The small kitchen led into the dining area, and from there the living room was separated by a brightly colored rug. He walked over to the modest-sized dining table. It was twice the size of his. He ran his hand over the top of one of the chairs. How many people had sat at her table? She had a lengthy list of family. Well, maybe not that long, but a hell of a lot longer than his.
A bank of heavy beige drapes hung in front of a set of french doors. He tipped back the curtains to look outside. A wrought-iron balcony overlooked a large back parking lot. Outside, among the crumbling asphalt, railroad ties had been stacked to make large botanical boxes. Some were planted with roses, while others had small trees growing out of them.
Inside an urban complex, she’d found a piece of softness. Could she look past the urban in him?
“No! No! Get off me! Pl-Please! No!”
The glass shattered on the hardwood floor before he even started into a dead run. By the time he covered the short distance to her bedroom, she already had the covers strewn all over the bed and was thrashing her legs, trying to kick the rest of the sheet off her feet.
“Abigail! It’s okay! You’re safe! Abigail!”
God, what the hell?
Penelope huddled in the corner, whining. If he didn’t do something quick, she was going to toss herself right off the damn bed.
He climbed onto the mattress, not ducking enough. The back of her hand caught him across the lip. He’d taken worse. “Abigail, wake up!”
“D-Don’t k-kill me! I’m dead! I’m dead!”
Sean didn’t know what else to do. He straddled her twisting waist to stabilize her before grabbing her arms. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her or put a bruise on that creamy skin. “Abigail, I got you. Shh, come on. It’s me, Sean. You’re not dead, baby. You’re not dead.”
She was strong for such a lush little thing. He finally hooked his legs over her knees so she didn’t knee him in the dick and hugged her arms against her sides. “Abigail, baby, wake up. Come on.” The soft cotton of her tank top rode up her rib cage.
Sean felt his insides liquefy. He wanted to puke but couldn’t. Wanted to scream the fuck out but couldn’t do that either. “That’s it, breathe with me.” The parallel scars went from her hip all the way to her belly button. That dimple was the end point for two slashes of white that marred her otherwise perfect skin. Tiny speckles of white dotted each side of the scars. Each perfectly spaced. She’d been sewn up. He knew the sight well. He had several places on his own body from multiple trips to the ER. Two caused by his foster dad, one by his mom’s “friend,” and two by fighters who’d stuffed something sharp between their damn knuckles. “That’s it. Slow down.” As he struggled to keep his voice calm, her struggle to twist off the bed eased.
She whimpered, and he wondered who in the hell would have wanted to hurt her like that. What kind of sick fuck would do such a thing? No, it was a car accident.
Yeah, a car accident, you dumbass! The windshield came out and slashed her abdomen
. There had to be some explanation.
Please, God…please make there be some kind of explanation
. She shifted beneath him.
Oh no…no no no
. Two more scars ran across the ridges of her rib cage. The soft skin met the puckered white scars. He swallowed down the bile rising in his throat.
“Shh, that’s it, girl. No, leave your hands down.” He tugged on her top to cover the scars. He didn’t want her to know he’d seen them. God, he hoped she wouldn’t remember this.
Her eyes stayed closed, but Sean could see the clear drops of tears seeping onto her cheeks. “I-I’m dead.” Her chest rose and fell as she tried to catch her breath. Was she still asleep? “I-I’m dead.” The words grew fainter and fainter as her muscles fell limp beneath him. Yes, she still slept, and for some unholy reason thought she was dead.
Sean waited until her breathing fell into an even pattern before rolling off her gently sleeping body. As soon as he freed her legs, she curled onto her side and absently reached out for the blanket. He grabbed it from the floor and tucked her in.
What the fuck had just happened? The sight of her all huddled under the covers made him want to beat the shit out of her bad dream. He wanted to put on the fucking cape and wear the damn S on his chest. Yeah, he wanted to be everything for her that no one had been for him. He wanted to take all the bad away and replace it with silky kisses and hot showers. Something had screwed with her brain. She’d been hurt. Seriously.
He walked over to the corner where the little dog was huddled. “Come on, girl, she’s okay now. Let’s go to bed.”
