Teased (The VIP Room, #1) (28 page)

Holding back the tears that threatened to
escape from my eyes, I placed one of my trembling hands over his
heart. “You’re going to basic. While you’re gone, I’m supposed to
stop by your momma’s as often as possible, so everyone knows I’m
okay. If Daddy gets drunk or becomes trouble again, I call your dad
right away to come and get me. Then, when you’re done with all of
your school, you’re going to come back and get me because I’ll
finally be eighteen. You’ll take me far, far away from this small
town and we’ll live happily ever after.”

Cocking his devastating, good ol’ boy grin,
Bobby nodded his head. “That’s right, baby. Don’t forget the plan.
You’ve just got to make it a little while without me. Then first
chance I get, I’ll be back for you. You’re the town tough girl.
You’ll be just fine. Promise me, though, that if you run out of
food again, you’ll go see Mom.”

My cheeks burned with embarrassment. I knew he
was just looking out for me, but who wanted to admit that they
often went hungry because their father would rather buy his booze
and cigarettes than provide a warm meal for his child. Tucking my
chin to my chest I murmured, “Promise.”

“
When I get back on leave, we’ll
have our happily ever after, Belle. You and me forever, with no one
standing in our way. I’ll get to wake you up in the morning with
those slow kisses you love so much. Put you to bed at night after
I’ve touched every inch of your sweet, little body with my hands.”
My body gave an involuntary shiver at his words. “Come here and
give me some hot memories to keep me warm on the lonely nights to
come, baby.” Bobby’s mouth covered mine. His tongue caressed my own
in sweet, smooth strokes that warmed me from the inside out. He
kissed me senseless until I had to gasp for air. “Do you feel
better now?”

He wasn’t talking about my emotional state of
mind. I’d had a horrible case of strep throat that my dad had
refused to take me to a doctor for. After missing a few days of
school because my fever was over one hundred two degrees, Bobby
finally talked me into going to his house so his parents could try
and help me. His father might be a farmer, but his uncle was the
small town’s physician. After one phone call, a home visit from Dr.
Baker, and strict instructions for drinking as many fluids as
possible while taking the medication, my fever had finally broke.
Now, a week and a half later, I felt like my old self again. Or, at
least, I would if my heart wasn’t breaking into a million pieces
inside my chest.

“
Yeah, Ace. All better. The
antibiotics cleared me right up.”

“
Good,” he said softly before
gently brushing his lips against my own. I brought my hand up to
cradle the side of his face, sweeping my thumb over his cheekbone.
My eyes traveled slowly over Bobby’s face, memorizing for the
millionth time every feature he had. Starting with his thick, lush,
chestnut hair with subtle blond highlights, due to his long days
spent in the sun. That hair curled around his ears and dropped down
into his eyes since he’d forgone his usual monthly haircuts. His
extraordinary baby blue eyes with flecks of white and gray reminded
me of sunny days spent lazing about in a hammock, cuddled next to
him in the Bakers’ backyard. They were the most beautiful eyes I’d
ever seen. His prominent cheekbones, straight nose, and strong jaw
completed a handsome face of a boy that was on the verge of
becoming a man. The kind of good looks that you knew would only get
better with age. He was attractive now, but when he was older, I
just knew he was going to be the kind of stunning that women became
mesmerized with.

I felt that familiar, overwhelming awe fill me
for what had to be the millionth time in the past two years. I
didn’t know if I would ever be able to accept that the popular,
hometown boy had taken a chance on the bad girl from the wrong side
of the trailer park. He was the football star. I was the angry girl
with a massive chip on her shoulder and my middle finger stuck up
in the air at the world. Bobby made excellent grades, so all the
teachers loved him. For the most part, my teachers ignored me as
long as I had a passing grade in their class. Heaven forbid any of
them actually took a chance to get to know me. To see that there
was a core of goodness tucked away underneath the rebel attitude.
Bobby was a good ol’ boy who went hunting and fishing with his
daddy as well as their friends. He never got in a lick of trouble
and seemed to excel at everything. That’s why I’d nicknamed him
Ace. He was always ‘acing’ anything he tried to the point it just
about made you sick that he was always so talented. No matter the
difficulty level of the task you put before him, he would complete
it with quiet efficiency as if he was born to do it. He was
perfect. I, however, was as far from perfect as you could get.
Bobby somehow managed to see the best in me. He loved me in spite
of my flaws.

