Dirty Past (6 page)

“Unbelievable.” I laugh as Conner calls for Mila. She whines in protest until he mentions the c-word—“candy.” I’ve quickly come to realize that Mila’s absolute favorite thing in the world is Sour Patch Kids, and that Conner always seems to have a stash of them somewhere around his person. He uses them for anything, including bribery.

Hey, it works. I’m not judging. I’ll probably do the same one day if I ever have kids.

Mila climbs down from the sofa and runs across the room to where he’s standing.

“Hey!” Tate shouts, sitting up straight. “Where you goin’?”

“Dadda,” Mila answers simply, her hand clasped around her bunny’s ear.

“Uh, where’s my kiss?”

Her eyes widen and she toddles back over, trailing her rabbit. Mila stops in front of Tate, lifts her rabbit, and presses its mouth against his. I cover my mouth with my hands as she skips away laughing manically.

Tate gets up, and in a few long strides, swoops Mila up and over his shoulder on her back. “That wasn’t a kiss, Mimi! Was it?”

“Was too! Bunna kiss!” She attempts to make kissy noises, but it’s completely overshadowed by her ear-ringing shriek when Tate blows a raspberry on her belly.

I laugh hard, leaning on the back of the sofa. Oh my gosh. I challenge someone to find something cuter—and hotter—than a sexy, tattooed asshole loving on a two-year-old girl.

You won’t find it.

Ever.

“Kiss kiss!” Tate laughs to himself, the effectiveness of his raspberries declining severely.

“Tate—what the hell?” Sofie stops in the doorway. “What are you—never mind.” She giggles softly.

“Dammit, Tate!” Conner straightens. “Now how am I meant to sneak her candy?”

“Grab her and run, bro!” Tate darts across the room, deposits Mila into Conner’s arms, and blocks the doorway. “I’ll hold Momzilla off.”

“Momzilla? I’ll Momzilla your ass, you dick!” Sofie rushes toward him, but Tate wraps his arms around her.

“Go, Con, go!” he shouts, carrying a squirming Sofie over to the free couch. She screams when he throws her down.

“Tate Burke, I’m gonna kick your sorry ass!” She scrambles up, pushes her hair from her face, and half-giggles, half-frowns at him.

“How do you think you’re gonna manage that, short stuff?”

“I’ll call your mom.” She folds her arms across her chest and smirks.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Mhmm. And I’m sure she’d be real pleased to hear how her eldest baby disrespected a woman last night.”

“Evil bitch. And I thought we were finally friends.”

“Behave yourself.” She puts two fingers to her eyes then points them at her. “I’m mom around here, doll. I’ve got my eye on you, and I have
your
mom on speed dial.”

I bury my face in my hands at the horror in Tate’s eyes as Sofie walks backward out of the room. I have to laugh. I can’t help it.

The biggest asshole of Dirty B. can be brought to his knees by a two-year-old girl and her mom.

This. Is. Priceless.

“What are you laughin’ at, Els?”

I stop and glare at him. “You want me to get your mom’s number?”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You sure about that?”

He launches himself toward me and, with his hands on the back of the couch on either side of my head, leans forward. Inches are separating our noses, and I wish like hell he’d stop getting so freakin’ close to me. There’s this crazy warmth that radiates from his body, and I’m not gonna deny that my eyes are flicking to his tensed biceps.

So I’m an arms girl. I can’t help it.

“I’m sure,” he breathes, his eyes hot on mine, begging me to look up at him.

I do. For some reason, I damn well do.

Bright and hinting at that turquoise color I’m coming to recognize, his eyes are intense, serious yet teasing, mischievous.

And I breathe in, slowly, because he shouldn’t be affecting me. I don’t want him to know he’s affecting me.

“You won’t call my mom because you’re too fuckin’ nice to. You’re too quiet and shy, despite that crazy-ass sassy mouth of yours that pops up now and then.”

Of their own accord, my lips move into a small smile. “How do you know my sassy mouth won’t pop up and call her for my shy self?”

“Because if it does, I’ll have to kiss it into fuckin’ silence.” He leans forward, just a little more. Enough that my inhale isn’t all that slow or quiet.

“How do you do it?” I whisper. “How do you go from woman-using rock star to adoring uncle to . . . this?”

“What is . . . this?”

“I don’t know. Gentle asshole?”

“I’m still your boss, y’know. I should have had your ass for calling me an asshole last night.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was too busy staring at
your
ass as you walked away from me to remember.” He smirks. “For what it’s worth, you have a real fuckin’ nice ass.”

“Thanks. I guess.” I raise an eyebrow. “And back to my question?”

He smiles, his eyes sparkling, and drops onto the sofa next to me. “I love my family, Els. And Mila most of all. She fuckin’ hated me the first time we met. First time she looked at me, she burst into tears.”

