Secret Love (Love Stings Series Book 2) (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

Carrington

The minute I step inside my apartment, I rush down the hallway, stripping out of my clothes. I crank the hot water and step inside the stall.

“Fuck!”

I forgot to take my brace off. I toss it on the floor. The tears begin to fall as I think about the shit I saw tonight. Sure, I used to smoke weed sometimes, but not anymore. I hate coke. Coke was one of the drugs that Abby had been abusing a lot when she was self-medicating.

God, I’ve always been free with my sexuality, but that woman in the room tonight was a whore. I’d seen her give two blowjobs and then let that dude fuck her right out in the open. Shit, then there was Damien and his whole ‘there’s stuff I can’t tell you’ bullshit. He’s probably married—I gag at the thought. I’ve never been a homewrecker, and I won’t be one now.

I scrub my body and carefully wash my hair.
Stupid wrist
. When I finish, I step out and dry off. My wrist is throbbing, so I throw on my robe and make my way into the kitchen, where my pain pills are. I shouldn’t have pushed Damien, but damn, I was so pissed at him.

I guess I was good enough to bang until he was done with me. Why does it hurt so much, dammit? I grab my bottle of water, an ice pack, and head back to my room. The pain pills will knock me out, so I crawl into my bed and rest the ice pack on my wrist. It isn’t long until my eyes drift shut.

It’s eleven in the morning when I wake up. My wrist feels better, but I still slip the brace back on. I go through my morning routine and throw on some yoga pants and a t-shirt. In the kitchen, I scrounge for something to eat and find that I’m in desperate need of groceries.

Grabbing my purse, I decide to go see my parents before heading to the store. Maybe they’ll take pity on me and feed me. A short time later, I pull into the driveway of my parents’ home, the home I grew up in. The three-bedroom ranch is full of memories, some good and some bad, but I wouldn’t change any of it. I open the front door and call out, but I don’t hear anyone. The slap of my tennis shoes echo on the hardwood floors as I move through the living room and into the kitchen.

I find my parents sitting on the deck. My mom’s feet are in my dad’s lap while she reads her Kindle and Dad reads the paper. Luke and I have been so lucky to have two parents who love each other so much. Sure, they fight sometimes, but the fights never last long. The coffee smells heavenly, and I grab myself a cup.

“Hey, guys,” I say as I close the sliding door behind me. “Sorry to just stop by without calling, but I wanted to see you.”

My mom gets up, smiling as she comes toward me. “This is a wonderful surprise, baby girl.” She wraps her arms around me, and I do the same. “You feel too thin. Are they working you too hard? Come inside and I’ll make you your favorite breakfast.”

When my mom steps back, my dad grabs me and pulls me into a hug. I hug him back, and then he sees the brace on my hand. “What the hell happened?”

“It’s just sprained, Daddy. I was at work and an unruly patient bumped into me and I fell. It’s okay, it’s getting better.”

“What the hell. Don’t they have security in that hospital?”

I hate lying to him. God, I fucking hate it, but I hopefully only have to work there a bit longer. If my dad shows up at the hospital, not only will he find out I lied, but my coworkers will find out that I’m a stripper, affecting what they think of me.

“They do. They took care of it. The patient had to have an IV and he was afraid of the needle.”

That seems to appease him for the time being. “Where’s Wukey?”

“He went with Joe and Parker to the batting cage.”

My brother and cousins are the only boys, and they’re all close in age so they’re just as close as I am with Abby, Violet, and Lilah. I sit down at the breakfast bar, and my dad sits next to me. My mom starts moving through the kitchen and whips me up my favorite breakfast from when I was little. Dad wraps his arm around my shoulders.

“How are Grandma and Grandpa doing?” My dad’s parents are so awesome. My grandma still runs the bakery that she started when my dad was young. Grandpa retired from the business he owned with my mom’s dad when I was in grade school.

“They’re good, but they’d love to tell you that themselves.” He gives me a wink, but it’s true I need to stop by and see them. My brother and I are the only grandchildren that live close to them. My uncle Jason’s kids live on the west coast.

“I promise I’ll try to get over there this week to see them.” My mom sets a plate of scrambled eggs with maple syrup on them in front of me. “Thanks, Mom, they look delicious.”

Yeah, I know my mom’s a fitness nut and I’m eating eggs drowned in syrup, but that was the only way she could get me to eat eggs when I was little. My dad shakes his head next to me.

“I don’t how you can eat that shit. You ruin perfectly good eggs by pouring
that
all over it.” He looks at the bottle of syrup in my hand.

I give him a big cheesy smile as I shovel a forkful of eggs into my mouth. Dad just shakes his head and goes back to reading the paper and drinking coffee.

Mom and I talk about Abby and Ben’s wedding that we’re helping throw in two months’ time. All of us are helping, though. We want it to be magical for her. With everything that’s happened, she deserves it and so does Ben and his little girl, Natalie. Abby asked me to be her maid of honor and of course I said yes. She and I have been thick as thieves since we were little. There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for her, and I know she feels the same.

The trial against Abby’s attacker—we don’t use his name, because the bastard doesn’t have one, as far as I’m concerned—starts next week. The idiot pled not guilty, so now Abby has to face him. As a family, we all plan on being there even though I know we’ll have to listen to her talk about what happened. Though I’ve heard it before, it’s still hard. I know my parents are worried about Uncle Dylan because when the guy was being escorted out of the hospital after the most recent attack, Uncle Dylan went after him. Luckily, Aunt JoJo was able to stop him from doing something that could get him arrested.

I know they’re concerned that Uncle Dylan or even Ben would go after the guy again, but I think they’ll keep themselves in check for Abby. As I finish my eggs, my mom hugs and kisses me before heading out to meet with a client. Once I’m done, I rinse my plate and stick it in the dishwasher. I refill my coffee cup and then my dad’s and sit down.