We were from two different worlds. The town
may not think much of me, but none of that mattered because Bobby
Baker had decided to chase me down, drag me home to his parents,
and then do his best to show me that I could have a family that
loved me. That I didn’t have to resign my life to just a drunken,
abusive father, who beat my mother into the ground until it killed
her. To open paths of possibilities for me, instead of the run down
life I thought I was doomed to.

Bobby Baker was my world. My heart. My soul.
The reason I woke up every day with the desire to get out of bed
and face a world that seemed like its favorite hobby was to find
ways to kick me when I was already down. Bobby made putting up with
all of that heartache possible.

Hell, he was my hero.

Without him, I doubted I could survive in this
crazy world we lived in. Luckily he was always promising that I
would never have to worry about a world where there wasn’t some
part of him that would always be with me. I prayed every night that
he was right about that.

Oblivious to my inner turmoil, I watched as he
used his free hand to smooth the hair back from my face; running
his callused fingers through the strands as he leaned down over me
until our faces were only an inch apart. “Love you,
Belle.”

Bobby crushed his lips over mine again,
stealing the breath from me as he moved his body over mine.
Propping himself up on one elbow, he used his other hand to pull my
tank top over my head, lying it on the grass somewhere next to the
blanket. His hands roamed my body until I was burning for this boy
who meant everything to me.

When it felt as if I might explode from his
torturous play, he sat up to strip off his shirt. Then he shucked
off his shorts and boxers so that he stood proudly naked above me
wearing nothing except that easy, cocky grin of his and what God
graciously gave him; a trim body that was lightly muscled from days
playing football and hard work on his parents’ farm. Chest, arms
and legs were deeply tanned in stark contrast to his rich chestnut
brown hair and remarkable eyes.

Kneeling next to me, he quickly pulled my cut
off denim shorts and panties down my legs. Covering my body with
his, he resumed to make me breathless with scorching kisses while
his fingers trailed slowly down my body.

“
You ready for me,
baby?”

My back arched to the building sensation
below. “Make love to me, Ace. I’m about to come and I wanna feel
you inside me when I do.”

“
First, tell me who loves
you.”

“
You do, Bobby.”

“
That’s right, sweet baby.
Remember that.”

For the next hour, two sweat-slicked, teenage
bodies tangled together in passion. Every thrust became a little
more desperate than the last. Every moan a little louder. Each of
us determined to show the other without words how much they felt
with their hands, mouths and other parts. How deeply we cared. How
consuming our commitment was. Cementing the unbreakable bond that
had been in place for so long now, it felt as though we were a part
of each other, even when we were in separate houses.

In moments such as this, I felt as if I
couldn’t tell where I began and Bobby ended. He had promised me
that this was what it would feel like till we were old and gray.
When it was over, we laid on the blanket grasping each other
tightly.

Dragging ragged breaths in, I whispered, “I
love you, Ace. Forever.”

Dropping his forehead to mine, he said, “I
love you, too, Belle. Forever, baby.”

***

Thirteen weeks later…

Pulling my dad’s rust bucket of a pickup truck
into the Bakers’ front yard, I was a step away from hyper
ventilating. This was it. I had to beg the Bakers’ to let me move
in with them because things had gone from sugar to shit at my
house. I didn’t have much time to convince them. If the drunken,
old coot came to from the nice little nap I’d caused by knocking
him over the head with his own whiskey bottle to see that I’d taken
his truck, he’d probably beat me worse than he’d already tried to
this afternoon.