Chapter Seven
There were only two things that Sean knew how to make without fail. They were cheap and filled his growling gut. Pancakes and mac n’ cheese the way Ms. Evelyn used to make them. Not the kind out of the box, the real deal. He wiped his hands on the sunflower dishtowel. The smell of hot syrup accompanied the
ding
from the microwave. With the ease of a seasoned chef, he flipped the pancake and smiled as the round delight sizzled in the pan.
The sound of tiny claws on the wood floor preceded the voice he was waiting to hear. “You stayed.”
It wasn’t a question, Sean noticed, but a rather a statement of disbelief.
“Yeah, you hungry? I hope you don’t mind. You had some box stuff, but I like them homemade.”
She looked over at the dining area. Her gaze flew back to him. Her shy smile was so damn sweet. “Y-You cooked for me?”
“No, I cooked for your dog.” He slid the perfectly golden pancake onto a plate piled with a stack of others. “Sit down and I might let you have some, if it’s okay with her.” He tipped the flat end of the spatula at her feet, where Penelope looked up at him with a lopsided smile.
The sound of Abigail’s laugh made him want to wake up like this every morning. But that wouldn’t be possible now. Who’d want to wake up next to a porn star? Well, he wasn’t quite
star
material, but anyway…
“I think she’ll share.”
He did his best to keep focused on removing the hot syrup from the microwave, but the jiggle of those juicy ass cheeks beneath the thin pajama pants was driving his dick crazy. He preferred her naked legs but didn’t mind the new view either. Pants or no pants, he wanted to pounce on her and rut the valley between the round mounds of flesh.
She pulled out the chair where he’d dropped the glass of water.
“I, um, broke one of your glasses last night,” Sean said, “but I cleaned it up.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I drop things all the time. Ron says I’m the biggest klutz he’s ever met.”
He set the container of syrup on the table. “Be careful; it’s hot. You’re not a klutz. Just…easily distracted.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said and put the plate of pancakes between them. “Don’t think I don’t see you checking out my ass all the time.” He grinned. It was true, but he meant it as a joke to make her laugh. Even if she didn’t know it, her shoulders looked tight from last night. He still didn’t know what or who put those scars on her beautiful body, but all he could think about right now was putting a smile on her pretty face.
She forked two round cakes and dropped them on her plate. “I do not!”
Sean leaned down and let Penelope grab a pancake from his hand. “Yes, you do.” When he came back up, he caught her shy gaze looking at his naked chest. He didn’t mind. He liked when she looked at him. She drenched her breakfast in gooey maple syrup. What would it taste like to drizzle the warm nectar on one hard nipple and lick it off?
Fucking delicious!
He wanted to crawl under the table, yank down those pretty pink pajama bottoms, and suck on her pussy. Was she smooth as silk, or did she have that sexy little line of dark hair leading to her cunt? Was that too nasty to call her pretty pussy a cunt? He bet she wouldn’t think so.
She stuffed a bite of pancake into her mouth and muffled, “For your information…mmmm, oh my God, Sean. This is so good. Yeah, for your information, I don’t check out your butt. I know guys like you are used to having women fawn all over you, ogling your muscles and…package, but I don’t do that. At least, I don’t do that to you. Did you make any bacon?”
The phenomenal pancakes always made him feel better. Sean swallowed and took a drink of milk. “I would have, but you didn’t have any. What do you have planned today?”
“We have a big shoot at two. It’s a camping theme. Carl has a cabin about an hour from here in the woods. We’re going to do some of the shots there. I don’t usually go to a lot of the sets, but I like to go to his cabin.”
Sean wiped his mouth with the paper towel he’d folded next to his plate. “Oh, okay. That sounds cool.”
Every time she shifted in the seat, her tits did a mesmerizing jiggle. His gaze was drawn to the two hard pebbles situated dead center in the teardrop shapes. They were fucking gorgeous, and not only did his mouth want to latch on to them, but his cock wanted to rut the shit out of them too. It was past ten o’clock, so the boner he sported didn’t qualify as morning wood.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “It
is
Saturday, you know? Got a hot date?”
With my Legos
. “Right. No, I’m going to hit the gym and go to the bookstore. There’s a book on investments I want to pick up. There might be some new ideas for your revenue. I was thinking about that this morning. You could really do a lot with the market if you wanted to.”
