She giggled and rolled her face into the pillow before she looked back up at me, smiling. Goddamn, she was beautiful.
“I’ll be right back as soon as I get that kid locked in the barn and I don’t want you to fucking move. You lie there and wait for me. That * is mine. You’re forbidden from satisfying it without my help.”
Kelly took her hand away from her wet * and lay back on the bed.
“Don’t take too long now,” she said, teasingly.
I turned and walked out of the room, doing up my jeans and trying my best to hide the massive erection that stretched down my thigh.
I swear to God kid, whatever the fuck you want better be at least mildly important or I’m going to be mad as fuck.
As I walked down the stairs, I couldn’t help but wonder what the fuck I was doing. Forty-eight hours ago, I would have fucked her brains out as I made her brother wait outside and listen. Hell, forty-eight hours ago I wouldn’t even be at this fucking place with her, let alone her and some goddamn kid. This whole situation was profoundly fucked up, but, at the same time, it all felt right to me. Even the kid.
Even as I left the most beautiful woman I had ever seen lying on a bed waiting for me to take her, I wasn’t as angry as I fucking should be. I liked the kid. He was a fucking smart ass and a thorn in my goddamn side, but a part of me actually liked having him around.
It was the life I’d always thought I didn’t deserve. And here it was, coming to me like a gift from God.
You are fucking out of your mind, Hunter. If the lads back home could fucking see this.
But they wouldn’t see this. I was beginning to finally understand that. I may be the same fucking lowdown, murdering criminal, but I wasn’t in Boston anymore and any motherfucker I saw from that city was going to be showing up to kill me. I was the same person, but my life and the people around me had changed forever. Kelly was a part of me and the kid was a part of her. The whole family was now my people and, if I was being honest with myself, I knew that it was what I wanted. Even Grace had a place in my new life. No more Hunter Donnelly, the lone fucking wolf. I was never going to be Mister Family Man, but I was coming to terms with some blurry place in between.
What a fucking day.
“Luke? Luke? Where the fuck are you, pal?” I called out the door as I got to the front hallway.
“Hey there, Hunter boy.”
I stopped dead in my tracks and felt my hands ball into fists.
Fuck. Fuck no. Fuck No.
I knew that voice. That fucking disgusting, entitled voice.
I looked up and out the screen door. Old man Donnelly was standing in front of Kelly’s car with a knife to her brother’s fucking throat.
I’m going to pull your goddamn eyes out with my bare fucking hands, old man. That kid is my people now.
I burst through the screen door, rushing toward Lucas, when I felt a crack on the back of my head that sent me flying, face first, off the porch and into the dirt. I’d been clocked by a baseball bat before. I knew what it felt like. Some motherfucker had been on the other side of the door, waiting for me, and I should have known that.
“Hope you don’t mind us showing up like this, Hunter, but you haven’t been exactly returning my calls lately.”
I could see him walking toward me as my vision started to fade in and out.
Get up, Hunter. Get the fuck up. Now.
I started to push myself off the ground and then I felt a boot come down hard between my shoulder blades, forcing my face back into the dirt.
All right, how many of you fuckers are there?
I felt the butt of a bat come down on the back of my skull and the warm sensation of blood running down the side of my face. The last thing I heard as I passed out was footsteps coming closer and Lucas screaming into the old man’s hand that covered his mouth.
Chapter 48
Hunter
“HEY. EASY, EASY, WE DON’T want Hunter here dying on us already. I’ve got a few things I want to talk over with him first. You alive, boy? Hey! I’m talking to you, you piece of shit.”
I could hear the old man walking toward me as I started to come to. I opened my eyes just in time to see his brown dress shoe come flying at me and connect with my mouth, snapping my head back violently.
“Stand this ungrateful fuck up. Hunter, Hunter? You with me boy, or did we hit your dumb ass too hard with that fucking bat?”
I was suddenly being pulled to my knees by two sets of arms. I felt boots go down on the backs of my legs as I was held there. I spat blood and saw it mix with the dirt in front of me. I was used to blood being spilled, it just wasn’t generally mine.
I looked up and smiled at the old man. I could feel the blood on my teeth and taste it on my tongue. I spit more onto the ground.