Loving a Bad Boy (34 page)

“
Who’s the big guy?” She
tipped her chin toward the patio, where his back could be
seen.

Tex chuckled. “Hog.”

“
Stephen?”

“
Patrolling down below
near the beach.”

She nodded and leaned against the wall,
breathing hard. “That’s the guy Julio shot at earlier. Why is he
still here? He can’t believe that crap about Zachary giving me to
him. Nobody does that anymore.”

Figures
. When you’re alone and no one wants you, nobody shows up.
Now that she had finally met someone, another good-looking man
comes along.

Men are
stupid
.

“
Julio’ll kill him,” Tex
said so matter of factly, her head shot up in his
direction.

“
Well… we just won’t let
that happen. I don’t want him to get in trouble over
that.”

Tex shrugged but continued watching the
hallway.

She waited for a decent amount of time to
pass. When she felt she had been absent long enough for a bathroom
visit, she walked into the living room and sat down.

Tex followed and leaned against the kitchen
wall. Her father stood near the front door. “I need to talk wit
you.” He waved her toward him.

She hesitated. “Tex, could you give us some
privacy?” She crossed her legs and looked at her friend.

He nodded and left the room. She waved her
arms around the now vacant space. “Talk.” She paused. “Make sure
you keep your friend away from me. It’ll cause problems and get him
hurt.”

For a moment their eyes clashed. “You’re
scared?”

“
Not like you think. One
of the summer camps I went to taught me to shoot and use a bow. I’m
a nurse, but I will shoot him if I feel threatened.”

He chuckled. “But you’d pull a gun on
me?”

Eyes narrowed she wondered how he’d
discovered that tidbit. She glared at him. “Yeah I would. You don’t
get a pass. What you did was deliberate cruelty that messed me up
for years. There is one thing I want from you—”

He waved her down. “I know, you’ve made it
clear you want nothing to do wit me, just information.” There was a
wealth of sadness in his voice as he turned away from her.

Stabbed with guilt for his sad voice, she
crossed her legs and looked out the glass door where Hog remained
standing.

They sat across from each other, more
combatants than family.

“
I have someone in my
life. Someone I met on my own. I don’t need or want you interfering
in my life at this late date. I got this.” She slapped her chest.
“When I needed your help, you were missing in action. It’s too late
to play the concerned parent,” she added.

His jaw tightened. “I
am
your
concerned
parent. Nothing will ever change that. Just because I’m late to the
shindig doesn’t mean I don’t get to dance.”

She snorted. “So dance. Just not with me.”
She stood, prepared to leave the room.

His hands flew up. “Okay.”

His remark threw her. “Okay what?”

“
You’re not interested.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”

“
Good.”

“
You’re not wit the black
guy?”

“
No. We’re just friends.”
She stressed the word 'just,' wondering where he was going with
this.

“
The white guy then?” His
mouth twisted as though he’d sucked a sour lemon.

“
Latino.” For some reason
she felt compelled to underscore Julio’s nationality.

“
Hmm. Where’s he
from?”

“
Michigan.” She crossed
her arms as she answered.

“
What’s his
name?”

“
I told you, Julio. Julio
Cardenas.”

Her father stood slowly, shoulders straight,
with a pinched look on his face as he looked around the room.
“Where is he?”

She stood and moved to face him. “Why?” This
wasn’t the time for him to become fatherly. Not when she and Julio
were kinda committed.

He glanced down at her and chuckled. “Just
curious. I need to pay more a’tention to t'ings, I’m surprised,
that’s all.”

Pam frowned at the thickening of his accent.
He was acting strange, walking around the room and checking
outside. “I’ve got to check on some t’ings, but I still want to
take you to meet some of the family while you’re here.”

“
I don’t know. We can talk
about it after you give me some information about mama. You haven’t
done any of that yet.”

He wore a funny look on his face. A mix
between happy and sad. It was weird. “You okay?”

He tipped his head up. “I’m okay. This
is…interesting.” He walked out the door before she could ask him
anything else.

Her back was to the hall, but she heard the
door open and Tex’s footfalls. “He gone?”

Pam rubbed the back of her neck as she faced
him. “Yeah.”

He sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at
her. “He moves quiet like. I never hear him coming up. It’s strange
for an old dude.”

Since she had nothing to add, she shrugged
and headed for the kitchen.

He followed her. “I mean… he’s your pops and
all, but when I pulled out my piece the other day he just…he just
ignored it. What’s up with that?”

She had wondered about that, but had no
answers for him. “I don’t know.” She pulled another can of sweet
tea out the refrigerator, popped the top and drank. The
conversation with her dad left her thirsty and confused. He never
argued or explained his absence in her life. Yet he wanted to
introduce her to family. It made no sense.

“
Make sure you tell Julio
what happened. He’s gonna be mad he slept through it. Hell, I’m mad
it took me so long to figure out what was going on out there.
They’re too damn quiet.” He sat on the stool beside her.

He leaned back. “Tell me about your old man.
When we were flying here, you acted scared… like he’d disowned you
or something. But he keeps showing up.” He paused as if trying to
phrase a difficult question as politely as possible. “Everything
okay?”

