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  Chapter Fourteen

  Kick

  Fuck, could this day get any worse?

  I stepped aside and let my mother enter. Actually, I had no choice, because she barged her way in before I could stop her. I closed the door after her and turned to see Evie’s face had paled. She looked like she’d seen a ghost, and I guessed she had.

  My mother.

  The reason for so much of her heartache growing up.

  “Mum,” Lina said, sounding anything but pleased to see her, “what are you doing here?”

  Mum’s back stiffened. “Am I not allowed to visit my daughter and grandchildren?”

  Jesus, bring on the fucking guilt trip.

  Lina scowled. “You never just drop by out of the blue. Not unless you want something.” The unspoken accusation sat between them.

  Mum’s hand went to her hip and I could just imagine the superior look on her face. “That’s not true -” She stopped mid-sentence and her head turned to look at Evie. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought my son had seen the error of his ways years ago.” Before Evie could respond, Mum looked at me and said, “Please don’t tell me she’s here because you are?”

  I stalked to where she stood, and, fuming, said, “You don’t get to come here and say that shit to or about Evie.” My body buzzed with anger at her attitude, and my breaths were coming hard and fast. “Besides, what I do is none of your business anymore.”

  “Yes, you made that perfectly clear two years ago, Kick, but just because you stop seeing me and try to tell me what is and what isn’t my business, doesn’t mean I’m not interested to know what’s happening in your life.” Her eyes were still as vacant as they’d been my entire life. The words were coming out of her mouth but she didn’t mean them.

  My mother. The shallowest woman I’d ever had the misfortune of knowing.

  “You’ve never been interested in my life,” I spat. “The only thing Veronica Hanson is interested in is Veronica Hanson.”

  Her eyes flared with anger. And a tiny bit of hatred. My mother held a lot of resentment in her soul, and her kids and husband had been wrapped up in that resentment for years. We’d held her back; stifled her life plans. Apparently. “How the hell did you come from me?” she demanded to know.

  “That’s a really good fuckin’ question.”

  “Kick!” Lina interjected, her eyes glaring at me.

  Fuck, the fuckin’ swearwords.

  I quickly glanced at the kids who were busy watching television. Thank fuck, they didn’t need to be involved in this shit. I turned back to my mother. “I don’t know how the hell any of your kids turned out okay after being subjected to your nastiness and bitchiness while we were growing up, but you did manage to screw Evie up, so there is that.”

  Evie caught my attention when she took a step in my direction, a distraught look on her face. She found my eyes and whatever she saw there stopped her. “Kick . . .” she began, but I cut her off.

  “No, Evie, she needs to hear this. So her husband screwed around on her and then took it one step further and slept with her best friend. It doesn’t give her the right to take that shit out on the kids in her life, one of them being you. Just because her husband slept with your mother doesn’t give her the fuckin’ right to label you . . . a fuckin’ innocent teenager in all that . . . a slut, and spread nasty rumours about you.” My heart pumped furiously in my chest as years of hurt and anger roared to the surface. I jabbed my finger at my mother. “That shit ain’t fuckin’ right!”

  Jesus!

  I began pacing in the small space I occupied, fully aware I was close to losing my shit completely. Evie and Lina stared at me in horror. None of this had ever been confronted. Our families had splintered apart after Evie’s sister died, and we’d shattered completely after Dad slept with Loretta six months later. As far as I was concerned, this conversation was about eighteen years too late.

  “You’ve got no idea what I went through! What your father did to me!” my mother screamed at me, the vacant look in her eyes long gone, replaced with bitterness and pure hatred.

  “I don’t give a shit what my father did to you! You should have been more concerned about your children but instead, I spent my whole life chasing your affection . . . chasing your love. You were more concerned with trying to make yourself look good so that people would think you were this amazing mother and amazing person when that was so damn far from the truth.”

  She stared wildly at me, her chest heaving, and her face flushed with anger. “You’ve grown into an asshole, Kick. That club is obviously no good for you but that’s what you get for abandoning your family as soon as you could.”

  Was she for fucking real?

  Funny how someone’s memories of how something went down can be so wrong.

  I jabbed my finger at her again, the adrenaline coursing through my veins needing an outlet, and a finger jab seemed like a much better option than the punch I wanted to throw. I’d never punch a woman, but the wall was looking more and more attractive. The kids were the only thing holding me back at this point. “I joined Storm because they were more of a family to me than you and Dad ever were,” I fumed. “You can’t abandon something that isn’t there in the first place. Dad was long gone, and you were never there. And I never fuckin’ abandoned Lina or Braden.”

  The rage circling the room threatened to choke me.

  I need to get out of here.

  Without another glance at my mother, I turned and stalked out of the house. Once I’d made it to the footpath, I placed my hands behind my head to grip the back of my neck. “Fuck!” I roared into the air, pushing a chunk of pent up frustration out.

  I paced the footpath for a few minutes until Mum came storming out of the house towards her car. “Don’t ever talk to me again, Kick. I don’t want anything to do with you ever again!” she yelled as she threw her bag in the car.

  “Consider it done!” I thundered, and turned my back as she backed out of the driveway and sped off. “Fuck!” I yelled again, desperately trying to get the rage out that was trapped in my body.