“Seriously?” I turn to face him. “I don’t believe you.”

“I swear. She didn’t let me go anywhere near her until I returned her Bunna to her. Since then she’s been like my best friend.”

“But you’re such a dick to everyone else.”

“Me and my brothers—we’re like that. Do you have any siblings?” At the shake of my head, he continues, “We’re together all the time, especially when we’re on tour. It grates on you. We gotta bitch at each other or we go fuckin’ crazy. It’s better to bitch playfully than have it go too far, because that’s ended up physical more than once.”

I swallow.

“But Mila? Dammit.” He shakes his head. “I love that kid somethin’ fierce. I’d kill anyone who tried to cross her.”

I look at him. The darkness of his hair, the brightness of his eyes, the curve of his jaw. “But if you can love so much, why are you so hateful to the girls you sleep with?” He opens his mouth, but I sit up and interrupt him. “Oh, come on. I might not have known about
Frozen
this morning, but I read the tabloids, you know?”
In secret. On my phone. On the toilet.
“Your reputation isn’t exactly a secret.”

His lips purse and he straightens. “Seriously? You wanna know why?”

I nod slowly. “It doesn’t make sense in relation to this other person you are. I swear, you’re giving me whiplash with your multiple personalities.”

He laughs. “All right, Els, darlin’, because it’s you.”

“Because I’m so special.”

He winks. Leaning forward, his expression becomes stoic. “All the girls are interested in is my money and my fame. They wanna be a notch on my bedpost, my arm candy, my spoiled bitch of a girlfriend.”

“So why do you even take them home?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t trust anyone, Els. Only my family. Too many people have betrayed me for me to give that shit out like it’s candy on Halloween.” His eyes convey his meaning: he doesn’t trust me either.

That’s cool. I don’t particularly trust him.

“I don’t blame you,” I reply softly, looking away. “I don’t trust anyone either. It’s more hassle than it’s worth.”

Tate stands, his eyes still on me, despite the fact that mine are staring at the credits for
Frozen
on the TV. “Trust Sofie,” he says, breaking the moment of silence. “She’ll never lead you wrong. She’s fucked up plenty, but she’s also made all her mistakes right. She’ll be your best fuckin’ friend if you’ll let her.”

I swallow hard, and I meet his eyes for a brief second. “I’ll try.”

Tate

I pack the guitar into the case and carry it out to the bus. Another city done. Next stop: Atlanta, Georgia. Where the girls are hot and the sex is hotter.

With any luck, I’ll find a chick to fuck Ella out of my system.

For real, this girl has been our assistant for six days and I’m going stir-fry motherfucking crazy.

I can see her now, standing in the lobby of the hotel, a notepad and pen in her hands, laughing and smiling with everyone. Despite her initial shyness, she’s fitting right in. Everyone seems to love her.

She’s gorgeous, she’s quiet, and she’s sweet.

She’s a fucking walking dream, if you like that shit.

She’s soft and gentle—even down to her laugh. I swear to God that when she laughs, the clouds part, like something out of the Bible, and every giggle is accompanied by an angel singing.

Shame about the shadows in her eyes whenever I ask her why she’s here. It’s the ex—of that I’m damn well sure. She clammed up when I asked about him. It’s bugging the ever-loving shit out of me, because she’s so out of place here.

She really is the upper-class girl I took her for the second I looked at her. She ain’t made for sleeping on a tour bus as we drive between cities. She ain’t a coffee-getter, a schedule-maker, and she sure as hell ain’t a girl-kicker-outer.

The disgust in her eyes when she did it made that point perfectly fucking clear.

Next time, I’ll call Sofie.

But, hell, she’s damn well doing all the shit I’m throwing at her, and she’s taking it all in her sexy little hip-swaying stride.

“Are you ready to go?”

I turn and look down at Ella. Her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, and she pushes her bangs out of her eyes when she gazes up.

“Yep. Which one are you ridin’ on?” I nod back to the buses. “You goin’ with Sof?”

“Ah.” She briefly shoots a look over her shoulder. “Sof said I should ride with you three. Something about getting to know you and getting familiar with your schedule.” Her voice quivers when she says “getting to know you,” and fuck, it shouldn’t turn me on, but it does.

I’d give her a fucking raise if it meant she’d let me get to know her more.

And I’d like to know her very, very well. As long as you count her body as “her.”

“All right.” I pull the door open and motion for her to enter. “Ladies first.”

Her eyes flick to me suspiciously, and she slides her purse strap from her elbow to her hand to clasp it tightly. With her other hand, she grabs the rail and makes her way upstairs.

I drop my eyes to her ass. Shit me—those shorts shouldn’t be legal around me. Or any other man.

“Ladies first,” Kye sniggers, “Because he can’t stare at your ass if you’re behind him!”

