Page 9

Something in my chest gave, shifted, and let me swallow to fend off the sob stuck in my throat. David wasn’t my father. Puck wasn’t a guy who would make me a wife, a mother. None of these were things I should want. I should get up, I should leave.

But I froze as Puck entered the house, holding my breath while he peeked into Eli’s bedroom. He was home now. I had no reason to hang out. Other than to see him.

I waited until his steps moved back down the hall before I slipped from Eli’s bed. I quietly picked up his toys, stashing our makeshift ramps in his closet. Then moved to the bathroom to pick up his dirty clothes and put them away.

I wasn’t getting paid to tidy up. Once someone else was here, I usually went home. But here I was, lingering for a moment alone with Puck. I was embarrassed, nervous, so many different things.

Not for the first time my thoughts flashed to that night, Puck teasing me as I’d made myself come. I’d seen the desire plain on his face, and I’d been so close to climbing him like a fucking tree.

A big ass, sturdy tree. I shook off thoughts of his dad and leaned to press my lips to Eli’s hair.

“I bet he was excited as hell to see you today.” Puck’s voice was low but still startled me enough I jerked from my awkward position leaning across the small bed, cracked my knuckle on the bed frame, and swallowed a yelp.

I hopped in a circle and flapping my smarting hand around like a decapitated chicken. So much for approaching Puck with a demure, confident line about something sexy.

“Shit,” I hissed in a whisper, made a face, then put my sore knuckle to my lips to suck the pain away.

“Sorry about that.” Puck coughed and looking away with a smirk, pulling his hair from its tie and running his fingers through it.

Down, his brown mane hung to his shoulders.

Big, strong shoulders that rippled with muscle and were as wide as the door frame he stood in.

He waved me to follow and moved back down the hall toward the kitchen.

He’d taken off his cut and his boots, the latter being the reason I hadn’t heard him walk back to Eli’s room. For such a big man, he moved with an athletic grace I appreciated.

“How are the piercings healing? Sore?” he asked in the kitchen as he collapsed into a chair at the table.

I covered both breasts and gently squeezed as I leaned against the counter across from him.

The soreness there gifted me a sweet little jolt of pain.

“Yeah, but it’s okay. The sports bra helps most of the time except at work.

I have to wear a cotton bra under whatever bra I wear at the club to keep anything from catching on them. ”

His gaze ran across where my hands remained on my breasts. Beneath my black tank, heat emanated, so I dropped my hands. I was too nervous now, after everything, to feel sexy.

“Mhm. Keep them clean. Use that cleaner I gave you. If they get too sore, soak them in the soaking solution.”

I couldn’t help but tease him, regardless. “What, not going to check for me?”

“That what you want?” He brought his gaze to mine and held it.

There was heat there, oh boy was there. But something else, too. He was tired. The sort of tired that came from an extreme lack of sleep. There were circles forming under his gray eyes and his face was tight.

“You okay?” I stepped toward the table like I might go to him but thought better of it. So I hovered awkwardly between Puck and the counter.

“Yeah, beat the fuck down, but fine. Worked last night late, took the kid to school, then rode halfway to Mexico today. No sleep.” He smiled a little. “Why, you gonna take care of me?”

“You flirt a lot for a guy who looks like he couldn’t handle half a round with me.”

“If I could, Kenna, I’d handle whatever you gave and more.”

There was an inflection in his voice that hung weirdly in the air. “What do you mean, if ?” But before he could answer, my phone rang with a familiar southern rock tune assigned to my stepdad. No doubt David and Nadine had probably found her fucked up laundry.

I cringed, held up one finger, and ducked into Puck’s laundry room that separated the kitchen from the back door. David’s voice was tired as he lit into me. I closed my eyes, letting the fatherly tirade go in one ear and out the other.

“Why do you keep making this so hard for me, McKenna Leigh?” He sounded as tired as Puck looked.

“I’m sorry, D—” It was in those moments, when my heart hurt, I’d almost slip up and call him the one thing I didn’t have. Instead, I pressed my head to the door frame. “I’ll leave money on the counter to replace her shit.” That meant another month or so of working to replace that cash.

Fuck, I needed out of there.

Puck was watching the doorway when I came in. I’d been quiet, but he’d probably heard enough to know who I was talking to.

“It’s not just everything that happened, that makes it hard to hang out around the clubhouse.” I offered, fixing him a plate of the spaghetti I’d made and shoving it in the microwave. “I can’t fucking stand her. And I know she holds court there like the washed-up patch bunny she is.”

To battle back the bitter sting of tears, I blinked rapidly and held my breath, blowing it out fast before the urge to breathe grew too urgent. “I’ve got to go, before she makes my life harder than it is.”

I went to him and dropped a kiss on his cheek, like I usually did. His position on the chair kept me from having to stretch or bend. He caught my hand before I could pull all the way away. “Cam and Riley come home at the end of the month. There’s going to be a party. You should come.”

There was a sincerity in his expression that made my cowardice churn in my gut burn at the back of my eyes. “Maybe.” I hated myself for lying as I jerked my hand away and skittered out of his kitchen.

Puck Kelly made me feel things in ways I shouldn’t, in ways I couldn’t afford.