“You doing okay?” he asks. “You seem sad, baby girl.”

“Daddy, I’m fine. My wrist hurt me last night, so I had to take a pain pill. They make me groggy. I promise I’m fine.”

I hope he believes me. He doesn’t need to know that the man I was beginning to fall for stopped talking to me and is being a secretive asshole. Oh well, there’s no use worrying about it. In a little over a month, I’ll hopefully be out of The Thirsty Beaver and working at the hospital, doing what I want to do more than anything.

I don’t stay much longer, and I let my dad know that I’ll go visit my grandparents soon. I head to the grocery store. As I push my cart through the store, I grab the necessities. While looking at the fresh produce, I feel eyes on me. I stand upright and look around. No one seems to be looking at me. Maybe it’s just paranoia after thinking about Abby’s ordeal and it’s got me jumpy.

I start looking through the tomatoes when the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Again, I look around, and this time I spot a man staring at me. He’s too far away for me to get a good look at him, but he looks familiar. I grab my tomatoes and quickly move down the aisle. Very quickly, I rush through the rest of my shopping. I glance around as I stand in the checkout line.

After I pay, I push my cart out quickly to the parking lot. I’m just to my car and loading the groceries into my trunk when that creepy sensation comes over me.

“Pepper?” I freeze and look behind me.

My old English teacher stands behind me with a skeezy smile on his lips.
Great
. He’s seen me dance. After quickly shutting my trunk, I turn around and keep my back to my car.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He moves toward me until we’re almost touching. My pulse speeds up, and I just want him to go away. “Don’t lie, I’ve seen you. You’re beautiful when you dance—you know that, right? I come watch you all the time. I like to sit in the corner and imagine that you’re dancing just for me.”

My stomach turns as I try to figure out how to get him to go away. In high school, I thought he was so hot, but the way he watched us girls was unsettling. I’d blown it off at first, but then he’d casually start touching me all of the time.

I don’t know if he ever tried the shit he did with me with other girls, but I can only assume he did, and who knows how many actually took him up on his offer. With steps backward, I move toward my door, but with every step I take, he moves too.

“Well, it’s only temporary. My boyfriend has been wanting me to quit,” I lie, but he doesn’t need to know that. Quickly, I climb into my car, shutting and then locking myself inside. He bends down until his face is in my window.

“I can’t wait to see you dance next time. Maybe I’ll pay to get one of those lap dances.” He stands up and walks away.

My hands tremble, and it causes me to fumble with my keys as I try to stick them in the ignition. I don’t dare look in the direction that Mr. Travis went. I don’t want to see it if he’s staring at me again.

I want nothing more than to call my dad and tell him that Mr. Travis is messing with me again, but then my dad would find out that I’m dancing and that’s the last thing I want. I feel like I need to tell someone.

With shaky hands, I pull my phone out of my bag and scroll through my contacts. Damien’s name pops up on my screen, and I hit the phone key. My hand trembles as I hold the phone to my ear.

“Hey,” Damien says, his voice sounding thick with sleep.

“Damien.” The tears begin to fall as I tell him about what just happened, and by the time I’m done talking, I have hiccups.

“Baby, where are you?” I tell him the name of the grocery store. He tells me that I’m not too far from his place. “Are you okay to drive?”

“Yeah, I-I think so.” I’m starting to calm down a little.

“Come to my place, okay?”

I agree and hang up. With a deep breath, I put my car into reverse, back out of my parking space, and then put the car into drive. Sure enough, I’m ten minutes from his place. When I pull into a parking spot, I see him walking toward me. If I wasn’t still a little freaked, I might admire the low-slung pajama bottoms and his muscular chest on display for me.

Quickly I open the door, scramble out of my car, and run to him, not even caring that, at the moment, I’m still pissed at him. He wraps his arms around me and hugs me tightly to his chest. He smells like warmth, musk, and sleep, and I find it unexpectedly comforting.

“Go inside and let me grab your groceries.”

He kisses me on top of my head. I make my way toward the door to his apartment and step inside. Damien follows behind me with my bags of groceries. “Let’s just put these in my fridge for now.” We work side by side to put everything away.

When we’re done, I don’t really know what to do with myself, so I just stand in the middle of his kitchen. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads me into his living room.

“Here, sit. I have to make a call, but I’ll be right back.”

He hands me the remote to his TV, and I watch his retreating form as he disappears down the hall.

***

Damien

I shut my bedroom door behind me and pull my work phone out of my nightstand. I call Hector, my boss at the agency. He answers, and I ask him to look into Jackson Travis. I don’t trust the piece of shit. The creep has targeted my woman twice now, and I don’t like it.
Shit
. I shake my head. She’s not mine.

“This guy approached her in high school?”

“Yeah, she was a junior. Her dad went up to the school and made such a stink the guy resigned. She hasn’t seen him since, but apparently he’s been showing up at The Beaver and watching her dance. He told her he imagines she’s dancing for him. I’m afraid this could escalate quickly.”

I didn’t tell Hector that I’ve been intimate with Carrington because I don’t really want to hear the lecture about her affecting my focus on the case. Things are moving along, and I feel like if I hold out just a bit longer, I’ll get a break in the case, but I’m very aware of that fact that Carrington could affect my work on this case.

“I’ll dig around and see if we have a reason to pick him up. For the time being, I’d tell her to keep an eye out for this guy.” I thank him and hang up.

I scrub my face with my hands before getting up and heading back into the living room. Carrington is where I left her. Sitting down next to her, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her into my side. She sighs and snuggles into me. I’m not sure what she’s watching, but I’m just enjoying the feel of her next to me. It doesn’t take long before my eyes feel heavy, and I rest my head on top of hers.