  Evie came running out of the house, towards me. I held my hand up, signalling for her to stop, to not come anywhere near me, because I couldn’t be sure of my actions at the moment.

  She slowed her advance but didn’t stop, her eyes pleading with me to let her close.

  To let her in.

  “No, Evie, don’t come any closer!” I yelled, hating the words as they left my lips but unable to stop them from falling out. I needed to keep her safe and I wasn’t safe.

  She didn’t fucking stop.

  She came right up to me and a moment later, her hand landed on my arm. “Kick,” she said, her voice calm.

  Full of love.

  My mind flickered with a chaotic mess of thoughts.

  So jumbled.

  So confused.

  I tried to claw through them but instead I was drowning in them.

  I was drowning in my life.

  A childhood of abandonment, an adolescence of hurt and grief, a life of regret.

  Her arms circled me. “Kick,” she soothed me as she pulled me close.

  Love.

  Evie’s love clawed through the thoughts.

  It pushed the pain aside as it reached for my heart.

  For my soul.

  Home.

  Family.

  Evie is my family.

  I took a deep breath and put my arms around her. “Evie,” I whispered, “I love you.”

  Her hand ran up and down my neck, in and out of my hair. “I love you, too, baby,” she whispered.

  I clung to her for a long time, allowing the anger and hurt to seep out of me. Eventually, I pulled away from Evie and asked, “How did you know?”

  She frowned. “How did I know what?”

  “That I needed you. That it would be okay to ignore me and come to me even when I told you not to,” I said, not letting her eyes go, needing them to stay with me and silently tell me the
secrets of her heart that her words couldn’t.

  And they did. The love shone from them as she said, “I knew, because I know you would never hurt me, Kick. You’ve always made sure I was okay, made sure no one else was hurting me. I know deep in my bones that there will never come a day that you hurt me.”

  I gently placed my hand against her cheek. “You never gave up on me, did you?” I whispered.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  I bent my face and kissed her.

  Deep and searching.

  I’d had her words and I’d had her eyes. Now I needed her body to tell me how much she loved me. When her hands slid over my back and her lips blessed mine with a kiss that reached right into my soul, I knew she was completely in.

  I knew Evie would love me forever.

  Just like I’d loved her forever.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Evie

  “Shit,” I muttered as I turned the mower off and collapsed onto the newly mowed grass. I ran my forearm across my sweaty forehead, trying to stop the drops of sweat falling into my eyes.

  Why did I have the bright idea to mow this afternoon?

  On one of the hottest days of the year so far.

  At least it had taken my mind off the huge blow-up between Kick and his mother a couple of days ago. I’d never seen him lose it like that at his family before, but he’d definitely needed to get it out because I’d noticed a change in him since. He didn’t seem as angry or hard as he had been for years.

  I couldn’t deny I’d loved how he defended me, too. Veronica had been awful to me after my mother slept with her husband, and a lot of my problems in my last two years of school had been as a direct result of her vindictiveness. Kick had clearly recognised that and held onto his anger over it for all these years.

  I sighed and lay back on the grass. Closing my eyes, I thought about where he and I were at now. We were together in a way we’d never been together. He’d opened himself up to me completely, and I felt safe in the haven our relationship had become.

  A low whistle sounded from behind me, and I opened my eyes and sat up to find Kick walking towards me with a grin on his face. My body thrummed with desire. This man just had to catch my attention and I was gone. When he stepped into my view looking the way he did this afternoon, I knew it would be hard not to jump him and demand sex. Between the muscles his jeans and white t-shirt barely contained, his confident swagger, and the ruggedly handsome face I’d memorised deep in my heart, I didn’t have a hope in hell of not throwing myself at him. Oh, and add to all of that the beard he’d grown, and I was going down.

  Happily.

  “Why are you mowing?” he asked as he sat next to me, stretching his legs out in front of him and his arms out behind him, leaning back on his hands.

  “Because, funnily enough, the grass grew,” I answered him with the smart mouth I knew he loved.

  “Smartass,” he muttered, the grin not leaving his face. “Leave it for me in the future, okay?”

  I raised my brows. “Is that an ‘okay’ type statement or a ‘we clear’ type statement?” I couldn’t resist, and waited to see what he’d do next. My body kinda hoped he’d attack it.

  He didn’t disappoint, and a moment later, I was lying back on the grass with Kick on top of me. Bending his face close to mine, he growled, “It’s a ‘we clear’ statement, baby, but perhaps you need to be reminded who wears the pants in this relationship.”

  Oh god, yes, I do.

  I bit my lip and stared at him, willing him to keep going.

  To show me who wore the pants.

  His eyes searched mine, questioning. “Yeah?” he asked.

  I decided to push him, just to make sure he pursued this. “I think we know who wears the pants when all is said and done,” I said in my sweetest voice. “You might think it’s you, but it’s not.”

  Heat flashed in those beautiful green eyes of his and he reared up, ripping his shirt off. Next his hands went to my shorts, which he stripped off, along with my panties. He bent his face back to mine and claimed my lips in a rough kiss before saying, “I’m not seeing any pants on you, baby.”

