She put her hand over the top of mine and traced the heavy veins on the back of it with the edge of her fingernail. It was a barely-there caress, but I felt it all the way through my body.
“You look like the kind of guy that would have soft, manicured hands. Not hands that are all scarred up and rough.”
I had a wicked scar on the back of one hand from getting into an accident with Bax while we had been running from the cops. My middle knuckle on one hand had been broken so many times it was big and off-center. There were numerous nicks and cuts along my fingers from different fights and different altercations, most recently from the fight for my life when Novak had sent his crew in to kill me.
“You look like a girl who should get to enjoy a night out with an interested boy and not have to rush home to take care of her sister.”
She cut me a look and sat back in the seat with a little humph.
“I guess looks can be deceiving.”
“Why don’t you give me the CliffsNotes version of what that’s all about?”
She didn’t want to, I could see it. Giving me that changed what we were about to do from a quick fuck because we wanted each other into something else. Turned it into something with more depth, and she wasn’t ready for that. Still, after a heartbeat, she breathed out a long sigh and turned to look at me.
“I was just a typical college student the year before last. I went to class, partied a little too hard, just did my own thing, and it was a blast. Well, my mom has struggled with depression on and off for most of my life. She usually maintains with meds, but something really bad happened last year and she went off the rails. She quit taking everything prescribed to her and started drinking really heavily. I didn’t know what was happening. My dad is a workaholic, spends all his time in the office at work, and the one at home, and pretty much forgets he even has a family.”
She made a noise under her breath and I wanted to pull the car over and give her a hug.
“Well, one day Mom went out, I think to pick Karsen, my sister, up from school. Only she had been self-medicating all day with vodka and was shit-faced. She caused a major accident on the highway, hurt herself really bad, and rear-ended a family in an SUV in front of her. She hit the other car so hard that it smashed into the big rig in front of it. The mom and the son made it out alive, but the dad died. It was terrible. Mom was in the hospital for a long time and ended up with all kinds of medical problems. Somehow she was lucky enough to get out of having her BAC taken, either because the cops were distracted or because money changed hands, but either way she missed getting saddled with a DUI and her insurance covered the bulk of the bills, but not all of them. The next thing I knew, we couldn’t afford my car or classes anymore, and things at home were a nightmare for my sister. No one was making sure she went to school, or had any food in the house or that the bills for the lights or the heat were getting paid.”
She shook her silky blond head and I could see frustration and harder emotions surge in her clear, blue eyes. She might be all frosty and cool on the surface, but underneath a torrent was raging. It made me want her even more.
“I wasn’t going to quit school, not when I was so close to being done, so I got a job and took a few loans to get through the last few semesters. I moved home to try and keep things together as much as I could until Karsen is finished with high school. One more year, I just have to hold it all together for one more year, but in the meantime, my mom has added all kinds of painkillers to the booze and my dad is even less present than he was before. I never really know what kind of situation I’m walking into when I get to my own front door, and that sucks. I deserve better and my sister sure as hell didn’t do anything to ask for any of what has happened to our family.”
I wheeled the Mustang into the compound and watched to make sure the gates swung closed behind us. The security lights flickered on overhead, casting her in an ethereal, bluish glow. Everything about her was refined and pure looking. God, I wanted to mess her up. I wanted my hands in her hair, my marks on her skin, and my taste in her mouth. I wanted her to look as rough as she made me feel on the inside. No one had ever riled me up like that before. Maybe because I was so used to just getting without having to ask, and Brysen never offered that to me. I always had to ask her what the next move was going to be, and her answers often surprised me. She was not a sure bet, and I think the challenge of that made her even more desirable.
“The lengths we go to in order to keep our family safe, to do right by those we love, is often a weighty burden to bear.” I got out of the car and went around to let her out of the passenger side. When I pulled her up, I pressed her back into the side of the car with the full length of my body and bent down so that my mouth hovered enticingly over the plump ridge of hers.