap or shampoo—and I tugged my clothes on, fighting back those pathetic tears that were ready to commit suicide again. The reflection in the mirror showed me that I was a mess. I didn't have an appetite and all I wanted was oblivion for the night.

The problem was that the home I was in wasn't mine.

And the man who owned the home happened to be standing in the hall outside of the bathroom, waiting for me when I opened the door.

Dex's eyes were hooded, his normally sensual mouth parted, and his gaze bore a hole straight into me.

I dropped my own eyes down to the floor, the memory of what exactly had happened at Mayhem only stacking onto my misery. "Not right now, Dex," I told him in a voice that sounded more of a croak than anything. I walked right past him, heading into the living room where I flopped onto the couch, taking over the main length of it, face-down like a fussy kid. My face buried into the soft material of the pillow I set on the end of the sofa that morning.

The floor creaked with his weight. I could sense him standing just off the side of the couch. If I turned my head, I'm sure his feet would have been in my vision but I didn't do it. He just stood there for what seemed like forever.

"I'm not kidding, Dex."

He huffed. "Why?"

Why? Ohmigod. I wanted to scream again. "I'm feeling pretty worthless right now, all right?" I whispered into the cushion, just loud enough for him to hear. "The last thing I want is for you to make me feel like a pathetic moron again."

Did he say anything? No.

Instead, I felt the heat of his body get even closer right before the pillow below me was lifted, raising my head right along with it. A heartbeat later, he plopped into the empty spot, dropping the pillow on top of his lap so that my upper body rested on his thighs. The weight of his hand settled between my shoulder blades.

I tried sitting up onto my knees but his hand kept me down on top of him—well, the pillow. My boobs were smashed against his thigh but I didn't care. The last thing I wanted was for him to see me cry.

"Dex," I kind of whined.

He palmed the back of my neck, shifting down the couch just a bit. "Ritz."

"I don't want to hear it right now."

Dex made a humming noise. "I'm not gonna talk shit to you right now," he said in a silky, low voice. "I wanna know what the fuck had you screamin' in the shower, babe."

I hated him. Just a little.

"First I thought it was me that was makin' you cry but after a while, I figured I couldn't have made you that mad."

"Don't flatter yourself," I groaned. "You made me mad," I turned my mouth just to the side so I wouldn't drool all over the pillow. "But no, I'm not going to cry over you calling me ugly names and being a total dick."

He groaned, the hand on the nape of my neck tightened. His fingers massaging the sides. "I was pretty fuckin' pissed."

"Anytime you're pissed, you're always really friggin’ pissed," I explained to him, earning a snicker from the big man beneath me. "You were a jerk."

Another groan. His hand slid over to my right shoulder blade. "You were bein' an idiot, Ritz."

"So you had to call me a dumb little shit in front of your friends?"

He didn't answer. Dex's large palm swept over to my other shoulder, cupping that one, too. "Lu told me I was too harsh with you," he admitted in what I could only assume was a contrite voice. "I was worried, all right?"

Hmm.

"I was plannin' on gettin' home and tannin' your ass like Ma used to do to me." His fingers went right back to my neck, the palm kissing my spine. "I don't really think you're a dumb little shit," he said.

I turned my head the other way to face his stomach. "Oh?"

"You're just a little shit, babe," Dex murmured. "You wanna tell me what all that mess in the shower was about?"

No, I didn't. Yet, there I was opening my mouth. "My dad's an asshole and an idiot."

"Whoa there, tiger. Watch the potty mouth," said the man that dropped the f-bomb at least one hundred times a day. Dex's long fingers swept down my spine all the way to where the elastic on my shorts were. A small part of me recognized that this was too intimate but the warm reassurance was exactly what I needed and wanted. "What happened?"