She plunked another pancake on her plate. He loved how she liked to eat. Most of the women he dated, if that was what you could call it, ate lettuce-minus-the-everything. “Sounds exciting.” The twinkle in her eyes matched her sweet smile. “What would you think about taking a look at my books? I mean, you’re more than qualified, and I trust your judgment a hell of a lot more than Thomas’s. What do you say?”
I trust you…
“Sean? Yoo-hoo, earth to Sean.”
“Huh, oh yeah, sure. I’ll take a look at them for you.”
She dabbled at the leftover syrup on her plate. “I’ll pay you if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t expect anything for free. I understand that you work for my company. I’d never take advantage of that. If you’re interested, you could come by tonight. If you have time.” He watched her hands fold and refold the napkin. “If you don’t, I understand. It’d be a Saturday night, and guys like you… Well, you probably have women—”
“I told you I was going to be reading. And what do you mean ‘guys like me’? Guys who do porn for cash, or guys who’ve been in jail?” Suddenly, his idea of a romantic breakfast didn’t sound so romantic after all. Was that how she really saw him? Like everyone else?
She rubbed her forehead and picked up the glass of milk he’d set in front of her plate. Her eyes darted across to him, then back to the glass. She set it back down. “I didn’t mean it like that. I promise. I just meant…”
It seemed like her hands distracted her from completing a thought. “Look, it’s cool, I get it. Women like you don’t go for guys like me.”
That made her hands still. “What?”
“I get it. You, you’re all business. An educated woman and built like you are… Girls like you and guys like me usually don’t mix.”
If she was a cartoon bull, he would have seen steam puffing out of her flared nostrils. But she wasn’t. She was all pissed-off female.
“What do you mean
built like me?
Listen, you…you…” The scrape of the chair on the floor confirmed she wasn’t only done with breakfast, but he feared she was done with him too.
For some reason, he didn’t give a shit if she fired him; he just didn’t want to stop seeing her.
Shit
. “What I mean is—”
The finger pointing in his face was making him either want to tip the table over or toss her on it. He was still debating. “What you
mean
is that fat girls don’t deserve hot guys.
That’s
what you mean, Sean.” Now the slender finger wasn’t only pointing in his direction but nudging his bare chest. “Well, I’ve got news for you, stud, we deserve not only hot guys, but nice ones too, ones that can make pancakes and love our dogs.”
He looked down at Penelope, who was giving him an apologetic stare. He wasn’t sure if it was to confirm that she’d get another pancake or apologize for her mistress’s outburst.
“And—” He snapped his gaze back at the flaming blue eyes glaring at him. “Ones that will protect us and…and not think that we’re crazy and hurt us or think that we don’t deserve to be loved. No…no matter what has happened to us.”
What the fuck?
“Abigail, I didn’t mean—”
“Never mind.” The sound of defeat was more than he could take. A punch to his ribs would’ve felt better.
He forced his gaze to stay planted on her flushed face and not on the cleavage that was staring back at him. “Abigail, it came out wrong. I just meant that women who are really pretty and sweet looking, they don’t go for guys like me. I
look
like the kind of life I’ve led, at least until a couple of years ago. Most women who are built with soft curves and, God forgive me, but fucking awesome breasts, don’t give me the time of day. You, Abigail, are real. Every inch of your gorgeous body is one-hundred-percent woman.” It was his turn to stand up. He crowded her against the table, watching as her once even breaths grew erratic. He cupped the back of her neck with his hand and massaged the soft hair flowing against his hand. Her brave finger tucked back against her chest as she stepped back and bumped her ass against the tabletop.
“S-Sean,” she whispered as he leaned in and peppered small kisses against her collarbone. “That…um, that feels so good. I’m mad at you.” Her voice said one thing, but as he continued to massage the back of her neck, her hips curled against him.
“Get up on the table, Abigail.”
“I can’t. I mean no. I mean I’m still—”
“Fuck it.”
“Oh!” Abigail’s heels went up as Sean’s big hands cupped her ass and planted her on the table.
“Open your mouth, Abigail. I’m going to fuck you right here. On the table. In front of your dog.”
BY THE SMIRK on his face, she wasn’t sure how serious he was. “Sean!”