Badd Motherf*cker: Badd Brothers (10 page)

He sounded groggy, scratchy. “Dru?”

“Yeah, Daddy. It’s me.”
 

“Where the motherfucking goddamned hell did you fucking go?” Only a Marine Corps DI could swear like that.
 

“I’m in Ketchikan, Dad.”
 

“Alaska?”

“Apparently.”

A moment of silence, then the sounds of the burr grinder and the faucet as Dad made coffee. “Explain.”

“I—I’m sorry, Dad. I’m
so
sorry. I didn’t think about how it’d make you feel, I just…I had to go. I couldn’t stay in Seattle another second. It was a crazy spur of the moment thing and I was drunk…but it was the right thing to do for me. I’m just sorry I worried you.”

“
Worried
me? Worried is what I’d be if you got in a fender bender or some shit. I heard from Rolando that you jumped in front of a seaplane during take-off and climbed into the plane drunk and still in your wedding dress, and took off in it? That’s not worry, that’s a heart attack. I tore ’Lando a new asshole for letting you do that. He should’ve cuffed you before letting you get on that fucking airplane.”

“I wouldn’t have let him. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was panicked, I was—wait, you didn’t have an actual heart attack, did you?”

“No, no. Thought I was having one, and even went in to see Doc Roberts, but he said it was called panic, not angina. I’m healthy as a horse, just worried about you. You’re all I’ve got, baby-cakes.”

“Everything in Seattle is stained by Michael. I’ll come back, I just don’t know when.”

“So you’re in Alaska?”

“It’s where the plane was going. It’s nice here.”

“You need anything?”

“A new heart?”

This got me a sad laugh. “You and me both, babe.”

“I just need time.”
 

“Are you somewhere safe, at least? You need money or anything?”

“I’ve got savings. I’m…” Was I safe?
I mean, sort of. For Dad’s purposes, I decided, yes, I was safe. “I’m okay. I mean, I’m not okay, but I’m somewhere safe. I’ll be fine.”

“You want me and the boys to put the hurt on that ex asshole of yours?” He paused a moment. “Wait, he is
ex
, right? You’re not taking him back, are you?”
 

“No, don’t hurt him, he’s not worth it. And
hell
the
fuck
no I’m not taking him back. I’ll probably let him try to explain himself, at some point, but I’m
not
taking him back. I got my ability to forgive from you, after all.”

“Yeah, I don’t got that ability.”

“My point exactly, Dad.”
 

He chuckled. “Ah. Right.” He was quiet for another moment. “Sure you’re okay, baby-cakes? I got an old buddy from the Corps in Spokane who has a plane. I can send him to come get you.”

I should. I should have Dad’s Corps buddy come get me and bring me home. There was nothing in Ketchikan for me.
 

Except a certain tattooed bartender…

Nope.

NOPE.

No way. Bad plan. Super bad horrible terrible no good very very terribly stupid plan, having anything to do with Sebastian. Or his beefcake asshole Navy SEAL brother.
 

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t have any good reason, and lots of good reasons not to, but I wanted to stay. I wasn’t sure where I’d go, or what I’d do, but as long as I was in Ketchikan—a long,
long
way from that stupid cheating motherfucking dickhead bastard cock-face shit-eating son of a bitch Michael—I might as well stay here and figure things out, like I’d originally planned…albeit
planned
might be the wrong word, but I was going with it.

You don’t grow up a DI’s daughter without learning how to string swear words together.

Had nothing to do with Sebastian.
 

I just needed a change of scenery, somewhere new and unfamiliar to put my thoughts in order, to sort out my feelings, to just…let myself be hurt and learn to get over it. Plus, the storm wasn’t letting up, so I was stuck here for another day or so anyway.

“Dru?” Dad’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. “Are you still there?”

I blinked, cleared my throat. “Sorry, Dad, I got lost in my head for a second. No, I’ll be okay for now. But keep that buddy on the hook, because I might need a ride out of here when I’m ready.”

“You got it, honey.” I heard the sound of coffee pouring. “Well, I’m gonna let you go, then. I love you, Dru. And I’m sorry you’re going through this.”
 

“Thanks. I love you too, Dad. And I’m sorry I freaked you out.”

“Now that I know you’re alive and okay and where you want to be, I’m okay. Take whatever time you need. I’ll be here when you get back, and if you need anything,
anything
, just call me. All right, honey?”
 