I punch his arm. “Fuck off. You were lookin’, too.”

“Hell yeah, I was. She’s got a killer ass.” My little brother darts past me and runs into the bus.

I follow him up and glare at him. “Back off, Kye. She’s not your next plaything.”

“I didn’t realize you’d already claimed her.”

“Wait, are we claimin’ Ella?” Aidan adds, walking through from the bedroom. “At least wait for me to make this shit fair.”

Ella looks between the three of us. Her eyes are wide and shining, with the embarrassment causing her cheeks to burn red. “Um, no one is claiming me for anything. And I’m no one’s plaything. If I want to play, I’ll play with myself, thanks.”

I sit on the seat next to her, grinning. Oh, sweet fuck. The image of her lying back, dark hair spread over pillows, head thrown back, eyes closed, lips parted, with her hand between her toned thighs is too much for my cock to bear. It hardens quickly, pushing against my zipper.

Motherfucker.

That’d be a damn good way to start Atlanta’s leg of the tour. Never mind the Southern chicks—I’ll take the Northern one and let the twins have their fun.

“Wait!” She covers her cheeks with her hands. “That came out wrong. I mean—I don’t—play with—oh God.”

I fight my laughter and see my brothers doing the same. “You don’t? Way to ruin a guy’s day, Els.”

She stands and grabs her purse, her cheeks still flaming. “I think I’m going to go with Sofie and Conner.”

“Sit down, darlin’. We’re fucking with you. If you’re gonna work with us, you gotta get used to it. We might be in our twenties, but we’ve got the mind of sexually frustrated teenagers.”

“Yeah,” Ads agrees. “Besides, if we take it too far, just tell us to fuck off.”

“Um,” she says softly. “I’m not sure.”

“Hey.” I grab her wrist and tug her down next to me, then rest my hand on her back. “We’re sorry—we really were just messin’ with you.”

“I know,” she replies, just as quietly.

“You fit with us so well it’s easy to forget you just got here and don’t really understand us yet,” Kye adds. “Seriously, we get carried away pretty fuckin’ easily, so just tell us when it’s too much.”

“Okay.” Ella swallows. “I’m just gonna go use the bathroom.”

She clasps her purse tightly and practically runs down the bus. I watch her go, and shit, yeah, I feel a little bad. She’s obviously uncomfortable as hell right now, and that’s our fault.

She wasn’t exactly comfortable before we started being . . . well, us.

“Damn,” Aidan and Kye whisper together.

“That chick is real fuckin’ sensitive,” I say.

“No shit,” they say, this time louder.

“Y’all can fuck off with that creepy-ass shit.” I glare at them. Fucking twins—they ain’t five anymore. They can shove their mind-reading-simultaneous-speech crap where the sun don’t shine.

They just shrug and pull their phones from their pockets. A door opens and closes at the other end of the bus. I look up, but when Ella doesn’t appear, I frown. Leaving my brothers doing whatever it is on their phones, I ease out from behind the table and walk down the bus. The engine rumbles to life and I grab the fridge to steady me as it pulls away from the hotel parking lot.

I dart through the rest of the bus before we turn corners to the bedroom. I knock on the door, but there’s no answer.

“Ella? You in there?”

“Yes. I just need a minute.”

“Are you all right?”

She doesn’t reply. Dammit. Now I gotta go in there, and she’s probably cryin’ or some shit.

I push down on the handle and crack the door open an inch.

“Fear nothing,” is the whisper I hear. Her whisper.

What?
“Els, I’m comin’ in.”

“No!” she shrieks, but it’s too late, because the door is open, and I can see her standing in front of the mirror. Her back is to it and her shirt is bunched up beneath her breasts.

My eyes fall to the mirror and the markings on her back. Yellow mixes with fading blue and purple—or at least I hope it’s fucking fading.

Ella shoves her shirt down, covering the bruise.

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s nothing,” she rambles. “Just a bruise.”

“Just a bruise? Fuck, Els!” I shove the door shut and cross the room toward her. She holds her hands out to stop me but I shove them away and yank her shirt up. The bruise covers most of the lower half of her back and disappears below her waistband. “That’s the worst ‘just a bruise’ I’ve ever fuckin’ seen. A blue mark on a kneecap is just a bruise. That’s a nightmare.”

“It doesn’t matter!” she snaps, yanking the material from my hands and stepping away. She wraps her arms around her waist and looks at her feet.

“Who did that to you?”

“No one!” she protests, her eyes landing on mine, full of fear. “It was an accident.”

I stare at her stonily, anger rumbling in my chest, and in return, she begs me with her gaze to stop.

I won’t. You don’t get bruises like that from an accident unless it’s almost fatal. “You fell down the stairs, right?”

“Maybe I did.”

“Bullshit. Did your ex do that? Is that why you’re runnin’?”