Those two words, quietly spoken, buffeted
her with the force of a tomahawk. Hell no, nothing was okay.
Zachary Burrows had been missing from most of her life. She’d seen
him more, heard his voice, talked with him more in the past week
than the past sixteen years. And out of the blue someone claims her
old man gave him permission to have her? What kind of crap was
that?

Regardless of her dad’s
assurances, she
wasn’t
positive he could handle things. The derisive look on Boot’s
face before he masked it coupled with his demand she be removed
from this house didn’t bode well. When a man made a demand like
that to a woman’s father, he felt he had rights. She shuddered at
the thought.

“
I’m not sure.
Everything’s kind of jumbled right now. Things aren’t making much
sense.”

“
Didn’t he
explain?”

“
Hmm?” Her brow rose in
question.

Tex’s jaw clenched and then relaxed. “Your
pops. Didn’t he explain?”

“
Explain…?” She waited for
him to clarify his question.

“
Did he explain that guy?
The one you called Boots. Did he tell you why that guy wants you?
Or why he thinks he can dictate what the hell goes on here? Is your
dad playing matchmaker between you and that guy?”

With each question, her face heated until
she was ablaze. She swallowed back the acrid taste on her tongue,
and pushed away a few strands of hair from her face to buy time to
get her thoughts together.

When she could speak, she looked at him. “He
said a little bit. Mostly that he’d take care of it and for me not
to worry. But I think he told Boots something. Why else would he
show up after Julio shot at him? Either he’s crazy or he believes
he has rights.” She met Tex’s stare. “I don’t think he’s crazy.
You?”

Tex shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

Crap. That hurt.

Chapter 22

After an unfruitful week and numerous dead
ends, Pam accepted her father’s invitation to lunch at his home. He
promised to give her more information about her mom if she came
alone.

Since the island was small, she and Tex
agreed it should be okay. He gave her a small device to throw
beneath the car seat so he could track her if things got out of
hand. Even though Boots never returned, she still didn’t trust her
old man not to hand her over to him.

Hands clasped tight in her lap, she tried,
without success, to calm her troubled thoughts. It had been a week
since Julio’s visit. Lord, she missed him. Their nightly phone
talks didn’t replace his warm flesh laying beside her at night. No
matter how he reassured her that he missed her just as much, she
simply couldn’t toss aside the fear that they had moved too fast.
In her opinion, they needed more time to learn about one another.
But Julio had been crystal clear before he left. She was his woman
and they were monogamous. Exuberant, she’d agreed.

“
No dating anybody,” he’d
said, right before he kissed her senseless and boarded the
plane.

She smiled, remembering their conversation
last night, about the last time they'd made love.

“
That was better than the
first time in the elevator,” Julio said
.

Pam frowned, and then got angry. He’d
confused her with somebody else and that hurt. Bracing herself for
more pain, she snapped. “We never got off in an elevator. You got
me con—”

“
In my mind we
did.”

That stopped her cold. His mind? “Huh?"
She’d asked with her mouth half-opened and eyebrows raised. Did he
say what she thought he'd said?

“
That first time I saw
you.” He paused
.

Speechless, she’d gripped
the phone, refusing to miss a single word of his kinky
confession.
He’d like her from the
beginning
?

“
You were standing there
holding your bags, trying not to stare at me. But I caught you
checking me out.” He chuckled.

She giggled. Giggled? Oh lord what happened
to her? “So?” She’d wanted him to get to the sex in the elevator
that never happened part.

His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “When
you turned around to push your floor, I was thinking I should slide
those shorts down that round ass of yours. Then I’d give you a few
slaps on each cheek, just to make 'em jiggle a bit.”

Her heart had raced at the image. She loved
when he pulled her hair and slapped her ass. The combination took
her to a higher level of bliss. Thighs tight to ease the throb his
words created, she'd laid back and closed her eyes, imagining him
in the bed with her. “Hmmm.”

“
Then I’d pull you back
against me, let you feel my big cock before I stuck it inside you.
You want that, don’t you? You want all of this dick in your tight
pussy, right?”
The sultriness in his voice
had stroked her already over-sensitive folds. Like magic, her legs
opened wide. Tentatively she’d touched herself, surprised by how
wet and how good those soft strokes felt.

“
I’d slide my fat dick
inside your tight pussy and you woulda took it all. You hear
me?”
Julio demanded, no longer sounding
like the sweet, gentle lover from a minute ago.

There must’ve been something intrinsically
wrong with her because she’d loved the authority in his voice.
“Yeah.”

“
You would’a been holding
onto the rails in the elevator tight as I slammed into you until
you screamed my name and came all over my cock.”

She’d bit back a moan as his voice slid into
a honeyed growl. Had he been stroking himself like she had? Her
fingers had scissored in and out, faster, deeper. The eroticism of
his voice, coupled with his words had sent her over the edge. She’d
exploded at the image he painted.

“
You okay?” her father
asked, interrupting her memories of Julio from last
night.

“
I’m good,” she mumbled
without turning around. “Where are we going?”

“
I told you I had a
surprise for you.” His voice had taken on a melancholy
flavor.

“
What?” she asked, more to
hear the tone of his voice than the words she was certain he’d
repeat.

“
You’ll see.” He turned
and drove down a long dirt road and stopped at a gate. Soon they
were driving through the gate, and the clear water behind a
modest-sized home caught her attention.