“You got it, Dad. Love you, bye.” That stupid lump in my throat wouldn’t go away.
 

“Bye.”
 

I set the phone on the bar and spun it in circles.
 

At least I’d always have Dad.

I headed upstairs in search of Sebastian to remind him about the breakfast he’d promised me.

6

Sebastian

“What were we supposed to do, Bast? Forget everything any of us ever dreamed of doing with our lives? We all hated it here. We wanted more. You always seemed content to run the bar with Dad.” Zane was sitting on one of the stools, flipping idly through a magazine while I rustled up breakfast in the upstairs kitchen.
 

“Nobody ever asked me what I wanted, Zane. That’s all I’m saying. You all just assumed. What if I wasn’t content here? You left, then Brock…” I stirred the scrambled eggs a little more forcefully than I needed to. “One after another, everyone just left. It was just Lucian and me for the last few months, after Xavier got that ride to Stanford, but Lucian…you know how he is. He was working Clint’s fishing boat more than he was home, saving his bank. Then he just fuckin’ vanished. Packed a bag, boarded a cargo ship headed east, and I ain’t heard a word from his ass since.”
 

“Last I checked in, he was in the Philippines.”

“Lawyer said Thailand.”

“That was six months ago. I had a buddy in Intelligence ping him for me a few weeks ago, and got him tracked down to Manila.”

“Nobody ever tells me this shit,” I groused.

“That’s ’cause your caveman ass don’t have a fucking computer or cell phone.”

“I have a computer.”

Zane laughed. “Dude, that’s not a computer, it’s a dinosaur. I’m pretty sure my first cell phone had more computing power than that old piece of shit.”
 

It really was an ancient piece of shit. I think Dad got it in like ’96 to keep his receipts and inventory more organized, or something. I mainly used it to play solitaire on boring evenings. Sometimes it was Minesweeper, but I didn’t really understand that one. Inventory happened on a clipboard, and receipts got filed in a filing cabinet. No internet, no email, and I wasn’t sure it even had a CD-ROM player, or whatever it was called. The most technologically advanced piece of equipment in the bar aside from the twenty-year-old register was a radio connected to four little speakers I’d installed up on the ceiling. The radio got three stations clearly: country, rock, and pop; it stayed tuned to rock.

“Whatever,” I said. I didn’t want to get into the real reason I didn’t replace the damn thing.

Zane, however, was a perceptive bastard. “I get that it was Dad’s, but he’s not in the computer, Bast. He’s gone. You won’t be replacing him if you get a new computer and an internet connection.”
 

“Fuck you,” I snarled. “What the fuck do you know?”
 

Zane had done that ninja thing he could do, where he’d moved so quickly and silently I didn’t even know he was right behind me until I felt his hand on my shoulder.
 

“Dude, look, I get it, okay?”
 

I spun on him, shoved him. I knew it was stupid to physically provoke him, since he really was a deadly motherfucker, but I couldn’t help it. “You don’t get a goddamn thing, Zane! You…weren’t…
here
.”
 

He growled, and his hand latched around my throat. Four inches shorter than me, but the motherfucker was strong as hell. He had me shoved up on my tip-toes and seeing stars. “Because I was in fucking Afghanistan killing terrorists, you asshole! I was crawling through the dirt dodging RPGs when Dad died. I went off the rez when I found out, but I was in-country. What was I supposed to do? Go AWOL? Fuck you too, Sebastian. You’re not the only one who lost him.” He let me go, turned away with a sigh. “Shit.”
 

I followed his gaze and saw Dru standing in the entrance watching us.
 

“I—I’m sorry. I’m obviously interrupting.” She turned around to leave.

“Stop, Dru, wait.” Zane’s voice stopped her. “You’re getting a bad impression. Don’t go. We’re not usually like this.”
 

“I don’t need to be around your family arguments,” she said, opening the door to the stairs. “I’ve got drama of my own—I don’t need yours, too.” She was down the stairs then, her footsteps slow but steady.

I pushed past Zane. “Plate the eggs for three, and finish the bacon,” I told him.
 

He frowned at me. “Like I can cook?”

“Do your best,” I said. “If you can HALO jump, you can manage bacon.”