  Sitting back up to straddle me, he undid his jeans and pulled his cock out. He wrapped his hand around it and stroked it a couple of times, his gaze never leaving mine, except to take in my tongue licking my lips.

  The fact we were in my backyard turned me on so damn much. And I knew it would be turning Kick on, too. He liked to fuck out in the open, and we’d had sex in a lot of strange places over the years.

  “Babe, you with me?” he asked, snapping my attention back to what he was doing.

  “Yeah, I’m waiting patiently for you to show me who the man is,” I said, goading him.

  “Darlin’, this is about so much more than showing you who the man is, ‘cause I think we can both agree who the fuckin’ man is here.” His lips brushed over mine again, his teeth lightly biting them. With his gaze firmly fixed to mine, he reached a hand down to my pussy and pushed two fingers in. Rough and hard, causing my body to slide a little. “No, this is about showing you who owns your body.” He slid his fingers out and then pushed them both back in, hard again, and I moaned at the pleasure he caused.

  He kept this up, working me towards heaven.

  Working me towards admitting to him who owned my body. Although, it wasn’t really a secret.

  He’d almost brought me to orgasm when he pulled his fingers out and moved his hands to my t-shirt. Pushing it up to expose my breasts, he then pulled my bra cups down to let my breasts fall out and into his mouth.

  My pussy cried out her need, and I begged, “Kick, what the fuck?”

  He had a handful and mouthful of boob and wasn’t letting go, but his eyes looked up at mine in a ‘what?’ glance.

  “You had me so close, baby,’ I complained.

  He let my boob fall out of his mouth. “Really?” he asked with a smug look on his face.

  Fine. If that was how he wanted to play this, two could play at that game. “It’s all good, I can take care of this,” I said as I reached down to bring myself to orgasm.

  He sat back and watched as I pushed my fingers inside and did what I really wanted him to do. I thought for sure he would take over, but he didn’t. Instead, he took hold of his dick and began pumping it while keeping his eyes trained on my pussy.

  Fuck.

  My plan had backfired, but I had another one up my sleeve.

  I quickly sat up and moved so I could push him onto his back and straddle him. Positioning myself over his cock, I pushed down to take him inside.

  “Fuck!” he roared as his face clearly showed the pleasure I was giving him.

  His hands came to my hips and held me tight as I fucked him.

  He’d already worked me up with his fingers so I wasn’t far off, and the angle I was fucking him at now always got me there faster. As I felt my orgasm about to explode around me, I fucked him harder and faster, desperate for it.

  We came together and both cried out our pleasure. I pressed my hands against his chest as I took every last drop of heaven I could find. When I finally opened my eyes, I found him watching me with lust-filled eyes.

  I moved off him so I could lay on the grass next to him, curled into his side, head on his arm that had come around my shoulders. “I guess I wear the pants in this relationship,” I murmured against his chest.

  His body gently shook as he chuckled. “Was there any fuckin’ doubt, sweetheart?”

  I smiled and closed my eyes.

  I loved my man, but I really loved how he let me think I had some control when we both knew neither of us had any control.

  Our hearts ruled us.

  And we each ruled each other.

  ***

  The next morning, Kick made me run late for a dentist appointment after fucking me in bed and then again in the shower. I was running around my house like a mad woman trying to get everything together when the dentist’s receptionist called to move my appoin
tment to a later time slot. I rescheduled with her and then dropped my phone into my bag, relieved I now had a chance to calm down and get ready without the panic.

  Kick grinned and came towards me, his hands reaching for the button on my jeans. I slapped his hand away. “No,” I said firmly, giving him the evil eye. “You’ve had your fill this morning and I’m all out of orgasms.”

  He smirked. “Baby, you are never out of orgasms.”

  I raised my brows, trying to look stern. “I am today.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “So you’ve got a dentist appointment and then what?”

  “Then I’ve got work. Why?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out how long until I can get my dick out again.” When I smirked, he added, “You don’t seem to realise just what you do to me, Evie.”

  I put my hand on my hip, settling in to hear this. “Tell me, Kick, what do I do to you?”

  He uncrossed his arms and took the few strides separating us. “You cause an insatiable fuckin’ need in me that I’ve never experienced before. Even if I fucked you all day long, I’d still never get enough.”

  Oh god.

  My core clenched.

  Maybe I did have more orgasms in me today.

  He traced my lips and then cupped my cheek before kissing me. “I’m taking you to your appointment and then to work, and then I’m picking you up from work and taking you back to my house. Today we play my way. With my toys,” he growled, and I felt his growl all the way through my body.

  Hell yes.

  He slapped my ass and said, “Hurry up and finish getting ready. We need to make a quick detour past my place on the way.”

  I did as I was told, and fifteen minutes later he had me on the back of his bike and we were on our way to his house. As I hugged him, I couldn’t stop thinking about how good it was to have him back in my life. Thank goodness for second chances, and even third chances. I knew some people hated the idea of love the second time around because they felt it meant so much wasted time, and while I agreed, I truly believed that sometimes you just weren’t ready for each other the first time. Or in mine and Kick’s case, the second time.