After today, I obviously could not stay with
the inebriated ass that called himself my father anymore. Lord, I
was up shit’s creek without a paddle. I’d knocked that mean ol’
shit the hell out and the only reason I wasn’t having a nervous
breakdown was because I’d checked his pulse before leaving the
trailer. It was a sad, sad thought that as relieved as I was to
feel his heartbeat still beating and knowing that I wouldn’t be
going to jail for killing my old man, I was equally disappointed
that he was still alive. He’d made my life a living hell and I
couldn’t care less whether he lived or died. I just didn’t want to
end up behind steel bars for being the one that caused his evil ass
to stop breathing. Since Bobby had left for the Army, I’d been so
stressed out that it had caused me to be physically sick. I’d lost
a good fifteen pounds that I didn’t have to lose in the first
place. My clothes had gone from loose to falling off.

The fact that I hadn’t heard from Bobby in
almost two months didn’t help my nerves, either. I might not have
felt so lost if my best friend, Teagan, hadn’t left for the Marine
Corps just weeks before Bobby had left for the Army. With her and
Bobby both gone, though, my life felt like a ship tossing at sea
with no land in sight.

The worst had to have been spending my
eighteenth birthday alone. My father had tied one on the night
before—no surprise there—and then passed out at one of his women’s
houses, forgetting all about it. Not that I expected him to care
anyways. So I should probably consider his absence a blessing.
However, it didn’t stop the little girl in me from feeling
dejected. I’d received a five minute phone call from Teagan, which
brightened my day, but not a word from Bobby. That had hurt the
most. The rest of the evening after Teagan’s phone call was spent
bent over the toilet. It was far from the birthday of my
dreams.

Looking in the rear view mirror, I tried my
best to fluff my blond hair around my face. As long as the wind
didn’t blow it around too much, then the unruly waves should cover
most of the purpled bruise that was left behind on the back of my
jaw. I couldn’t take his crap anymore. If he so much as tried to
lay a hand on me again, I was going to end up being arrested for
homicide. Or, at least, attempted homicide. It was time to get out
while I still could before I ended up like my mother. Beaten to
death. Technically, Momma had died from a heart attack, but that
heart attack had been caused by too much stress from her husband
pummeling her bloody, on top of an already weak heart. I didn’t
think I had my mother’s weak heart and I will be damned if I let
that bastard beat me to death anyways.

Mrs. Baker walked out onto the porch holding
something in her hand. A somber expression on her face. Scrubbing
my hands over my face, I forced myself out of the car until I stood
at the bottom of the porch steps in front of her.

“
Hi, Mrs. Baker, how are
you?”

“
Fine, Belle. I’m glad you stopped
by; you’ve got a letter from Bobby here. Why don’t you sit down on
the swing to read it, honey.” Holding out her hand to me, I saw the
envelope extended in my direction. Walking up the steps, I took the
small envelope from her and stared at it. A sense of dread eased up
my spine from a combination of her careful tone and what felt like
an envelope that was way too thin. Something didn’t feel right.
Wouldn’t Bobby have written me a nice long letter to let me know
how much he loved and missed me? I expected lots of pages from him
so that he could tell me about everything he had done and seen so
far. Not this little envelope that only looked big enough for a few
sentences. I could write a book about how much I loved and missed
him, surely he wrote me more than one page? Sitting down on the
swing, my hands started to shake a little as I opened the envelope
and pulled the short, one page letter out.

Dear Belle,

Sorry it has taken me so long to
write you back. Life has been kind of hectic since I reached my new
base for my Advanced Individual Training. Some days it feels like
my world has been flipped upside down and it’s caused me to do a
lot of thinking. I’ve seen some cool things that would blow your
mind. Met some interesting people, too. Guys my age and older guys
who have left their families behind so they can start a military
career. All these new experiences and people have given me a lot to
think about. Listening to their backgrounds and stories make me
realize how sheltered our life has been up until now. I’ll be
honest, Belle, I’m not sure I’m ready for forever for us. I’m not
sure that we should run off and get married right now. We’re so
young. There are so many things we’ve yet to see and do in life.
You’ve never set foot outside of Sylvania, and I don’t want us to
do anything now that we may regret down the road. Maybe we should
take things slower. Take some time apart to make sure that this is
what we actually want in life before we make such a big jump. I
love you, Belle. I’ll always love you. You were the first girl who
touched my heart. Who made me feel emotions outside of the ones I
feel for my family. I’m sorry if this is coming out of left field
for you and I hope you understand.