I scrambled down the stairs after Dru, not really sure why, apart from a gut feeling that I didn’t want her to leave yet.

I just wanted my dick inside her, part of me argued, and I knew she didn’t need that from me.

Didn’t stop my dick from wanting her, though. Or my feet from going after her, but I wasn’t sure if my feet were acting in service of my dick or the strange feeling in my gut that wanted her to stay. Of course, “gut feelings” usually happened somewhere other than my heart, but I was going with gut feeling since it seemed simpler and easier to explain.

I caught up to her at the front door of the bar.
 

My hands wrapped around her waist, spun her around, pressed her back up against the door. She stared up at me, blue eyes sad and angry and shocked and confused and…sparking with lust as fierce as my own.
 

I kissed her.

It wasn’t a rough, demanding kiss, but it wasn’t some slow sappy wet thing, either. I kissed her like she was mine, like I had all the time in the world to kiss her thoroughly, like I’d spent a thousand nights and thousand days kissing her like this, my hands on her waist, pulling her against me now and pushing my body against hers.

God, she was soft.

Pliable.

Her tits were firm lumps squashed against my chest, her lips warm and damp on mine. She was perfect. She just
fit
. A moment of frozen disbelief, and then some other part of her took over, a part of her that wanted this kiss as bad as I did. Her mouth moved, then, her lips sliding on mine, tilting, gliding, wet on wet, and then I probed the seam of her mouth with my tongue and she opened for me, accepted my tongue and slashed hers against mine. I pulled her closer, and I knew there was no way she was missing the iron staff of my erection wedged between us. I tasted her tongue, and then felt her moan, heard it, tasted it. God, that moan. It sent fire into my veins.

Made my already pulsing cock throb all the harder.
 

Her hands drifted up as we kissed, one settling on my arm to stroke my biceps, tracing my ink, the other buried in my hair above my ear and gliding down to trace the outside of my ear—and
Jesus
fuck me that touch, the softest, gentlest, questing brush of her fingertips over my ear…what was it about it that made me so crazy? It drove me wild, made my chest buzz and my heart hammer and my cock pound and my throat emit a snarl as I scooped her up, carving my hands over her round, juicy ass and lifting her up, pulling her hard against me, shoving my zipper into the tight wedge of her thighs. I slammed her up against the door, and thank god it was locked, otherwise we would have gone toppling outside.
 

The kiss went wild, then.
 

As if she were starving. As if this kiss could sate some deep need inside her, as if she’d never been kissed like this. Which had to be a joke, because how could any man have a woman like this in his hands and not go wild? I felt like an animal, my libido gone primal, demanding I paw her clothes off and ravage her senseless, fuck her boneless, make her mine, leave my mark on her pale cream skin. I couldn’t stop. I was ravenous, monstrous, feral. My fingers clawed into her ass and my tongue slashed and tangled against hers and my hips drove against her core. She was whimpering, gasping against my mouth, moaning into my kiss, groaning into my lips.
 

I spun in place, walked three steps forward, and laid her down on a table, kicking chairs aside, my mouth never leaving hers. Her legs hooked around my waist, keeping me in place, firm against her denim-covered core. Didn’t stop me from grinding, from moving as if I were fucking her, as if I could feel her tight hot wet pussy through the denim. Much more of this, and I would be. I was hard enough to drive nails at that point, and grinding against her so hard I was in danger of spooging in my shorts like a damn teenager, but fuck if I cared. I needed her, needed more, couldn’t stop. Didn’t even try.

She was sober, and she wasn’t stopping me.

Hell, she was begging for more. Her mouth was wild on mine, kissing me back just as fiercely as I was kissing her.

I
needed
to fuck this woman.
 

My hands took over, took my train of thought and ran with it.

My hands left her ass and slid up her hips, pushed the cotton of her sweatshirt up to bare her belly, and then the sports bra. I broke the kiss, slid down her body to flick my tongue in her belly button, then kissed her stomach down toward the waist of the jeans, then back up to her diaphragm. Across her ribs just beneath the lower edge of the sports bra.
 

Fuck.

No way I could restrain myself, not now that I had my lips on her, not now that I’d gotten a double handful of that sweet ass of hers, and especially not now that I had her prone beneath me, her legs around my waist, her tits inches from my lips, just a bit of fabric between my mouth and her nipples.