“Get dressed and meet me outside.” I don’t spend another second in the doorway. The moment the words are out of my mouth, I’m back down the hall and then out the front door. I find my phone in my front pocket of my jeans and pull it out to give Trigger the go-ahead. The sick asshole responds immediately with OK and adds a fucking smiley face emoticon at the end of it. Only arson or torture could get my brother this happy in a text message.
After sending the message to Ryan, I stand and wait on Mindy’s lawn. I can feel Harry and Claire watching me from inside the house, but I pay them as little mind as possible. I’ve tried to be kind to Claire. She’s a soft-spoken woman without a single edge to her. She needs kind, but my kind just makes her recoil.
“Where are we going, and where’s your bike?” Mindy asks, startling me as she comes to stand beside me. I’m so off my fucking game here it’s not even funny. I don’t startle easy but this shit has me on edge.
“Thought you’d prefer the Suburban,” I say and hitch my thumb to Ma’s red SUV. Mindy nods her head and gives me a small, grateful smile. The other night at the park she wouldn’t get on the back of my bike. I was desperate to have her there, behind me, but she was already so fucked-up over being caught trying to score that I didn’t want to push her. Instead, she walked alongside me as I pushed my bike from the park to her house. I wasn’t going to just leave her there. If she were mine and she had defied an order like that, I would have had a lot of fun with her ass when we got home.
But she’s not mine, and judging from the way she freaks out over every little thing, she never will be. Fuck. The very thought of never owning the woman beside me sends me into an angry haze. Somebody might die today after all.
I point at the SUV and walk to the passenger door and open it up for her. Mindy takes a moment to get moving, but when she does, I can’t take my eyes off of her. She’s wearing a pair of worn black jeans, faded and torn at the knees, tucked into black Doc Martens. Her wavy strawberry blonde hair is up in a ponytail and hanging as low as the small of her back. It’s gotten so long in the last year.
My body tenses as she gets closer, and by the time she swings her body into the passenger seat, I have to look down at my boots. Her ass is fucking perfect and curvy. She’s lost weight, which irritates me to no end because she doesn’t eat enough, but she’s still fucking perfect. It doesn’t escape me that we’re wearing nearly identical outfits, save for her pale-pink long-sleeve button-up and my cut atop my white tee. She didn’t used to dress like this. It was always something more feminine, softer, and more librarian than biker chick. I never could imagine sweet, cutesy Mindy in my world.
Until now.
I force myself to close the SUV’s door and walk around without thinking about how well she could fit in my world if only she would let me show her what it’s like. If only she would let me touch her.
With a turn of the key, the Suburban starts right up, and we pull away from the curb. Mindy’s got her hands on her lap, and she’s nervously picking at nonexistent dirt under her nails. She’s so quiet and worried—I can tell by the frown line that’s appeared on her smooth face—that she didn’t even put her seatbelt on. Instinctively, I reach over and grab ahold of the belt. The outside of my arm brushes against her stomach, and she sucks in a breath reflexively. She tenses under my featherlight touch, but her eyes shoot to mine. I balance my time between watching the road and her face as I pull on the seatbelt. She doesn’t flip out or panic like I expect her to. Instead, she lifts her hands, giving me room to bring the belt over her lap and secure it into its safety lock.. Confidently, I give the locked belt a tug to tighten it.
“You’re not wearing your seat belt,” she says softly. Her voice seems to pick up confidence toward the end of the sentence, like she’s working up to arguing with me. A hopeful smile creeps to my lips at the thought. I wish she would try to fight me. There’s nothing better than getting the gift of an unbroken mare and teaching her how to behave.
“No, I’m not.” I clear the smile from my face. She’s going to hate me in a few minutes, and I don’t want this time between us to have her thinking that just because I like her and I’m being nice, that I won’t stay true to my word. I always keep my word, even if I have to make her hate me to do it.
“If I have to wear my seat belt, you have to wear yours.” She folds her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow at me.
“That’s not how this works.” I blow out a deep breath and decide how to phrase what I want to say. She has to understand me, us, this so we don’t have to fight it out later. Especially if I can’t touch her and truly punish her for misbehaving.
“Explain it to me, then.” Her eyes haven’t left mine since I grabbed the seat belt to snap her in, and thank fuck for it, too. She hasn’t even looked to see where we’re headed. I should have put her in the back with the child locks to keep her from trying to jump out, but distracting her seems to be working well enough. For now.