“I said it was an accident!” she yells, backing away from me. I step forward and she flinches, tears shining in her dark eyes.

I freeze.

And a moment passes between us.

I don’t know what the fucking moment is, I just know it happens.

“That’s one hell of a disrespectful accident.” I cut through the silence.

“What would you know about respect?” Her voice is a whisper, so quiet I can barely hear it, yet it fucking screams at me. The words hurtle toward me, and when they hit me, they hit me fucking hard.

“You’re right. I am disrespectful to women,” I admit, “but I’d never, ever, fucking
ever
lay a finger on one.”

“Congratulations. I’ll take you home and you can tell my stairs exactly why they can’t get a girlfriend.”

My head shakes of its own accord. Because there isn’t a thing I can say to make her change her story and tell me the truth.

And, really, it’s none of my business. She could have the dirtiest past known to man—hell, mine’s so fucking dirty you could bleach it and it would still be marked—but that doesn’t matter. What happened last week, before she arrived in Charleston, is irrelevant. She wasn’t my employee then. The only thing that’s my business is that she’s okay now, today.

Something that would be easier to swallow if she wasn’t still looking at me with tear-filled eyes and trembling hands.

I grab the box of tissues from the shelf and pull one from it. I throw the box on the sofa bed and walk toward her, tissue raised. Her chest rises and falls in quick succession but she doesn’t move away. She stands deathly still, apart from the heavy breathing and trembling, and I stop in front of her.

Slowly, I raise the tissue to her cheeks and dab under her eyes. She looks at me the whole time, confusion mixing with the fear and anxiety. Her hand comes up and takes the tissue from mine, and I step back.

“We’ve got a lot to go over before we get to Atlanta,” I say, my voice harder than I mean. “Get your shit together, darlin’.”

I
slam the motel door on my way out and take the stairs down to the parking lot. I dig in my pocket for the keys to the car I rented as soon as we checked in at our hotel and run my fingers through my hair.

That’s the most unsatisfying fuck I’ve had in a long time.

Ten minutes is all it took. Walked into a bar downtown, sat at the bar, and she came right on over. Fluttered her eyelashes, shoved out her tits, and I knew she was game.

Didn’t even buy her a drink.

And all the damn sex has done is reinforce Ella’s point that I have no idea how to truly respect a woman outside my family.

I do. I know exactly what it is. I have plenty of it for my parents, my brothers, Sofie, Mila, our team. I respect the hell out every single one of them.

I just don’t respect the girls who think my dick is the way to my bank account—and my heart.

They don’t respect me, only what they think I can give them. Someone needs to put out a fucking PSA, because without respect, you don’t get a damn thing. I refuse to give someone everything just because they want it. I’d rather give everything to the girl who expects nothing. Wherever she is. Introduce her to me and I’d give up the bullshit in a heartbeat.

I pull into the hotel parking lot and kill the engine. Yeah, all that sex did was make me smell like a bar mixed with a brothel.

Fucking awesome.

Now I’m disrespectful
and
a bastard.

And it didn’t exactly help that I only came because I thought of Ella. Something that has, incidentally, reignited every ounce of sexual tension I was feeling earlier.

Disrespectful, a bastard, a time-waster.

What an ego boost.

I roll my shoulders as I walk through the hotel lobby toward the elevator.

“Tate!”

I drop my head back at the sound of Sofie’s voice and stop. Fuck. I just want a shower and a beer in my room. “What?”

Her palm connects with my bicep. “What the hell did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do a damn thing,” I growl, turning on her. “I’ve never done a single fuckin’ thing to her. Why don’t you ask her about what her ex did to her instead?”

“What?” She draws her brows together. “What are you talking about?”

“We fucked her around a little, and she took a couple minutes on the bus. When she didn’t come back, I went after her. Found her in the bedroom, her shirt around her tits, looking in the mirror at a huge-ass fuckin’ bruise on her back.” My jaw clenches. “Fell down the stairs apparently.”

Sofie’s eyes widen. “You don’t know that’s a lie.”

“I took a step toward her and she flinched like I’d slapped her,” I hiss. “Stairs don’t make you afraid of people, Sof. You’re not that fuckin’ dumb.”

Sofie shifts uncomfortably. “I can’t just come out and ask her, Tate. It’s not exactly wine and cake talk, you know?”

“I don’t give a shit how you find out, Sof. Just do it. If her obvious fear of men is going to affect her ability to do her fucking job, then I need to know about it so we can make other arrangements. Got it?”

Her mouth drops open and she stares at me, disbelief radiating from her. “Are you fuckin’ serious, Tate? She could have been abused, and you’re worried about her ability to do her job?”

I stare at her stonily, and I’m marginally aware of the stares and interest we’re gathering from both the hotel staff and customers. “Yeah. She won’t talk about the bruise, so I’m focusin’ on her job.”